Made By Design (Blood Bound Series Book 2)

by J. L. Myers

  From where they stood, Kendrick had a clear view of a number of faces inside through a lower window. He shook his head while prodding fingers trampled over my brain. I can’t believe he never explained it to you.

  For a second I thought he was about to give me another lecture on things Ty had kept from me when alive. But no. He was simply surprised that the clarification had never come up.

  Ty was a lycanthrope, a form of werewolf. The kind that is born, not created. The more general term werewolf refers to humans who contracted the lycanthropy disease, through the bite of either a natural-born lycan or a werewolf. All wolves morph during a full moon, but only lycans can do it on command.

  I studied the people inside. Apart from their eyes, most of them appeared more or less human. They didn’t have the same excess of overdeveloped muscle. Though most were still toned and built to fight. Beyond that, their other physical features didn’t hold any distinct pattern that would mark them as unique or part of an elite group.

  My forehead pressed against the cool glass, desperately hoping to catch a glimpse of Ty. Minutes passed. Then the lined up people paying their respects fanned out. I held my breath. My shaking fingers lifted to the glass, as if reaching out that few inches would bring me closer to him. Still I couldn’t see Ty. An overflowing arrangement of vibrant orange, yellow, and white flowers blocked my view of what the coffin held. Sudden relief washed over me. It traveled from Kendrick down on the ground and magically through our bond. At the same moment Ty’s father appeared on the stage, unshaven and looking like he’d just rolled out of bed. He clumsily rearranged a set of cards in his hands as he stood at a glass podium, dull eyes downcast.

  I gave neither him nor Kendrick a second thought. My Vans, toes squished into the front of my shoes, began edging along the tiny ridge that jutted out below the line of windows. Pressure constricted my chest. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t let my breath out to take a fresh one in until I was close enough to see him.

  “Amelia, stop,” Dorian rasped from below the trees. “They’ll see you.”

  Kendrick’s relief vanished. He launched from the ground and up twenty feet to block me on the ridge. In what seemed to be a reoccurring event, his thoughts and emotions became blocked. Yet what he could hide from me mentally, he couldn’t keep concealed physically. His eyes were wide and unblinking. His heart drummed with the fear that froze his expression. “Amelia, please. It’s time to go.”

  “What?” I breathed out in surprise rather than allowance. “No. I want to see him. I need to say…” The feeling of waking during heart surgery with no anesthetic, my ribcage cracked open and a scalpel cutting into my heart, sent volumes of pain flooding my body. My Vans slipped on the ridge and Kendrick caught at my elbow, keeping me from plummeting to the ground. I winced, trying to think past the agony. “I need this, Kendrick. And I can’t promise that I’ll be able to go on afterward. But ever since waking, ever since remembering his death,” I said while thinking, and failing to save him. “I’ve just had one thing that kept me breathing. One thing that kept me from giving up, on everything. Please understand. I need to say goodbye.”

  Kendrick grimaced, feeling my pain and love for Ty collectively. He sighed. “I know you do. But I also know you trust me.” He glanced at Dorian then back at me with hope. “I need you to trust me now. You don’t want to see this. It won’t help anything. It will only…” He broke off, staring away from me and squinting at the lowering sun. His teeth gritted. “Amelia, please…”

  “No,” I snapped. Today of all days he wasn’t going to pull this crap with me. “And it will only what?” I pinched his jaw and forced his face back to me. “Kendrick, you’re hiding your thoughts from me. What I don’t know is why. You say to trust you, and I do. You know that. But you also know that I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s going on.”

  Kendrick sighed, the resolve to keep his mind locked from mine waning. “Something happened after Troy knocked you out with that tranq. The council hall was cleared out, bar the guards and a few others. We came back to help clear out the…” he paused, shuddering, “bodies.” His eyes, so filled with fear and yet so honest, rose to mine. “I was certain you’d want to see Ty when you woke, and I wanted to make sure you could.”

  “But when you got back, the wolves had come to claim him,” I said, finding the words in Kendrick’s head before he’d decided how to deliver them.

  A surreal reenactment played snippets through my mind. Mr. Malau stalking into the Portsmouth Council, rage bulging every corded muscle. Two lycans flanked his side along with Troy and Marika, still in human form. Guards intercepted them. Then the threats started. “Give me my son,” Mr. Malau had snarled, body vibrating, canines sliding past lips, and eyes glowing with hate. The next second the anger was gone. Vacancy replaced it and Troy and Marika moved to support the solid man’s crushing weight.

  I blinked away the snippets. There was something important there, but I wasn’t getting it. “Was there a fight?” I asked. Then a terrifying thought occurred to me. “Oh no. The Council wanted to keep Ty’s body to run tests on him, experiments. Didn’t they?”

  Kendrick’s brows arched in surprise. “No. And even if they did…” He sighed again, long and hard. But he didn’t seem able to get the words out.

  Behind me I sensed someone’s presence. The shadow of their body blocked the warm sunlight from my back. “Amelia.” It was Dorian, balanced on the ridge, his voice a murmur of emotional control. “There was nothing for them to fight over.”

  Whipping my head sideways, blood pulsed through my ears. Dorian’s words echoed like a taunting threat. Below I saw the backs of Mr. Malau and his son, Harper, along Troy and Marika. Harper’s shoulders were shaking, and his hand lifted to scrub his face. Troy’s face was painted by frozen anger as they closed in on Ty’s coffin. Marika lifted the flower arrangement, sniffing back free-falling tears. She shifted it to the stage, leaving a clear view of the coffin and the white satin padding within.

  The coffin was empty.

  Before Kendrick or Dorian could stop me, I fell to the grass, landing quiet as a panther. In less than a second I sped around the external wall of the church and burst through the heavy wooden doors and into the werewolf-filled hall. The group of four carrying the now shut coffin froze. Every pair of honey-glazed eyes settled on me and rippled with threatening gold. Everyone seated on the pews shot up, bodies tensing and stances readying because a threat, one of their sworn mortal enemies, had busted into a very exclusive and private funeral.

  Mr. Malau’s face didn’t show any surprise to see me, only agitation, eyes narrowing into hardened gold chips. “How dare you come here.” He held the coffin with one hand and raised his other, stalling the encroachment of his werewolf-turning lycans. “Haven’t you already done enough?”

  Aware of Kendrick and Dorian right behind me, I rushed forward and leaped onto the back half of the coffin. I flung the top half of the lid open. Inside the satin was white, but not quite as empty as it had appeared from the upper level window. On the cushioned surface lay a trophy, the current state championship award Ty had won for swimming. There was also a small frame that housed a smaller version of the family photo that hung against the wall in the Malau dining room. Last was a solitary item that couldn’t be confused. A glittering, silver stake. The same one I’d found in Ty’s backpack on the cruise. The same one I’d tried to wield before I knew how to. Still the one thing that mattered, the one thing I’d notice from the upper window, hadn’t changed. My eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on me. Ty wasn’t here. He wasn’t cold and stiff and without breath, with pallor graying as he began to decompose.

  “Where the hell is he?” My vision blurred with tears as I clawed into the satin. My fingers scraped the base, splinters biting into my flesh. “Tell me where the fuck he is!”

  Kendrick and Dorian paused well before the raised coffin, shooting nervous glances around. Wind lifted around them like a cocoon, and a separate whirling tunne
l enveloped the coffin, me, and its carriers. Werewolves surrounded them from every angle.

  “Amelia,” Kendrick said, voice warning and low while he scouted left to right. “We need to go. Now.”

  At my wild look Dorian said, “We won’t leave without you.”

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Marika said with a rush. She was at my back left, holding the last handle on the coffin. But she wouldn’t be for long.

  The coffin tipped as Troy released the front left handle. Then the whole wooden death-bed free fell. As it hit the ground, shattering beneath me into jagged, golden splinters, Troy leaped to land before me. His face was a hardened flush, eyes blazing and lips curled back over growing canines. “Not unless you want to be killed,” he said. Then he grinned wickedly. “On second thought…”

  He launched, faster than I had time to react to. In a flash he had me pinned to the ground, wood splinters piercing my back and drawing blood. “I’ve been waiting for this day.”

  I struggled against his unwavering strength, forearms shoved against his chest to hold back his snapping canines. Voltage surged from my skin and into him, but it didn’t help. The expelled power was no more than a zap you’d get from touching a small battery to your tongue.

  Over Troy’s head I could see Kendrick and Dorian’s panicked faces, both trapped behind a thick line of barricading werewolves. They were screaming, but over the shouts of limitless werewolves I couldn’t make out their words. Mr. Malau stood before the barricade, his face alight with satisfaction. Marika and Harper were on either side of the wood explosion, staring in frozen horror.

  Then the satisfaction melted from Mr. Malau’s face. He made a choking noise as veins struck his eyes. With shock his hands came up, crimson leaking from his eyes and nose and rolling down his face.

  “Get off my sister, or he’s dead.”

  I caught sight of Dorian through the startled crowd. His hands were lifted and shaking while Kendrick held up the wind barricade. Hearing him call me his sister after all we’d learned would normally have touched my heart. But not now. The electric silver in his irises sparked with conviction. He meant every word of his threat.

  I called out for him to stop, but the crowd was too loud.

  Troy’s arms came around my blocking forearms, hands clutching my neck. “She’ll be dead first. Then I’m gunning for you, leech.”

  As my resistance began to fade, Troy’s spittle-glistening teeth and lengthening snout neared my collarbone. I closed my eyelids and let my consciousness shift to Ty. After what I had caused him, his family, and his kind, I deserved to die. An eye for an eye. Isn’t that what they say? The sooner this was over with, the more chance Mr. Malau had to survive. Because if Dorian succeeded, they’d never get out alive.

  I let my arms fall from Troy’s chest, ready to take what I deserved.

  “Amelia, no!”

  Beyond Kendrick’s scream a girl’s voice cursed. Then a loud, ear-punching sound struck the air. Troy let out a yelping cry and landed to my side.

  A hand appeared before me, open and waiting. I locked my fingers around the wrist—small boned, delicate, and yet strong all at the same time—and allowed them to haul me upright.

  “Are you okay?”

  A girl stepped before me, dressed in black gear that both hugged her body and appeared movable at the same time. She wore a utility belt with an empty gun holster at her left side. In her hand was the gun itself, barrel smoking. Her red hair was pulled back into a high ponytail that flashed an array of golden filigrees across her collarbone and neck. Vanessa.

  My focus shot to Troy who was clutching at his right leg. A drizzle of tacky liquid oozed from a small hole in his thigh, staining his soot-colored pants red. “You shot Troy for me?”

  She smiled, but Mr. Malau stalked forward before she could speak. His hands curled into beefy fists. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Vanessa twirled to face him, her free hand meeting her hip, the other loose on her gun. “I’m preventing you from allowing your own to harm an innocent.”

  “Innocent?” Troy scoffed. Then he groaned as he ripped the leg of his pants to expose his wounded flesh. He began digging into the hole in his leg, trying to remove the bullet. “No leech is innocent. Especially not her.”

  Mr. Malau now stood right before Vanessa in her stiletto boots. He towered over her, eyes lasered down into hers. “My son is dead because of her,” he said through clenched teeth. “She deserves to pay for his life.”

  “Ty made his own decisions,” Kendrick called out, still stuck with Dorian behind the wolves. The wind tunnel was holding, but its spinning drive had slowed.

  “Just like Marika and Troy did,” Dorian added, shooting a glare at Troy who had managed to finger the bullet free from his leg. His unwavering strength, despite the threat surrounding them, was as heroic as it was blind. “They all had a choice and they all decided to stay and fight.”

  “It’s true,” Marika said, taking Harper’s hand while keeping him behind her. “We all made our own choices.” Her gaze met Dorian then Kendrick, and she flushed.

  The argument between wolves and vampires continued with Vanessa the only point of reason between the two. Yet I couldn’t hear their words, couldn’t concentrate on anything they were saying while my thoughts raced a million miles.

  There was nothing for them to fight over. Dorian’s words throbbed through my mind, over and over. What did it mean? Where was Ty? How could they have a funeral without his body?

  Numbly I stepped forward, suspicions rising. Still my mind refused to acknowledge the possibility. The shouting had become a contest, louder with every spat word back and forth. I didn’t register any of it. My hand lifted, curling around Vanessa’s wrist. She spun with a start, and then relaxed at seeing me. “Tell me, please. I have to know. Where is Ty’s…” I fought the all over body quake that threatened to floor me. “Where is his body?”

  Vanessa motioned for me to wait and swiveled back to Mr. Malau. “Stop this now,” she warned. “Unless you want their council to come after you and all of yours. You do know who she is, don’t you? Their Oracle. The first one they’ve had in centuries. Do you think they’ll let her murder slide?”

  The arguing stopped as Mr. Malau came forward, pushing past Vanessa to face me. “The funeral is over. Everyone out.” His hardened scowl didn’t leave mine as dispute exploded all around. As the cacophony rose, he twisted his head, fixing the collection of werewolves and lycans with a hard stare. “These vampires are no threat to me. Now, get out.”

  His booming voice vibrated the speared windows. Then a tide of anger left as the wolves departed. All that remained was our group and the five of them.

  Returning his venomous glare to me, Mr. Malau’s nostrils flared with audible breath. His body towered over mine, arms tense at his sides. “His body is gone. All because of you.”

  The wind barricading Kendrick and Dorian cut off, and then they were at my sides. The speared, wooden doors swung shut as the last of the werewolves left. Upended and skewed pews littered the hall around us.

  “That’s what we were trying to tell you,” Dorian said from my left. He edged forward, as if in protection of any advance Mr. Malau may suddenly decide to take.

  Mr. Malau shook his head, aggression melting into despairing disgust. “They took it.”

  I looked from him to Kendrick, who stared blankly at the wood chips covering the ground. “They who? Took what?” Nausea rolled my stomach. “No. Not Ty.”

  “Yes.” Kendrick’s face pinched with the magnitude of what he was about to reveal. “The Council thinks looming damned came back after the battle to…”

  At his cut-off words, Marika appeared between Dorian and Mr. Malau. Her eyes were still puffy, but no more tears fell. “They took his body.”

  “What?” My voice sounded like it was miles away. My head twisted side to side, and my eyelids pinned shut. Behind my lids I saw the expression fall from Ty’s face the moment he had died. Hea
rd the breath escape his lungs for the last time. Felt the compacting weight of his dead body. I clutched the amulet and didn’t let go. “Why would they do that? Why—”

  “They’re scavenging creatures, the damned.” Troy reared up off the floor, dusting off wood splinters. “Just like the rest of you leeches.” His leg was bare from where he’d ripped the material from his pants off, but the bullet hole was closed, scabbing and no longer bleeding. “Probably took him to feed.”

  I fell to my knees and heaved, but all the came out was a dribble of acid. Kendrick’s broad hand found my back, rubbing circles while he knelt beside me. They took him to feed? I gagged at the sickening thought. The image of a crowd of red-eyed monsters devouring the boy I loved imprinted on my mind and soul. A stain that would never wash out. Though something that was almost like a little light within my heart, beamed at the same time. There was no body.

  Weak from mental strain, I forced myself up to my feet. Kendrick rose with me, hand under my elbow. “What if they didn’t?”

  Mr. Malau pegged me with a hard stare. “What if they didn’t what?”

  I forced down the shudder verging up my spine and leveled my voice. “What if they didn’t take his body to feed?”

  “Why else would they take it?” Dorian questioned. “He was one of a handful of bodies that disappeared.”

  “Yeah, and we all witnessed it…Ty dying.” Marika gulped, face paling. “What other use would the damned have for a dead lycan?”

  “Experiments?” Vanessa fastened her gun back in her holster. “Considering the other bodies they took.”

  “They don’t think that way,” Kendrick said. “They’re about death and destruction. They’re already stronger, faster, and more ruthless than either of our races. They have no need to experiment.”

  Everyone had said their piece and now had their eyes trained on me, waiting for my ground-shattering answer. And it would be ground shattering. If I was right, and I hoped more than anything I had ever hoped for in my life that I was, then this single piece of information could change the lives of not just me, but also this small mismatched group before me. I drew in a long breath. “What if they took Ty and the others, knowing or suspecting that…” I took another breath and bit my lip. “That they weren’t dead. That they would wake. Not as they were. Not really alive in any way. But…damned.”