by Reine, SM
“What’s going on?” Abel growled, grabbing his collar.
Tate’s eyes widened at the sight of his scars. “Who are you?”
“I’m Abel,” he said. When there was no recognition in his eyes, he said, “Seth’s brother.”
“Oh. Oh. Oh shit, you’re a werewolf.” Tate lifted his hands to try to loosen Abel’s grip, and that was when a tattoo peeking out of Tate’s sleeve caught Seth’s eye. It was just above the joint of his left arm, about the size of a quarter, and shaped like an apple. He couldn’t see the entire thing, but Seth had the sinking suspicion that it would be bleeding.
Seth ripped Tate’s sleeve open as Abel watched. It was definitely the Apple. The mark of Cain.
Tate tried to pull away, but Abel’s grip was crushingly tight on his wrist. “What is this?” he asked as he lifted Tate’s arm.
The younger man struggled, but couldn’t break free. “It’s a tattoo.”
Abel rolled his eyes. “You think I’m stupid? Of course I know it’s a tattoo. What the hell is it doing on your arm?”
“I can explain everything, but not right now. You guys have to help me. Cain has Levi.”
“Wait. You know where Cain’s holding Levi?” Seth asked.
“Yeah, it’s this temporary base the Union contractors built outside Tandy, to the southwest. And he’s probably back there by now—he’s usually with my tour, but he left to get Rylie. He said that he was going to capture the whole pack.” Tate swallowed hard. He looked sickly, like he hadn’t slept in days. “I had no idea what he had planned. I’m sorry.”
Cold fear penetrated Seth’s heart. Cain had left to get Rylie? From where? Did he know that she was moving to the Haven?
“Keep holding him,” he told Abel, who looked more than happy to comply. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed for Scott, who picked up in two rings. “Are Rylie and Brody there yet?”
“We haven’t seen anyone at all since we secured the cave,” Scott said. “But we’re ready to go whenever all of you get here.”
Seth swore under his breath. Rylie and Brody had left eight hours ago, before the sun had risen. If they hadn’t gotten there, then something must have gotten to them first. “Keep an eye out, and be careful,” Seth said, and he hung up.
“Can you guys help me?” Tate asked as Abel finally released him. “We have to get Levi away from the Union.”
Seth closed his eyes and counted to ten. Once he was capable of speaking calmly, he said, “Okay. The plan hasn’t changed. The only difference is that Tate can show us how to find the base, and now Rylie’s going to be there, too.”
Abel’s eyes blazed with heat. “Cain wouldn’t take her back there. He’s got something else planned.”
“Where else could she be?” Seth asked.
“I don’t know.” His voice deepened to a growl. “But I’m gonna find her.”
TWENTY
Special Delivery
Rylie staggered through the forest. The mud squelched between her toes and sucked her heels into the mire with every step. She wasn’t sure how long she had been running anymore—all she could think was that she needed to stay on her feet, keep moving, and put as much distance between her and Cain as possible.
Another contraction hit. It was like being squeezed from her head to her toes. She gasped and braced herself against a tree as her vision blurred.
Time passed, and it felt like hours, though she knew it had to have been only seconds. Stephanie had said that the contractions would never last longer than ninety seconds at a time. Of course, Stephanie had also said that her body wouldn’t give her more pain than she could handle, and that was obviously a huge lie.
With the few seconds of rest between contractions, she sagged against the tree, cheek to bark, and dug her fingers in to hold herself. Have to keep moving. Have to find the pack…
The wind picked up, and she could smell Cain on the breeze. His smell was so much like Seth and Abel’s. It was musky, masculine, dangerous. Would Rylie’s babies smell like that, too? Like Eleanor’s spawn? It was a ridiculous worry to have when she was lost in the forest, but she couldn’t help but be fixated on the idea.
Another contraction. Between the pain and Cain’s smell, Rylie found herself lost in vivid memory: being locked in a silver cage with Eleanor pacing outside; finding Abel bleeding out from a stab wound his mother had inflicted; watching as Pagan shattered Seth’s hand at Eleanor’s orders.
It was Eleanor’s blood in her womb, and Rylie knew that was why the contractions were so merciless. The pregnancy had been damned from the start.
Distant motion. The sound of voices, footsteps.
Don’t stop.
Her vision cleared long enough for her to climb down a valley filled with rocks. A tiny waterfall trickled from a brook above, making the stones slick with moss and moisture. It was so cold that it instantly numbed her fingers.
There was a shadowy place at the bottom of the rocks, and that was where she rode out the next contraction, fighting not to make a sound. Each one was longer and more intense than the last. She tried to breathe and relax and get the contractions to slow. Stephanie must have taught her a hundred coping techniques. Rylie could wait it out.
Something warm gushed between her legs. She looked down to see the dirt splashed with thick, clear fluid. It wasn’t from the brook. Her water had broken.
There wasn’t enough relaxing or breathing in the world to stop the contractions now.
Rylie was alone in the wilderness with hunters on her trail, and she was about to give birth two months early.
It was surprisingly easy to hijack a tour bus with the help of the tour’s headliner. Abel left to hunt for Rylie, convinced that Cain wouldn’t have taken her back to Tandy, and Seth quietly gathered the pack. Tate sent his entourage on some ridiculous errand—something about how he wanted a sandwich from his favorite bistro before they left town again.
They were gone the instant Tate’s staff turned their backs.
“Which way?” Crystal asked, jiggling the gearshift. It turned out that she had a commercial driver’s license, and despite the tiny shorts, she looked totally at home behind the massive wheel of the bus.
Tate turned on the GPS and plugged in a town a few miles away. “Follow this for now.”
It was only a half hour drive. That wasn’t long to prepare at all. “Do you have any weapons in here?” Seth asked, checking the magazines on his guns again, just to be sure.
“Why would we have guns on a tour bus?” Tate asked.
“I don’t know. Because your tour’s being run by the Union?”
“Well, there aren’t any weapons that I know about. Not unless you count six different hair dryers and a really sharp straight razor.” Tate rubbed his jaw. “It’s not All American to have stubble.”
The motion of his arm drew Seth’s attention to the bleeding apple tattoo again. He glanced at Crystal. He didn’t want to have to talk about anything sensitive in front of her, but at least she definitely wasn’t a member of the Apple. Seth couldn’t be sure about the rest of the pack.
He shut the door to the passenger compartment so that the three of them were alone in front. “What’s the deal with that?” Seth asked, gesturing at the tattoo. “You said it’s not Cain’s mark, so what is it, and what does it have to do with the Union? And how the hell did you end up with those guys, anyway?”
Tate raked a hand through his gelled hair. “The OPA found me after my grandpa died. They asked me if I wanted to prevent more people from dying like he did, so of course I said yes. Some guys from the Union were assigned to my security team—Cain, most importantly. And what he had to tell me really opened my eyes.” Tate leaned forward, fixing an intense gaze on Seth. “I wasn’t bullshitting in my speeches when I said that I found God.”
Crystal snorted, but Seth ignored her. “I’m not following you,” he said.
“We live in God’s country, Seth, yet the Office of Preternatural Affairs is an unholy abominatio
n.” Tate said it without a hint of drama in his voice. It was so weird seeing the pothead Seth had known in high school looking that serious. “They’re only pretending to be on the side of the Lord so that they can gain political traction. Same with the Union. Cain told me that the Apple was infiltrating the department to bring about a revolution of those loyal to God.” Tate pointed to his tattoo. “The people of the Apple.”
Seth frowned. “You’re telling me that Cain’s with a cult?”
“It’s not a cult. More like a church that’s been building quietly for hundreds of years.”
He sat back and gazed at the road thoughtfully. It would make a lot more sense for Scott to be a member of a church than a follower of Cain. “But where does Cain fit into the Apple?” Seth asked.
Tate shrugged. “He just said he’s trying to bring the Apple together after being stagnant for too long. He sounded legit, and I believe in the cause, so I joined. But that was before I knew what kind of person he was. Did you know that he’s got the idea of some werewolf breeding program in his head?”
“He might have mentioned it before,” Seth said grimly. Rylie’s pregnancy was the only reason that Cain had spared her life when he could have killed her months ago.
So Cain was using some scattered church as his personal army while he tried to build a new breed of werewolves. Seth wasn’t sure if that was good news, or bad. On one hand, it meant that Cain didn’t have as much power as Seth had feared. On the other hand, if the Apple was really trying to incite a revolution, then the problems could be even bigger than Cain.
But first things first.
“What are we going to find at the compound?” Seth asked.
“Lots of scattered buildings. Armed guards. A couple dozen men. They should let us through the fence, since we have the tour bus.”
“Sounds like suicide,” Crystal said.
Tate grinned. “No way. I already know how we can get in to grab Levi.”
They didn’t have long to hash out a plan. When they got close to Tandy, Tate directed Crystal to leave the main road and head east. Seth went in back to prepare Trevin, Pyper, and Daven for the attack.
Nobody breathed as they passed through the fence of the temporary base, but the guard barely looked before waving them in. Crystal guided the bus between two rows of trailers, which were being hitched to semi trucks. The base looked like it was preparing to move. And Tate had been right about the armed guards—Seth spotted at least a half a dozen men with semiautomatic weapons milling around.
“Which one is Levi in?” he asked.
Tate pointed to a trailer near the back, where the fence had already been removed. There was a guard outside the door. “He’s in there. I think that’s where they’ve been keeping all of the prisoners.”
Crystal parked and joined them in the back. “Ready for some fun?”
“I was born ready,” Tate said with a grin that flashed a lot of perfect white teeth. He put the back of his hand to his forehead and gave an exaggerated swoon. “I’m ready for my close up, Mr. Demille. That’s how it goes, right?”
Seth pulled the lever to open the bus door. “Just get out there.”
Tate descended, and Seth shut the door behind him. The appearance of Tate without his entourage attracted attention immediately. The pack watched through decal-covered windows as two armed men approached Tate, along with one woman in a skirt suit.
“Get ready by the back door,” Trevin whispered to the girls, and they slipped through the kitchenette to wait.
Seth barely breathed as they watched Tate work his magic for the Union. His hearing wasn’t super-powered, like that of the werewolves, so he couldn’t tell what Tate was saying. But he could imagine.
Tate was spinning a tale of disaster. They were attacked in the last town, he would say, and they seized control of the other bus. It was a violent protest, an uprising, something that the Union needed to take care of immediately. The story was kind of stupid, and there was no way it would stand up to any real thinking—the Union would only have to turn on the news to see that the speech had gone fine.
They didn’t need to believe Tate. They only needed to listen long enough for Seth to get to Levi’s trailer.
A few more Union hunters came out to listen to Tate. Everyone else was still working to get the trailers hitched so that the entire base could move. Seth peeked out a back window to make sure that nobody was watching the bus. “Let’s go,” he said. “Fast and quiet.”
Nobody did “fast and quiet” like werewolves. He had to hurry to keep up with the pack as they slipped through the trailers, ducked around a couple of half-disassembled tents, and made their way to Levi’s trailer. It was conveniently placed at the edge of the compound. As soon as Seth got everyone out, all they would have to do is sprint to Tandy, just five miles south. And hopefully, they wouldn’t get shot along the way.
A guard was still by the door. He hadn’t been lured away by Tate.
Seth moved to sneak up behind him, but Crystal put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head. He stayed back as she strolled around the corner of the trailer.
She tugged the neck of her tank top down to bare her cleavage, which Seth had to admit was pretty incredible, and then pulled the hem of her shirt up. Two little gestures that bared a lot of smooth skin.
The sound of Crystal’s approach attracted the guard’s attention, and he turned. “Hey, lover boy,” she said in a deep, sultry voice.
His eyes went straight to her chest. “Where did you come from?” he asked her breasts as he brought his rifle in front of him.
As far as distractions went, the whole “look at my boobs” maneuver wasn’t the most sophisticated. It only slowed his reaction time by a few seconds. But it was more than Crystal really needed.
She grabbed the side of his head and slammed it into the wall of the trailer. He went boneless at her feet.
“Come on,” Crystal told the pack as she tried to open the doorknob. It wouldn’t turn.
“I’ve got this one,” Seth said, stepping in front of the door. He never left home without his lock pick set. Kneeling on the steps put him right at eye level with Crystal’s impressive assets, and he focused hard on the lock. “Be careful. You could start a war with those things.”
She leaned her elbow on the wall of the trailer and gave him a smile with heavily-lidded eyes. “You have no idea, Seth.”
The lock wasn’t sophisticated. It only took a moment for Seth to open it. But he could hear voices rising near the bus even as he got the tumblers to fall into place, and he knew that they were running out of time.
Seth shoved the door open.
It was dark in the trailer, and not very big. One half was separated from the other by a window, through which he could see the gathered pack. He felt an instant of relief as he realized that Levi wasn’t alone—Bekah was with him, and so were Aden and Analizia.
But no Rylie.
Seth quickly opened the door to the containment cell. Levi reached the door first. “I’m going to kill them,” he growled, golden eyes flashing. “You know how long I’ve been stuck in here?”
“Escape first, kill later. We have to run.” Seth helped Bekah off the floor.
“We saw Cain,” she said.
“I know. He’s with the Union.”
She shook her head. “That’s not all. I heard him talking. He said that he knows where Rylie is, and he’s going to take her to Union HQ to have the babies—and once they’re out, he’s going to kill her.”
Rylie had no idea how long she labored in the space beneath the rocks. At some point, the clouds had opened and started to pour rain, which sluiced down the rocks and drummed on the earth. The trickle coming from the creek had turned into a real waterfall. She was soaked, exhausted, and focused on surviving each contraction.
So focused that she didn’t notice when someone crept up on her until he was already there.
Squelching footsteps approached, just on the other side of the rocks. Rylie
slipped when she tried to stand. She pressed her forehead against the stone and closed her eyes, certain that Cain had come to kill her, but beyond the point of caring.
“Rylie,” said a familiar voice as the man rounded the rocks.
It was Abel.
She would have been relieved if she hadn’t been so tired. He helped her stand. “I’ve got you,” he said, pulling her against his chest. “You’re okay.”
“How did you find me?”
Abel was even wetter than Rylie, since he would have had to walk through the rain for hours to get to her hideaway in the forest. Water beaded on his dark skin. His shirt clung to his chest. “I will always be able to find you, Rylie.”
She could feel another contraction coming. She clung to his chest. “I’m going to have the babies.” She dug her fingers into his shoulders and forced him to focus on her. “I’m going to have them now.”
His intense stare turned to a look of panic. “But we’re not—Stephanie—Seth—”
Rylie groaned. Why couldn’t it have been Seth that found her? He was the calm, self-assured one who had gone to college for pre-med. At least he would have kept his wits.
But it was Abel. The father of the babies. He was all she had, and they had to get through it together—whether he liked it or not.
The contraction struck, and she was so exhausted that she couldn’t even brace herself for it anymore. She lost herself in the pain as Abel stood back and looked helpless. She was taken by instinct, mindless and powerful.
When she slumped against the rocks again, he crouched beside her.
“Stephanie prepared Seth to deliver the babies, not me. What am I supposed to do?” he asked. “I don’t know what—I just—maybe you should lay down.”
“I don’t want to fucking lay down!” she growled, and he took a step back.
“Okay, Jesus,” Abel said. “You don’t have to lay down.”
Her body was telling her to move. She thought of the way that her mother’s dogs had birthed—pacing, growling, hunched over. Rylie felt much more animal than human.
