Authors: tamara rose blodgett

blood 03 - blood chosen (33 page)

“You're looking a little wolfy, Cyn,” Jason said from his slumped corner.

Jason.
Julia half-crawled, walking to his position with her knees, and he gave her a small smile. It looked more like pain than joy.

“What is it?” Julia asked.

The truck jerked to a halt, and Julia flew forward, no hands to ward her fall. The ground hit her face a second time, but this time with momentum. She yelped on contact, muffled as it was, rolling over as splinters and a bruise vied for position on her cheekbone.

She'd just kicked her own ass.

“Jules!” Jason yelled, moving to her in the same awkward shuffle she'd just managed.

Not fast, wrapped as he was with the silver chain.

His face appeared above her, tightening in pain.

“Jules,” he whispered.

Tears rolled out of the corners of her eyes and she moaned. “Yeah.”

“We're home boys... and girls. Home reek home,” Truman said in a sarcastic commentary from the back of the bus. Or truck.

Julia rolled over onto her back. She hadn't noticed the stench. Now that he’d brought it to her attention, exhaust was all she could smell.

“Not yet,” Jason said to Truman without looking at him, his hands bound tightly against his back like everyone else.

Truman snorted. “Canada, pal. Close enough.”

Jason grunted affirmation. “Yeah.”

“What now?” Cyn asked.

“Looks like they're taking us back to Alaska,” Jason said and Julia could hear the despondency in his tone. It wasn't going to be reunion time. There was an entirely different agenda going on.

The truck slowed, coming to a shuddering stop.

Lily's entrance shattered their small group’s quiet commiserating.

Vent holes and an opaque ceiling was the only air and light the five of them had. The sultry heat and dim interior vanished the instant the doors were slapped open and daylight streamed inside.

Julia took in the woman who had pretended to be her aunt, secure the doors against the sides of the truck.

“You're awake,” she said without waiting for a response. Gone was the demure, small-in-stature guardian with the perpetually sour disposition and perma-smirk.

In its place was a statuesque Sidhe warrior of the fey.

Julia flung about in her memory bank for anything to do with fey lore and could only come up with the colorful Faerie stories of childhood literature.

None of that was remotely applicable to the reality that stood before her. A six-foot tall, inky black figure with a shock of silver hair gave them her inscrutable, pale gray eyes. She was nearly naked. A band of material like a vintage tube top wrapped her breasts and a matching covering that decorum dictated hid the female bits and nothing else. She looked like a barbarian from another planet. Every movement brought striated musculature to the surface of her skin like the rippling of water after a stone's throw.

“Good,” she said in a soft purr. “I'm sure the human necessities are calling.”

Her voice didn't even sound the same. Lilting, biting... it ran along Julia's skin like small bugs looking for flesh to penetrate.

“I always thought you were a dumb bitch before. Now I don't have to speculate. Yeah,” Cyn commented dryly.

That was how Cyn coped. Julia just wished it hadn't been right now.

Lily's self-important smile wilted a little around the edges. “Your good or bad opinion of me is not relevant, Singer.”

“I think it's more like Were now, fairy,” Cyn bit back. Then, “I gotta pee, and unless you want to add winged janitor to the list of your bullshit, I suggest you get my drugged ass out of here.”

Adi groaned in the background. “God... what—
silver
.” She blanched, looking around until she caught sight of Lily. “Okay, kidnap us because you're asshats. I get it, but silver?”

Jason and Truman said nothing. Their glaring at Lily was all the evidence needed that they'd rather be anywhere but in the back of a box van returning to Alaska.

Lily watched Cyn warily as she leapt up from the ground five feet into the rear of the van. Cyn grinned. It hung on her face wrong somehow.

Lily was on her in a second. She grabbed an ankle, jerking her like a willful dog on a chain.

Julia saw what would happen before it did, but Lily was a little slow on the uptake. Some things remained the same.

They had not thought to wrap the spiderwebbing of feather light silver chain around Cyn. They'd discounted her.

She had been a Singer before Truman's bite, and someone had dropped the Were ball. Having Singer blood meant many things. But if the host held a Singer’s blood, transference to cross-species genetics was a highway instead of a walk.

Cyn's fingertips burst with talons, her nose grew to a stub, downy pale fur taking the place of skin and her teeth becoming sharpened tips. She sat up, partially changed, her butt dragging along the rough wood floor, and took hold of the forearms pulling her out of the van.

Cyn easily broke her non-silver bonds.

Lily turned, her face filled with comical surprise. Julia understood from her expression that it was a rare event.

Cyn crushed the bones of Lily's forearms and Lily reared back, howling in anguish, trying to tear herself out of Cyn's grasp.

It was a horrible beauty to see her friend's face grin from a row of teeth more wolfen than human.

“No ya don't,” Cyn growled and jerked Lily close, rolling her over onto her back. She didn't pause for consideration.

Human rational had left, and the Were had taken over.

Lily kicked out, connecting with Cyn's midsection as she simultaneously latched onto her shoulder.

Cyn grunted but didn't dislodge.

Instead, she moved deeper into the hold, biting down on Lily's neck with crushing force.

A second figure jumped into the van as Julia pressed against the sides of the wall.

One of the cops
.

“Stop!” he commanded, and Cyn shuddered.

She growled even as she reveled in mutilating Lily's neck, shaking her head slightly in glee.

Metallic and warm, copper filled the air, and Julia gagged.

“Release her!” the cop said.

Cyn raised her muzzle and howled, at once enraged and discouraged.

He had stopped her from tearing Lily's head off.

Jason and Truman snuffled and mewled, not in submission but in pain and disquiet.

Cyn backed away, shaking her head while on her hands and knees. No matter how much she swung her head back and forth, she couldn't rid herself of his command.

Julia's eyes rose to his. A new Alpha.

“I'm Tom Harriet.”

Julia said nothing. His identity meant nothing. Did nothing. William was dead, his sacrifice feeling more and more worthless. He'd saved her from Cormack, the Sidhe that meant her death, only for another group to capture her.

But not just her. It was now her and the others.

Julia dispassionately watched Lily's throat knit the damage, very pink against all that true black skin, Cyn's canines had made.

Julia began to speak, but Harriet held up his hand for silence.

“It was one of my wolves that botched this entire acquisition up three years ago.” His smile was a grim line in a hard face. “And now we have the Blooded Queen—who by rights was always meant to be with the Alaska den and no other.” Harriet spread his hands away from his body.

“Who are you to tell me where I should be, and with whom?” she asked. Her eyes were still closed, her breath shallow as she laid her head against the wall of the van.

She smelled his nearness, and her eyes flew open as Jason growled and struggled to get to her.

Harriet's eyes bled to green.

He was a Red.

“We're not some weak outside pack.” He evaded her question. Those spinning orbs dove into her gaze, mesmerizing, captivating—dead serious.

“I am pack master of the Alaskan den. We take what is ours. No negotiations, no bullshit.”

Julia searched his eyes. He seemed to be telling the truth, though the truth as he saw it.

“What does this mean for me?” Julia asked slowly, though she didn't think she'd like the answer. She was getting accustomed to receiving it.

“Easy, Julia Caldwell. You're the pinnacle of a breeding triangle, to simplify things. As I'm sure the fey rehearsed to you, you throw true, yes?”

Julia stared at him, speechless. Unbelievable. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jason inch closer.

“We want more than Alaska.” Harriet's hand closed into a fist by her temple. Julia didn't flinch. She was desensitized at this point. It didn't help that she had to use the bathroom so badly it burned inside her, distracting her from even the fear of this new threat.

He casually swung that held fist into Jason's temple and he fell with a howl, the chains cinching tighter with the movement. As Julia now saw, they were meant to.

Stay still, and they remained slack. Move, and they grew tighter with each motion.

Jason writhed in agony on the floor behind them, and Harriet went on as if nothing had transpired.

“We have the highest concentration of Red Were in the world. We are destined by genetics to be the dominant Were. That is
why
we're put to death on sight by dens who fear us—our potential.”

Julia chanced a glance at Jason, his eyes spinning orbs of green anger, his wolf a hairsbreadth from erupting. She couldn't stand the idea of what would happen to him if he burst his skin with the silver bindings.

“Don't,” she whispered.
Please don't.

“He will, if I will it,” Harriet said softly.

They looked at Harriet. “Why would you take us and torture some of your own kind?” Julia asked, desperate to understand.

“Because I can,” he answered softly.

Tom Harriet turned to face Jason and Truman.

His command brought worse than her imaginings.

Julia cried as the bindings tightened and the howling was the only thing she heard.

Love the preview of
BLOOD REIGN
?
Download
HERE

Acknowledgments

It's been over three years since my first book,
Death Whispers
, was published. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of my readers. Without you, I would not have an audience for my work. Your support, recommendations, encouragement, and critical feedback have allowed my improvement as a writer and as a human being. Ironically, words are inadequate for expressing the depth of my gratitude. Please know how much your support has meant and will continue to mean in the future.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Dear Ones:

Danny

Cameren:
Without you, there would be no books.

Thank you:

Special thanks
to the following:
Ange, Beth Dean Hoover, Dii, Lori
and
Shana B.
for all your help and support.

More Books by
Tamara Rose Blodgett

Death Series
:

Death Whispers

Death Speaks

Death Inception

Death Screams