Blood Rule (Book 4, Dirty Blood series) (16 page)

We stared at each other, saying all
the things silently that would’ve made us cry to say them
aloud.

“
Phones,” Cord said,
holding her hand out. The rest of the group handed her their phones
and she stuck them in the various pockets of her jacket. “I’ll
smash a new one at each rest stop.”

“
Let’s move,” Jack called.
He pressed a final kiss to Fee’s lips and then stepped clear. His
body shimmered at the edges, going in and out of focus until his
entire frame rippled and then disappeared. In its place stood a
large wolf with a bag belted around its middle.

Fee and Derek shifted simultaneously.
When they were finished, they each had a bag strapped to their
midsection. Wes adjusted the strap for them and then they were
ready.

Cord climbed in and fired up the truck
while Cambria took shotgun.

“
Drive careful,” I
called.

Cord looked at me through the open
window. “Same to you,” she said. It was more of a goodbye than I’d
expected.

Wes and I stood side by side and waved
as the truck rumbled up the path toward the road. When the dust
settled, the wolves were already gone.

“
Guess it’s our turn to
disappear,” I said.

“
Tara, wait.” Wes pulled
me back.

“
What’s wrong?”

“
Nothing. I wanted to tell
you thanks.”

“
For what?”

“
When I saw that story
about me on the news earlier, it was … overwhelming. I shut down.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them again, there was raw
emotion, free of the anger and tension he’d carried since leaving
the hospital. “Thank you for taking charge, for getting us out of
there. You were amazing. I don’t know what I would’ve done without
you.”

“
You’re welcome. It was
nice to take care of you for once.”

He smiled. “I could get used to
that.”

“
Mmm, but that would mean
you have to back off long enough to let me lead sometimes. Backing
off isn’t your strong suit.” I kept my voice light with teasing but
we both knew I meant every word as truth.

“
It’s not yours either,
but both of us seem to be doing it.”

“
Because Jack and Fee told
us to.”

“
And look at both of us
taking orders.”

I laughed. “There’s all kind of
progress happening.”

“
It’s been a full day,” he
agreed.

His hand came up to brush my hair from
my face and my smile faded as I remembered what came next. “Not
quite full yet,” I said. “We still have to disappear.”

“
True.” I watched his gaze
flicker toward the house.

“
Do you think we’ll come
back?” I asked quietly.

He didn’t answer for a long moment.
Finally, he tore his eyes from the cracked paint and crooked
shutters and laid his lips against the tip of my nose. “Even if I
don’t ever step foot here again, I’m already home. You are where my
heart is.”

My breath caught and all I could
manage was a faint whisper of the words, “I love you, Wesley St.
John.”

“
I love you too, Tara
Godfrey. With every piece of me, animal and human, until there are
no more pieces left.”

When his mouth met mine, somehow I
managed to shut out the pack, the future, and anything else that
could’ve possibly mattered more than the feel of his lips and this
moment.

By the time he let me go, my
fingertips tingled and I felt full. Of energy, of courage. Of
whatever I might need to face whatever came next.

Behind Wes, I could see George and
Chris waiting for us at the tree line. Their expressions were
tight, their thoughts surprisingly silent as they soaked in my
determination.

“
Let’s go get the pack,” I
said.

“
Lead the way.”

***

The pack was like a thread of tension
wound tight. Earlier, Chris and George had delegated the
responsibility of disassembling tents and coverings but I could see
a few areas where the owner of the tent had either gotten
distracted or given up—due to either stress or the fact that they
couldn’t shift to a form with opposable thumbs—and left the
contents of their “home” in a heap on the ground.

Chris wasn’t happy with the mess. He
hurried around, nudging and in some cases nipping, in order to get
the tent owner to pack properly. The rest of them gathered around
Wes, George, and me the moment we entered camp, pressing against us
in a tight circle and shouting questions.

I couldn’t understand their shouted
words any more than I could sift through the noise in my head.
Demands for a destination, why we were leaving, how soon we would
become hunted all blurred together in a rush of syllables. George
and Wes both fussed at them to back off, to no avail.

I squeezed my eyes shut against the
headache already building. When I spoke, the alpha in me rose to
the surface. The power of it permeated the one word.
“Quiet!”

They fell silent and stepped back,
paws brushing restlessly at the dirt. I needed to shift, if for no
other reason than to get a handle on the noise in my
head.

George read the thought before I could
say it aloud. He shoved backward with his arms, knocking wolves
aside. “Move,” he said roughly. “Back up. Let her through. She
needs to shift. Then she can talk to you.”

“
Thanks,” I said
gratefully and slipped through an opening. I ducked behind a stand
of trees and stripped, too hurried to care whether I was fully
hidden from view. Another inch of modesty gone.

My wolf strained against the confines
of my human flesh. It wanted out. I let it.

My form rippled and shimmered, like a
shiver set on repeat. My bones stretched and popped. Fingers shrank
inside themselves, ears elongated. My shiver turned to a
convulsion.

When it stopped, I was a Werewolf.
Four paws on the ground, tail swishing. The air tickled my nose and
I stilled at the scent. Something new traveled on the sluggish
breeze.

Something … not of my pack.

I froze, one paw halfway around the
tree.

I sniffed again.

Wes, his Werewolf coat a ruddy brown
that always made me think of dirt and oak trees, was there in an
instant. He’d shifted because I’d shifted. I loved him for doing
things like that.

We didn’t speak as we let the new
smell wash over us. I opened my mouth, letting it fill my sensory
receptors. It tasted wrong. Like danger.

George …

He didn’t even pull his shorts off
before shifting. I heard the rip of fabric—a clean break—as he
changed from boy to wolf in less than a blink. The smell hit his
awareness.

Shit.

I didn’t know whether the
word came from me, George, or some other pack member. It didn’t
matter who thought it, we all echoed the sentiment. I had just
enough time to formulate the thought
spread
out
before movement in the trees stopped
all other conscious thought and my reflexes kicked in.

Faces flashed as the intruders darted
in and out of forest cover. It took me a moment to realize they
were Werewolf features; I was so caught up in the familiarity of
being in this form. I caught another flash—a face. Furry. Pointed
ears. Yellow eyes.

Glowing eyes.

Hybrids. Not mine.

I growled out of animosity toward this
unknown threat and confusion. These were clearly hybrids, not part
of my bonded pack. And while they hadn’t attacked yet, I could
sense their intentions clearly enough.

Was this the reason for my headache?
And I’d been too human in that moment to realize?

They advanced again, a few coming
clear of the brush they’d hid behind. Their ears were flattened
against their head and their lips were pulled back, revealing
spindly teeth. But the real conviction was in their eyes. I didn’t
need animal instinct to tell me they meant harm.

Their coats were mangy and rough,
matted in places and patchy or missing in others. Some had scars or
still-healing wounds visible. All of them seemed more dangerous for
what I could only assume were battle scars. I scanned, trying to
identify one as the leader.

If I could take out the leader, the
rest might give up.

But they all seemed equal, not
deferring to anyone in particular. The way they walked in a
parallel line, with none more forward than the others, confused me.
I pawed the ground, impatient. The animal in me didn’t like
watching an enemy advance while I stood here.

As if an audible order had
been given, Wes, George, and Chris appeared around me. The rest of
the pack hesitated, wanting to do the same. To protect me. It made
me snap the order a second time:
spread
out!

If we all huddled together, we would
be too easy a mark. I tried to make them see that with my thoughts.
Most of them got it. Didn’t mean they liked it. I registered
George’s stubborn rejection of the idea the moment I thought it. He
and Chris both shook their heads. They weren’t going to leave me
alone.

Beside me, Wes growled and pawed the
dirt. He looked as impatient as me, if not more. “They’re hybrids,”
he said between clenched teeth.

“
But they’re not
friendly,” Chris added. He didn’t take his eyes off the hybrid
closest to him.

They were about ten yards away now,
still advancing as one.

“
Who are you? What do you
want?” I called. It was hard to talk over the growl in my throat.
My wolf wanted to be in charge—and it wanted to do more than
talk.

“
Doesn’t matter who we
are,” said the one approaching Chris.

“
We’re here for your
pack,” said another, farther back in the trees.

“
They will come with us,”
said a third.

“
And if they don’t?” Wes
called.

The Werewolf that spoke first honed in
on Wes, his yellow eyes piercing and full of malice. “They will end
up like you.”

Wes growled and lurched forward before
catching himself. I knew the only thing stopping him was his
refusal to leave my side.

“
What is your quarrel with
us?” I asked.

“
Not ours. His.” The
hybrid who’d spoken earlier emerged from the trees and I saw it
wasn’t alone.

Nor was its companion a
wolf.

The man smiled and his eyes creased
with crow’s feet at the corners. “Jasper’s correct,” the man said.
“The quarrel is absolutely mine.”

I couldn’t think past my confusion of
how it was possible that Gordon Steppe could be here and leading
his vote simultaneously. Or how he’d found these rogue hybrids—we’d
been searching and searching and all along he had them!—and made
them follow him.

“
But the vote is happening
now,” I said, dumbstruck.

“
The vote is over. The
treaty is void.”

I didn’t even realize how close he’d
come until George and Chris pressed forward, jaws snapping. Steppe
paused where he was but didn’t look particularly
nervous.

I was reeling, trying to put missing
pieces together. Had Grandma gotten the timeline wrong?

“
What’s the matter? Did
Edie not give you enough time to run?”

He was taunting us. He’d fed Grandma
wrong information on purpose. Did he know she was working against
him? Was she in danger? I had to warn her.

The bond hummed with voices. Yelps.
Curses. Pleas for permission to attack.

My jaw ached with the collective
desire to bite one of these rogue wolves.

“
Tara,” Wes said. The
warning—and threat—in that one word was clear.

I might’ve been distracted, but he
wasn’t. I didn’t need a bond to tell me how badly Wes wanted to go
for Steppe’s throat. I figured I had about three seconds of
conversation left before it happened.

“
We haven’t hurt anyone,”
I said.

More yellow-eyed, un-bonded hybrids
trickled into the clearing. My pack—at my mental prompting—spread
further out. I wanted the enemy surrounded. I didn’t care if that
left the four of us in the center of things. My jaw ached
harder.

The tension pulled tighter. On both
sides.

“
That no longer matters.
The treaty is void. There is no amnesty for any reason—for any
Werewolf. The amendment states I can hunt and kill any Werewolf I
see.”

“
I don’t believe you,” I
said stubbornly. I knew it was a long shot but maybe he was
bluffing.

He held out a stack of white papers
rolled tightly in his hands and tossed them to the ground between
us. “Read it for yourself,” he said with a smile bordering on a
sneer.

My heart sank. Yeah, Gordon Steppe
didn’t bluff.

“
And your friends?” I
said, gesturing to the glowing-eyed wolves spread around the
trees.