Blood Rule (Book 4, Dirty Blood series)

Cover created by Robin Ludwig
designs

Edited by Kristina Circelli

©2013 Heather Hildenbrand

Accendo Press

Smashwords Edition

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Listening to headphones at
maximum volume with your back turned to the doorway is a fantastic
way to get the crap scared out of you.
Cambria had said those exact words this morning when she’d
come up behind me and I’d dropped an entire gallon of milk on my
kitchen floor. I’d scowled at her before putting the earbuds back
in while I mopped the spill. I hadn’t removed them again
since.

In my tent reflecting on that
incident, a hand closed over my shoulder. I screamed. In one
violent move, I scrambled to my feet, ripped the headphones free
and chucked them aside, and swung out with my fist.

Wes jerked back in time to avoid
getting punched.

“
Geez. It’s only me,” he
said, throwing up his hands.

I relaxed. “Sorry. You scared
me.”

“
Obviously.” He was
fighting a grin—and losing. I stuck my tongue out.

He stood in front of me wearing
nothing but a pair of jersey shorts, the drawstring untied. They
were a little long but they fit around his hips. In a really yummy
sort of way. My heart tripped over itself in my attempt to breathe
evenly. “Where’d you find those?”

“
George’s, I think. I’ll
put them back when I leave.”

I backed up so Wes could fit into the
small square of canvas that was mine in this chaotic communal space
of woods the hybrids shared. He reached back and closed the flap.
The moment we were hidden from view, he pulled me into his arms and
sank onto the pile of blankets so that I fell into his
lap.

His mouth found mine in the middle of
my laughter. “What is this for?”

“
I haven’t seen you since
yesterday. I missed you.”

“
I missed you too.” I
returned his kisses and wrapped my arms around his neck, enjoying
his bare arms pressing against me.

We rarely shared moments like this
anymore. Privacy was nonexistent. Nowhere, no matter how secluded,
was without interruption. As proof, my cheeks flamed with the
growing awareness in my mind. I jumped when the mental voice became
audible.

“
Gross, you guys. Get a
room.”

Wes pulled free and glared at George
in the doorway. “This one was working fine until you showed
up.”

“
You act like I wasn’t here
the whole time.” George pointed at his temple. From outside the
tent, I heard someone snicker.

“
Shut up, Derek,” Wes said,
but that made him laugh harder.

“
George, you need a life,”
I said.

Sweat from his run dripping down his
temple, George mopped his brow with a towel. “Don’t hate me because
I choose a different method of calorie-burning.”

“
We’re not the haters,” Wes
muttered. I pretended not to hear.

George and Derek had taken up running
on two legs right around the time they’d realized neither was
faster than the other on four paws. They’d invited me along but I
declined every time. No way was I getting in the midst of all that
testosterone.

“
You’re mad I’m better at
this than you are,” I shot back.

“
Oooh.” Derek elbowed
George in the ribs. “She would know, right?”

“
Whatever.” George abruptly
retreated only to reappear once more. “Dude,” he said, staring at
Wes. “Are you wearing my shorts?”

“
Maybe.”

George grinned like he’d figured out
the punch line of a really good joke. “Guess you’ve got all my
hand-me-downs now.”

Wes picked up a bottle of water and
sent it hurtling through the air, but George was already gone. The
sound of his and Derek’s laughter faded as they went.

The sound of my own laughter startled
me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done that. I sobered
quickly, my amusement fading as I remembered all the reasons I had
not to laugh.

“
What’s so funny?” Wes
asked, oblivious to my mood shift.

“
The look on your face,” I
said. “If looks could kill …”

“
You shouldn’t be laughing.
Your ex-boyfriend called you a hand-me-down. It was an
insult.”

I shrugged. “He wanted to outwit you.
He doesn’t really think that.”

“
How do you—? Never
mind.”

I pointed to my own temple. “Exactly.
So, lighten up.”

“
Forgive me if I get a
little touchy that I spend most days with the other guys you’ve
kissed.”

Guys. He’d said
guys
. Plural. Were we
finally going to have this talk?

I sat back. “Where is this coming
from? It’s George. You know there’s nothing between us.”

“
This bond is not nothing.
I can’t even kiss you without him knowing. I might as well be
kissing him.”

It was an old argument with no
solution. While I knew it was a point of contention with us, I was
determined to not fight about it. Not today. “Um, that would be
awkward. Then he’d have my hand-me-downs.”

Wes pursed his lips. “You’re
hilarious.”

I poked him in the ribs and his glare
dissolved into an unwilling smile.

“
I do what I can,” I said,
relieved he’d chosen to let it go.

I trailed kisses down the side of his
face and his smile widened. When I got to his jaw, he turned his
head so our lips met. I drew him closer and held on, letting the
heat creep in. I still sensed frustration under the surface but I
knew I couldn’t extinguish it completely. The bond bothered him as
much as it bothered me—maybe more. Unless it was broken, there was
no getting rid of his frustration, not entirely.

I ran my hands up the back of his neck
and let my fingers tangle in his hair. The kiss deepened, his chest
relaxing against me.

He broke it off before we could get
carried away. I knew he was thinking of what George must be sensing
right now, but I didn’t want to get into that again. On top of
that, the noise in my head was getting a little distracting for the
sort of activity we were engaged in.

Forty-six.

That’s how many hybrids had survived
the Hunter attack in the woods after I revived them with an
injection of my blood. That’s how many followed me home to
Frederick Falls. And that’s how many were now linked to me through
a blood bond. At its base form, the bond was an emotional
connection—or at least it had been when I’d only been bonded with
my friend, (and ex-boyfriend. Long story.) George. But with
forty-six more of them bonded to me through a
mostly-magical-but-also-somehow-scientifically-explainable blood
connection, it’d become strong enough that I’d begun hearing actual
voices on occasion.

The first two days were the worst. It
had taken me three valium and fourteen hours of sleep before I’d
convinced myself the voices were real and not some sort of
psychotic break after all I’d been through. My mother still wasn’t
entirely convinced.

Fee had pointed out the bright side:
though it’d taken twice as long as if I’d shifted into a Werewolf,
all that rest had healed my dislocated shoulder and any other
injuries left over from my time with Olivia.

When the bond happened with George a
couple of months ago, I’d wondered how I’d ever get used to
constantly having access to someone else’s emotions. It was a live
feed with no “off” button. And for a while, it was overwhelming,
making it impossible to know which reactions were mine and which
were his. Not to mention the awkwardness of him feeling what I did.
Especially when things got a little heavy with a certain Werewolf
boyfriend of mine. Wes found it amusing—until he realized a shared,
constant stream of emotion meant he didn’t get past first base.
Then he was as frustrated as me.

I’d just begun to get it under
control, finding ways to turn the volume down a few notches, when
I’d woken the bond between myself and the dozens of hybrids Miles
DeLuca created before he’d been killed. After his death, his
mother, Olivia, had forced me to inject them all with my blood as a
means to save them from the change of becoming what could only be
described as a rabid, conscious-less Werewolf with yellow eyes and
an appetite for human guts. Their survival rate—and likelihood of
turning out a little more humane—was better with a little Tara
Godfrey blood in them.

Most had been Hunters before their
change—a superhuman created with the ability to kill a Werewolf in
order to protect humans—so their bodies were strong enough to
accept the change and hang on. But a lot of the humans had died
before I got there, which is why there’d been only
forty-six.

The memory of a room full of the dead
and dying was an ongoing nightmare for me. Valium helped. And
sometimes Wes came through my window and held me tight enough there
was no room for the memory. Those were the nights I slept
best.

And now, whether I wanted them or not,
the pack of hybrids was mine. Not just because I could hear and
feel everything in their heads. It was more than that. When the
bond formed, it was like my body or my heart itself melded to
theirs and I cared. That was the weirdest part. These people—or
animals—were strangers to me. I didn’t know their names or
recognize their faces like so many Hunters that’d grown up in the
same community. None of them had meant anything to me before that
day. But now … the thought of parting with them disturbed me.
Imagining them hurt stirred a protectiveness in me that awakened my
Werewolf side. The alpha. And maybe because I cared, the constant
hum being poured into my head was driving me crazy.

The only thing I’d found that quieted
the noise was music. Really, really loud music. 

At least the rest of the pack couldn’t
read me as well as George could. With practice, I’d gotten better
at filtering what slipped through into their awareness. I’d tried
to do the same with George but I couldn’t seem to keep him out.
It’s like he tried extra hard to stay inside my head. The rest of
them were weaker, more agreeable to my pushing them out. Vera said
it was an alpha thing, which didn’t comfort me much since I
couldn’t manage to do the reverse. I heard every single one of
them, whether I wanted to or not.

I needed a break. A deep breath. Not
that it helped in clearing my head. Nothing did.

I looked around for my
headphones.

My thoughts clouded and jumbled as the
volume increased. Someone yelped out loud and it echoed through my
skull.

“
What’s that?” Wes asked,
drawing away and raising his face to the ceiling.

I sniffed. The smell of burnt hair
permeated the air. I didn’t waste time trying to cover my face
against the odor. Instead, I jumped to my feet and shoved the flap
aside, searching camp for the source.

My tent had been constructed in the
center of the clearing. All around me, makeshift tarps and tents
and everything in between that could possibly be used to escape the
elements had been thrown together in haphazard rows. There was no
system, only open space and taken space. The boundaries of each
shifted daily.