Unleash The Moon (The Preternaturals Book 6) (18 page)

Unless the wolves were sometimes feeding on humans
themselves.

“
Why have you
guys been this close to the city to begin with?” Sydney
asked.

“
We had an
uneasy alliance with the vampires,” Milo said, “to keep more from
being kidnapped. Some of us suspected Shira might have had a thing
with their leader. Once they know she’s gone, our alliance might be
gone with it. It may be why she didn’t take a mate from among the
pack.”

Or she didn’t want to give her
power away.
But Sydney kept that
thought to herself. They may have accepted Shira as the sole alpha
as long as she was single, and as long as one of them might have a
chance at alpha by becoming her mate, but the second she took
someone, things would change. Wasn’t that how it had always been
through history? Sydney hadn’t known her long, but Shira seemed
like the type who enjoyed her power and wanted to maintain it. Not
that Sydney could blame her. Power became quickly addictive. If
told she could keep Noah but lose her strength or keep her strength
but lose Noah, she’d choose Noah, but it wouldn’t be
easy.

“
You wouldn’t
need so much protecting if you were farther from the city. This is
still inside the radius of where they would go to take werewolves
and other therians,” Noah said.

The vein in his neck had become more prominent as
his muscles tensed. Sydney tried to ignore it. It would hardly be
appropriate for her to launch herself at him and feed right now.
Anyway, she’d just eaten.

“
But being close
to the city has its advantages. We can leech off their power grid
and use the water infrastructure already in place. In case you
weren’t aware, life is easier with hot running water and
lights.”

Noah gave him a warning growl and Milo quickly
remembered who he was speaking to.

“
Sorry, sir. My
mouth got away from me.”

“
How many wolves
can reclaim their human form under the full moon?” Noah
asked.

“
Only a couple
of others besides myself. And of course, Shira
could.”

“
That’s why we
aren’t leaving yet. Travel as a group would be
impossible.”

The Beta
glanced over at Sydney, a touch of resentment in his eyes.
They’d have to ditch the motorcycles and any belongings they might
otherwise want to take with them if they went now, but they could
run as a pack of wolves if it weren’t for her.

Sydney growled.

“
You know it’s
true. A vampire in the pack makes it impossible for us to leave
during a full moon.”

“
You’re right.
This is too complicated,” Noah said. “I’ll just take my mate and
leave.”

Milo looked panicked and a few of the other wolves
ambled over. “NO! You can’t leave us.”

So they’d been listening the whole time. Great. Noah
must not have moved them far enough away from the others.

The wolf that had spoken said, “Look, we’ll work it
out. It’s not ideal, but we like Sydney. She’s pretty cool. If
she’s part of the deal, okay, but we need you.”

It seemed that a few of the wolves
weren’t entirely sold on Sydney’s
coolness
.

“
Oh yeah?” Noah
said. “Well, let me educate you about the truth of the pack alpha
you need so badly. I was kidnapped by those
people
and
separated from my pack when I was just a pup. I was their captive
for two decades before I got out. The only reason I escaped was
because they had flaws in their security system, it was my
twenty-eighth birth moon, and Sydney got captured. So I am not an
alpha by any definition of that word. I can’t lead you. I have only
the slightest fucking clue how packs even work. I’ve been
bullshitting my way through it this entire time. So there’s your
alpha pair. A vampire, and a wolf that doesn’t know how to be a
wolf. Come on Sydney, we’re leaving.”

He grabbed her arm and took her out of the bar.

“
It’ll be safer
to travel with a pack,” Sydney said as he dragged her through the
lobby like some errant child.

He growled, and fur began to sprout out of his arms.
She’d never seen him this angry before. They were halfway through
the lobby when the revolving doors opened and in poured human magic
users from the city. Their ringleader held a roughed-up looking guy
who’d been beaten nearly to death.

“
Oscar!” Livia
shouted.

The missing pack wolf. But if he
was a werewolf, why wasn’t he healing? The pack might not have had
a strong enough wolf to lead them all, but they were
still
werewolves.
Sydney suspected magic had been incorporated in the wolf’s torture
to overcome any healing advantage.

The human threw the missing wolf to the ground.

“
I’m sorry,” he
said. “I tried not to tell them. W-where’s
Shira?”

Noah began barking orders to the others to shift.
“Sydney, take this guy to the bar out of the way. I don’t want you
in the middle of this.”

She wanted to argue, but it wasn’t as if they could
get away now without a fight, and she didn’t want to risk her mate
by distracting him. With her claim, it was unlikely he’d die. And
she’d keep telling herself that over and over to get through this
because every instinct inside her screamed not to leave his
side.

Sydney helped the wounded werewolf up. The violence
started all too fast, exploding in the lobby like a bomb that had
just ticked down and detonated. There was no warning, just a flurry
of fur and growling and magic sizzling the air. A stray ball of
magical electricity hit her on the back as she took Oscar out of
the lobby and into the bar.

Someone cranked the sound system way up. The metal
pounding out was nearly deafening. It drowned out the jazz in the
bar.

“
Where’s Shira?”
Oscar asked again over the din.

Sydney took him to the back lounge area as far away
from the noise as she could get him, trying desperately not to
think about Noah out there. She wanted to kill the wolf that had
led the humans back to the den, but then she remembered the UV
lasers.

It hadn’t taken long for her to break and kill
Jacob, and these people had a pack member for over twenty-four
hours. She doubted he’d slept in that time.

“
What happened
to Shira?” But from the look on his face, he
knew.

“
Shira is dead.
My mate and I are the new alphas.” It seemed so cold to state so
bluntly when Oscar’s people… when her mate could be dying out
there, but if she thought too hard about the chaos happening in the
lobby, she wouldn’t get through these next
moments.

Oscar growled. Given his condition, it wasn’t a very
menacing growl, but he made an effort. “You’re a vampire.”

Sydney smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Great
species identification. Now let’s move on to shapes and colors!”
The sarcasm was inappropriate right now. She knew that, but the
fear of her mate dying or of both of them being dragged back to the
place they’d only just escaped, sat like a heavy weight trying to
press her down beneath the earth and suffocate her.

“
I’m a dead man.
They should have just killed me. I might have had a chance if Shira
was here.”

Livia rushed into the bar. She looked worse for
wear. The bandage Sydney put on her earlier in the night had all
but come off. So much for that.

“
Oscar! I
thought you were dead.” She crushed him in a hug, and he
groaned.

“
Not yet,” he
said, giving Sydney a look as if she were going to order his
execution.

That was Noah’s department, not hers. And given how
a few minutes ago he’d been ready to abandon them, Sydney wasn’t
sure it was right for him to order anybody’s head on a platter.

“
Oh screw this,”
Sydney said. She ripped into her wrist and held it out to
Oscar.

“
No,
way.”

She growled. “Drink!”

He looked briefly at Livia who nodded quickly. So he
drank. Oscar healed before her eyes, and then she turned her
attention to the female wolf.

“
But what about
the punishment earlier?”

“
I don’t care.
There are bigger things to worry about. You both need to be able to
fight. I’ll deal with Noah if he has a problem with it.
Drink.”

It didn’t take much blood to help both wolves
reclaim their healing abilities.

“
Why is that
music so fucking loud?” Sydney asked. It was so irritating, it made
her teeth grind. Now seemed like a stupid time to turn the lobby
into a rave.

“
It’s a magical
defense system,” Livia said. “It doesn’t stop those electricity
balls they throw, but it keeps them from chanting and having more
of an advantage. The louder it is, the better it works. Shira got
it a few years ago from some witch who was passing through. What
was her name? Frances? Fontaine?”

“
Fiona,” Oscar
offered.

“
Right! Fiona.
She was traveling with a panther therian and she gave us the music
in exchange for shelter for a few days. There is no way we would
have trusted she wasn’t working for the city. But she had a therian
mate, so it seemed pretty unlikely.”

The music stopped suddenly. Sydney ran into the
lobby, followed by Oscar and Livia. The humans were all dead, along
with half a dozen of the pack. More were seriously wounded.

“
We need to get
out of here, now,” Noah said. “When the magic users don’t return by
morning, they’ll send more. Everyone pack light and put your bags
with your bikes. We’ll find somewhere nearby we can hole up in
until the full moon passes. We can move the bikes there during the
day while Sydney is resting.”

Several of the wolves who weren’t too badly injured
moved to carry out the order, but a few stood defiantly in the
middle of the lobby.

“
You were
right,” one of them said. “Just go. You’ve brought nothing but
chaos with you since you got here. You don’t want us, anyway. We
can’t go anywhere tonight. Some are too injured to be moved. So I
guess we’re targets until they heal. Thanks.”

“
Fine,” Noah
said. “Sydney…”

Sydney walked to the center of the lobby with Oscar
and Livia behind her. It didn’t escape the pack’s notice that the
wolves were fully healed.

“
Noah, can I
speak with you privately?”

He growled but followed her out the back door and
far enough away this time that no one could overhear.

“
You gave them
your blood didn’t you? I can’t believe that you
would…”

“
Noah, shut
up.”

He looked angry and then hurt, and then angry
again.

“
I’m sorry. I
shouldn’t have said that. You are kidding yourself.
You
are
an alpha. You took control in there when the magic users
came. Yes, there were casualties, but no one would have survived
without you, and they all know that whether they are ready to admit
it or not. The humans would have won and taken those they didn’t
kill captive.”

Noah’s jaw clenched. “They don’t want me. They don’t
want you.”

“
Give them time.
They loved Shira. You need a pack. You know you do, and you’re not
going to be content to integrate into your dad’s pack. You need
your own people. This is them. If you think fate brought me to you,
maybe it brought us to them, too. I can get every single one of
them on our side if you give me a chance.”

Noah pulled her to him and held her. “You’re right.
I know what you’re going to do. At least feed again first.”

Sydney drank long and deep, no longer afraid to
absorb that kind of power because she needed it to help lead this
pack. And they needed her. She wouldn’t continue to be afraid and
back away from something she needed to make her strong.

She turned and started back for the door.

“
Hey
Sydney?”

“
Yeah?”

“
You know I love
you, right? It’s not just fate and blood. I’ve loved you since we
were kids.”

“
Noah. Dammit,
don’t make me all weepy before I have to go in there and be a bad
ass.”

He chuckled.

“
I love you,
too.”

The room was still tense when they returned to the
lobby.

“
I’m going to
make the same offer I made last night,” Noah said. “Anyone who
wants to stay behind can stay behind. Anyone who wants to come with
us can come with us.”

“
Didn’t you say
you didn’t want us?” one of the wolves asked, sounding bitter and
hurt.

“
Didn’t I also
say I was kept captive for years? I’m not going to be perfect, but
I won’t threaten to abandon any of you again. I swear
it.”

“
What about
Oscar? What will happen to him if we follow you?” Livia asked. She
gripped his arm as if it were a lifeline holding her stable out at
sea.