by Laken Cane
Chris skidded through old leaves and dry earth and turned back around, not even hesitating before he went at her again.
Fucking wolf was fast, and he was hungry. Hungry for power.
Rune just wanted to fight.
She wasn’t ready to let him hurt her, not yet. Not this early in the game. This time she hit his massive chest with the palm of her hand—she couldn’t make a fist with nails the length of a forearm coming out of her fingers.
But it was a solid blow and the wolf’s breath left him with a wheezy moan. It didn’t stop him, though.
She’d already begun thinking he was too weak for alpha when he absorbed her blow, turned, and kicked her in the midsection.
Hard.
She skidded across the ground, her back burning, even through her shirt, as some of her skin was scraped off. She jumped to her feet and dusted off her ass, smiling. Not bad.
Her smile seemed to infuriate him. He roared and loped across the ground, but this time she knew better than to underestimate him.
She was finding it harder to hold back as the fight progressed—the bloodthirsty part of her nature wanted to take over and destroy the wolf.
He practically flew through the air, giving her little time to think before he landed the full weight of his body on her. She went down, crushed between the heavy, furry wolf and the hard, frozen ground. An immediate, sharp pain grew in her chest, making it hard to breathe.
“Fuck,” she muttered, wheezing. It felt like one of her ribs had broken and had punctured a lung.
Her hands were pinned, but not for long. With a charge of adrenaline she forced them free, slicing his underbelly with her claws.
He yelped and rolled off her, but now she was pissed.
She followed him, arms at her sides, claws almost raking the ground as she bent her knees and jumped. She realized then that she meant to kill him. She saw the night through a haze of red rage, and she meant to kill him.
Fuck him. If he couldn’t defeat her, he didn’t deserve to be alpha.
No, Rune. No.
The vampires saved him.
Not on purpose, of course, but they entered the clearing like huge killer bats and she forgot about fucking up the wolf.
It had just gotten serious.
And she was still alpha.
She drew in a deep breath, grimacing in pain, and screamed, “Kill the fucking vampires!”
They didn’t even hesitate.
She took her rage out on the vampires and didn’t have to worry about holding back. A vampire ran at her so fast a human would have had trouble tracking him—but she saw him fine.
She sliced through his throat like her claws were shivs, as truthfully, they were, and his head parted company with his body.
The vampires outnumbered the wolves. She’d never known a battle between wolves and vampires to go in the wolves’ favor, but the wolves had her. That’d change things up a little fucking bit.
But she didn’t want her pack to die and even with her on their side, some of them were going to. As she watched, a vampire tore out a wolf’s throat.
“No,” she screamed, and went after him. She didn’t remember running, but suddenly she was in front of the son of a bitch, holding his heart in her hand.
He dropped like a stone and she went on to the next vampire.
One of them grabbed Chris by the throat and hefted him into the air, holding his struggling body aloft as another vampire drew back a hand, then shot his nails into the wolf’s belly. Before he could disembowel Chris, Rune flew at the vampire and sent him tumbling through the air.
She followed him, hoping Chris could handle the other vampire.
She glanced back long enough to see Chris toss the vampire into the fire, and then her attention was occupied by the vampire she’d attacked.
The world was frenzied and bloody but she caught the welcome sight of Z and Jack wading into the sea of chaos, long silver shivs in each hand.
They evened the odds a little more.
She had no idea how long the fight went on but in the end those vampires that could escape ran for their lives, and the ground was littered with the familiar sight of death.
The ground was gory and black with blood in the moonlight. As she looked around the clearing, she realized she’d been there a thousand times before.
There, after a battle, the ground slippery with blood, the air thick with red mist. Dead and dying lying in a jumbled mess. Survivors staring with wide, shocked eyes. Moans and cries and howls of grief and pain.
Jack and Z stood on either side of her as they gathered their thoughts, shook off the horror, and sent up the invisible walls that helped their minds stay strong beneath the weight of everything they’d done, everything they’d witnessed.
They were Shiv Crew.
It was what they did.
The wolves that hadn’t been severely injured shifted to human form to carry their wounded to cars they’d parked near the area.
But Rune held up a hand to halt them. When they all gave her their attention she grabbed Chris’s arm and pulled him to her side. “This man is your alpha. He has proven himself this night.” She turned to Chris. “They’re yours.”
He swallowed, then nodded. “Do you agree with her?” he asked the wolves.
Finally, they murmured assent.
“If you need me, any of you, ever, I will be there for you. Just because I’m not your alpha doesn’t mean I’m not your friend.” She waited until they nodded, then turned away.
It was over.
“Drag that piece of shit to your truck, Jack. I’ll follow you to RISC to turn him over to Elizabeth. She’ll know how to get information from him.”
“Elizabeth Peel?” Z asked, grabbing one of the vampire’s legs to help Jack drag him from the clearing. “She’s a desk lady.”
Rune wiped gore from her face. “No. No, she’s not. Inside her chest beats a heart of stone, boys.”
“What makes you think so?” Jack asked.
He looked tired. She couldn’t help but wonder if every time he fought he feared the loss of his remaining eye. “I don’t know,” she finally answered. And she didn’t. It was just a feeling. Elizabeth Peel wouldn’t flinch when she needed to get her hands dirty.
Jack’s truck was parked near her car and she let them worry about loading the vampire into the back while she went to console Ellis. He’d be worried sick and scared out of his mind.
But when she opened her door and peered inside, she couldn’t, for one moment, speak.
Ellis wasn’t there.
But in his seat was a note.
Llodra had Ellis.
Chapter Nineteen
Thank you, he’d written, for making it so easy for me.
That was all.
He’d found the paper and pen in her glove box, and the note screamed with evil glee. Llodra was having fun.
And she was fucking tired of it.
She punched the hood of her car until Z pulled her into his arms, then she shoved him away and screamed curses at the sky.
“Rune,” Jack said. “Calm the fuck down.”
“Oh God,” she cried. “Ellis can’t take that vampire shit. We have to find him.” She grabbed Jack’s arm. “We have to find him, Jack.”
His face was stony. “We’ll fucking find him.” But the look in his eye said he didn’t believe it.
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She heard an insistent buzzing as though a hundred bees had built nests inside her skull. She shook her head, trying to make it stop.
She should never have brought Ellis here…she should have just kept the wolves.
Too late. Once again she’d made the wrong decision.
Now Llodra had Matthew and Ellis.
She spotted the bag of blood in the floor, where, obviously, Ellis had dropped it in his terror.
Tearing it open, she held the bag to her lips and downed the blood. When it was empty she wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and turned to J
ack and Z, who were staring into the darkness.
“Okay, boys. We have a vampire. Let’s see what we can get out of him.” They followed her to Jack’s truck where the vampire lay, silvered.
Llodra could be anywhere and she knew how slim the chances were of finding him. But he had Matthew, and he had her Ellie. She was not going to give up.
Ellis wouldn’t have given up on her.
“What would I do without you, Ellie?”
“I don’t know, probably die.”
She grabbed the vampire by his foot and dragged him out of the truck bed, grim with determination. And she was not in the mood to waste time.
Jack draped silver wire back over the vampire’s arms and legs and that bastard wasn’t going anywhere.
She pulled a silver shiv from its sheath and without a word, plunged it into his throat. “I will make you want to die,” she said, talking loudly to be heard over his shrieks, “but I won’t take your head and give you death. I want to know where Llodra is. You have five seconds to tell me.”
He only screamed.
She pulled the shiv from his throat to let the wound close and slid the blade into his right eye. “Five seconds.”
He continued to scream.
She pulled the knife from his eye. “The next one is going into your dick. You have five seconds.” She scraped the blade over his ribs, down his stomach, and to his genitals.
“Shit,” Z whispered, and backed a couple of steps away.
“I don’t know,” the vampire shrieked, his skin smoking from the silver melting into it. “I don’t know.”
She unbuttoned his fly and pulled out his penis, holding it with one hand as she put the point of the shiv at the head. “I’m going to slice your cock in half, dude. You have five seconds.” She began to cut, slowly, gently, giving him time to reconsider his answer. “Three seconds.”
“I’ll tell,” he screamed. “Oh please, stop, I’ll tell.”
She pulled the knife away from his bleeding genitals. Her mind was numb. “Tell me.”
Even later, when she thought about it, she didn’t know how he moved. Fear of the master must have given him super strength and speed. He jerked the blade from her hand and plunged it into his heart, staking himself.
Then there was just silence.
Rune stared sightlessly into the dark. “I don’t know what else to do.”
Sure, he could come back, in days or weeks, if they didn’t take his head. If they buried him in the ground. But there was no time to wait for him to heal.
“I don’t know what else to do,” she repeated.
Z, his face pale in the moonlight, pulled Rune’s shiv from the vampire’s chest. He pulled the strands of silver wire from the body. Last, he took the vampire’s head.
No one said a word.
There was nothing to say.
She finally noticed the glowing eyes of the wolves as they watched from the edge of the trees. In seconds, they melted away, going to tend to their dead and injured. They couldn’t help her.
She’d lost her control, her reason for being Shiv Crew leader. She was only a woman who had lost her way, who had failed her people.
And the old Rune took hold. She forgot the doctors, the promises, and the changes. If she’d been alone she would have hurt herself. But she wasn’t alone.
Jack and Z stood on either side of her, silent but watchful, no idea of the turmoil inside her mind.
“We have to do something,” Jack said.
“Split up?” asked Z.
“Yes,” Rune answered. “Split up. Search. Find me fucking Llodra.” She took off, her booted feet kicking up clumps of dirt and leaves as she ran into the night.
“But I can tell you this—the master will hide where you will not expect him to hide. In the open, in the last place you would think to look.”
The trees of Hawthorne were blurs as she ran past them, deeper and deeper into the forest. Hold on, boys. I will save you.
Somehow.
But hours later she dragged herself back to her truck, despair exhausting her. She had found no trace of the master. Neither had her men.
They’d questioned at least one member of every group in River County, but no one could tell them anything.
But the vampires had to come out at night to feed. They had to feed. Why, then, were they not being seen by someone?
Elizabeth called as Rune was leaving Hawthorne Ridge. The woman got less sleep than Rune did.
“Rune,” she said. “Three humans have gone missing—the first one disappeared the night I sanctioned the purge. I just got the report.”
“That’s how Llodra is feeding his coven.”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Of course it is. He sent his people to the fight tonight. I never thought he’d show himself but he was there while I was occupied.”
“I’m so sorry about Ellis.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s here somewhere. He can’t just disappear.”
But Rune was beginning to wonder.
“Go home, Rune. Get some sleep.”
The worst thing she could have done was go home. Being alone with her thoughts was a nightmare she wasn’t willing to face.
She hung up and thought about calling Strad, but changed her mind. Strad was mad at the world right then, and whether he wanted to admit it or not—even to himself—part of him blamed her because Llodra had taken his son.
She should have killed Llodra when she had the chance. Gunnar had warned her about choices.
As usual, she’d made the wrong ones.
Who else would the vampire take before she caught him?
The night had come and gone, the search netting her only more frustration. She got a large coffee and sat in a deserted parking lot drinking it.
Hawthorne was cursed.
Or she was.
Her house had burned to the ground, but she wished that fire was the only thing she had to worry about. Funny how life had a way of putting things in perspective.
There was nothing from the house that would have survived the fire. No treasure lying charred and pathetic among the ashes—
And it hit her, just that quickly, where Llodra was hiding.
“Oh fuck me.”
Hands shaking, she started the engine and broke every speed limit posted as she drove to her destroyed house. Please, please, let them be there.
She parked across the street, jumping out almost before the car completely stopped, neglecting to shut her door behind her.
She picked her way hurriedly over unrecognizable heaps of burned wood and rubble. The back of the house still stood, listing dangerously, a hollowed out skeleton beneath which, she hoped, lay Ellis and Matthew.
There were no scents of vampires that she caught, but then she realized that would have been another reason for Llodra choosing this spot. It would have been nearly impossible for her or any of the Others to catch his scent with the soot, ash, and chemicals overpowering everything else.
She slipped and went down, hard. She held her breath as she listened for stirring vampires. A piece of glass had sliced into her palm but she barely felt the pain.
Her lungs wanted to expel the chemicals and soot she inhaled, but she forced herself not to cough. Would a cough wake Llodra? Probably not.
But she wasn’t taking any fucking chances.
She heard a car start as one of the neighbors left for work. The world outside the burnt haven for vampires began to wake up.
She felt them now.
Their scents might have been smothered by the charred remains of her house, but the feel of them, they couldn’t hide that. Not from her.
She wiped her bloody palm on her pants and pulled her cell from her jacket pocket. Her vgun was still holstered and she planned on using the fuck out of the weapon that morning.
She called Raze, knowing he was probably just going to sleep but she needed her crew. Llodra was mad and he was old, and he wasn’t going to behave like a normal
vampire.
If a young vampire woke up, he or she would be sluggish and most likely easily staked. If Llodra woke up, there could be trouble. He might also rouse his children.
She wasn’t taking any chances.
“Yeah,” Raze answered.
“I’m at my house,” she replied, her voice low. “I think—I’m sure—the vampires are in the basement. I need you. Grab a couple of the guys and—”
“On it.” He hung up.
She couldn’t wait for them, and Raze knew that. He would tear up the highway getting to her.
Carefully she climbed to her feet, then unholstered her vgun. Time to play.
“I’m coming for you, Llodra,” she whispered. If Ellie and Matthew were in the basement with the vampires, she was bringing them out. No matter what.
Her basement was an ancient half-basement, full of darkness and crawling things and spider webs. The door had been in the floor.
Finally, she stood where the basement door had once been. It was half covered by a pile of boards. She grasped a thick canvas they’d pulled over the door and pulled it back. She peered into the gaping blackness and the presence of the undead seeped into her pores and covered her mind with a slimy, oily film.
They were there.
Barely breathing, she eased her flashlight from her pocket and clicked it on, then shined it into the hole.
The old wooden stairs looked even more dangerous than usual, but she didn’t hesitate. Those stairs were the only way into the basement.
She hoped they would hold as she crept down them. Falling into a nest of vampires was not on her bucket list.
Trying to ignore the ominous creaking, she kept her light on and went alone into the black basement. She could smell them now, amid the dampness and mold, the animal droppings and old blood. The lingering fragrance of the fire was merely an accompaniment to the strong scent of vampire.
Her fangs dropped in response, but she held back her claws. She wanted the feel of her deadly vgun in her grip.
An eternity later she stepped off the bottom step. She restrained herself from calling Ellie’s name. The first thing she had to do was see if Llodra slept in the basement.
She flashed her light over the unmoving forms of the vampires. They lay in uniform lines with no spaces between them, spreading like giant, malignant tumors across the floor.
