Blood Enchantment

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  “So these men—they somehow found you?”

  “There's no somehow about it. They scented my cycle, and without a male, I'm vulnerable.” Adi can't keep the disdain out of her voice. “Even if I could kick one of their asses, I can't do three.”

  “No,” Jenni agrees easily.

  In that, there's no problem figuring out the logistics of that scenario. She's a chick; Jenni knows the score.

  “That's why we were overpowered to begin with. There were too many.” Adi's eyes fill again. Moon dammit. What in the hell is wrong with me? “There were four Lycan males and just me and Slash. We didn't stand a chance.”

  Jenni cups her elbows, expression pensive. “I feel like I'll wake up any second, and you'll be a normal woman.”

  Adi laughs. “Nope.”

  Jenni's shoulders slump. “Okay. So your healing powers have convinced me. You are something. But I can't just leave my post here and take off with an unidentified patient without more information.”

  “I'm not unidentified,” Adi states reasonably.

  Jenni rolls her eyes. “Uh-huh. You say your name is Adrianna.”

  Adi shifts her weight. “Nobody calls me that but Slash. Adi's my nickname.”

  Jenni nods, nervously playing with her stethoscope. “How can you convince me?”

  “My eyes weren't enough?”

  “That was weird,” she concedes.

  “Are you always this skeptical?”

  Jenni nods. “Pretty much. And for the record, nurses are primarily in the science-math vocation. You know—science. Prove it.”

  “Does anyone know about the cancer?”

  Jenni's face crumples, and Adi feels like an ass.

  “Sorry.”

  Her direct gaze moves to Adi as she inhales deeply. “Don't be. I guess I'm in the anger stage of my diagnosis. I'm only twenty-eight and—” She tosses out a frustrated breath. “I feel like my body's betrayed me.”

  Adi gets a great idea, but she can't voice it. She knows what the pack would say: You can't save everyone. And on the heels of that: humans are lowly.

  Besides, she's got her own backyard to mow. Still, her epiphany niggles.

  “Just get me out of here, but first, we have to camouflage my scent. And even with that, they might scent me.”

  “You smell all yummy now?” Jenni asks. But the solemn look on Adi's face makes Jenni's smile fade.

  Adi nods slowly. “Oh yeah.”

  Jenni frowns. “What about Slash? Wouldn't he smell you, too?”

  Adi looks at her bare feet. “Yeah,” she whispers.

  “So you're telling me that the guy that said he loved you and wanted to be your ʻmate,ʼ took your virginity then told you to get lost? Then let you go out there to be cherry-picked by wandering werewolves?” She shakes her head in clear disbelief, flipping her palm out as if to ask for an explanation.

  When said like that, it makes Slash sound awful.

  Maybe he is. “Looks like it.”

  “That's terrible.” Then Jenni's face perks up. “Well, we're a pair. But I have to say—this Slash? He took more than your v-card.”

  Adi nods, a defeated breath whistling out of her.

  Jenni puts a hand on her shoulder.

  She looks up into Jenni's compassionate face. “You know, I'm supposed to be the bad ass werewolf here.”

  “Right now, I just see a woman with a broken heart.”

  Jenni's scrubs catch her tears.

  *

  “This is desecrating the dead.” Jenni mutters in revulsion, wrinkling her nose.

  “The dead don't know anything,” Adi says, rubbing liquefied decomposing human organs over her arms and around her neck.

  “I can get in so much trouble, and it's gross.”

  Adi gives her a look of pure frustration. “I'm the one wearing the guts. I know I reek like road kill.”

  “It's so bad. And a must be against some religion somewhere. Ugh.”

  Probably all of them.

  “But these humans’ remains had already been used for their donor purposes. This is just remnants.” Adi gives her a be logical look.

  “This better work,” Jenni mutters.

  Adi grips her shoulders. “It's not going to work. It'll only buy us time. I'm hoping, once we're inside your car—”

  “What?” Jenny screeches, horrified.

  “Shh!” Adi scans the inside of the morgue. The metallic, impersonal surfaces reflect back at her with the dimmed LED lighting. In a low voice, Adi continues, “Once we're in your vehicle, it would take an awesome tracker to find me.”

  “We slather you with human remains and that allows you to slip away in the interim?”

  “Exactly—now get my face.”

  Adi closes her eyes, and Jenni marks her with cold decomposing human soup, putting two fingers’ worth above her eyes and each cheekbone.

  Jenni grimaces. “There. Ick.” She removes latex gloves, tossing them with two fingertips in the bio-hazard can.

  Adi steps back and moves to the deep washbasin. Looking at the warped mirror above the sink, she slaps the faucet lever on.

  The gore of dead humans decorates her face like war paint. Her eyes are seated in the mess of blood and human tissue like stranded jewels of mixed gold, brown, and flecks of green. Adi's hair is slicked back and thrown in a messy dark-gold topknot at the crown of her head.

  She does look pretty sick. Adi smiles. None of those pervs are going to dig her now. She smells like a corpse. Adi turns, winking at Jenni.

  Jenni crosses her arms and groans. Then she says for the millionth time, “I can't believe I'm doing this.”

  Adi hides a smile. “Me, either.”

  “Anyone ever tell you you're kind of difficult?” Jenni asks.

  “All the time.” Adi flicks her eyes at the rolling stainless steel cart. “Now let's toss me in the body bag and get to the garage.”

  “Right. And just for the record, I don't normally haul the dead that way. Or any way. I'm a nurse. For the living.”

  Adi feels her eyes go wolfen, hot—itchy. She's already quarter-changed, she has to be. But her wolf roils beneath her skin. “I can feel the heat, Jenni.”

  Her beast wants to breed, and her mate is nowhere. Not that she'd let Slash touch her again.

  Adi's chin kicks up and her shoulders straighten. “The hell with it, I can live through this heat bullshit, but I gotta get out of here.”

  Jenni sighs. “I'm bringing some plastic for my car.”

  Adi turns so Jenni won't see the smirk. Cars. So not a priority. She slips into the cold body bag. The plastic crunches around her body as though rejecting her because she’s not dead.

  Tough.

  Jenni's face appears above the opening. They stare at each other for a moment.

  “I'm zipping you.”

  Adi nods.

  The zipper slides up, and the view narrows. Jenni's a couple of inches from closing it when the zipper stalls. “You'll suffocate.”

  “It's okay,” Adi says, already wanting to claw her way out. But Jenni leaves that tiny gap for her.

  The smell of death is like a cocoon around her. Her beast doesn't like plastic—or being contained.

  Jenni turns Adi's cart in the direction of the exit, and they slap through the swinging morgue doors.

  Ceiling lights flicker above her as they pass through the hall.

  They slow. Quiet words are exchanged. Adi hears a buzz then the soft whirring of automated doors.

  Adi slows her vitals. She concentrates on her heartbeat and breathing. The heat cycles like a yo-yo from deep within. She focuses on the rush of her blood in her veins.

  The cart stops suddenly, and Adi slides forward a little, feeling unbalanced. She almost barks at the poor human she commandeered for this little fiasco—then the smell hits her.

  Were. They're here. Close.

  “Can I help you?” Jenni says. Her voice is neutral and indifferent, but her scent isn't.

  Damn.
>
  Jenni's heartbeat sounds like a deer on the run. Worst physical response ever. Her cancer's scent is like riddled Swiss cheese. The Lycan males will smell her disease—maybe Adi—everything.

  We’re fucked.

  Adi feels responsible for Jenni’s safety.

  “You wear the smell of a female we are trying to locate.”

  They're not even trying to sound like human men. Moon. Adi masked her smell, but not what she’d passed to Jenni.

  Could I not think of that?

  The male voice is growly. Adi works to stay loose and unconcerned—a supreme challenge.

  “What are you talking about?” Jenni asks with convincing confusion. “ʻWear the smellʼ?”

  “There was a female admitted in a car accident. Where is she?”

  More growl in the tone.

  Adi takes shallow breathes. She can't protect Jenni. Hell, she can't protect herself.

  “I am not required to answer your questions, now step out of my way, or I'll call hospital security.”

  Adi closes her eyes against the human female’s bravery. She would make a great Were. Jenni reminds Adi of Cyn, with a filter.

  “Hey!” Jenni suddenly yells.

  A hand touches the body bag, and Adi tenses. Her eyeball rolling to see through the tiny gap.

  She can smell Lycan male. A shadow looms, blocking out what little light pierced the small opening.

  Oh moon.

  She's never wished for Slash more than she does in that moment—or hated him more.

  The zipper begins to slide away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Slash

  The landscape blurs as Slash charges expertly between branches that reach for his sprinting form.

  He only slows when he needs to gather more of his mate's scent. When he picks up a cross-scent, he grinds to a halt. His talons leave deep gouges in the forest floor, and the hem of his athletic pants are drenched with moisture and dirt shot up from running. He re-ties the string at the waistband. His hands are awkward in this form, but Slash maintains it stubbornly.

  He's not fucking around with his sense of smell. It's inferior in his human form, and he can't afford delays. And, unlike the females, he doesn't have the benefit of the quarter-change. It's wolfen or bust.

  Three Lycan males have crossed Adi's scent trail. A low growl rumbles through Slash, breaking the seal of his lips as a howl shivers at the edge of his tongue.

  Why are they here? This is not a claimed territory by any Were. The Lanarre hold the Hoh Rain Forest, and all other packs are south and west of this area. They were asking for trouble, wandering uninvited in foreign Were territory.

  Slash's brow furrows as he sinks to his knees. Lowering his face to barely an inch above the obvious footprints of Were in wolfen form, Slash closes his eyes, inhaling deeply.

  The smell causes his blood to run hotter. An instant erection hardens, throbbing painfully between his legs, and his skull aches. Teeth lengthen automatically as his body burns to be his wolf.

  Slash springs to his feet. A howl bursts from his throat as if torn and bloody. He feels his eyes go to those of his wolf, simmering inside the bones of his face. He holds back, knowing his restraint is not limitless, and tries for impossible calm.

  His nose isn't perfect, but it's never made him a liar. Slash's heightened sense of smell tells him the horrible news:

  Adrianna is in heat.

  Their time together did more than cement their lifelong relationship. And if he knows her cycle has begun, the other three who stumbled across her scent trail know it, as well.

  Slash hesitates, deliberating his odds of saving her from an uninvited mating and sentencing them both to death.

  It takes him about three seconds to decide.

  I'll have to take my chances. Three to one is better odds than when Tramack and his people came and caught the two of them off guard.

  Slash pivots, crouching slightly, then leaps forward powerfully, spraying leaves, fir needles, and moist earth behind him.

  His revolving wolfen eyes assist him now, sweeping his periphery as his blinding speed causes the forest to be a green smear that flanks him. Slash crashes through a creek. Hitting the other side, he stops dead.

  Toiletries are scattered about, standing out like beacons of civilization in the middle of nature. Slash scoops up a toothbrush half-buried in the muck of the creek and raises it to his nose. He salivates as his beast rises in recognition of his mate—and her heat.

  The only thing his wolf wants to do is breed Adrianna. That is the very thing any other male werewolf will want to do.

  Slash must get to her first.

  He tosses the toothbrush to the ground. He studies the ravine rising away from the creek bed. The distant hum of human vehicles rushing beyond his line of sight emits a low mechanical purr.

  Slash vacillates. Why would Adrianna head toward the highway? He drops to his haunches, scanning the dirt carefully. Many tracks obscure Adi’s. Her shampoo bottle is crushed. The contents are a vile blue against the rich earthy colors of the forest. An altered paw print has stomped the bottle. Talons have punctured the stout tube of plastic. Slash sucks in a breath.

  They pursued her. Running.

  Adrenaline surges. His attention hangs up at the other side of the broad creek. He furiously imagines what might have occurred.

  Hot syrupy fear pumps through him as pins and needles bloom within his body. He sees the scene in living color. Adrianna is grooming. His eyes move to her filthy toothbrush and the burst shampoo bottle. Then his focus turns to a point directly across the water.

  They saw her.

  When Adrianna noticed them, she ran. He touches the smaller altered paw print. It’s smeared as though she pivoted. Hard.

  Slash stands, clenching and unclenching his fists.

  The hold on his wolf is tenuous. Slash must make time to settle his beast, or he runs the risk of exploding his wolfen form and going to Were. And that, he doesn't need. Three shifts in fewer than twenty-four hours is an energy zapper.

  He can't protect Adrianna if he’s weak. He can't protect her if they have her already.

  Moon, help me.

  Slash inhales deeply, sprinting to where Adi’s trail ends at the edge of the road, and gazes at the center of the highway. The beast whimpers. His eyes burn, and his vision doubles to his own and that of his beast’s.

  All he sees is her blood. All his beast scents is the remnants of her injury. A car whizzes by, and Slash staggers to the middle of the two-lane freeway, oblivious to the traffic.

  Screeching tires slice his eardrums like razor blades. Slash realizes he's slipped back to his human form automatically. It doesn't matter. Adrianna's blood fills his nostrils. What she did destroys his mind.

  She threw herself into traffic.

  Slash doesn't howl. He leaves the catastrophic proof of Adrianna's accident and flies to the shoulder at the other side of the freeway.

  Glass tinkling and metal kissing metal enters Slash's dull consciousness. Drivers exit their cars, hands in fists. One look from Slash, and they slow their progress toward him. His eyes burn with the change, his body fighting to complete the form alteration.

  His revolving stare narrows to slivers as they draw nearer in challenge. They study him. The human men have just enough primal instincts of self-preservation to get their asses back into their vehicles.

  He dismisses them.

  Slash is Red. He can track.

  But Adrianna's scent disappears from the spattering of blood covering the yellow dashes of the highway like an escaped ghost.

  Someone took her.

  The males?

  Slash paces the shoulder as traffic increases with the hour and the abused cars that tried to avoid him roll to the shoulder. Humans exchange insurance information, casting dark looks at Slash.

  They look away when his eyes meet theirs.

  The wail of sirens approach, growing louder with each whoop.

  His head s
naps up at the noise the humans can't hear yet.

  Of course. The hospital.

  Hope floods Slash as he tracks the ambulance speeding toward him. A grin of sheer pleasure overtakes his face, and he plunges into the woods. His body streams to wolfen as he paces the ambulance. His speed tops out at the same rate of motion as flashing strobes of red and blue splash across the highway.

  When the rioting ambulance slows, so does Slash.

  Chest heaving, he peers through the stiff branches of the forest that borders the brightly illuminated letters of the Olympic Medical Center.

  His vision closes to a tunnel. He morphs to human form and steps from the woods. His pants float to his ankles, revealing his naked form to anyone who might notice.

  Fuck.

  With an impatient sigh, he jerks them up, re-cinching the drawstring, and strides toward the ER wing. The ambulance pulls up to the doors, and a medic hops out, opening the double doors at the back. His partner is inside with the patient, and the driving medic grabs hold of the handle at the foot of the gurney.

  Slash intercepts them neatly, never breaking stride. “Hello.”

  The medics turn like a pair of startled birds. Their hands fall away from the gurney.

  Slash's nostrils flare, scenting the patient. “He's dying. Don't bother.” Then he turns and slaps the solid stainless handhold at the end of the gurney and shoves the whole thing back inside.

  Let's not have that in the mix.

  “Hey!” says the medic who drove. “Get your hands off the fucking cot!”

  Slash rotates his neck. “Just did.” Slash has a touch of regret as he clocks the medic, checking his swing at the last minute so he doesn't break the human's neck. There is no honor in killing a healer.

  As the medic crumples, Slash catches him underneath the armpits and easily hefts him inside the ambulance, lying him beside the dying patient.

  The other medic, a male who obviously sees gym time, rushes him. Were don't do gym time.

  Slash grabs the medic, jerking his forearm around the man's neck and hauling him against his chest.

  The man bucks and writhes. He’s very strong, for a human.

  Slash is at least four times stronger, though, even in his human form. “I won't kill you if you answer one question.”