Pack Violet Shadow

by C. M. Stunich

  Faith made us so late that Nic and I missed our entire calc class. I just barely managed to get us there in time to meet Julian.

  “Hey,” I said, breathing hard, trying to put a bright smile onto my face. “Sorry, I'm late. My mom had a doctor's appointment and wanted me to watch my little brother for a while.”

  “No worries,” Julian said, smiling back at me like he was just a normal college kid, not a daywalking bloodsucker that had murdered our teacher. “I'm just glad you're here now.”

  His smile twisted a little, into something that was verging on the edge of flirtatious.

  Gross.

  It took everything in me not to snarl.

  'One day,' Nic started, his voice hot and angry inside my head, 'I'm going to rip this guy's throat out.'

  That fixed my smile, made it real again.

  “Shall we?” I asked, holding out a hand for Julian to lead the way.

  He hiked his bag up on his shoulder and we headed outside. Only … we didn't follow the same path as yesterday. Immediately, my guard was up.

  'Fuck,' I heard Che curse inside my head. 'Now what?'

  The boys were positioned in much the same way as they'd been yesterday, set up in various random locations outside Julian's range of smell.

  'Group up,' I decided, changing the plan. 'Keep close.'

  I had a bad feeling about the way this was going.

  “So, where do you live? We're headed to your place, right?” I asked as we started down sidewalks gritty with salt. Already, the beautiful white blanket of snow was melted and grimy, in slushy gray piles on the sides of the road. At least back home, on Pack land, it was still beautiful and untainted by humanity.

  “Actually,” Julian said as we continued on, tossing a look over at me that was pure innocence. “I was hoping I could buy you lunch or something? There's this great little café a few blocks from here.”

  I tried not to show my disappointment. I didn't want to have lunch with this guy; I wanted to see the inside of his fucking house, get a sniff of it and find out where Selena was. Damn it. But I also couldn't risk him getting suspicious either.

  “Sounds great,” I said with another false smile. The lie rolled across my face too easily. It wasn't that I had a problem lying to a guy like Julian, but it was becoming too simple for me to do it. I didn't like that.

  'Eat fast and see if you can get him out of there,' Nic told me as we turned the corner and headed for this little hole-in-the-wall advertising hot sandwiches in the window.

  “My lady,” Julian said, opening the door for me.

  As soon as I stepped aside, I heard the click of a lock.

  Son of a bitch.

  I pretended not to notice. After all, I was pretty sure a normal human would've missed the soft clicking, especially since it was buried in the sounds and smells of a working restaurant. Several people sat around, chowing down on sandwiches, sipping sodas and iced teas.

  Even with the witch hazel cloaking their scents, I knew they were all vampires.

  I could feel it.

  'He locked me in,' I said, as calmly as I could. There was no sense in getting panicked. Panic would only lead to poor decision making, and I needed a clear head.

  I could feel the surge of fear and fury from the pack though, this hot, scalding flash of rage that caught me and made my heart thunder. Fuck. Vampires could read a person's pulse from a mile away, by sight alone. I didn't need them to know that I was nervous.

  'At least a dozen Bloods in here,' I added.

  'Pretend you forgot your phone at school?' Anubis suggested.

  But I knew it wouldn't work.

  Julian had me where he wanted me and he wasn't going to let me out.

  “Order whatever you want,” he told me with another smile, gesturing with his chin at the chalkboard behind the register. “My treat. Basically, everything they make here is the fucking bomb.”

  “Smells like it,” I said, picking out several distinct scents in the air: pastrami, roast beef, sliced turkey, sourdough bread, a nutty wheat bread, mayonnaise, mustard, tomatoes … Everything that I was smelling seemed legit. But I still had zero fucking intentions to eat any of it. “I'll take a half sandwich on white bread,” I said, picking out something normal, unassuming, average. “Turkey with lettuce and cheddar cheese, no condiments. Oh, and a root beer please.”

  I stepped aside to let Julian order next.

  'Zara, we're outside. You want us to break in there?' Montgomery asked.

  'No, just wait,' I told them, 'but be ready.'

  I might've been an alpha, but with this many vamps in one room, even I'd be hard-pressed to defend myself. The only thing I had going for me was that I was about ninety-nine percent sure they didn't want to kill me.

  They wanted my fucking blood.

  And my flesh for the witches.

  It took a serious amount of effort for me to sit down at one of those tables, unzip my backpack, and pull out my laptop.

  “So,” I said, feeling my skin prickle and twitch at the sight of so many vampires in the bright sunshine. My whole life, I'd been warned about the Bloods, about their physical strength, their magic, their longevity. Hell, they were literally the only species on the planet that defied death.

  And now, their one weakness, the one obstacle that kept them from total domination was gone.

  “According to the syllabus,” I started, speaking empty words while my mind struggled to come up with the next move in a game where I didn't know all the rules. Fuck. “We need to come up with a project that not only demonstrates our overall knowledge of local wildflowers, but also emphasizes what we've learned in the actual class. It should have both a written and a visual component, preferably something organic …”

  I smiled at the text on my laptop screen, Mr. Heath's personality written all over it.

  Students should be prepared to present a visual component (Powerpoints are absolutely banned from the classroom), preferably something organic, something from Mother Earth's breast. Remember: this is a class about plants. Don't be afraid to get dirty!

  Damn.

  I was really going to miss that guy.

  Then again, I bet his husband and five year old daughter would miss him more.

  Fuck you, Julian, I thought as I kept my smile in place and watched him unload his own book bag. What reason did you have to kill Mr. Heath, huh? Vampires can feed without killing their victims, so why? What was the purpose of all that?

  “I was thinking,” he continued, putting his last book on the table and smiling over at me. “That we could actually dig up some invasive species—like silver-leaf nightshade—and make a small garden box filled with various species to bring in. Then we can write up reports on how each species impacts similar native varieties.”

  I nodded; that wasn't a bad idea.

  Even if a daywalking vamp did suggest it.

  “Excellent,” I continued, putting my mouth on the straw of my drink and sucking up the liquid until it hit my tongue. There was no way in hell that I was going to swallow it though. Julian's gaze tracked the movement of the soda in the clear straw, and his eyes crinkled at the edges as he smiled.

  “I'm glad you're onboard,” he continued, flipping open a local guide that Mr. Heath himself had written and sold at the on campus bookstore. “Because I've already taken the time to mark some of the species I think we should go for …”

  As Julian turned to dig around in his bag, I slipped my hand beneath the table, shifted my claws and made a tiny slice along my lower belly, just above the waistband of my jeans.

  The second that blood perfumed the room, I could feel it, all of those eyes on me.

  Even Julian had a hard time controlling his reaction, snapping his face over to stare at me.

  “Shit,” I whispered, biting my lower lip and lifting my eyes up to meet his with a meek shyness that I certainly did not feel. “I think I just started my period …”

  Now, given enough time, Julian would probably
be able to tell that the blood he was smelling was not menstrual, but the shock of the scent in this room, with all these Bloods … It was enough of a surprise and a strain that he didn't seem to notice.

  “Do you mind if I use the bathroom real quick?” I whispered as I dug around in my backpack looking for a tampon. Making a chagrined sort of face, I lifted up the plastic wrapped stick. I was definitely not on my period (wouldn't that have sucked for my first week with the boys), but this was a trick that worked every time—even on a species like a vamp that didn't have menstrual cycles (don't ask, it's complicated).

  “Of course—you don't need my permission,” he told me as I smiled a thank you, moved to get out of the booth and then paused like I'd just thought of something.

  “One bite,” I said with a laugh, grabbing my sandwich. “I'm starving.”

  I took a massive bite, winked at Julian, and retreated into the bathroom. As I moved, I could feel each and every vamp in that room zoning in on me, studying me like a walking piece of filet mignon.

  It was disturbing, to say the least.

  'Zara, we need an update,' I heard Nic ask, clearly stressed.

  'Give me five,' I told him as I slipped into a stall and spit the sandwich into my hand. It was gross, but I needed to give it a sniff and see if I could identify what was in it. Clearly, there was something.

  I spit a few times in the toilet, to clear the strange taste from my mouth.

  As I ran my tongue across my teeth, it hit me. Even though I couldn't smell—thanks to the witch hazel—I could taste it.

  Wolfsbane.

  Fucking wolfsbane.

  My skin broke out in goose bumps.

  'It's wolfsbane,' I told the boys, projecting the alarm I felt into my wolfspeak voice. 'Fucking wolfsbane …' Even though I hadn't consumed it, just barely touched it to my mouth, I felt dizzy, disoriented. Chucking the remainder of the sandwich in the bowl, I lifted the back of the toilet as quietly as I could, cupped up some of the clean water (still gross, but technically the stuff in the back is drinkable) and rinsed my mouth out.

  'We're coming in.' This from Montgomery.

  'Just wait,' I commanded as I carefully replaced the lid and put my back to the stall wall. 'Just fucking wait.'

  Sliding to the floor, I let out a loud groan and slumped to the side.

  And then I waited.

  Waited.

  Waited …

  The bathroom door swung in and I listened as footsteps approached my stall.

  “Zara?” Julian said, his voice rife with false concern. “Are you okay?”

  I waited, lying comatose on the floor, doing my best to control my breathing. As a Blood, Julian would be able to sense my heart rate; I needed to be believably passed out.

  “Zara?” he asked again, knocking on the door and waiting some more. Smart guy. He didn't walk in here cackling about his plans. Somehow, I almost wished he had—it would've made this whole thing a lot less fucking terrifying.

  Vampires were weak to the sun for a reason; nature is all about balance. Bloods belong in the night, not walking around in seventy degree sunshine. It just wasn't right. They didn't have a lot of weaknesses and their allergy to sun was supposed to be one of them. Without that, the scales were tipped overwhelmingly in their favor.

  Between the daywalking vamps and the witches? They could take over the whole damn world.

  “Zara, I'm coming in!” he continued, still pretending to be the concerned acquaintance. I kept my eyes closed, but I could hear Julian's clothing rustle as he bent down and crawled under the door toward me. The fact that I couldn't smell him had my wolf brain going crazy, but I tamped down on the feeling, focusing on my breathing. “Zara?”

  Julian pulled me into his lap and rested a hand on the side of my neck.

  After a few moments, he lifted his fingers up and pushed me aside, letting my head conk painfully against the tile.

  “She's out!” he called, rising to his feet and unlocking the stall door. A split second later, the bathroom door was swinging open and several footsteps made their way toward me.

  “You sure about that?” one of them asked, and I waited as yet another vamp came over and tested my pulse with his fingers. They didn't need to do that; they could tell my heart rate from across a crowded room; they were being superbly vigilant. “Get the shot and we'll give her another dose, just to be sure. Allister didn't seem to think this plan would work—he said she'd taste it.”

  Allister.

  Allister fucking Vetter.

  Silas' dad … is in on all this?!

  The sense of betrayal I felt in that moment almost undid me, blew my cover completely. I just barely managed to keep it contained.

  And I didn't dare tell the boys, not when I was in here. Their collective surge of emotion would screw everything up for sure. I couldn't believe how easily I could feel them now. Our pack bond was amplified a hundred times over. And with Nic and Che? A thousand times over.

  “She's fucking out, isn't she?” Julian snapped with an angry snarl. Hmm. Guess that was his true personality coming out. He wasn't quite the nice guy he claimed to be—what a surprise. “Hell, just get the goddamn wolfsbane if you're gonna look at me like that,” he snapped, and I heard the angry retreating footsteps of the vamp that'd checked my neck.

  'They're going to drug me,' I told the boys, struggling to keep my heart rate down. 'I need to bust out of here now. Don't come in, but give me a distraction up front.'

  'Roger that,' Anubis said as I waited for the bathroom door to close.

  “Jesus,” Julian cursed, just a split second before I surged to my feet and slipped out of the stall.

  As soon as he saw me, his eyes widened, big brown saucers in a pale, pale face. I didn't wait for him to react though; I simply hit him as hard as I could in the throat.

  If I'd had time for it, I'd have killed him.

  Instead, satisfied that I'd kept him from making any sounds, I retreated out the bathroom doors and ran for the front. Vamps are fast, but so are 'weres'. That, and just a split second after my feet hit the tile of the dining area in the restaurant, an SUV was coming up the sidewalk and smashing through the wall of glass in the front.

  “Right here!” Tidus called, one of the back doors already hanging open. I sprinted through the room of confused Bloods, most of them slightly disoriented from the crash and the brights Nic was flashing their way, and snatched my laptop and bag off the table. The textbooks I left, but that was no big deal—I could get more. As I clambered over broken glass and past the huge, jagged shards that were all that remained of the window, I grabbed for Tidus' hand. He yanked me into the back and I sprawled into his lap, the smell of salt and sand and sea filling my nostrils. “You okay?” he asked as I struggled to sit up.

  The SUV was jostling us all around as Nic put it in reverse and hauled ass out of there.

  If I hadn't been so wound up, I might've enjoyed the fact that I was sitting in Tidus' lap, feeling his strong, hard arms wrap around my waist. And the curiously concerned look on his face was just too cute for words.

  “Silas,” I said, my voice low and panting from the sudden rush of adrenaline. He stared at me from the backseat, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips like a pacifier. “Did you know your dad was involved with Kingdom Ironbound?”

  “I—” he started, but I already knew.

  Even if Silas didn't know everything, he had some idea.

  I thought of that night, the evening after the Coyote Creek Challenge, and how he'd attempted to confess something to me, right before we ended up making out instead. It was partially my fault for brushing him off, but … it wasn't as if that were his only opportunity to confess.

  “I didn't really,” he started as Che let out a vicious snarl and grabbed him by the front of the shirt.

  “You knew and you let Zara walk into a trap?” he snapped, shaking the other boy and dislodging the cigarette from his mouth. Silas wasn't one to take shit, though, and he slapped Che'
s hand away. Before I could intervene, the two of them were fighting in the back seat.

  “Should we call Nikolina?” Nic asked, but I reached up between the seats and snatched his cell from him. The same logic applied: if my mother found out, she would tear Pack Obsidian Gold apart looking for traitors.

  She would tear Silas to pieces.

  “No,” I said firmly, clearly speaking as the Alpha Female and not just as Zara. “Nobody will say a damn word about this.” I was shaking with adrenaline, but at least I was still sitting in Tidus' lap. That was the one good thing about that moment. “Boys!” I shouted, and the sound was sharp enough that both Silas and Che paused in their scuffle. “Enough.”

  “He's a goddamn fucking traitor,” Che snarled, but I didn't accept that. I didn't believe it.

  “Silas,” I said, taking a deep breath and meeting his golden eyes over the back of the seat. “We're going to go home, take a moment to regroup, and then you're going to tell us everything you know, do you understand?”

  He stared at me, almost defiantly for a moment, and then swallowed hard.

  “Yes, Alpha,” he said, his voice grave.

  It was the most serious I had ever seen him.

  “Fuck,” I cursed as I glanced down at the screen of Nic's phone. There were about a million texts from Faith.

  Tried 2 call Zara, no answer. Need ride! Car transmission out!

  “We need to pick up Faith,” I said, sliding off Tidus' lap into the seat next to him.

  Now all we needed to do was come up with an excuse as to why the front end of the SUV looked like a crumpled tin can.

  What a fucking day this was turning out to be.

  “I cannot even believe the nerve of that guy,” Faith was saying, complaining about the nonexistent college student that had supposedly caused Nic to swerve and crumple the front of the car. “People in this town are crazy. They just walk out in front of you without paying attention to where they're going.”

  Normally, I'd have played along with Faith, thrown in some good bitching and complaining about the mysterious ghostly douche jaywalker, but I didn't have it in me. Not only did my mouth have that rank, sour taste from the wolfsbane, but I was still partially in shock that any member of our pack would be involved with the Bloods and witches—especially in something as sinister as this.