The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance) (25 page)

Right
, Jen
thought.

There was a noise down low from their
position and Jen caught the flare of Brendan's nostrils just as he
swung his head toward where the Were poured through a wide pathway,
opposite their position with two females.

The siblings crouched down simultaneously.
Peering through the thick foliage hugging the base of fir and cedar
trees which grew like mighty companions, the fragrance thicker than
the air around them, their eyes stayed trained on the enemy.

“
What are they?” Jen asked in
the softest voice, barely above a whisper.

“
Were... and...” Brendan
extended his neck, lifting his chin, nose in the air. “All Were but
one of the females. She's Singer...”

Jen huffed in triumph. No
kidding? Singer, huh?
Like she'd said
.

Brendan caught her self-satisfied smirk and
continued, stuffing his irritation at his know-it-all sibling, “...
there's something more.”

But when they looked again, the group had
disappeared inside the compound.

“
Damn!” Brendan said, pounding
a fist on his jean-clad thigh. “Almost had it.”

“
Had what?”

“
What flavor she was,” he
said, grinning again.

“
Girls aren't ice cream!” Jen
huffed.

Brendan's smile widened. “News to me.”

Jen punched him a good one in the arm.

She used her knuckles like he'd taught her.
He leaped back as she swung and it was a glancing blow but she'd
made him flinch.

Felt good.

Brendan looked at his tiger of a sibling. On
the prowl.

Girls
, he thought,
rubbing the red spot she'd made, his smile returning as he looked
at her.

****

The Ritual of Luna

Adriana looked at Julia and thought she
cleaned up pretty good. She eyed her critically, taking in the
all-white ensemble. She couldn't help but connect the dots of
symbolism here. Virginal lamb led to slaughter. Actually, she
didn't really know about Jules' background except she was still
sorta hung up on her husband. The guy had been dead, what?
For-freakin'-ever. Like get over it yesterday. But, she'd hardly
been able to get through talking about him to tell Adriana what her
story was. Even she had to admit Julia hadn't had the greatest
life. Parents dead at eight, lived with crappy and resentful
relative. Soulmate husband bled out by rogue Were.

That was troubling to Adriana. Why had the
Were taken out the Singer? It was an amateur's move. She couldn't
understand why he'd been a target at all. Any idiot whelpling knew
that a werewolf could subdue a human without killing them. Hell!
One of the Were could subdue four humans. It puzzled her. Something
smelled funky and she'd love to find out the cause of it. Of
course, Adriana knew from experience that when she started sniffing
around, her nose got slapped.

That pissed her right the hell off.

“
Adi?” Julia asked, her
champagne-colored hair finally free of the black hair dye and well
past her shoulders again.

“
Huh?” Adriana jerked her head
up. She'd really been a million miles away.

“
What were you thinking
about?”

Lots of secret speculation
. “Just distracting crap.” Partial truth.

Julia had the distinct impression that Adi
had been thinking about something interesting. She turned and
looked at her reflection in the mirror and couldn't help but think
of Cyn. She'd have died about Julia wearing white. It just wasn't
her color.

She'd been told it was symbolic.

The dress had been made for her. Actually,
it had been a standard size and altered to fit her. The bodice was
simple and crossed underneath her breasts, leaving the tops
exposed, narrowing to her waist, where the full skirt flared at the
hip and came to what Aunt Lily had called “ballerina length.” That
was just above the ankle to the uninitiated. That had been her.
Uh-huh. Not anymore. Cyn had seen to it. The material was some kind
of chiffon, filmy and light, opaque and lovely.

Julia wasn't nervous about their ritual. Her
plan had been the same all along. She had her telekinetic skills
down. When the werewolves were distracted by their fighting, she'd
split. The get-up was as retarded as they come for her badly
hatched Escape Plan but she'd spied keys and she would use them.
Couldn't she hop in a car and drive away in princess white?

Yeah, she could.

She'd miss Adi. It figured that she'd bond
with a female werewolf in the Den of Iniquity. Geez.

She turned away from her reflection but
couldn't help asking Adi, “You promise your brother will... beat
Tony?”

Adi nodded her head enthusiastically. “He'll
kick his ass.”

Julia gulped. “What if he kills him?”

Adi shrugged. “No loss for me. Besides, if
he thinks he's Alpha enough to fight the big dogs, he can get all
froggy and jump on the lily pad.”

Julia smiled. Adi was so like Cyn it made
her heart ache. She turned away before Adi could see her
expression.

But Adriana did see it.

She frowned as she followed Julia outside
toward the pavilion. Unease was forming in her mind.

Something was wrong.

Adriana would be watchful. But first, she
had one final chore to screw with after she settled Julia in her
position within the ring of the pavilion.

*

William

William stayed upwind of the mongrels and
prayed for the breeze to stay as it was. He watched the sun sink
low in the sky, washing the branches a sunset color.

The trees looked like they were weeping.

Crying tears of blood.

A small smile formed on William's face at
the visual analogy.

Time grew short.

He was ready.

Julia stood by herself as people began to
fill a great open gazebo. It was actually ancient in its
composition. Great pillars held the roof above it, a hammered
copper, so green not an ounce of its original bronze color showed
through. The pillars had been made of marble and the materials used
were the most incongruous she'd ever seen. Here, in the middle of
an old forest full of trees over one hundred years old, stood a
structure that would have been more at home in Rome.

She looked at the scarred marble tiles at
her feet, streaked with veins of grey and speckles of gold. The
grout must have been some white color at one time, but now had a
dove grey hue from age.

All eyes were upon her when
Lawrence approached. Julia took a step backward, his physical
presence was so overbearing, his personality the same.
Mega creeper
, Julia thought. And not for
the first time. Goose flesh broke out on the skin of her arms, bare
to the weather. It was warm enough for what she wore but in the
presence of the Packmaster, it was cold.

The chill of death sunk its bite into her
bones.

He ignored her unease and turned Julia in
the direction of the crowd.

Like a prize. A prize breeding mule. How
flattering for her.

Julia had an excellent view of the seating
that was built-in all around her in a circular presentation. It
rose out of the ground as an integral part of the pavilion, each
seat a curved unit, higher than the last. None of the faces were
friendly, all somber.

Julia guessed that some were not happy with
the fighting and death.

Or... with her.

She'd never been popular.

Tony and Joseph watched the fragile beauty
of the Rare One showcased in her rightful position in the pavilion,
the Ritual of Luna nearly begun.

Their faces turned to the sun sinking behind
the mountains, night and day balanced on the finest scale.

Finally it tipped to night and the moon
winked into existence.

The glory of her fullness exerted an
irresistible pull as the men changed into their otherness in
unfurling brutality. Flesh and bone burst, shifted and sloughed
onto the ground at their feet.

Their snouts came together, five in all. The
challenge in their eyes unmet but for a few moments more.

They trod out to the pavilion, to their
destiny.

Julia watched them come and her arms gripped
the side rails of the great chair the Packmaster had forced her
into.

Like she was royalty or something.

She guessed she was to them.

Soon
, she
thought.

Soon.

The feral heard the fight begin just as the
female entered his prison. He swung his head in her direction as
she looked around in confusion. Obviously distracted.

Normally, full moon duty on the feral would
have gone to someone else... several someones for the danger
factor, but she'd gotten nailed with it because of her stunt. It'd
been worth it. Adriana entered through the heavy door, her eyes
sweeping the cage.

Adriana panicked, where had the feral gone?
Oh no! He'd escaped? Without thinking about anything... her safety,
protocol, anything... Adi slapped the slot open and felt around for
the alarm when a steel band of screaming pain latched on to her
wrist.

Her arm was pulled through the slot with
such viciousness that it dislocated her shoulder. Adi howled in
warning and pain, her voice reverberating in the cloistered
space.

No one came.

The wolves fought in the ritual. No werewolf
was within range to assist her.

Adriana opened her eyes as tears ran down
her face for the first time in her life.

She grimaced and stared into the green eyes
of the red wolf.

“
Sorry,” he ground out,
snagging the code card off her neck with a jerk. It snapped the
tether and he stood, pressing the slick thinness of it into the
locking mechanism.

The door slid away with a whisper and he
stepped through.

He glanced down at the female Were and
hesitated... he hated he'd hurt a female. It had been frighteningly
easy. And very wrong.

But a female that he knew lay beyond this
point.

He turned and followed the scent of
fighting, the moon lending her energy to him.

All of it.

It thrummed through his body and made his
muscles align for finer dexterity in motion.

Preparing him for fighting.

His form became all wolf seamlessly, a rare
transition of speed and smoothness.

He growled low in his throat.

He was ready.

William stepped out of the tree line at the
same time a great red werewolf, one that he had never seen in
battle or otherwise, appeared at the same time.

They stood opposite each other and their
gazes locked for a swollen moment of consideration.

William sprinted to the pavilion at the same
time the feral rushed toward the exact point.

Neither noticed the pair of Singers that
calmly walked toward the stage.

Where blood ran like a river, dripping down
steps that had been white marble but moments before.

Veins that had run grey now ran red.

Crimson with blood.

Two of the werewolves lay dead in a pile of
their own gore. Wounds so deep their bodies had been eviscerated
while three others circled each other, swiping and surging froward
in a dangerous game of avoidance that no one could win.

It wasn't a game
, Julia wailed inside her
head, feeling shock eat away at the edges of her mind.

Joseph was wounded, Tony more so. The third Were
had rolled into a submissive posture when Tony went toward his
throat, merciless and opportunistic. He stilled as if halted by an
invisible hand and turned as Joseph did. Their noses alerted them
to the new danger at hand.

Julia turned to look at what could distract them
from the important task of killing each other when the biggest and
scariest creature entered the stage, bigger than Tony.

Bigger than life.

Julia gasped and got up from the chair, unsteady
from the trauma of the fight. Watching it play out in front of her
like a surreal movie had been almost more than she could stand.

But Julia
had
stood it.

Joseph yelped a plaintive command, “Adi!” Even
in his half wolf form, the worry for her was apparent.

Tony spared him a glance as knowledge filled
eyes that were only half-wolf. Both Were stood on their hind legs,
nearly seven feet. Mirroring the giant red Were that faced
them.

Julia skittered behind the tall chair, her hands
gripping the back until they turned white and grew numb.

The wolf looked at her and Julia felt something
stir deep within her, the fear melting away as they continued to
gaze at each other. She was on the edge of an epiphany when the
Packmaster yelled, “The feral, I call total rights!”

What?
Julia thought, her hands having
fallen away from the chair.

She'd actually taken a step toward the great
creature, the emerald eyes sucking her in when she heard a voice
she knew so well.

“Julia!”

William.
Relief poured
through her, suffusing her body with renewed energy.

She snapped her head in the direction of
that voice, seeking his eyes, reflective silver staring her
down.

As she did pandemonium erupted all around
her, the melee closing in with the sureness of the cycle of the
moon.

*

Singers

Brendan saw the wolves tearing into each other
and thought that for all their fierce strength they weren't the
brightest bulbs in the shop. He and Jen had waltzed into the
pavilion hardly noticed.