Broken Blood (22 page)

“Steppe,” I said warily. “It’s him they want.”

Kane’s eyes widened in surprise, but he recovered quickly. “Which way?”

“Basement. Come on.” I leaped, navigating the hallway in one step, and stopped inside the kitchen. The door to the basement hung open. From below—and through the bond—Steppe screamed again.

I tried catching sight of his assailant in my mind’s eye but the lighting was bad and Steppe’s panic covered everything else. Instead, I waited for Kane to catch up and ran for the steps that led to the basement below.

Steppe lay in a heap at the bottom, unmoving. The single bulb had been shattered so the only light was a filtered shadow from the high window behind the stairs. Someone in a skip cap leaned over him, a human with slight shoulders and a slender wrist. My wolf eyes took in the pointed knife clutched in tight fingers and panic shot into the back of my throat, coating my tongue.

Behind me, Kane ploughed down the wooden steps, his boots thundering as he came, and Steppe’s assailant looked up. The light reflected off the whites of a pair of sharp brown eyes and I sucked in a shocked breath. Steppe’s panic suddenly made sense. So did Alex’s phone call.

I kept moving, but I wasn’t fast enough. From behind her mask, Olivia smiled at me, a gleaming set of teeth in a dark, damp space, before she looked down at Steppe and drove the knife into his stomach.

I bounded down the remaining steps and, with slicing pain burning through my gut, I leaped.

My teeth closed over Olivia’s wrist and I felt her flesh tear as my momentum and the sympathy pains in my gut carried me up and over my intended target. Olivia screamed and crumpled to the floor beside Steppe. I slammed into the bookshelf beyond them both, momentarily stunned by the impact and the stabbing pain.

I looked down at my own midsection in a daze, half expecting to see blood pooling there, but my light-brown fur was unmarred. Kane reached the bottom of the stairs and our eyes met in the low light. He looked from me to Steppe with a strange confusion and then bent low to snatch the knife from a slowly recovering Olivia.

She snatched it away and glared up at him.

“It’s over—” he began.

Olivia screamed and plunged the knife into Kane’s boot. It stuck through the top of his foot and then his yell replaced hers. He stumbled back and Olivia stretched and crawled for the stairs. In my mind, Steppe’s pain only intensified, but he roused enough to grab at her ankle.

With a wince, I forced myself to my feet and crawled over him to reach her. My teeth found her ankle and I bit down—hard.

Olivia screamed, the sound shaking the glass in the tiny dirt-coated window and echoing off the cement walls. She collapsed a second time but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. What had started as a defensive tactic quickly became something else. Steppe’s fury ripped through me, painting a layer of hate over everything else. I bit harder and tore sideways, satisfied only when I felt the muscles rip free and tendons loosen and tear.

Olivia’s blood coated my tongue, erasing the taste of my own panic and pain. My wolf—driven by Steppe’s goading whispers—wanted more. Needed more. Hurting Steppe was hurting me. She knew it. I had a feeling it was why she’d done it. Unlike when Steppe had tried coaxing me to attack Lexington, this time I gave in.

I crawled over Olivia’s body and lifted a shaking paw, raking my claws down the length of her arms. Her body arched and fell, but otherwise, she didn’t react. Her eyes were closed and her breathing too even. After all of the medical alterations Steppe had made, she wasn’t immune to my venom. But even know that, my wolf wouldn’t stop.

I raised my paw again and Kane yanked me back. “She’s down,” he said gruffly, winded and pained. “Let her be.”

I whirled, growling at him and showing my teeth. Beyond Kane, Steppe still wasn’t moving. In the back of my mind, I knew whatever malice I couldn’t shake was coming from him, but I didn’t care. Olivia had hurt me. More than once. And she’d hurt the people I loved. My wolf wanted justice. Steppe wanted retribution. Semantics. I leaned toward her, ignoring Kane’s warning.

“Tara, stop.” Another Werewolf ploughed into me, knocking me back. I landed on my side and stared up at a big blur of russet fur and dark, round eyes staring down at me in concern.

“Are you all right?” Wes asked. A small stain of blood marred the tip of his ear but otherwise, he was intact.

“I’m fine. It was Olivia,” I said, still unsure what “it” referred to. Had she found her own army?

“I know. She brought a pack with her,” Wes said. He looked from Steppe, a large stain of blood seeping into his shirt over his belly, and back to me. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” I said. 

Behind Wes, Kane rose to his feet next to Olivia, his scar pulled taut at the corners of his grim lips. He’d removed the knife from his boot and, aside from the small hole in the material, didn’t show any evidence of injury. “She’s dead,” he said in a flat voice.

Something inside me uncoiled. Guilt poked at the edges; I knew I should be ashamed for my relief at her death, but I couldn’t quite get there. Not yet.

“Dammit,” Wes said and moved away from me to pace in the small area between dusty shelves. Kane moved to Steppe next and I watched with disinterest as he checked Steppe’s vitals.

At the top of the stairs, the door swung wide, smacking the wall behind it. Cord stood at the top, chest heaving with exertion. A bloody stake hung from her hand as she blinked down at us. I saw her irises dilating as she tried to focus in the grainy light. For a split second, hope rose, as I spotted the concerned dip of her brow.

“Is she alive?” Cord called—and my hope sank. Anger took its place.

“She’s dead,” I snapped, rising to my feet to face her. “You’re welcome.”

“Welcome?” she repeated. “Tara?”

I answered with a snarl. Nearby, Steppe began to come to. I could feel him struggling for the surface of the abyss that kept pulling him under. Kane steadied Steppe’s shoulders and raised him to a sitting position.

I looked back to the top of the stairs where Cord still stood. “Your dad’s fine, by the way,” I added. “In case you were wondering.”

Steppe, barely conscious of the conversation, sprang to frozen awareness in my thoughts. Wes whirled to stare at me and Kane’s jaw dropped. At the top of the stairs, Cord glared at me. Her hand tightened around the stake.

Behind her, somewhere in the house, someone called out. It sounded like my mom. We both ignored her, opting instead for a tense stare down across the space. Light spilled in around Cord, illuminating the edges of her blonde hair and the fierceness in her warrior stance. Her cheeks flamed red, in anger at my comments. I didn’t care.

Olivia was dead. I didn’t care about that either. Except—

“I wasn’t wondering, actually,” Cord said. “Since he’s not my dad.”

“Say what you want. You’re being selfish,” I snapped.

“Tara, now’s not the time,” Wes began.

“It’s the perfect time, actually,” I argued, my gaze locked on Cord. “Olivia’s dead. We’ve just been attacked and we’ve no place left to hide so there will be more where that came from. Cord’s the only one here that can stop it and she’s choosing to walk away. I’d say it’s the perfect time.”

Cord’s mouth tightened. She shifted her weight, and for a moment, I thought she was going to walk down here and give me the fight I wanted. But in the end, she turned on her heel, her hair swishing out behind her, and disappeared.

“Are you saying Cord is Steppe’s—?” Kane began.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded. My words were barely more than a growl. Steppe was angry. I was livid. All of it boiled and brewed into the biggest storm of temper I’d felt since—

Since the first time I’d shifted and saved Wes from that pack of hybrids.

I thought about the black wolf upstairs and how much he reminded me of the one I’d locked up with Olivia back at Steppe’s lab. She’d brought her army, all right. And they’d never liked me.

It hadn’t been an ambush; it had been a rescue mission. Pure and simple.

“I came here on behalf of Principal Whitfield,” Kane said.

“Why did he send you here?” I asked, struggling to refocus as my temper stirred and swirled my disjointed thoughts.

Kane’s mouth tightened, pulling on the nasty scar. A few weeks ago, I would’ve been intimidated by that, but now I couldn’t get past the anger. “Because, hybrid war or not, fugitive or not, life goes on, Tara. Your friends are missing from school. Clearly, they’ve chosen you over higher education, but it’s not their choice to make.”

“Cambria?” I asked, anger and confusion muddling his words.

“And Victoria. And Logan. They need to return or face disciplinary action.”

“But...” I looked at Wes, but he said nothing. “They didn’t choose me,” I said. “They’re in danger. If they go back there—”

“They’ll be protected,” he finished. “They’d be safer at Wood Point. So would you for that matter.” His words were gentle but more a slap in the face than a comfort since we both knew I couldn’t return as long as I was a fugitive—or a Dirty Blood. His compassion only fed my anger.

“We both know I’m not welcome there,” I said.

“You’ll need to fix your legal problems first,” he admitted and glanced at Steppe before stepping over him and heading for the stairs.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

He turned back, his scar nothing more than a jagged rivet across his cheek in the shadows. “To speak with Edie. And to get some help cleaning up down here.”

I stared after him, my temper leaking away with every breath and blink. Wes stood by, watching me. I felt his eyes but I didn’t turn. In the absence of the anger, I saw the truth. Kane was right. My friends were better off at school. Maybe Cambria had been right to listen to my mom and keep me out of the fighting.

I couldn’t lead, not when I broke confidences and exploited trust in the face of danger or obstacles. Not when Steppe controlled me this way.

Steppe, chest heaving and shirt soaked in blood, eyed me as I padded past him toward the stairs. He looked terrible, but I knew from the bond that he wasn’t in danger of anything worse than a piercing flesh wound. Nothing Fee couldn’t fix.

“Tara?” Wes called behind me. “Where are you going?”

I stepped over Olivia. Our last hope.

“I’ll send Jack and Fee down for him. I need some air,” I said. “Don’t follow.”

If he wanted to protest, he didn’t show it. I could practically hear the words forming on his tongue. “Be careful,” he called after me.

I didn’t answer.

––––––––

I
ran fast and far—until my lungs burned and my paws ached and my wolf wanted to disappear. Several miles from the house, in the depths of thick woods, I crept into an abandoned hunting cabin and snatched a pair of sweats and a hoodie and shifted back to two legs. Back outside, I ran again, this time in loose-fitting hiking boots and oversized socks. My chest heaved and my lungs ached but I pushed on.

The sun had arched from the eastern horizon to just above the tips of the trees to my left by the time I stopped to rest. Inside my head, Steppe’s voice echoed off the otherwise empty space, coating it with accusations and guilt-laden reasoning. But there was nothing left for him to accuse or convict me for. I’d done it all myself already.

There was nothing left of my temper. Only quiet understanding that I’d been foolish yesterday to assume I could lead. Victoria’s words echoed back at me like a bad dream.

I had
not
always been a leader.

I’d always been a dictator. There was a huge difference. Immune did not make me immortal. And in charge did not make me elected.

It didn’t matter anyway. Olivia was dead. Cord refused to step up. By the time we dismantled Steppe’s seat of power or his cruel new laws, every hybrid would be dead, including me and my friends. The attacks were never going to stop. In fact, I suspected Kane’s arrival to retrieve my Hunter friends stemmed from his own theory—one that Wes shared and who knew how many others. Pretty soon, it might not only be the angry ex-allied Werewolf packs attacking us. It might be Hunters too.

I paused to drink from a stream that ran down the hill I’d come over. The sounds of the Shenandoah forest in winter were muted. Crunching leaves, wind rustling through nearly naked branches, the distant call of a crow.

It felt lonely.

Almost as lonely as I had been in that cell. I wondered if I’d ever really forget or recover from those weeks he’d held me in solitary. Or if I’d ever be free of his smug voice in my mind, holding that time over my head like a last victory.

I won. I always win.

If I’d had anything left to give, I would’ve summoned up actual hate. But I couldn’t quite find it in me to feel anything quite that hard.

We were losing
, I thought dully.
Fast.

Behind me, leaves crunched in a staggered but quick rhythm and I whirled. Even without my wolf’s heightened senses I knew it wasn’t a squirrel. Those were footsteps. I held my breath, scanning the naked trees that blotted out the shiny daylight that filtered down to the forest floor.

The sound grew louder as the intruder got closer. Whoever it was, they weren’t even trying to be stealthy. By the time I spotted him zigzagging along the trail at a jog, my panic was a heavy taste in my mouth.

“There you are,” he said, slowing to a stop.

“Alex,” I breathed. I rested my palm on the nearest tree trunk for support. “What the heck are you doing out here?”

“Running a marathon, apparently,” he said, propping his hands on his knees as he worked to catch his breath. “Since when do you run farther than the nearest snack machine?”

I rolled my eyes. “Since I screwed everything up.”

He straightened to his full height and his eyes sparkled. “So, just a normal day, then. Here I thought it was something serious.”

“Not in the mood, Channing,” I said. I used his last name, like we always had when he’d been my trainer and only barely my friend. Instead of all this ... whatever we were.

But Alex ignored my attempt to keep him at arm’s length. He stepped closer, invading my personal space and my thoughts before I could prepare. “What are you in the mood for?” he asked quietly.