blood 03 - blood chosen (7 page)

“I think we're way off task here,” Slash 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 beyond 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.

Julia came up gasping for air, her skin flushed from the effects of their meld and mutual desire. She gazed down at him, her hair falling forward and touching his face like a spiderweb of silk.

“Choice.”

Julia stilled in his embrace, searching his serious eyes.

“You need to have choice. It's been robbed from you too many times. And your safety is foremost. It must be. I am your Singer soulmate but as the Combatant is charged with your safety, until that is assured, I can't let my selfishness take control.” He feathered kisses on the jaw that was exposed above him. “However damn much I want to. I love you too much to let harm come to you.” The kisses went lower, heat and air along her skin like the shiver of butterfly's wings.

Scott let Julia slide down his body and she felt how much he wanted her; it was in his eyes, against her body in rigid desperation, the heat of his hands at the small of her back, the harsh breaths he contained from the force of his will alone.

Julia wanted him back.

He knew it. Sensed it. Groaned from the lack of consummation.

Carefully... oh so carefully, Scott put Julia away from him.

“I don't know if I can do this...” Julia said. “I've been brave, I've survived. I thought Jason was dead, now he's worse than dead, he's some kind of crazy werewolf that's got mixed feelings about me... and, we're still married!” she cried, hands covering her face.

Scott closed his eyes. When he opened them, he moved another step away from her. Julia's hands fell from her tear-stained face as her eyes tracked his escape.

If he didn't leave now, Scott knew he never would. He spun on his heel, wrenching the door open and the remnants of the shattered knob fell on the floor and rolled on behind him.

It didn't entirely chase the sound of Julia's crying from him.

*

Julia didn't know how long she laid on that bed. Her heartbeats slowing to her own rhythm, not Scott's but her own.

She didn't eat. Didn't care.

Jen came wordlessly in to check on her, then out again. The sun moved in her room like a dial. Pie shaped wedges of sunlight moved relentlessly through the room until only a sliver remained.

Finally, Julia sat up and looked at the door, the hole where the knob used to be gaped back at her like a missing eyeball. She walked to the bathroom, shut the door and leaned against it. Julia looked at the shower then shucking her clothes as she walked to the stall, gave the faucet a vicious twist and went beneath spray so hot it nearly scalded her skin. When Julia had washed the grime and guilt from her body she toweled herself off and glided over to the mirror on the river of her sadness. She swiped the ornate mirror's surface using her forearm and the sense of déjà vu was strong as the image stared back. A little older now, a little more raw. Her eyes moved to the crescent-shaped scar that had everyone in a stupid lather and Julia had a moment of wanting so badly to break that reflection. Shatter that tether to the past with her fist.

Her hand hovered above the surface expectantly. Julia slowly lowered it; seven years bad luck and all. Besides, it wouldn't undue anything, or help her where she was now.

Julia turned away from her image, her belly griping about its emptiness. Julia moved out of her room and the entire household was buzzing with activity. The litter of glass was gone from the battle with the vampires. Workers had tables of plywood set up on sawhorses while one cut the glass to fit the hole in the pane, the other installed and glazed it. They were like a well-oiled machine. By tomorrow, it would be as if it never happened.

Paul approached her in the hallway and she gave him a grateful smile. It was amazing what a shower could wash away. Not everything, but enough to eke out another day of pretending to feel human.