Broken Blood (36 page)

Behind her, the porch door tore open and Ms. Hebert launched herself off the landing. She fell with a thud over her daughter’s body and both of them grunted. I felt, rather than saw, the air whoosh out of Cambria’s burning lungs at the exact moment the hybrid’s teeth sank into flesh.

An exaggerated moment of silence hung and then Ms. Hebert screamed, her body arching into a rigid line. Jasper released her, hesitating and clearly confused over the last-minute redirect of his attack. In his mind, he’d missed.

Derek was on him then, knocking him clear of both Cambria and her mother. Astor, struggling on his stocky legs, half-man, half-wolf, lumbered after them. Logan handed me the syringe meant for Wes.

“Here,” he said, already hurrying past, headed for Astor. “Someone needs to save him from himself.”

Along with Logan, the gray wolf and the Hunter woman sprinted by me, headed for the fight with the hybrid. I turned, wondering why more hadn’t joined them, but the space behind me was empty.

The rest of them had poured back through the hole in the wards and joined in the takedown of the rest of the hybrid pack. As I watched, Alex and his new protégé tag-teamed a lean black wolf with patchy scabs. The rest of them had also teamed up, some even working with a member of the opposite race as they fought the hybrids back from the entrance.

Victoria and Emma rushed forward and bent over Ms. Hebert. “She’s alive,” Victoria said, “but she’s losing blood. We need Fee.”

“I’ll get her,” Emma said, racing off.

Victoria hooked her arms around Ms. Hebert and swung the woman up into her arms. Ms. Hebert moaned, her lids fluttering as she hung limp in Victoria’s grasp. “I’m taking her inside,” Victoria said.

“I’ll come with,” Benny said. He handed the camera off to Cord and followed Victoria inside.

“Keep filming,” I said, hating that we were doing this to Cambria. But there was no choice. We were all beginning to work together and none of that had been filmed. This was our last shot.

Cord scowled but repositioned the camera and pointed it down at Cambria.

“What’s happening to her?” a voice beside me asked.

I looked up and found a Hunter girl with almond-shaped eyes and a scar along her collarbone. She looked vaguely familiar and I blinked, trying to place her.

“Kristin Walters,” she said. “I graduated with Alex.”

“Right,” I said, remembering her in the closing ceremonies we’d attended. “She’s changing,” I said, glancing back down at Cambria.

Kristin crouched and looked up at me. “Cambria, right?” she asked. “I remember her. We had study hall together.”

Wes appeared on my other side, bumping me with his furry shoulder. “Not yet,” I told him, already fully aware of what he was after. “She needs me.”

Kristin gave me a quizzical look.

“In order to keep her body from rejecting the change, we injected her with my blood. It’s the missing ingredient Steppe didn’t include for them,” I said with a nod at the forest.

“So, your blood helps make her strong enough?” Kristin asked.

“Yes. But it also psychically bonds us. I promised her I’d remove that part once she was strong enough to handle it on her own,” I said.

“Why are you doing this to her?” Kristin asked.

A few other Hunters crowded around, some panting, just returned from the fight. Several Werewolves trailed behind. The gray wolf, the leader, joined us and I spotted a jagged wound opened on his left shoulder. A thin trail of blood leaked from it and pooled on the ground at his feet.

“She chose this,” I said, raising my voice and facing them all. “She wanted to be the first to show you that Hunters and Werewolves—even someone who is both—will be treated equal with Cord in charge.”

A dark-skinned Hunter with freckles covering every inch of his exposed skin stepped forward and peered down at Cambria. “She volunteered to go through that?”

I winced as the pain crawled around inside Cambria’s veins, seeping into her organs, stretching and pulling against the confines of her skin.

“Are you all right?” the man asked, peering at me.

“I’m...” I doubled over, the pain rushing up and out into the reaches of my mind. It wasn’t even a fully formed bond and already the pain was overwhelming. I hoped, for her sake, Cambria didn’t fully wake up.

My knees buckled and the freckled man caught me inches before I hit the ground. “She’s in pain,” he said and I looked up at him, startled.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I’m Koby,” he said quietly, cradling me in his arms. It was strangely comforting and I had to remind myself this man was a stranger, not someone to lean on and cuddle. “I’m an empath and a healer. I can take some of the pain from you but you have to keep your arms around me. Can you do that?”

I didn’t bother to speak; I figured my compliance was answer enough.

Growls were everywhere and I wondered if Derek had managed to take that hybrid down yet or if there were any more trying to sneak through, but the crowd pressed around me and Koby and I couldn’t see beyond all of their legs.

“Her pain,” I managed through clenched teeth. I wondered how Koby would understand but he simply nodded and pulled Cambria closer, tucking her sleeping form underneath his opposite shoulder.

The pain dialed back a little, but I could see her arms and legs stretching and lengthening into something new. There was a loud pop and I watched her knee jerk forward. Her bones were breaking.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I stared down at my friend. A wolf appeared beside me, nudging my hand until he’d slipped in underneath where I’d braced my palm against the ground. I looked over at the russet coat of fur and a narrow face containing a pair of caramel eyes.

“She’s strong enough,” Logan said from where he stood over us.

My gaze flicked from him to Cambria and back to Wes. The pain had receded but I knew it was thanks to Koby. It was evident in the strained expression he wore as he smoothed Cambria’s hair from her sweaty brow.

I dug down into the depths, reaching and straining to read the bond that hovered like a shadow between us. I couldn’t tell if Logan was right. And I wasn’t going to abandon her.

“Look,” said a growly voice. The gray wolf.

My head snapped up and, as I watched, fur sprouted from Cambria’s bare arms. Her jeans, already ripped at the knees from her bones lengthening and snapping, tightened until the seams burst. Derek arrived, panting and wincing at a rip along his left flank. He planted himself over Cambria just as the rest of her clothes filled with her expanding torso and her pants and shirt ripped free.

He growled up at us, his eyes intent on Koby. “It’s okay,” I assured him. “Koby was helping take her pain away.”

Still, Derek didn’t move. I knew the only thing he cared about now was protecting Cambria, including her dignity. Koby and I scooted away.

Cambria’s lids fluttered and then sprang open. She screamed, her back arching off the ground as her body gave another loud pop.

“What’s happening?” someone asked. I recognized the boy Alex had left with earlier. He was panting but unharmed. I strained around the others, my panic spiking all over again.

“He’s right there,” Wes said in a low voice and I followed the direction of his nod. My shoulders sagged in relief as Alex returned, sliding through the crowd until he reached me.

“She’s shifting,” Logan answered the boy in a strained voice.

Alex reached out and squeezed my hand. “You okay?” I whispered.

He nodded. “You?”

Before I could answer, Cambria’s awareness rushed in and the mental whiplash knocked the wind out of me. I gasped for air. Wes jumped up, hovering nervously beside where I’d doubled over. Alex lowered me to the ground.

Wes whimpered and Logan shouldered his way in until he was crouched between us. “Give me your syringe,” Logan said.

“No, I have to make sure she’s okay,” I said.

“She’s shifting, Tay. If you don’t redirect the bond now to clear things, this won’t work,” he explained. “You both agreed.”

“What about the darkness?” I demanded. “What if she’s not strong enough?”

He leaned down so we were nose to nose and said, “This is Cambria we’re talking about. There’s no one stronger.”

Cambria coughed and sputtered and her skin disappeared. Derek was forced aside as she rolled and convulsed. Fur sprouted along her torso and her human parts were replaced with a heavy black coat. The crowd behind us backed away.

Cambria sat up, her face a strange and disturbing collage of human and wolf parts. She looked right at me, her mouth pinched in pain. “Do it,” she said. “Get out ... of my head.”

Logan raised the syringe and jammed it into my arm.

“Wait!” I tried to pull away but Logan held my arm until he’d emptied the entire contents of the syringe.

I whimpered and tried to escape, but Wes crowded in, licking at my face until I couldn’t see enough to get free. “I’m sorry,” he repeated over and over again. “I’m sorry. So, so sorry. Don’t be angry.”

“Did you do it yet?” My mother’s anxious voice penetrated the dull fog that coated over my connection to Cambria. There was something else in her voice, something besides the expected note of worry. But I couldn’t break through to ask what.

The chemical cocktail Logan had dosed me with ate through slowly, erasing as it went. No more flashes of memory. No more magnetic pull. Only blank space. My mind was once again empty and alone in its thoughts.

Despite the weak connection we’d shared, this one hurt much worse than losing Steppe.

“Logan just gave it to her,” Cord said. I kept my eyes shut so no one would ask me to talk. It hurt too much to admit out loud. “What about the hybrids?” Cord asked and I knew she wasn’t speaking to me.

“They’re dealt with,” Grandma said.

“How’s Tara?” Professor Flaherty sounded breathless and antsy. I couldn’t look but I knew there were all there, watching me. The air felt expectant. Like it was about more than just waiting for the bond to redirect.

“Why haven’t you injected Wes?” I asked.

No one answered. Logan drifted back and disappeared. I caught sight of him hurrying into the house before the door slammed behind him.

“Where is he going?” I demanded, but the words sounded weak. Everything felt weak. I caught whispers—some belonging to the audience gathered and some containing orders, instructions for the others.

A few were aimed at Koby and Derek, who were still attending to Cambria. A few were given to Fee to help the wounded fighters returning from the forest. But mostly, everyone was centered on me.

The numbness in my head dialed back and in its place was something else. I forced my eyes open wider, searching their faces for what was really happening to me. Cord refused to meet my eyes. Wes stopped apologizing—which only heightened my panic.

“Why aren’t you injecting Wes?” I repeated, my voice high-pitched in panic.

“Because we aren’t bonding you two,” Grandma said.

“What? Then who ...?” I trailed off, thoroughly confused and struggling to name what was happening to me.

I waited for Grandma to say more but she just watched me, tight lines pulling at the corners of her mouth. No one else offered anything more either and I held back a scream of frustration.

I shook my hands and feet, testing them. When I was certain they were working again, I scrambled to my feet and ran, putting distance between me and all of them. When I turned, I found all of the faces of those I loved staring back at me—and I felt no connection to a single one of them.

“We weren’t sure you’d go for it,” my mom said slowly.

“So we decided to let it be a surprise,” Grandma added.

“And we knew you’d be disappointed if it didn’t work,” Cord put in.

“It was Cambria’s idea,” Derek said.

“What are you all talking about?” I yelled. “What is going on?”

No one answered. They watched me, waiting expectantly, and I knew they weren’t going to tell me a thing until I figured it out. Or until they knew if it’d worked. Whatever
it
was.

Inside my mind, far back in the depths of memories cast off and forgotten, a fissure cracked and opened. It felt like the moment you remember something long lost, like a light going on in a dark room. It was something you wanted to grab for before it skittered off again, something on the tip of your tongue.

I looked into the trees without seeing a bit of it, concentrating on the images forming.

Vera, in the conference room at Wood Point. So beautiful and regal ... and already frail with the sickness. “I’ve seen you in my visions. An older you. A different you. You’re amazing, breathtaking,” she had said then.

And sitting by her beside at Jack’s, wishing it wasn’t the end. “I’d hoped for more time...” she’d said. I’d wished it too.

Every vision, every prophecy, every prediction Vera had ever made came rushing back. But this time, so did the affection and the certainty. She’d believed in me so completely. She’d seen this very moment. She’d known all along the choices I would make.

I looked back at my mother, my mouth open

“Fee took countless blood samples before she—” My mother halted and started again; she still couldn’t bear to say the words. “Anyway, we preserved a few for research in case her debilitation becomes hereditary,” my mother explained.

“So? Did it work?” Jack asked, leaning forward in excitement.

“Do you have her memories inside you?” Grandma demanded.

“Yeah,” I said, still in shock that it was even possible. “I do.” I looked back at Cambria—now fully a wolf with ebony black fur that was, impossibly, streaked with neon blue—and smiled. “It worked,” I told her. “Vera is ... her essence or something ... is in my head.”

Cambria tried responding, but it came out a growl and I laughed, the sudden surge of joy inside me too big to contain. I found Wes, my russet wolf, and started to go to him, but he danced away.

“I will be right back, I swear. But I need clothes because I’m definitely making out with you in front of all these people.” He dashed off to the sound of several whistles.

Our audience drifted back in, asking questions and listening to my friends as they attempted to explain everything that had happened. With Cambria, with The Draven, with me, and finally, with the peace treaty Alex was passing around the group.