A Place to Run (Trials of the Blood Book 1)

by Becca Lynn Mathis

  I slammed to the ground in front of my car, the heat from the burning house like the coils of an oven at my back. The metal of the undercarriage was hot, and it took me a moment to find the hidden key.

  Multiple people were shouting. The fire roaring in my ears drowned them out. My eyes were tearing up from the smoke. Or from the panic. I wasn’t sure.

  RUN!

  The firemen were coming close, but I yanked at the key, breaking the zip tie with one hand. I clambered up and into my car, my hand stinging from the hot metal. The little four-cylinder engine of my Del Sol didn’t make much noise as it came to life, but it had more horsepower than was necessary for such a small car. My radio blared some country ballad or another from the late-night radio station and I scrambled to just turn it off. It was too much noise right now.

  I got my car out of the driveway and maneuvered around the firemen waving their arms. Sheppard had his right hand pressed to Jonathan’s chest, his left to Matt’s. The three of them watched me pull away from the burning house. Once I was clear of the throng, I slammed the pedal to the floor, switching through the gears of my five-speed manual transmission fast enough to impress a street racer.

  I got out onto the main roads and sped toward my apartment. It was three in the morning, so there was no traffic. I was so caught up in the new experience of driving with heightened hearing that I didn’t even turn my radio back on. The engine rumbling and the road noise, which I was already attuned to in order to catch the best time to shift gears and lanes, was so much more pronounced than I was prepared for. It took me a moment to adjust to the experience and another to orient myself once I got on the highway.

  My phone buzzed in my back pocket. I ignored it. I didn’t have words anyway. If Sheppard’s home burning down was my fault—which it clearly was—then the pack couldn’t afford to keep me around anyway. Maybe I could contact that guy that came by Sheppard’s house—Langley, was it? Maybe the military would be able to protect me.

  I rolled my eyes. Yea right. I had to get home. I could think better there.

  My mind was racing so fast I nearly missed my exit and had to swerve from two lanes over.

  I pulled into my usual parking space, but my housekey would have been on my keyring in the bowl on the mantel in Sheppard’s house. Dammit. By the time the fire was out, it would be just a hunk of useless metal. I ran up to the stairs to my front door anyway.

  The phone in my back pocket buzzed again. I still didn’t have words.

  I gripped the doorknob, which turned, but the deadbolt was set. Well of course it was, I was the last one here. That was days ago. My vision blurred. I just wanted to be in my own home.

  Sheppard said werewolves were stronger, right? It’s not breaking in if it’s my own place, right? I set my shoulder against the door and pushed. The door gave way with a noisy crack of splitting wood.

  Werewolves were decidedly stronger than humans.

  The smell of home engulfed me, and though the air was stale, it was a welcome relief. My home. Mine.

  I turned the deadbolt to the unlocked position and shut the door. It wouldn’t latch, but it didn’t matter. I put my back to the door and sank to my carpeted floor as I pulled in another deep lungful of the scent of my own home.

  My heartbeat pounded in my ears as I hugged my knees to my chest and sobbed. This was just entirely too much. Really. Related to Jesus, able to turn into a huge wolf anytime I wanted, and hunted by vampires? That’s just too much for one person. I needed normality.

  Maybe if I emailed my contact at the paper, I could pick up some extra work to make up for the week or so that I had lost. I didn’t know what in the world I was going to do about the vampires, so I guessed I’d just have to deal with them when they showed up again.

  Except the silence in my home was...heartbreaking. It felt empty. I had only been with the pack for a handful of days, but the sudden lack of their constant presence was uncomfortable. Well dammit. I couldn’t just go back to them.

  A car pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex. No. Not a car, a truck. A warm scent tinged with smoke from Sheppard’s house fire wafted in through the cracks of my doorframe. There was a heavy sigh on the other side of my door.

  Tears filled my eyes. “Go away.” I didn’t have to shout. He’d heard me.

  Sheppard’s voice was damnably patient. “Why should I?”

  “I’m just going to keep putting you all in danger.” My voice threatened to crack. “The vampires want me, and they want me so bad they’re willing to burn down your home.”

  I choked on the last words, the sobs threatening to overtake me again. Tears rolled down my cheeks.

  An amused sound rumbled from the other side of my door. “This isn’t the first house of mine that they’ve burned down,” he said quietly, “or the second, or the fifth, or even the tenth.”

  Something brushed the door—his hand, I thought.

  “What happened tonight, to the house, is not your fault. It’s all insured, and everything’s replaceable. I’m just glad no one was hurt.”

  I sighed and stood up, wiping the wetness from my face. If we were going to talk, it was rude to make him keep talking at me through the door. I pulled it open and looked up at him.

  “It sure feels like it’s my fault.” I gestured with an open palm to my apartment.

  He stepped inside, flicked on the lamp next to my desk, and pulled a chair from my table over to me. “I can understand why you might feel that way.” He sat in the chair. “But you’d be wrong.”

  I closed the door and resumed sitting on the floor, where I could hold the door of my apartment shut.

  “This is what they do,” he explained. “They fight dirty. They hit where they think it will hurt us most, never realizing what the rest of us already know: for us, home isn’t a house—pack is home. It doesn’t matter where we live, it’s that we’re together that makes it home.” Then he said that phrase that Jonathan used, “Sarcina eiusdem sanguinis,” and power washed over me, igniting the strands that I felt while running with the pack on the reserve.

  My breath caught in my throat and I closed my eyes to keep the tears from flowing again. Golden threads spiderwebbed out from me, the thickest one connecting me to Sheppard as he sat across from me, while others reached farther, back in the direction of the pack. The threads that were stretched far and long twitched and glinted like they were catching sunlight behind my closed eyelids.

  “I don’t even know what that phrase means,” I said lamely, opening my eyes.

  Amusement lit his face. “It’s Latin. It means ‘the blood and the pack are one.’ Simply put, we’re in this together.” His phone buzzed from his pocket.

  I sighed. “Even if it means that everyone’s house burns down?”

  “It’s part of the fight,” Sheppard replied, fishing his phone out of his pocket. “The vampires are a plague on the world.” He thumbed the screen of his phone. “It’s our job to wipe them out. They know that’s our goal.” He tapped out a message. “Just as we know that they will do all they possibly can to stop us from succeeding.” He looked at me with his golden-brown eyes. “Make no mistake.” His voice hardened and rumbled with a restrained anger and his eyes flashed amber. “They will pay for burning down my house. They will pay for feeding on pack. They will pay for so flippantly maintaining a club downtown that they use for their own feeding pleasures.”

  I believed him.

  A thrill went through me. Which didn’t make any sense. I’m not a fighter. I had to agree though. They will pay.

  “Okay,” I said. “So, what about my door? And where is everyone going to stay tonight?”

  I looked around my studio apartment. There was no way the entire pack would be able to sleep here unless everyone slept on the floor.

  Sheppard followed my gaze around the room with a bemused smile. “I own a number of rental houses in that neighborhood. You don’t really think that I just happen to like playing the real estate market, do y
ou?”

  I smiled meekly. “I suppose not.”

  He waved his phone. “We’ll stay at one of the rental properties. Ian has the supplies he needs to fix your door jamb tonight, so your apartment doesn’t have to stay open to the world all night and day. Tomorrow, we’ll get a new set of locks installed and a copy of the key made for you to give to your leasing office.”

  “You guys are prepared for something like that?” I couldn’t keep the incredulousness from my voice.

  “Of course we are,” Sheppard replied. “I’ve been fighting vampires for over five hundred years. You learn a few things when you’ve been fighting them that long.”

  “That’s an exaggeration.” I wasn’t sure if I was asking a question or hoping I was right.

  Sheppard thought for a moment. “Five hundred and twenty-seven years, to be exact.”

  “Werewolves live that long?” I asked. “Are you—am I—are we immortal? Are vampires?”

  “Vampires are, yes,” he said. “But we are not. Just very, very long-lived. Like I said before, the church wanted us to eventually have access to heaven, once our fight was done.”

  Oh yea. He had mentioned that in the diner. “Well, how long is ‘very, very long-lived?’” I asked, using my hands to put air quotes around the words he used.

  Sheppard raked a hand through his sandy blond hair and sat back to think a moment. “It’s hard to know what the top end is for us; fighting vampires cuts so many lives short. The oldest werewolf I know now is over 800 years old, but I’ve known of others who lived to be well over 1,000.”

  I mouthed a ‘wow’ and whispered, “How old are you?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.

  “Five hundred and forty-one,” he replied, taking a deep breath. He leaned forward and looked me in the eye. “I want you to come back and be with the pack tonight.”

  I looked down and away from his gaze. My apartment was my home, but it didn’t quite feel right anymore.

  “Ian is on his way here now. Why don’t you follow me back, and we can all get some rest?”

  There was power in his words. It wasn’t as strong as when he lit up the strands tying me to the pack, but it was there. I could have said no if I wanted to. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

  At my hesitation, he added, “I told you before that I would never hold a wolf that didn’t want to be there. I still won’t, but it would do you well to be with the pack—to know that they don’t blame you for tonight either.”

  How was he able to put words to my hesitation so well? He was right. I was nervous the pack would blame me. But I also desperately wanted to feel those ties again like I had when we ran on the reserve. I had felt more alive than I had felt in probably my entire life. Goosebumps erupted on my skin again at the memory.

  “Are you sure?” I asked, looking back up at him. “Matt seemed pretty pissed.”

  His eyes were gentle. “Matt’s a hot-head. Always has been; always will be. Believe it or not, he’s actually calmed down over the years.”

  I didn’t want to think about what that meant for how quick to anger he must have been before.

  “Chastity was...distraught about the house fire. He was simply looking for a target for his anger.”

  I sucked in my bottom lip for a moment. “Okay.” I stood up.

  Sheppard put my chair back but left the light on.

  I followed him out of my apartment, closing the door as gently as I could to try to make it less obvious that there was literally nothing holding it closed. A strong breeze would probably push it back open again. I didn’t like it, but I reminded myself that Ian was on his way to fix it, and that would have to do.

  FOURTEEN

  I FOLLOWED SHEPPARD’S truck back to the other side of town. We stopped for some fast food on the way, but there was no way I was going to get any of my burritos down while driving a manual transmission. At least, not without making a mess all over my car. They’d probably be cold by the time I got back, but that was better than no food at all. Still, the smell made my mouth water and my stomach growl.

  Sheppard made a different turn in the neighborhood than the one that would have taken us back to his house, and we pulled up to a boxy, modern home with lots of windows. It was set farther back on the lot with trees and bushes strategically planted in the yard for privacy. It was beautiful in its own way, but it lacked the homey charm that Sheppard’s house had. He had a spot on the driveway, as he had at his home, but the only spot left for my car was along the curb across the street.

  I munched on a burrito as I entered the house. I had been too hungry to wait to sit at a table. The smells inside were a near-nauseating mix of fast food—tacos, burgers, and fried chicken—along with the scents of the pack. The now-familiar voices carried and echoed lightly off the walls and the tiled floor. Some of the tension left my shoulders.

  “Lynn!” Kaylah exclaimed. “I’m so glad you made it!” She wrapped me in a hug, her flowery sweet scent soothing some of my frazzled nerves. Tears stung my eyes.

  Sheppard caught my eye as she released me, the I-told-you-so clear on his face.

  I placed my bag of burritos on a side table just in time for Matt to toss a wrapped burger my direction. I caught it and looked at him.

  “Glad you made it, kid,” he said with a smile. He held Chastity against him, her vanilla scent mixing with his own spicy musk. She seemed almost serene now, leaning against him.

  She smiled gently at me between bites of her already half-eaten burger, tucking a long auburn curl behind her ear. “I think we all are,” she said, her hazel eyes meeting my own.

  Woodsy electric warmth invaded my senses. “I know I am,” Jonathan said quietly, offering me the half-empty bucket of fried chicken in his arm.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking a drumstick. I pulled a burrito from my bag and offered it to him.

  “Ooh!” His eyes glittered as that infectious smile of his returned. He took the burrito from my hand. “A trade! How fair of you, my lady.” He bowed at the waist, careful not to dump out the fried chicken, as I shook my head with a smile and rolled my eyes.

  I slumped onto a couch next to the side table where I had deposited my burritos, placing my burger in the bag with the last two burritos and tearing into the fried drumstick in my hand. I crossed my legs under me and let out a sigh. It had been a long night.

  I thought everyone would be more upset about the fire. I thought they would blame me. But they weren’t, and they didn’t. They were just glad that I had made it through the night.

  Sheppard handed me a bottle of water and sat in a recliner near one of the couches, finishing a burger of his own. “There bedrooms and couches all over the place in this house, including an office and couch in the basement. I’m in the master, but find any other sleeping spot that’s comfortable for you, and it’s yours.”

  “Thanks,” I said, offering him one of my remaining burritos. He smiled and took it, placing it on his thigh while he finished his burger. Jonathan sat on the floor next to my left knee. Jamie sat on the other couch in the living room.

  “We should be celebrating your run with us tonight,” Sheppard said, his golden eyes meeting my own. There was a sad edge to his voice.

  I looked down at the fried chicken in my hand. I was still practically ravenous. They really weren’t kidding about being able to eat anytime food was available.

  “But that celebration will have to wait. Tomorrow,” he said, raising his voice.

  The pack stopped their conversation and stilled, listening to our alpha.

  “In the morning, we’ll go through what remains of the old house to see what’s worth salvaging. We’ll lock what we don’t immediately need in the shed and bring the rest here.” He looked to Kaylah, whose hand was clasped with Daniel’s. “Kaylah, tomorrow afternoon, I want you and Chastity to resupply again.”

  Kaylah smiled at Chastity, who nodded her head in response.

  Sheppard was in full alpha mode. His voice carried the weight o
f authority without so much as a shimmer in the air. It was like he had gone through this a hundred times before and had the routine down. Just how many homes had he watched burn thanks to vampires?

  “Daniel,” Sheppard continued, “I need you to call in our insurance policies and get started with whatever we need to do to clear the land and build a new house there.”

  “The adjuster will meet us at the house tomorrow at 3pm,” Daniel replied. “I called tonight to get things rolling. First thing in the morning,” he continued, “I’ll drop by the safe deposit box to pick up what spare keys and documents we have there and then go to the insurance office to fill out paperwork for the claim.”

  Wow. Talk about being on top of things. I wouldn’t have even known where to start.

  “Thank you,” Sheppard said, genuine relief in his voice. “Matt, I need you to track those vamps.” His voice hardened again. “We need to know where those bloodsuckers came from so we know where to hit first.”

  “Gladly.” Matt’s smile was feral and cold, and I could smell the change in him—the thrill of the hunt building in him. It made me glad he was on our side.

  “Don’t start any fights,” Sheppard warned, wagging a finger lazily in Matt’s direction. “Just find them. When you do, come back here and we’ll put together a plan of attack. I am done playing quietly with the vampires in this town.” Sheppard crushed the wrapper to his burger in his fist. “We are going to wipe them out.”

  A thrill went through me then, like it had when he made the similar promise in my apartment earlier. I believed him. But more than that, I actually wanted to join Matt in tracking them down.

  “As for the rest of you,” he added. “Do a security check of your interests around town, including any friends.” He looked pointedly at Ian. “We’re escalating to fighting dirty. Daytime attacks, starting with the ones responsible for the fire. Once we start poking around with the vampires, they aren’t likely to stay put.”

  Sheppard talked like this was all just business as usual. Sure, he had aggression directed toward the vampires, but these guys were like a well-oiled machine. I think I was glad to be coming in to a well-established pack.