Blood Bond (47 page)

A sob escaped. I covered my head with my
hands, trying to shield myself against the agony. Nothing stopped
it. Like back-to-back tsunamis, the force of it rocked me. I
grabbed at my hair, my hands tangling and yanking, searching for
something to anchor to—or be swept away into oblivion. I heard my
screams, but it felt like someone else wailing and sobbing and
clawing at herself.

Then Chris was at my elbow, talking in my
ear. “Attack or not? Master?”

Another hybrid fell with an abbreviated
yelp. My scream matched his grunt and then we were both silent. I
glanced over. His eyes, hard and unblinking, were absent of life.
His body shimmered at the edges before fur and paws shifted back to
a man with a strong jaw and wiry frame. Blood poured from three
different puncture holes in his chest, one still sporting a stake
buried hilt-deep in his flesh.

I looked at the rest of them. None were
fighting back beyond basic defense. Most looked confused or
uncertain and kept glancing at me. The feel within the bond
confirmed their hesitation, and suddenly, I knew where the pain had
come from.

“Attack,” I whispered.

Chris jumped up and gave an order I couldn’t
hear. It could’ve been as simple as an expression. The sound of
ripping fabric caught my ear at the same time what was left of
Chris’s shorts hit the ground. His shifting was instant, and I knew
he’d been holding it back all this time, waiting for my order.

Master. They kept calling me master.

The pain dialed back after that. The hybrids
were relentless and vicious. Through the bond, I could feel their
determination, their complete unity; they attacked because the
alpha ordered it.

That knowledge made my human side a little
sick. It was overwhelming and heady to be followed without
question, without hesitation, in every command. Dangerous, really.
The wolf in me strained against its chains. It knew its power, now,
if not from me, from its pack.

Its pack.

I had a pack. The thought was surreal.
Unbelievable. Terrifying.

The pain faded to a prick as my bones
strained against themselves. My skin stretched tight. One of the
hybrids yelped. The point of a knife grazed its shoulder and tore
off a chunk of fur.

My control slipped.

Every nerve ending in my body stood on end.
My scalp tingled and the end of my fingers went numb. I shut my
eyes against the brightness that seemed to come from inside me. The
air flickered, like an electric charge after rubbing your hands too
long on your pants—times a thousand. My place in the dirt where I’d
hovered protectively over Cord suddenly wasn’t the right size for
my frame. It felt different. And then I knew: I was different.

My arms weren’t arms. I was all legs and
nose and … fur.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think—not even
to remember why I’d fought this for so long. My mind was empty to
everything but instincts and senses. My muscles itched to be
stretched. To run. My canines wanted something to sink into. The
forest sounds were magnified, down to the simple call of the
cicadas. Smells overwhelmed my nasal passage. Sweat. Dirt.
Fear.

And underneath it all, pain surged through
me.

I stepped back, overwhelmed.

Then, from beside me, Chris grunted. I
remembered what had driven me here. My pack. The pain. I had to
stop the pain. For me, and for them.

I hesitated, hating to leave Cord exposed,
but the second my paws pushed off the ground, my worry faded. The
moves were foreign, but even as a beginner, I was fluid, graceful.
My muscles coiled and bunched like a spring, and when I pushed off,
I sailed. My feet landed silently. I felt weightless—and dangerous.
Like a predator.

I shoved myself between Chris and his
attacker and bared my teeth. Chris shifted to cover my flank. Dear
God, I had a flank.

My attacker slashed out with his knife. His
movements looked slow—laughably so. Had he been this bad before I’d
shifted? Everything magnified. The trees, the dirt, even the wind.
I hadn’t even felt a breeze before. The pain I’d felt through the
bond wasn’t the same, either. It wasn’t exactly more bearable, but
it became easier to understand. When my chest reverberated with an
invisible blow, I knew where it came from. Not just that it came
from my pack, but I could identify which pack member and where they
were standing—or lying, by then.

Separating the buzz of emotions in my mind
took no effort. Everyone had a distinct taste, and some part of me
knew instinctively who was who. The connection went deeper. The
loss was real, like we’d been friends, though I still didn’t even
know their names, where they’d come from, what brought them
here.

My attacker sliced the air again, this time
getting closer to Cord. The threat registered even if he hadn’t
meant it that way.

“Enough,” I said. It came out in a low
growl. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if you don’t back
off.”

The Hunter blinked in surprise, his knife
momentarily suspended. “What?” he said.

“I will call them off. Just stop the
attack.”

“You’ll … I can’t.”

“They aren’t bad. It’s different now.” It
was impossible to explain all that had happened in less time than
it took another hybrid to fall, but I had to try. I couldn’t bear
it like this. The pain might’ve been easier. The grief was not.

“Different how? You’re hybrids. Look at the
eyes.”

“They changed. They don’t follow the same
master anymore.”

He frowned. “Wait a minute—your eyes aren’t
yellow. Who are you?”

A pang shot through me, tight and hard. I
looked over in time to see a hybrid turned human again fall to the
dirt in a heap. An arrow protruded from her shoulder. Her pain
seized me and I felt the struggle as her heart tried to beat around
the pierced tissue. My knees wobbled. My head drooped. Chris
scooted in, standing over me. I could feel the protectiveness
radiating out of him.

“What’s the matter with her?” the Hunter
demanded.

“She can feel what’s happening to them,”
Chris said.

“Stop attacking. We’ll stop too,” I said
through a whimper.

The man paused, weighing our words. Someone
called to him, and his eyes flickered with renewed determination.
“We’ll stop when you’re dead.”

He drew back the knife and thrust it out.
Even before my teeth sank into his wrist, I knew the knifepoint had
been meant for Chris. I didn’t try to reason with or understand the
irrational protectiveness I felt toward him. In that moment, he was
my pack. I was his. We fought for each other. It was that
simple.

The man’s flesh gave like tissue paper
underneath my canines. His blood seeped into my mouth, awakening
something dark and ugly deep inside me. He pulled against the
pressure and screamed when my jaw didn’t give, and still, I held
him there.

Someone hit me from behind, sending me
rolling, and my jaw wrenched free. The forward motion, paw over
shoulder, disoriented me. I couldn’t tell which end was up. My
attacker figured it out first and pinned me. This man was faster
than the last one had been. I saw the raised stake gleaming in the
light, and I reacted.

My teeth closed over flesh. Blood soaked my
mouth. I heard the crack of bone under my teeth and released my
hold, ready to do it again if necessary. But the stake faltered. My
attacker cried out, and I froze. Our gaze locked.

“Alex?” Horror washed over me. I swallowed
his blood and my stomach rolled.

“T-Tara?” Pain and confusion clouded his
features. He slid off me.

“Oh, God. I’m so sorry.”

I sat up and watched him scramble away. “You
bit me.” His face went white, his lips pressed together in a hard
line.

“I didn’t know it was you. Are you all
right?”

“You shifted,” he said, ignoring my concern
and his injury to stare at me in disbelief.

“You left me.” The words were void of the
accusation I’d intended. All I could do was look fixedly at his
wrist, bleeding and mangled.

“I wanted to save you from … them,” he said.
“It’s the only way I know.”

“They aren’t my enemy
anymore.”
You are
, I thought. “Call your people off.”

“What? Why?” He shifted and winced, clearly
in pain. His eyes were glassy now.

“They’re only protecting me. If you stop,
they will too.” Another hybrid fell.

I cringed. “Alex, please,” I begged. “I
can’t take this … it hurts.”

His eyes narrowed and he seemed to finally
realize how much pain I was in. “Fall back,” he said, the strain in
his voice distorting his words. “Fall back,” he repeated louder. He
had to say it three more time before anyone took notice. One by
one, Hunters ceased their attacks.

“Fall back,” I echoed and the hybrids backed
away. Some looked disappointed.

Chris appeared at my side. “What now,
Master?”

“Guard the prisoner,” I told him. He walked
toward where Olivia still huddled in the box, shouting orders to
the others. I looked back at Alex. “Thank you.” The adrenaline in
me waned, leaving behind exhaustion.

“Don’t thank me. You don’t know … I messed
up.”

“You’re shaking,” I said.

“It stings a little.” He attempted a
smile.

I scooted closer, slowly, knowing
instinctively he wouldn’t want me to hover, but unable to sit by
and watch him fade like this. He didn’t protest. It scared me to
think he was past the point of arguing. One of the other Hunters
came forward and knelt beside him, a tall man with broad shoulders.
His hair hung in his face, but the scar made him easily
recognizable.

“Professor Kane,” I said.

“Tara? That you in there?”

“Yes, sir.” I wasn’t sure the title “sir”
was necessary for someone who’d technically tried to kill me, but I
went with it. Old habits.

“You’re a …”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

He looked from Alex back to me. “You bit
him?”

“It was an accident.”

He frowned and inspected Alex’s wound
without another word. For me, his silence said it all.

“There’s a clinic, a quarter mile that way,”
I said, nodding toward the trail.

“Not much we can do for him there. Unless
you’ve got a healer.”

“No, I … she’s not here.”

“They’re on their way,” Alex said through
gritted teeth. The guilt in his words, in his expression, stopped
me.

“How do you know? Where are they?” He didn’t
answer. “Alex. What did you do?”

“We don’t have time for this,” Kane sad.
“We’ll have to get him to the clinic and hope she shows in time.
Show us the way.”

He helped Alex to his feet.
I rose on four paws and found Chris over the sea of wolf faces.
“I’m going to the clinic. Stay here, with
her
.” A growl escaped, but he
nodded. I looked back at Kane who had an arm under Alex, holding
him up.

“Someone else needs to carry her,” I said,
gesturing to Cord. Kane gave a quick order, and another man stepped
forward and scooped her into his arms.

I led the way.

Halfway to the clinic, I shifted. One minute
I was limping along on four paws, the next I had two legs and two
arms, one of which hung unnaturally from its socket. My knees gave
out. The pain washed over me, and I heard myself let out a piercing
scream that echoed around us. Before the sound died away, someone
lifted me from the ground. They draped a jacket over me, but my
relief was small. Being naked was nowhere near my biggest concern.
My shoulder throbbed. Stabs of pain shot up and down my arm, from
elbow to shoulder. The rest of my body ached and groaned against
each jostling step.

I tried shifting back, craving the release
of it—I hadn’t realized until now the pain had been easier as a
wolf—but it wouldn’t come.

“You said they’re coming?” Kane’s voice came
from somewhere behind me. “How close?”

“I don’t know,” Alex answered. “I slowed
them down. Here. Speed dial four.” Alex’s voice was muffled and
weak.

I heard buttons being pressed and then
Kane’s voice muffled by the jacket thrown over me. The jostling
continued. A moment passed and the call ended.

“Thirty minutes. Just hang on,” Kane
said.

Alex grunted.

I wasn’t sure if Kane meant him or me.

Chapter Thirty-Two

“Tara.”

My lids fluttered. Even the thought of
prying them open made my muscles ache. Could eyelid muscles get
sore?

“Tara.”

The voice came again, stronger, more
insistent. I recognized that voice. The sound of it brought an
onslaught of mental images: blood, gnashing teeth, and mangled
bodies littering the forest floor.

I wrenched my eyes open to escape it. The
face that stared back at me was almost as horrific as the broken
ones in my head. But at least this one was alive. Relief flooded
me. I sat up and almost toppled out of my folding chair. I lifted
myself off the thin mattress.

“Cord! You’re alive!”

“I feel like shit. This is all your
fault.”

I smiled. Yeah. Cord was awake.

“What the hell happened? Where am I?” She
looked around the room, wincing at the movement.

“We’re in the clinic. Relax, we’re safe.”
Unless something happened to Alex. If that happened, I was pretty
sure all bets were off. “Olivia’s in our custody,” I added when she
blanched and tried to get up.

She lifted a hand as if to touch her face
and then lowered it, apparently thinking better of it at the last
second. “Fill me in, and make it quick. I feel like I might pass
out again.”

“Not sure how much you saw—”

“Four walls and the end of a two-by-four was
the extent of my view.”

“I’m so sorry, Cord.”

“Don’t be. You took her out. If it weren’t
for you …” She didn’t finish. Her body rocked with a violent
shudder.