by Moira Rogers
Adam dragged power from God-knew-where and flung it at his foe as he lunged, sense and reason gone. No one would touch Cindy, not while he lived. Not if he had to kill every last one of them to keep her safe.
Magic shattered through the night. Cindy’s first instinct was to tuck her tail and run, to get out of the way of such ravenous, uncontrolled power. Then Adam charged past her and she realized it was coming from him.
Her back legs almost gave out as the two vampires clashed. Adam had the clear advantage in strength and sheer physical brawn, but the invader had command of the attacking wolves, who abandoned their battles and converged on the center of town, more than ready to tear Adam apart.
Cindy howled a protest and hit the nearest one. He held his ground, paws scrabbling on the asphalt, and snapped at her. But Keith had taught her to fight, and she ducked those jaws and countered by raking sharp nails across the wolf’s eyes.
Her adversary rolled away with a pained yelp. A familiar wolf pounced on him—Keith, who snapped his jaws shut on the back of his enemy’s neck. More wolves from Red Rock appeared, and some werewolves in human form holding weapons that had become all but useless in the writhing throng of fighting bodies.
There was nothing to do but keep fighting, so she did, until Keith stumbled and fell under a sloppy attack he should have been able to fend off with ease. He bounded immediately to his paws, but his fatigue was plain.
The wolves were beginning to falter, allies and enemies, and it took Cindy several seconds to realize that Adam and the other vampire were still fighting, going strong when others were beginning to succumb to exhaustion.
They were draining the wolves.
Cindy fought free of the melee and panted for breath. She remained outside the bond; she’d be fine, but she didn’t know how long that would be true of the other Red Rock wolves. If Adam didn’t kill the vampire soon, they might all fall.
Or she could do it herself.
The thought sent a shiver racing through her. Well, why not? Adam had told her how—sever the spinal cord—and the vampire was distracted, fully focused on defeating his most dangerous enemy.
Adam had left his hatchets leaning against the outside wall of the bar, not far from the door. Cindy shifted back to her human form when she reached them, shivering a little in the night air. Her hand trembled, and she steadied it by closing her fingers tightly around the handle of one hatchet.
With most of the attack centered around Adam, she had a clear path to the other vampire. One swing, Cindy. End this.
No one blocked her or moved to protect the vampire. Perhaps they could only do his bidding, and his own hubris wouldn’t allow him to believe anyone but Adam posed a threat to him.
Maybe they wanted to be free of him.
She caught the vampire on the side of the neck. Blood spurted, but he didn’t fall. Instead he roared in pain and spun, lashing out blindly. The blow landed, snapping her head to one side, and pain exploded through her cheek and jaw.
“Cindy!” Her name tore free of Adam’s throat, rage and terror shredding it into a pained cry as the invading vampire lunged for her, fingers grasping for her hair. His mouth opened, baring gruesomely sharp fangs.
He almost bit her. His teeth scraped her neck in a rough, glancing blow, fangs slicing across skin instead of piercing. The pain helped her focus, driving her determination as she hit him in the side of the head, knocking him away.
He grabbed at her arm, the one holding the blade. It drew her attention, and she didn’t see his fist coming at her again until connected, knocking her back in a wild stumble.
As Cindy recovered, she caught sight of Adam, practically walking over combatants to get to her, a terrible fury twisting his features. If he engaged the vampire while in the grip of such blinding rage…
The vampire reached for her. She sidestepped his grasp and swung again, this time burying the hatchet in the pale skin at the back of his neck. The blade wasn’t big enough to take off his head, but it didn’t have to. As soon as she felt it bite through his spine, she let go and fell back.
The vampire started to fall, but Adam snarled and finished the job she’d started, grabbing his enemy’s head and separating it from his body with brute strength and wrath alone.
Magic crackled in the air like electricity, the shock nearly audible in the sudden hush. The attacking wolves began to drop one by one, sprawling to the ground in eerie silence.
Cindy almost fell to her knees. Adam looked wild, his eyes wide with almost berserker rage, and it was only then that she remembered the fallen vampire could well be the least of her worries.
She held out her hand. “Adam.”
He flung the head aside and reached for her, fingers slicking over her blood-soaked skin with an urgency that betrayed his terror. “They hurt you. They hurt you.”
The side of her face throbbed, but nothing else pained her. “No, I’m fine. It’s not mine. Not my blood.”
His hands tightened on her arms, bearing down until she knew she’d have bruises that wouldn’t heal overnight. “I’ll protect you. Forever.”
The words should have sounded like heaven, but the wild power surging through him perverted the sentiment. He’d protect her with stolen magic, with the bonds he’d never wanted to keep. “Adam, you have to let go.”
“I’m not strong enough without them.” A desperate, shamed admission that he whispered with closed eyes. “I can’t do it again. I can’t fail this time. Last time I let them go and I wasn’t strong enough.”
More of the ghosts haunting him, and this time they could kill him. “Adam, please.”
“They killed them one by one, to keep me in line. I let them go to save them, and I only killed them faster.”
Damn it. “You tried. Just like you have to try now.”
His fingers tightened. “I will try. I won’t let them hurt you.”
“This isn’t the way to do that,” she argued desperately. “You can’t keep everyone bound to you. Not like this.”
Dylan appeared, smeared with blood and tense. “Sasha can’t break herself free. Not herself and not the wolves. He’s holding them too damn tight and people are starting to hurt.”
Cindy nodded but kept her attention on Adam. She slid her hands up to his face and whispered to him, desperate to make him hear her. “You don’t want me hurt. I understand that, but you need to know that you will hurt me if you do this. I can’t let you put my friends in danger.”
The first glimmer of sense returned to his eyes, and his hands came up to cover hers. “I don’t—I don’t know if I can—” But he closed his eyes and shuddered, and with her skin pressed tight to his she felt the stir of magic.
It looked agonizing. His body shook as that tenuous power grew, gathering inside him, and her wolf wanted to shy away.
She stood firm. Tighter and tighter it wound, until Adam whispered a curse and it snapped, flying out in a thousand directions.
Dylan staggered and groaned. Keith hit the ground on his knees, and Abby followed, one arm thrown protectively over him despite her own shakiness.
Terror threatened to choke Cindy, and she shook Adam, just enough to make him look at her. “Are you all right? Talk to me.”
His glazed eyes took forever to focus on her face. He smiled, tired and tentative, and touched her cheek. “I would have loved you with everything I had.”
He collapsed without warning and Cindy followed him, pain splintering through her. She remembered what it had cost him to break the bonds over the refugees, and these had been far more numerous, and stronger. Tighter.
He needed to feed, and there was only one way she could think of to get him to do it. “No magic but us,” she whispered, and kissed him hard. As his teeth cut into her lower lip, she silently begged him to take what she offered.
Beneath her, Adam stirred. His tongue slid against her lip, wet and hot, and when he plunged past her teeth to taste her, the coppery tang of her blood flavored his kiss. Energy burned inside
her, still riled from the fight and her own fear, but the longer they kissed the softer it became, soaking into him through the magic they’d made together.
Breaking the kiss was unfathomable, and Cindy held on even when he rolled her onto her back and covered her with his body.
An eternity passed before he pulled away and planted his hands on either side of her head, levering the bulk of his weight off of her. “You pack a hell of a punch in a tiny bit of blood, lover.”
She was floating, giddy with relief. “Do you feel okay?”
“I’ll make it.” He sounded hoarse, ragged around the edges. He rolled again and brought her on top of him. “Too damn cold for you to be sprawled naked on the ground.”
Keith’s dry voice cut through their moment. “It’s too damn cold for anyone to be out here naked. You two feel like getting your asses inside? I think it’s time to clean up and call our people home.”
Home. “What about the alpha? Recco, I mean.”
“Dead.” Keith’s darkly amused laugh rumbled through the night. “Abby ate his head, which might just make her the new alpha of Helena.”
“Fantastic.” Cindy swallowed hard. “Unless you literally mean she ate his head, in which case I might be sick.”
“Purely figurative. Either way, someone’s going to have to clean house in Helena. Gavin may have to come out of retirement yet.”
With the support of a nearby sanctuary city, Gavin could handle things in Red Rock, at least for a few more years. “He’ll be thrilled to hear it.”
“Less thrilled if he’s mourning the death of his favorite doctor, who froze her fool ass off.” Keith’s voice was filled with fond exasperation, cut with the buzz of victory.
They’d won. Helena had been defeated, and their way of life was safe. Cindy looked down at Adam. “I don’t give a damn if we’re lying in the street and I’m naked and everyone I know is watching. I love you.”
Adam’s fingers drifted up to smooth her hair back from her forehead, and his quiet smile was all for her. “Love you too, Dr. Shepherd.”
Words she never thought she’d hear, not from someone like Adam. Happy tears stung her eyes, and she sank down to his chest. “Take me home.”
Chapter Ten
With all the changes in his life over the past six months, it had taken Adam a while to notice a subtle but profound one: having male friends.
He’d spent decades in the woods with the occasional female playmate as his only real company. Even in recent years, it had been Emily who had cut a path to his door, towing her reluctant mate behind her. During the time he’d spent on the farm with his witch and his wolves, he’d been surrounded by women, and then the token men had regarded him with more suspicion than friendship.
In Red Rock, friends were everywhere. He had Keith’s steady respect, Gavin’s long-standing friendship and Dylan’s nervous but endearing curiosity. Even Joe had come around…somewhat. Enough to join Keith and Dylan more often than not as the four of them chopped and sawed and leveled and hammered.
Building a house was more complicated now than it had been in the thirties, when he’d hidden himself away in the northern part of Maine. Dylan had shown an unexpected flair for the eccentricities of modern plumbing—something he self-deprecatingly credited to his former landlord’s ineptitude, and Keith had droned on about wiring and voltages until Adam’s eyes had glazed over. Without them, the project might have stalled before it got started.
With them, though, Adam had built a house.
It wasn’t grand or fancy, but it had something more valuable. Every corner, every room, every bit of it bore Cindy’s touch, details they’d worked out together during the long winter months when Red Rock had seemed like a snowy dream, cut off from the world and locked in the post-battle revelry of people who hadn’t expected to win.
Of course, they weren’t building it very fast. Dylan had other duties to deal with most of the week, and Joe and Keith could only help on the weekends, when they needed a break from the hard work of rebuilding the Helena pack. But they still showed up, almost every weekend, and it meant more to Adam than he’d realized at first.
They finished the inside paneling on the morning of Gavin’s birthday, and Adam celebrated by pulling three chilled beers from a nearby cooler. “I was expecting Dylan by now. I imagine he’s gotten distracted, though.”
Joe accepted his beer. “That’s one way to put it. He’s probably still over at Cindy’s with Sasha.”
“Boy moves fast,” Keith drawled as he twisted the cap off his beer. “I hear Sam keeps butting her ass in, trying to ‘loan’ him money for an engagement ring. Subtle like a grenade.”
Adam couldn’t help but laugh. “Samantha’s a little old-fashioned, and Gavin’s not exactly from a time where babies are supposed to come before marriage. But Dylan’s fine. He lowers his eyes and yes ma’ams Sam until she backs off, then ignores her.”
“Eh, he’ll get Sasha down the aisle soon.” Joe sat against the wall and stretched out his legs, mindless of the plaster dust. Keith used one hand to hoist himself up onto a sawhorse, balancing precariously.
They both looked relaxed. At home. Adam drained half his beer and shrugged. “Don’t think either of them cares. They’re happy. That’s what matters.”
“Cindy’s happy too,” Keith murmured. “Which is good. Now we don’t have to bring it, Rise of the Lycans style.”
A long winter in front of Cindy’s television hadn’t made the younger generation’s idea of humor much easier to understand, but Adam had learned to shrug it off. “If that means you’re going to stop plotting my death, I’m relieved.”
Joe grinned. “If Cindy were in the throes of some hormonally induced bad judgment, it would have faded by now. Which means she really does love you, and we’re duty-bound to at least try to like you.”
“I bet I’m not hard to like from Helena.”
“Nah, you’re all right.”
Keith lifted his beer. “To Red Rock’s own vampire lumberjack.” His eyes glinted with a humor that made him look more like a mischievous young buck than a man nearing his fifth decade. “So your house is pretty damn close to done. You owe us. Tell us how the hell Gavin has a dark secret that involves a madam with a pet monkey.”
Gavin would murder him, and Adam didn’t care. He settled back against the table and took another sip of his beer. “Well, old Gavin wasn’t always the most law-abiding of men. He ran with a pretty wild crowd of bootleggers, and one of their favorite stomping grounds was owned by the infamous Black Magic Betty, a madam who might’ve been a witch to boot, and she’d trained her little pet monkey to pick men’s pockets while the girls had them distracted…”
Both men laughed as Adam played up the tale, spinning out the story of Gavin’s legendary run through the brothel, stark naked and determined to bring the thieving monkey to justice. Reminiscing didn’t hurt anymore; his lingering ghosts had been more than exorcised over the months, as Cindy had coaxed tales of the past from him. Slowly at first, as if she knew how much it still hurt sometimes, but always there. Always caring.
Joe and Keith’s laughter reminded him how nice it was to have friends, but it was eclipsed by how very nice it was to have Cindy.
That warmth carried him through two more beers and a dozen stories that would surely have Gavin running him out of Red Rock. By the time Adam made the short walk back toward Cindy’s house, the sun had dipped toward the edge of the trees and people had already filled the streets, their laughter echoing through town as they converged on the bar to begin preparations for Gavin’s birthday party.
More laughter drifted from the living room as he pushed open the back door, but the voice was too high to belong to the young refugee doctor who’d been spending most of his time learning the ropes of Cindy’s day-to-day job.
Cindy ducked into the kitchen, a pleased smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “I was wondering where you were.”
“Telling Keith and Joe stories about criminal
life in the nineteen twenties.” Her eyes held a hint of mischievousness that probably meant trouble. “We have company?”
“You have company.” She stretched out her hand. “Come into the living room.”
Still perplexed, he slid his fingers into hers and followed willingly enough—until she tugged him over the threshold into the living room and he found himself face to face with the past.
Joan.
So many years had passed, but there was no mistaking her. She had aged gracefully, her dark hair swept with silver but her face still smooth, and only a few wrinkles to mark the decades she’d lived. Smile lines, they looked like, and it mended something he hadn’t known was broken to realize in that instant that Joan had lived a happy life.
She smiled at him from her spot on the couch, tentative but friendly, as if her husband wasn’t wrapped half around her and watching Adam with a wariness that said more than a thousand verbal threats. In spite of her smiles, Joan was nervous enough to have Seamus’s back up. The werewolf might be even older than Gavin, but Adam could see the past in him, the dangerous criminal who’d crashed into their lives in the midst of chaos and swept prim and proper Joan off her feet.
The air was redolent with protective magic, and it took Adam a moment to realize it wasn’t just coming from Seamus. Cindy all but shook with it, a dominant wolf ready to keep her mate safe by any means necessary, and Adam tensed, recognizing the potential for unpleasantness hovering in the air.
Joan noticed it as well. Her lips pursed, as if laughter might erupt at any moment. “Oh, Adam. Say something, before one of them explodes. It would be a depressingly short fight, since Seamus is too old fashioned to hit a girl.”
“Chauvinism has its advantages,” Cindy interjected. “Advantages I’d be unashamed to press.”
The old wolf eyed her. “I think she really would kick my ass.”
Cindy relaxed a little. “And it would serve you right for underestimating me.”
