I closed my freaky new eyes and rested against him. His arms were so solid, and he sniffed against my hair.
“I have so many questions, but I have a feeling nobody has any answers. It’s a little unnerving.”
“But you are here. You are with me.” He kissed my head. “I thought I lost you. I thought I was watching you die. Your skin sunk in. It was losing color. It was like you were just disintegrating before my eyes. I thought that you might cease to be by my own blood…”
“Shhh. It’s over.” I wiggled around in his grip and just held him. I could feel the bond between us, and I fed my strength through it. I’d fed on Mary, and gotten a bit too much rest for my taste. I could send some power his way.
“I am not the one who needs strength, Amber. You keep every bit of that. We will work on expending it in a much more pleasurable fashion when it is a bit safer.”
Safer
? Suddenly, my eyes weren’t the most pressing matter. I realized there was a lot that I needed to know. When I passed out, vampires and werewolves were about to kill each other.
“Jake, what do you mean safer? And we’re…where the hell are we? And what the hell happened? When I went down…oh gods. How many are dead?” I looked around the room, and no one really seemed to want to jump into storytelling mode.
Mary sat me down on a brown microsuede sofa that was in the entry of the suite we were in. I was glad that I was sitting. I was surrounded by the people I loved—which made the story of how my almost death had stopped the war slightly easier to hear.
Mary stayed on the couch with me, holding one of my hands. Her blue eyes were wide and terrified as she listened. I don’t know how much she understood or believed, but she was taking it all in.
Daddy sat perched on the low dresser in front of the TV. Doc was a few feet away—never relaxing his stance—with his arms folded across his chest. Shelly was between them perched on the same dresser with her legs tucked up and resting her cheek to her knees. She didn’t look scared, or excited or mad. Her face was blank. Even if she’d stood behind the Matheo, I was glad to have her here.
I was even more glad when Daddy told me she was the reason I woke up at all. He smiled at her when he told me that. I would have told her thanks as well, but my brain was a bit overloaded with the descriptions of my eroding body.
Apparently, after my little bloodsucker stunt, the epic battle kind of fizzled, because the Matheo had a lot more trouble convincing his people that we were going to sell their secrets to my Pack. Shelly had been the one to break through the lines. She had been the one to give me
her
blood. I wasn’t sure how to take that. I wondered if this connected us in ways I didn’t know yet.
Vampire Barbie didn’t bother to comfort me. She just told me a story. Whether she did it for my benefit or her own, I don’t know that I will ever know, but I was grateful for the emotional space. She had convinced Craig to bring in Mary. I wanted to ask if she had compelled him with more than words, but it didn’t seem to matter.
The Matheo had tried a few more times to rile the troops up, but when his own daughter crossed the lines as well, he must have realized he needed to regroup. Shelly had stayed.
“So did the miasma split?” Now that my brain was rolling into full reboot, I took notice of the fact that Jake was a lot less about to explode. “When I turned, you were claiming leadership of my vampire half to make it split. Did it work?”
“Unfortunately.” Shelly was so succinct with her words.
“It worked,” Jake turned to look at his sister. “Shelly received the miasma for the Meyers Family. She’s their new Protector.”
“And on that note, I have to get back, before I am also accused of thievery. I like my head attached to my shoulders.” She hopped down from her perch. “I’ll be in touch. With everyone.”
Daddy stood in front of her to block her from leaving. “You know I am in debt to you for saving my daughter’s life.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Alpha.” Shelly pushed him aside. Her next words were for me. “This isn’t over. Whatever set this change in motion isn’t done. Now that you’re caught up with where we stand, those of us staying in town need to be getting home.”
“Who’s leaving?”
Daddy came and knelt in front of me. His brows danced, which meant a major revelation was on its way, and it wasn’t one he was happy about. “You’re leaving. This area isn’t safe for you right now. This whole scene rattled a lot of people. As much as I am trying to keep this in our Pack, the word about what happened is spreading. Other Packs won’t be thrilled that ours almost started a battle between species.”
Doc put a hand on Daddy’s shoulder. “We had quite a few people leave the Pack, Amber. Your father can’t control someone who’s not under his authority, and not everyone agrees with what happened. Purists are everywhere.”
Purists felt that integrating with other species—be it humans, vampires, or any other supernatural beings—was against our nature. Being that I had voluntarily become a hybrid and prompted an inter-species battle, I would not be their nomination for wolf of the year.
“Our Pack will survive, sweetie, but we have been spreading word that you are no longer here. According to your father’s word at the Council, you’re heading east. That’s what everyone took away from that meeting.” Doc turned to Jake. “You do with that what you will.”
Doc pulled me up from the couch and gave me a hug. His heart pounded against my silent chest. I inhaled to remember his scent.
“Take care, baby brother. You know what we talked about,” Shelly said.
Doc patted my cheek. “Things have to change, Amber. Sometimes we have to let go of someone we love to let them get where they need to go. You need to go. But we will work on making it safe to come back. It will just take time.” I held his hand as he kissed my forehead. Doc nodded to Daddy before he and Shelly walked out together.
Craig and Mary were the next pair to exit stage left. Mary couldn’t stay in Indiana any more than I could. Shelly had been a bit too vocal about my best friend being a witch in front of a bunch of vampires.
“Seems that witch blood is extra tasty.” Mary shrugged.
She didn’t understand. I licked my lips as I remembered her taste. She had something extra in her blood. Craig gave me a dirty look, like I was going to start snacking on my best friend.
Geez
. I wasn’t the one who put her arm in my mouth. Craig took Mary to get some of her things from her apartment. She was coming with us.
When Jake said he was going to pick up some essentials, I couldn’t help but wonder if everyone was dumping me like a flea-ridden dog at a pound.
Daddy didn’t leave, though, and I realized why everyone else stepped out first. Daddy stood in the room looking like his heart was breaking. My soul ached at what I was doing to him.
“Don’t look at me like that, Amber. You have my blessing in this. I don’t have any regrets.”
“I feel like I am taking away too much by leaving. Are you going to be alright? I don’t have to go, you know. I can stay and fight.” I meant it, too. If Daddy needed me, we would find a way to stay.
“Amber, every child leaves their home. If they don’t, the parents haven’t done their job. Your mom would have been proud of you.”
That started the real tears. He had to go and mention my momma. I can stuff a lot of emotions down, but not about her.
Daddy pulled a small, drawn leather pouch from his pocket and placed it in the hand that wasn’t wiping my eyes. “Your mother was a wonderful woman. She gave me the children I always wanted, she raised you and your sister and she gave us all the support and love a person could ever ask for. She did it all at the sacrifice of what she really wanted. Sweetie, your mother loved someone else.”
I fell back onto the couch. I managed to hang onto the small leather bag, but my hand dropped to my lap for support. I had to be at my limit for horrible surprises by now.
“You married her when she was in love with someone else?”
“It was a complicated time, Amber, and an even more complicated story. She loved me though. I never doubted that. Amber, when you were born, it was as if our family found its missing piece. My missing piece at least.” He pointed to the little bag. “But this was what she kept on her. Even then I knew it was his. It belongs at least in some way to that other man. When she died, I took this with me. I vowed that I wouldn’t settle for what was acceptable anymore. I would do what felt right. I would never ask you to give up love that found you. You take this. And you live the life love has given you.”
Daddy stood up. I don’t know if he was putting space between himself and that little brown pouch, or if he was trying to let me go. Either way, he was pushing me out of the nest. I wasn’t in the Pack anymore. He couldn’t tell me what to do under Pack authority. I never really listened when he did, but it made him feel like he had some control.
I wondered why he never pushed me as hard as the rest of the Pack. Maybe he was afraid he would lose me. Maybe I was stubborn enough that I would have gone. Right now, I would have done anything to be able to stay.
“Be with your mate and be happy. Because of my ties to the Pack, I can’t risk knowing more, but knowing that you are alive and living with the love I couldn’t give your mother—that is the most I could ever ask for.”
He hugged me as I wept, smearing tears on his cotton shirt. He waited until the sobs lessened. I don’t think he shed a tear, but his face strained with the effort to hold them in. I was going to miss him.
I had Jake now. I would be alright. Who did Daddy have? Doc? I wasn’t even sure how much of his Pack I was leaving him with.
Daddy wiped my last tear with his thumb. It had taken me awhile to reach the bottom of that emotional bucket. Daddy looked at the droplet on the pad of his thumb and then turned until he had it pressed to his heart. He left with a messy shoulder and a wet spot above his shirt pocket.
I didn’t open the pouch. I’m not sure I wanted to know what was inside. This was my mother’s secret, not mine. I walked over to the window and yanked down the chain that worked the blinds. Being careful as I threaded it through the worn leather ties, I wrapped it around my neck and fastened the ball into the small loop to keep it attached. I tucked it beneath my shirt, and reached into myself to find my Pack…err…Family.
I might have been alone in that room, but I had more support than I ever felt before. First things first. I was working on the terminology of the situation. I was the first. It was pretty cool I got to make history. I flipped on the TV for inspiration. At the very least, I was going to get a distraction. Anything but reality television. I had more than enough reality right then.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jake came back to the room. Sitting there alone made the few minutes before he returned painfully long. He must have wanted to give me a moment, but the second Daddy left, the only thing I wanted was to be in my mate’s arms. The fact that he held himself away from me for even the shortest of moments was too long. “When do we leave?” I asked. Hopefully making Jake speak to me would get him close enough to touch.
“We have everything ready to be gone within an hour.”
It worked. He sat next to me on the couch and put his arms around me. He felt different. I felt different. Not all of the different was from becoming a vampire either. I realized that I had changed on a much deeper level, and I wasn’t so sure I liked all I had taken on. I wasn’t just an Alpha’s mate. I wasn’t just a Matheo’s mate. There was a new power inside me that I didn’t understand.
I shouldn’t have felt it. I was the female. Females supported. Males led. That’s the way it was for supernaturals. In a world of magic, it had been the one thing that was constant. Now Shelly had become Protector, and I was…something more.
Jake’s body next to mine was just the distraction I needed to break that line of thought. The mating scent bounded into my nose and let me forget the strange new world I was stumbling into a bit. I lengthened my fangs and licked the points with my tongue. There might be a bonus to this whole hybrid thing. I felt like biting him. Hard.
The feel of his skin under my fingers was no help pulling that thought from my head. My fangs—and that’s what I had now—lengthened. There was no overpowering bloodthirsty hunger. I had been a bit afraid that I would want to chew on everyone. Nope. Right now, my thoughts came from a very different place.
His skin was flawless. Not a scar, not a mark. No tattoos or piercings were needed. Jake had just enough hair to remind me how much of a man he was, and how amazing of a wolf he had become. I let my fingers play over the hair on his arm. I loved the way he flexed beneath my hand.
He was agitated. He was trying to argue with himself about whether we had time to play before we left. I didn’t care what he thought. I needed this.
“Jake. Sit still. Let me touch you. I need to try something.” I wanted his blood. But it was getting hard to talk. My teeth filled my mouth, and I felt a bit awkward. Only men bit the women in a werewolf Pack. Unless you really pissed off your female.
My mouth hovered over his neck. I wasn’t sure if this was supposed to happen. I didn’t want to turn him off. His blood wasn’t the only thing on my mind.
“Amber.” He groaned as my hand moved over his crotch. There was a part of his body that wasn’t arguing with me. That part of him was more than willing to give me what I needed. Hopefully, his cock would keep the rest of Jake happy, while I took what I couldn’t believe I wanted. He pushed some of his power at me.
I felt the Alpha in him trying to gain a foothold.
Screw that
. I pushed back. He eyed me a bit funny. It wasn’t every day that an Alpha’s mate challenged him. By the supreme confusion in Jake’s eyes, I gathered it wasn’t very common among vampires either. This was going to be fun.
“We have to get moving. I need to keep you safe.” He pulled back as he talked. He eyed me more like a science project than a woman who needed to play.
“You need me, Jake.” At least a good portion of his anatomy did. “But, go ahead. Try and make me go. You are my Alpha, aren’t you?” Nothing like poking the big bad hybrid with a stick and seeing how long it took him to pop.