Claimed, a vampire romance (Lost) (6 page)

“Try the door.”

At the masculine voice, Rachel turned. Bryce Kinkaid, self-declared werewolf, walked around the corner of the house. His gait was athletic and confident, and a sheen of sweat covered his bare chest.

He was naked.

Rachel blinked and looked at Shelby. Her friend's gaze locked onto the werewolf.

“Kincaid?” she murmured.

“You know him?” Rachel teetered on the edge of the porch. The werewolf's appearance sent a new surge of adrenaline spiking through her veins. She felt like a doe caught between headlights and a hunter, wanting to flee but with no safe route anywhere.

“The door, it's unlocked,” Kincaid said, his focus never wavering from Shelby. “Go through it.”

Rachel reached for the door and twisted the knob. It turned easily in her hand.

“Shelby, let's go,” she urged, holding out her hand to her friend.

“Don't be stupid, Rachel. He's a werewolf. You can't possibly be thinking of doing what he says.”

Again, indecision held Rachel in its grip. Shelby was right. If Bryce wanted her to go inside the house, it must be a trap, but what other choice did they have?

The werewolf hadn't moved, but Rachel knew instinctively that she and Shelby would never be able to make it back to Cameron's car ahead of him.

“Oh, by all means, don't trust the werewolf.” Bryce laughed.

“You are the enemy here,” Shelby responded.

“Let's put a finer point on it, shall we? I'm your enemy here, not Rachel's.”

Confused, Rachel moved her gaze back and forth between the pair. They talked as if they knew each other and as if both knew something Rachel didn't.

“Aren't you going to ask about the others?” Bryce moved to the side, closer to Shelby.

She bristled. It was the only word Rachel could think of to describe the way her friend straightened and leaned forward at the same time.

“What others?” Rachel asked. A lot was bothering her about this conversation, but one disturbing thought suddenly occurred to her. “Shelby, how did you know he was a werewolf?”

“What?” Shelby's gaze slid briefly from Bryce to Rachel. “It's obvious he's one of them. Look at him.”

Rachel did. She saw a naked man, a well-formed, muscular man, but a man who looked one hundred percent human to her.

Shelby sighed as if Rachel's slowness to understand was frustrating her. “Why else would he be naked? They shift, right?”

“Yes... I guess.” It hadn't occurred to Rachel that Bryce's nudity had such an obvious, if you believed in werewolves, explanation. In fact, it had not been obvious to her, but then her brain was beyond stressed. But then again, Shelby's should have been too.

She licked her lips. “You know a lot about werewolves, Shelby.”

Bryce laughed, and Shelby sighed.

She gave the man a frustrated look and, looking back at Rachel, held up both hands. “Oh, Rachel, I didn't want it to come to this.”

“Come to...?” The question died in Rachel’s throat. Something was happening. Something to Shelby.

Her friend lowered her head and shook out her arms, as if warming up for some exercise, then, inhaling a deep breath, she smiled.

With no other warning, her body jerked, went stiff and then weak, and then stiff and weak again. Her head tilted down to her chest, and a hacking noise escaped from her lips.

Thinking her friend was convulsing, Rachel raced toward her.

Still shaking, Shelby grabbed Rachel by the wrist and smiled again. Then the smile changed, grew wider, impossibly wide, and hair sprouted from Shelby’s forehead.

“No,” Rachel tried to step back onto the porch, away from the monster her friend was becoming, but as Shelby's body changed, she maintained her hold.

Rachel twisted and jerked and then, desperate to get away, she looked toward Bryce. The werewolf was changing too, growing fur and falling onto all fours just like Rachel's friend.

The gears locked in place, and the pieces fell together. Shelby was a werewolf. Shelby was the enemy.

Was Bryce too? Rachel didn't know, and at that moment, she didn't care. She just wanted to get away from both of them as quickly as possible.

She kicked out. Her foot hit Shelby in the snout. Her friend, now almost fully wolf, snarled. Her grip on Rachel vanished, and she fell forward, onto all fours.

Relieved, Rachel spun. House or car? The house was a huge gamble but much closer. She dove toward the porch. Jaws clamped around her calf.

Pain shot through her leg, and she fell onto the concrete steps. Whimpering, she tried to pull herself forward, but Shelby jerked backward, pulling Rachel off of the porch and depositing her onto the perfectly manicured lawn.

She heard snarls. Biting down the pain, she rose on her arms and twisted.

Bryce had completed his shift, but he was under attack. Three other wolves had arrived, and all seemed intent on destroying him.

Shelby, now a ginger-coated wolf, stood beside her, eyes glistening as she watched the battle. Noticing Rachel's movement, she pinned her with a gaze and growled.

o0o

Cameron ran through the streets of suburbia, cursing his two-legged condition. The werewolf, Bryce, had left him behind long ago. Vampires were fast, far faster than any human, but for speed, they had nothing on a werewolf in wolf form.

Which meant when Cameron arrived at the safe house where he hoped his car's GPS system had guided Rachel, Bryce would already be there, but other wolves might be too.

Cameron could only run and pray that Rachel had already made it inside.

As he approached the house, he heard snarling and jaws snapping. He sped between two houses and into the yard. In one corner, three wolves were piled onto another. The four formed a writhing mass of fur that made it impossible for Cameron to say for sure if one of the wolves was Bryce. His guess, however, was that the one, the one on the bottom, was.

He swiveled, hoping the fighting wolves were all he would see, but lying on the ground next to the porch was Rachel. Standing over her, its head lowered, was a wolf.

His world slowed.

He pulled the bloody blade he'd used back at the warehouse from his boot and leapt forward.

The wolf spun and its ruff rose. He hadn't encountered this wolf before. He would have remembered it with its ginger coloring. Its eyes glowed, and its stance was predatory, more predatory than any of the others, more confident than any of the others.

He had found the alpha.

He kicked the wolf in the head, and the creature spun across the yard, its toenails carving trenches in the sod as it moved.

He turned, ready to grab Rachel and toss her toward the safe house's door, but the wolf was on him. Its teeth sank into his shoulder. He lashed out, stabbing blindly, not caring if he hit himself before hitting the creature.

“Cameron! No!” Rachel rose to her feet. Her face was pale, and her hands dashed through her hair. She looked fevered and lost.

His inattention cost him. The wolf moved again, dropping its hold on his shoulder to grab him by the leg instead. With a jerk, it pulled him down. He fell backwards, hitting his head and losing his grip on the blade.

The wolf’s teeth still latched on his leg, the beast growled. Its gaze was on Rachel.

She paled even further and staggered to one side.

Again the wolf growled, and this time Rachel seemed to respond. She turned as if pulled and shuffled forward until the blade he had dropped lay at her feet.

He didn't want Rachel trying to use the knife. She had lost her gun, but the knife was too close, too dangerous.

He called to her. Her neck twisted, but she didn't look at him.

“Rachel,” he called again.

Nothing. No response at all.

The wolf let go of his leg and leapt forward so it was standing over him. Then it laughed. Not a human laugh, but still, the gurgling sound and the glint in its eyes made the emotion clear.

The werewolf was laughing at him.

Why?

His focus shot back to Rachel. Her finger touched the tip of the blade. She pulled back as if stung.

The wolf growled. A warning or command?

And then Cameron got it. His gaze dropped, down Rachel’s body to her calf, her bloody calf.

She had been bitten.

“No!” Adrenaline surged through him. He rose up, taking the werewolf by surprise. His fangs sank through fur and flesh, tearing both free from the creature’s neck. His hands tightened on its ribcage, tighter and tighter until bones cracked.

The animal pulled and wrenched its body side to side, but Cameron's rage was too strong. His vision had gone blank, and a low hum filled his ears.

He knew and felt nothing but rage and the need to destroy the werewolf that had done the undoable, had changed Rachel into an abomination like itself... and like him.

The wolf whimpered and went limp in his grasp, but he didn't stop. He couldn't bring himself to stop, not until a hand grabbed him by the back of the neck and tossed him to the side.

He rolled and came back up in a crouch, ready to fling himself on whatever this new threat might be.

Bryce, the werewolf, back in his human form and naked, stared him down. At his feet, lying on the ground and curled into a ball, was Rachel.

His muscles taut, Cameron prepared to launch himself onto this wolf too.

Bryce held Cameron's blade by its leather-covered handle. “You won't kill her that way.”

His mind still fogged, Cameron blinked.

“The alpha,” Bryce added, then walked toward the fallen wolf. At its side, he kneeled and plunged the silver tip of the blade into the creature's heart.

The animal Cameron had ravaged didn't make a sound, but six feet away, Rachel did. She exhaled loudly, as if she'd been holding a breath inside but aching to release it.

He forgot the wolves and scrambled to her.

Her breathing was shallow, and when he reached out to pull her into his arms, she flinched.

“The magic is working its way through her bloodstream.” Bryce walked past him to the bodies of the three other wolves. He stabbed each as quickly and coolly through the heart as he had the alpha, wiped the bloody blade on the grass, and then tossed the thing so it slammed, tip first, into the safe house's front door.

He raised a brow at Cameron. “Just so you don't get any ideas.”

Cameron narrowed his eyes, but he didn't reply. If he wanted the wolf dead, he'd figure out a way.

“I'll need to take her with me. That is if you want her to survive.”

A growl rose in Cameron's throat. Rachel pulled her knees closer to her chest.

Bryce moved closer, until he stood over them. “You can't help her, vampire.”

“And you can?” Even as Cameron voiced the question, his father's demand echoed through his head.
Destroy the werewolves. All the werewolves
. If Rachel stayed in Crystal City, she would be hunted. Cameron could try to protect her, and perhaps with Dorian and Nancy's help, he could for a while, but vampires had patience unrivaled. They wouldn't give up, not once his father learned one wolf still survived.

And his father would learn. His spies were everywhere.

“Yes, I can.” The male werewolf started to kneel.

Cameron raised his lip, revealing his fangs.

Bryce angled one brow. “You want her to suffer?”

Cameron, unsure for one of the few times in his life, lowered his lip.

His gaze on the vampire, Bryce knelt and placed his open hand on Rachel's back. Immediately, she relaxed.

“It's the pack,” the werewolf explained. “She can feel them, calling to her, accepting her. They're taking some of her pain, helping her to cope.”

Rachel's breathing evened out, and her tightly curled body straightened, not completely, but enough Cameron could see whatever the werewolf was doing was helping her.

“Who are you?” he asked, grudging, but also grateful for whatever relief the other male was providing to Rachel.

His hand still on Rachel's back, Bryce met his gaze. “I hunt rogues and wolves who think the rules of pack behavior don't apply to them.”

Cameron looked at the wolf that he'd fought, the one that had bitten Rachel. “Who was it?” he asked.

Bryce's lips formed a tight line. “Shelby Marks, Rachel's sorority sister.”

“The girl we saved?”

“The girl who led you into a trap.”

“And the canyon?”

“Shelby again. She was building her pack. She seemed to have a preference for males, at least as far as her underlings went. I don't think she intended to turn Rachel.”

“She planned to hunt her.” Cameron's voice was cold and empty. Rachel had trusted this Shelby and thought of her as a friend. If he could, he would go back in time and thrust the knife through the bitch’s heart himself.

“And probably you too, if that makes you feel better.”

“That,” Cameron replied, “would have been... fun.”

Bryce laughed, breaking some of the tension that blanketed them. Then he turned serious.

“Will you let me take her?”

Cameron’s gaze went to Rachel. She still lay on the ground. Her color, however, was better, and her breathing was steady. She wasn't in pain.

The werewolf had helped her when Cameron couldn’t. His gut twisted.

“If I don't?” he asked.

Bryce lifted one bare shoulder. “She'll survive, probably, but it won't be easy. Especially when her first change hits. Wolves need pack. We depend on them.”

“The change. It could kill her?”

“Yes.” Simple statement of fact, no emotion, no apology.

Cameron's gut twisted. He couldn't let Rachel die. He couldn't let her suffer, and even if she did survive her change, he couldn't risk his father finding her.

He looked to the side, into the darkness. Hours had passed. Soon it would be dawn, and, after that, a new night. A night it appeared that he would enter alone, again.

“Take her,” he said.

The werewolf scooped Rachel into his arms and stood.

Cameron kept his face turned so the image of the other male standing there with Rachel cradled against his chest was only peripheral. It made what was happening less real, dampened the urge Cameron felt rising inside him to throw himself on the werewolf and jerk Rachel away.