Redemptive Blood

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  “Yeah.” She smiles again. “They're local. Me and the kids—well, when the kids were small anyways—collected all those. Love ʼem.” She leans as far as she can reach and turns the switch on for the lamp. A dim LED bulb brightens the interior of the store and stands like a small beacon in the window.

  “Ya got lucky, I was just gonna shut ʼer down before you came. We close early here outside of town.”

  Right, Gig Harbor.

  “Where was the beach you found these shells at?”

  “Oh, Forest Beach. Horsehead Bay area,” she says with a dismissive wave.

  Jenni smiles politely. She'll GPS that later. Where there's a beach, there might be public restrooms and a remote place to camp out. Thank God Devin brought blankets and a Disney Princess sleeping bag for Ella.

  “That's great,” Jenni says, then easily lies, though she's always been a scrupulously honest person. Before. “My niece is with me, thought I'd take her and my sister there tomorrow.”

  Becky smiles.

  Jenni shifts her gaze away, quickly locating the candy, beef jerky, and tons of other snacks that the fifth and sixth pizza she went back in and bought won't cover tomorrow.

  She pays for the supplies and gas and is turning to leave when Becky calls out.

  “Hey.”

  “Yes?” Jenni asks, hand on the solid metal bar bisecting the glass door.

  “You from around here?”

  Jenni's heart begins to pound for no reason at all. For every reason. “No.”

  “I didn't think so.” Becky smiles again.

  Why does it look like her teeth are a little too sharp?

  Jenni walks out without looking back, ignoring the tinkling bell, and strides to the car. She pops the latch on the trunk and carefully puts her haul inside before closing the lid securely.

  She rounds the car, eyes stumbling over the gouges in the hood for a long second, then scoots behind the wheel, heartbeat thumping erratically.

  Jenni feels ridiculous. It's like she's seeing a monster around every corner.

  Get a grip.

  Devin looks at her. “You look like a ghost walked over your grave.”

  “Kinda,” Jenni says, but doesn't elaborate.

  “We got a plan?” Devin's dark-blond eyebrows lift, a startling contrast to the faded black dye job on her head.

  Jenni nods. “We're going to camp out at a beach. Regroup.”

  She doesn't say anything about the wolfish grin from Becky inside the convenience store.

  Devin nods, and Jenni checks on Ella, who’s pretending with her dolly, telling her how the werewolves come even when the moon hides.

  Jenni's hiding from the werewolves who chase her, Devin, and Ella. She's hiding from the moon.

  Just hiding.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Slash

  There's not a snowball's chance in hell that they're following the good trolls into their new, magic tree.

  Not one.

  Every sense Slash possesses flares to life, begging him to run in the opposite direction, but he has put on a smooth front. He’s broken bread with their “saviors,” done everything he could so that the element of surprise would be the one thing he could pin his hopes of survival on.

  Kiern waves at them from the entrance, and Slash nods, lifting his hand in a wave at the same time he says to Adrianna like a ventriloquist, “Do you trust me?”

  Adrianna swings her face to his, unconsciously flicking her right shoulder back to resettle the unicorn pack.

  The tip of one horn sparkles in the dying light still filtering through the high canopy of the forest, as though they're lost pieces from the sun. Faded and ethereal, the forest glows with the last breath of day before twilight chokes it out.

  “Yes,” she says quietly, thick worry saturating her voice.

  “Piggyback, Adrianna.”

  Slash utters a prayer to the moon then pivots in a blur, crouching, and hikes Adrianna onto his back.

  He doesn't tell his mate to hang on. She chokes him with her hold.

  Slash goes wolfen, and her stranglehold stops mattering. Slash churns the dirt as his boots blast off his feet. His shirt splits, and the athletic pants he wears when traveling max out at the waistband, but Slash is already moving.

  The air shimmers in the distance, another vision replacing the realty of their environment.

  Women appear as though he’s seeing them through rain sheeting over glass.

  But Slash is moving, following his nose and nothing else.

  A roar like a hundred unleashed lions stomps his eardrums as the thunder of the trolls’ footsteps charge after him, shaking the ground.

  Green leaves fall like fresh, soft rain and Slash feels Adrianna's tears on his neck where she clings to his back.

  Slash races toward that shimmering mirage. He can smell the trolls as they gain.

  He thrashes through undergrowth, missing trees by inches. Small saplings snap as the trolls plow through what he avoided twenty paces before.

  Space folds, and Slash feels the brush of something bearing down on them.

  The fine hairs all over this form rise.

  “Slash!” Adrianna screams, and Slash leaps, tossing his arms out to catch whatever hangs.

  As luck would have it, a low branch accepts their weight, and he swivels to the right, praying to avoid anything that's grabbing for Adrianna.

  He swings back, catching the branch with both hands, and meets the eyes of Kiern.

  The troll opens his mouth and roars, tendons at his throat standing out like cords of rope.

  The group of trolls do not move forward.

  Kiern swipes toward Slash and Adrianna hanging above the steep gully, tantalizingly near, in obvious frustration, but ten feet separate them.

  The trolls seem unwilling to breach that distance for reasons Slash can't fathom.

  “Jump!” an unrecognized voice says from behind Slash.

  He doesn’t dare to take his eyes off the trolls to see who is speaking.

  Slash can't go back the way he came. Twenty enraged trolls pile up behind their leader. Spittle drips from their mouths and clubs stained red from prior use are ready in their mighty fists.

  He can't protect Adrianna from all of them.

  Thank the moon he sensed the trolls meant them harm, or their fate would already be sealed.

  “Adrianna.”

  Her hold tightens. “Get us out of here!”

  “Listen—look behind us.”

  “O-Okay.”

  A moment that seems like eternity passes, and finally she says, “Three women are about twenty feet behind us.”

  “Who?”

  She whispers, “They smell like Della.”

  Slash fights closing his eyes in misery. Somehow, he and Adrianna stumbled on some kind of witch-troll feud, and they are dead center in the middle. Exactly where they need not to be.

  The trolls mean them harm. Every inch of him feels it.

  “Slash,” Adrianna says in a low, miserable voice.

  Making a split-second decision where there really is not one to be made, he swivels, arcing his body, and tossing himself and Adrianna toward the witches.

  Kiern lunges just as Slash lands in a crouch, Adrianna tucking herself tightly against his back.

  Slash turns back just in time to see Kiern's nose sheared off as though an invisible blade hacked at the end.

  His hand drops next, and disembodied fingers twitch as it flops on the forest floor.

  The troll leader bellows, clutching the stump of wrist as he attempts to roll back in the direction he came. Instead, gravity pulls him forward, dragging him down the slope toward Slash.

  Slash digs his talons into the steep ravine, pushing hard, and leap frogs up the side, bringing them farther away from the rolling troll.

  He turns a second time, surveying the trolls.

  None go where their leader hazarded.

  Kiern groans, cursing them as part of his small toe and a kn
eecap join his other dismembered body parts.

  The bits and pieces of the troll smolder close to where he writhes against the undergrowth as an unseen force acts as both knife and barricade.

  As Slash watches, another bit of Kiern’s flailing arm flies off.

  Slash runs his eyes over every inch that stands between them. Kiern screams in agony as he attempts to roll over, and half his buttocks is shaved off in the process.

  White fresh skin glows for a horrible handful of seconds and begins to fill with blood.

  Slash backs away from the sight.

  The trolls will not be following them. Somehow, he and Adrianna passed through the invisible obstruction unharmed.

  “Slash,” Adrianna calls out. He reaches around, securing her at the same time as he offers his reassurance.

  He rotates slowly, arm still on Adrianna, and faces the women.

  “Talk now, or I'll attack.” His arm falls away from his mate, and he plants his feet wide in readiness, staring the three women down.

  Their eyes widen. “We are witches.”

  “Wrong answer,” Adrianna says in a dry voice, and Slash can't help the curling of his lips.

  He is blessed with a resilient mate. With trolls at their backs and witches at their front, Adrianna jokes.

  Moon, how I love her.

  “We have already encountered one of your kind.” His gaze fields them together, marking them for the wounds he will inflict, when a tall woman steps from the knot of three. “Della is insane. She was our best guard of the trolls, and when we lost contact, we knew all hope was lost.”

  Slash contains his surprise of their foreknowledge.

  “Guardian of the trolls?” Adrianna slips off his back, but maintains a touch on his body with her hand. He draws her against his side, subtly turning his body to keep the trolls in his peripheral vision while also keeping the witches within view.

  The tall witch nods. “We came to this country from Europe long ago—centuries. The trolls have always required guardians, a debt tasked to us. They are too dangerous to live freely.”

  Adrianna snorts. “We thought they were good.”

  The witch's eyes, like gleaming seawater, look beyond them at the trolls still wailing and gnashing their teeth. “Their magic is deep. There would be much they could gain from a Lycan couple in true love. Much.”

  Adrianna presses against Slash. “That's what Della said about us.”

  “She should have been relieved by another. By the time we found there was a problem, we had to curse her, locking her in with her own magic—she and the trolls both.”

  The witch at the woman’s left—Slash has a difficult time telling between the three because they look so similar—comes forward. “To live too long amongst the trolls is to go crazy.”

  “Yeah,” Adrianna comments.

  Slash squeezes her lightly, and she doesn't say more.

  “We want safe passage. And my patience is gone. Della tried to kill me and poison Adrianna, for the child she bears.”

  The witchesʼ eyes widen. “She was more lost than we could imagine.” She gives Adrianna a gaze of unfiltered sadness.

  But Slash isn't buying any of it. The supernaturals of this area have done nothing but attempt to dupe them the entire time. He'll trust himself and no one else. Like he's always done.

  “You're not baby killers?” Adrianna says.

  Slash growls.

  The tall witch gives a solemn shake of her head, black hair slithering over her narrow shoulders encased in a deep scarlet cape. “No. We are Druid. We come from ancient sorcery bloodlines. We are the protectors of life—not the takers.”

  “Della didn't get the memo.”

  “Adrianna.”

  She takes a step forward. “Let us help you. We owe you that.”

  Slash shakes his head, his talons flashing without a command. “I've had about enough help as I can stand.”

  Her eyes tighten at the sight of the weapons that sprout from the end of his fingers. Of course his physicality is not proof against magic, but Slash can still inflict grave injuries quickly.

  And these witches appear wandless.

  Slash chances a glance at the trolls, some of which are carefully making their way down the path to their fallen leader, presumably attempting to pull him to safety.

  “It was your feelings for each other and supernatural status that allowed you entry. A fluke,” she continues.

  “I don't care if it was a meteor strike. Adrianna and I will leave this place.” Slash feels his brows drop. “Or I will kill you.” His gaze runs over the three, including them all in his proclamation.

  The youngest looking of the three eyes the trolls, gives an exhale of pronounced defeat, and begins a slow trudge to where the trolls are.

  “What's she doing?” Adrianna asks.

  Slash keeps his eyes on the witches, watching the youngest.

  “Dying,” the other two say in eerie unison.

  “What?” Adrianna says, clearly alarmed.

  “Stay out of it, mate.”

  “Eff that, Slash.”

  He holds her against him in case she becomes foolhardy and tries to rescue someone who might be their enemy.

  The youngest witch continues her short trek then passes the invisible line. Tears streak her face like liquid gems.

  When she gets near the area where Kiern lost his body parts, she reaches out, touching something no one can see directly in front of her. A pulse of color stretches out from the contact, unveiling a wall of light and energy.

  The witch's body goes from strong and youthful to withered and old. The wall grows brighter, brighter—brighter still.

  When there is nothing but skin and bones and her eye sockets are hollowed holes inside her head, the witch drops in a pile of fabric and skin.

  The wall bursts in front of them with brilliant rainbow iridescence, shimmering like fine crystal in sunlight.

  Slowly, the appearance of the burning wall begins to soften, growing dull and melting back to air and space, leaving a steep, small ravine and emerald forests between where they stand and where they were.

  The trolls raise their faces to the sky, bellowing their rage.

  Slash hikes Adrianna against him, and she clings to his neck. Their eyes go to the fallen witch.

  “Why did she do that?” Adrianna asks, and Slash feels the thump of her heartbeat against his body.

  The two remaining witches have tears staining their faces. “So that another of us would not be sacrificed for the next one thousand years of safeguarding. And losing our minds, possibly hurting or murdering innocents.”

  They look at the heap of clothing from the fallen witch.

  “Deandre gave her essence, her energy, to maintain the veil around the trolls. She strengthened this part of your world that is thin. Keeping them in place. Protecting humans and supernatural, alike.”

  “Okay, let's go,” Adrianna whispers.

  Slash doesn't ask permission or speak. He begins to walk away backward—from the dead witch, the clearly evil trolls, and the two Druid witches. They will not take him from behind if they have a mind to.

  Their eyes mark Adrianna and Slash's progress.

  “We're not the enemy,” the tall one says.

  Without a reply, Slash keeps walking, watching for them to make chase, cast a spell, or try for his mate.

  They don't, but Slash will feel ease only when there's sufficient distance between these plagued woods and Adrianna—and the whelp she carries.

  As far as he's concerned, one million miles wouldn't be enough.

  Slash heads south, toward the Northwestern, where he and Adrianna might have a chance at a life. A life not filled with strife.

  He doesn't know what kind they'll have; he can only hope.

  They don't break stride or hesitate until they're almost to the human highway, far from the trolls, witches, and whatever other bewitchery seethes inside the deep woods, waiting like an unsprung trap.

&nb
sp; Slash finally turns, giving the witches, who are miles away now, his back.

  He runs, taking his new mate with him. Her warm safe presence at his back is a balm to his soul.

  They run a course that parallels the human highway but doesn't move too far within the woods.

  The ancient forest holds many things. And Slash is not curious to discover what they are.

  THE END

  Available for Kobo pre-order this August 2018!

  Book 8

  Coming November 29, 2018!

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  SHIFTER

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  New York Times Bestselling Author(s)

  MARATA EROS

  TAMARA ROSE BLODGETT

  All Rights Reserved.

  Copyright © 2015 Marata Eros

  Copyright © 2015 Tamara Rose Blodgett

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  www.tamararoseblodgett.com

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  Cover art by: Willsin Rowe

  Proofed by: Corinna

  Synopsis:

  Talyn Phisher is a counselor in a world that has been turned on its ear by an unthinkable discovery: vampires roam among humans.

  If all this upheaval was not enough, Talyn's body is changing. Signs that something is seriously wrong plague her. Having been told she's barren and there's no hope—Talyn still longs for a family of her own, though the stories she hears from clients tell her happiness is a long shot.

  Talyn wants that shot. She longs for a man who will put her first—for who she is.