“You’re still alive.”
Yusuf. Even if his face and figure were cast in shadow, she knew his voice in an instant. Her nostrils flared. She even knew his smell. Sweat and bad cologne.
Behind him, Annika and another female hovered, shifting anxiously. “Hurry. Grab him. He may be the only thing to keep them from killing us.” Anxiety hummed from them as they rushed the room. And something else. Bitter and acrid, it filled her mouth, coating her tongue. Fear. They were afraid. Panickyhot. But not from anything they faced in this room. They feared what they fled, whatever tangled with the rest of their pack above. Whatever waited Ruby and Sebastian if they got out of this room.
Yusuf’s gaze flew wildly over the room, skipping over her, searching for Sebastian.
Noise descended on them. A terrible boom. Several violent thumps came closer. Shouts and crashes. A shrill scream.
Yusuf dragged her to her feet, gripping a fistful of her hair. “Where is he?”
She shook, words strangling on her lips, wincing at the grip on her head.
A shadow fell, swooped down.
Yusuf looked up the precise moment Sebastian dropped on him.
Ruby stumbled free as the two locked, a tangle of flying limbs and pummeling fists. The females plunged into the fray with ear-burning screeches, pouncing like cats on Sebastian.
“Go!” Sebastian shouted. “Run, Ruby! Run!”
The door loomed ahead. Open and clear, she dove for it, intent on reaching the floor level, the front door. Escape. She only had to make it through warring lycans. No sweat. Right.
A niggle of guilt wormed through her. She paused, her heart a hammering thud in her chest. Glancing over her shoulder, she bit her lip. Sebastian. Her heart squeezed. She could still hear them—the smacking of fists on bodies—Sebastian’s and Yusef’s growls and grunts. Turning back, she faced the shadowed stairwell, the light ahead. Perspiration trickled down her nape.
Go. Run. You can’t help him even if you tried.
A mantra grew in her head. Get away. Get away. Get away.
Exhaling, she rushed ahead, took the steps two at a time.
But he kept you alive, Ruby. You know what it cost him to do that, what he endured. You know because you felt it yourself.
Swallowing a sob, she shook her head. If she stayed around him, he would break—feed on her and become one of them. He was better off without her. They were both better off without each other. No matter how her heart ached. She forced the heartache away.
She didn’t owe anything to a half-breed lycan who took her virginity… who made her body catch fire with a single touch. That sped up her strides and tightened her jaw. Get a grip, Ruby. This is about survival. Your safety. Not about some guy making you go weak at the knees.
No one met her at the top of the narrow stairs. She crept down an empty corridor, pressing close to one wall, palms skimming the smooth plaster. An eerie quiet prevailed, sending the small hairs along her arms into salute. What happened to all the noise? The screams?
Acutely aware of her aloneness, she paused, waiting for some sort of sound. Linked to her brethren, she felt Gunter and others nearby. So Gunter wasn’t dead then. Unfortunate. If the alpha were dead, then she would be normal again. Free.
Closing her eyes, she reached inside herself and used her newly heightened senses. Over the beating of her heart, over the blood rushing in her veins, she heard a man speaking. The distant voice grew, gaining clarity. She cocked her head, listening, trying to detect his location. She followed the voice. Down the corridor. To the left.
She stopped at the corner, listening intently to the voice. She had never heard this man before. Never felt anything like him. Immense cold. Even in a language she did not understand, its rumble was different than that of Gunter, yet he spoke with such command that she knew he was an alpha.
She continued, rounding around the corner. The sound of the voice grew, but she saw no one. She stopped at a set of swinging double doors. Where death reeked. The voice came from within.
A covert look through one filth-covered window revealed a large room. Bodies sprawled between long-neglected machinery. Dead bodies. Pools of blood stained the cement floor. Her nostrils quivered against the coppery tang of it, something dark unfurling in her belly.
Her gaze landed on Gunter. He stood before a mob of at least fifty, mostly men, some women, all outfitted with weapons and dressed in brown fatigues. Warriors. Soldiers. Even through the grimy glass, she could see the pewter gleam in their eyes.
A dozen lycans hung behind Gunter, all that remained of his pack. And her, of course. Gunter lowered himself to his knees at the feet of a tall, fair-haired man standing at the helm of the invading mob.
The guy looked more like a rock star in his tight brown pants and a mesh top. A stunning redhead stood beside him, dressed as though she were attending a garden party in her silk halter dress. She seemed bored and untouched by the carnage around her. Her gaze flicked over Gunter’s bowed head, clearly uninterested in his display of surrender.
Just then the female’s gaze locked on Ruby through the dirt-splattered glass. Her lips parted. Words fell from her lips. She pointed a finger in Ruby’s direction, and all heads swiveled to catch sight of her peeking in at them.
She fled. Her arms and legs pumped hard as she headed down the corridor, praying she discovered a way out before they caught up with her.
She pulled up, strangling on a gasp when she whipped around a corner and met a dead end. She blinked at the stark wall in front of her, hands curling and opening at her sides.
“Shit,” she muttered, spinning around, her entire body trembling with tension.
She rushed to one door, then another, shaking the latches. All locked. Her nostrils flared, ripe with the scent of her own rising panic.
Hands balling into fists, she braced herself, her chest lifting high with each breath. Several gave chase. She could hear them, their feet slapping hard on the floor. Feel them. The fall of their breath, not winded from exertion but the thrill of hunting her.
She shivered at the thought of what they would do to her. Unless she bowed to them as she’d seen Gunter do. Dropped at their feet and promised obedience. Became one of them.
Never.
She glanced around again, looking for escape, something she had overlooked. Panic swelled inside her chest. Her nails dug into her palms, cutting the tender skin.
An eerie trickle chased down her spine.
A sense of cool purpose washed through her. Determination. Only the feeling was not her own. She was reading it from someone else.
She looked up, and bit back a scream.
12
Her stifled scream twisted to a sob of relief.
Sebastian stared down at her from an open air vent. Sebastian. Alive. The sight of him swinging from the vent in a single move filled her with awe. His muscles rippled as he wrapped one arm around her and plucked her off her feet.
He pulled her up through the duct with him and secured the screen back in place… the exact moment footsteps barreled into the hall below and came to an abrupt stop under them.
A voice below snapped something in a guttural tongue she couldn’t understand—didn’t even recognize as Turkish.
Ruby raised her eyes to Sebastian, parting her lips to speak. He shook his head at her, the glint of his eyes in the confined, dark space fierce with warning. She realized she could see all of him in the pitch black: the gleaming pulse of his muscles ticking beneath grimy, sweat-streaked skin. The way his throat worked with each breath. He now wore pants. Yusuf’s. They hung low on his lean hips, drawing attention to his washboard abs. She could see everything perfectly. As if she possessed night vision. Another consequence of her newly altered state.
Biting voices sniped back and forth below. Ruby bit her lip, waiting, flinching when Sebastian closed cold fingers around hers. Still so cold. His hunger came to her then. Frightened at the force of it, she snatched her hand back. At the sound of fading foo
tsteps, she slid away from him over the slick metal.
He jabbed a finger behind her, motioning for her to continue moving. She gave a jerky nod and crawled backward, unable to turn her body until she met an intersection in the ducts. Then Sebastian moved ahead of her, leading the way.
Sounds and shouts drifted on the air. At one point feet raced beneath them, and she knew they were still being hunted. No doubt their smell lingered, easy to detect. Both she and Sebastian were covered in blood. But then blood laced the entire building. Even the blood from past kills seeped from the floors and walls… the very bones of the old structure.
Sebastian finally stopped and opened another screen, working quietly. Sliding the screen free, he dipped his head out and surveyed below before dropping down, silent on the balls of his feet.
She followed, lowering herself into his waiting hands. She glanced around, recognizing the large foyer with its tiled floor and artwork on the walls. Elated to see the door that she had entered through days ago.
He reached it first, closing one hand around the latch, pulling it open the moment a low growl sounded behind them.
A quick glance over her shoulder revealed a man, good-looking in a whipcord-lean marathon cyclist way. His dark blond hair gleamed brightly, alive with lighter, sun-bleached strands, the contrast of sun-kissed hair shocking against his tanned skin.
A light glimmered at the center of his eyes, reminding her of Sebastian. Several others stood behind him, lycans all, with their eerie pewter eyes. Her gaze drifted back to the golden one and his eyes that shone fire. Not a lycan. There was some relief in that. But not much. Because she knew he was dovenatu. With those eyes, he had to be.
“Go.” Sebastian shoved her outside, remaining wedged in the threshold, squaring off against the small throng before them.
He would fight them so she could escape?
She shook her head. She couldn’t let him do that for her. Not again. Not when she was a lycan now—with power and strength of her own. She could help him. Help them. They were so close. Why couldn’t they run for it together?
“What are you doing?” she hissed, tugging on his arm, feeling again his hunger that felt on the verge of snapping. He couldn’t take them all on. Not in his condition. He had to flee.
“Go!” He shook her off. “Get away from here. Run!” His gaze flicked to her then, clung for a moment. “From me.”
She sucked in a deep breath, catching his meaning. Feeling it. The cold determination. He would either kill Gunter and save her. Or destroy her. Because as long as her alpha lived, she would be a lycan, a monster. A monster he made it a point to hunt. How could she forget?
With a grunt, she started to turn, ready to flee, only she hesitated a breath when she saw the golden one’s face shift, flicker in and out, the features blur as if they were made of nothing more substantial than water… the way Sebastian’s face had been when he shifted. Into a dovenatu.
Sebastian’s voice roared in her head even as she moved. “Run, Ruby—run!”
She plunged into the early evening, nearly blinded from the fading red-gold gleam of light. Leaving death and the cloying smell of blood behind, only one thought burned through her mind: another dovenatu, another dovenatu.
How many were there? Sebastian made it sound as if he were an anomaly. He and his brother. But if he wasn’t… If there were more… Not all good ones, like Sebastian—what did that mean for the world?
Shaking her head, she pushed ahead, amazed at the blur of everything around her, at the speed in which she moved.
Feet pounded after her, reminding her that she wasn’t the only thing fast as wind. They closed in on her.
She whipped past buildings and yawning doorways with loitering figures. Dark, watchful eyes followed her movement with cautious detachment, ducking back in their dwellings, shoulders hunkering low. Already they knew what she fought to deny. She was something to be feared. Reviled.
She hoped to lose her pursuers in the market, but the bazaar hummed with very little activity. A few vendors hung about, gathering their wares. Even fewer shoppers traveled the warren of streets. Was it some kind of holiday? In the distance, ferry horns mingled with mournful cries calling to prayer. Now, when thousands bowed in the fading dusk, with soulless beasts hunting her, she never felt more alone. Or more abandoned by God.
The quick fall of her feet echoed through the narrow streets. A look over her shoulder revealed three lycans behind her, all male. Their eyes shot silver heat at her, deadly and determined for her blood. They moved with certain purpose, not winded or fatigued. Smiles played on their lips. They were enjoying this. The hunt. They toyed with her, let her run like a mouse ahead of them, fooling her into thinking she had a chance.
Panic fed her heart, made her pump her legs harder. She had the sensation of being a gazelle with hungry lions on her heels in an open space.
She had power, could move fast, but so could they. She needed to think, put an end to this flight of panic and adopt some strategy. Wouldn’t Sebastian do that? With a grunt, she shoved thoughts of Sebastian away. She needed to stop thinking of them as connected. Stop thinking about him. Start concentrating on herself.
Feeling exposed in the open, she dove into a side street leading off the square. Brown and tan buildings rose up to stretch against the skyline. A perfect place to get lost.
She dove into a dilapidated tenement, hoping to lead them a merry chase through the halls and rooms of the building, then slip away before they knew she had left.
On the third floor, she ducked inside a room, startling a woman sitting at her sewing machine. Closing the door behind her, she pressed a finger to her lips. Having no idea whether the woman would honor the request, she burst inside a bedroom and flung open the window. Hopping onto the sill, she hovered a moment, her heart in her throat as she wondered just how deeply her powers ran.
Avoiding looking down, she stared at the balcony across from her in the neighboring building, almost on line with the third floor window where she perched. Exhaling, she jumped and sailed through air, wind hissing past.
She caught hold of the balcony with both hands and pulled her body up. Swinging a leg over the railing, she turned to see if her movements were followed. No sight of her pursuers. Shaking with adrenaline, she turned, ready to disappear back into the streets and find her way out of this mad world and catch the first plane home. Back to her life. Her house. Her kitchen with its familiar pots and pans. Adele. And the solitude that she was convinced would never feel lonely or oppressive again.
She found the stairs and descended, plunging back outside. She darted down another street. Certain the fierce pounding of her feet could be heard within miles, she fell into a fast clip. Of course, covered in blood as she was, they could likely sniff out her scent.
The call to prayer ended, and she knew the streets would soon fill with more people again. She needed to change clothes before that happened. Fortunately, her fanny pack still clung to her hips.
Another block and she found a small shop. Ducking inside, she suffered the shop keeper’s shrewd stare. He observed her in silence as she picked a woman’s caftan from a rack. Hoping to blend in more with the locals, she hurried to the counter, dug out money from the zippered pouch and handed it to the man. She clutched the garment close. As though she could will it on her body and shed her ruined clothes. The shopkeeper pointed to a narrow door shielded with dangling beads. He shot off several words, one of which she understood. “Tuvalet. Tuvalet.”
With a grateful nod, she ducked through the beads and found the bathroom, quickly changing into the flowing garment, her fanny pack beneath the copious fabric. Stroking the purple fabric, she inspected herself in the small cracked mirror above the sink, startled at the silver eyes looking back at her, for a moment thinking she had been discovered, that another lycan had hunted her down. Then she realized it was only her reflection, her new eyes, new face. That of an animal.
Vowing to think about that later—to solv
e that new, not so small glitch in her life after she was safe—she shoved her ruined clothing into a trash bin and hurried from the shop, growing more at ease with every moment. More people merged onto the streets now, and she tried to appear natural as she strolled in—she hoped—the general direction of her hotel. Amid all her running, she had gotten turned around.
“Pardon me? Would you mind helping us?”
Ruby jumped at the soft touch of a hand on her arm before she realized that the voice spoke English. With an American accent. She followed that hand up to the arm of a woman wearing a trendy plum-red trench coat. Her head was bent as she struggled with a city map of Istanbul. Beyond her stood a tall man, very GQ in his black shirt and jeans. He looked slightly bored with his companion’s difficulties. He gave Ruby a look of apology, one shoulder shrugging.
The woman muttered over her map. Ruby wanted to hug her in that moment, so relieved to be around someone that reminded her of home. Just looking at the woman made all that she fled seem far away. A distant dream. She felt that much closer to home.
She stepped nearer, ready to confess that she was actually the one in need of help.
Then the woman lifted her face and locked her gaze on Ruby. Her silver gaze. Knowing and calculating. Smug. A predator Ruby knew well. This was no chance meeting. They’d fooled her, drew her in like a net-snared fish.
She slid back a step, colliding into the lycan’s companion. His hands closed around her arms. A quick glance behind revealed the familiar pale light dancing at the centers of his eyes. A dovenatu.
She was right back where she started. Only this time, she didn’t have Sebastian with her. Even though she knew that was for the best, the thought left her cold and empty. She shivered.
Once again, home seemed very far away.
13
Ruby jerked against the hands wrapped around her, holding her immobile.
To Crave a Blood Moon Page 9
