Sheppard’s hand fell on my shoulder. Of course I knew. I was going to kill it. I took a breath and closed my eyes, watching power flow along the strands of the pack. My pack. The pit of fear shrank, and I opened my eyes again.
There was a bright work lamp at the back of the cavern, the kind you see on construction sites, and a large generator nearby provided power with heavy cords running off it. It was on, despite the daytime, providing more light than necessary and obscuring my vision of anything behind it. Bolted along one cave wall were four cages, only one of which was empty. The other three held snarling balls of fur as large as I was, their jaws snapping at the thick iron bars and chewing until wounds opened and knit closed.
I slowed as I passed them, marveling that there was a cage strong enough to hold them. A cage strong enough to hold us. Those could have been my packmates. I shook my head and snorted, trying to clear the stench of blood from my nose. I would kill the thing that had done this.
The dark timber wolf that I recognized as Matt nudged my heels, urging me to quicken my pace as we stalked past the cages. I didn’t need more encouragement than that. The smell of humans and vampires alike was getting stronger the further we went in.
Past the light, I was finally able to see a hallway that had previously been obscured. It was like an old trick from a haunted house—except any jump scares here would be deadly. And we were on the vampires’ home turf. Great.
There was a split in the cave ahead. Sheppard put a hand out, palm facing us, and we stopped. He pointed to Jamie and then to Matt and nodded his head toward the left branch of the cave, where a vaguely antiseptic smell entered the sickening mix. I pulled my lips back in a silent snarl and we walked down the right branch, where the scent of sweat and people got stronger.
The cave opened up into another chamber where five cots were arranged around the room. Small camp lights were on the floor of the chamber, one each on either side of a metal shelf. Only three of the cots were occupied, but neither of the men nor the woman stirred as we entered. Sheppard pointed at the woman, pointed to his ear, and then placed a finger over his mouth. I looked back at the sleeping forms—they all had bright orange pieces of foam in their ears. Well no wonder the snarling of the wolves in the front chamber didn’t bother them.
That same unsafe dead smell of vampire wafted in as Sheppard made a nearly silent hiss at the far end of the chamber. He held a heavy curtain away from where the cave narrowed to another hallway. As we padded over to it, Matt brushed past me. Sheppard nodded to him, and I looked over my shoulder to see Jamie had rejoined us.
I guess there was nothing to see down their hallway. Well. That only confirmed what the smell was telling me—the vampires were all ahead of us.
Sheppard held the curtain for the pack as we all came into the hallway and took the lead again. We moved quickly down the almost black hallway and through another curtain into a room that held three massive four-post beds and an ornate couch. The deathly vampire scent prickled at my nose it was so strong in here. Pillows and blankets were piled all around the cave floor, on top of plush rugs, and another heavy curtain was hung at the far end of the chamber.
But there were no vampires. Jonathan, Ian, and Chastity checked around and under the beds. Matt checked behind and under the couch. It was just us.
A familiar voice called out, “I smell mangy mutts!”
Frederick. I was certain of it.
The red bled further into my vision and the ball of fear in my stomach turned to ice along my spine. There was the hint of an all-too familiar cologne amongst the death and blood.
Sheppard moved to the curtain at the far end of the chamber. “You smell your death!”
He jerked his head toward the cavern hallway beyond the curtain. The stench of vampire and death grew even stronger back that way, and—for a moment—I was torn about whether to follow the pack. I paused while the rest of the pack went forward.
Was I really ready to face a vampire? But the pack was sure, and power radiated from Sheppard along the strands I could see when I closed my eyes. With a shake that melted the ice along my spine, I hurried to catch up. I was ready for anything as long as I had the pack by my side.
As we cautiously approached the next curtain, a scrabbling, snarling noise came along behind us. Jonathan, who was ahead of me, turned and pushed past me in the hallway, back the way we came. His hackles were raised, and a growl rumbled in his chest. Jamie, nearly invisible in almost all black, followed his brother as I turned to face the way they were going.
Frederick’s laugh echoed from the chamber beyond the curtain now behind me.
“We’ll see who dies today, alpha” Frederick called.
His tone was different than I had ever heard from him. Colder. Angrier perhaps. I didn’t have time to question it, the snarl-scrabbling had gotten closer.
Matt leapt over me in the cave and shoved me with his shoulder back the direction of the rest of the pack.
I looked to Sheppard, whose grim face also somehow held a hint of eagerness. It was infectious. He pulled aside the curtain and gestured with his head for us to go through. Power washed through me with the gesture—another command that I found myself eager to follow.
Beyond the curtain was a large chamber littered with plush rugs. A single four-post bed that somehow dwarfed even those in the previous chamber was the focal point of this room. A desk with a laptop sat along the far wall. Something smoldered smoke out of a metal trashcan next to the desk. Curtains and tapestries covered the walls of the chamber. Something that smelled of rot and decay was wrapped in a heavy sheet of plastic along the wall next to the opening into the hallway. Looking closer at it, I saw cloudy eyes and heavy makeup on a head of long, dark hair. My stomach flipped, and my heart caught in my throat.
That was a dead body.
There was a dead woman wrapped in a tarp. Red seeped into my vision again. A monster had killed her.
I whirled on the chamber, ready to fight.
And in the center of the room stood a single figure in the dark, his lanky frame somewhat more imposing than I had remembered. He speared me with blackened eyes.
“Why, Grace Lynn Cartwright,” he said, drawing out my name with a voice like bloodstained silk.
It felt like claws raking along the inside of my skull and I barely repressed the shiver along my spine. I don’t know how he recognized that it was me, but it didn’t matter anymore.
“It is such a shame you have fallen in with these mutts.” He had fangs. Actual, honest-to-God fangs. Like you see in the movies: white, pointed, and damn near gleaming. “But it won’t matter soon. Once I kill them—”
Kill it.
He kept talking. I didn’t hear it. The whole of the cavern was bathed in crimson. I wasn’t going to let him hurt anyone or anything ever again. I leapt at him and felt power wash through me as a whistle sounded in the cave. He reached for my throat and I whipped my head side to side to get him to release me.
The crucifix from my rosary smacked into his wrist and the smell of burning flesh prickled my nose.
He did release me then, hissing with the pain as he covered the burnt wrist with his other hand.
But I didn’t hesitate. I leapt at him again, and the world became a blur.
Something jangled in my head, like when my jaws clamped onto Matt’s leg during our sparring match, but I ignored it. Frederick was an unnatural thing that must be ended, and I was going to end him before he harmed a single member of my pack.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“HOW ARE YOU DOING THIS,” burbled a weak voice from Frederick, “to me?”
My jaws were clamped where his neck met his shoulder, and I clawed and raked at his chest like a cat with a toy. He had fallen to the ground, pinning someone under him with me on top. He had claws dug into my sides, but the pressure from his fingers eased and released me as the wounds closed. He was weakening. Every fiber screamed my victory over my prey as the chamber fell silent.
Frederick�
��s skin turned to leather in my mouth, and then to ash as my still raking claws crushed through his ribcage, cutting the clothing he had been wearing to ribbons and opening cuts across the chest of the creature underneath him. The jangling in my head got noisier.
Hands clamped on either side of my face and I thrashed to release them, trying to get my jaws around one of the arms they were attached to. The hands held firm, however, and power washed through me like a tidal wave, nearly stealing my breath. The red bathing my vision cleared, and then sharp breaking pain left me human, naked, curled into my alpha’s arms.
I looked down, but couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing. There, under where I’d been pinning Frederick down, was Sheppard—my alpha—lying on the floor of the cave. And where Frederick had been...there was nothing. Just mounds of a fine, grey powder—ash—and the clothing he had been wearing. I retched around the dusty piece of bone in my mouth, spitting it out with a disgusted scream as I scrambled to my feet. Sheppard brushed what had been Frederick’s clothing along with the ash off himself as he stood. He had four wide scratches oozing blood through tears in his shirt.
Oh God. I had hurt my alpha.
I backed a number of steps away across uneven plush rugs.
Ash.
Frederick. That was just his clothing there.
Oh God help me. I had also just killed a man who used to be my friend. My vision lost focus. I wasn’t sure which was worse. Ice snaked along my spine.
Run.
Yes. Perfect.
With another round of sharp breaking pain taking me back to four paws, I fled the chamber, the colors of the fur of my packmates blurring as I passed. I had hurt our alpha. I had killed a man who had been my friend.
Run!
“Grace!” Sheppard’s voice rang in the cave, the authority echoing down the hall.
There were bodies too, strewn about the cave floors. Fleshy, mangled ones covered in blood with gleaming pointed teeth and blackened eyes, their necks and spines at odd angles. Unlikely they were a threat anymore, but I wasn’t stopping to find out.
My paws couldn’t carry me fast enough through the cave, past the room full of lavish beds, past the room full of cots, and out into the chamber with the snarling wolves in cages. Red clouded my vision again. I needed to get away from here. Somewhere safe from what I had done. Somewhere not full of the dust of a former friend of mine. Somewhere away.
RUN!
Outside of the cave, the sun was bright enough to make me squint. I blinked a number of times and shook my head as my vision changed again. The trees of the preserve were outlined in grey and everything was bathed in shades of white. I couldn’t think.
RUN!!
I didn’t need to think. I let my paws carry me across the ground. I passed trees and rocks and something that smelled like old blood and fur and teeth. Something that smelled like the cave.
RUN!!!
I shook again and ran so fast I practically flew across the ground. I passed houses and sheds, cars and trucks.
And then the burnt husk of a place that felt like home.
And then a glass house that smelled of pack.
I didn’t have a key.
I found a corner with a clear view of the front door and curled myself into it, balling myself as tightly and as small as I possibly could, my tail curling over my nose.
I had killed a man who used to be my friend.
I had hurt my alpha.
TWENTY-EIGHT
AN OLIVE-GREEN JEEP came into view and my heart flip flopped.
Jonathan.
A strange mixture of eagerness and dread filled me as he approached. Part of me wanted to run to him, but another part was hopeful he wouldn’t see me.
He parked the Jeep in the empty space on the driveway, behind Matt’s Camaro, and cut the engine. I balled tighter into my corner. Until I was sure which I preferred, it was probably better if he didn’t notice me. Would he reject me for hurting our alpha? Would the rest of the pack?
I should have known better. His eyes landed on me almost as soon as he had exited the Jeep. He sighed and pressed his lips into a line, but that may have been a smile? Pulling his phone from his back pocket, he tapped out a message with his thumbs as he stepped to the front door. The intoxicating woodsy warmth of him crept along the breeze.
“Matt went to check your place,” he said softly.
I barely heard him over the rustling of the trees and bushes along the house.
“Kaylah and Daniel took the sheep to Blood of the Cross.” He unlocked the front door to the house and opened it wide. “Sheppard and the rest of the pack are still at the cave, pulling the bodies of the dead vamps out into the sun so they can burn.”
His eyes met mine, and the gentleness in them stabbed straight into me. I was glad I wasn’t in my two-legged form then, I wasn’t ready to cry.
“Come on Dreamer,” he said. “Let’s get inside where we can talk.”
I wasn’t sure I was ready to go inside. I wasn’t sure I was ready to talk.
Jonathan looked down the street and then back at me. “It’s gonna be a while before everyone gets here anyway. And if anyone sees a huge white wolf in this neighborhood, someone’s gonna poke their nose in pack business. So, if you’d rather sit in silence, we could. Just maybe inside, okay?”
Fuck me, he was good at anticipating my feelings.
He jerked his head toward the inside of the house, a gesture not unlike the one Sheppard had used to direct us through passageways in the cave. “Come on.”
With I sigh of my own, I uncurled myself and padded toward the door, my tail firmly between my back legs and my ears pulled against my head. It was strange to feel that much control over parts of myself that, a week ago, I didn’t even have.
Once I passed the threshold into the house, however, my stomach roiled, and I dashed to the downstairs bathroom. I slammed the door shut as I painfully changed back to human. Funny how that was getting easier, just as Sheppard and Jonathan had said it would.
There had been a dead woman’s body wrapped in that tarp.
Crawling across the floor, I barely got the toilet open fast enough to keep my vomit from exploding across the nearly black wood of the bathroom floor.
I had held the bone of a former friend in my mouth as he died and turned to ash.
Between heaves of sickness, I locked the bathroom door.
I had run through puddles of blood and stepped over mangled bodies of things that once had been human.
I shook with the fear and realization of it all as what little was left of my breakfast and bile poured into the toilet.
When the worst had passed, and all that was left was dry heaving, I fumbled with the cabinet, hoping for towels under the sink as they had been in the other house. They were.
I pulled a washcloth out and wiped the sick from my face as I flushed the toilet. I ran water in the sink, rinsing the washcloth and pressing it to my face as I pulled my knees to my chest and leaned back against the bathroom door.
I never even bothered to turn the light on.
The worst part was the knowledge spreading through my bones that I would do it again if it meant keeping people safe. Of course I would. I could only pray that killing monsters would get easier in time.
There was movement outside the bathroom, something fabric plopped to the ground, and woodsy warmth wafted under the door.
“There’s sweatpants and a shirt here,” Jonathan said softly. “For you.”
The floor creaked ever so slightly as he backed away from the door, and I put my weight on my feet, keeping low in a crouch as I slowly turned the door handle. I cracked the door to find a black shirt folded atop a folded pair of grey sweatpants. My rosary sat on top of the clothes. It must have fallen off when Sheppard...
I grabbed the pile with one hand and hastily pulled them into the bathroom, firmly closing the door once my hand and the clothes were clear.
Sheppard had pushed me to change back to human. I was c
ertain of that now. As a wolf, I had gone so wild with the victory over Frederick that I hadn’t even recognized it was Sheppard getting torn up. My vision blurred.
“I’m here Dreamer.” Jonathan’s voice came from the living room. “When you’re ready. I’m not going anywhere.”
I wiped at my face with my hands. Looping the rosary around my neck again, I pulled on the shirt and pants. The shirt was a bit large for me, but the pants were actually a bit short, so I rolled the bottom cuff to mid-calf. I took a breath. I couldn’t hide in the bathroom forever, and I didn’t know what had happened with the rest of the pack in the cave. I hadn’t seen the fight that left all the mangled bodies. I needed answers, and I wasn’t even sure what all of the questions were.
Except for one.
I swallowed around a sudden lump in my throat as I stood and opened the door.
Jonathan stood from one of the couches as I padded into the living room.
I met his eyes. “What have I done?!” My vision blurred again.
Jonathan moved closer to me, his hand reaching toward my shoulder. Frederick’s body turning to ash flashed in my mind and my eyes went wide in alarm.
“DON’T!” I sprang away from him. “What if it happens to you too?”
“You mean what if you turn me to ash?” The corner of his mouth quirked up, but his eyes were soft and gentle, without a hint of gold.
I nodded.
He made a placating gesture and smiled. “We’ve touched a hell of a lot since you were turned, Lynn.” There was no malice, no blame in his gentle tone. “I think I’m safe.”
Safe. I wasn’t sure anyone was safe from whatever the hell it was I did to Frederick.
“You can’t know that. I don’t know what did that to him. How I did that to him.” I pounded my sternum with a closed fist as hot tears ran down my cheeks. “I can’t turn you to ash too!”
A Place to Run (Trials of the Blood Book 1) Page 22
