by Laken Cane
He met her halfway. “He’s fine, Rune.”
“Yeah. Concussion. His mother told me.”
“How’d that go?” He took her arm.
She pulled away. She wasn’t really angry at him, but he was there in the path of it. “I guess it’s about time she started showing some concern.”
Ellis’s relationship with his parents was usually strained. Ellis was the total opposite of his parents. He was affectionate and dramatic and full of love. They were chilly and distant. They tried to keep the peace, to keep Ellie calm, but there had been no real concern.
Strad walked beside her, his expression not changing at her grumpiness. “I’m going to get you a cup of coffee and make a few phone calls while you’re with him.”
“Thanks. I could use some coffee.”
But he paused, looking at her chest. He reached out to pull the neck of her shirt down and bent forward to examine the wound. “It’s healing, but slowly.”
“It hurts like a motherfucker.”
“You were staked, Rune.” He met her gaze. “And you’re walking around like you were only punched in the face.”
She was aware of the enormity of the situation. Who walked away from a staking? “I know.”
“I’ll be back in a few minutes.” And before she realized what he was going to do, he leaned forward and gave her a hard kiss. Then he strode out of the room and left her staring after him.
“That is one sexy boy,” Ellis said.
She jumped at his voice. “I thought you were asleep, baby. How are you feeling?”
“I want to go home, but mother insisted I stay.”
“You need to let them keep an eye on you.” She smoothed back his hair. “I’m sorry, Ellie.” Would she ever be able to tell him he was one bite away from becoming a monster?
He studied her for a long moment. “Rune, have I ever neglected to tell you when you need to apologize?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “No. Not so much.”
He didn’t smile. “And I wouldn’t now. If you had something to own up to, I’d be the first one to let you know.”
“Just rest and get better.”
“Rune.” He grasped her hand. “You look like death.”
She touched her face with her free hand, then dropped it almost self-consciously to her chest. “I’m aware.”
“I don’t think you are. Your face is sunken and your eyes are…” He pressed his lips together as his eyes moistened. “I know you’re insanely powerful. I know you can take damage others can’t. But you need a break. Maybe not even from the physical stuff. Maybe just from the mental stuff.” He hesitated before charging on. “Z is dead.”
And I killed him.
She couldn’t help but shudder, but said nothing as she leaned over to kiss his forehead. Later, when those thoughts took over, she was going to be in trouble. “I just need some fucking coffee.”
He blinked and looked away.
“Uh-oh,” she said. “I knew something was up. I haven’t had a chance to question anyone. What’s going on, Ellie?”
“I heard Strad talking on his phone.”
She pushed her hand into her stomach. “Yeah?”
“Two things. One, the bloodbath at RISC. The news is full of it. And all of River County is turning on the Others.”
She sighed. “I’m not surprised. But they’ll calm down in a few days.”
He started to shake his head, then grimaced and cut the movement short. He tightened his fingers on hers. “COS is here, and they’re making it worse. The humans are scared, and they have opened their arms to the slayers.”
A cold finger of unease slid over her spine. “What?”
“Llodra has ruined life for the Others. At least in this city.”
“He doesn’t care,” she snarled, and then forced herself to calm down. Ellis didn’t need her rage. “I’ll call Bill Rice. We’ll keep an eye on the slayers and things will settle down with the fucking humans.”
Strad slipped noiselessly back into the room and handed her a cup of coffee.
“What else?” She took a gulp of the coffee, wishing she could just close her eyes, forget the world, and enjoy her caffeine.
“Rune,” Ellis said, “they will come after you. The humans. COS.”
“Let them come.” Fuckers. Let them come.
A nurse swept into the room, her bright smile faltering when she caught sight of Rune. “We’re going to move him now.”
“I’ll be safe. You have to…” He glanced at the nurse. He beckoned Rune closer, and when she leaned over he whispered in her ear. “Hide.”
And because she wouldn’t have him worrying, she agreed. “I will, sugar. You just get better. I’ll call you tomorrow.” She frowned. “Or today. What time is it?”
“It’s six in the morning,” Strad said. “Let’s go, Rune.”
How could so many things happen in so little time? She followed Strad from the room, her hand protectively over her still healing wound. “Where’s the crew?”
“Out trying to protect Others.”
“Law enforcement?”
“Most of them are doing what they can,” he said, his voice grim. “But some of them have always been against the Others. Now they feel they have an excuse to abuse them.”
“Assholes.”
“Yeah.” He took her arm when she headed for her car. “Ride with me, Rune.”
“I don’t want to leave my car.”
He ran his hand over his face. “I’d feel better. We can get your car later.”
“No.”
“We need to stay together right now. All of us.”
“They’re not after you, Berserker. You’ll be okay. And I will fight anyone who tries to take me.”
He gave her a tiny, tired smile. “Including me.”
“I’m so cold,” she said. “I just want to go to the inn and crawl under a mountain of blankets. Three hours. That’s all I need, then I’ll come help you guys.”
“I can take care of you.”
“I can take care of myself.” She was carrying so much rage and agony because of Z, but she was powerless to stop it. There were only so many things she could shove away. What had happened with Z was always going to be there. That was the grim truth.
“Am I your favorite too, Rune?”
She shook it off.
Strad sighed at her fierceness. “Then I’ll let you go.”
But at her car he stopped her again. “You should feed.”
She shuddered at the image of Llodra forcing his blood into her mouth. “I don’t have to. Not yet. I just need sleep. Sleep heals me.”
He nodded, then waited until she’d gotten behind the wheel before he walked away. Driving through town, she glanced back to see him riding her ass. He sat in the parking lot of the inn, motor idling, as she stumbled into her room and closed the door firmly behind her.
She managed a ten minute shower, bandaged the slowly healing wound on her chest—she couldn’t reach her back—then slept exactly three hours and seven minutes.
That was the last peace she would have for a very, very long time.
Chapter Thirty-Three
When she left her room at the inn, the humans who had gathered quietly in the parking lot erupted.
“Monster! Leader of the monster squad,” someone yelled.
A few eggs splatted as they hit her, but most of the delicate torpedoes fell to the pavement around her. The eggs were harmless. The humiliation was not. The humans were pushing her when she should not be pushed, but she grabbed her anger with a desperate fist and refused to let it loose.
If she lost control, the humans were dead.
And she wanted to think she wasn’t there yet. She wasn’t that much of a monster.
Not yet.
For a second she was frozen, but when an egg hit her injured chest with particular viciousness, she cried out in pain and rage and started toward the small crowd.
Some of them screamed and backed away. A few held their phones high a
s they concentrated on recording her, and still others continued to launch eggs with self-righteous anger.
She couldn’t hurt the ignorant sons of bitches, but she could scare the fuck out of them. She shot her silver claws out and dropped her fangs.
One of the people recording her was a boy who couldn’t have been much older than fifteen. She sped toward him and knocked his phone from his hand before he was aware she’d moved.
More screams as the humans witnessed her crazy fast speed, but as though aware she wouldn’t really hurt them, they mostly held their ground.
But then she spotted a big dude in a black leather vest hurl a short silver blade.
That, she’d hurt them over.
From her peripheral vision, she caught a glimpse of someone running toward her.
“Rune,” Lex called.
And she snatched the blade out of the air.
Lex was covered with weapons, her usually emotionless face held in tight lines of rage. “Fuck you,” she screamed to the small mob. “Get the fuck out of here.”
She was terrified.
She tried to disguise it, to hide it beneath her anger—but Rune felt it. She tasted it, smelled it.
Lex was terrified.
COS.
Rune groaned. COS was in the city to help the humans with the monsters. If she hadn’t been so exhausted she’d have realized what that meant to Lex and the twins.
Especially Lex. She’d been conditioned from the day she was born to fear COS, to fear her mother. The Other was a badass, but the slayers turned her into a pile of trembling sludge. They shut her brain right the fuck down.
“Shit, Lex,” she murmured.
Levi and Denim scattered the humans as they went for the knife-thrower. He saw them coming, started to run, then changed his mind.
He pulled a gun.
“Fuck,” Rune screamed. She retracted her claws and was at his back in seconds, but still, he’d managed to fire the weapon. And though he’d fired at the twins, he hit one of his fellow protesters.
She flew into him and knocked him to the ground, but the damage had been done.
Rune let Levi and Denim handle him as she knelt beside the shot human. The crowd grew quiet and watched with wide eyes and pale faces. Two women murmured into phones, calling, Rune assumed, 911.
But it was too late for the human, a fifty-something man with a furry hat and a sticker pasted to his overcoat: Death to the monsters!
Indeed.
She climbed to her feet and walked toward the twins, who were keeping the shooter down.
Lex joined her, her body vibrating. “We took a room close to yours so we’d be here when you woke up. Didn’t turn out the way we’d hoped.”
“It rarely does.” Rune sighed. “The man he shot is dead. I don’t want to be here when the cops show up. Pile into my car and let’s get the fuck out of here.” The berserker was right. They needed to stick together.
The shooter lay on his belly. One of the twins had restrained his hands behind his back with nylon cuffs. “Just leave him?” Levi asked.
Rune nodded. “He’s not going anywhere.” She pointed at the little knot of humans, now huddled together in shock and silence. “They won’t let him.” The humans might have hated her and the Others, but they hadn’t come prepared to watch one of their own die.
They still stared at Rune with hatred and fear, but they stared at the shooter the same way—minus the fear.
Even as she watched, a tall, dark-haired woman separated from the crowd and strode toward the shooter, her face shuttered and dark.
When she began kicking him in the head, Rune looked at her crew. “Let’s go.” The sound of sirens filled the air. They’d get there in time to save the shooter from a concussion. Maybe.
She handed her keys to Levi. His fingers brushed hers as he took the keys, and then he reached out to grab her wrist with his free hand.
They stared at each other for a long, quiet moment.
“We okay?” she asked.
“Yes.” He smiled, and there were no lingering grudges or regrets in his eyes. “We are good.”
She nodded. “Then let’s get out of here.”
“Raze, Jack, and Owen went to help some Others a couple hours ago,” Lex told her, once they were headed down the highway. “The shifters were shot up with silver and buried alive by a mob of fucking humans.”
“Scared humans,” Denim said. He was sitting in the front with Levi, and glanced back at Lex as he spoke.
“Doesn’t excuse them,” she snapped.
“No, it doesn’t. Lex—”
“Not right now,” she said.
The blind Other was still hurt over the twins abandoning her, but Rune doubted she’d stay angry for much longer. With the appearance of COS, she and the twins would soon close ranks.
“Where’s Strad?” Rune asked.
Before any of them could answer, her cell buzzed. It was the berserker.
“Rune. I’m at Toad’s and Butter’s in the Moor. I need you here.”
“I’m with the twins and Lex. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Need me to call the others?”
“I’ll do it.” He clicked off.
“What’s up?” Levi asked.
“Something at Toad’s and Butter’s. He didn’t specify.”
“I can feed you,” Lex offered.
“I’m okay for now.”
But as they hurtled down the highway toward the Moor, she knew she was lying.
She’d never really been okay, and she wasn’t going to start now.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The few customers and employees at Toad’s and Butter’s were busy taking pictures of a dead, bloody bear sprawled out on the dirty wood floor.
There would soon be pictures and videos all over YouTube and Facebook of the crew examining the half-shifted bear.
Jack and Raze were already there, standing with Strad over the body. Owen walked in just seconds after Rune.
Rune knelt to examine the bear. “Jack, you and Raze move these people back. Owen, help me look over the body. Lex, if you get a reading let me know. Denim and Levi, one of you question the customers and the other talk to the wait staff.”
“Rune,” Lex said, “I’m getting a strange feeling.”
“What?” Rune asked.
The Other vibrated gently, her sightless eyes dancing. “Just strange.”
Rune frowned and studied the shifter. The bear was naked and grotesque in death, more so because he wasn’t completely shifted than because of the deep wounds on his body.
Patches of fur competed for space with the bloody, jagged wounds. His mouth was open, showing long, sharp teeth crowding a mostly human face. His torso was bear, his arms and legs human. He looked like a mutant spider.
She leaned over him. “Guys. These wounds aren’t from a blade.”
Strad knelt down, ignoring Owen but nodding a hello to the others. He studied the wounds. “You’re right.” He leaned closer, his eyes narrowed. “These are from teeth.”
“Holy fuck,” someone yelled. “They just said those are teeth marks. Someone tried to eat the fucking bear!”
“I heard bear meat is tasty,” someone else said, causing those near him to break out into laughter.
As though a man had not just been killed.
Rune growled. “Jack.”
“On it.” He pushed the humans back farther, ignoring their complaints. “Go sit the fuck down or I’m going to clear this room.”
No one argued with him and at last, the customers drifted back to their tables and to the long bar, leaving the crew to their investigation.
“What the hell are people doing at a bar this early in the morning?” Rune muttered. But this place was in the Moor—her new home. Nothing was normal in the Moor.
Lex put her hand on Rune’s shoulder and leaned down to whisper in her ear. She said only one word, and that one word filled Rune with dread.
“Zombies.”
Strad a
nd Owen looked at her quizzically.
“What is it?” Owen asked, kneeling on her other side.
She swallowed. “Rock County shit has found us.”
It only took them a second.
“Fuck,” Strad said.
A vivid image of Z hit her mind’s eye like a bomb. She grabbed her head and groaned.
“Rune,” Strad said. “What?”
“Sadness,” Lex murmured. “Part zillion.”
Rune lowered her hands and shook her head, hard, forcing out thoughts of Z. “I’m okay.” She took a deep breath, got her emotions under control, then motioned Strad closer. “I doubt the bear came far with injuries like these.”
He nodded. “Before I called you, I called for the RISC bus to take him to the lab. We’ll need to get him away from these people.”
“Do we know if we can be infected by a body?”
“There have been some cases.”
She wiped her hands on her jeans and stood. “Let’s not take any chances. Just keep the people away from him until RISC arrives.”
Owen stood as well, his arm brushing Rune’s shoulder. Strad stared at him with narrowed eyes.
“Owen,” Rune said. “Call Bill Rice.”
He nodded and pulled his cell phone from his pocket, walking a few steps away to make the call.
Denim and Levi joined them. “I got nothing,” Denim said. “The bear apparently walked in, fell to the floor, and died.” He shrugged. “There was nothing else.”
Levi nodded. “Same here. He never said anything at all, just…died.”
Rune motioned them to her. “Zombies,” she said, quietly.
“That is not good,” Jack said, trying to whisper. His voice rumbled with a low, gritty darkness that echoed throughout the room. “Fucking zombies?”
“Jack,” Rune said. She shook her head, frowning.
“Sorry.”
But he was right. It was not good.
Not good at all.
She glanced toward the door and rested her fingers on her sheathed silver blades, willing RISC to appear and cart off the bear.
“Oh no.” Lex pointed. “Look.”
The bear had begun to twitch. And change. His eyes opened.
Empty eyes.
The crew stared, disbelief on their faces.
“How is this happening?” Rune asked. “Damascus is gone. The Other zombies went with her. I saw them lying in piles upon the ground. How is this possible?”
