He issued a satisfying grunt that caused his gaze to swing away in anger toward Adriana.
*
Tony felt the swing a moment too late, his gut unprepared. That bitch Adriana swung at him and landed a nice one in his breadbasket, stealing most of his breath.
Embarrassment washed over him instantly, and before he knew what he was doing, he was after her—with his Alpha, who was also her brother, in the room.
Tony saw red. A lesser wolf and a female had humiliated him in front of a potential mate of the most important order.
Tony would crush her.
*
Julia responded without thinking, watching the wolf's huge hand ball into a fist as it rose above the mouthy Adriana.
The power that was not harnessed correctly—without finesse, without will—came to the surface in a surge of brilliance, bursting inside her in a flash of interior light. Without thinking, Julia directed it at the large wolf. He spun where he stood, as though an invisible wood plank had been leveled at his raised fist, and swung hard, making brutal contact.
He staggered against the breakfast bar and away from Adriana, his back slamming into the fridge, a storm of magnets clattering to the floor like hail.
His eyes snapped up and met Julia's. She knew the remnants of what she'd done stood in the room between them. Hell, even she could feel an almost static energy zooming and ricocheting around them, pinging off the walls.
“Holy shit! That rocked! You clocked Tony's ass!” Adriana said, jumping up and raising her fist into the air triumphantly.
Adriana's brother was on Julia before she could move, sweeping her behind him as Tony fell in the spot where she'd been standing.
Julia screamed, held against one Were while the other's jaws snapped around him to get at her.
She saw Tony's face between the sliver of the other one's arm and the wall that he stood against.
Tony had changed, the eyes luminescent and golden in a face that had elongated into a snout with silver fur and many teeth.
He was like a crocodile—one that didn't crawl on the ground and was nearly seven feet tall.
“She's shown defiance!” Tony roared, drool and spittle flying out of a mouth filled with teeth the size of her pinky finger.
Adriana yipped behind him, and he whirled on her. She was pathetically small compared to Tony, all white with silver-tipped fur, her eyes an unnerving glacial color, gold blazing through them like lightning.
“Adriana, no!” The other wolf went for his sister in protection even as he left Julia there in the doorway threshold—vulnerable and unprotected with a half Were's anger directed at her.
*
Tony turned and saw his opportunity to subdue this female—now, before she embraced ideas of superiority. Her fragility was attractive. He would not crush her, but she would feel the sting of his superiority.
Oh, yes.
He sprung from clawed feet that missed purchase on the tile floor of the kitchen, and as he slipped, he regained his balance at the last moment and leaped for her.
*
Julia saw that muzzle coming for her and couldn't get whatever telekinetic power she possessed to work. It was as though she was out of gas. She turned and ran.
The wolf's hot breath on her neck, her fear tightened her bladder and made the food she'd just eaten rise in a tide of gorge.
*
He paced the cage they kept him in, and when his acute hearing detected raised shouts, he allowed his nose and facial alignments to shift to wolf. Only those. That was all he needed to gain an answer for what was happening outside the confines of this place.
His nose became a snout, and many layers of scent came to him instantly. He pressed his new wolf snout against one of the many holes in the wall, and fear touched him.
Female fear.
He knew the flavor of it.
He knew who was frightened.
The wolf burst out of his human form, the force of his change spraying what he had been moments before around the room in a splattering gunk of flesh and bone. The blood mixed with the liquid that had facilitated the change landed against the clear wall and slipped down to pool at the ground.
He howled a warning of such rage and power that the birds roosted in the trees in midday, avoiding whatever had made that sound by seeking refuge at the highest point of the forest.
*
Julia heard a howl of rage that made her steps falter just as clawed hands that were now half paws as big as her head wrapped her upper arms and jerked her back against a body that emanated an impossible heat. It blazed against her back as she struggled to get away.
Then the other Were stood in front of her.
Joseph, the brother of Adriana, she thought with random wildness.
“Let her go!” Joseph growled out.
*
The need to mark the Rare One pounded a steady beat in Tony's head. He could hear nothing else. He knew the Alpha had spoken, but the fragrance of the Singer had sunk its talons into his soul, and the call of the wolf was on him. He couldn't shake it and began to tremble with his needs.
They were many.
He opened his jaws wide to take her throat into his mouth. She must submit.
The pain was immediate. He felt something strike him in the back of his head, and his hands loosened on the Singer. Tony tried to take her to the ground with him, but as he fell sideways in slow motion, the Alpha grabbed her and pressed her against himself.
*
Adriana held the cast iron skillet in delicate hands that were half-wolf. With grace, Adriana had skipped up behind the werewolf twice her size, swung the pan above him as she jumped vertically, and landed the skillet soundly on the crown of his head.
Tony began to slip, his hold coming away from the Rare One's arms, and Joseph grabbed her when she would have fallen with Tony to the floor.
He pressed Julia to his chest and murmured the things people said to soothe when there wasn't a hope of it.
*
Julia met Adriana's wide eyes and thought maybe she'd bitten off more than she could chew.
Hardy-har-har. She pressed her eyes shut, smelling the male aroma of the wolf:; pine, earth, and the faint smell of cinnamon.
But it was the haunting shout of another wolf that echoed in her mind, the sound of it still following her thoughts. Somehow, he had interfered with Tony hurting her.
It had sounded so sure—like a warning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Adriana pointed to a semi-conscious Tony. “Bull's-eye!”
Julia looked at her, amazed, and Adriana laughed. “He gets kinda enthusiastic and needs a slow down.”
Yeah, a cast iron skillet would do it.
Joseph slowly released Julia and turned her to face him. She was immediately struck by his eyes, which were an impossible hazel, at once gold, green, and a rich root-beer brown. Rainbow eyes.
She realized she'd been staring and cast her eyes down. Joseph chuckled. “You're not afraid of me?”
Julia shook her head. Oh yeah, she was afraid. But given that he'd just rescued her from enthusiastic Tony, she guessed he was okay.
He looked at his sister, his hands leaving Julia's arms with a caress, and she shivered, as though a goose just walked over her grave. It was a creepy sensation but also like an itch on her back that had just been scratched. Totally weird.
“That'll be a hell of a thing to smooth over, Adi,” he said, exasperated. Tony was writhing around on the floor. Joseph watched him and scrubbed his face again.
Julia had an idea he did a lot of that when it came to his sister.
Adriana smiled at him. “He was outta control, and your ass was too slow so… Adriana to the rescue!” she shouted to the rooftops.
Julia stood awkwardly between them in the kitchen, a werewolf at her feet, one beside her, and a possible female ally.
Funny how life works.
*
One Week Later
Moonlight streamed th
rough the skylights, shattered pieces like broken glass on the cobblestone floor of the underground of the Seattle kiss. William looked at the pass-through, which led into one of the long halls, the bricked archway perfectly framing Gabriel.
He had an abiding scowl planted on his face—for good reason. William was busy packing and readying himself to reacquire Julia. It was but one week from the full moon. They were not yet ready for acquisition, but each moment they drew closer to the moon's fullness, their enemy grew stronger—and on their territory, no less.
No, the time was now. He and Gabriel had argued. But as the leading runner, William had pull, and his thoughts held weight.
And as Julia's potential mate, he had even more pull. Claire had sided with him as well.
Gabriel pushed away from the brick and walked over to where William stood, shouldering a small backpack. “You do this at your own peril. You realize how closely guarded she will be?”
William nodded. “I do. Even now, kept by the mongrels, day by day they grow closer to their heathen ceremony. No”—he shook his head at the multiple visions that greeted him—“she will not have that end. Not Julia.”
Not his Julia.
*
Julia
Julia was in her room again at the Were compound. That was how she saw it. Her routine was the same every day, and it reminded her eerily of the vampire. Except for William. She found she missed him. At first, he'd been nothing but a captor. But he became someone she had grown to care about and to have an easy friendship with. She was acutely aware that she'd grown to depend on his protection. She had not felt that sense of security since Jason.
Her chest got tight, and Julia took deep breaths. Her capture and his death were combined in a memory of unbearable agony.
One bright spot was Adriana. Julia liked Adi, so she called her by her nickname. She remembered the conversation exactly.
*
“You can call me Adi too, yʼknow,” she'd said, putting some clothes away in the drawer, her eyes doing a peripheral check of Julia's reaction.
“Okay, thanks.”
“Do you… do you always go by Julia?” Adi had asked.
Julia looked down, feeling sad. Finally, she shook her head. “No. I had a friend…”
Julia covered her mouth with her cupped hand for a moment, and Adi broke the sadness with, “No waterworks, just tell me your nickname.”
Her whiskey-colored eyes met Adi's brown ones. “Jules. That's what my friends called me.”
“Tell me about them.”
It was the first time someone had actually given a crap about Jason, Cyn and Kev.
She told Adi all of it. How cool they'd been, how much she missed them, how she and Jason had gotten married in the Gnome Chapel. That brought an instant smile.
“Really? That's a no-shitter.” Adi had thought for a moment, her chin planted in her palm. Then she brightened. “At least it wasn't in that creepy Elvis Chapel.” She grimaced and Julia laughed until her sides hurt and tears were streaming down her face.
Adi looked at her with curiosity, her palms spread at her sides. “What the hell, Jules? Doesn't everyone think there's something alarming about a dude in white polyester and tassels? And the man tits? Ugh!” She hissed in emphasis.
That made Julia laugh harder. When she had some semblance of restraint, she held up a finger and replied, “That was my only requirement.” She wiped the tears.
“What?” Adi asked, confused.
“I didn't want to get married at that damn chapel with The King in attendance.”
“King my ass,” Adi muttered.
“Cyn didn't like him either.”
“Was she pretty cool?”
Julia nodded, their gazes locking. “She was the best,” she replied wistfully.
*
Homer
Truman slapped the file against his thigh as an officer approached him. “Detective Truman!”
He shifted his weight in the large chair that swiveled behind his desk.
“Yeah?” Karl Truman asked, looking at the disheveled beat cop. The name on his tag read, Daugherty.
Truman had sent him on a last-ditch wild goose chase. The seasons were changing, and after almost two years, the weather was finally cooperating for his purposes. Truman had thought of something that had been missed when the Caldwell scene was canvassed two years ago. Well, almost two years.
Those trees.
The trees stood on either side of the rugged path that led down to the beach. He'd seen them a thousand times, but the dream he'd received last night had been a revelation, the break he hadn't been able to get from returning to the scene of the Caldwell murder a hundred times.
Daugherty jerked up the evidence bag like a prize won at the carnival. It was clear, inside it were three or four long hairs.
Truman didn't know it then but they weren't left by a bear.
They weren't human.
That dandy little footnote would be inscribed later.
The first real smile of the day broke over Truman’s weathered face and the beat cop smiled in return, relieved beyond words that his boss wasn't gonna chew his ass.
Today.
They beamed at each other, and Karl reached for the bag, its precious cargo so light but oh, so heavy.
*
Three Months Prior
The talons stroked Cynthia's throat, and she shuddered. She'd been asleep in her bed on the day that the cop—Turner, Tucker, whatever his name was—had come by to visit her and ask questions again about Jason's murder. And Jules's disappearance.
Her answers were always the same. The visits from the creatures were always the same.
The day after Jules had been taken, they'd come inside her bedroom window and silenced her immediately.
They said things—terrible things. But she believed them when they told her if she said anything about what really happened, she would get the same fate as her boyfriend.
Now this one came again.
Cynthia didn't care what it said. She thought it liked causing her pain and fear.
Her only consolation was that if they had Julia—really had her—they wouldn't be so worried about discovery.
Cynthia wasn't the same girl she'd been before. She didn't care about fashion or fun. She wanted to escape from Homer and move somewhere new.
Somewhere they couldn't find her.
As she lay pinned on her bed by the creature that ground out its demands, its filthy half paw wrapped around her throat, its fetid breath encasing her in rot, it instructed her on what to say.
“Keep to the story. Repeat what it is,” it growled at her. At least it was only the one this time.
“I… it was a bear attack.” Her eyes flicked to the beast, whose eyes were golden and spinning in an immense head with fur the color of the sea on a stormy day. “That's why there was so m-much… bl-blood,” Cynthia said, her voice trembling from the memory of the blood, the carnage, and her boyfriend's decapitated body, paces from where she lay.
He squeezed her throat and the breath wheezed out of it. “And…?” the werewolf that held her on the bed asked, giving her a teeth-rattling shake.
He released the pressure so she could utter the final lie. “I passed out from the shock. I never saw what happened,” Cynthia recited mechanically.
It smiled a grin filled with teeth meant to maim, tear, and kill. It suddenly released his grip, and her hand went to her throat automatically. The tears fell in rivulets, dampening her pillow.
Cynthia had seen everything that happened—all of it.
She didn't like slasher flicks anymore.
She knew horror was real.
Cynthia watched the Were leave through the window as it had before.
She made a promise to herself in that moment. She'd move to where they couldn't find her, somewhere different, anonymous, big.
Like Seattle.
Perfect.
She'd forget what had happened in a fresh environment, Cynthia told
herself.
She studied her meager belongings in her studio apartment. She rose from her bed and began to pack at three o'clock in the morning, long past the witching hour.
*
Julia
Adi and Julia ran.
They had no privacy of course, but they ran anyway. It felt so like the exercise Julia had taken with William and the other runners. But the Were could keep up in their human form.
Julia hated having Tony at her back because she knew, deep down, that he really didn't have her back. William had been open about his intentions, about the history, and the Book of Blood.
The Were had been covert, not that it helped—Adi told Julia everything she wanted to know and things she didn't. She was a treasure. If Julia had met her in other circumstances, they could have been friends.
But even now, Julia planned her escape.
She ran on a dirt path, made wide by use, the dappled shade from the trees making the ground look like a puzzle of light. Julia felt the heat of the sun even through the trees and thought about how different it was from Alaska. There was a distance in that part of the world as if the sun held its rays back, stingy with its warmth. Here in Washington, the kiss of its heat was all around them, and she reveled in it.
She'd miss it.
Julia didn't care if she was important. She wanted freedom. She'd stayed awake these past few nights thinking about that one one-hundredth of a percent of Rare Ones who breathed the air on this earth. Why couldn't she belong to them?
Why couldn't she belong to herself—free to choose her own path, her own destiny? There was no one to give her any council. They all wanted a piece of her blood—a song that rivaled all others, a genetic match of perfection to balance their needs.
They had no regard for her needs.
They drove up the last hill, their legs pumping furiously, Adi barely breathing as she whispered to Julia, “You know that swine Tony?”
Julia huffed, her legs grinding up the incline. “Yeah?”
“He put me in the dog house and now I'm off babysitting your precious ass,” she said, sprinting ahead.
Oh shit.
Julia poured on the speed and caught up, running alongside her. “What do you mean? He scares me,” she said quietly, mindful of the ears pricked behind them.
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