Brock (6 page)

“You’ve done some research on our history, right?”
Jules nodded. “Something happened today that I don’t…I think I even scared Ryland. I’ve always known that I have more than one cat in me. One of them I call the beast and he’s very aggressive, but the other is my cat that I can control. The beast? Today I couldn’t control him. I mean, at all. He took me, and no matter how hard I tried to hold him back, he wouldn’t obey.”

Jules looked at
Em, then at him. “Who was with you? Her, I’m assuming, but whom else?”

He told him what Peter was doing there and what they’d done.
Jules didn’t speak for a long while, and Brock just let him run things through his mind. Jules was a thinker, and he was damned good at it. When he did turn to him, he looked confused.

“Let me talk to Keith.
He has everything about our history downloaded on the computer. Maybe…let me talk to him first. But as I can see whatever it is, it’s over, right?” Brock nodded. “I’ll get back to you.”

He stood up and went to Keith. Before he could protest that he
didn’t have to leave his party to look now, he was also worried that he felt compelled to do it right now. He reached for Em when she moved past him and pulled her into his lap. She looked up at him, and her eyes glazed over from need.

“You’re not
going to be able to walk if you look at me like that much longer.”
She kissed his mouth quickly and tried to stand.
“No. If you look at me like you’re hungry, then you have to give me a proper kiss.”

“But a proper kiss to you involves a bed or shower and no clothes.”
He wiggled his brows at her.
“Behave or I’ll tell your mother what we did in her driveway before pulling all the way up here.”

He growled low and nipped at her neck.
“You mean when you came in my mouth, or when I came in yours?”

He’d had to have her and pulled over and
laid her back on the seat of his truck and tore her panties off her. He was glad she’d had on a little skirt or he might have had to take her shopping again. Christ, he just couldn’t get enough of her. When she tried to stand again, he let her. His mom was giving him the look that made him feel ten again.

When she sat beside him
, he knew that he was either in big trouble or…hell, he was in big trouble. She wrapped her arm around him, and he kissed her forehead. When she didn’t speak at first, he simply watched Ryland’s little girl as she played with the toys that hung over her as she lay on the floor.

“Did you know that you’re the only child I had that I couldn’t control?” He looked at her.
“When you were a child, even a baby, I was terrified you were going to get hurt. You did more often than not, but soon you learned to fall, and then more and more…or I guess less and less, you didn’t need me following you around with a first-aid kit.”

“I need you. I always will.” He wrapped his arm around her just as she’d done to him.
“Mom, I don’t know if you heard or not, but I had a problem today.”

“
Ryland already asked me. And I don’t know. He said that…you frightened him, I think. He said you’d been more wild tiger than you normally were, and that your human side was nowhere he could find in the cat’s mind.” He nodded. That’s how it had felt too. He was there, but not. The beast had dominated him.

“Jules and Keith are looking into it for me.”
She nodded. “I was…I’ve never been so terrified in my life. All I could think about was her and having her. I don’t know what I would have done to her had Peter not been there, or Ryland roaring at me to come back.”

“Long ago
, there was a mated pair of tigers that lived among our streak. They were wild, not shifters like us, but they lived around us and even ran with us when the mood suited them. When their cubs were born, they had seven—too many for the young mother to handle—and the male brought us one to help with.” He leaned back on the couch to watch her as she continued. “You were a baby at the time, and I had been in the kitchen when he came by. After he dropped off the kitten, I picked him up and held him until I realized that he wasn’t coming back for him.”

“Never?”
His mom shook her head and told him when the cub was weaned he came back, and from time to time, the mother would as well to check up on him. “So what happened? You fed him?”

“Yes. I would pump my milk for him while I nursed you.
He did so well that after a few weeks he was bigger than his siblings and much…smarter too. After three months and he was eating meat, the big tiger came back for him. A week later, there was a large stag on the doorstep, and one a week thereafter until….”

“Until what?”
She looked away, then back at him, and he could see the tears in her eyes. Whatever had happened was not good; he just knew it.

“You were out playing and you fell. There was an
abandoned mine on the property that we’d been warned about but had never encountered until then. You fell into it and broke your leg.”

“He saved me. I remember thinking that it was
Dad, but it had been the big tiger that we’d see once in a while. He shimmied his way down the long shaft and dragged me back out. He…he bit me on the thigh when he nearly dropped me.” She shook her head, and he nearly told her he remembered.

“It was the cub that saved you, darling
, not the father.” He looked at her when she stood up. The cub had saved him? He stood up and started to ask her what that meant when it occurred to him.

“He marked me when he bit me.” She shrugged her shoulders. “He did
, didn’t he? He marked me as his kind, and that has something to do with what happened today with Em.”

“I honestly don’t know.
It could, I suppose, but…I really wish I could help you.” He sat down and watched as Em walked around the rest of the table helping the caterer refill the trays of food that had been emptied. She smiled at him when she turned to him, and he fell in love with her. He looked at his mom and had a feeling she already knew.

“Ryland will help you protect her
, as will Peter, but when her family comes here, they’ll be as strong together as we are. And with them being vampires, they’ll be faster, and I believe a great deal meaner than we will be.” He nodded, knowing what she was saying was true. “Do you have a plan to change her?”

“I’ve not asked her. I’m not going to either
, until this is over. I don’t want her to feel pressured like I think she has been from her family. I think…I know they’ve tried that with her and it didn’t work. I’m not going to make her feel that way.” She nodded and smiled at him. “You think I’m wrong.”

“On the
contrary, I think it’s the smartest move. She’ll respect you more for it.” He nodded and told her he loved her. “Of course you do. I’m the best mom in the world.”

Brock
laughed; there was no hope for it. She
was
the best mom in the world, and she was all his. He reached for her hand and kissed it, then went to find Em. He wanted to take her into a closed room and see if he could muss her up again.

Chapter
6

Bert walked the street trying to find a meal. He’d been out last night, too, and had been surprised to find the streets rolled up like the sleepy little town knew that they were out trying to find a good, hot meal. He looked in the window of the house that was lit up like a tree and saw people walking around and enjoying themselves. If one of them stepped out, he’d show them what enjoyment was. His fangs dropped when he saw a woman in a skin―tight dress walk by the window.

He wanted her to come out but hadn’t yet learned the art of making humans listen to him.
Wilfred had. He’d learned all sorts of neat tricks before any of the rest of them had. And Jimmy had been so proud of him. Bert wanted to find a stake and run his son through with it. He was fucking sick of his son and his superior attitude.

“
Why don’t you just shadow yourself and go in after her? By the time you killed her, we’d be long gone and no one would be the wiser.” He didn’t turn when he heard his son. Bert was afraid that he would be able to see the hatred on his face and know that he’d been thinking of killing him.

“I don’t want her that badly where I’d have to be around so much human smell.
” He felt his belly lurch at the thought of what humans smelled like, and wondered if he had had the same noxious odor when he’d been human. “You can if you’d like. I’m just going to find a meal somewhere else. Someplace where it’s a lot safer.”

He started to move away and was suddenly lifted off the ground by Wilfred. He was holding him with nothing more than his two finger
s pinched together, but nothing touching him. That was another trick his son had, the ability to levitate others and bring them to him.

“Did I say you could leave yet?
Did I give you permission to walk away from me, to turn your back on me?” Bert grabbed at air to try and get loose. “You’re not going to just walk away without having a little fun, are you, Daddy dear? You’re that much of a chicken shit that you’d rather leave than play. There is so much sweet blood in that house alone that we could all feed well. Won’t you join us?”

His other sons were
suddenly there too. Erwin was wiping his mouth, and blood smeared over his lips. Bert felt his own fangs drop, and he could smell it on his son. Need coiled around him, and he looked at the window where the people were.

“We
can’t get in, but we can lure them out. Then we’ll go in and make a feast for ourselves.” Bert was dropped to the ground, and he snarled at Wilfred. “You’ll keep a civil tongue in your head, Dad, or I’ll be forced to rip it from you.”

Bert had so many things he wanted to say, so many things that he
thought about doing to the man his son had become. And none of them had anything to do with pride or love. His son had become a creature, an evil and unholy creature. And Bert was afraid of him.

As
Wilfred barked orders to where the others were to wait, Wilfred moved to the window they been standing near such a short time ago. When the woman he’d been looking at came to the window, she leaned down and opened it, and Bert could see all the way to her pussy down the cleavage of her dress.

“Go to the door and open it.
Then invite us in.” She nodded and moved back, but Wilfred called her back. “You’ll strip naked and be waiting for me. I’m going to fuck you until you scream.”

She smiled at him and went to the door.
Bert and his other sons were there waiting when the woman opened it. She was naked, and the people around her were staring. She moved to the threshold and invited them in. As soon as the words spilled from her lips, Wilfred took her to the floor and bit into her throat.

The screams started almost immediately
, but as quickly as they started, they were cut off. As Bert moved to a man who was shielding the woman he was near, he looked him in the eye and told him to take out his dick and masturbate. As soon as he tore open his pants, Bert grabbed up the luscious women he’d been protecting and tore her clothes from her. He was fucking her in the ass when the man came.

“Again.” He watched the man
fist his cock over and over. He was in pain, Bert could see that, but he didn’t care. The woman beneath him tried to get away from him, and he reached down and broke her neck as he came in her.

As the
guests were killed off, he could see his sons feeding on the few that still lived. Shawn was eating one woman and had one riding him. He could hear him slurping at her, and he felt his cock harden again. One thing he’d learned about being a vampire was that he was never satisfied when it came to sex. Drinking from the half-naked man as he shot his second load over the dead woman, he dropped him to the floor, not even bothering with closing the wound. He stepped to the two maids that had been brought from the kitchen by Steven.

“Sharing?” His son nodded
, and he could see blood staining his teeth. Bert took the younger woman and Steven the other. As he was drinking from her while he fucked her tight pussy, he felt someone come up behind him. Never one to turn down a good fucking, he spread his legs and moaned against the woman’s throat when someone entered him hard.

The powerful thrusts
he was giving the woman were now doubled, and when he came, he lifted his head from her throat and rubbed her blood over her breasts and bit her there. She was dying anyway, and he wanted to get as much as he could from her. The man behind him grabbed his dick as soon as he left the woman’s cooling body and helped him jerk off as the man came inside of him. When he turned, he’d been terrified to see Wilfred there.

“Come again.
I want to feel you release in my hand again.” Wilfred fisted his cock tighter, and he felt the pain all the way to his balls. When he came a few seconds later, he was afraid to think about how he’d done it. He was afraid that his son had a power over him too.

Wilfred walked out the front door and commanded them to make sure there was no one left to tell.
They searched the house from top to bottom, only finding one still alive, and Shawn had taken care of him. Snapping his neck, he left him among the bodies of the other fourteen guests and hired help, and laughed.

“We should do this more often.
A family that feeds together stays together.” Bert shivered, remembering something that Jimmy had said about nests. He nearly said he thought they should split up before they were all caught when he looked around and saw Wilfred standing there.

“You
do it and I’ll have no problem killing you.” He asked him what he was talking about. “You know. We’ll stay together or else; and when we get Emma back, there’ll be no keeping her for our rest. She’ll be fully changed and in my bed. I’m going to fuck a child in her belly.”

“You know you
can’t have a child with her. She’s not your mate and without that, there will never be a child from the two of you.” Bert backed up when Wilfred advanced to him. “You know what I say is true.”

“Then she has no use for us
after I fuck her, so I’ll kill her.” Bert felt his skin tighten and his blood, at first hot and coursing through his body, chilled. The way that he’d said it, the way that Wilfred had said he would kill her, made Bert almost feel sorry for his daughter. Then he remembered what she’d done to them before she’d left. She’d tried to kill them by having the house set afire. That for a vampire was an unforgivable act against them.

Bert walked out of the
house with his sons and watched when the police showed up. Wilfred had said he’d called them and they hung around to watch the show. And it was a show. They had no more idea what had happened than why. They did stumble around like they might have a clue, but whenever any of them mentioned vampires, one of them would change the direction of his thoughts.

As the sun started to crest the sky
, they went to the lair they’d found and into the cellar. It wasn’t the best of accommodations, but they were safe from the sun for another day. He thought about Wilfred’s command to find Emma when the sun set and wondered just how they were supposed to do that. But sleep claimed him, and he felt his body, by slow degrees, shut down. He’d find her, but he wasn’t so sure he’d let Wilfred kill her. He wanted her to be their watcher more than he wanted her dead. She owed him. She owed them all for what she’d done.

~~~

“Nineteen confirmed dead, and the police are still looking for clues. If anyone has any information on the murders in—” Em turned off the television and stared at the blank screen. She knew who it had been as surely as she was sitting there. She looked up when Bronwyn walked in.

“
It’s them, isn’t it?” Em nodded. “That means they’re less than four hundred miles from here. So at the rate they’re traveling and the mayhem they’re leaving behind, they might be here as soon as three days.”

“Less.”
Neal sat down next to her and smiled. “How you holding up, sweetheart? Do you need anything before I go?”

She’d been staying with
Alistair and his wife since the story broke. Brock thought he should go to the scene and see what he could find out, and had asked her to stay there while he was gone. He’d been afraid for her and she had told him she’d be fine. Now she wasn’t so sure she’d ever be fine so long as her family was still alive.

“
I wish I could help you.” Alistair nodded and stood up. He was helping her teach the others sign language. “There are others around the yard. When you go out, make sure that someone knows you’re out so that you aren’t startled. Max has come to help watch you.”

She’d met the large man. He had told her that he was a bear
, and she believed him. She had never met a werebear before, and had been surprised to learn that nearly all species had a were counterpart. Even snakes, she’d been told, but they were harder to recognize as a shifter than others were. Brock had told her he thought it was because they were so small that no one noticed the scales. She’d laughed with him for twenty minutes.

After he left and Ally went to the Pretty Flower to work
, Em tried to find something to do. The cook, Roland McBride, had asked her if she was hungry, but she hadn’t been so much as bored. It was hard not doing anything after working for so long. She went back to the office that Brock had told her she could use and pulled up the Internet.

She was still doing some
digging when the computer suddenly showed Keith’s face. She watched as he typed across the screen. She smiled at him.

“I thought you could use this program. It’s for deaf people so they can communicate better.
You should be able to type back to me. Can you try?”

“How are you?” She clapped her hands when he gave her the thumbs up.
“You are very nice to do this for me. I wasn’t sure how I could speak to anyone that I don’t have a link to.”

“You should be able to talk to anyone
, but not everyone will have a camera. And that might be a good thing.” She laughed. “I have some news for you. It’s not bad, but I already spoke to Brock, and he said I could tell you. What do you know about weretigers?”

“Nothing.” She hit enter before continuing.
“I know what I have heard from you all and some things I’d learned just by being around my family. Why? What have you found out?”

Brock had told her that his brothers were looking into what might have happened the day
that Brock had bitten her. She rubbed her hand over the scar at her shoulder and waited while Keith continued typing. She didn’t really care what had happened, but she knew that Brock had been scared.

“In our history there was a weretiger that had taken a wild tiger for his mate.
The story goes that the two of them met when he’d been on a run and had fallen in love. And as you know how stories go, there was an evil father involved. The man’s father, Benton was his name, had forbade his son to see the tiger again. He told his son that if he continued seeing her that he’d have his hunters find the female and kill her and have her skin put in the front hall of their home to remind him never to disobey him again.”

She read the story as Keith typed more. “The son was so much in love with the tiger that he wanted to change her. He wasn’t sure if it would work or not
, but he thought that it would work the same way as it did with other species. Just biting during sex should do it. Or so he thought.”

“Please tell me that the father didn’t kill her. I’m going to be very pissed at you if he does.”
Keith looked at her in the camera and winked.

“No, but things didn’t go well for the change either. Once the son bit the female to change her
, something happened and he changed instead. He felt his body morph, and even though he had already shifted to a tiger, he shifted again…to a wild one that still had the feelings and knowledge of the man he’d been. It took him several days to fully convert, and when he was changed, he looked at himself in the pond near his home and saw that other than his eyes being a brilliant green, he was the same as he’d always been. He decided to go and see his father.”

She held her breath
, waiting for the story because she knew that something bad was going to happen even though he’d told her it wasn’t bad. When he looked at her when he finished telling the story, she almost didn’t want to read it.