Blood Rule (Book 4, Dirty Blood series)

by Heather Hildenbrand

  I recognized the voice as Chris, my second in command with the hybrids. I was better at reading him than the others but it still unnerved me to hear a voice that was clearly not my own inside my head.

  The rest of his thoughts washed over me. I shuddered, my jaw going slack.

  “We have to go,” I said, stepping free of Wes to grab my stuff. I wound the cord to my headphones into a messy ball and stuffed them in my pocket.

  “What is it?” Wes asked.

  I cast one last look at Alex and headed for the door, tugging Wes along with me. “It’s Vera,” I said. “She collapsed.”

  Chapter Three

  A spray of gravel flew in our wake as the car careened around the sharp turn onto the driveway. We narrowly missed clipping the bumper of Jack’s truck as Wes jerked the car to a stop. He’d driven the entire way here with eyes on the road but his focus on the updates I gave from Chris’s thoughts. I breathed a small sigh as Wes pushed his door open and climbed out.

  With both feet planted firmly on the ground, I eyed the faded paint on the hood. My car had never been driven quite like that before—and I wasn’t entirely sure it was going to move from this spot again. The engine—or some part thereof—continued humming even after the car had been shut off. Probably not a good sign.

  “How is she now?” Wes asked as we hurried toward the house.

  Before I could answer, the front door opened and Chris stepped out. His eyes flickered to Wes and then locked on mine as his thoughts passed to me.

  “She’s in her room. They got her into bed,” I said, speaking his thoughts aloud.

  The moment my feet crossed the threshold, Chris sighed in relief. His stress and urgency diminished. “She’s been asking for you,” he said to me.

  I stopped, mid-stride. “Me? Why?”

  Fee appeared, a steaming mug in one hand and a large plastic bag filled with what looked like dried herbs in the other. Her expression was worn and tired but her eyes were bright with purpose—and panic. “Tara, Wes, thank goodness. Here.” She passed Chris the mug. “Come on, she’s asking for both of you.” Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed my hand and led the way down the back hall toward Vera’s room.

  Fee pushed open the door without bothering to knock and we filed in after. It took me a minute to find Vera amongst the mountain of blankets someone had layered over her in the metal-framed bed.

  At the sight of her narrow face and sunken cheeks, a pang of guilt shot through me. It’d been days since I’d last seen Vera. I’d been so busy with trips to Alex’s bedside, babysitting temperamental Werewolves, and finding ways to drown out the noise in my head, I’d only spoken to Vera a handful of times. And even then, it’d been pleas for help with controlling my own mental noise. Nothing about how she was coping with an illness we’d yet to name.

  She looked so small.

  Fee sprinkled some of the herbs into the mug Chris cupped, crushing them with her fingertips before dropping them in. She took the mug from Chris and held it to Vera’s lips, coaxing her to sip. Vera complied and then fell back against the pillow with labored breath.

  “Tara.” Vera’s voice was weak, no louder than a whisper. Wes nudged me forward and I moved to the bed’s edge.

  “I’m here,” I said. Wes pressed in behind me. Vera’s eyes flickered to him and she smiled.

  “We’ll be out front until the ambulance gets here,” Fee said from the doorway.

  I twisted around. “You called an ambulance? A human ambulance?”

  Fee nodded. She hadn’t looked this sad since we’d lost Bailey. “It’s the only thing we can do,” she said quietly. “I can get her moved into the Hunter wing once she’s admitted somewhere, but …”

  I nodded as she and Chris disappeared down the hall. Wes pressed a hand to my back. I was sure he meant it as reassurance but it felt more like prodding toward something I didn’t want to do. Slowly, I turned back to Vera. Pain showed through the stoic mask she usually wore, along with resignation.

  I thought of a conversation we’d had months ago at Wood Point, the Hunter boarding school I’d been sent to last spring. She’d spoken of wanting more time with me. Said she’d stayed away before, despite being related, out of respect for my mother trying to protect me from this world. If I’d waited until you were legally an adult, it might be too late. I might not be around that long.

  I’d blown her off, more frightened than anything by the possibility of her visions about me being true. Since then, I’d gotten to know her better, and I‘d learned that family was a lot more than sharing the same DNA. Vera was family because she cared, because she’d been there for me. And lately, I hadn’t done the same for her.

  Tears welled up.

  “Don’t cry,” Vera said. “It’s not time.”

  Hearing her say that made it worse, like she knew there would soon be a time for tears.

  I looked away, trying to blink them back as I’d done earlier. “Vera, I’m so sorry, can we get you anything?” I asked.

  “The bond,” she said. “The Draven speaks of the bond.” She raised her hand toward the small table in the center of the room. On it laid her Draven, a family book passed down through generations, cataloguing all things Hunter. The open page depicted a printed drawing of a Werewolf and a human. Between them, someone had penciled in the image of something half-human, half-Werewolf. It connected to each of the two figures by the tips of its fingers. Arrows had been drawn to the head of each and notes scrawled beside them. I strained to read it from where I stood but I couldn’t make it out.

  Vera had been looking into the bond for weeks now. After all this time with no news, I’d given up on her ever finding anything.

  “What does it say?” I asked.

  Wes leaned closer against my shoulders. “Does it give a cure?” he asked.

  Vera shook her head. “To cure yourself would be to condemn them.” She coughed, a heavy, bone-deep sound. With each expelled breath, her shoulders racked and shook. I offered her the mug Fee had left but she waved me away. After a deep breath she said, “They retain themselves through their connection to you.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “What do you mean ‘retain themselves’?”

  “Their humanity. It’s … a product of your connection.” I could hear her wheezing and though I had a million questions about what she was telling me, I let it go. I hated to do anything that would make her worse and right now, talking seemed high on the list.

  “I will look into it. Thank you, Vera,” I said.

  “Tara … I didn’t get as much time with you as I would’ve liked,” Vera began.

  Guilt pricked at me. “I know, I’m sorry. I—”

  “No, it’s nothing to be sorry for. I want you to know the choice is …” she paused to swallow, which seemed to take a lot of effort. “The choice is always yours.”

  “The choice for what?”

  “The paths I see for you. There are still two. There are always two.”

  I shuddered as I remembered the last time I’d heard her say that. Two paths, she’d said. That in itself wasn’t terrifying. What she’d said after tended to make my heart beat triple time. You may or may not find your way. If you do, it’ll be the best thing that ever happened to either society. If you don’t, it will kill you.

  No big deal.

  “Vera, I—” The sound of her coughing drowned out my words. I reached for the mug again, ready to offer her another sip.

  Before I could bring it to her lips, Wes stiffened and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Tara,” he said.

  I looked down. Vera’s eyes were closed, the lids so purple and thin, I imagined seeing straight through them to her irises. I set the mug aside, panic bubbling up. “Is she …?”

  Wes reached around me and held two fingers to the side of Vera’s neck. I held my breath.

  “She’s alive.”

  After he said it, I noticed the faint rise and fall of her chest.

  The door opened and Fee walke
d in followed by a man and a woman carrying a stretcher between them. Both wore white shirts with a red cross emblazoned across the left corner.

  “Oh, what happened?” Fee asked, alarm registering on her face when she caught sight of Vera.

  “Don’t worry, she’s breathing,” Wes said. He pulled me out of the way so the female paramedic could work. “She passed out,” Wes said to the woman as she slipped a blood pressure cuff onto Vera’s arm.

  The woman nodded and they went to work, spreading supplies across Vera’s blanketed body as they worked. I stood against a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf with Wes and Fee, each of my hands in one of theirs. Fee’s shook slightly as they loaded Vera onto the stretcher and began wheeling her toward the door.

  Fee’s hand slipped free of mine as she moved to follow. “I’m going to ride with them. Can you …?” She looked at Wes questioningly.

  “Go,” he said, waving her out. “I’ll hold down the fort.”

  “Thank you,” she said, flashing him a tight smile before disappearing into the hall.

  Wes followed her out. I could hear him assuring Fee he would call Jack and my mom to let them know to meet her at the hospital.

  The front door opened and closed.

  I stayed where I was.

  If you don’t, it will kill you.

  Most days, I didn’t give extra thought to those words. It was like my brain knew it would be too much, so I cast it aside. But the way Vera had looked, the resignation in her eyes, made me think she knew more about my choice and what was coming than she’d let on.

  One of Vera’s gifts was a clairvoyance of sorts. I’d learned it was based on people’s current choices and the future could change if we chose a different path. At first, it had unsettled and scared me to learn she’d glimpsed me leading The Cause with Wes by my side. Most days, it still did. So did the second path she spoke of. Seats on the Hunter council were a birthright, passed down to each generation. In my case, my mother had chosen to be skipped. After losing my father when I was a baby, she wanted no part of a Hunter life, including a seat with CHAS. Especially that. And so it would fall to me when Grandma stepped down. If CHAS—or Steppe—didn’t arrest me first.

  The part about Wes had always fit, even before I really believed what she was saying. But me being a leader? I couldn’t imagine it. I didn’t want it. That kind of pressure and power, holding people’s lives in my hands, it was too scary.

  Bailey’s death had been enough of my fault that I wanted nothing to do with a position where my orders or decisions would lead to more losses of those I cared about. What if I messed it all up? What if I got everyone killed?

  It seemed like death—or at least the threat of it—was everywhere. First Bailey and then all those people whose bodies had rejected the change to Werewolf. Now, Vera was getting worse with an illness we’d yet to identify and had no way to cure.

  Alex’s face flashed in my mind but I shoved it away. I refused to put him into that category. He wasn’t going to die. He was going to make it. He would live to curse me for biting him. And for me to beat him senseless for going behind my back and bringing Kane and his strike team to the woods that day.

  I looked up at the sound of heavy steps against the hardwood. I didn’t need to see to know who it was. The familiarity inside my head was enough. He stepped through the doorway, and I focused on the blond-haired, blue-eyed boy in front of me. It was a face I’d seen a million times, though his expression at the moment was much more somber than the easy-going, laidback look he usually wore.

  “Hi, George,” I said, packing an apology into my words.

  “Come here.” He held his arms out and I stepped into them, letting him pull me close. I laid my cheek against his chest and closed my eyes.

  Sometimes, our bond was helpful. It was nice not having to explain with words what I’d been feeling—and to finally be in a place of solid friendship with him again so that I could appreciate his comfort. Not to mention that if Wes walked in right now, I could rest easy knowing he wouldn’t try to bite George’s head off—literally.

  I couldn’t pinpoint an exact moment when it’d happened, but somewhere along the way, any romantic feelings that had lingered between George and I after our breakup a few months ago had dissolved, and we’d found our way back to being friends.

  Forging our bond had actually helped. I thought it would’ve made things worse or more awkward, especially for George, experiencing every single emotion that I did. Especially the ones I felt for Wes. Or worse, Alex. Instead, George had been there for me. An ear, a shoulder, a sounding board. Whatever I needed. I’d come to rely on him almost as much as I did Wes. And I loved him for it.

  “How’s Vera?” George asked.

  “Unconscious,” I said, my voice catching as I pictured her pale face and closed eyes while they wheeled her out.

  George hugged me tighter. Pleasant thoughts washed over me, sent from his end of the bond to mine. I knew it was his way of trying to cheer me up and I stood quietly, soaking it in until the fear receded.

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  “I am,” I said. “Thank you.”

  George straightened, propping his chin on the top of my head. Images flashed in my mind of the two of us running as wolves. I had the distinct impression this was where his happy thoughts stemmed from. George loved being a Werewolf. He’d always been physically active and the strength his wolf side gave him added to it. His competitive side had been heightened too and now he loved making everything a contest.

  “You want to go for a run?” he asked.

  I almost said no. I wanted to go find Wes, to offer him some comfort now that I’d recovered a little. I knew he had to be as scared as me. He’d known Vera a lot longer than I had and despite his hard exterior, I knew this stuff affected him as much as it did the rest of us. Maybe more.

  But I’d been away from the hybrids too long. “I need to check on things at camp. We could run there,” I said, stepping out of his hold to look up at him.

  He broke into a grin. “Race you.”

  My lips twitched, my insides itching to burst free and meet the challenge. “You’re on.”

  Halfway to the door, he stopped. “Is Wes coming?”

  “He’s probably still on the phone letting everyone know about Vera.” A lump formed in my throat, almost preventing me from saying her name. I swallowed it and took another step. I needed to run. Now. “I’ll find him when I get back.” I pushed through the back door and out into the sunshine. The humidity hit me like a ton of bricks. Sticky, suffocating bricks. “Where’s Chris?” I asked, looking around.

  “Ran to get Jack,” George said. That meant camp had been left unattended for far too long.

  George swiped his forehead with the back of his arm. We’d made it halfway to the woods and already we both were sweating. “Damn, it’s hot.”

  “Agreed.” I said. “Makes me miss Astor’s. At least that heat wasn’t this dripping curtain.”

  George shot me a look. “Can’t say there’s much else I miss about that place, though. The atmosphere was a little … unpredictable.”

  I snickered.

  George and Astor hadn’t exactly hit it off. I suspected Astor’s label of George had something to do with the words “stereotypical” and “jock”—an impression which George had been oblivious to. He’d been a little distracted, slowly turning into an evil hybrid right before our eyes. Until my blood had cured him.

  Whatever the excuse, there weren’t much warm fuzzies between Astor and George.

  “I don’t know why you’re laughing when you have plenty of reason to agree,” George said. I lifted a questioning brow. “One word for you: Grandma.”

  I grimaced.

  Grandma’s appearance at Astor’s was the definition of unpredictable. Not simply that she’d blown in and dragged me out, but also because she’d brought Alex with her. An ally in her spy efforts against CHAS. After learning that, I’d thought he was on our side. I thought
I could trust him. That was, until he’d betrayed me—and all of us—by showing up in the woods with Kane and his band of killers.

  “Grandma,” I muttered in agreement. George grunted. The single word summed it up. And now my thoughts were buzzing all that had happened. All that was still happening—with Grandma. And CHAS. And Alex. Vera.

  Supernatural soap opera.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  “Let’s do it.” George shouldered his way in front of me on the trail, his eyes glittering. He stepped behind a tree and tossed his shorts aside. Not that it mattered. We’d already seen all there was to see of each other. Still, our modesty was something we each attempted to preserve. Some more than others.

  Derek thought it was hilarious. When you’d been a Werewolf all your life, maybe it made you less worried about what others thought of you naked. He’d tried shifting in front of me a few times to see the look on my face. Cambria stopped that pretty quickly.

  George’s shorts landed in a heap and he stepped clear of the tree, his body too shimmery at the edges for me to make out anything specific. I looked down at my own still-clothed body.

  “Hey, wait for me. You’re cheating,” I said, but he was already shifting. His faced elongated and then became coated with fur. His shoulders hunched and grew. I knew from experience he couldn’t hear me right now. He was caught in the “between.”

  I used the moment to yank my shorts and tank top off without worry of being watched. My wolf pushed and shoved its way to the surface. It rose much quicker now that I welcomed it instead of fought against it each time.

  For a handful of seconds I couldn’t see. I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t consciously move my muscles. The change from girl to wolf happened out of pure instinct and reflex. Hands and arms withdrew, as did feet and legs. My torso twisted and fell. Before I hit the ground, paws sprouted. I landed soundlessly, scooped my clothes up in my teeth, and took off.

  George was ahead of me, his laughter a distorted growl.

  He was winning. Damn.

  I pushed harder, exhaling through my nose and inhaling the scent of leaves, pine needles, and dry, packed dirt. My ears pricked at the small forest sounds—a squirrel’s feet scraping against the bark of a tree, a bird calling out, cicadas singing in the heat. The tension in my shoulders melted off as I lengthened my stride. My muscles strained as I picked up speed and let the animal in me stretch out. Despite my fur coat, it wasn’t nearly as hot in this form as it was in a body with exposed flesh. My wolf adjusted to extremes much easier than I could as a human.