Kindred (6 page)

 Instead of a flat landscape, the area was carved from within the side of a giant ridge. It makes me even more nervous as I stare up and all around me, waiting to be ambushed from above and on all sides. I feel like a fish in a bucket.

I see Nathan’s chin turn at an angle and raise toward the highest point of the ridge. “There,” he says and his eyes shift black. “Smells like New Jersey.”

Uhhh, okay.

A small group of dark figures emerges from the canopy of trees at the top of the ridge. But it’s when they jump the more than one-hundred-foot drop and land in a flawless, crouched position that my breath catches and I let out a tiny yelp. My hand flies up to my lips.

I count eight brooding guys walking toward us. Their arms are huge. They seem taller than Harry and they look meaner than Rachel. The one in the center is a huge frickin’ black guy and it’s obvious to me by the way the other seven stay a few inches behind him on either side as they approach that he’s the leader.

Eight. Against four? My nervous levels just went through the roof.

My eyes dart over to see Isaac, but his back is still facing me. I glance downward to see that his hands and forearms have changed colors to appear more grayish and his blade-like fingernails have emerged from the tips of his fingers. Nathan, Xavier and Seth are also standing ready in their mediate forms.

What did I get myself into?

I don’t realize until afterwards that I’ve pressed myself so closely into the corner of the Jeep door that my fingers are wedged tightly between it and the frame. If the door moves a fraction of an inch, my fingers will be smashed.

The leader stops about twenty-feet away, a treacherous grin frozen on his face. Muscles bulge underneath his t-shirt and he’s wearing loose-fitting jeans, but his legs are so big that they fit snugly.

He crosses his huge arms and his eyes shift black.

“Jersey isn’t big enough for you, Treven?” Nathan says, stepping up.

There is technically no Alpha in the Mayfair house other than Trajan because no one has been named and Trajan hasn’t made Serbia his permanent residence yet. But I guess in situations like this, the oldest automatically assumes the position.

The brute named Treven lets his grin soften making him appear falsely offended. He has no pupils, but I can tell by the way he tilts his head that he’s referring to the big white guy standing to his right when he says, “For me, it’s fine. For Darren here…well…” ‘Darren’ rolls his neck to one side, cracking it. “…obviously, there can’t be two Alpha’s in one territory. And from what I hear, Maine has no Alpha.”

Seth steps forward, his hands balled into fists at his sides. “You know that my father is Alpha here,” he growls. “Is…Darren,” Seth’s eyes skirt Darren dismissively, “…here to challenge my father?”

Treven throws his head back and roars with laughter.

“Give us some credit, Mayfair,” he says, grinning impishly, “we’re Purebloods—we know the way things work.” He looks a tad more serious now and adds, “And no one here is
that
foolish.”

I gather he meant that they would never challenge Trajan, and I find this comforting. Comforting because they don’t seem the type to play dirty.

Maybe this will be a fair and clean fight.

The second that thought flits off the edge of my mind, Nathan and Darren run toward each other, claws at the ready and they clash in mid-air. I jump backward, feeling my pinky finger smash a little in the door of the Jeep and I jerk my hand away, but can’t tear my eyes away from the fight.

Nathan backflips effortlessly over Darren’s head and lands behind him with a quickness almost too fast for me to see. And just as fast, he throws his powerful leg out and buries his foot in Darren’s back, sending his body soaring many feet away. Darren hits the ground hard, throwing dust up all around him, but also effortlessly, he rolls into a crouched position. His eyes are as black as oil, his fanged teeth bared underneath an ever-growing wrathful expression that alone makes my breath catch.

And then everybody else jumps in.

My heart is thrashing against my ribs and I finally do decide to be a good little girl and get my ass inside the Jeep. I watch from the front seat as the deadly brawl unfolds in front of me. Black eyes. Black claws. Sharp bared teeth. I can even hear the demonic growls in their voices and in every noise they make from inside the Jeep with the windows up.

Isaac’s skin has turned grey all over, the muscles in his arms twice as large as normal in his mediate form. Are they going to Turn fully? Here in the mid-afternoon not so very far from human houses and human life? Surely not….

Isaac and the Alpha, Treven, crash into one another, Isaac grabbing onto Treven’s neck and lifting his body in the air. In a split-second, Treven is soaring across the landscape and before he even hits the ground, Isaac has run in behind him. Treven tries to hit the ground rolling, but Isaac drop-kicks him square in the back much in the way that Nathan kicked Darren. Treven skids across the ground face-down and his landing isn’t as graceful as Darren’s was.

Treven stands up slowly and cracks his neck to both sides. He snarls at Isaac and spits a wad of blood and saliva onto the ground.

Game on.

I wish I hadn’t come.

Treven rushes Isaac like a raging bull and in the half a second it takes Isaac to see his mistake, Treven whirls around behind Isaac, grabbing him around the throat and taking him down.

I yell out, though no one can hear me where I am and little good it would do if they could. My hand has become a permanent fixture against my chest, the other over my mouth.

Treven and Isaac roll across the white dirt, both of them taking turns reining blows one after the other until finally Isaac gets the upper-hand again and ends up on top of Treven’s massive form. I see Isaac’s deadly hands come up and he wails on Treven, his fists barreling down on Treven’s face in a series of rapid, ferocious blows. I try to look away when Isaac pulls his hands up once and I glimpse the blood dripping from them.

Seth and Xavier are being ambushed by six others.

I don’t think I can watch this. My nerves are shot all to hell and my hands are shaking against my body. I try to tear my eyes away, but I can’t. It’s like some sick and demented part of me wants to watch.

Nathan and Darren continue to exchange blows, but I can tell that Darren is starting to lose his way. The last time when Nathan hits him, Darren hits the dirt and doesn’t get up as easily.

Treven is charging Isaac again and I notice that he seems to do that a lot. Maybe Isaac notices this too, because it’s as though he can easily calculate Treven’s every move now. As he rushes in, Isaac spins his body in the air and comes around in front of him, hammering his fist just under his chin causing his body to flip backwards and land hard. Treven shakes off the stun and rolls backward into a crouch. He leaps up like an animal, but Isaac is too fast and catches him by the throat, plunging him back down violently against a bed of rocks.

Two have left the fight with Xavier and Seth and are now heading straight for Isaac. My first instinct is to open the door and shout out to warn Isaac, but they are on him faster than I can even get my hand on the door. I shriek when the black-haired one pulls Isaac off of Treven and body-slams him. In obvious pain, Isaac still manages to roll sideways and out of the way before the black-haired one’s foot comes down on top of him.

Isaac rushes him now, spearing his head into the black-haired one’s stomach and both of them soar at least thirty feet through the air before crashing down.

They’re all getting closer to the vehicles and suddenly I don’t feel so safe in here anymore.

And then
bam! crunch!
A body hits the windshield and the glass caves in toward me, the fractures spreading out in all directions.

Oh God…flashback…this is
not
happening to me again.

I fumble for the door handle, finally getting it open and I just let my body roll right out of the Jeep and onto the dirt. But before I can even get to my feet, I feel an arm around my waist lifting me up.

“STAY AWAY FROM HER!” Isaac roars. His face is full of blood and fury. He pushes me behind his body and I can feel his death grip on my wrist.

Seth was the one that hit the windshield and the brown-haired werewolf that pushed him into it backs off instantly, his chest heaving and his eyes swirling like black, endless pits.

“I’ll kill you,” Isaac says in a lower, more gravelly voice. I can tell the way the words came out that his teeth are bared and clenched in a terrifying show. “I
will
…kill you,” he says once more, just to emphasize how serious he is.

“Back off,” I hear Treven say from behind, but as he walks up, I’m relieved to see that he’s not talking to Isaac, but to his friend standing in front of Isaac. “Darren’s been defeated and this challenge was only about him. It’s not a fight to the death.”

Isaac pulls me even closer into his back and my arms come up, pressing against him from behind.

“Thomas.
Now
,” Treven says standing just feet from us. “You’re a damned fool, you know that?”

The brown-haired one named Thomas finally backs off and Seth peels himself from the hood of Isaac’s Jeep. I hear the glass crack and crumble as his back lifts away from it.

“Still the same serious prick,” Treven says, holding out his hand to Isaac.

I only hope that was a compliment and not an insult.

Isaac shakes his hand, but I can sense that not an ounce of his anger has subsided as hard and rigid as his body is against mine.

I peek around Isaac’s back and catch Treven’s dark, brown eyes. Slowly, I come around to Isaac’s front, but he never lets go of me. He fastens his arm around my waist.

All of them have lost the frightening claws and black eyes.

Treven smiles at me, but my return smile I think comes out more like a grimace.

“No reason to be afraid of us,” Treven says to me. “Just business as usual.” He winks and I admit, despite still feeling sick to my stomach by frayed nerves, I feel safe.

“Sorry about the windshield,” Treven says to Isaac.

“No problem,” Isaac says.

Nathan and Darren walk up, both covered in cuts and bruises, which already seem to be fading. Nathan wipes the blood from the corner of his mouth while Darren pops his shoulder back in place like it’s nothing. I wince and nearly pee myself hearing the cracking and popping sound that his body makes.

I don’t feel so good….

I bury my face in Isaac’s shirt and he wraps his arms around me tighter.

“Damn, Darren,” says the black-haired guy that attacked Isaac at the last minute. “You got the shit kicked out of you!” Laughter resonates around him.

Darren looks anything but pleased, but thankfully he doesn’t retaliate. These guys, these werewolves, are very disciplined. A lot like the Mayfairs.

“So…that was a challenge?” I say warily.

Treven smiles hugely and then grins over at Isaac. “What’d you expect, babygirl? An all-out war?”

“Well, sort of. I guess.”

Really, I didn’t have time to ‘expect’ anything it all happened so fast.

“They’re actually old friends of ours,” Isaac says.

Finally, Isaac is starting to calm down, but something tells me he really doesn’t like that one brown-haired guy, Thomas. Not one bit.

Treven walks over and leans against the front of Nathan’s Cruiser. Hannah, still sitting in the front seat, slinks down farther out of sight. Seth’s girlfriend decides to get out of Seth’s truck and join everybody. She goes straight over to Seth and practically has sex with him right there on the hood of Isaac’s Jeep.

I uhhh, turn my attention back to Treven.

“Yeah, if this were a death-match challenge,” Treven says, crossing his huge arms. “Your man here wouldn’t have brought you.”

I twist my neck around and look upward at Isaac standing directly behind me. For a second, I want to lay into him and ask just how many times he’s actually done something like this since we’ve been together and I didn’t know about it. Because there’s no way he’d tell me. But I reconsider. I’ll save it for later when we’re not surrounded by male werewolf testosterone and I’m not risking making Isaac look like I have a collar around his neck.

I hear a
WHAP!
and see Nathan’s body hit the ground.

My eyes bulge wide and my body locks up.

“Damnit!” Nathan says, rubbing his jaw and…laughing.

Darren reaches out to help him back up and a smile breaks his face.

“If you want to go another round,” Nathan says to Darren still with laughter in his voice, “just ask!”

“Ask?” Darren’s face twists into a WTF sort of look. “You want me to
ask
you if I can punch you in the face? Man, you
have
gone soft.”

From the corner of my eye, I see four female figures jump down from the steep ledge and walk over to join us.

A beautiful black girl with long, dark hair comes up behind Treven and I see her hands slither up and over his shoulders. An excited growl rumbles in his chest and between these two and Seth and his girlfriend sucking face on Isaac’s Jeep, I’m starting to think Isaac and I should probably cut this gathering short.