The day was growing warmer, causing the fragrant spicy-sweet blend of her scent to saturate the air around him. She was addictive. Slade tried to keep his reaction to a minimum when she pulled off her sweatshirt and tied it around her waist. He didn’t want to stare at her form, but it was hard not to. The aqua color of the T-shirt that molded to her small, perfectly formed breasts deepened the dusky tones of her skin, making her seem golden-brown all over, and brought out the darker tone of her hair.
“How much farther?” he asked, trying to switch the subject.
Raina pulled her GPS from her pocket. “Less than a mile.”
Slade took a deep inhalation, testing the scent currents in the air. The smell of mellow old wood, tar paper and wood smoke filled his nose along with the faint odor of Were—and blood. His shoulders tightened as he scanned the perimeter, searching for signs of the shifters.
“Shouldn’t we be able to see it by now?”
She grinned at him, a slight bounce in her step, as she pointed. “It’ll be up around the bend, just beyond that outcropping of rocks.”
Slade glanced in the direction she’d indicated. Memory, like a shock of electricity, zipped hot across his vision. The shape of the rocks, the trees shorter. A wolf howling at the top of the rocks. A woman with dark hair and whiskey-colored eyes waiting on the porch of a cabin that looked like it belonged on the backwoods mountain set of a Hollywood soundstage.
He smelled blood. Terror. Violence.
His senses amped to high alert, making his skin itch. His steps slowed as they reached the bend in the trail. “I’ve been here before. We need to go back. Now.”
Raina was already standing ahead of him in shocked silence as she stared ahead, her mouth open.
The cabin, weathered gray cedar, even more rickety than his memory, stood with its rough-planked door ajar, hanging off one of its hinges. A dark smear of brownish half-dried blood trailed down the porch.
The air stank of the wet-dog stench of Were mixed with the sweet metallic odor of blood and the odd heavy sweetness of lilies. Slade bounded forward and, with a bruising grip around her wrist, dragged her into the brush. “Don’t move. Don’t even breathe.” He cocked his head to the side, listening for the slightest rustle of movement. Anything that might indicate the wolves were still present.
It was late morning. Weres, like vampires, preferred the dark. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t be out and about.
Slade closed his eyes, concentrating all his efforts on hearing the sounds around them. Birdsong, the chatter of chipmunks, the bubble of a nearby stream. Then the low growl and yip and the slightest rustle of underbrush and the scattering of pebbles across stone. That’s when Slade heard them.
“What do you think they want?” one Were growled low and deep to the other.
“Does it matter? Bracken said no one in or out until we know the vampires’ defenses and finish growing our pack. Orders of the goddess.”
“Bracken is a fool.”
A yelp pierced the air. Slade bet someone had taken a bite for their opinion.
Raina stiffened beside him, drawing her Glock. Was that one of them? she mouthed, not making a sound. Smart girl.
Slade gave her a curt nod and put his index finger to his lips. Fat lot of good her gun would be. Without silver bullets, all it was likely to do was piss off a Were, rather than inflict any real damage.
Behind them the brush rustled. Slade propelled her forward, kept himself between her and whatever was coming toward them. There was no point in going in the cabin. The door wouldn’t keep anything out and the walls would only act like a trap. He reached deep in his pocket and palmed a throwing star, then grabbed her around the waist and bent low. “Hold on!”
She flung her arms around his neck. Flexing his knees, he tightened one arm around her waist and jumped, landing with a thump on the mossy cedar shingle roof. Raina clasped his side tightly. She sucked in a sharp breath, finding herself atop the cabin.
From the brush and trees burst five wolves of different colors, teeth bared. The stiff ridge of hair along their backs was raised as they stalked around the cabin, two of them sniffing to the spot where he and Raina had stood moments before. Five against two. Not bad odds. Not good odds, either, but he’d take them.
“I knew I smelled the stink of wet dog,” Slade said loud enough for them to hear. It was an intentional insult.
Chapter 7
Two yipped, two howled and the biggest one bent low and growled, his ruff of dark gray fur rising up around his shoulders and neck. The sounds of the leader warped into words. “We warned you once, vampire. You’re trespassing. Now you, and your woman, will die.”
Beside the larger leader, a wolf more brown than the others bared his teeth. “You killed my brother, vampire.”
Slade flicked his gaze for just an instant to the brown wolf. He needed to keep his focus on the leader of the patrol. “He shouldn’t have attacked me. You might want to think about that before you do something stupid.”
The leader began to pace the front of the cabin, his plate-size paws making no sound on the ground, his great brown eyes narrowing. “You vampires think you’re so superior. But we’ve been here far longer than your kind. We are part of the land. Part of the people. And it’s going to be ours again.”
“Is that why you took Robbie?” Raina shot back in a series of growls and yips.
Stunned, Slade looked at the woman in his arms. “You know what they’re saying?”
She gave a slight shrug, her eyes troubled. “I don’t know. I guess so. I’ve never talked like that before. Maybe it’s part of being the Wolf Whisperer.”
The wolves’ ears swiveled, as they glanced at one another with surprised uncertainty. The leader bent low, spreading his paws in an attack stance and bared his canines. “You dare try to take our Whisperer from us, vampire? This is an act of war.”
Oh, shit. Not good.
Raina lifted her chin. “He’s with me. I have brought him here.”
The wolf leveled his gaze at Raina, his eyes serious and wary. “I am Tyee, called Ty, leader of this patrol. Why would you do this? Vampires are not welcome on our territory, Whisperer.”
“To find you.”
He sniffed the air, his black lip curling back over sharp white teeth on a growl as he raised the charcoal-colored ridge of hair on his back further. “He has already marked you. Leave him now and come with us, or you will no longer be welcome among us, either.”
Slade was pretty damn certain he hadn’t misheard, but it was difficult to tell through the chorus of yips and growls being traded so quickly between the wolves and Raina. Marked? How had he— Oh, hell. The kiss. Of course they could scent him on her, along with her arousal. After spending a night curled up beside him, she probably reeked of vampire to them.
When Raina neither moved nor spoke, Ty turned to the others, his ears flattening to his skull. “Kill them both.” Slade sensed some hesitation from the others. “Now!” the leader demanded, nipping at the two wolves closest to him, who yipped in response.
They hung their heads low and began to warily circle the cabin, ensuring that no matter where he and Raina tried to jump down, they’d encounter an oversize wolf.
“If you kill me, there will never be another Whisperer,” Raina said. Her tone was confident even though Slade could feel her heart pounding against the wall of his chest. He tightened his hold on her waist and tried to transport them both back to Seattle.
The familiar pull centered behind his navel was more like a weak tug, then like a pathetic tickle. Damn. Either he was too weak from not having fed in so long, or the moon sickness was screwing up his vampire abilities, or both.
Time for plan B.
Only he had no plan B.
Double damn.
Slade took quick stock of his options. He had five throwing stars in his pocket. He could phase a blade if his powers weren’t too on the fritz. He glanced at his pack, abandoned on the ground along with Raina’s.
He had explosives and weapons in there already loaded for Were. And there was always hand-to-hand. He’d get the living hell beat out of him, but he wouldn’t die. Unlike the Weres. But he had Raina to think of. Her chances of survival from a straight-up shifter attack were somewhere in the neighborhood of nothing and nil.
“So be it,” Ty growled. “A Whisperer who betrays her own is worse than none at all.” Raina flinched, the reaction running the length of her body as if she’d been struck.
That pissed him off. He understood that they didn’t want him here, but to discard her like a piece of refuse when she formed the link between them and her people was unconscionable. Their war was with his kind, not her.
One by one the shifters crouched, getting ready to spring. Anger and determination eddied in the air between them, making the hairs on his skin lift. Slade bounced his gaze from one to the next, not knowing who would move first, and shoved Raina behind him to shield her.
Two unleashed their coiled power and reached the edge of the roof, their hind paws scrabbling against the walls of the cabin, shaking it and casting aside loose cedar shingles in a clatter as they fell back to the ground. The third, however, made it a bit farther and pulled itself atop the small roof of the structure, but Slade was ready.
He threw a metal star at the wolf’s face. It stuck hard in the temple, making it howl, as blood poured from the wound, blinding it on one side, but it kept pacing toward them. Slade wasn’t taking chances. He used what power he had left to phase his bag onto the roof beside him, and took out the SIG Sauer loaded with silver bullets and let fly just as another Were scrabbled up on the roof.
The Were bolting toward them staggered back as the bullets ripped through his flesh. His anguished howl was silenced as he fell from the roof and landed with a thick thud. The wolf with the throwing star still lodged in his skull dropped off the edge out of sight.
“What are you doing?” Raina screamed as she pulled at his arm, sending his shots wild. “Don’t kill them!”
He glared at her. “It’s them or us. I pick us.”
Slade shook her off and kept shooting at anything that moved. The wolves scattered into the trees, darting in and out between the massive trunks, and howling as they continued to circle the cabin at the tree line. For a split second Slade thought he caught a whiff of lilies and a glimpse of a blonde woman among the trees, as well, and momentarily stopped firing. He squeezed his eyes shut, then blinked rapidly. She was gone. Clearly the sun was distorting his vision.
Splinters of wood flew as he tried to track and shoot. He caught one shifter in the haunches. It yelped and went down, then staggered up and limped off into the undergrowth.
Raina’s hand was small and hot on his shoulder. “Can’t you just zap us out of here or something?”
“No.”
“Just don’t kill them. If we kill them we’ll never find out what happened to Robbie. Please.”
It was the please that did it.
Slade muttered some choice words to himself about women and soft hearts and stupidity, but he shoved the gun into the waistband of his pants at the small of his back and rolled his head, making the bones in his neck crack. “Fine. You want me to do this the old-fashioned way, we do it the old-fashioned way. But it still isn’t going to be pretty. They’re out to kill us, you get that, right?”
“Yes. But you’re stronger. Aren’t you?”
Slade gave one curt nod. “Damn straight, babe.”
One of the younger wolves leaped to the top of the cabin. Slade bent his knees and waited, hands outstretched. “Come on, dog. We haven’t got all day.”
The wolf rushed him. Slade waited until the last second, then twisted out of the wolf’s charge, throwing a skull-cracking blow to the side of the wolf’s head and then a swift kick to its belly. The shifter yelped. Raina cried out. He ignored her, knowing she was safely behind him, a veritable vampire shield. Slade grabbed the Were by the scruff of fur and thick skin at its nape and rolled onto his back, flipping it off the roof with his feet. The shifter howled and fled into the trees. Three down. Two to go. At least the odds were now in his favor.
Behind him, Raina gasped. “You hurt it! I said don’t hurt them.”
Slade threw a glare at her. “You said don’t kill them. Big difference.”
From behind them a growl erupted as Ty sailed up and over the edge of the cabin’s roofline straight in Raina’s direction. Slade shifted his stance, putting himself between them. In a split second he shoved her to the side as he caught the full brunt of the wolf’s momentum, lifting him off his feet.
They slammed to the roof, a tangle of teeth and limbs. Slade gripped the wolf’s neck in both hands, squeezing hard. Warm spittle flecked his face, and his arms burned as he held back the wolf’s snapping jaws. The wolf’s claws tore through his jacket and shirt. Slade cried out, hot stripes of pain searing across his chest and left shoulder as claws shredded his flesh. A loud crack ricocheted beneath his back, followed by a slow, low groan as the timbers in the roof of the cabin started to give way.
“Raina, jump!” Slade shouted a second before the roof collapsed.
Slade dropped, still trying to clutch the wolf’s neck as they both crashed to the floor of the cabin. He lost his grip. For a moment his vision blurred as he saw double.
His shattered sunglasses hung on his face by one earpiece and the sunlight streaming in the now missing roof of the cabin made him squint as it started a hard pounding rush behind his eyeballs. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as the red-hot pain blazing through his chest. The remains of his shirt were soaking wet with black ichor and he estimated that he had a broken left arm, several broken ribs and likely a cracked pelvis. Doc Chamberlin was going to be good and pissed when he showed up at the clinic in this shape.
Slade shook his head, trying to clear it from both the onslaught of the pain and sunlight. He rolled to his feet, ignoring the pain that scored his back and stabbed through his eyes and into his brain like a hot knife through butter. Where the hell was Raina? Was she hurt?
The pile of broken wood and moss-covered shingles beside him moved. “Raina?” Slade staggered toward it, worried she’d become buried in the collapse. As he reached for it, the pile exploded outward as the lead wolf jumped out and shook off the debris. Slade pulled back and swore, keeping his broken left arm tight to his wet chest.
The Weres’ second in command came through the cabin’s open door, teeth bared. Together, growling their threat, they hemmed Slade in. Well, like it or not, nature girl, these wolves aren’t making it out of here alive.
In one smooth motion, Slade pulled the SIG Sauer from the small of his back with his right hand and cocked it, holding it out in front of him aimed and ready to fire. “The lady asked me very nicely not to kill you, but either of you so much as sniffles, I’ll blow your ass full of silver.”
The wolves glanced at each other, some kind of communication he didn’t completely understand passing between them. Well, well, what do you know? It seemed the Weres had mental communication powers like vampires. He’d have to share that little bit of information with Achilles, once he found Officer Ravenwing and got her off the mountain.
He pointed the gun at a spot directly between Ty’s eyes. “What’d you do with the kid?”
“He’s none of your concern, vampire,” the Were growled, bright red blood dribbling from a gash in his side where it looked like a piece of wood had pierced between his ribs.
Slade popped off a shot right next to the leader’s front paw that sent splinters flying up into the wolf’s face.
“Wrong answer.”
Ty shook away the particles of wood clinging to his muzzle and brazenly stepped forward a pace. “There are two of us and only one of you.”
Slade turned and shot the second wolf in the shoulder. He crumpled with a yelp and a whine.
“Now we’re even.”
The large wolf flicked a gaze to his fallen companion, then back to Slade. Wariness warred with anger i
n the brown depths of his eyes. “He came to us.”
“Right, and I’m fond of sunbathing.” Slade cocked the gun, preparing to fire again. “Why are you stalking mortals? Why are you growing your ranks?”
Ty bent his head and closed his eyes, as if defeated. But rather than answer Slade, the wolf huffed. The disgusting sound of wet popping as sinew and bone tore apart to reform made Slade grit his teeth. Fur retreated, leaving behind smooth caramel-colored skin, and a shaggy mop of blue-black hair. But the deep, angry, brown eyes were the same as the wolf’s had been when the mortal raised his head and the nasty gash on his side remained, streamers of red blood coursing down his bare flank.
He stared at Slade, his lips formed into a firm line. “I told you, vampire, we are part of the people. He came to us, to be part of the ancestors. If the vampires can walk among the people, why can’t we? It is time we claimed what is rightfully ours and for your kind to go back to where you came from.”
Slade was momentarily speechless as he stared at the man before him. Now that he was no longer in his wolf form, Ty looked like any of the citizens of Teanachee who might traipse into Jake’s to buy a gallon of milk or some beef jerky. He was buck naked and built like a honed athlete on some serious steroids.
“So you’re telling me it’s our fault you’re surfacing again after all these years?”
“Make of it what you will, vampire. But the time of the Were is at hand.” He bent down to one knee, resting a hand in the fur of his fallen comrade, who whimpered softly, a wounded animal. The flow of yips and softly guttural sounds between them formed words Slade could understand. “Rest brother, I will carry you back to the den.”
The Were’s gaze shifted to Slade, piercing and intense. “If you are going to kill me, do it now, otherwise let me take my own and I will leave you.”
“The woman is staying with me.”
Ty’s eyes blazed, a glimpse of the furious fire within. “So you do claim her.”
Damned if he did. Damned if he didn’t. Anything he said at this point regarding Raina would only make the situation more volatile so it was best to ignore the question. Slade wanted answers, but the double whammy of lost ichor and the sun at its zenith was about all he could take. He was weaker than he’d ever been and he needed to conserve what strength he had left to make sure Raina was okay, not argue with the damn shifter.
The Half-Breed Vampire Page 7
