Alpha Blood

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  Then… the opaqueness disappears, the wounds becoming whole skin.

  Billy’s body drops, drool coming out of his mouth.

  After ten minutes, Neil releases the male’s shoulder and turns to spit whatever remnant of taste fouls his mouth.

  Standing, he pivots then walks toward the river. He squats beside the lapping water, cupping his hands, and takes four handfuls of the crisp fresh liquid. After swishing it inside his mouth, he blows it out.

  The male tasted worse than he looked, and that is saying something.

  When Neil faces the males again, the healed one looks at him like a god.

  Excellent. He needs them to believe they can trust him. Bray is the only one who might prove troublesome.

  He is sloppy, a male who has apparently done deeds so heinous, the roaming Lanarre scouts thought to change them as punishment.

  The reality is, his Were contingent is dead. He wants Tahlia. He wants to teach Tessa a lesson and kill her demonic mate.

  Vengeance is a sweet taste on Neil’s tongue.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Jenni

  J enni smells—and hears—Quill before he knocks. If she closes her eyes, she can feel his hands on her body when he healed her. The ghost of them anyway.

  She rises without even a twinge.

  The other Were are oblivious to how phenomenal their collective healing ability is.

  Jenni’s not. She was a nurse. That career seems like years ago instead of six weeks.

  There is nothing she takes for granted about being a Were. The healing, the acute senses, and the danger.

  Especially the danger.

  Jenni has trouble sleeping. In fact, she used to hear post-traumatic stress disorder bandied around a lot at the hospital, and except for war veterans—of course—she thought people were throwing pity parties for themselves.

  Now she knows better.

  She’ll sit up straight in bed, heart racing. Tears roll down her face as she clutches the covers under her chin.

  Jenni can feel Bray’s fists on her face. His foot as it made contact with her ribs, breaking them. The fingers on the edge of her panties, yanking the fragile material. The loud sound of the tearing. The panting. Her flesh being tenderized.

  Jenni walks to the door, the lingering remnants of those memories clogging the arteries of her mind.

  There is no help for the nightmares, perhaps only time.

  Quill’s been great. Since Slash’s little pack chat last week, he’s made sure to check in with her each day.

  But the full moon is coming again. He was the one who saw her through her first change into wolf.

  Jenni presses her forehead against the door for a moment then lifts it from the solid wood. She opens the door, and Quill stands there, filling the entire opening.

  The males are so huge. Jenni’s not used to it yet. She understands born males grow large and changed human guys usually don’t. Unless they already have Were blood, then they can.

  It’s pretty confusing.

  Not that it matters, Jenni’s got a lot of time to learn their history. If she survives long enough.

  “Hey,” Quill says. His green eyes remind Jenni of the woods. They’re not the typical redhead’s watery shade, but a deep, forest green.

  And his hair. It’s so red, she can see the shade of it in shadow, like the strands burn without the help of light.

  “I can leave,” Quill says.

  Jenni starts, realizing she was staring at him like a fool. Stepping forward, Jenni hugs him, her arms sliding around his waist, and rests her face against his chest.

  A breath eases out of Quill, and gently, he cups the back of her head. “I’m trying to be good here, Jenni—give you time because I know you were human. I get that.”

  She can only nod.

  Jenni clings to him, and Quill holds her. She has never been a needy girl, but she’s having trouble coming to terms with becoming what she is, along with Bray’s attack.

  It’s one thing when you know cancer will claim you. It’s another thing entirely when someone tries to steal the second chance you’ve been given.

  Releasing Quill, she tilts her head back. “I know I said I wasn’t sure.” She bites her lip. “But I have a terrible favor to ask.” Jenni looks down. Unsure, unhappy, and afraid.

  “Anything,” Quill says, which makes Jenni feel worse, if possible.

  Quill studies her expression, a day’s worth of stubble like a shadow of fire across his square jaw. “Ask.”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  His chin dips, dark-emerald eyes capturing hers. “I know.”

  “How?” Jenni frowns.

  “I scent your fear,” he replies in a low voice.

  “Holy shit,” Jenni breathes. “But you’re half a mile away.”

  His eyes flash. “Not by design.”

  Jenni casts her eyes down. Damn. “No.”

  “What if you come into heat?” Quill asks for the millionth time.

  Of course, they’ve had that discussion at length. Jenni doesn’t think she’s able; her body was trash from chemo. Quill worries his little cottage is too far away to help her quickly if another pack of rogues came through or the same ones return.

  They cross their arms at the same moment.

  Checkmate.

  “This isn’t about heat, Quill.”

  His shoulders move up about a half inch then fall as if to say, What’s it about then?

  Jenni sucks a fortifying breath then lets it out. “I want you to move in here.”

  Quill snorts. “There’s no Lycan who could keep his paws off his mate within the same space.”

  I’m not your mate—yet. “I trust you,” Jenni says, finding his eyes and holding them.

  He turns away from her, speaking to the open doorway. “It’s not about trust, Jenni—it’s about instinct.”

  “Yeah, you want to breed me.”

  Quill turns so fast, she backs up into the wall.

  He takes the two strides to her in a blur. Pressing a hand against the wall by her head, he nods slowly, his eyes traveling every bit of her face as though memorizing each curve. “You hit the nail on the head. I want to breed you. Every night, every morning—for the rest of my life.”

  He pounds his fist into the wall so hard, Jenni’s head lifts from the surface, and she yelps.

  “I’m sorry,” Quill says, shoving back from her and stalking from her house. Landing on the porch, he jumps from it, skipping the stairs entirely.

  His clothes stretch as his body moves to wolfen.

  Then he’s running hard, away from her.

  In another minute, he’s a speck in the forest, and Jenni’s tears are scented by no one.

  Quill

  Giving no fucks when small branches razor whip his flanks, pumping arms, or the tender skin of his bare thighs, Quill charges through the coolness of the wood, shirt and shoes long gone.

  He didn’t give his body one second of time to process moving to wolfen.

  Jenni’s scent invaded his nose, and his beast rose, pressing against the inside of his skin.

  The sensation hurts—as she does.

  So instead of dragging her beneath him and making her his completely, Quill allows his aggression go where it is best released—the woods.

  It’s where his beast is most calm.

  Not right now, though.

  Right now, he wants nothing more then to circle back to Jenni. His mind turns her words over and over again in his head.

  “Move in with me” does not mean “mate me” or “breed me.” The way she’d casually thrown the “breed me” part in his face was a raw slice.

  Jenni understands the ways of the Lycan on the surface only.

  Of course males wanted to have sex with females. But breeding is another matter.

  Breeding is committing to have a whelp together. It is seldom done without the process of mating behind the pair who do the choosing.

  Quill might be a young Were,
but he was reared correctly and wouldn’t do any sequence other than the one his tired mental landscape has just outlined.

  Once they are mated, Quill can calm down. Just the thought of Bray’s return sends his blood to boiling. And that Jenni lies awake at night while Quill counts her rapid heartbeats and short breaths makes him fucking insane.

  When Dare joins him, he pours on speed, and his cousin keeps up. Together, they shred the lower branches of western red cedar trees, stirring up a tornado of their unique sweet fragrance.

  He and Dare reach Horsehead Bay, chests heaving, sweat making their bodies gleam. By some miracle, shreds of clothing still cling where modesty dictates.

  Quill stops where the shore laps at the pebbled and shell-riddled state park where he found Jenni.

  He dips his chin, staring at the wet stones, and attempts to regain his breath.

  “Quill.”

  “Don’t,” Quill says through his teeth. “Just be quiet.”

  Of course, Dare ignores him. “You can’t go on like this. Maybe you’ll have to travel to another pack until she figures her shit out.”

  The thought of leaving Jenni unprotected is unacceptable. “Fuck that. She’s naked without my protection.” Quill doesn’t check his disgusted tone at the door.

  Dare replies in a wry voice, “There are other males around, dumb shit.”

  Yes there are. Another key point. He narrows his eyes at his cousin, whom he just scrapped it out with a few days ago.

  “If you had given a female that much essence, if your beast had chosen, you’d be in full fucking freak-out mode too.”

  “You’re not wrong.”

  Quill tears his fingers through his short hair. “Fuck. She asked me to move in with her.”

  “Then what in the absolute fuck are you killing yourself with out here—right now?”

  “Not to breed her, Dare, not to mate her. I think I’m some kind of fucking security blanket. Like the human’s version of a mercy fuck without the benefit of fucking.”

  Dare’s jaw jerks back. “Ouch.”

  “Yeah, mercy anything be damned. I’m a Lycan, not a human to be played.”

  Suddenly, Quill’s jaw snaps to the left. Jenni walks down the black top road, and his dick gets hard. Just. Like. That.

  Sometimes, Quill just flat-out hates being a male.

  “Jenni,” Dare says cautiously, looking between the two of them.

  “Hey, Dare,” Jenni says, but her eyes are only for Quill. “I’d like to speak to Quill.”

  “Go ahead,” Dare says, crossing his arms and rocking back on his heels.

  Jenni’s brows drop over her dark chocolate-brown eyes. “Don’t be an ass.”

  Dare grins.

  “It’s okay,” Quill says. Not really.

  “Of course it is,” Jenni huffs.

  Dare saunters off then begins to jog in the direction of the pack.

  “You’re human again,” Jenni notes. For a half a second before continuing her perusal, her eyes stagger over the prick that’s currently tenting what's left of his athletic pants like a traitorous fucker.

  Moon love her.

  She continues to walk toward him. “Why did you blast out of there like that?”

  “Why do you think?” he bites back.

  Jenni doesn’t recoil, but she slows her approach. “Quill, I don’t love you.”

  He fucking knows that. He gets it. Why does she have to rub it in his face?

  She takes his hand, and his jaw clenches as that hot electricity they have threads them together. To Quill, the sensation feels like the veins of his heart have sought hers, and they’ve twined. Beats synchronizing.

  A glorious agony.

  He stays upright by force of will alone when all he wishes for is to sink to his knees before her and beg Jenni to mate him.

  Quill’s Alpha nature disallows this, though.

  “I never told you about Lance.” Jenni startles him for a second.

  Who?

  “I told you about the cancer and how Adi changed me—why she did—but I didn’t mention some of the worst parts.”

  It was worse?

  Jenni begins to talk, and a half an hour after she began, the tale of the weak human who didn’t understand how to love her is finished.

  Quill is silent. Her caution toward him makes even more sense now, and it wasn’t entirely personal, as he’d taken it to be.

  After a full minute, Jenni says, “Say something. I just laid out my heart and a bunch of personal crap I can’t retract from your consciousness.” Shifting her weight, she begins to gnaw at her bottom lip.

  Quill continues to stare. Finally, he says in his clear deep voice, “I am not he.”

  She nods quickly, head bobbing as relieved tears flow. “It’s such a leap of faith, I just thought you should know why it’s so damn hard to have any.”

  “You can trust me, Jenni. I’d kill anyone who harmed a hair on your head. Hell, I’d do it if they thought about hurting you.”

  Her smile trembles through her tears, and she reaches up, cupping his jaw because that’s what she can reach. “That’s why I wanted you to move in with me. Give this strange thing between us a chance.”

  It’s not strange to Quill at all. But he can see it would be from her perspective. Quill backs away from the light touch, and her hand falls. “I don’t want you to ask me because I’m a mercy fuck.”

  He knows damn well she’ll get that expression.

  Jenni recoils as if he’s hit her, eyebrows up. “I don’t feel that way.”

  He flexes his hands into fists then asks, “Then what way do you feel?”

  “See? That’s what you should have asked me before you assumed things.” Jenni crosses her arms, dark eyebrow arched.

  “Right.” Quill's not helping his position, clearly.

  “My parents are gone. The people I worked with at Port Townsend General believe I’m dead. Lance hasn’t probably even thought about me in—I don’t know—forever.” Jenni’s eyes bore into his. “I don’t trust anyone but you. I don’t feel anything for anyone but you. I can’t see myself with anyone but you.” Her last sentence is delivered so quietly, he only hears it because he is Lycan.

  Quill’s beast roars at her words, and he groans. The physical manifestation of his beast is too much for him to contain. He struggles.

  Her brows draw together with clear concern. “Are you okay?”

  Gritting his teeth, Quill manages a nod.

  Dying here.

  “That’s where I’m at.” Jenni gives the barest shrug. “I just don’t know if those are the answers or feelings you want to hear.”

  It’s more than he’d hoped for only an hour ago, when Quill tore out of there in a fury.

  He moves forward, wrapping her against him. The impulse to cry like a girl surfaces—as does the desire to breed her.

  But the one urge that reigns supreme is to protect Jenni. And Quill realizes that his beast has looped her emotions into that directive, as well.

  Quill wants to protect her soul as much as her body.

  “Let’s just try, Quill.”

  He squeezes his eyes shut. Jenni doesn’t know what she’s asking. Quill pulls away, searching her face. “I don’t know if I can stop from breeding you if you sleep by me night after night.”

  “Maybe you won’t have to. I’m just asking you to take it slow.”

  Quill nods, because speaking’s impossible.

  “And…” She bites her lip, looking down, obviously ashamed, and Quill places a gentle finger beneath her chin and lifts it until their eyes meet. “I need… I can’t lie—I need your protection. I can’t sleep. I’m having trouble eating…”

  Quill crushes her against him. “Shh, baby. Let me protect you. It’s all I can think about anyway.” His chuckle is tight. “You’re a major distraction.”

  Jenni’s laugh is shaky. “I am?”

  Quill’s single nod is solemn. “Yeah, really. It’s sucked to fight the instinct of
me and my beast.”

  “Oh,” Jenni says in a small voice, “I didn’t want to make all this worse or ask too much.”

  A knot inside Quill’s chest loosens. “Nope. This will be easier for me. I’m fighting everything I am not to protect you. It’s been… challenging.” He gives a chuckle at the understatement.

  Jenni’s exhale of pure relief is music to Quill’s ears. “So, when can you move in?”

  Quill grins. “How about right now?”

  Jenni rises on her tiptoes and presses a chaste kiss to his mouth.

  It’s all that Quill can manage to not make the meeting of their flesh more.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Slash

  H e moves deeply inside his mate, spreading her legs wide with his hands as he gently pumps—not the grind he would if she weren’t expecting their whelp.

  “Slash,” Adrianna moans as she arches beneath him. “Harder.”

  His beast roars to acquiesce, and Slash easily denies it. Always the war of intellect and instinct. He has great finesse over the two, though Adrianna makes it difficult to do what’s best for her, with her noises and erotic struggle to see him do what she would have of him.

  Wiggling her hips, she tilts them up. “Bury yourself in me!”

  Slash grits his teeth, attempting to relax against her command. “No, Adrianna,” he murmurs. “I don’t want to hurt…”

  “Pfft,” Adrianna says, and using the strength of their kind, she wraps her leg around his waist and sweeps them together.

  Then he is on his back, and Adrianna is pumping above him.

  She plants her palms on his chest, lips twisting as her chin hikes. Adrianna’s smile is demure.

  His mate is anything but. Adrianna is a she-devil in disguise. And Slash is deeply under her spell.

  He palms her ass cheeks, feeling the muscle under the velvet of her skin.

  Her head tips back, golden brown hair tickling his flat stomach as his hips rise to meet the fall of hers.

  Unable to resist, Slash’s left palm travels to her lower back and braces her as he rises.