Mated & Blooded, A Blood Ties Novel, Book 1 (9 page)

I tried to tell him when he came up with this
idea that it was the wrong decision. The pack would expect to see
Kalli at his side during the challenge. If she wasn’t there they
would use it as another excuse to ridicule her. A future Luna
should be present. She should stand by her mate’s side with pride.
He should want the pack to see what it is he is fighting for. Not
have her hiding in the shadows. It makes her appear weak, and weak
wolves are not respected.

My mate had been nothing like Lucas. He truly
did put my needs above his own. I wasn’t a kept she-wolf I was his
partner. We decided everything together. I wished my daughter could
experience that kind of love. Lucas’s love was a bit twisted.

It was harder for a strong wolf to learn to
be a good partner, but they could if they were motivated. My own
father was an alpha and he treated my mother with both respect and
love. They shared in leading the pack together. He would never use
his alpha to force her or anyone she loved into doing something
they didn’t want to do.

I sighed and got into the car. I tried to
make my face look neutral so that my daughter didn’t ask any more
questions. I hated lying to her and I really hated that I was going
to have to do this but my wolf wouldn’t let me break an alpha’s
order. I turned over the engine and mashed the gas.

I can’t believe my mate just alpha ordered me
away from him. Did he have any idea how much he was hurting me? I
am supposed to be his mate. I should be at his side during an alpha
challenge. He says that he loves me and that he is doing this to
protect me. I feel like he is ripping out my heart. The pack will
notice my absence. It will make what little chance we had of
acceptance become impossibility. Why wouldn’t he just listen to
me?

I cried for the first hour we were in the
car. My mother tried to comfort me multiple times but my wolf and I
just couldn’t accept what felt like a pure betrayal from our mate.
Mom must have driven a lot slower than Lucas because I started
looking around and realized we had been driving for an hour and
were still in pack territory.

Mom pulled over to the side of the road and
abruptly got out of the car. I watched as two of Alpha Logan’s
lieutenants got out of a truck and walked up to her. I tried to get
out of the car but my wolf refused. For some stupid reason she
thought she would be disobeying Lucas’s command. I sat that
watching my mother converse with the enemy.

Then my mother did the unthinkable. She
shifted into her wolf and took off. The two lieutenants walked up
to the side of the car and roughly pulled me out by my hair. I
pushed them away from me. I knew if I could put just a small
distance between us I would be able to get away. I was fast. When
Lucas had chased after me in BlueRidge he only caught me because I
let him. If I could just get him off my arm I knew I had a chance
of surviving this.

I managed to punch one of them in the face
and felt their blood splatter against my face. The other one took
advantage of the distraction and slammed a needle into the side of
my neck. The pain enraged me. I kicked out with my foot and managed
to connect with his shin. He let go of my arm. That was all I
needed, I took off like a bolt of lightning.

It didn’t take long before I felt myself
slowing down. I don’t know what the hell was in that needle but it
was really messing with my head. My vision was blurry and my legs
didn’t seem to want to keep moving. I heard a chorus of howls and
knew more wolves had joined the chase. If I had to guess there were
at least a dozen on my tail. I forced myself to keep moving. If I
could just get to the territory boundary they would have to give up
the chase.

My instincts told me the border was less than
ten miles from where I now stood. I paused long enough to catch my
breath and make sure that I was headed in the right direction. My
eyes were getting really heavy, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to
keep myself awake for much longer. I needed to make every movement
count. I reached out in my mind and tried to reach my mate. I
called to him, but there was no response. I wasn’t surprised. For
some reason I had never been able to connect with pack members
telepathically. I had just hoped beyond hope that I would somehow
reach him.

I heard the wolves closing in and took off
again. Before much longer, I found myself stumbling and knew that
the chase was nearly over. I wasn’t going to make the border. The
wolves were going to tear me limb from limb.

I felt her soul trying to tell me goodbye. I
bolted awake knowing that my beloved was in mortal danger. I could
tell it was around noon and the sun was at its peak. That didn’t
matter; I needed to get to her immediately. I could figure out what
to do about the damage from the sun later.

I kept thinking how lucky I was that I
followed them and stayed the night. I hadn’t planned on it, in fact
I had planned on heading in the opposite direction to seek out an
elder. Then, something made me stay. I didn’t trust these wolves. I
guess I was right.

There were just over a dozen chasing after
her. I watched her slip and fall and my heart nearly burst from my
chest. I grabbed the first one I could and cracked his spine in
half. He fell dead at my feet before he even realized I was
there.

I reached for another and bit deeply into his
neck pulling his jugular out before he could even whimper. I needed
to take out a few more out before they realized what I was doing.
Vampires were much stronger than werewolves but the odds would be a
little better at six to one than twelve to one.

I moved in behind my third wolf and launched
myself onto its back. Unfortunately it was a female and she managed
to get her mates attention before I could silence her. Her mate
turned growled low in his throat at me then attacked. The real
fight was on. I stayed on the females back and forced her to lie
beneath me unable to move. Fighting in this position also forced
the attacking wolves to watch exactly what they were biting at. No
wolf wanted to injure the mated female below me.

I batted at them like they were toys easily
throwing them more than a hundred feet away from me often having
them slam into the side of a tree. I could hear their bones
crushing on impact. They weren’t going to be able to keep this up
much longer. They too must have realized they were fighting a
losing battle because they turned their attention from me back to
my beloved.

She was lying limply just ahead of me. Her
hair was spread around her like fan. She looked like a sleeping
angel. She was so perfect in every way. Her skin was olive toned
and so flawless with the exception of the light freckles on the
bridge of her nose. Her breathing was shallow and she had the
distinctive smell of someone who was drugged. Three wolves moved in
on her at the same time.

I pressed harder on the back on the she-wolf
I was kneeling on. I heard her whimper then pass out from lack of
oxygen. Her mate growled again then threw back hi head and howled.
I jumped off of her and he immediately went to her side and shifted
back to a human. I saw him lift her body still in her wolf form and
run in the opposite direction of my beloved.

With my speed I easily reached my beloved
before the three wolves. I lifted her in my arms and took off. I
would bring her home with me where she belonged. In my home and
with me she would be safe. It was clear to me now how foolish I had
been. My beloved needed me and I needed to remain with my beloved.
I may not be able to complete the blooding, but I would never again
leave her side. I would need to invite the elders to come to
me.

I can’t believe I just left my daughter in
the care of those two thugs. I tried hard not to, but it was
impossible not to follow an alpha order. I had been dreading this
moment since Alpha Logan came to visit me earlier this week while
the kids were still in BlueRidge. Alpha Logan had anticipated that
Lucas was going to come home and challenge him. He wasn’t happy
about it, and had reminded me how his pack had given Kalli and I
refuge when we both should really have been dead. He’d given me
orders to keep him up to date with everything I knew about Lucas
and Kalli.

I tried to fight his orders, but the pain
would become too intense, and eventually I had to give in. I called
him every time they called me. I told him everything they said and
did. Last night Alpha Logan called and told me that I had to hand
Kalli over to his lieutenants. I begged him not to make me do that.
I told him I would take her away and we would never come back. I
promised and cried. He didn’t care what I said he made his mind up
and I was going to have to follow his orders.

I couldn’t even warn my daughter or Lucas. I
did try to give him hints. I would say things like you know you
aren’t the only alpha that can issue orders. Then, I all but told
him that his father always had a backup plan. I even told him what
would happen if he kidnapped Kalli before the challenge in hopes
that he would smarten up and keep her real close to him. Instead he
played right into his father’s hands and sent Kalli and I off
together.

I had finally decided to push Kalli. Maybe if
she could use the mate card he would change his mind. But no, Lucas
wouldn’t change his mind. He wouldn’t really even listen to me or
my daughter, now they had her. I looked back at my daughter and
felt tears well up in my eyes. Oh god I thought, please don’t let
them hurt her. I shifted into my wolf form and ran as hard as I
could back towards my house.

Time for plan mama! I had spent a lot of time
thinking about how I was going to save my baby. I was forbidden
from telling anyone what happened, but not being able to say
anything was going to stop me. I am a smart self sufficient woman.
I can get my point across without saying a god dang thing.

I ran as hard as I could, but it still took
me almost twenty minutes to hit the center of town. I was worried
sick. Twenty minutes was a long time for them to have her. I really
didn’t know what the end game was. What if they killed her
immediately? I shifted and stood in my naked glory in the middle of
town square. Believe you and me that got people’s attention. It
took no more than another few minutes before Lucas arrived.

I think he started to put the pieces together
the moment he heard I was standing in the town square naked and
without my daughter. I heard his bellow long before I saw him. He
was angry, and started screaming questions at me the moment he saw
me. I tried to speak but they were all questions that I couldn’t
answer. Finally he must have realized that I was under an alpha’s
order and got smart. He stopped asking questions I couldn’t answer
and instead ordered me to do something I could do

“Marie, I order you to run back to exactly
where you just came from”

Clever boy, I thought. Maybe, just maybe he
could get to my daughter in time. I shifted back into my wolf and
took off. He too shifted and was following behind me.

My wolf was crashing around inside of me. He
was furious and just wouldn’t calm down. I am going to clean house
when this was over. I will make every single one of the pack swear
allegiance to me and my mate and I will slaughter any who opposed
me. I have very few people that I trust. At the top of that list is
now Kalli’s mom Marie. She proved she is a very worthy shewolf and
I felt guilty that I had ever thought differently. It was clear she
loved her daughter with all her heart and she was just as worried
as I was.

Of my bro’s I was seriously starting to
wonder what Rob’s end game was. I could swear he was edging himself
as top pick for next alpha. The rest of them could fall on either
side of Rob or me. I would have to wait and see. As for the pack
well, too many looked the other way on what my father was up to.
Some even after knowing the truth clearly didn’t even really try to
look for her. Several flat out disobeyed my request for them to
help in the search. I was losing it!

If something doesn’t change soon, there just
might not be a pack left to disobey me. They will pay if even one
hair on my mates head is hurt. I will leave a bloody path of
destruction behind me. If I’ve lost Kalli forever, they were all
going to lose their lives. They will rue the day they followed my
father and stole my mate. I couldn’t stop thinking about what could
be happening to her.

It’s been three days since my mate went
missing. It was really hard to wrap myself around what happened.
Her mother had shown up in the town square naked and without Kalli
and somehow I knew. I knew that my scumbag father had gotten to
her. I knew that he’d sent people to take my mate. I knew that he’d
planned for this moment since the night he found out my mate was
the hybrid. I’d known my father was a snake, I just never thought
he’d go this far.

I sat down on the bed and tried to close my
eyes to get some rest. I hadn’t slept much in the past three days.
Every time I tried I would find myself reliving the day Kalli went
missing. We’d rushed through the woods back towards the mustang
when I scented my mate. I turned in her direction and followed
along the path I knew she ran down. I followed her scent deeper
into the woods. That’s when I saw the first dead wolf. It back was
clearly broken.

I rounded a corner and saw six more dead
wolves, but no Kalli. I called the boys, and we systematically
searched the area in all directions for more than ten hours. We
looked everywhere but Kalli was gone. Based on the tracks, we knew
only two wolves left the woods that day. We followed their tracks
and managed to find them the next morning.

They were holed up in a cave just off pack
territory. They were a mated pair that I didn’t really know well.
We’d questioned them for hours. They refused to say anything until
I applied the right pressure. The male finally caved when I
threatened his mate and told me a vampire attacked them and carried
her off.