blood 03 - blood chosen

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  He turned to Adi. Her human form held the bruises of the last several hours. They were many.

  “Who's done this...?” he asked her, then his gaze encompassed the female Singer as well, his question now posed to both. He didn't need the answer, he could feel his brows dump above his eyes, narrowing them in anger. The lightning strike of the scar that bisected his face was a red slash across the dusting of fur. “Tony?”

  Cynthia nodded. “Yes, king dick Were, that'd be him.”

  Slash smirked and it looked like a grimace on a face with a snub snout, the light chestnut fur like reddish-gold fuzz all over his body.

  More naked wolf-guys, Cynthia thought. Wonderful.

  “Anthony Laurent?” Truman offered and Cynthia looked at him curiously.

  “Yeah, how'd ya know?” Her eyes searched his, the revolving green warring with whatever his human color was. However, Cynthia realized with a start that the memory she had of him was dim. All she could see was the once fifty-year old Homer detective was now some kind of mondo-Were.

  A ripple of contained agony crossed his face as he bled back to human.

  So it's not pain-free, Cynthia noticed. Interesting.

  Cynthia couldn't stop the gasp and she covered her mouth.

  Truman felt the frown form between his eyes but answered her question regardless of how strangely she reacted. Cynthia Adams would recognize him now, she'd know she was safe. “Laurent was my primary lead. He had a really old conviction. It was floating around in the wrong place; pre-computers.”

  “Yeah,” Cynthia said softly.

  “What is it?” Adi asked just as quietly.

  Cynthia shook her head, her blonde hair floating in strands. “This dude,” she pointed at Karl Truman, “he's a cop from Alaska.”

  The two wolfen males, Alan and Lawrence, nodded. “We know...” the rough voice of the Packmaster agreed but she held her hand up for silence and he glowered at her, the fur rippling in an unpleasant stripe down the center of a face that held a snout.

  The image gave her pause but she plowed forward at her own peril—the hell with it. “This is not the Karl Truman I remember.”

  “I wasn't a werewolf, Miss Adams.” It was clear from his expression that it was as surreal to him as it was to her.

  Good thing they agreed on something, she thought. Cynthia folded her arms in exasperation. “Ya think? Brilliant no-shittery there, Truman.”

  “Wait a damn minute... sassy-ass.” Truman stepped forward and Adi gave a giggle, slapping her thigh and his gaze slid to her. “What?”

  “You get a pass because you're new... but you do know you're naked as a jay bird, right?”

  Heat flared on Truman's face. Suddenly, all he could think about was his dick hanging out in front of two young women. It was, in a word... awful. If balls could shrivel (and Truman felt that was a certainty) his were walnuts.

  Alan moved in front of him and immediately Adi's eyes made contact with his own. “He stepped into the middle of everything and got changed.”

  “Sacrilege!” Slash roared. His eyes flashed and the trembling energy of his change to full form lay like heat above his skin, hanging in that precarious balance between forms. Adi gasped, and like sympathy, her own wolf rose up through the mists of her humanity, begging for release, for escape.

  “Don't,” she whispered to Slash. He would bring her wolf and she didn't want to change in front of males she didn't know, it was too vulnerable for words.

  He quelled the need, his anger and wolf so closely linked they breathed the same air, ate the same food. His wolf and his human were interlocked in a way most Were envied. The speed of his change a mere thought, intent- then it happened.

  It was not enviable now.

  Adi took a deep trembling breath, stilling that roiling heat that had risen to meet his. She gave him troubled eyes and he confirmed the trouble.

  “It is Tony who made these marks on your body.” Slash stated it as fact, ignoring the new Were, his body tense until he got answers. Answers enough to know how to proceed.

  “Yeah, it would have been more too if he could have made it longer but the Queen bitch of the east flew in on her broomstick and screwed his plans,” Cynthia said and Adi laughed.

  “What she said.” Adi hooked a thumb in Cynthia's direction and Cyn looked at Alan. In the eyes, because the swinging genitalia was kinda distracting. “Hi Boss.”

  Alan scooped up a pair of shorts off the ground, an open small pack lay on the forest floor as his form fell like a sliding rain of flesh all around him and he sunk into how she remembered him. It might seem all natural to them but to Cynthia, it was the damn oddity of a lifetime. Cyn knew if she dwelled on it too long, she'd go crazy.

  So she didn't. She watched Alan's ass muscles clench and bunch as he threw on athletic shorts over his nakedness. She fought not to cover her eyes. The more she told herself not to look the more she wanted to. Then he faced her. “Hi.”

  Cynthia took a deep breath, trying not to glance where she shouldn't, making sense of this as her boss from the restaurant, the dude who’d given her a break, stood as a human, but had just been a werewolf or something. Some break. Cyn wasn't stupid enough to think that Alan hadn't known what she was all along. Who she was.

  “You knew, you cheese whiz,” she started in, walking right into the wall of his muscled chest and poking him with the tip of her badly chipped acrylic nail.

  “Yeah,” Alan admitted, looking down into her face. Cynthia was tall, five feet eight-ish, but Alan stood near six feet two. He'd been almost seven feet even, she figured... when he was wolfing it up.

  Spanktastic. Yet again.

  She hit him with the finger a second time. “You could have,” stab, slap... “effing let me in on the fun.” Cynthia pushed him with the flat of both palms and he didn't move a centimeter. “When I first worked for you!” she yelled, her palms becoming fists and beating on him.

  Alan grabbed her small wrists, easily controlling them. “We hoped it wouldn't come to this.”

  “Well it fucking did!” Cynthia yelled in his face.

  “Cyn!” Adi said, grabbing her shoulder and Alan released her wrists. She fought not to rub them where they ached from his restraint.

  Lying prick.

  Cynthia backed away, laying her accusation all over the top of him with her gaze.

  Alan sighed as Lawrence came to stand beside him and Karl Truman as well.

  Lawrence held up a hand that was talon tipped moments before and Cynthia swallowed hard, looking from one to the other of them.

  “Karl Truman walked onto land owned by the Southeastern Pack and the decision...”

  “Bad decision,” Adi interjected.

  “Perhaps...” Lawrence agreed as his eyes slid from Adi's and back to rest on Cynthia. He continued, “At any rate, the decision was made to turn Truman.”

  “Why?” Cynthia mourned, her palm sweeping Truman. “He was human before... living his life. Werewolves are nothing but a pack of sadistic manipulators with fur.” She turned to Adi. “There's some exceptions.”

  Adi huffed, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, no offense or anything.”

  “David of the Southeastern didn't realize the wound would not be a killing one. He thought he was defending his den from an astute interloper.”

  Cynthia looked at him. “So...” she began slowly, tapping her bottom lip with her damaged nail, “David, the wolf-whatever, was just gonna do his ass—a cop,” she gave him narrow accusatory eyes, “then, he surprised everyone by turning.”

  There were embarrassed looks between Alan and Lawrence but surprisingly, it was Truman who spoke, “I'm glad they did it. For the first time... I feel right in my own skin.”

  Cynthia threw up her hands. “When ya have it!” Her eyes were fierce when she met Truman's. “Now you have to follow their weird pack law and crap. This entire supernatural thing blows.” Cynthia ignored Adi snickering in the background.

  “I think we're way off task here,” S
lash interrupted, having quietly turned into his human form. Cynthia was glad to see him, scarred scary face or not, ginormous presence or not: when things had gotten hot as they went to Julia, he'd protected her. “Alan and myself are on loan from the Southeastern for the express task of guarding Cynthia. And now, part of that might loop to Adrianna's protection as well.”

  Adi grunted in displeasure.

  “Because of Laurent?” Truman said, making the same intuitive leap of logic as a Were that he would've made as a cop. In his heart, he was still a digger. A digger of clues, one of truths as well. God, he'd kill to have a cig. Of course, that could all change... he'd only had hours to acclimate to what he was. It was weird how natural he felt now. Like his other, human form had been a costume and this was his real self.

  “Yes,” Slash replied. His eyes moved to Cynthia. “Tell us,” he commanded of her, “and leave nothing out.”

  Her eyes swept to Truman, then Adi... then finally they landed on Slash.

  Cynthia told him. How Tony had brazenly taken both women from the semi-safety of the Region One Singer compound, then their luck had allowed them to slip out from underneath him—literally. Jacqueline had tried to cripple Adi, Cynthia had healed her... then while the two enemies had gone after each other, they'd escaped the noose entirely.

  There was a weighty silence that Slash broke, “Sloppy,” he remarked. This was his area: strategy. Jacqueline might have been accustomed to sitting behind her gilded desk, as leader of Region Two, and merrily delegating her nefarious deeds to her underlings. But when faced with an unpredictable Were of criminal motivation... she had met her match. As vile as Tony was, he was a welcome distraction at just the time they'd needed it.

  “What?” Cynthia asked. “Are you kidding me? That's all you have to say...? Gawd!”

  Slash's lips twitched. Willful thing. “I missed you being taken, that fault will always remain with me. However,” he paused and she looked back at him, the scar bisecting the ink of his brow as he cocked it, “I was charged with your protection and was almost upon your position when I picked it up elsewhere... with them.” It was a speech for Slash, though Cynthia didn't know how truly reticent he was.

  Cynthia crossed her arms as Adi came to stand beside her. “Cyn... normally, I love an alpha male ball bust...” Cyn's brows rose and Adi nodded her head. “Truly... however, these guys... I can vouch for them.” Her brown eyes moved to Slash. “I've known Slash since I was a whelpling and he was always good to me... and Joseph,” she whispered that last. No way was she going to think about her brother's death.

  Slash stayed where he was when every fiber of his being screamed to be with the female, her sadness a tangible thing between them. God help them if there were ever a rite... which was a real thing. A thing in which the wolves chose each other's mates; not the humans. Then different dens be damned. Males would fall to mate with an alpha female. Age was immaterial, as once Weres were of age, their maturation was slow. Slash was early twenties when Adi referenced the early relationship they shared when she was a whelp. Now that she was entering her wolf's early adulthood, she would be of breeding age, while Slash remained forever looking thirty. He was not, but closer to forty in years walked on this earth. It was the contrary nature of supernaturals, females would look even younger. He allowed his eyes to rove Adi’s form, so small, so determined... so keenly unaware of her own beauty. Was there such a thing as an ugly alpha female? Slash hadn't encountered one. But Adi was special. One such as she could never love a hardened battle-scarred Were from another pack. Slash turned away, shrugging off his internal monologue. He gave the full heat of his gaze to Lawrence, Alan, and the newest member of his pack, Karl Truman.

  “How long have you been Were?” Slash asked him.

  “I don't know, about a day...” Karl said with a chuckle. A furrow formed between Slash's brows, damn fast assimilation in the pack. It was troubling that David and Ford were not here. Of course, it was not smart to have both Packmasters gone from their respective dens. Sister dens were vulnerable if leaderless simultaneously. His gaze went to Truman, who was clearly an alpha. Only the strongest could be turned in one day, and behave as if they still had their head about them.

  Slash looked at the other Were. Then he swung his gaze back to Truman. “Does he know what he looks like?”

  Truman's gaze sharpened on Slash.

  Cyn knew exactly what the scarred alpha was asking. She came forward, digging in her back pocket. She extracted: lip gloss, a non-working cell, and finally, a small compact that was part compartment and part mirror. The deep blue enamel of the top had an eight point star etched on the top.

  “Amazing you can pack all that shit in your back pocket with how tight those jeans are,” Alan said in a voice that struggled to be neutral and Cynthia raised the middle finger of her free hand.

  “Sit and spin, ya lying jackass,” she replied. Ignoring him, she approached Truman as a glowering Alan stepped back from her.

  Smarter than he looks, she thought. “Look at yourself,” Cyn said and then glanced at Slash for confirmation and he nodded. Yeah, she thought that was what he meant. He better know what he really was, the whole tamale, not just the good stuff.

  Karl took the makeup thing from Cynthia Adams and looked at his reflection.

  Truman prided himself on being a flinty sort- unflappable. Nothing much rocked his boat. But when he got a good look at himself, he staggered back, almost dropping the compact.

  He was saved from falling on his ass by the Packmaster of the Northwestern den, his arm falling on Truman's with its hefty weight. They probably thought he was getting ready for a hysteria fit.

  “It is sometimes thus when someone has been changed late in their cycles,” Lawrence said almost apologetically.

  “What the blue hell does that fancy turn of phrase mean?” Truman asked, raising the mirror again. He walked his fingers over skin now smooth and tight, eyeballing his tight jawline. Un-fucking-real, Truman thought.

  The gaze of a much younger man was reflected back. Eyes that held the wisdom of ages like a promise, a face that had lived perhaps thirty years.

  It was a face he hadn't seen in two decades.

  Truman wordlessly handed the thing back to Cynthia, who shoved it back in her pocket.

  “It means that you have the blood of the Were inside you or the bite from our Packmaster would have been the last thing you knew on this earth,” Alan stated.

  “You have the blood of the red running in those veins,” Slash added and Lawrence nodded.

  “And you just slipped underneath the radar for turning,” Adi said. “How old were you when David chomped on ya?”

  Truman felt a small smile form on his face at those words. “I was closer to fifty-one than fifty,” he admitted.

  Adi gave an appreciative whistle, turning to Slash. “Has anyone ever...?” Her pale brown brows rose slowly.

  Slash shook his head. “If anyone's ever been changed after fifty, I've not heard of it.”

  “What does it mean?” Cynthia asked, looking between them all.

  “He's more red than we speculated...” Slash said.

  Lawrence was back to looking at Truman, who backed away from everyone. What did his lineage of red matter?

  “Is that a bad thing?” Cynthia asked Truman's internal question out loud, one eye on Truman, who was the only link to her past besides Jason and Julia.

  “It could be...” Slash said.

  Lawrence's gaze went from curious to speculative in an instant. “Very.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Julia

  “I can't leave you,” Scott said, his forehead pressed against Julia's. When he stood next to her like this... touching, he couldn't conceive of leaving her. Not with the two he told her she'd have to consider marrying.

  Besides himself.

  And of course, technically she was already married to Jason. That just bit his ass about a hundred different ways.

  William and Jason were just be
yond the bedroom door, the jagged glass doorknob winking its displeasure in the sunlight. Its fractured presence was the only audience to his goodbye.

  Julia felt like someone was amputating a body part without a tool, just a slow and painful rendering of flesh and bone.

  Instead of the million things she wanted to accuse him of, she asked instead, “How long?”

  Scott closed his eyes against the warm breath of her words at his neck, sick to his stomach at the next hours without her. But a bright spot appeared and he smiled, because some facts couldn't be altered. No amount of deceit and manipulation would work. “Not long. Now that we've melded, to be separated longer than a few days will cause a problem. It goes against everything we know as Combatant to endanger the Queen.”

  Julia pulled away, her hand coming to his jaw and he grabbed it, holding it against the stubble that peppered it, the cleft at his chin a shadow below his smile.

  “Then why go? It's stupid. Jason hates me and William... well, that won't work.”

  “Jason doesn't hate you. But he needs to get his shit in one sock and stop beating you up every time he's near you. I think William,” and he looked straight at Julia, “I hate it- hate.” His intense brown eyes darkened like a storm finally arrived. “I believe he would do anything but cause you harm. He manipulated my sister... took blood from a Singer under thrall... to get to you. No,” Scott shook his head, “he's Singer enough to cast thrall on one of us, Singer enough to breed with and now sovereign over the Southeastern Kiss?”

  Julia felt like crying. “I don't have to do this. I can just be with you. Only you.” Though Julia felt the tug of her heart that was still Jason. The meld swept her love for him aside like an errant current but it didn't erase the memories.

  Scott gripped her face inside his hands, the length and breadth palming it. “I don't want you to be with anyone but me. That's why I have to let you go... it isn't want, it's what's right.”

  “What—what is right?”

  Scott buried his lips against Julia, the brutal kiss at once tender, deep and savage. Julia responded like a flame to a struck match, wrapping her arms around his neck and he picked her up, arms twining around her waist.