by Zoe Winters
The wolves studied the map and picked their own keys and Sydney headed for the stairs. She felt Noah behind her but didn’t look back. She couldn’t let him see her cry right now. The sun would be up soon, and she needed to get to safety.
She coughed when she pushed open the penthouse door. The dark green carpet in the hallway was threadbare, and she squealed and jumped when a field mouse ran by. At least it wasn’t a rat. Three more mice ran out behind the first one, then they squeezed under the door to the stairwell.
“Someone needs to do something about the pest problem,” she said.
Noah still wasn’t talking.
“I understand if, now that you’re home, you think marking me was a mistake. But between that and my claim, we’re tied together now. There’s nothing you can do to fix it short of killing me.” Maybe that was a stupid thing to say.
Noah brushed past her into the penthouse and dropped their bags on the living room sofa. Dust flew up everywhere.
“Oh dear God, what is that stench?” Sydney followed her reluctant nose into the kitchen. In the pantry, there were exploded cans of peaches everywhere. Her dad didn’t eat people food. This was definitely her mom’s food. “Shit, Mom, you couldn’t clean out the pantry when you relocated back to the compound?” she said to the empty room.
The building was worthy of being condemned but it provided shelter, and that was all anyone needed. Nobody needed a kitchen or bathroom. The wolves could go outside. There was a freshwater spring nearby for water and bathing. And they wouldn’t need heat for several months. But she wanted to live like a person, not an animal out in the woods.
She climbed the stairs to check out the rooftop. The water from the pool would have evaporated. Rainwater would collect and there would be algae likely growing on the bottom. But like everything else in this place, it could be fixed with some TLC and maybe a few incantations from Aunt Tam. Not that she’d seen Aunt Tam in years.
As she opened the rooftop door, strong arms pulled her back into the stairwell. Noah’s heart pounded against her back as he nearly crushed her.
“Are you insane? Attempting suicide to get me to fucking talk to you? Jesus, Sydney.”
“I-I wasn’t.”
Sunrise. Oh yeah. It had been a bit light when she’d opened the door. This not falling dead before sunrise thing was still hard to get used to. And she was even less tired today than she’d been recently. Even with traveling all night. She was too wired and hopped up on adrenaline and distraction. Even if she were exhausted, she had a feeling that if the sun didn’t force her body to shut down, her mind wouldn’t turn off and let her rest.
She’d resented the power the sun held over her all her life, the way it could command her to sleep with no argument allowed. Now she wanted it back. She’d never experienced insomnia. She didn’t understand the concept. Now the idea of not being able to sleep felt terrifying.
Noah growled and dragged her down the staircase and into the main living space. She wrenched free of his grip. The red mark healed as soon as she got free.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked. She rubbed her arm, even though it didn’t hurt. But it had hurt a second ago, and he should know it. He shouldn’t be able to get away with manhandling her like that without being subjected to some guilt.
“Me? I’m not the one who decided to experiment with vampiric sunbathing.”
“I wasn’t!”
“Could have fooled me. Are you blind? It’s light out, and you were just going right for the door.”
“What do you care? You’ve been weird since I got up last night. You regret it don’t you? It was just being locked up so long and seeing a familiar face. I’m not really her am I?”
“Her?”
“Your true mate. It’s not me.”
Noah growled. “Oh for fuck’s sake, of course it’s you! It’s always been you.”
“Then why are you acting like you can’t stand the sight of me? I’m sorry I’m a vampire. I can’t help it, Noah. I’m sorry I need blood. I won’t feed from you anymore if it disgusts you that much.” She turned to flounce off into the master bedroom to deal with whatever creepy crawlies had made their home there, when two hundred pounds of angry werewolf growled and shoved her against the wall, completely ruining her flounce.
His eyes glowed golden, his fangs fighting to push through his gums. “You will feed from me. Every day. I won’t let you be weak and sick again.”
He pushed away from her suddenly, as if she were diseased and started to back away.
“That! Right there. What is that? If you’re so insistent I feed from you, why are you doing that?”
“I can’t talk about it.”
Sydney’s eyes glowed red. Unlike Noah she didn’t fight it when her fangs burst forth. “Talk about it!” she shouted.
By now the sun was rising in the sky. It made her forehead feel prickly and odd. Her mind began to scream at her louder and louder about the sun’s growing strength. But she ignored it.
The tiny windows at the top of the walls only allowed small patches of light in. They were easily avoidable. She hadn’t even had a chance to see if the windows in the bedroom were still properly blacked out. And she wouldn’t get a chance to because the last thing she felt was Noah’s arms catching her as the sun claimed her.
When Sydney woke, she was in the master bedroom. Her dad’s Botticelli hung crooked on the wall, cobwebs covering it. She couldn’t believe he’d left it here. He’d always claimed it was a reproduction. But it was the original deal and priceless. Her mom had confided in her once about it. Yet he’d left it here to rot in the last fight when they’d retreated to the compound for good. He hadn’t bothered to retrieve it. Maybe he’d had more on his mind than old art.
The windows were still blacked out, keeping the room dark and safe. She had no doubt the sun was still up, given the pattern of the last few days. Noah’s wolf body curled around her. She could almost forget the last twenty-four hours of weirdness. Almost.
Sydney shoved her mate off her and got up. She carefully avoided the patches of light in the living room. All she wanted was to get out of here, but the sun still held her prisoner. She wanted to get the parental confrontations over with. She needed to warn them. She didn’t know why the magic users hadn’t come yet, but she felt certain it was only a matter of time. They knew exactly where Sydney had come from, and where she was likely going, and with the body count they’d left behind, they would surely want revenge.
Maybe they didn’t care. She was an oddity, a curiosity, but both she and Noah had proven to be too much trouble, and the humans wouldn’t worry the two of them might have an army to fight back.
If Noah and Sydney were more noble they’d want to rescue all the imprisoned preternaturals, but such a thing was like saying you were going to end world hunger. It was too ubiquitous. Even if they shut down that facility, there were thousands more, located in every city that had been taken over.
The smell from the pantry was starting to get to her. The cleaning products in the hall closet had all expired. And there was no running water. She stared at the exploded peach cans. Her mother had some homemade cleaning supplies at the compound. Even if Sydney thought she could avoid her parents forever, now she had to go. She needed to get this penthouse clean. The dust and smells and cobwebs were driving her slowly insane.
She jumped when heavy hands landed on her shoulders.
“I thought perhaps you’d made another suicide attempt.”
“Shut up, Noah.” Was that his attempt at a joke? It wasn’t even funny. It felt like they’d lost their way. As if the chemistry she’d believed they had had only been an illusion, like face-planting into asphalt after trusting the mirage of a lake.
“You need to feed.”
She shrugged out of his grasp. “I don’t want to feed from you. I’ll hunt an animal or something.”
“No! You’re feeding from me. You’re my mate. I have to provide for you.”
&nbs
p; The penthouse grew darker, with only moonlight coming in through the tiny thin windows now.
“Don’t make it sound like such an obligation.” She made a beeline for the door, but Noah was faster.
Stupid, Syd. She could have blurred up to the roof and jumped off and ran. Maybe she’d just stay gone. Let Noah run the pack himself. Inside of a week he’d be saying, “Sydney who?”
She hadn’t noticed until now that he hadn’t bothered to put on any clothes yet. Her eyes kept going from the muscles in his stomach to the vein in his throat. Eye candy. Dinner. Eye candy. Dinner. He could no doubt see she was losing the civilized fight as her gaze drifted back to the throbbing vein. All. That. Blood.
“I was afraid I would hurt you, okay?” Noah said. “That’s why I got distant. I kept seeing how natural the pack was with you and something in me wanted to challenge you and eliminate you. I think being locked up so long really messed me up. I worry you aren’t safe with me.”
“You’d never hurt me.”
“You don’t know that. You don’t know the thoughts that were going through my head. I’m scared of myself with you.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Sydney…”
Her eyes glowed red; her fangs elongated. If she had any doubts about him, she’d be wise not to do this before she’d fed, but whatever other insecurities she had, the idea that Noah would actually harm her wasn’t one of them. They had too many other issues to deal with to be side tracked by this stupidity.
She moved into a fighting stance. “I challenge you for the pack.”
Noah’s eyes widened. “What? Take it back. You don’t know what you just said.”
“Sure I do. Which do you want more? The pack? Or me breathing? It’s up to you.” She punched him in the face.
His eyes glowed golden, and he began to partially shift. She knew it took everything in him not to shift completely to the wolf.
“Run, Sydney,” he growled.
“No.”
“I knew you were suicidal. First the sun, now this.”
Sydney rolled her eyes and shoved him.
Noah growled and pounced on her, taking them both down to the ground. Looking into his eyes, she saw more wolf than man. His fangs were inches from her throat. It would be such a simple thing for him to rip it out.
“Well? One simple move, and the pack is all yours.”
She closed her eyes when she felt his tongue run over the mark he’d left when he’d made her his mate.
“I told you,” she whispered.
“That was so stupid. You had no way of knowing I wouldn’t just kill you in a rage.”
“That’s not true.”
Noah raised his weight off her and gave her some space. “How did you know? You thought you weren’t even my true mate.”
“I thought maybe you marked the wrong person, but the mark still would have protected me. When we were kids, about a year before you got taken, I was on my way to see you when I stumbled upon your parents. They were in a fight about something and it was an alpha power struggle thing, an argument they were having about the pack. She didn’t use the words ‘I challenge you’, but she was definitely doing it. The fight turned physical, and it looked on the surface like he’d lost control. With her being a demon, she was stronger than him. But he pulled every one of his punches, anyway. He wouldn’t let himself hurt her. The mate instinct is stronger than the alpha instinct.”
“It could have been different with me,” Noah said, still angry with her.
“No. It couldn’t.”
He moved closer and pulled her into his arms. “Feed, and I’ll think about forgiving you for scaring the shit out of me twice today. And get out of those clothes.”
The killing urge Noah had pushed away, had transformed into something else. Not that she was complaining. She’d ran off as a kid when things had turned in this direction with Noah’s parents. She’d tried to bleach what she’d almost seen out of her brain with bunnies and baby deer. But as an adult in her mate’s arms, she was more than happy to watch the rest of it unfold in real time.
She wriggled out of her jeans and top. As soon as she bit him, he was inside her. They were both still. He didn’t thrust, and she didn’t drink. They just stayed that way. She couldn’t read his mind, but somehow she knew he felt what she felt. A completeness, as if the last day had been erased entirely. He began to move slowly within her as she drank, and everything felt right again.
Chapter Thirteen
Noah sat beside a stream with Sydney while she finished bathing, alert for anyone who shouldn’t be out here. He was both irritated and embarrassed with how she’d played him earlier, but if she hadn’t done it, things would have grown colder and colder between them. As long as he could trust that the mating instincts were stronger than the other wolf instincts, he knew he could protect her.
He’d been sure that being kept prisoner had turned him wrong somehow, but it was garden variety wolf nature—something he would have known if he’d been raised normally. If anything, the facility had forced him to suppress all the things that were natural, causing them to grow even larger in his mind.
Sydney put her jeans and T-shirt on. “We have to go talk to our parents. We should split up.”
Noah growled. “We aren’t splitting up. We’ll go together.”
“Noah, I need to talk to my family alone. And so do you. You know how they’ll be if we go together. And we don’t have time. We have to warn them so they can strengthen the wards. And we need our place warded as well.”
He sighed. “I know. Just be careful… If anything happened to you…”
“I know. I’m fast now. I’ll be okay.”
Noah watched her blur through the trees. When she was gone, he began to pick his way through the forest, his senses on high alert. If he could remember Sydney’s scent after all this time, surely he could also remember family.
After a few miles, he caught a scent he recognized and followed it through the forest until he saw the outline of the entrance to the hive. The hive was what the pack called their den because the interlocking network of underground caves resembled a beehive. It had always been heavily warded both with magic and tech. Noah had no doubt, given his dad’s nearly supernatural computing skills, that the cave’s technological security was as strong as ever.
He took a deep breath and began to pace. In theory, he’d wanted nothing more than to be reunited with his family and to be free. But now, with the prospect of them mere yards away…
Noah had to fight the urge to flee. It would be so much easier to run, but his mother had a direct connection to the demon world. They needed Tam and the demons. They needed to rebuild Cary Town.
He pushed past the large branches that grew over the mouth of the cave and stepped inside. It was dark well into the cave. He bumped into solid steel. A computer touch pad lit up at his nearness and a robotic female voice said: “Please state your business.” A second steel wall came down behind him, blocking his exit.
“Please state your business,” the voice said again.
Noah tried to speak, but the voice was too similar to the one he’d heard every day for years of his captivity, and the steel walls trapping him didn’t help. The logic that family and safety was behind this door couldn’t penetrate the flashback.
He’d had to be so strong. For the pack. For Sydney. Now that he had privacy, it all started to unravel. He felt himself like a tightly wound ball of twine, slowly coming undone.
“State your business!”
Noah backed up until he hit the other wall. The fear overwhelmed him, and he shifted and huddled his wolf body as far from the screaming computer as he could get.
The door slid open to reveal several members of the pack, armed. Noah howled, a long mournful howl, and a second later a black metal rectangle was jabbed into his side, and everything went dark.
When he woke, he was in a glass-enclosed room that was far too familiar for comfort, lying on a table, wrap
ped in a sheet. Then he smelled the salt and heard the quiet crying of his mother.
“Mom?”
Jane was as beautiful as ever. But then, not ever aging would do that for you.
“I can’t believe you’re alive. I hoped, but I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
He took another look around the room. It was the pack’s clinic—a glassed room at the back of the hive where pack members who needed medical care went. Werewolves healed so fast that it was rarely used, but if silver was involved in an attack, or if a wolf got sick, it came in handy. It was good to keep a sick wolf quarantined from the others. They rarely got sick, but when they did, it was impressively bad and dangerous.
“Where’s dad?”
“He’s hunting. Blake went out to find him. Sorry about the tazer. The guards grew up with you but they didn’t remember your scent. When you blacked out, you shifted back, and one of them thought you looked like Cole and brought you in. What happened? Tam and Dayne did spells for years, but we couldn’t find you.”
“I was in a city. They kept me in a glass cell and…”
Jane glanced around the room. “Oh. I’m so sorry. You know your dad and his tech aesthetic.” She looked down at her hands. “And the security at the front… we didn’t know. Cole… he’s gotten more paranoid since you were taken. I thought the security was ridiculous before, but now… It’s just a whole other level.”
Noah reached out and took her hand. “Mom. You’re rambling. I’m okay.” It was strange being here again. He’d been in captivity longer than he’d ever lived with his parents. Jane felt alien to him, but he would never say it. She was in too much pain, and he wouldn’t be able to properly explain what he meant without hurting her more.
She broke down into sobs. He’d been trying to make things lighter, not worse.
“It’s just… I lost you when you were a baby, and then we got you back and only had you for a few years before… And now… you’re all grown and I missed all that time. I missed all those years of your childhood. I missed your teens. I’m afraid if I close my eyes or look away you’ll be gone again, and I’ll miss something else.”
