Blood Bond (9 page)

The sound of it echoed through the
trees.

The wolf writhed only a moment more.

I pulled the branch free and straightened,
ready to move toward Derek in case he needed my help. His prey sat
at his feet, unmoving.

“Not bad, Godfrey,” he said.

I shrugged, trying to pretend I wasn’t
affected by his praise.

A snarl sounded from behind us, where we’d
left the rest of the group. Derek jumped up and took off at a
run.

The sight of his furry form springing
through the underbrush stirred something within. From here, I could
see flashes of fur, gnashing teeth, action. Heat and adrenaline
coursed through me. I doubled over, my vision blurring again.

“Tara?” I looked up at the sound of Wes’s
voice. He’d broken away from the fighting and stood only a few
yards away, his head cocked to one side. I met his eyes and then
quickly looked away. I had no doubt what he’d see. He could
probably smell it on me. I could smell it on me. “It’s happening,
isn’t it?” he said in a low voice.

“I’ve got it,” I said between gasps. Even
with the lack of oxygen, it was all I could do to keep from
dropping my branch and rushing forward into the fray.

“Tara, listen to me, deep breaths. You can
do this.” He came closer. “Are your fingers tingling?”

“Is that bad?”

“Shit.” He began pacing. Every few seconds
he’d throw a glance back toward the others and let out a whine.

“Go,” I said. “Help fight.”

“I’m not leaving until I know you’re not
going to shift.”

“I’m holding it back,” I insisted.

“Like hell. Listen to me, deep breaths in
and out. You’ve got to concentrate on something else. Something
that doesn’t raise your heart rate.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, just find something.”

I thought of Wes and pictured his human
face. The way he’d looked earlier, smiling, sweet, bare-chested …
but that only reminded me of the kissing we’d done and how much I
hadn’t wanted to stop and while I didn’t want to kill anything, I
wasn’t relaxed, either.

“Argh. Not that,” Wes said, obviously
reading the image in my mind. “Something else.”

I searched for something else to grab onto.
George: too much worry and stress. My mother: stress. Alex: worry.
Stress.

“Something
else
,” Wes growled
impatiently.

An image of Angela surfaced, calm and
collected, always-an-answer-for-everything Angela. One of two best
friends I’d been able to count on for support through anything,
until the day I’d learned what I was. I thought of her patience in
dealing with Sam and all of her dating escapades. Of the way she
handled teachers, fellow students, all of her clubs, everything
really. Her calm grace that seemed unshakable even under
overwhelming stresses. I did my best to channel that.

Slowly, very slowly, my breathing evened
out.

Wes shifted his weight. I ignored his
impatience and concentrated on breathing, on Angela.

The fighting continued. The grunts and
growls were closer together now. And louder. I wasn’t sure what
that meant, but I didn’t have a good feeling. The hybrids weren’t
going to get tired, but we would.

I paced back and forth, impatient to feel
whole again. At the edge of the brush, a pair of boots stuck out. I
rounded the bushes and stared down at the body of a man. A thick
branch stuck out from his ribs. His eyes were open and staring at
the canopy of leaves above. His jaw hung loose and crooked, like it
had been broken, and blood leaked from his ears, which were still
covered in downy fur.

“Tara?” Wes’s body went rigid as he stared
down at the body. “Oh.”

“I’ve seen him before,” I said. My voice
sounded small and foreign in my ears. “At school, I think. Wonder
why he shifted back and not the others?”

Wes didn’t answer.

“I’m fine now. You should go help,” I said,
looking away from the bloody wound on the man’s chest. Seeing him
this way—as a person—shook me in a different way. Suddenly, the
threat of my wolf was gone, and I felt very human.

“Are you sure?” Wes asked.

A piercing wail split the air, somewhere
between wolf and human. It cut off and there was silence. It lasted
only a moment before the next shout.

“Wes!” Derek’s yell sent us both running
back to the others.

Cambria stood closest. She met my eyes with
a fatigued stare. She had blood on her branch and hands. I could
tell by the look and smell it wasn’t her own. I clutched the branch
in my hand, searching frantically for an enemy to attack or for the
source of that last scream.

“What is it?” Wes demanded.

“Did we get them all?” I asked.

Derek turned to us and very deliberately
stepped aside, giving a clear view of Cord. She was bent over
something—and she was crying. Other than Derek and Wes, no other
wolf was standing.

I took a step forward, my thoughts still
jumbled from almost shifting. Seeing Cord cry threw me off even
more. At the sight of the familiar vanilla-cream coat I froze. A
lump formed in my chest and expanded until my voice came out a
croak. “No.”

Wes rushed forward, stooping his neck and
poking Bailey with his nose. Bailey didn’t respond. Wes poked him
again and Bailey’s head rolled sideways revealing a dark stain
coating his throat.

“No, no, no!” I repeated. Tears stung my
eyes. I took a step back.

Cord’s sobs grew louder as Wes continued to
nudge Bailey and call his name. His efforts were futile. The gaping
hole exposing his throat was evidence of that. Still, Wes didn’t
stop. A hand closed over my shoulder and I swung out with my
branch. Cambria caught it in her hand before it could connect with
her cheek.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” she whispered.
Her expression was pained. “Is he …?”

No one answered her. None of us wanted to
say the words out loud.

I blinked the tears back, refusing to let
them fall. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” said Cambria when no one
else spoke. “I didn’t see it. I only saw him fall. Cord tried to
help him, but she had three on her.”

Cord didn’t look up, but I saw her shoulders
stiffen. She’d blame herself. Even as I formed the thought, guilt
edged its way in, weighing me down. If I hadn’t left the group
…

“We need to get him back to the house.”
Derek’s voice carried across the space, calling me back. “Maybe Fee
can do something.”

Wes regarded Derek with sad eyes. I waited
for him to argue, to tell Derek there was no point. “All right,” he
said instead.

“I’ll carry him,” Cord said quickly, sobs
coating her voice.

No one had a chance to argue before she’d
reached out and scooped Bailey up in her arms. His body was bunched
in her hands, his fur sticking up in some places and matted with
blood in others. His head hung limp from her arm. He must’ve been
heavy, but she looked determined.

“Let’s go,” she said, already running for
home.

Halfway home, Bailey shifted.

One minute he was a
vanilla-cream Werewolf and the next he was a lean and gangly
fifteen
year-old boy. Cord let out a
choking sob and her steps faltered while she fumbled and readjusted
him. He seemed all limbs the way he hung over each of her arms.
Thankfully, I couldn’t see his wounds from where I ran behind Cord.
But the fact that he’d shifted pretty much said what we all
feared.

Still, Cord didn’t stop running.

Every so often Wes glanced over at Derek or
Cord—mostly Cord—and I suspected he was reading their thoughts.
Mine were probably too disconnected for him to get much. I wasn’t a
mess like Cord—yet. I’d cry eventually. When the guilt that pressed
at the edges of my mind finally came crashing through the shock of
what had happened. For now, it held back, like a dam—a cracking,
caving dam. Wes’ gaze flickered to me. I didn’t meet his eyes. Two
words played on repeat in my mind: not Bailey.

When we reached the edge of the woods,
Grandma and Fee appeared. Fee had shifted into her Werewolf form,
but her eyes had the same panicked look to them as Grandma’s.

“Vera had a vision, something bloody and
dark. What happened?” Grandma demanded. She held a metal-tipped
stake in each hand. Two more stuck out of the tops of her boots.
“Is everyone all right?”

No one answered. Fee caught sight of Bailey
and rushed forward. “No!”

Cord lowered Bailey to the ground in front
of her. Fresh tears streamed down Cord’s cheeks. “I think it’s too
late,” she whispered.

Grandma’s gaze swiveled from them to Wes.
“What happened?” she demanded again.

“Hybrids,” he said. “Lots of them. We
managed to take them down, but one of them got hold of Bailey.” He
squeezed his eyes shut, opened them again, met her stare. “One of
them shifted back. Tara recognized him from school. A Hunter.”

“Where?” Grandma was all business, her jaw
set in a way I hadn’t seen since the night of the warehouse fight
with Leo.

“A quarter of a mile straight back,” Wes
said.

Grandma looked past us, into the trees. “I’m
going to have to call CHAS. They’ll want to come out and have a
look.”

Cord’s head snapped up. “CHAS?” she spat.
“It’s none of their business. It happened on our land, our
territory. We don’t need them.”

“CHAS will notify that poor man’s family.”
Grandma said, ignoring Cord’s disgust. “Some of those creatures
used to be one of us. That deserves to be recognized, at least in
death. Besides,” she said, her voice softening, “CHAS will do the
dirty work and dispose of them so we don’t have to. Hopefully, a
few more will have changed back so we can figure out who they are.
Or were.”

“Well, they’re not touching Bailey,” Cord
snapped.

“Of course not,” Fee agreed quietly.

Grandma looked at Derek. “I could use some
help. You up for it?”

“But Bailey …” he began.

“Bailey’s gone,” Fee said. She stepped back
from where she’d been sniffing and examining Bailey’s body. Now she
watched the three of them—Cord, Derek, and Wes—with a sad sort of
gentleness that made me want to step forward as the villain, just
to give them someone to punish.

It’s my
fault
.
Take your
vengeance here.

Wes’s gaze swung up to mine.

A giant tear rolled from the corner of
Derek’s fur-framed eye. “I’ll go with you,” he told Grandma, his
voice gravelly, sad.

She nodded. “Let’s get going, then. Before
we lose any more light. This is going to take a while.” She walked
over to me. “You all right?” I nodded, trying not to picture
Grandma dragging bodies through the woods, a trail of blood and fur
in her wake. “Good, then I’ll see you back at the house when I’m
done.”

As soon as she moved away, Wes was there.
“Can you get back to the house on your own? I’m going to help
them.”

“Yeah, sure,” I mumbled.

His eyes narrowed. “If you need me to come
with you, I will.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I need to check on
George, anyway.”

He didn’t look entirely
convinced. I sent him a mental
Go on, I’ll
be fine,
and he turned to follow Grandma
and Derek.

“When Jack gets home, I’ll send him out,”
Fee called to him.

He turned back and cocked his head at Fee.
Their eyes locked. Some sort of message passed. Wes’s eyes widened
and then he called out a hurried “thanks” before bounding out of
sight.

Cord reached down and scooped Bailey back
into her arms. Her bottom lip shook with the effort to stave off
tears and the sight of it pierced me. The wetness I’d been holding
spilled over onto my cheeks.

“Come on, girls,” Fee said. “Let’s go
home.”

Chapter Six

Dragging the bodies back to Fee’s took three
hours. Most of the wolves never shifted back. Grandma said it was
to be expected—a sign their humanity had indeed been lost. In the
end, only the familiar-looking security guard and a man I’d never
seen before—his face unrecognizable for the blood covering
it—shifted back to their human form. CHAS was called. Vera spoke to
them first, then Grandma, both in hushed, businesslike tones.

Cord took Bailey upstairs and laid him out
in one of the guest rooms. Fee threw clothes on and then went to
help set him out for a proper goodbye. I stayed behind, not wanting
to intrude on something so private.

I left Cambria with Grandma and Vera and
peeked in on George. His eyes were closed and his breathing even
like the last time I’d checked. I started to back out of the room
but my hand slipped on the knob and the door creaked.

George’s eyes opened and he smiled tiredly.
“Leaving so soon?”

“I thought you were sleeping.” I sat on the
edge of the bed, studying his face.

“You weren’t going to sit at my bedside and
watch me sleep?”

My mouth curved despite the grief coating my
insides. It was nice to pretend for a moment. “I’m not that
stalkerish. That’s your style.”

“Oh, so now I’m a stalker?”

My smile dimmed. I took his hand. “No.
You’re always there. I like that about you.”

Instantly, his teasing expression vanished.
“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I debated whether to tell him. He
didn’t need the added stress, and it would only make him worry
about what he was becoming.

“I can handle it,” he said. “Don’t keep
secrets from me.”

That got me. I hated the secrets. I couldn’t
do the same to him. I sucked in a deep breath and pushed it out.
“We were in the woods, walking home from the lake, and a pack of
hybrids found us.” I paused, taking my time with choosing the
words. Saying it out loud for the first time made it real. I
couldn’t take it back. I couldn’t ignore it or pretend. “They
attacked and a—a hybrid got too close to Bailey. It bit him and
tore …”