by Susan Bliler
***
Hayes watched from behind her as Emma gave the most pitiful attempt he’d ever seen at chopping firewood. Hell, he’d been watching for thirty minutes and she’d only gotten through three logs. Six measly pieces of firewood for all her effort. He wasn’t sure if it was because she was human or a human female, but she was weak as an adolescent wolf shifter. He snorted quietly. Probably weaker. After a few more minutes and once she’d apparently hurt her back, he could take no more and stepped out of the woods, approaching her stealthily. He knew the dog on the porch would give him away before he could get close enough, but he didn’t care.
The dog started barking and he’d expected Emma to whirl on him, axe raised. When she asked, “Back so soon,” it didn’t make sense. Well, not until she turned around.
The Emma from yesterday was gone. In her place was a busted up version. One eye was black and swollen nearly shut, a blood shot eye peeking through. Her lip was cracked and her cheek was swollen, and she just looked tired.
His hands balled into involuntary fists. Who in the fuck would… “What happened to you?”
She rolled her good eye and gave him her back as she hefted the axe and let it settle into the chopping block. “As if you don’t know.”
“What happened to you,” he demanded again with a little more heat. The longer he looked at her, the angrier he grew. A shifter male abusing a human female was beyond cowardly, it was so damn pitiful that it was damn near unheard of. Still, it didn’t keep his wolf from lunging at the surface in an attempt to break free and go on the hunt.
His wolf didn’t get the chance though because now Emma was whirling on him. “I went to forbidden shifter territory to ask for help. They didn’t like it. Told me to leave,” her eyes narrowed accusatorily. “Then they sent the same shifter that’s been fucking with me back out here to teach me a lesson. Lesson learned. Good job, a-hole.” She turned and walked toward her small cabin, her dog finally silencing and following her.
She thinks I had this done to her? The accusation stung but worse, something in him snapped. He didn’t want her thinking he or his pack had any part in the beating she took. “He’s not one of ours.”
His words had her feet slowing until she came to a halt, but she didn’t turn to face him.
“My Alpha sent me over to get more information from you. The guy you’re talking about, the one that did that to you, he’s not one of ours.” But he was a dead motherfucker!
She looked over her shoulder with the good side of her face showing. “I told you everything.”
Hayes took a step closer. “Not what happened to your face.”
“He showed up last night when I was hauling in firewood. Snuck up behind me and blindsided me. Said he knew I’d gone asking the Alpha for help.” He shoved me around. Wanted me to know how weak I was, how easy it’d be to break me.”
Hayes' eyes darkened in anger, dark brows spearing down. “Where was your dog? Why didn’t she protect you?”
“She was inside. Besides I don’t want her getting hurt over me.”
Well that was just dumb. “That doesn’t look like just shoving.”
Emma looked at the ground then gave him her back a second time as she walked to her cabin. “Sadly it was. He shoved my face into the side of the house and said…”
“Said what?”
“Said I could either be a source or a concubine.” She suddenly looked pissed. “I’m pretty sure I get his meaning of concubine, but what in the hell does he mean by source?”
Hayes didn’t answer though. He couldn’t. He was trying damn hard to mask his surprise at her words. A source? Fuuuuck! It couldn’t be…could it? It’s been ages since any of those were in this area.
Annoyed that he wouldn’t answer, Emma growled, “Please get off my land and tell your Alpha and your friend that I’m shooting the next shifter who comes onto my territory uninvited.”
She disappeared inside her cabin and the door closed. He heard her engage the locks and he knew that she had to know by now that the locks couldn’t protect her, not from shifters.
Instead of leaving as she’d ordered, Hayes made the rounds about her property trying to digest the information she’d given him. If she was telling the truth, things were bad.
He distracted himself with taking in the nice little homestead. It was well kept. She had chickens in a coop out back. She also had two horses, a cow, and a gaggle of geese at a pond that sat just behind her small barn. It’d be a lot of work for one woman to keep up and he knew she was alone. The faintest scent of a human male lingered on her, but it was faint enough to tell him that the guy, whoever he was, was no longer in the picture. Unfortunately, those were the only scents he picked up. There was no shifter scent anywhere, which only served to confirm his belief. If wolves wanted the territory, they’d have already started marking it, but there was none of that.
He shifted into his wolf form, the huge gray wolf snuffling loudly at the ground and trees as he worked in a wider and wider circle seeking out scent.
After several hours, Hayes swung back by the cabin, but Emma still hadn’t emerged, which was good he supposed. Best she kept herself locked up tight for the night. Tomorrow, he knew Jaxon would be wanting to pay her a visit. Reluctantly, he made his way back to his side of the mountain, his wolf urging him to stay and guard the female. It was odd. Just yesterday the beast had an ill reaction to her and today it didn’t want to stray too far. What. In. The. Fuck?
Chapter 4
Hayes, Jaxon, and Udara were making their way toward Emma’s homestead. They’d considered bringing a truck, but decided that if her attacker was back in the area they’d have a better chance of catching him in wolf form. They’d also opted to leave half the pack back at the compound in case this was some kind of lure to get them to leave their territory.
When Hayes had told Jaxon about the attacker and his ‘concubine or source’ speech, the Alpha had called an immediate pack meeting. Everyone needed to know that there was potential danger in the area.
Now, as the two gray wolves and one black wolf closed in on Emma’s cabin, Hayes could feel agitation prickling at him. Something was off. Yesterday from this distance he’d picked up the sound of her geese flapping around the pond, the heavy tread of her horse’s hooves as they milled about their enclosure, the frequent moo of her cow, and the incessant ground scratching from her chickens. None of that was present now, and his wolf kept trying to take lead and rush the cabin, which was bad form considering he was Beta and not Alpha. Jaxon must have sensed his restlessness too because his wolf kept turning to curl a lip at Hayes. But, the closer they got the more anxious Hayes grew until he picked up a scent that had him surging forward, blasting by Jaxon and Udara as he raced to Emma’s cabin.
He broke through the clearing and saw her cabin. It was just past dawn and still long shadows of night were cast over the homestead. The warm glow of light filtered out through her open door. Hayes didn’t need it though. He saw the maimed body of her dog just fine with his wolf’s sight. Quickly, his eyes jerked across the clearing, his nostrils flaring as panic hit him. When his eyes landed on Emma’s crumpled body, Hayes rushed her and shifted, regenerating his jeans, boots, and thermal shirt as he slid in the dirt on his knees right up to an unconscious and bloody Emma. “FUCK!”
Her chest rose and fell slowly and that gave him hope. It fled though when he looked at her black and white collie. The animal was gone.
He sifted through all the scents as he checked over her body, anger, her dog’s blood, terror, her blood. His hands stilled when he turned her head and he saw the bite marks at her throat. Fucking vampires!
Quickly, he hoisted Emma up off the ground as Jaxon and Udara surrounded them, both scanning the area as they escorted Hayes and his slight burden into the cabin.
Jaxon, good Alpha that he was, went back out and scooped up the dog bringing it inside too.
Udara, pack Omega, was also the pack healer, and once inside she barked order
s at both Jaxon and Hayes. They did her bidding, bringing her towels, a large bowl of water, and then began a frantic search for a first aid kit.
“Hayes,” Udara barked. “Check the fridge for juice or something sweet to drink. She’s lost a lot of blood.”
Hayes rushed the kitchen and jerked the fridge open pulling out a pitcher of orange juice and cursing his shaking hands as he tried to steady them to fill a glass. He chalked it up to adrenaline and the need to bleed a fucking vamp, but secretly there was a little fear too. He didn’t want Emma dying on them. She’d come to them for help and they’d failed her…a fragile fucking human…and he didn’t want that on his pack.
Juice in hand he rushed back to the bedroom. Udara was sitting on the side of the bed beside Emma, using a clean cloth to swipe at the blood on her neck.
“How bad,” he asked.
“Not sure,” Udara kept on cleaning. “Most of this is dry and it doesn’t look like any more is coming out.” She shook her head, “Christ he practically drained her. Look at her face.”
Hayes did and winced. She was still beat up from yesterday, but now she was pale as shit, her eyes were hollow, and her cheeks were sunken in.
“Wrap the dog!” Udara commanded.
“What? No! He’s already dead,” Hayes argued.
Jaxon shoved him aside and pulled a two pack of gauze from the first aid kit he’d found before ripping the pack open and handing a roll to Udara before using the other to hold the dogs ripped out middle together.
“I know he’s gone,” Udara hissed as she cleaned and then wrapped Emma’s throat. “But I’m gonna have to heal her and she doesn’t need to see her dog like that.”
Jaxon’s hands slowed and he looked up at Udara intently. “Does it have to be done?” He was talking about Udara healing Emma. As of late, the Alpha had grown protective of Udara and reluctant to permit her to heal others.
She nodded. “She’s fading fast.” Done wrapping Emma’s throat, she looked at Jaxon urgently. “Hurry!”
He nodded and continued and when he was done he paced around the bed, he and Hayes switching places.
“I’m gonna go out,” Udara began as she lifted her hands and hovered them over Emma’s chest. She looked up at Jaxon. “Take care of me?”
The Alpha nodded with a solemn, “Always!”
Then Udara unbuttoned several buttons on Emma’s shirt and slid her hands in, palm side down to go skin to skin as she flattened her hands on Emma’s chest, just below her collar bone. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, her lips moving as she mumbled the words she used as Omega to bring about her healing powers.
The room filled with a surge of power and both Jaxon and Hayes were forced back a step with the intensity. Then Udara’s head was falling forward, her body going limp as Jaxon rushed forward and caught her body up in his arms as she went lax. Omega’s called it healing but it really wasn’t. It was a gifting of one’s own energy to another to aid in healing. In severe cases like Emma’s, the sheer volume of energy needed completely drained Udara.
Jaxon’s booted feet sounded loudly on the wooden floor as he carried Udara from the room.
Hayes paced and waited, dark brows spearing down, but crystalline blue eyes locked on Emma’s lashes. Some of the hollowness in her face had filled in and her bruising had healed some.
Finally she sucked in a deep breath and her eyes fluttered open, the swollen one revealed a little more of her iris than it had yesterday.
Emma blinked several times and then gasped.
“Easy!” Hayes hurried to kneel on the floor beside the bed, grabbing a hand and reassuring her. “You’re safe now. My pack is here.”
A tear slipped free from her good eye that was wide with fear, but when she looked over and saw her dog lying lifeless on the bed beside her, her face fell and she jerked her hands free of Hayes’ to fist one in the dog’s scruff before hauling her to where Emma could gather the animal in a tight embrace. She buried her face in the dog’s coat and moaned a heart wrenching, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Few things had the power to fill Hayes' throat with emotion and make it painful to swallow, but this sight did. Emma rocked her dead animal back and forth, sobbing uncontrollably and Hayes had to pace away from the bed. The scent of Emma’s agony was so overwhelming that it had the badass Beta’s eyes welling with emotion, his own chest constricting in agony. It was a good thing that Udara was out, because she could sense and feel other people’s emotions. The level of Emma’s anguish would have been excruciating to her.
Emma cried hard and it didn’t stop until she took in a long shuddering breath and then went back out. It had Hayes snarling as he paced to the living room.
Jaxon sat on the couch with his hands fisted in his hair. Udara rested behind him. Lifting his head, he glared at Hayes, “Well that was fucking unbearable.”
Hayes didn’t reply. He couldn’t. Red hot rage was coursing through him so fiercely that his wolf was literally salivating for vampire blood.
“Rest of the pack is on their way. When they get here, you get them out there and find me a mother fucking scent. I don’t care if it takes you days. I want this fucker!”
Hayes nodded and turned to eye Emma’s doorway. He’d seen it before where even with the gifting of Udara’s energy, some people were injured so greatly that while it saved them, it didn’t heal them completely. The fact that Emma had gone back out was a testament to how badly she’d been drained. Hayes’ fists balled so tightly that it hurt. Then he was out the door. He couldn’t wait for the pack. They’d have to find him once they arrived.
Chapter 5
Emma woke slowly and it wasn’t pretty. Every part of her hurt from her hair to her toe nails. She opened her good eye and tried to swallow but her throat felt like yarn, scratchy and dry.
“Here, drink this.”
Someone held something to her lips and she blinked rapidly to focus. Her body didn’t care though, it drank down the sweet liquid not even caring if the provider could be trusted.
After a few swallows she leaned away and her vision finally cleared. Hayes’ broad back came into view as he set the glass on her night stand. When he turned to her, he looked like she felt.
“You…,” she croaked, coughed once, and began again. “You look like shit.”
He only snorted as he ran a hand roughly through his hair, clearing the bangs from his impossibly blue eyes.
Emma swallowed again. She was stalling because she remembered everything and didn’t have the heart to face it. She knew she had to though. She’d learned with the death of her husband, Dean, that running from pain only delayed the inevitable. She turned her head to look at the blood soaked mattress beside her. “Where’s…where’s Ruby?”
Hayes' lips thinned into a grim line, his features craggy looking with the weariness that clearly plagued him. He jerked his head toward the wall. “There was a cross at the bottom of the hill out back. I buried her there.”
Emma nodded solemnly. “Thank you.”
“Who’s the cross for, Emma?”
She frowned, not wanting to talk about Dean right now, not when the loss of Ruby was threatening to crush her. She shook her head.
A man stepped into the room behind Hayes and Emma inhaled sharply and tensed.
“Easy,” Hayes held up a placating hand. “This is my Alpha, Jaxon. Jaxon Voshall.”
A few people filed in behind him and Jaxon introduced them in turn as Hayes moved to the opposite side of the room.
“This is Aden and Vance, our pack enforcers.”
The younger sandy haired one threw up a peace sign, while the taller male closer to her age gave her a lopsided grin and offered, “Beautiful,” by way of greeting.
A small female with curly blonde waves entered an offered a sad smile. “This is Bay, also a pack enforcer.” Jaxon informed her then he was pointing at the door way. “Udara is asleep on your couch. You’ll meet her later.”
Asleep? Who could sleep at a time like thi
s? She didn’t ask it though.
Then he nodded toward Hayes. “You’ve already met Hayes Morrow, my Beta.”
“Hayes, huh?” she looked at the dark haired behemoth and gifted him a sad smirk. “In my head I’ve been referring to you as the jerk.”
He snorted.
Her attention went back to Jaxon. “What are you all doing here?”
Jaxon squared up to the bed. “We came to meet with you this morning, found you bleeding out.”
“What did you come for, this morning I mean?”
“I wanted more information,” Jaxon shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “From what Hayes had told me, I had a sneaking suspicion we were dealing with vamps, but I wanted to make sure. So,” he frowned hard. “Wanna tell us what happened?”
“I locked myself up tight all night long, but then when I woke I noticed the rooster hadn’t crowed. I listened harder and I couldn’t hear any of my livestock, which was odd. Those damn chickens never shut up and my cow will moo her head off until I get up and milk her. But this morning, there was nothing. I got up and dressed, grabbed my shotgun and went to check on things.” Emotion welled in her eyes as they took on a far off gaze. “They were all dead. Every last one. I knew it was him. I turned to hurry back to the house to lock Ruby inside and everything happened so fast. One minute I was turning and the next I was sailing through the air, shotgun ripped from my hands. I saw Ruby lunge for the guy…vampire, but then I slammed into the barn and cracked my head so hard I saw stars. I didn’t even get a chance to shake it off before he was on me. He pinned me to the ground, hand around my throat and said he’d make me a source now and concubine later. Then he bit me. God, it hurt so damn bad.”
“He didn’t try to mask it, make you enjoy it?” the female, Bay, growled.
“Enjoy it?” Emma frowned hard. “It was one of the most painful experiences of my life. I tried to fight him, but he grabbed my arm. He held it so tight I thought it was going to snap.”
