Claimed by the Beast Bundle (17 page)

Chapter 2

“They’re not going to let me go with you to the swamp, are they?” Beth asked as she stopped her car at the biker’s camp.

“I won’t let you go with me,” Crystal said. She saw the hurt look in Beth’s eyes and quickly added, “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but there’s no way I’m going to let you risk getting hurt. The world’s nothing like we thought it was. It’s not safe! I’m not even safe.”

“Safe enough,” Beth insisted. “And I’m willing to risk it.”

Crystal shook her head and leaned over to hug her friend. It was awkward in the car, making the gesture quick. “Get to work.”

Beth nodded. “Yeah, I know. Hey, real quick—Stephanie said something the other day that I’ve been wondering about.”

“Oh God, what?”

“She said if we wanted to get together and mess around sometime to give her a call. What do you think she meant, ‘mess around’?”

Crystal chuckled. “I don’t think I want to know! I’m hoping it was innocent.”

“Yeah, but that was her big speech about how you rocked her world with that public mauling you gave her. I bet she meant something else.”

Crystal shuddered. “You don’t have to remind me about that.” She groaned. “But maybe. She’s always kind of done what was fun and didn’t worry about anything else. Why, you want to mess around with her?”

Beth grimaced. “Oh my God! No! You’re the only girl I’d ever go down on!”

“Dyke,” Crystal teased.

“That’s not what I meant!” Beth slapped her steering wheel. “I meant if I—”

Crystal laughed and leaned over to give her another hug. It shut her friend up and made her relax in her arms. “I know. I’m just giving you a hard time. Now get out of here. I can see that Adrian’s giving me the evil eye already.”

Beth glanced out the window at the wiry biker who was watching them from the open door of his trailer. “What’s his problem?”

“I don’t know. Probably hasn’t figured out that it’s going to hurt if he ever catches his tail when he chases it,” Crystal said while getting out of the passenger seat.

Beth laughed and waved before putting her car in reverse to turn around and head back out. Crystal watched her go and turned to see that Adrian’s and Ember’s bikes were the only ones there, other than the motorcycle that belonged to Caden, the man who had died fighting off the Beast when it first attacked her.

Crystal forced that thought out of her head. She’d never met Caden and didn’t know him. It seemed to upset Ember and Adrian the most, but the aloof redhead seemed to get over it fast enough. Adrian still treated her like something he wanted to wipe off his shoe. Whether that was because of Caden or not, she didn’t know.

“Hey,” she said as she walked towards him. “Where’s everyone else at?”

In partial answer to her question, Ember’s trailer door opened. She walked out and glanced at her before walking towards her bike. Crystal raised her hand to wave and then gawked. Ember looked different. Not different—hot. Sexy.

The redhead’s hair was pulled back into a braid and she was wearing makeup, even lipstick and eye shadow. She wore a tight black leather miniskirt and a pink spaghetti strap top under a black leather jacket. She wore boots with a two-inch chunky heel to complete the outfit. Crystal wasn’t sure what kind of fashion it was, but she had to admit that Ember looked hot, even if it was obvious she wasn’t wearing a bra.

“Hi Ember, where are you going?” Crystal asked.

“Got a date,” she said before she swung her leg up and over her bike. Her skirt, already dangerously short, slipped up her thigh and exposed so much thigh it was more hip than leg.

“You can’t ride a bike in that!” Crystal gasped.

Ember flashed her a smile and leaned forward so she could tug the bottom of her skirt down enough to be legal, if not decent. “Watch me.”

“Lucky guy,” Crystal said.

Ember winked at her and started her motorcycle. Before Crystal could ask any more, she accelerated into a tight turn and rolled past them on her way to meet up with her date.

Crystal watched her go and shook her head. She was envious. She wanted to get dressed up and go out on a date with Hank. She smiled and shook her head. Her belly fluttered at the thought and she realized she wasn’t being entirely honest. Get Hank alone, yes. But not in public. She was far more interested in skipping the formalities and letting him have his way with her. She imagined a big strong man like him could do all sorts of wonderful things to her.

“You going to stand there grinning like a fool?” Adrian barked, bringing her out of her fantasy.

“What? Oh, sorry.” Crystal crashed back to earth. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Out.”

Crystal stared at him and then looked away. She winced inside, realizing he’d won. She couldn’t always back down to him if she wanted to be treated with respect! She took a breath and raised her head back up. “Why do you hate me so much?”

Adrian blinked and then narrowed his eyes. “Hate you? Who says I hate you?”

“I did.” She stood her ground. “You’re mean to me. You talk down to me and you act like you’d rather kill me than look at me. I know you think I’m just a kid—heck, maybe I am—but I’m really trying here. And I didn’t ask for any of this.”

Adrian chuckled and nodded. “You got balls, Crystal.”

“Not exactly,” she pointed out.

He waved her weak joke aside. “Nobody hates you. It’s hard for us to get past Caden getting killed saving your butt, but you could have been anyone. We’d have done the same thing and Caden would still be dead. He’d been with us awhile, close to fifteen years.”

“I’m sorry,” Crystal offered.

He shrugged. “Not your fault.”

“So that’s it?”

Adrian sighed. “No, that’s not it. Some of it, but what’s happening to you is nothing like I’ve ever seen. The others, they’re good people—damn good people. We don’t give someone a chance to join us if they’re not.”

“You don’t think I’m a good person?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know yet. But the thing is, we don’t know a lot about you. Mainly what you got into and what you’re going to turn into.”

Crystal sighed. “I know. It scares the crap out of me.”

“Me too.”

She nodded and then jerked her head up and stared at him. “What did you say?”

He chuckled. “I said it scares me too. Our biggest strengths happen when we shift. We heal faster and can do a lot more. You’ve been healing and doing things not only before you should be able to, but while you’re still looking like a finalist for Miss Teen Arkansas.”

Crystal blinked, distracted by his words and trying to make sense of them. “I don’t get it. Miss Teen Arkansas?”

He smirked. “Combination of your stink you’re putting off and how you been changing into a pretty young thing.”

“Oh my God,” she gasped.

He shrugged. “Just the way it is. No sense in pretending otherwise.”

Crystal held up her hand to give herself a minute to deal with the unusual praise. “Okay, so, um, you’re afraid of me?”

“Not of you, of what you might become,” he said. “I know a lot of people who would put you down if they were in my shoes. You could cause a lot of problems.”

“Um, thanks for not doing that?”

He smirked. “Jury’s still out. Everybody else seems to like you, though, so you got that going for you. That’s why we’re going to see Clover.”

“Everybody? Ember doesn’t seem to care for me much.”

His eyes sparkled as he glanced over at Ember’s empty trailer. “Lot of things you don’t know about Ember,” he said. “Once you get on her good side, you can pretty much stick a silver knife in her back and she’ll blame the knife, not you.”

“That doesn’t seem too smart.”

He shrugged. “Didn’t say getting on her good side was easy.”

Crystal laughed. He had a good point. But hadn’t he just said Ember liked her? She shook her head and thought about the rest of what he said. “I still can’t believe witches are real,” she mumbled.

Adrian laughed. “As real as you and me, little girl. And just like you did with us, you’ve got to convince her to like you, too, or you won’t be coming out of that swamp.”

Crystal gasped. “Nobody told me that!”

“Yeah, well, she might be able to help you out. If she can’t, then there’s no one who can and when it comes time to do it, the chances of us being able to deal with you are a lot worse than they are now.”

“Jesus, that’s cold,” she said.

He smiled. “Practical. You don’t get to stay alive for close to three hundred years without learning how to be smart about it.”

“Three hundred? Holy crap!”

Adrian shrugged. “You look good enough to eat now—think you can still look that good when you get to be my age?”

Crystal smiled but had to suppress a shiver. She wasn’t entirely sure that the “good enough to eat” comment wasn’t meant in a literal way.

Chapter 3

Adrian glanced up at the sky and sniffed the air. “Sticking around tonight?”

“My, uh, ride just left.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You got legs.”

“Only two,” Crystal shot back. She bit her lip, fearing she’d pushed too far until she saw his lip twist up in a quick smile. “Or is that your way of getting rid of me?”

“I wanted to get rid of you, I’d take you for a run in the woods.”

Crystal took a baby step back and turned her head to the edge of the woods where she and Gwen had gone for their run. She looked back at him and saw he had turned away. “Gwen and I went for a run...”

He looked back over his shoulder at her. “Heard about that. You’re still here, so you did good.”

“Oh my God!” Crystal gasped. “Is everything a test with you guys?”

He paused at the door to his trailer and stared at the door a moment before saying, “Every moment, every day, we’re all being tested. Get used to it.”

“Or what, you guys will kill me?”

He turned his head to look at her. “Somebody, somewhere will. Probably not us, though.”

“Why not?”

“Everybody likes you.”

“Everybody? Even you?”

“You’re growing on me.”

Crystal felt her cheeks warm up and had to look away.

“Know how to make a fire?”

“A fire? Um, I don’t know. I don’t have a lighter or anything.”

“Never mind.” He sighed. “Hang tight.”

Crystal watched him go into his trailer and stood silently waiting. After a few seconds, she began to feel silly so she turned and looked around. Her eyes fell on the fire pit and she realized what he wanted. Or she hoped she figured out what he wanted. Crystal walked over to it and stared down.

The pit sat inside a metal drum that had been buried a few inches into the ground. Amid the dusty layer of salt-and-pepper ashes rested several blackened bits of charred wood that hadn’t been fully consumed. She looked around and saw where more split wood was stacked nearby.

Crystal bit her lip and picked up some of the wood. Bigger pieces at the bottom made sense: they could hold up the smaller pieces at the top. That way when he lit the smaller pieces they’d burn easier. She smiled at how obvious it was. She could do this!

Adrian came out several minutes later with a round metal grate loaded full of chunks of meat. They looked too thick to be steaks, but she’d be the first one to admit she’d never had much of a real steak dinner before. He walked up to her and sat the tray down on a stump and then looked at the fire pit.

“Trying to make a fire?” he asked.

Crystal smiled and nodded.

He sighed and bent over, pulling out the larger pieces and rearranging the smaller ones so they leaned on each other. He turned his back to her before his arms jerked a few times. When she took a step to the side, she saw several splinters of wood were gathered in the middle of the structure. Adrian shoved his hand in his pocket and pulled out a lighter. A few moments later, smoke curled up as flames began to lick at the wood.

Crystal watched him tend the growing fire and slowly add in the larger wood she’d tried to use. After several minutes passed and he’d stoked the fire, he turned and looked at her. “Got it?”

Crystal nodded. It was obvious...now. She’d seen enough to know that having tiny flames on top wouldn’t have done any good. Especially when he’d blown on the fire a few times to make the flames spread. She’d stacked the wood too tight; air would have never gotten in.

“I’m a dumbass,” she admitted.

Adrian chuckled. He turned and pointed to a collection of metal poles and chains. She hurried over and grabbed it, wondering what it could possibly be. Adrian took it and set it up beside the fire, arranging the poles in a tripod that supported each other. A chain hung from where the three poles were joined and ended at an S hook. He picked the grate up by a similar chain that was hooked to the grate in three places. He slipped it between the legs of the tripod and clipped it to the S hook. The final act was picking up the tripod with the meat on the grate and positioning it over the fire.

“Looks like the lesson’s over,” Adrian said.

“That’s cool,” Crystal said, admiring the simple magic of the tripod. She had a hard enough time figuring out how to turn the oven on! “Wait—lesson’s over? What do you mean?”

He nodded behind her, causing her to realize she’d been so caught up in watching him she wasn’t paying attention to the world around her. Gwen and Guntar rolled across the clearing and pulled up to a stop beside their trailer. Gwen hopped off and reached up to run her fingers through her platinum hair. She smiled and waved at Crystal while Guntar climbed off his bike.

“The last good cuts from that deer,” Adrian said when Guntar and Gwen joined them. “Looks like we’ve got an extra for dinner.”

“Where’s Ember and Hank?”

“Ember went on a date,” Crystal offered, earning a frown from Guntar and a surprised look from Gwen.

Adrian smirked and added, “Hank’s been gone awhile. Said he had some research to do.”

“He was gone when I got here,” Crystal added.

“Thought he said he could do all the research he needed with the Internet?” Guntar asked.

Adrian shrugged.

“Well, if Ember’s gone, looks like it’s not plus one after all,” Gwen said.

“Expect Hank should be back soon?” Guntar asked.

Adrian shrugged again. “I’m not his keeper. The boy’s been with us for three years; he comes and goes as he pleases.”

Guntar’s lip curled up briefly and then relaxed. He sighed and turned to Gwen. “Kids.”

Crystal’s eyes followed them and she couldn’t help but think that she had something to do with all of this. “Um, I wasn’t invited. I hope I’m not intruding.”

Gwen smiled and reached over to take her hand. She gave it a squeeze and said, “You’re one of us, sweetie. Or you will be soon. This is your home, too.”

“My home? But—”

“Yeah, ‘but,’ is right,” Adrian growled.

Crystal’s jaw fell as she turned to stare at him. Hadn’t he just said he liked her?

“She might still end up being a threat we have to deal with,” Adrian explained. “Or Clover might not like her. If Clover decides she’s bad news, I don’t plan on risking my hide to change her mind.”

“That’s tomorrow,” Gwen chided him. “Tonight, she’s one of the pack.”

“One of the, um, pack?” Crystal’s heart was beating fast in her chest.

Guntar nodded.

She looked at Adrian. “That’s good, right?”

He smirked. “Always being tested.”

Crystal felt a grin slip on her face. They’d accepted her! She wanted to run around and give them all hugs. In fact, she was going to—she couldn’t stop herself. She went to Adrian first and surprised the wiry man by wrapping her arms around him and giving him a big kiss on the cheek. He grunted and struggled against her a moment and then accepted it. She moved on and did the same to an uncomfortable Guntar and finally ended with the far more gracious Gwen.

“Thank you so much,” Crystal said.

“It might only be for the night,” Adrian muttered.

Crystal shrugged. “It might be for the rest of my life too. No matter how tomorrow turns out.”

Adrian’s brow furrowed and both Gwen and Guntar laughed at his reaction. Crystal’s grin broadened.

“Why did you come to us tonight?” Gwen asked. “You don’t need a reason—we are a family joined by the hunter’s blood—but until now I don’t think you realized that.”

“She still doesn’t understand,” Guntar said. Gwen nodded in concession to his point but never took her eyes off Crystal.

“Um, well, I—” Crystal gasped as she remembered the reason she’d wanted to talk to them. She grimaced at how stupid she’d been, forgetting what had happened. “It’s about Chad!”

Adrian glanced at the others before asking, “Chad?”

“The boy from the car?”

“Is he still after you?” Gwen asked.

“Damn!” Guntar swore. “Is that what Hank’s researching? Did he know who he was?”

“I didn’t tell him,” Crystal said. “But I hope not.”

“What about him, sweetie?” Gwen asked.

“He wasn’t at school today. I don’t know why, but after I slapped him yesterday he had scratches on his face from my nails. And, um, I was worried about my nosebleed in his car. I’m sure he cleaned up the blood I got on his seat. Is there any chance it might do something to him?”

Guntar and Adrian looked at each other. Guntar’s eyes narrowed and Adrian shook his head a tiny bit. The historian turned back to her. “Unlikely. Very unlikely. He would need a substantial amount of blood and he would have to get it in his own wounds.”

“And you haven’t changed yet,” Guntar added.

Adrian nodded. “Yes, yes, there is that.”

“You said you’d never seen anything like me before.”

Adrian sighed. He glanced at Guntar again. “Just because we’ve never seen it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. We don’t keep written records of our kind. If we did, sooner or later norms would learn of us. That helps us and it hurts us, such as times like this.”

“What’s that even mean?” Crystal asked.

“It means we don’t know for sure,” Guntar said. “But it also means that something like that would have been talked about and shared. We’re not the only pack. There are others and even though we don’t always get along with one another, we do share stories when we run across one another.”

“Oh,” Crystal said even though she was still confused.

“So that means I doubt we have anything to worry about,” Adrian finished.

Crystal nodded and felt the muscles in her neck loosen a little. “Good.”

“Better, not good,” Gwen said. “Good would be keeping that meat from overcooking.”

Adrian cursed and turned to the fire where their dinner needed to be flipped over. Crystal laughed and saw Gwen’s eyes twinkling. Gwen winked at her and turned away. Over her shoulder, she called out, “I’ll fetch some plates. Crystal, will you help me?”

Crystal nodded and hurried to walk after her. “Of course,” she said. It felt good to help, even if it meant carrying plates and silverware. Or maybe they used plastic forks and knives, given the way silver felt. She shrugged the thought away. What mattered was that she finally found a place where she belonged.