“Is hotness awake yet?” he asked, rooting around in the ancient fridge for something to snag. He was so hungry, Michael was pretty sure that he was digesting his own spine. His whole head was in the fridge when he heard Jen's reply, “None of you doofuses need to go hassle her. She's new, we... heck, we kidnapped her! Maybe she needs time to... I don't know, acclimate or something?”
Michael jerked his head out of the fridge, banging it a good one on the top. He grimaced, looking at the dent there from the other one hundred and twelve times he'd done it. Huh.
“Listen,” he held up a finger. “We saved her precious ass so she better be grateful. I say socialization is in order. And... who'd want to do the Were Bride routine?” Michael rolled his eyes, gulping juice out of the carton.
Brendan narrowed his eyes on his brother. “Listen, I got dibs. I did all the hard work. You just poofed some vamps to distract the Were. I ran with her!” he rolled his eyes at him.
Brendan's keen sense of smell alerted him too late.
Julia had appeared in the doorway, the most forlorn and sad expression he had ever seen covering her face.
Shit.
They all started to talk at once but she stopped all conversation with, “I'm sorry. I thought that you... that I was...” she burst into tears. Julia thought that they had wanted to rescue her from the Were but from the sounds of it they were pissed to have to deal with her. Someone they had to shuffle around.
Jen glowered at her brothers.
God! They were so inept! And Brendan! He was the big deal Tracker... he couldn't scent her fast enough to curb his words?
Idiots. Jen popped off the kitchen stool, punching Michael as she walked past.
“Hey!” he mock-yelled at her.
Julia looked up, tears shimmering in those eyes. They were like gold topaz Brendan noted, a little dreamily.
Jen grabbed the hands that Julia was trying to use to cover her face. She was so embarrassed to be somewhere that she wasn't wanted, in the ridiculous white dress, her hair six ways to Sunday.
“No, no,” Jen crooned, throwing a dirty glance at the two guys that stood behind her looking contrite. “Don't listen to my stupid brothers...” she looked up at Julia earnestly. “They always sound dumb.”
“Yeah, that's us. Dumb,” Brendan said dryly.
“Yeah, that,” Michael agreed, swinging his longish dirty blond hair out of his eyes.
Julia gave a small smile. “So, you guys... do you want me to leave?” Her lip trembled again. “Because I can't go back there,” Julia said in a low voice.
Brendan was alarmed and approached her too quickly. She backed up and he stopped. “No. You don't... we don't want you to go back to the Were... or the vampire. We're all about sucking you into our world. It's where ya belong.”
Michael nodded. “Why would ya think that we wouldn't want you?”
Julia shrugged. “You sounded like... that you were kinda mad?”
Jen shook her head. “Nah! That's the way they always sound.”
“Like smart ass meets anger management?” Julia asked. She was definitely okay now, Brendan noticed with relief, a smile breaking through her tears like they'd never been.
Jen smiled in return. “I'm Jen,” she said, sticking her hand out and Julia shook it.
Brendan and Michael came forward. “And these are the dummy duo, who you've had the misfortune of meeting already,” she said, but the humor in her voice took away the sting.
“We're not always dumb,” Michael said, taking her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze, then dropping it.
“I wouldn't know how to be dumb,” Brendan said and winked. But he didn't shake her hand, instead he drew her into a hug which pressed her against his body, melding her form to his. He said against her hair, “We've been looking for you for a long time.” He drew away, the happiness radiating from every pore.
“Me?” Julia asked, putting her hand to her chest, trying to let the heat from his embrace fade like a still-hot brand.
They nodded.
“Why? I mean, I don't know you guys.” She looked at them expectantly.
“It's not who you are it's what you are,” Michael explained cryptically.
Julia folded her arms, impatience seeping in a little. “Okay, I give. What am I?”
They looked at each other uneasily and Julia asked again, “Come on, spill the secret! I know I'm a Singer...” she threw out her hands. She'd known that for awhile. “I know I'm the 'Rare One',” she said, her hands dropping against the fabric of the dress after the air quotes.
“Rare One?” Michael shook his head. “I don't know what that is but you're not that to us.”
Jen said, “You're more than that.”
Julia looked at them. She opened her mouth, impatience on her tongue when Brendan spoke, “You are Queen.”
Julia staggered back a step. “What?” she asked dully, her voice coming from a distance. “Queen of whom?” Julia heard herself asking.
“The Singers. You are Queen of the Blood Singers.”
The room began to tilt and she heard many voices at once. She fell into strong arms.
Fainting for the second time.
It was becoming a trend.
Brendan looked down at the girl in his arms and felt his heart clench. He hated feeling weak.
She already had a piece of it.
His heart. It beat slower for the loss of that chunk.
Brendan didn't even know her name.
Not that it mattered. Love was an errant master, choosing who it would without reason.
Without rationale.
****
pack
Adriana screamed at her brother. For him, at him.
“Hold still, Adi!” He jammed his leg into her armpit and wrenched the arm back in before she could stiffen up more than she already was.
Tears of pain rolled down her face and Joseph swiped them away with the pad of his thumb. “Shhh... it's okay,” Joseph said, gathering her against his chest.
“It's not okay, Joseph and you fucking know it!” Tony paced and Joseph felt the small bones of his face shift. That was automatic when an Alpha felt challenged. The Change asserted itself subtly beneath his skin.
Adi felt it and looked up at her brother.
“It is at your feet where the fault lies. You insisted that Lawrence give her the worst punishment!” he responded, his anger roiling underneath his skin with weight, with purpose.
Tony turned to face him, his posture wary and tight.
Joseph carefully untangled himself from Adriana, shifting her weight against the acrylic wall that had held the feral.
But no longer.
He faced Tony, walking toward him on a slow prowl.
Adi watched as her brother's body shifted to bursting, the moon's power waning but not enough. Not nearly enough.
“Me? She is the one that pushed the boundaries! It's always her. And she is always coddled. Now the Rare One has escaped with the Singers, the feral has escaped and that vamp runner killed five of us! Five!”
Tony's scathing stare burned a pathway across Adriana and she growled low in her throat. She didn't care that he outmatched her by a hundred pounds and a foot of height. She hated Tony.
He smelled bad.
She smacked her palm of the uninjured side of her body against the clear wall and boosted herself to standing. “I will take responsibility for the feral, I panicked. I thought he'd already escaped. But,” her stare gave dominant weight to her words and she watched Tony visibly bristle at its significance, “I will not accept the strange shit that went down while I was injured substituting for you so you could fight my brother and also stick me with that chore on the full moon!” Her eyes shifted from one to the other. “I am not a 'favorite',” Adi said, using air quotes. “I was pressed to do the worst chore at the worst time because I let my alligator mouth overload my canary ass.”
Joseph barked out a laugh. “She's right.”
The tension in t
he empty holding cell slipped down a notch.
“Like any one of us could have known a vamp was skulking around, all Lone Ranger and then the coincidence of the feral escaping? Oh!” she yelled into the strange acoustics of the room, “let's not forget the darling Singers that waltzed in, during the bloodiest and most distracting ritual ever conceived, and snatched Jules right from underneath our very noses,” she seethed, the fingers of her index and thumb a hair's breadth apart.
They'd been that close to not losing Julia.
“And!” she continued to rant and Tony crossed his muscular arms, rolling his eyes, “Shut up and listen!” Tony growled, this female never knew when to shut up. Hell, if that brother of hers wasn't always around, he'd teach her a lesson that'd stay with her permanently.
Tony smiled at his thoughts and her lips pulled away from her teeth, another growl reverberating from between them.
“Enough!” Joseph roared, startling them both. His eyes landed on his sister. “Finish now, then we go to Lawrence. This whole incompetent mess will need to be explained.”
“I was just going to say, that fifteen of our wolves trailed the Singers, and still... we didn't get her back.”
“So?” Tony said with derision.
“So... I think they're more powerful than we've been trying to convince ourselves.”
“Ha! Bullshit. They're human, they can do some parlor tricks. It's not real strength.Who do they call leader?” Tony asked, palms spread with his superior omniscience.
Adi rolled her eyes. He was such a goddamned know-it-all.
“What of the Book of Luna?” Joseph asked into the stillness, Tony's words echoing into silence.
Tony didn't bother with reading that old crap. It was the new order. The only thing he'd wanted was to become a moonless changer. That, he'd believed in plenty. And now that little Singer had slipped between his claws like water through a sieve.
She would be within his grasp again.
Adi nodded. “They are a force of their own. You know that! Look what happened a few hours ago? They fooled you, Tony!”
Tony glowered at her. He'd almost had that Singer but it's as if the Singer had eyes in the back of of his head. Tony shook his head, thinking about it.
“Yeah,” he ground out. “Don't know how, I almost had him.” He smacked his fist into his opposite palm, his dark eyes flashing.
“Scent Tracker,” Joseph said in a flat voice.
Tony whipped his head in Joseph's direction, his brows raised.
Joseph and Adriana nodded. They'd both been trained in the precepts held within the Book.
Tony threw his hands up. “I give. Drop this secretive shit. Just. Tell. Me.” He pegged his hands on his powerful hips, frowning at them.
“A sense of smell a thousand times more powerful than ours,” Joseph said.
“Impossible,” Tony breathed out, thinking of his multi-layered scent awareness. It was so overwhelming he had trained himself to tune out most scents. It was too much. But one thousand times more sensitive? He couldn't wrap his mind around it. He scoffed at the possibility.
“I know, right? It's...” Adi began.
“Unbelievable!” Joseph agreed, nodding.
“Yeah... okay. Whatever. But what about the ten vampires that just flashed into existence and were ghosts when we attacked?” Tony said like, explain that.
Adriana laughed and the men turned to her. When she finally stopped she said, “Vampire mirage.”
Joseph sighed. Not helpful.
“What was it?”
Joseph shook his head. They weren't sure. But it had been a superb deflection on their part. Too good.
“Don't know,” he answered.
“Well, it was pretty fucking effective!” Tony said. “I could smell the vamps. Smell them,” he said through clenched teeth.
Joseph gave a sound low in his throat. “No, that was the Tracker, assisting... the other one.”
“They can work in tandem?” Adi asked, stunned.
Joseph nodded. “Looks like.” Then he paused. “But a more likely reason for the two is family.”
“What?” Tony asked, his eyes narrowing.
“I speculate for that pair to work as seamlessly together as they did, they'd have to be family.”
“What about the bitch with them?” Tony asked. He conjured up an image of her in his mind. Small, pixie-like features, hair blondish, he guessed. Hard to know with the moon, it silvered everything.
Except the Red Feral.
His fur had shone like blood spilled.
“Her too,” Joseph said.
But Tony's nose was unaffected by his sight. He'd know her the next time he smelled her. Hell, he'd know them all. Tony's fists curled. “I'd love to have another chance at those three.”
“Soon,” Joseph promised.
“What about the female?” Adi asked suspiciously. She trusted Tony about as far as she could throw him.
“Especially her,” he said with barely contained desire.
Joseph scowled at him just as another Were entered the holding pen.
They looked at him. “Lawrence is waiting,” he said, shyly glancing at Adriana.
Brother! she thought... men!
Adi flounced out, pushing by the Were. His eyes followed her form as she disappeared.
Joseph followed behind and Tony came last.
As he passed the other Were, slightly younger than himself he whispered, “You don't want her.”
He leaned back with a puzzled expression. There were few Were females and she was a good looking one too. “Why?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.
“Untrainable,” Tony said, stalking off behind the siblings.
****
the Feral
The feral lifted his head from the fragrant entrails of the deer, the meat a fresh and tasty smell that permeated his olfactory senses, stirring a deep and profound hunger.
He howled.
Then fed.
The moon, on the wane but not headlong, hung above him in a blanket of velvet, the stars as diamonds. They glittered as she supervised her charge.
When at last he finished, his body demanded rest. He dug out a place of safety in the deepest part of the forest. The Feral burrowed underneath his self-made nest. Finally satisfied, he needed to ready himself for the next leg of his journey. Sleep came for him and just as he slid into the embrace of unconsciousness, he thought of her.
The female.
He must have her.
And she, him.
He was certain when they had connected under the roof of the great structure that she felt it too.
The pull of one to the other.
They were meant to be together.
Forever.
He slept, the moon keeping her own counsel.
*
the pavilion
William screamed inside his head as the Were held him, their talons biting into his dead flesh. He saw the Singers tear Julia out of his grasp and that of the Were.
Hope slid away like rain on a tin roof.
William Changed were he stood, his raven form protecting him, assuring his survival.
The Were let go in surprise, not ready for the smallness of his form. As they rushed to grab him at the same time he rose with a sharp caw, circling above their position. His eyesight, many times sharpened from his vampire form, tracked the Singers. And the pursuit of them by the Were.
He followed, his blackness the perfect camouflage against the night sky. He saw all:
When Julia fainted in the arms of the Singer as he ran.
When the fetid breath of the Were caressed the back of the one who held her.
When the ten of his kind suddenly appeared then vanished like they had never been.
Defeated, William flew to a safe distance, then Changed back into the form that would return him to the kiss with the least effort.
Even as he ran, his mind turned over his next move.
If he had been one to play chess, his s
ight would be set on one piece. And one alone.
The queen.
*
Julia
Julia opened her eyes and was instantly met with melted chocolate.
His eyes, her thoughts still muddled and fuzzy.
Oh, wow. She'd fainted again. Could she like... find a rock and crawl underneath it?
“Hey you,” Brendan said, pushing a stray hair away from her temple.
“I feel beyond stupid,” Julia said.
“Well, we're even then,” he said, his lips curling up at the corners.
She smiled at him and he grinned back.
Suddenly, Jen's face showed beside his. “You're okay. Big shock is all.”
Yeah, that. Biiiigggg shock. Two hunky dudes, also Singers, kidnap her and squire her away to... where the hell was she anyway?
Michael said from the foot of her bed. “You're somewhere in the Olympic Peninsula.”
Julia frowned. “Kinda cagey.”
“Kinda cautious,” Michael quipped.
Brendan patted her head like she was a small dog and stood. “Gotta keep things secure. Nobody knows anything. That's how we like it...”
“Uh-huh, uh-huh. That's the way we like it, uh-huh, uh-huh...” Michael said, swiveling his hips in a distracting way.
“God... ewww... I hope that's not actual singing you're attempting?” Jen asked, beyond embarrassed by her retarded brothers.
“Oh yeah, I can do Karaoke with the best of them,” he said with a hip thrust and hop. Julia giggled and Brendan frowned. “Are ya okay? Ya asshat, 'cuz...”
Brendan looked expectantly at her.
“Julia,” she supplied her name by way of introduction.
“Julia,” he smiled and gave her a wink, “is not impressed by your...” he swung his palm around, “gyrations and attempts at singing.”
“I don't know,” Julia began in a drawl.
All eyes went to her.
“For pure entertainment value, it's about a seven.”
“Out of what?” Michael asked hopefully.
“Fifty, retard!” Jen yelled, punching him in the arm again.
“Ow!” Michael raged, then turned to Julia. “Did ya see that abuse?”
Destiny's Dark Fantasy Boxed Set (Eight Book Bundle) Page 59
