Hot Blooded (10 page)

“A well-fought battle isn’t a loss, Hannon. Only a loser doesn’t try.”

“Ray, my name is Jessica. No need to refer to me as Hannon anymore.” It seemed another lifetime ago that I’d gone by that name.

He stood, but Eamon swooshed down in front of the group before he could answer. It was kind of incredible to see him land from full speed. It should have been a train wreck, but instead he looked like an Olympic gymnast sticking a perfect landing. The pavement didn’t even wiggle. It seemed as if the velocity stopped right as his feet came in contact with the ground.

It was pretty cool. I could grudge him that much.

“The Goddess is close,” Eamon proclaimed with stuffy arrogance. “I can feel her strength. When she detects us, as she will, she will not stand idly by and let us attack. We must move now.”

I focused on Naomi, choosing to deal with the more rational of the two. “It will be daybreak soon. Can you travel during daylight hours?” My guess was no, but I had to ask. Maybe she and her brother had gifts I didn’t know about.

“
Non
,” Naomi said. Her accent was more pronounced than Eamon’s, plus she used French words, which might be one of the reasons she seemed somewhat more agreeable. “We will sleep during the daylight hours. The oldest of us can tolerate sunlight, because as our bodies age we become stronger, but we are still too young for that.” They had to be well over five hundred years old, judging by the level of power they emitted. The stronger the supe, the more power flowed, manifesting itself like tiny pressure points on the skin. The closer you were
to the source, the more it needled you. Rourke’s energy was the strongest I’d ever felt, but his power felt delicious against my skin, like a surge of tingles flooding my body continuously. The vamps’ energy felt tight and concentrated, built to intimidate. If five hundred was considered young, how old did one need to be to withstand light?

Instead of asking, I replied, “To keep up the pace, we will continue on during the day. You can catch up to us when you wake.”

“The mountains you are looking for are a great distance northwest of here.” Naomi moved forward, stopping in front of me. “They border a large body of water, a lake five times the size of all the others surrounding it. The area she resides in is remote; its rocky passes are impregnable to humans without flight. You must drive until the dirt road dead-ends into the west side of lake and wait until nightfall. It will not take us long to find you once we wake. Do not venture any farther than the road if you value your life. The pathway to her lair is littered with lethal obstacles.” She was obviously the tracker, Eamon the sensor. “Selene has protected herself well from harm.”

“You’ve scouted the entrance already?” I asked, somewhat surprised. I knew the two of them had spent the previous day locating Selene’s trail, or we wouldn’t have had any direction to follow, but pinpointing her fortress so quickly was more than I’d hoped for. “I guess when you can fly, you can cover a lot more ground.”

Flying was definitely a skill lacked, but having the vamps fly us there would’ve been impossible. We outnumbered them four to two, plus we had all our gear. Even if it had been an option, there was no way on earth any wolf would willingly
let a vampire carry them. It wasn’t something I was willing to risk either, even though Naomi appeared to be somewhat trustworthy. There was too much dissention between the Sects, and even though they likely couldn’t kill us outright this time because of the oath their Queen swore to me, there were sneaky ways around that. They could easily have an “accident” and still be within the parameters of the oath. Dropping us or slamming us into the nearest mountain would be the quickest way to try and kill us for good, something I was certain Eamon would love to do. They could also take us anywhere without our consent. It was too risky. Traveling close to the ground was the only way to ensure our survival.

“
Non
,” Naomi said. “We did not go to the entrance of her lair. We went only as far as the perimeter. Eamon can sense many different magics, and a fresh imprint of her was all over the mountains. Though Eamon can detect magic is present across her boundary, we will not know what it is until we arrive. There is no doubt that Selene has anticipated your arrival. She is likely taking her time with her prisoner until you arrive. You will be the crudités to her final encore, which will be ending his life.” My wolf snarled and flashed a picture of a bloodied Selene.
Yep.

“There is another reason we did not go closer,” Eamon added. “There is a chance if she senses too much danger she will flee. She will not risk harm, even when she is caught up in her games. She will kill him and disappear if she believes she will be overpowered.”

“How do you know that?” I asked curiously. “From my experience, her vanity would fool her into thinking she’s infallible to just about anything. She surely wouldn’t think two young vamps and a newborn werewolf and her cohorts would
be anything too strenuous to overcome. The thought of us
overpowering
her would make her laugh.”

He looked uncomfortable for a moment; then he straightened, donning his usual persnickety face. “We have… dallied before and I understand her ways.”

Danny coughed. “Dallied? That sounds a bit interesting, mate.” There was humor in his voice. “From what I’ve been told, Selene packs quite a punch in those delicate fingers of hers. Can you attest to that then?”

“She’s a warrior without rival,” Eamon snapped. “She will strike you down as an afterthought and leave your body to rot if you’re not vigilant.”

This conversation was going nowhere. I hadn’t expected Eamon to know Selene, which was curious at best. It was useful information to store away for later. From the passion in his voice I could tell it had been a close relationship, and from his pinched expression I knew there were zero odds he would talk about it. I turned toward Naomi for an answer, but she was looking away.

I faced the group. “We’ll drive the rest of tonight and all day tomorrow. We regroup at the edge of the lake by sunset tomorrow.” I had scanned the maps and if we made good time, that seemed like a doable distance to get to the Rockies. “We can formulate another plan once we get there, depending on what we find.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.” Danny gave me a mock salute.

“Hardy-har-har,” I said.

He winked in response.

Tyler headed back to the Humvee.

“Ray,” I said. “Let’s go. It’s time to prove how ready and willing you are.”

Ray followed, but peered warily back at the two vamps as
he trailed after me. He came around the passenger side and yanked open the side door on his own. Finally a step in the right direction. “Hannon,” he grumbled. “What kind of crazy mess are you in? Where exactly are we going?”

“We’re going up against the nastiest goddess you’ve ever seen. You’d better buckle your seat belt.”

It took us all day and several failed attempts to find the mysterious dirt road that dead-ended into the lake. It’d been easy to find the lake, which was a gigantic crater fed by a few small glaciers surrounding the area. But every single road leading toward the west side of the lake was impenetrable.

We finally zeroed in on the least treacherous, most passable road we could find, the one gaining the most altitude according to our state-of-the-art GPS, and followed it to the end.

It was damn lucky there was no snow on the ground. Even in the gargantuan Humvee, chains wouldn’t have been enough. The ruts we had to maneuver around were five feet deep in places, and a few times we had to move trees out of the road to get by.

Strength came in handy.

The road had stopped abruptly at the end of what appeared to be a solid wall of old growth pine forest. The trees towered above us, swaying and rocking in the high altitude. The sun
edged toward the horizon, the sky changing to a pale orange above the treetops as we pulled to a stop.

I was absolutely starving. I’d been a long day with little breaks. “Well, it appears we’ve finally reached the mysterious end of the road.” I killed the ignition. We’d volleyed driving during the day, but I’d taken the wheel when the boys had gotten out to remove obstacles. “I hope this the right road, or we’re pretty much screwed. Getting out of here and recharting our course will take too much time and we’d lose nighttime tracking hours with the vamps.”

“It has to be the right one.” Tyler opened his door. “This was the only logical choice.”

“I’m glad you’re so very confident,” I said. “The fourth time must be the charm. Let’s get out and stock the packs with food and water before the vamps arrive; then we can try to check in with Dad on the sat phone.” We were out of range from our minds. Neither of us knew how the brain thing actually worked, but apparently it had a range if we weren’t in our wolf form. The connection to our Alpha in our true form was instant, but neither of us had time to change right now. If the sat phone didn’t work, we’d have to reevaluate.

I jumped off the running board, went around to the back, and popped open the hatch—meaning I manhandled the heavy door open.

Tyler strode up beside me. “Packs and supplies are in the green bins.” He reached over and hoisted a huge container out of the back like it weighed nothing and set it on the ground.

My stomach growled. I slid the cooler into the empty space he’d just created. It was huge and metal, likely industrial-strength U.S. military grade, capable of keeping things cold for a year. I opened the top and glanced inside. It was full of specialized high-protein meals and shakes made especially for our
high metabolisms. The meals were settled on a thick bed of dry ice. They spoiled quickly once they were opened, so the ice was necessary, but the food was nasty as hell at any temperature. Through the clear packaging, they resembled lumps of canned dog food and unfortunately smelled just as bad. I’d sampled them for fun growing up, but back then I hadn’t needed to eat them in order to survive. Now was another story. And since my hunger was insatiable, I had to suck it up. The meals were designed to break down very slowly and curb hunger for a substantial amount of time, but I fished around for a protein shake instead, which was nice and cold because of the dry ice. I’d work my way into the meals.

I plucked out a shake and popped the lid.

Danny walked over. “If you don’t fancy the protein mush, I’ve brought along some other samplings.” He reached in and grabbed a large navy duffel, slid it closer, and unzipped the top.

Inside, filled to the absolute brim, were packages of beef jerky, candy bars, and sunflower seeds.

“You’ve always been my favorite wolf.” I grabbed a few candy bars and tossed one to Ray, who was rounding the side. “Eat up, Ray. You’re going to need to keep up your strength. We’ve got a lot of hiking to do and some of it will be extremely difficult.”

He snatched it out of the air. “What kind of a meal is a Milky Way?” He looked down at the candy bar in his hand with confusion. “Aren’t we going to make camp?”

“This is not a camping trip, Ray,” I said. “We keep moving until we find our destination. As far as the candy bar is concerned, consider yourself lucky I didn’t offer you a dead rabbit to eat raw. The boys can’t shift to hunt, so our meals have to be strategic. A wolf, even in human form, burns up to ten times as
many calories as you do just breathing.” I pointed to the cooler. “You’re welcome to eat the mush, but I doubt you’ll be able to keep it down. It’s dense and meant to sit like a rock in your belly. But consider yourself lucky that Danny was thinking like a champ and brought a bagful of goodies, and there are protein shakes in the cooler. You’re not going to starve.”

Without meeting my eye Ray tore off the candy bar wrapper and took a bite. He chewed for a second and then glanced at me. “You guys turning into animals doesn’t make sense to me,” he grumbled. “If you’ve been running around for eons, why isn’t there any evidence? I’ve been a police officer for eighteen years and there has never been so much as a whisper of a supernatural being. Now that I know, you guys seem to be all over the place. How in the hell do you keep it quiet?”

“There’s evidence if you look in the right places, mate. Most humans just don’t want to see what’s right smack in front of them. Didn’t you read any fairy tales when you were a lad?” Danny asked. “Back in the day, those same fairy tales were considered oral recountings, not myth and legend. Populations were sparse and people lived in small villages. If you had a troll living under your bridge, everyone in the community knew about it—and stayed away from the bloody bridge if they didn’t want to get eaten. But when the villages grew by leaps and bounds, and the humans began to outnumber us a hundred to one, many supernaturals were forced to go to ground. It takes only a few well-placed pitchforks and one angry mob to get the point well across. Eventually we were all officially ordered underground. It was the only option left shy of an all-out war with the humans. That was hundreds of years ago. Now the only ones who remember the old days are us, and the only thing marking history are in your children’s books. But
if you’re still on the fence about our existence, I’d be happy to show you a thing or two.” Danny grinned. “I’m pretty good at regulated fur growth.”