The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance) (51 page)

“
Adrianna.”

Cynthia couldn't make her out very well but
was pretty much ready to tackle her unknown ass if that's what it
took. She'd effing had it.

Adi came out of the corner, her posture
sullen to even the least observant person.

Cynthia was not. She noticed the finest
details, always had.

Cynthia looked her over: she was a small
chick, sturdy, short and athletic. Cynthia narrowed her eyes, then
sticking a hip out and planting her fist there she asked,
“Well?”

A reluctant smile formed on
Adi's face. She couldn't help but admire Cyn. She was all that
Jules had told her she'd be. Here they'd kidnapped her and she was
unfazed. She was addressing Adi. No-
demanding
that she be told who she was speaking
with.

Adi liked her on principle.

Not that it mattered. Jules was gone. A
dangerous reconnaissance was being planned so that Jason- the
Feral, could retrieve her and reinstate the Ritual of Luna before
the Singers claimed her irretrievably.

“
Okay... Adrianna,” Cynthia
responded with tempered suspicion.

Adi laughed. “Call me Adi. Jules did.”

Cynthia sucked her breath in a gasp. “Where
is she?” Cynthia asked, her loose hand becoming a small fist of
hope above her heart.

Adi lifted her shoulder dismissively. “North
of here. With her people.”

“
People?” Cynthia asked,
thinking the scenario just kept getting stranger and
stranger.

“
Yeah, she's a Blood Singer.
Actually,” Adi looked down at her sneakered hot pink All-Star feet,
“a Rare One.”

“
Whoa, pony...” Cynthia said,
raising a palm.

“
It's actually wolf,” Adi
corrected.

“
No shit?” Cynthia asked,
gulping as she unconsciously took a step backward.

Adi grinned. “I shit you not.”

“
Huh. That's kinda bad for
me.”

“
Nah. We're not asshats like
the Homer Pack,” Adi said.

“
Oh great, I'm so relieved,”
Cynthia said in a droll voice. She was so on board with believing
that-
not.

“
Listen,
Blondie....”

“
Bite me,” Cynthia
said.

“
Don't tempt me,
dollface.”

“
Hey girls,” Tony said, having
smoothly interrupted them after listening in for a few
moments.

They whirled to face him, a common enemy
identified.

Cynthia scooted back to where the front of
the bed was. She was only a few feet from the girl.

The girl werewolf,
Cynthia reminded herself. She'd take Smart Ass behind her
rather than square off with the big dude in front of her. Cynthia
guessed in another circumstance he would have been a hottie. But in
the current one he left her cold.

Like ice.

His face was hard, his complexion dark. It
was his size that was so scary. He was six-four if he was an inch.
And Cynthia wasn't a shrimp of a girl. She was five-eight in her
stocking feet.

Cynthia watched Adi tear over there and look
up at him, her expression fierce.

Hell,
Cynthia
thought,
she postures like a guy.

Cynthia took another cautious step backward.
She was going to give these guys a wide berth to beat the
everlovin' shit out of each other if that's what needed doin'.
Uh-huh.

Sans
her
presence.

“
Way to warm up the new
capture, Adi,” Tony said, looking down at her, a smug grin on his
face. He did have an eye on Cynthia and that's when she remembered
him from the field. He'd been the dark brown wolf. The one that had
hit the cop, Truman.

Cynthia moved back until her butt hit the
wall, her breath coming faster. She was going to have to calm down
or she'd hyperventilate. Seeing that small girl take on the much
larger male scared the shit out of her.

“
Oh, and you're so smooth?
Who's the one that decked the cop, douchebag? Huh?”

Tony put his hands on
her
that fast
, Cynthia hadn't even
seen those massive palms of his move and Cynthia yelped.

In sympathy, for Adi.

He had her by the shoulders and Cynthia held
her breath but Adi had it. She watched the female do the
unexpected. Any fool could see from casual observation she loathed
the dark werewolf but she got closer, fast, then lifted her knee to
his groin.

Cynthia covered her mouth and gasped as the
big male grimaced and grabbed his privates, a low growl boiling out
of his mouth.

“
First. Fuck off,” Adi said
and pushed him as he was staggering away, those big hands holding
his nuts.

“
Second, I got this,” she said
in a low voice full of barely contained anger and she pushed him
again, hard, with the flat of her palms.

His hand snaked out and he latched onto her
wrist, jerking her off her feet and on top of him as he fell.

She went with him.

Adi's eyes widened and it was then that
Cynthia knew she wasn't a big one for planning. She was a stick of
dynamite with a short fuse and this big sucker must light it every
time they got around each other.

He whipped her over on her back, smacking
her loudly on the floor, his knee shoving up between her legs to
press against her crotch and said in a low hiss, “Not so clever
now, are ya bitch?”

Oh crap.

Cynthia was going to stay out of it, she
really was. After all, this was some Werewolf brawl, right?

Cynthia felt her feet move forward. Next
thing she knew, she was jogging over there like the dumbass she
was.

Cynthia landed with a plop on Tony's back,
bronco-style and latched onto his hair with both her hands and
pulled, using her body weight.

All her anger from the abuse of the Were
from Alaska rolled over her in a warm surging tidal wave of rage
and she tore out a chunk of his hair and he yelled, flinging her
off with ease.

It was enough distraction for Adi to
extricate herself from her supine and vulnerable position beneath
him.

Like an enraged bull he surged to his feet,
head swinging, huge hands in fists of violence at his side.

Oh shit
, Cynthia
thought,
that wasn't my finest decision.

Then he came for her and she
turned her head away, bracing for a pounding, no exit in
sight.
It was worth it,
she
thought, shutting her eyes tightly.

A noise made Cynthia snap her eyes open.

There, from the doorway, came a flash of
colors and a bowling ball of human flesh, no more than a muted blur
of color as it slammed into the thug above her, rolling them into
the wall, plaster giving way in a cloud of dust and powder.

“
Holy shit, Cyn! Move. Your.
Skinny. Ass!”

Cynthia gave Adi an almost comical look of
sheer terror and surprise and scrambled to her feet, she grabbed
onto the hand that Adi held out and the smaller girl tore Cynthia
behind her.

She was stronger than she looked, as
Cynthia's feet lifted off from the surface.

“
Come on,” Adi yelled,
sprinting while Cynthia stumbled after her in an ungainly
jog.

“
Hold on!” Cynthia shouted.
Adi skidded to a stop.

“
What the hell is going on?”
Cynthia asked, flinging her hands out.

Adi huffed. “I may have been a little
overzealous with Tony.” Adi looked a little shamefaced.

“
Oh effing terrific,” Cynthia
said and Adi nodded, properly chastised. Cynthia belatedly wondered
if such a thing was possible.

Cynthia looked over her shoulder and
flinched when a lamp in the bedroom shattered.

“
Listen,” she pointed a finger
at the smaller woman, albeit much stronger, “I will not be a
willing mushroom, kept in the dark and fed shit. Tell me what the
hell is going on.”

Adi's shoulders slumped. “Well, Tony's a
prick.”

Gee... shocker
, Cynthia
thought.

“
So? You can't kick every guy
that's a jerkoff in the nuts. We'd have half the male population
with a permanent limp.”

The corners of Adi's mouth turned up and
Cynthia started to smile back. “Ya know, you're okay. I see why she
liked you.”

Cynthia's smile faded and she got back on
track. “Anyway, is he like... a threat?” Gawd, what a stupid
question. Obviously! He'd nailed the cop, probably been the one to
steal her... the list was long.

“
Yeah. I mean... I think so
but no one will listen. Our Packmaster...”

“
Who?”

“
Lawrence,” she met Cynthia's
eyes and went on, “he thinks Tony's this great soldier and
everything.”

“
Is he?”

“
Yeah,” Adi conceded
reluctantly. “But he's not a good soldier in the old way. He's
brutal and underhanded. He wants power and control and he'll do
anything to get it.” Adi's eyes stood in a fierce face, her eyes
melting to gold around the edges.

Oh hell, did this mean she was going to go
all wolf-girl on Cynthia's ass? Like right now?

Cynthia took a step back and Adi laughed.
“It's okay, I'm not gonna like... burst my skin or anything.”

“
You looked a little... wolfy
there for a sec.”

“
Yeah. Strong emotion can do
that. The eyes, right?” she asked, her human color bleeding into
the gold like spilled chocolate milk.

Cynthia nodded her head.

The noises of fighting stopped and an
ominous silence came from the house they'd left. Cynthia glanced
away from the house and noticed a great pavilion, marble and veined
silver, like a wedge of ancient Rome plunked down in the middle of
a forest. It rose like a polished alabaster stamp of antiquity.

“
What's that?” Cynthia asked,
pointing to the marble structure.

Adi opened her mouth and a voice to the
right of them said. “It's where Jules was taken.”

Cynthia looked at Jason. For the first time
in over two years.

Jason Caldwell was very much alive. But his
eyes were different.

Ancient.

She ran. Cynthia didn't think that her feet
even touched the ground as she flung herself into his arms. She
buried her face in his chest, tears pouring out of her eyes.

“
Oh my God! Jason... I
thought,” she began.

“
That I was dead?” he
finished, putting her slightly away from him but not letting
go.

Cynthia nodded her head, her green eyes
searching his face, looking, hunting. Finally, she asked, “What?
What is it?”

Jason didn't say anything, but he let his
hands trail down her arms and stepped away. “It's good to see you,
Cyn.”

Cynthia stepped back. “It's good to see me?
What the hell, Jason? I watched Kev die. I watched a fucking
creature...”

“
Hey,” Adi barked.

Cynthia cocked a brow at Adi then dismissed
her. “A shithead Were come in and tear your throat out.” More tears
threatened and Cynthia ruthlessly held them in check, her eyes
feeling buggy and swollen, burning. “And Jason... they took Jules.”
Her eyes searched his face and not seeing what she expected she
went on, “I've come all this way, first to escape the effers in
Homer, and then,” she flicked her eyes to his and gave him a level
stare, “I found her trail. She's alive, Jason. Alive,” Cynthia said
in a fervent whisper.

“
He knows, Singer,” Tony said
from behind them and the girls jumped.

Adi opened her mouth to say something
flippant and Emmanuel, his lip busted up with a cut above his eye
held up a finger. “No- Not. One. Word, Adrianna.”

Crap,
Adi
sulked,
her ass was definitely grass.
Not that watching this effed up little reunion wasn't
funtastic and all... but. She gave another look at Manny and he
narrowed his eyes on her.

Well shit. She clamped her lips together
with a supreme effort.

Manny looked away from the spitfire female
Alpha with a sigh. She would face discipline. Whether or not she
liked it, Adi was not dominant to Anthony. If Emmanuel had not
chosen to intercede, things might have escalated in a direction
that would have been quite bad.

Quite.

He looked at the scene in front of him and
lamented it. Adi had not handled things well with Tony but seemed
to have done well by the newest, weak-blooded Singer. Well... not
so weak. Now that the smells of humanity were far-removed in this
place, he flared his nostrils, he could smell her blood quantum.
She was of fuller blood than they had realized. Excellent, Lawrence
would be most pleased. He'd hoped for answers and her Singer
ancestry was simply gravy, as the humans were apt to say.

Jason and Tony's eyes clashed in a
disharmonious glare. Cynthia looked from one to the other and then
she gave Jason the full weight of her stare. “What is he talking
about? Where is Jules?”

Emmanuel coughed and Cynthia
ignored him. “Where is your
wife
?”

“
She is not his mate, Singer,”
Tony said.

“
The name's Cynthia Adams
you... goddamned butt munch!” Cynthia said and got a stab of
satisfaction when his gaze darkened on her as Cynthia heard a snort
come from Adi's direction. “Stop calling me, Singer... or
whatever.” She looked at Jason. Stared at him.

“
The attack turned me,” Jason
said.

Cynthia nodded. “No shit, Sherlock.”