Stepping into his body, she slides her arms around his taut middle and hugs him. “Thank you, Brent—for everything.”
She scents his worry and is moved by his compassion, realizing at that precise moment that not all humans are the harbingers of doom they’ve been made out to be. “Don’t worry,” Tahlia says before he can speak.
“I don’t like leaving a woman here all alone.”
Tahlia tips her head back, looking into his honest face. His eyes are such a deep green, they could mimic brown if she hadn’t seen them in full daylight. “I can take care of myself,” she says easily, because it’s the truth.
Brent opens his mouth to speak, and Tahlia presses a fingertip to his lips. “You have been good to me, and I needed your help, desperately. Now I’ll be with my kin.”
“Kin?”
Oh. “My family,” Tahlia swiftly corrects. If they will have me.
“I’m going to leave now, or I’ll never get going.”
She nods, feeling the strange connection with him, as well. But Tahlia has a goal.
She swallows past the lump in her throat.
Drek is gone. The Hoh pack might still seek her. Tahlia’s injuries, though healing, still need time, and she needs proper rest and fuel. To add to the insult of her circumstances, her first heat is coming on.
She needs to be part of a protected pack.
The Lanarre of the Hoh is an absolute never, especially if Drek is gone. She hasn’t seen Tessa or Laz, so the only place to find sanctuary would be the Northwestern.
Tahlia must go on with the only plan that gives her a chance of long-term survival.
Brent returns her hug gently then abruptly lets Tahlia go. He walks to his vehicle without looking back. He opens the car door and slips inside, closing it securely before backing out of the parking slot.
With a last, lingering look, he turns the vehicle east and heads back the way they came.
Presumably listening to the music he plays.
Tahlia walks to the front door of the store and opens it. The bell chimes, heralding her entry, and a bored clerk looks up.
Tahlia straightens. “Human,” she greets.
“My princess,” the clerk says, rising from her station with renewed interest.
“Where is the pack of the Northwestern?”
Tahlia understands exactly where they are. She wants to be announced, though, as is protocol.
The clerk extracts a cell phone with fingers that shake only slightly then taps out a message for a minute straight.
Tahlia waits.
Finally, the clerk looks up, her lackluster dishwater-blond hair falling to her small breasts, where her name tag is pinned. Her name is Becky, and her scent smells of fear mixed with awe. “I’ve announced you.”
“Good.”
“They’ll be here shortly.”
Instead of answering, Tahlia eyes the beef jerky.
“Anything is yours,” Becky says.
With sharp relief, Tahlia scoops the entire row of beef jerky into her arms then grabs the nearest one-liter bottle of water. Tearing into the packaging, she relieves the tender meat of its plastic wrap and chews like her life depends on it.
Of course it does. She’s already metabolized most of the pizza in her body’s frenzied attempts to heal. The jerky is nothing but icing on the cake of the healing process.
Ten minutes later, a male Were slaps open the glass door. Palm flat on the handle, he stills, nostrils flaring.
Tahlia knows the precise instant he understands she is Lanarre royalty and prays the old ways are practiced in this pack. It is the only thing that will aid her survival. She can do nothing to camouflage the scent of her anxiety or that of her healing body. Hiding scent has never been her strong suit.
“My princess,” he says.
Her shoulders drop in relief, and she says with an authority she doesn’t feel at all, “I seek sanctuary.”
His hesitation lasts a split second. “And you are welcome to it.”
Tahlia doesn’t run to him and hug him. He is an Alpha male, and that would be unseemly. She also doesn’t want any other Were to know how desperate and weak she still is, though since he is Alpha, he could be sensitive enough to scent her healing injuries and barely abated hunger.
He walks toward her, and when he is a foot away, Tahlia stands from the small stool she’d taken over, empty jerky wrappers fluttering to the floor around her feet like plastic rain.
The male tips his head back, exposing his throat.
Standing on tiptoe, Tahlia gives the barest brush of lips at the pulse that lies at the center of his collarbone.
His show of submission to Tahlia could not be more opposite than the reality.
When his chin lowers, his eyes are spinning silver.
Tahlia doesn’t have much time—he’s scented her heat. He must have. She needs an audience, not just a single Alpha male.
Time is critical.
“Take me to the pack,” she says with more force than she should.
His eyes snap back to normal, and the spinning silver irises return to midnight blue.
Taking her hand, the male leads her away as the clerk watches them with that irritating mixed expression of jubilation and hope.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Neil
N eil’s nose twitches with dissatisfaction. The bitch has fled. He rises from his squat next to his dead Alpha and flattens his lips into a thin line.
I lost good males today. A casualty of the revolt. The males understood the potential of true death while going against a prince of the Lanarre.
The triumph of killing Drek cannot be shared at present. He must get after the bitch princess instead of returning to the pack and taking his rightful place.
With Bowen gone and Drek’s sister beaten into semi-submission, a takeover will be easy.
However, Neil must locate Tahlia.
There are a few good reasons for this. She’s a loose string. If she is smart—and there is no doubt that her mind is a fine one—Tahlia will advance toward the nearest working pack and attempt to gain sanctuary.
That’s what Neil would do.
Tahlia’s home pack is not an option. They washed their hands of her due to her pending betrothal to Drek. They would not accept her back. It is not the Lanarre way.
Neil considers that unfair, especially in light of her guardians being killed by an insane Were.
Thoughts of the demonic and that red prick Lazarus swamp his brain. How he would love another go with that horned fucker.
Neil’s temper pancakes his vision, widening and sharpening the scope of everything he sees. He knows his eyes would appear wolfen to passers-by.
His beast begs to surface.
Not now. He beats this wolf back inside the deep recesses of his body, where it lies dormant until the moon’s fullness brings his wolf in an explosion of blood, sinew, and bone.
But her light is weak, for the moon is on the wane.
Neil detects Tahlia’s scent trail easily, for her heat is nearly upon her. All the more reason for him to grab the bitch before she gains assistance from another pack.
Neil will breed Tahlia and make her his queen.
The corners of his lips curl, as he remembers the pleasure of breaking Drek’s willful sister, Mae.
And bringing Tahlia to heel will be no less pleasurable. No pack, except her home pack of the Redwood, could offer a proper sanctuary against Neil and what he brings as a Lanarre.
Tahlia will be his—as will Drek’s pack.
Neil begins to trudge in a southerly direction, easily following the scent of female Were. Adrenaline threads through the very subtle smell of heat as if drawn by a sewing needle through a quilt.
Then another smell cuts through the string of his tracking, dashing it to smithereens.
His chin kicks up, and Neil growls, not really expecting what he’s stumbled on.
It doesn’t matter. They are turned, not born, and Neil is Lanarre.
“Fuuuck me,” Bray says as Earl plows into the back of him. Bray doesn’t give him a brain duster like usual. Mostly because he’s doing the heavy lifting of their little operation. Fucking Billy got goddamned trounced in the fight with that demon dude and is barely alive.
In fact, Bray had scented Billy as dead. If it hadn’t been for Earl’s fine sense of smell that picked up a barely detectable alive vibe, they would have left him as dead weight. Bray gives an internal chuckle.
So they’d hid out way far away from the demon boy and the fucking hot Were bitch. Waiting was a test of patience he’d almost failed. It was agony to witness the demon fucking the bitch while Billy lay yards away, struggling to live.
They weren’t gonna get that bit of tail. No way; no how. That hell boy had shown them their absolute asses.
Bray had never encountered a demon before. He didn’t know at first what the fuck the guy was. But the three other rogues turned Were they’d picked up along the way said something about seeing one of them get into a fight in their travels.
Bray should have been paying closer attention to that little tale and noticing old Tom-boy and the demon shit he pulled on the fire dick. Because he was a helluva lot more than just Lycan.
But oh-no. Bray was chugging the brewskis and nodding, like whatevers.
Shoulda been takinʼ notes instead.
Fuck it, ya can’t wipe out the past. Gotta plow forward, make the best of shit. He’s still loaded down with green from offing Devin’s rich parents but ya never got enough, right? So that part’s tight for the moment, though he’s always down for more cash. And he just needed to get psycho Billy back on his feet, then they could head back to the Northwestern for round two.
Bray’s not sure why it’s such a damn compulsion to get back there for Ella, but that bitch Devin will not be keeping his little bitch spawn. He can literally feel her blood calling to him. What’d they call that? Oh yeah—sire.
And unlike him, she’s born. Ella might be worth something someday, some kind of leverage or a way into a pack, even though he’s turned. Who knows? Bray likes the options.
Anyway, he wants her. And by God—or Moon or whatever the fuck—he’s going to have her.
But first, he’s got to get past this fucking born Alpha who’s scented them.
And with only him, Earl, and an unconscious Billy, odds are looking like absolute shit.
Neil
Neil races toward the edge of the river and leaps.
He’s already forced wolfen, and his body protests as his legs pump in the air, driving him across the narrowest section of the river to the opposite shore, where the changed ones stand.
They are smart not to bother with running.
Neil would be on them in moments, tearing throats and spitting esophaguses to leech into the parched riverbank.
Crouching from his hard landing, he rises and casually strolls to the others.
The lead Were is tall, heavy of bone, but lean of physique. Not enough food, Neil notes. His face is crudely fashioned with eyes too beady and a broad nose that’s seen its share of the acne that plagues humans when they’re whelplings. However, a brutal intelligence lurks in those dark eyes.
A willingness to do whatever the task calls for.
Neil does not like changed Were and has been known to end them on sight. After all, with as many born males as the Lycan’s have, why allow the inferior changed males to live?
However, they might have scented Tahlia.
If they touched her, they will die by my claw, Neil promises himself as he approaches them with his seven-foot stature, heavy arms loose and ready at his sides.
Behind the leader, a small Were with slitted eyes and a skittish disposition drags another injured Were behind him on a makeshift platform of dual rails and cloth, a harness of sorts affixed to his narrow chest.
“Speak your piece,” Neil growls. “Or die.”
“I’m Bray, and this is Earl—we’re not lookinʼ for no trouble, friend.”
Neil can scent his fear and his obstinate nature. Bray’s eyes have gone wolfen from his heightened emotions and the silver color of his own pack. That causes Neil to still.
“You were changed by the Lanarre,” Neil states.
Bray nods. “Yeah, they wiped out a posse of my friends and left me, Earl, and Billy changed.”
“What transgression did you partake in that Lanarre would render you Lycan.” Instead of murdering you, Neil didn’t tack on.
“We were tag teaming a bitch,” Bray says, hiking his chin defiantly.
Neil assimilates that detail for future reflection, and thinking quickly, he turns the conversational tables with neat precision. “Have you scented an Alpha female—royal.”
“Yes,” the small Were named Earl answers quietly.
“Shut the good fuck up, Earl,” Bray hisses.
Neil moves closer, lifting a hand that’s fully taloned. “Let the small one speak.”
Earl’s Adam’s apple plows a path up and down within his skinny throat. “Well, it’s not the female we tried to get, just smelled her from a distance. Smells different.”
Neil exhales in impatience. “Of course she would, fool. She is royal. Rare as a blue moon.”
Bray smacks the smaller Were. “Ya didn’t say nothinʼ to me, dicklick.”
“Hey, man!” Earl says loudly, rubbing the spot where Bray smacked him in the chest. “We were busy dragging Billy out of there and avoiding the fire dick.”
Neil’s ears prick forward. “ʻFire dick’?”
“Yeah, man. There’s a demon dude who’s traveling with a female Alpha. He kicked our asses.” Bray sweeps a filth-encrusted palm toward the male with the grievous injuries, still attached to Earl.
Neil understands at once that they encountered Lazarus and Tessa.
Things could go more his way than he realized. He does not have to honor anything his former Alpha pledged under rite or oath. Tessa and Lazarus are fair game.
Neil’s excited by the prospect of getting that female back and killing the demonic, who has no right to be in their realm. He should be Below, where he belongs, mating with the despicable females therein.
Not their Were females.
“Where was the scent you detected?” His eyes drill the smaller male.
Earl drops his eyes from Neil’s dominant stare, answering to his shoes. “She was moving south.”
As Neil presumed, toward the Northwestern. His lip lifts. There are no Lanarre there. They can be easily overtaken.
That freak Laurent killed many of the Were from his own pack, leaving who remained vulnerable. The Northwestern should be small.
Neil must consider the potential of a Were or two who are a Red. Nevertheless, he will not worry.
Kill Lazarus, subdue Tessa, and procure Tahlia.
Perfect plan.
Neil’s eyes narrow on the changed contingent before him. “I need your help.”
Bray’s eyebrows hike, his shock so evident, Neil smirks.
“Hey, man—don’t mean to dis ya, but we just want to not die.”
Neil meets the male’s eyes. “You’re Alpha.”
Bray lifts a shoulder. “Don’t matter. Just makes livinʼ harder.”
“I won’t kill you, but I need something in return.”
They listen as Neil outlines his plan.
Bray’s brows meet as he cups his chin. “I like the thing about the chicks. Females are for fucking and pumping out kids, if ya want that shit.”
Neil has never employed such a crude toolbox as these two and the eventual third. However, they’re disposable, which holds great appeal.
“Gotta say—I like your bent, man. But we got Billy here, and he’s injured.”
Neil turns his attention to the broken and beaten Were. The scent of death hovers over him; even food and rest might not be sufficient to repair him.
But Neil is an Alpha Lanarre.
Sharing his essence with a lesser is an insul
t. It is never done with other males unless they are desperately needed in the heat of a battle or defense of the den.
However, sometimes, there is a need that feeds the greater purpose, like taking what is rightfully his.
Neil steps forward. “I will heal him.”
“He’s a crazy dude,” Bray says.
Neil gifts them with the first genuine smile of the day. Bray steps back, and Neil remembers in wolfen from, the expression comes across as a grimace. “When I am through sharing my essence, he will be right again.”
Neil stares at Bray until the other male drops his eyes. “If you touch me after I feed my essence to your friend, I will empty your bowels on the ground.”
“Fuck, you go hard,” Bray says.
“There is not another way,” Neil states calmly, bending over the body of the unconscious Were. “Lower him to the ground,” he commands Earl without a glance.
Carefully, Earl unwraps the amateur harness and settles the dead weight of their friend to the ground.
Pushing the blood-soaked material off the male’s shoulder, Neil tries not to shudder at what lies ahead.
It is never a pleasure to bite into a male’s flesh, even at the best of times.
If Neil had a mate, he would gladly bite her at the moment of orgasm, bringing her as he himself releases.
In comparison, the act he is about to carry out will be distasteful, pure drudgery.
Opening his jaw wide, the tendons pop with the effort as he bites down hard on the Were.
The male rouses with a start. His eyes are such a light blue, they are like distilled pool water. He opens his mouth to scream when Neil’s essence burns through his system, literally lighting his veins on fire.
Billy arches under the other male as though seeking absolution, arms high and stiff above him. He grasps at nothing, gurgling a hoarse cough, his throat too damaged for more.
Neil catches Bray’s widening eyes as Billy’s body begins to knit the damage. The flesh melts together, covering the wound thinly at first, so the bluish veins appear to pulse beneath a translucent layer of skin.
Alpha Blood Page 16
