blood 03 - blood chosen (2 page)

They too had felt the pull of the Were in one area. They veered off their premeditated course to the Region One Singer compound and instead, made their way to the cloistered and mixed group.

*

Cyn

Holy smokes,
Cyn thought, watching as the snake in the grass leader, Jacqueline, made her way toward them at the same time as Tony.

Her wary gaze locked with Adi's as Cyn poured her newfound healing energy into the female Were. When the damage made from the telekinetic fall caused by that bitch reversed itself, Cynthia decided right then if they survived this next mess, she was going to hurt them.

Permanently.

Cyn loved Jules, she did. But where Julia was soft and thoughtful, Cyn was decisive and pragmatic. That translated to:
don't fuck with me
. Or, better:
don't mess with anyone I care about.
 Cyn didn't know where her fierce loyalty stemmed from and understood on some level it was unreasonable.

But things just were what they were, unchangeable like the sun rising and setting.

Cyn stood from her crouch next to Adi, the leaves crunching under her feet. She felt rather than saw Adi stand as well, the fur gone, replaced with features that looked heartbreakingly young in the unforgiving light of dawn. The ethereal colors of pink, orange and red covered them as Adi and Cyn backed away from the advancing pair.

Adi glanced at Tony and Jacqueline as they drew nearer. “Oh... shit sandwich,” she said in a shaky voice. Cyn barked out a laugh brought on by pure adrenaline and nervousness.

Tony got closer, scanning their faces and said, “You bitches are mine.”

Gawd,
Cynthia thought,
he's like a B-rated movie or something
. Some of her dismissal of his lack of intellect must have shown because his brows dropped above his eyes, casting them in shadow and hiding them from the first light of the day.

She thought he was a dumb ass and didn't mind him knowing it. But, Cynthia flicked her eyes at Adi, then her gaze slid to Jacqueline; poisoner of her bestie, and she felt a frown darken her face.

Jacqueline smiled at Cyn but it never reached her eyes. That wench didn't have a legit bone in her body.

“Well, well... what do we have here?” Jacqueline asked like she was inquiring about the weather.

Tony's gaze shifted to her. “Shut up, Singer bitch.”

Jacqueline turned that laser beam of cruelty on Tony and he fell to his knees, hands at his throat. The universal sign for choking was as obvious as if he'd said the words 
I can't breathe
.

Adi and Cyn began to back away. Cyn didn't know Adi's exact thoughts but she figured if psycho one and two wanted to go at it, they could. Without Adi and her in attendance.

Tony plunged to his hands and knees, his fingers clawing at the forest floor.

“Are you going to be a good dog?” Jacqueline asked in a cultured murmur.

Tony's body trembled. To be brought low by a female Singer... or any female was a blow to his considerable ego. But as the oxygen left his body and blackness began to eat at the edges of his consciousness, he gave a nod of his head, very like the tap out so popular in cage fighting.

Survival was paramount to Tony.

When he felt her hand in his hair he cringed, gasping, though there was no breath to relieve him as he hung there-- suspended between consciousness and not. His palms slapped the decomposing earth at his sides. The two females he hoped to denigrate were but a dim memory.

Tony was so aware his life hung in the balance.

Jacqueline scratched behind his ear, then petted his head. “There, there... you will do as I say... or die,” she warned softly.

Sweat beaded under Tony's nose and a low mewling sound broke the seal of his lips, robbing him of even more precious oxygen.

“Comply or die,” Jacqueline repeated, her fingers tightening in his hair, jerking his head back with a strength borne of her lineage. Royal blood, mixed with age, gave Jacqueline power she otherwise would not have possessed.

The cords on Tony's neck stood out, his face turning purple. His hands beat the damp earth, fingers involuntarily clenching into the dew-kissed soil. Finally, moving against her brutal hold, he gave another stiff nod.

His eyes met hers, black meeting black and Tony knew... that he'd met a female who matched him. Who was maybe
more
than he was. Tony hated it. It also made him terribly aroused, violence and sex were inextricably linked inside him. When death swirled around him, instigated by this Singer bitch, he wanted her.

It made no sense, compulsions never did. But it made perfect sense for Tony to embrace it.

“I smell your desire, Wolf,” Jacqueline stated. “And I do not rut with dogs like a bitch Were... you stupid creature.” She released Tony abruptly and he fell, the invisible steel band that had been around his sternum instantly gone.

He gagged, alternately coughing and sucking greedy lungfuls of oxygen.

After his coughing fit settled down into breathing
sans
choking, Tony looked up. His eyes sought Jacqueline's but her's lay elsewhere.

During their power play, the quarry had fled.

Tony didn't have to wonder if Jacqueline had wanted the Singer and female Were. He would have. And in that, Tony assumed, they were much alike.

Maybe in other ways as well.

He smiled. “Nice going... the females have fled,” he spat.

Jacqueline lifted one small shoulder in dismissal and replied, “It is of no importance—I have you,” she said, her eyes drilling into Tony's, the black depths like dimly lit obsidian marbles. “And you will use that keen nose of yours to retrieve them.”

He stood, coming to her side and showed his neck.

Jacqueline laughed. “You need not show me your subservience. I know that I have it,” she said, giving a low chuckle, her hand lifting in the air and closing tightly in a fist at her last few words.

Tony frowned, looking down at her. He could crush her; wanted to. He also wanted her in the other way as well. Those two warring impulses were cross-wired in his brain. They always had been.

He cocked his head. “Tell me, pure Singer,” he began with thinly veiled sarcasm, “do you have Were in your lineage?”

Jacqueline was instantly offended, though her gaze skipped away like a rat that couldn't find its hole. “There are no mongrels in my ancestry.”

Tony could smell her lie. “Uh-huh,” Tony responded, and scented of her deeply, his nostrils flaring wide. What he found gave him pause.
She might not know,
he thought. If that were the case, she was not all that she seemed.

“Come... Were,” Jacqueline began to walk away, her body showing that that path of conversation was clearly over.

Tony gave a great exhale then followed.

“I suppose you have some plan, Singer?” Tony asked in a low voice, the growl of his kind threaded through it as they moved through the forest, the smell of the woods overwhelming to his sensitive nose.

Jacqueline didn't feel warned; he could do nothing. Only a certain type of Were was a danger and this Were of the black posed no threat. Less than a threat, if the truth were known. But Jacqueline was all about the tools at her disposal. And that is what Tony was to her.

A tool. Jacqueline buried a snicker, though she was quite sure he could scent some of the emotion behind it. However, with her Tracker abilities, she could scent as well. The advantage was hers. After all, he knew not what she possessed and his skill set was an open book.

Perfection. “I
do
have a plan as a point-of-fact,” Jacqueline replied.

Tony stilled, grabbing her thin arm. She quirked a brow, looking at his hand on her like it was something filthy.

“Bite me,” he said with a smirk.

Jacqueline flushed with anger and opened her mouth to deliver a scathing quip when he put a finger to his lips. “They come from the east.”

Jacqueline could sense nothing, smell nothing. “Who comes?” she asked instead of the retort she had planned.

Tony growled low in his throat. “The Packmaster of the Northwestern den... and one that my nose doesn't recognize.”

They stood for a few moments in a wood gone still. The small animals hid as the unnatural predators closed in around them. Jacqueline wondered why she couldn't sense them while Tony wondered what could be done. Their thought processes were not known to each other but were eerily the same.

“Ah!” Jacqueline hissed.

“Yeah,” Tony agreed.

Jacqueline swiveled to him, her skirts swirling and getting caught in the debris of the forest, her eyes flashing like black fire. “Tell me you can do something.”

“I can't...” he reluctantly admitted. “What about you? You're this tight-ass Singer...”

His airway began to close and his palm flew up in supplication, the bitch stole his breath... and not in a good way. “I didn't mean it as a dis....”

It opened with a gasping release.

“Jacqueline,” she said in way of off-handed introduction.

Tony nodded as he made his hand stay by his sides instead of going to his throat. He wouldn't give the bitch the satisfaction.

“I simply meant maybe you could
sense
something.”

“No,” she said curtly.

Well, damn- chop my nuts off,
Tony thought.

Jacqueline paced, a ripple of disquiet building as the scent of the pack grew stronger.

Suddenly, Jacqueline knew what to do.

“I'll cover our tracks while you squire us away.”

“How?” he scoffed.

“Is the
how
of it really important?” she asked, crossing her arms in impatience.

Tony could smell the other Were. They'd take them and for some reason, the Singer bitch's skills were down for the count. Too bad she was all up his ass. Why couldn't she have a blank spot with him?

His fucking luck.

Jacqueline didn't ask his permission and he remained silent. Of course he wanted to know what kind of Singer mojo she had going on. But it was obvious she had the upper hand.

For now.

He watched Jacqueline's symmetrical features distort in concentration. When Tony's sense of smell left him, he felt blind. He was so used to the million different scents that had always been a part of his existence.

“What have you done?” he whispered.

“I have the ability to Negate others’... talents.”

“I can't fucking smell my own ass. I'm nose-blind,” Tony growled, his fists bunching by his sides.

She smiled. “Good. As I don't want to be party to you partaking in an orifice fest.”

He scowled at her. “Good? Hell
no
, we're goddamned blind...”

Jacqueline folded her arms again underneath her breasts and Tony's eyes dipped down to take in the sight. She stared at him for a pregnant moment. “You're a crude beast...,” she stated as fact.

Because it was.

“Tony,” he said in a delayed introduction.

“Well, Anthony...” Jacqueline said slowly as she circled him. “I do not have a highly refined mastery as Negator so... the best I could do was blanket a five mile radius. If it were my primary skill, I could have left you in a 'scent bubble' that encapsulated you and left everyone else senseless. Alas, I cannot.” She looked into his eyes and he glowered back at her.

Tough broad,
he thought with the beginnings of grudging admiration.

“Fine,” he said. “Get on.”

He burst his skin and it slid off like a snake's. The gunk, blood and sloughed marrow pooled into the absorbent forest floor, dampening it with his transition.

Jacqueline tensed at the harsh speed of the change, then went to him. She grimaced as her clothing became ruined with the residue of the change, her hem six inches deep in his human cast-offs.

“Where?” he asked in a voice filled with gravel, pained by the rapid change he'd forced on himself.

She bent and whispered into his ear. Tony's smile was worn strangely by the face of his wolf.

His admiration for Jacqueline grew. She was diabolically clever.

Tony might spare her after all... if she could be bent to his agenda.

*

Cyn and Adi stopped running, their hands on their knees, chests heaving. Cyn had a killer stitch in her side, putting both hands on her side, bending over at the waist as she did. This sucked.

Adi stood first. “That blew goats.”

Cyn laughed. “Yeah... totally.”

“Who is that bitch?” Adi asked, her nose involuntarily moving toward where they'd just come and finding her usually deft senses dulled. She gave a frown, her dark blonde hair falling forward and hiding half her face.

Cyn shrugged. “She's the one who hurt Jules.”

Adi frowned. “How do ya know?” Her root beer brown eyes earnest.

Cyn squirmed from the question. She was gonna sound like a tard. “Well... here's the thing. I just became... something. That Singer thing you were talking about? Yeah, that.” Cyn stood, her breathing still irregular. “And now... well when I healed Julia there was a...” Cyn stopped, her pale green eyeballs rolling upward, thinking. “A... taste to the poison.”

“Poison?” Adi asked, her frown deepening to a scowl.

Cyn nodded. “Oh yeah, it was poison and somehow, the bearer of the shit leaves their mark.”

“Like a signature?” Adi asked.

“Yeah. Good call, mutt.”

“Huh,” Adi said, head bent, her face speculative. It wasn't a good look.

“Hey, I didn't mean anything by it,” Cyn said, backtracking.

Adi met her eyes, ignoring the dig. “I screwed up, big time. I should've...”

“What? That whack job... she mowed you over with her head,” Cyn said, tapping her temple. “There's nothing you could have done, Adi,” she said, looking down at the much shorter girl.

“Yeah,” Adi agreed like she didn't believe it, still looking at her feet.
For all her bravado, she sure takes a lot of the responsibility on her shoulders,
Cyn thought.

The girls stood quietly for a time then Adi said, “It's time to make our way back.”