Bloodfire (Blood Destiny) (6 page)

“Huh?”
 
I was momentarily confused.
 
The emotions that her words had stirred,
coupled with the almost overwhelming grief that I was only just managing to
keep a lid on, were muddling my thoughts.

“I mean fade in with wallpaper.
 
Dye your hair so it’s not longer the
colour of fire.
 
And, speaking of
fire, keep that down inside of you as well.
 
Wear dull clothes.
 
Don’t discuss shifting.
 
Don’t discuss anything, in fact.
 
It’s only for three days and then they
won’t bother us again.”

I thought about what she’d said before,
that they might stay for longer if there was danger.
 
“What if it’s longer?
 
What if they decide to stay?”

“We will give them no reason to do so.
 
I will assure them that we are capable
of finding John’s killer for ourselves.
 
We certainly have a history of being independent and capable – and
remember a lot of that is down to your skill in keeping us safe.
 
That will stand us in good stead.
 
The pack will be good and keep the geas,
although expect a certain level of starstruck idiocy when the Brethren first
arrive.” She paused for a moment and changed her tone.
 
“Are you going to be all right,
Mackenzie?”

I fixed her with a confident look.
 
“Yes, no problem.”
 
I was all business-like now.
 
Go me.
 
“They’re not going to dazzle me and I
can do all those other things.
 
Head
down, be unobtrusive, don’t discuss anything with anyone.”

“Are going to be all right with dealing
with John?”

She meant dealing with his death.
 
I swallowed and paused for a heartbeat
before taking a deep breath and answering.
 
“Yes.
 
Because I have to
be.”
 
My voice rang clear and I knew
it was true.
 
I’d do him no favours
by curling up somewhere in a corner and weeping.

Julia stared at me for a moment, her eyes
unblinking.
 
Then she nodded as if
to herself.
 
“Okay then.”
 
She stood up and stretched, catlike
despite her age.
 
“I am going to
take a long bath.
 
There’s lotion in
the cupboard.”
 
She jerked her head
to the closet next to the study door.
 
“They’ll be here at noon tomorrow –
be
ready.”

I nodded.
 
Julia left quietly but I remained
standing there for a second or too, mulling over what she had said.
 
I didn’t want the Brethren to come.
 
But then I hadn’t wanted John to die
either.
 
I just had to swallow it
down and last the distance.
 
It
couldn’t be that hard.
 
With that
resolve in my mind, I opened the closet and found the unmarked lotion
bottles.
 
I took them all.
 
If I was going to do this, then I was
going to do it properly.
 
It was
time to get ready.

Chapter Four

After midday the next day my unshakeable
resolve was weakening.
 
I was hot
and irritated.
 
My scalp felt itchy
from the dye and every time I turned my head I could smell the shifter lotion
reeking from my skin.
 
Of course I
didn’t dislike shifter smells – after living with them for so long I
rarely even noticed any difference between their scent and mine, not that it
was an unpleasant difference – but I wasn’t used to smelling them on
myself.

We were all stood in the hall.
 
It was a large room immediately off the
great oak front door.
 
Shabby
portraits of alphas from decades past adorned the walls, along with a couple of
twee chocolate box landscapes.
 
Underneath the paintings were panels of varnished yet undecorated wood
and on the floor were slabs of smoothed grey
stone.
 
I tried to push aside the reminder of
why we had all been there in the same place just last night, feeling myself
still perilously close to great hiccupping tears that I was pretty confident would
never stop if I let them start.
 
Standing towards the back, I shifted my weight from one foot to the
other.
 
I had chosen my spot very
carefully so I could keep myself relatively hidden from the gaze of the
incoming Brethren.
 
I was too
sensible to aim for the very back – that’s where the
trouble-makers
usually headed and I was sure that those stood there would be noted immediately
for no other reason than that they were hanging back.
 
But I still wasn’t happy.

The tension in the room was palpable.
 
I tried to breathe through my mouth to
avoid being assailed by the stench of weak fear that was emanating from those
around me.
 
It was so obvious that even
I could smell it.
 
By my side I
could feel Tom shifting from foot to foot.
 
I hissed at him in irritation and he stilled for a heartbeat before
returning to his nervous shuffle.

“It’s been almost an
hour,” he moaned.
 
“Why aren’t they
here yet?”

“Perhaps they’ve been held up because they
haven’t finished eating all their young yet,” I snapped.

“Oh dear,” came a soft voice sheathed in
steel from behind me. “I hardly think that attitude is going to impress the
Brethren, Mackenzie.”

“And why the fuck
would I want to impress them, Anton?”

The voice laughed, gratingly.
 
“I give you two hours before they see
you for the rabid animal you are and put you out of your misery.
 
Oh, but wait, you’re not an animal, are
you?
 
You’re…” The voice
deliberately stopped just there, daring me to fill in the blank myself.

I spun around, left hand clenched whilst
my right reached into my sleeve for my dagger.
 

Cease.

I brushed away the voice inside my head
and began to slide it out of its sheath.
 
In front of me, Anton’s blue eyes sparked, daring me to continue.

Mackenzie Smith.
 
You are
drawing attention to yourself.

I stilled, realizing
that other heads were starting to turn my way.

“Red, are you crazy?” Tom’s hand snatched
at my wrist although his body remained facing the front. “Do you want them to
notice you?”

“They’re not here
yet.”

“And what happens when they arrive and
you’ve got your hands wrapped around his throat?” Tom nodded his head in
Anton’s direction. “You don’t want to give them any reason to single you out.”

Anton’s eyebrows
raised
tauntingly.

Mackenzie.
 
The boy is
right.
 
Remember what we spoke
about. You know what would happen if…

I pushed the voice out, slamming shut the
mental gates, and turned back to face the dais.
 
Unable to help myself, I glanced in
Julia’s direction.
 
The older woman
gazed back impassively, no sign on her face that she was upset that she’d been
shut out from my thoughts.
 
I
grimaced and forced my hand to move back down to my side.
 
My fingernails dug into my palms.
 
I could hear Anton laughing from behind
me.

Not a good start.
 
And it hadn’t actually even started yet.

Anton had the same geas about revealing my
true nature placed on him as the rest of my pack, and couldn’t say a direct
word about it, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t find other ways of forcing my
hand and making me show who I really was.
  
I didn’t know why my presence
caused him to feel so much animosity but I’d given up trying to change his mind
about me years ago.
 
I was certainly
never going to be anything but human, not unless a vamp decided to snack on me
at least and even then that might not work.
 
John had offered me the chance to be
turned into a shifter when I reached my majority of eighteen.
 
I had jumped at the chance,
naturally.
 
It had meant that I
would finally, truly, belong.
 
He’d
bitten me and waited for the cells in his saliva to work their way through my
body.
 
Unfortunately something
inexplicable had prevented the lycanthropic cells from taking hold – just
another reason for Anton to jibe at me for being different.
 
The result of the bite had merely been
several days of unbelievable agony.
 
And of course by the end of it I was still frustratingly human.
 
However, if I kept my cool, and didn’t
let my bloodfire get out of control then Anton wouldn’t be able to do anything
about it.
 
Piece
of cake.

Tom’s eyes slid towards me.
 
I nodded slowly and he exhaled, his hand
releasing my arm.
 

My usual bright red hair was now a mousy
brown and I was wearing a uniform of generic jeans and t-shirt.
 
Nothing that would
draw any attention to me whatsoever, unlike several of the pack members who had
taken the opportunity to dress dramatically.
 
As far as I was concerned, though, as
soon as this rigmarole of a ceremony was over, I could forget the Brethren ever
existed. Until then all my attempts to hide in plain sight would be for nothing
if I couldn’t get a grip on my temper.
 

I slowly uncurled my fingers and forced
myself to relax. Perhaps they weren’t coming after all I pondered, half hoping
- and half chafing at the thought that they had so little regard for my pack
that they couldn’t even show up on time.
 
Didn’t they understand what we’d all just been through?
 
I almost growled.
 
Even without the group’s fear of what would
happen to them all if my true identity was discovered, and the deep-seated
grief that marked John’s passing, they were all on tenterhooks about the
imminent arrival.
  
Would the
Brethren like them?
 
Would the
Brethren find out who killed John?
 
Would
the Brethren save the world? Would we be honoured enough to be allowed to wait
hands and feet on them?
 
I snorted,
making Tom look worriedly over at me again.
 
I ignored him.
 
Screw the Brethren. Part of me wished
that I could have been long gone and then wouldn’t have to be witnessing the
pathetic displays of my pack, my surrogate family, straining at the bit to do
anything to please the sodding Brethren.
 
Idiots.

I’d confirmed that none of them other than
Julia had ever had cause to come in contact with the Brethren before now
– well, let’s face it, we lived in a backwater town in Cornwall for
chrissakes, nothing had ever happened before that would have warranted the
Brethren’s attention – but the crème de la crème of the shapeshifters’
reputation still preceded them.
 
They were known to be bloody, ruthless and entirely without mercy for
anyone who didn’t meet
their
exacting standards.
 
And still, the pack sighed over them as
if they were gallant heroes galloping in to save the day.

And, as it was, I’d have to stay throughout
the ceremony, so that the shifters who had taken me in when I was all alone
wouldn’t be faced with any hard questions, or harder punishments because they
were one ‘shifter’ short.
 
We
couldn’t afford to have the heroes looking for me as a suspect for John’s
murder when the real culprit was still out there. In three days’ time I’d be free
to find the bastard myself.
 
I
wondered if the Brethren were so arrogant to think that they would solve it
that quickly and with that much ease, or if they just didn’t care and didn’t
want to spend any more time away from the bright lights of London than was
absolutely necessary.
 
It didn’t
matter.
 
Whoever was responsible for
John’s murder was going to die a slow and agonising death at my hand.
 
Added to which, my late night
conversation with Julia preyed on my mind.
 
I wanted desperately to believe that she was telling the truth and that they
all actually did indeed need me.

A sound came from outside and the waiting
pack straightened their shoulders and puffed out their chests as if they were
one.
 
I did the complete opposite
and tried to hunch down.
 
The wooden
doors at the right of the hall swung open and twenty or so people, all dressed
from head to toe in designer black, came casually striding in.