She shifted uncomfortably underneath that gaze.
His eyes weren't right.
Tony watched the Rare One with barely contained ownership. She'd have to bow to him. He would be Alpha to her. He didn't care what Lawrence said. Maybe he was Alpha enough to take him but because of him being the Packmaster, he didn't get to play in the sandbox. Tony's lips curled in a predatory smile. The bitch Rare One would free him of his status in the pack. He would be able to Change at Will, the moon nothing to him. No pull, no more domination. He could taste the freedom that she'd provide. And all that bullshit about honoring Singers. That was for the old ways.
It was gonna be his way.
Tony looked at her again and saw that she interpreted some of what he thought from the expression in his eyes. He hooded his gaze and looked away, better not to let her in on his plan. As it was, Joseph was Alpha enough to understand what he wanted. He hated looking away from her first. He didn't want to give her the impression that her gaze was dominant to his.
After all, she was a weak female. She was of rare blood, but female nonetheless.
Julia backed further against the wall. The look the big Were gave her scared her. She saw Adriana catch the glance between the two and shoot her arm out in a sucker punch that landed expertly in Tony's solar plexus.
He issued a satisfying grunt that caused his gaze to swing away in anger toward Adriana.
Tony felt the swing a moment too late, his gut unprepared. That bitch Adriana swung at him and landed a nice one in his bread basket, stealing most of his breath.
Embarrassment washed over him instantly and before he knew what he was doing he was after her.
With his Alpha who was also her brother in the room.
He saw red, a lesser wolf and female having humiliated him in front of a potential mate of the most important order.
Tony would crush her.
Julia responded without thinking, watching a huge hand ball into a fist as it raised above the mouthy Adriana while her brother was across the room.
The power that was not harnessed correctly, without finesse, without will came to the surface in a surge of brilliance, bursting inside her in a flash of interior light. Without thinking, Julia directed it at Tony and he spun where he stood, like an invisible wood plank had been leveled at his raised fist and swung hard, making brutal contact.
He staggered against the breakfast bar and away from Adriana, his back slamming into the fridge, a storm of magnets clattering to the floor like hail.
His eyes snapped up and met Julia's. She knew the remnants of what she'd done stood in the room between them. Hell, even she could feel an almost static energy zooming and ricocheting around them, pinging off the walls.
“Holy shit! That rocked! You clocked his ass!” Adriana said, jumping up and raising her fist into the air.
Joseph was on Julia before she could move, sweeping her behind him as Tony fell on the spot where she'd been standing.
Julia screamed in response, held against one Were while the other's jaws snapped around him to get at her.
She saw his face between the sliver of the one's arm and the wall that he stood against.
Tony had changed, the eyes luminescent and golden in a face that had elongated into a snout with silver fur and many teeth.
Like a crocodile. Except this one didn't crawl on the ground, but was nearing seven feet tall.
“She's shown defiance!” Tony roared, drool and spittle flying out of a mouth filled with teeth the size of her pinky finger.
Adriana yipped behind him and he whirled on her, pathetically small compared to him, all white with silver-tipped fur, her eyes were an unnerving glacial color, gold blazing through them like lightning.
“Adriana, no!” Joseph said, going for his sister in protection even as he left Julia there in the doorway threshold.
Vulnerable and unprotected with a half-Were in anger.
Directed at her.
Tony turned and saw his opportunity to subdue this female. Now, before she embraced ideas of superiority. Her fragility was attractive. He would not crush her but she would feel the sting of his superiority.
Oh yes.
He sprung from clawed feet that missed purchase on the tile floor of the kitchen and as he slipped, he regained his balance at the last moment and leaped for her.
Julia saw that muzzle coming for her and couldn't get whatever telekinetic power she possessed to work. It was like she was out of gas. She turned and ran.
The wolf's hot breath on her neck, her fear tightened her bladder and made the food she'd just eaten rise in a tide of gorge.
He paced the cage they kept him in and when his acute hearing heard raised shouts he allowed his nose and facial alignments to shift to wolf. Only those. That was all he needed to gain an answer for what was happening outside the confines of this place.
His nose became a snout and many layers of scent came to him instantly. He pressed his new wolf snout against one of the many holes in the wall and fear touched him.
Female fear.
He knew the flavor of it.
He knew who was frightened.
The wolf burst out of his human form, the force of his change spraying what he had been moments before around the room in a splattering gunk of flesh and bone. The blood mixed with the liquid that facilitated the change landing against the clear wall and slipping down to pool at the ground.
He howled a warning of such contained rage and power that the birds roosted in the trees in midday, avoiding whatever had made that sound by seeking refuge at the highest point of the forest.
Julia heard a howl of rage that made her steps falter just as clawed hands that were now half-paws as big as her head wrapped her upper arms and jerked Julia back against a body that emanated an impossible heat. It blazed against her back as she struggled to get away.
Then the other Were stood in front of her.
Joseph, the brother of Adriana she thought with random wildness.
“Let her go!” Joseph growled out.
The need to mark the Rare One pounded a steady beat in Tony's head, he could hear nothing else. He knew the Alpha had spoken but the fragrance of the Singer had sunk its talons into his soul and the call of the wolf was on him. He couldn't shake it and began to tremble with his needs.
They were many.
He opened his jaws wide to take her throat into his mouth. She must submit.
The pain was immediate. He felt something strike him in the back of his head and his hands loosened on the Singer, trying to take her to the ground with him. But as he fell sideways in slow motion, he saw the Alpha grab her to him and press her against himself.
Adriana held the cast iron skillet in delicate hands that were half-wolf. With grace, Adriana had skipped up behind the werewolf, twice her size and arced the pan above his head even as she jumped vertically, landing it soundly on the crown of his head.
He began to slip, his hold coming away from her arms and Joseph grabbed her when she would have fallen with Tony to the floor.
He pressed her to his chest and murmured the things people say to soothe when there isn't a hope of it.
She met Adriana's wide eyes and thought maybe she'd bitten off more than she could chew.
Hardy-har-har.
Julia pressed her eyes shut, smelling the male aroma of the wolf; pine, earth and the faint smell of cinnamon.
But it was the haunting shout of another wolf that echoed in her mind, the sound of it still following her thoughts. Somehow he had interfered with Tony hurting her.
It had sounded so sure.
Like a warning.
CHAPTER 23
Adriana looked down at a semi-conscious Tony and said, “Bull's-eye!”
Julia looked at her with big eyes and Adriana laughed. “He gets kinda enthusiastic and needed a slow-down.”
Yeah, Julia thought, a cast iron skillet would do it.
Joseph slowly released Julia and turned her to face him. She was immed
iately struck by his eyes, an impossible hazel, at once gold, green and a rich, root beer brown. Rainbow eyes.
She realized she'd been staring and cast her eyes down. He chuckled. “You're not afraid of me?” Joseph asked.
Julia shook her head, but oh yeah, she was. But given that he'd just rescued her from Enthusiastic Tony... she guessed he was okay.
He looked at his sister, his hands leaving Julia's arms with a caress and she shivered, like a goose just walked over her grave. It was a creepy sensation but also like a itch on your back had just been scratched. Totally weird.
“That'll be a helluva thing to smooth over, Adi,” he said to her, exasperated. Joseph looked at Tony on the floor, writhing around and scrubbed his face again.
Julia had an idea he did a lot of that when it came to his sister.
She smiled at him. “He was outta control and your ass was too slow so... Adriana to the rescue!” she shouted to the rooftops.
Julia stood awkwardly between them in the kitchen. A werewolf at her feet, one beside her and a possible female ally.
Funny how life works.
*
one week later
Moonlight streamed through the skylights, shattered pieces like shards of glass on the cobblestone floor of the underground of the Seattle kiss. William looked at the pass through which led into one of the long halls, the bricked archway perfectly framing Gabriel.
He had an abiding scowl planted on his face.
For good reason. William was busy packing in readiness to reacquire Julia. It was but one week from the full moon. They were not yet ready for acquisition but each moment they drew closer to the moon's zenith their enemy grew stronger.
And on their territory, no less. No, the time was now. He and Gabriel had argued. But, as the leading runner, he had pull, his thoughts held weight.
And, as her potential mate, even more so. Claire had sided with him.
Gabriel pushed away from the brick and walked over to where William stood, shouldering a small backpack. “You do this at your own peril. You realize how closely guarded she will be?”
William nodded. “I do. Even now, kept by the mongrels, day by day they grow closer to their heathen ceremony. No,” he shook his head at the multiple visions that greeted him, “she will not have that end. Not Julia.”
Not his Julia.
*
Julia
Julia was in her room again at the Were compound. That is how she saw it. Her routine was the same and it reminded her eerily of the vampire. Except for William. She found she missed him. At first, he'd been nothing but a captor. But now... he was someone that she had grown to care about. To... have an easy friendship with. She was acutely aware that she'd grown to depend on his protection. She had not felt that sense of security since Jason.
Her chest got tight and Julia took deep breaths. Her capture and his death combined in a memory of unbearable agony.
One bright spot was Adriana. She liked Adi, so Julia called her that. Julia remembered the conversation exactly.
*
“You can call me Adi too, ya know,” she'd said, putting some clothes away in the drawer, her eyes doing a peripheral check of Julia's reaction.
“Okay, thanks,” Julia said.
“Do you... do you always go by Julia?” Adi had asked.
Julia looked down, feeling sad. Finally, she shook her head. “No... I had a friend,” Julia covered her mouth with her cupped hand for a moment and Adi broke the sadness with, “No waterworks, just tell me your nickname.”
Her whiskey colored eyes met Adi's brown ones. “Jules. That's what my friends called me.”
“Tell me about them.”
It was the first time someone had actually given a crap about Jason, Cyn and Kev.
She told Adi all of it. How cool they'd been, how much she missed them, how she and Jason had gotten married in the Gnome Chapel. That brought an instant smile.
“Really? That's a no-shitter.” Adi had thought for a moment, her chin planted in her palm. Then she brightened. “At least it wasn't in that creepy Elvis Chapel.” She grimaced and Julia laughed.
She laughed until her sides hurt and tears were streaming down her face.
Adi looked at her with curiosity, “What the hell, Jules? Doesn't everyone think there's something alarming about a dude in white polyester and tassels?” Adi asked reasonably, her palms spread at her sides. “And the man tits? Ugh!” She hissed in emphasis.
That made Julia laugh harder. When she had some semblance of restraint, she held up a finger and replied, “That was my only requirement,” she said, wiping the tears.
“What?” Adi asked, confused.
“I didn't want to get married at that damn chapel with The King in attendance.”
“King my ass,” Adi muttered.
“Cyn didn't like him either,” Julia said, remembering.
“Was she pretty cool?”
Julia nodded, their gazes locking. “She was the best,” she said wistfully.
*
Homer
Truman slapped the file against his thigh as an officer approached him, “Detective Truman!”
He shifted his weight in the large chair that swiveled behind his desk.
“Yeah?” Karl asked, looking at the disheveled beat cop. The name on his tag read, Daugherty. He'd sent him on a last-ditch wild goose chase. The seasons were changing and after almost two years, the weather was finally cooperating for his purposes. Truman had thought of something, something that had been missed when the Caldwell scene was canvassed two years ago. Well, almost two years.
Those trees.
The trees that stood on either side of the rugged path that led down to the beach. He'd seen them a thousand times but the dream he'd received last night had been a revelation, the break he hadn't been able to get from returning to the scene of the Caldwell murder a hundred times.
Daugherty jerked up the evidence bag like a prize won at the carnival. It was clear, inside it were three or four long hairs.
Truman didn't know it then but they weren't left by a bear.
They weren't human.
That dandy little footnote would be inscribed later.
The first real smile of the day broke over Truman’s weathered face and the beat cop smiled in return, relieved beyond words that his boss wasn't gonna chew his ass.
Today.
They smiled at each other and Karl reached for the bag, its precious cargo so light but oh, so heavy.
*
3 months prior
The talons stroked Cynthia's throat and she shuddered. She'd been asleep in her bed, on the day that the cop... Turner, Tucker... whatever his name was, had come by to visit her and ask questions again, about Jason's murder.
Jules' disappearance.
Her answers were always the same. The visits from the creatures were always the same.
The day after Jules was taken they'd come inside her bedroom window and silenced her immediately.
They said things. Terrible things. But she believed them when they told her if she said anything about what really happened, she would get the same fate as her boyfriend.
Now this one came again.
Cynthia didn't care what it said. She thought it liked causing her pain and fear.
Her only consolation was that if they had Julia... really had her... they wouldn't be so worried about discovery.
Cynthia wasn't the same girl she'd been before. She didn't care about fashion or fun. She wanted to escape from Homer. Move somewhere new.
Somewhere they couldn't find her.
As she lay pinned on her bed by the creature that ground out its demands, its filthy half-paw wrapped around her throat, its fetid breath encasing her in rot, he instructed her on what to say.
“Keep to the story. Repeat what it is,” it growled at her. At least it was only the one this time.
“I... it was a bear attack.” Her eyes flicked to its, golden and spinning in an immense head with fur the
color of the sea on an stormy day. “That's why there was so much... blo... blood,” Cynthia said, her voice trembling from the memory of the blood, the carnage, her boyfriend's decapitated body, paces from hers.
He squeezed her throat and the breath wheezed out of it. “And...,” the werewolf that held her on the bed asked, giving her a teeth rattling shake.
He released the pressure so she could utter the final lie, “I passed out from the shock. I never saw what happened,” Cynthia said mechanically.
It smiled a grin filled with teeth meant to maim, tear and kill. It suddenly released her throat and her hand went to it automatically. The tears fell in rivulets, dampening her pillow.
Cynthia had seen everything that happened. All of it.
She didn't like slasher flicks anymore.
She knew horror was real.
Cynthia watched the Were leave through the window like before.
She made a promise to herself in that moment. She'd move to where they couldn't find her. Somewhere different, anonymous... big.
Like Seattle.
Perfect.
She'd forget what had happened with a fresh environment, Cynthia told herself.
Her eyes fixed on her meager belongings in her studio apartment. She rose from her bed and began to pack at three o'clock in the morning.
Long past the witching hour.
*
Julia
Adi and Julia ran.
No privacy of course, but they ran anyway. It felt so like the exercise she'd taken with William and the other runners. But the Were could keep up in their human form.
Julia hated Tony at her back. Because she knew, deep down, that he really didn't have her back. William had been open about his intentions, about the history. The vampire Book of Blood.
The Were had been covert, not that it helped. Adi told Julia everything she wanted to know and things she didn't. She was a treasure. If Julia had met her in other circumstances they could have been friends.
But even now, Julia planned her escape.
She ran on a dirt path, made wide by use, the dappled shade from the trees making the ground look like a puzzle of light. Julia felt the heat of the sun even through the trees and felt how different it was from Alaska. There was a distance in that part of the world. As if the sun held its rays back, stingy in its warmth. Here in Washington, the kiss of its heat was all around them and she reveled in it.
Destiny's Dark Fantasy Boxed Set (Eight Book Bundle) Page 56
