Balance (2 page)

                I
wanted to stop by Safe Haven and see how all the women were doing, but I knew
Kai wouldn’t allow me to leave the mountain. Our wolves were working full-time
security detail protecting Safe Haven and running check points all along the
mountain, as well as trying to hold down their day jobs and fight alongside the
militias. The 600-strong militia that had aligned with us was helping, but Kai
wanted to make sure the workload was equal. I decided to spend the rest of the
day hanging around with Emma and the girls. As it was starting to get dark, I
said my goodbyes and ran home to do some quick gardening before the light was
completely gone. I had planted some veggies and I needed to water them daily. I
was becoming aware of how domesticated I had become. Gardening, cooking, and I
had a cat. Next would be knitting at this rate.

                I
was hunched over a strawberry bush when Kai came out the front door and started
stretching, getting ready for a run. He was inspecting some cuts on his arms.

                “That
damn cat! She’s psycho,” he exclaimed.

                I
stifled a laugh. Luna was gifted to me by Gretchen, my healing witch mentor. She
was white, tiny, and utterly harmless. She also hated werewolves and only liked
me because I smelled of witch.

                “Aww,
she scratch you again?” I asked in a baby voice. Kai had originally locked her
in one bedroom, but after a couple weeks of my begging, he allowed me to let
her roam the house free.

                Kai
gave me a glare. “She was hiding in a drawer in my filing cabinet. Took five
years off of my life!” he exclaimed.

                I
busted up laughing. “Breaking news! Tiny white kitten gives big, bad Alpha a
heart attack.”

                Kai
grinned, flashing his bright white teeth and dimples and looked me up and down.
I was wearing cut-off jean shorts, rain boots, and gardening gloves. The sun
was setting and my long blonde hair fell halfway down my back.

                Kai
sighed.
‘It’s hard to concentrate on anything when you’re wearing those tiny
shorts
.’

                I
grinned and bent over to grab the watering can, giving him full view of my
rear. Hearing his growl made me laugh.

                ‘Have
a nice run,’
I told him.

                ‘I
will. Get nice and dirty so we can shower later
,’ he told me and winked.

                I
smiled again. Married life suited us. I heard the snapping of twigs as Kai
jogged off into the woods.

                “Aurora!”
Kai suddenly turned and yelled at me. I broke out of my thoughts and ran over
to him. Concern etched across his face, his nostrils flaring.

                “Do
you smell that?” he quizzed me.

                I
froze and inhaled. “Alek?” What was he doing here? Alek was the only vampire I
had met that was good. He drank exclusively from blood banks and lived with a human
wife.

                Kai
grabbed my hand and we jogged around to the front of our house. Tossing my gardening
gloves on the ground, we ran down the main road and towards the smell. The road
was lined with densely packed trees and as we rounded the corner, I saw that
the headlights of a car showed that Alek was being pinned to the hood, Max’s
elbow at his throat. Jai had pinned a young teenage vampire face down on the
ground and had a stake in one hand.

                Kai
shouted in a deep baritone voice, “Stand down! They’re friends of mine.”

                Max
looked in Kai’s direction but didn’t ease up on Alek’s windpipe. Looking
closer, I saw now that Max had a silver spike in his other hand. Alek wasn’t
fighting back; he was rigid and calm. Max was Kai’s second in command for a
long time until I came along. He was very dominant and often times didn’t
listen, now seemed to be one of those times.

                “Are
you deaf, Max? Stand down!” I shouted and power oozed out of my voice. Kai gave
me a side glance and I saw he was smirking. Max pulled off of Alek and gave me
a glare that told me he didn’t appreciate my comment and I might be paying for
it later. Well, too bad.

                I
picked up my pace into super-fast mode and grabbed Alek’s elbow, helping him
up. Jai pulled the teen vampire into a standing position.

                “I’m
sorry, they don’t know about you,” I told Alek.

                Alek
nodded, eyeing Max with a look of revenge.

                Jai
pushed the other guy in our direction. “Since when are blood suckers our
friends?” he addressed his brother.

                The
teenage vampire hissed, making a move to attack Jai, but Alek’s hand snaked out
grabbing him by the shirt, restraining him. The boy’s hair was greasy and
black, his frame was thin, and his hands shook. I inhaled. He smelled of
heroin. That metallic smell was familiar now. I had first smelled it in the
nightclub when Kai and I discovered that vampires were getting humans high on
heroin and then drinking from them. Vampires couldn’t get high themselves; they
metabolized it too fast. Drinking through a human was the only way.

                “Calm
down, lad, we have enough problems to worry about,” Alek told the teenager.

                His
voice shook. Now that I was close to him, I could see that Alek’s normally
pristine appearance was disheveled. His pupils were black, dark circles ringed
his eyes, and his clothes were dirty.

                Kai
picked up on it, too. “Are you guys okay?”

                Alek
sighed, then he looked at Jai and Max. “Can we talk in private?”

                Max
chuckled. “So you can kill our Alpha or steal Aurora? Nice try. No.”

                Kai
glared at Max but didn’t dismiss him.

                ‘He
has a point,’
Kai told me.

                I
agreed, as shitty as it felt. We didn’t really know Alek that well. I motioned
to Jai. “Jai, go get Alexa.”

                Jai
looked disappointed at the dismissal but did as I asked. Max was staying.

                “What’s
going on, Alek?” I asked him.

                He
let out a shaky breath. “Where do I begin?”

                The
teenager scratched his arms. “We need blood.”

                Alek
fit him with a death glare and for the first time I saw just how deadly Alek
could be when provoked.

                Kai
had straightened his posture. To anyone else he may have looked like he was just
adjusting his stance, but I knew he was getting ready for a possible fight.

                Alek
put his arms up in a gesture of peace. “That’s not why we’re here. The kid is a
newly-changed vampire. He’s strung out on heroin. I’m trying to help him get
clean. When you’re newly changed, all you can think about is blood.”

                “But
you don’t look so great either, Alek, so is it true? Do you need blood?” Kai
asked him and put the power of the Alpha into his words.

                Alek
swallowed as if salivating. “Yes, the blood banks have all been burned to the
ground, thanks to your little shout out to my people.” He looked at me.

                I
recoiled. “What shout out?”

                Alek
sighed. “On social media, the footage from the barn, Kai says, ‘Kill all the
vampires’ and you say, ‘No, they aren’t all bad.’ Well, Layla didn’t appreciate
that. She took out all of our blood banks. But I can control myself without
blood. The kid can’t.” He motioned to the teen.

                “Shit!
I’m so sorry,” I told him. I had only been trying to help.

                Kai
had his poker face on. I could tell he was deciding whether or not to trust
him. “Where’s your wife?” Kai quizzed him. Alek’s wife was human.

                “Safe.
I had her go into hiding as soon as the first blood bank went down a month ago.
I don’t want her getting hurt from anyone, especially me.”

                “Why
would you hurt your own wife?” Max asked him.

                Alek
sighed. “Because she’s human. I have no source of food and I don’t want to do
anything in a blood craze.”

                “What’s
a blood craze?” I asked, aware that we were pretty much interrogating him at
this point and I felt pretty shitty about it.

                “A
blood craze is when a vampire becomes so thirsty they will feed off of and
drain the life from any living thing in their vicinity. Rats, goats, humans … it
doesn’t matter,” Alexa said from behind me.

                I
was so enthralled in his story, I didn’t smell her approach.

                Alek
looked at her with curiosity.

                “That’s
right,” he confirmed. “But I can control it. I’ve done it before. I didn’t come
here for blood.”

                Having
worked for RAIDOS, Alexa knew a lot about the supernatural community. I knew
asking her to come would be a smart idea. RAIDOS was now our enemy and she
should be brought up to speed on all new developments.

                “Can
you control it?” Max looked at him skeptically.

                Alek
raised his hands. “You caught me. I’m here to drain all of your blood. I walked
into your hundred-strong den with a heroin junkie teenager. That’s my big plan,”
he said, sarcastically.

                “Look,
we’re just trying to understand why you’re here,” I told him, trying to hide my
smile at the way he shot down Max.

                Alek
shook his head. “I’m sorry, this has all gotten derailed. I’m not thinking
clearly. I haven’t fed in three days. Look, we came to give you information
about the queen. The kid knows stuff. He was turned two days ago and he heard
things. I thought we had a common goal, but if you don’t want our help, we can
leave.” Alek grabbed the kid by the shirt collar and turned to leave. The queen
was Alek’s word for Layla. I wondered why he wouldn’t say her name.

                “Hold
on,” Kai told him and Alek stopped, turning to face us.

                The
teenager scratched his arms. “But I’m not telling nothing unless you give me
some blood.” He fixed Kai with a glare.

                God,
he must have been sixteen years old. Some mother was probably roaming the
streets looking for this kid.

                “Fair
enough,” Kai said and the kid’s face relaxed. “Let’s all go to the barn.” Kai
led them away from the check point.

                Max
grabbed Kai’s arm. “I don’t like this. Since when do we supply vampires with
blood?”

                Kai
grabbed Max’s shoulders. “Since now. Times have changed and we need to adapt to
survive.” Then he walked away and we all followed.

                Kai
made a clean cut on his wrist and positioned it over a small glass. It began to
fill with blood. Frowning, I decided I was never using that glass again. Ick.

                The
teenager’s nostrils flared and he tried to launch across the table, but Alek
pulled him by the back of the neck mid-air and slammed him down hard on the
table top. The teenager was breathing in through his nose and hyperventilating.
Jesus.

                “Be
patient, child! Our host’s generosity will run out if you attack him,” Alek
told him through gritted teeth.

                The
kid whimpered.

                After
filling the cup, Kai bandaged his wrist and handed the glass to the kid. “Is
that enough?” Kai asked as the teen greedily gulped the blood.

                Alek
frowned slightly and swallowed hard. “Yes, that will be enough for now. Thank
you.”

                “What
about you? I need you clear-headed and well fed if you’re staying on my land
around my females,” Kai told him and went to cut his other wrist.

                I
stopped Kai’s hand. “No, that’s too much. I’ll do it.” Was he stupid?
Werewolves died of blood loss. I wasn’t going to let him stand here and give
two glasses away.

                “No,
you won’t. Vampires need your blood for other reasons, remember?” he ordered me
and looked at Max. They were conversing in their heads, I could tell.

                Max
threw his arms up. “Fine! Why not? These are the good cuddly teddy bear
vampires, right? Let’s help them,” Max joked, reaching for the knife.

                Before
Max could do anything, Alexa grabbed the knife and slashed her wrist, holding
it over the empty cup that the teenager had drained.

                Kai
stared at her with his mouth open. “Alexa!”

                She
was a wild card, I had to admit. After things had settled after Layla bit me,
we tested Alexa’s pack rank. She was fourth behind Max. She was very dominant
and did what she wanted most of the time but respected Kai’s authority.

                She
shrugged. “It’s not a big deal.” The cup was filled and Alexa watched in
fascination as her wrist healed. “Cool,” she said. She was still a werewolf newbie.

                The
teenager was panting now and his pupils were pulsing. “I want the other kind of
blood,” he whimpered to Alek.

                Alek
shook his head. “No,” he stated firmly.

                Alexa
handed him her cup. “Bottoms up,” she said. He bowed slightly before taking it
back in three big gulps. His pupils shrank, his cheeks were pink, and he stood
taller.

                “Thank
you, I feel much better,” Alek said politely.

                As
a human, I had struggled with low blood sugar issues. I was always snacking.
Sometimes I got dizzy or grumpy or confused if I didn’t eat. I wondered if that
was how vampires got, too.

                “So,
you have some information for us.” Kai stared at the kid.

                The
kid wiped his red-tinged mouth on his sleeve.

                “Yeah,
well, I was at a house party a few days ago and some really pale chicks showed
up with some smack.”

                I
looked at Kai in confusion.

               
‘Heroin,’
he told me.

                The
kid went on. “I smoked weed a bunch of times but never did hard stuff. I wasn’t
interested, but one of the chick’s made me. Her eyes went all purple and she
sweet talked me into it. The second the high hit me … she attacked me. Bit me.”
His hand flew to his neck rubbing the spot where he was once bitten.

                Kai,
Alek, Alexa, Max, and I all had the same look on our faces. Rage. This was not
okay! Bringing drugs and forcing them on teenagers in a house party was
not
okay. Mist began to creep off my skin and I took a deep breath to calm myself.
I wanted to blast the roof off of this barn! If I was feeling wishy-washy about
killing the vampires before, this cemented my belief that they needed to be
wiped out. Everyone associated with Layla’s drug-running clan would die. Anger
rolled off of Kai and rippled through the entire pack bond.

                I
cleared my throat. “Go on.”

                He
scratched his arms again; they were streaked red but quickly healed. “Well, I felt
like I was dying. She wasn’t letting go of me. I got dizzy. Right before I
blacked out, she said something about wanting to keep me. That I was sexy. She
dripped her blood into my mouth.”

                Alek
interjected, “Get to the part when you woke up and heard the queen talking.”

                The
kid slicked his hair back with a shaky hand and then sighed. “So, I wake up in
a medical type of room and the door’s open. They don’t even know I’m awake. But
I hear voices coming from the next room. This lady is screaming and freaking
out on some doctor for killing her baby. He calls her Queen Layla. He calms her
down and says if she gives him one more chance, he can give her a full-term
healthy baby. He tells her that her body was too cold to carry the child and
that’s why she miscarried. But he says something about her eggs being good.
That it worked. He tells her to get more fertile blood and to kidnap a female
werewolf to incubate her fetus in. He says a human will be too weak. A werewolf
will stay warm but can regenerate.”

                Holy
Shit. Oh, holy mother effing shit. It’s like time had stopped. I stood there
staring at this kid in shock. I wanted to say a million things but nothing came
out. My mouth was opening and closing like a fish out of water. Kai had enough
peace of mind to ask a good question.

                “When
was that? When you heard the doctor and the queen?”

                “I
dunno, like, sometime yesterday? Day and night are weird now that I can’t go
out in the sun.  I ran off after that. I saw her feed off of him and I knew
what I was.  I had an insatiable thirst for blood but I didn’t want to hurt
anyone, so I ran to the nearest blood bank. Found this guy.” He motioned to
Alek.

                Alek
looked sadly at the boy. “And I’m going to help you live the best life you
can.”

                The
kid scratched his arms again. “I wanna go home. I want more smack.” His leg
kept bopping up and down.

                Kai’s
voice was deadly calm. “Where was this? Where was the lady who talked about her
baby?”

                The
kid shrugged. “I was delusional. Somewhere in Pearl District, a warehouse.”

                Kai
and I met each other’s eyes, but Alek shook his head.

                “She’s
too smart. She will know he fled. She will leave.”

                Kai
ordered Alexa to go send a team to check, anyway. Pearl District was in
Portland. We could be there in an hour. Layla had done something to make it so
we couldn’t smell her clan, even with hundreds guarding Emma and me, she was
able to sneak through. None of her vampires could be smelled and it was so damn
frustrating. The dark witch, Prudence, who worked with her was most likely
responsible for it.

                The
teenager scratched his arms. “I need more blood. That wasn’t enough! I need the
good stuff. You said you would help me get it.” He looked at Alek with a
murderous gaze.

                Alek
looked at Kai. “I’m going to need a steel reinforced cage,” he said calmly.

                The
kid whipped his head in Alek’s direction and hissed. Crouching down, he jumped
up five feet in the air and slammed down on the table, crushing it. Max and
Alek each reached out and took an arm, but the kid threw them off quickly. The
large werewolf and vampire both sailed through the air and slammed into the
nearby wall like a sack of bricks. Holy shit, this kid was strong! I wished we
had Anna. Max and Alek were both groaning on the ground, so Kai and I slowly
stalked towards the boy. My hand snaked out and I put a firm grip on his neck,
essentially choking him. Tough love, right? Kai pinned his shoulders down and Max
limped over to grab the kid’s ankles.

                “We
want to help you,” I told the kid and loosened my grip when I was sure Kai and
Max could handle him.

                Alek
stood shaking his head, seemingly to clear the daze of being tossed across the
room. “Newly changed and jonesing for smack blood makes them very strong. If I
can keep feeding him clean blood for the next week, he will be fine. If we let him
loose, he will murder, steal, and God knows what else to get what he wants.”

                “Get
off me, assholes! I thought you were going to help me! You said you would
help!” He struggled against Kai’s and Max’s grip, so I slipped in to help hold
him. His scream was a wail now.

                Jesus.

                ‘Kai,
we have to help him.’

                Kai
growled.
‘I know. God dammit! This is the last thing I need. A vampire caged
in our basement for a week. Feeding him powerful Alpha blood. Who knows what
that will do?’

                ‘He’s
just a kid,’
I added.

                “I
have cages in my basement,” Kai said aloud.

                Max
had an elbow on the kid’s chest, pinning him down. “This could be a trap. Don’t
let them live with you and keep tabs on you. They’re vampires!” he roared.

                Kai
looked at him for a long while until Max lowered his eyes.

                “Times
are changing, brother. We have united with the humans and now with a few
vampires. If they do anything that makes me suspicious, I’ll kill them both.”
This time Kai looked at Alek.

                “Fair
enough,” Alek said, nodding.

*

                After
getting them set up in the basement and enduring Max’s bitching, Kai called the
council and told them to put all female werewolves on lockdown. To spread the
news of what we heard tonight.

                Later,
as Kai and I were getting ready for bed, I turned to him. “You think they will
listen? The other packs?”

                Reaching
his arms up, Kai took his shirt off in one quick move and sighed. “Alphas don’t
like being told what to do. If they are smart they will listen. Some won’t.
Some aren’t even on the council’s radar. We can’t reach everyone.”

                “She’s
winning.” I glared at the blank wall behind Kai trying not to let the
depression settle over me.

                Kai
reached out and pulled me closer to him; his warmth comforted me.

                “We’re
getting closer to catching her. We have more information now.” He was the
eternal optimist.

                I
nodded but still felt unsettled. I wouldn’t sleep well again until Layla was
wiped from the earth. Was that the Devi’s thought? Or mine? It was hard to
tell. Kai placed a kiss on my forehead. “Shhh.”

                “I
wish I could turn my brain off,” I confessed.

                He
gave me a sexy, lopsided grin. “How about I distract you?”

                I
smiled and his hand expertly roamed my body as he pulled me in for a toe-curling
kiss. No matter what was happening in the world, this was where I was meant to
be.