Blood Enchantment (13 page)

Scott assured her that all the rooms were soundproof. Nevertheless, Julia is damn sure Victor knows what they were up to in that bedroom for nearly an entire day.

“My queen,” Victor says, bowing slightly.

“Gah!”

Victor's head jerks back at her outburst.

“Sorry,” she mutters, and Scott squeezes her hand. “I know that technically, I'm a royal Singer—”

“You
are
the Rare One.”

Julia blows a strand of hair back. “Yeah. Anyway, I just want you to call me Julia, okay?”

Victor stares.

“Listen, Vic—”

Victor's stormy expression shifts to Scott.

“We know our place, and it is working beside our people, not over them.” Old Vic is from Two, after all. And Scott's mom was the mistress over that little mess.

Victor's chin dips. Restless fingers rake his perfect blond hair. His pale-gray eyes come to rest on them. “Forgive me. I have lived so long under your biological mother's reign, a different one has me completely out of sorts.”

Julia nods. His feeling are understandable.

Her eyes move to the timer clock. How many hours she has left in her prison underground?

Her flush comes back to merciless life. She's been down here screwing Scott's brains out while her people are—

Scott turns her, gripping her shoulders. “No.”

Julia doesn't need further explanation.
Stop thinking about things we can't change,
he said. Self-blame won't make the horrors, imagined or real, resolve themselves. Scott's words haunt her—because they're right.

She turns her head to the clock again.

Ten hours, eleven minutes, and three seconds.
It seems like eternity. Her eyes lock with Scott's, and her heart squeezes.

It seems too soon.

Adi

Adi shifts the weight of the backpack between her shoulders. It's a miracle she was able to even put anything together with her state of mind.

The pack must be Jen's. The thing's covered in sparkly unicorns. But it was all she could find.

Adi sighs. She can't even escape without looking ridiculous.

Not that she gives a shit. She's got the necessities inside the pack: beef jerky, apples, water, and some peanut M&Ms.

Adi loves those.

A wave of heat threads through her, igniting her core. She pauses, her hand instinctively slapping the nearest tree trunk. The sharp bark presses painfully against her tender palm. Adi's almost healed fully, but her hands still ache from all the punching and hitting of those cockbite Were she ran into.

I hope that one can't grow another set of balls.

Too bad she doesn't have silver talons. A grim smile covers her face as another wave of nauseating heat hits her. Adi doubles over.
What the hell is wrong with me?
She shuts her eyes, leaning against the tree.

Taking even breaths, she wills herself to relax. Did she get injured more than she knew? Fear grips her as she thinks about possible internal injuries. She has no way to fix that between here and the Northwestern down in Gig Harbor. Though it’s only a couple of hours south by car, she's not in any shape to move fast yet. She might not have suffered as much as Slash did, but she's not perfectly healed. Not by a long shot. When she opens her eyes, she sees nothing but deep green woods—and Highway 101.

Finally.

She swings the backpack around and gives the zipper a vicious reverse tug. After jerking the water bottle out of the inside, she spins the cap off and chugs half.
Better
. She tightens the cap on the half-drained water bottle. Adi surveys the territory, thinking through her options.

They're all kinds of miserable. But she can't dwell on the beauty of what happened between her and Slash. She can only hope to start again. She figures her small goal of returning to the Northwestern is solid. She'll get back there, regroup, eat some of Susan's delicious home cooking, and figure out her life. She strokes the unicorns on the backpack and thinks of the pajamas she lent Julia way back when.

She feels a sad smile slip onto her face then melt away just as quickly.

She gnaws a piece of beef jerky, and gradually, her stomach settles, filling with protein and much-needed water. With the highway in sight, she feels less anxious. She can just hike parallel to the road, and
voila
—she’ll be back home before she knows it. Adi regrets not being able to say goodbye to Julia, but she was nowhere to be found. Everyone else she shared so much with might have tried to convince her to stay.

I don't think so.

She plows through three strips of jerky and downs more water.

Adi doesn't realize she's crying until the tears wet her thin T-shirt. She shivers, straightening, and walks away from the tree, shoving her water and jerky in the pack. She flips it over onto her back and strides away.

Doubt creeps in as she hikes the short but steep ravine to the highway.
Could I be in heat? Is that what this is all about?
Adi grows uneasy with the thought that she's wandering around without male escorts.

I'm too young for heat.

But Moon help her if she is. Being a female Were in heat is like ringing the dinner bell. And what the hell might have set
that
in motion anyway? A sudden thought strikes her.

Tessa and
Tahlia
. Those two Were gals show up, Lanarre or not, and suddenly, Adi feels all tingly and fucking
needy.

Moon.
She stops at the shoulder, cars buzzing by in both directions. The Olympic Peninsula is to the north; her den lies to the south.

Adi had planned to go quarter-change and trot on back to the Northwestern. Now, with the possibility of being in heat, she can't take that risk. If unscrupulous males
are
around—and her scent is strong enough—they could….

She shudders. It could be
bad.
Adi gets a sick feeling. Could Slash have sent her away knowing she might be in heat?

No way, even he's not that cruel.

The tears roll unheeded down her face.

*

Adi's face is hot.

She rolls to her side and groans. Twigs, leaves, and small stones are her bed, and her body is protesting about it.

The hell with it.

She sits up, sliding her backpack from where it had served as a pillow, and unzips it. After opening the bag of M&Ms, she pops a small handful in her mouth.

Bliss.
Flavors explode, and she sighs with pleasure, sucking the shell of chocolate coating and crunching the peanut beneath.

“Now
that
is food,” she remarks to the indifferent forest.

Adi tucks her legs beneath her, searching her backpack. Carrying a toothbrush, deodorant, soap, and a small washcloth, she walks to a nearby stream.

I'll thumb it today,
she thinks, glancing back at the 101 behind her. She's still not made up her mind, but she plans to head south and figure it out as she goes.

Adi hears the water before she sees it. The water gurgles its music over small rocks, tinkling and singing as it moves through the woods. Adi's thirsty as hell, and her mouth waters with the thought of drinking. But she remembers just how sick Julia got after drinking from a creek.

That's all I need is to be shitting and puking. Yeah, that'd be a nice little piece of awesome icing on the misery cake.

She hikes a little higher, brushing aside small branches, and spots the dim sparkle of the water down a gentle slope. She carefully makes her way to the edge and squats in front of the running water, letting the bristles of her toothbrush dangle in the rush of water. Adi brushes her teeth, gazing around at the environment.

Beauty is everywhere here. The Hoh Rain Forest is a ways off, but the kiss of its nearness is everywhere she casts her eyes. Sweetly scented Douglas fir and western red cedar choke the deciduous alder and occasional red maple as they vie for position along the stream bed. Adi inhales deeply, filling her lungs with the smell of woods, water, and beneath that, the pervasive scent of the small animals that fill the forest with their unique existence. Invisible to most, they are stunningly present for a female Alpha Were.

Feeling alive, Adi stands, swishing dubious water in her mouth, and spits the used toothpaste on a nearby brush. Wild Rhododendrons seek patches of strangled light with bony branches like outstretched arms. Their buds are so full, the color of the blooms are visible within scant slivers of leaves holding the growth tight, waiting for the perfect temperature to arrive.

“Beautiful,” Adi whispers, stroking a deep-emerald leaf. Her fingers come away slightly sticky from the rhody's under leaf. Adi leans over the creek, dipping her fingers into the chilly water to wash them. She fills a washcloth with water and adds bar soap, rubbing vigorously. She washes her hands, face, and pits.

“Shit,” she mutters. Blindly, she splashes water on her face, letting the droplets fall. She applies her deodorant without looking.

Setting the tube down, she wipes an arm across her face. Soap assaults her sensitive nostrils. “Ugh.” She'd much rather smell the forest than the strong-smelling soap she thieved from the Singer's house. Her arms drop, and she opens her eyes.

Without the soap mauling her senses, she might have scented them sooner. Adi stands so quickly, the muddy shore of the creek aids her fall on her ass.

She sits on the squishy mud of the bank. Spinning amber eyes glow from across the creek.
Male Were.

“Oh,” she puffs out.

“Female,” one of them calls out.

Adi scrambles to her feet, tossing her pack across her back. A ray of sun stabs the pack, glittering on one of the unicorn horns.

A surge of heat floods her system, zinging her core with such need, she gasps. Adi's heart begins to gallop.

The gazes of the three Were narrow sharply at her.

Adi's eyes are keen, and keener still when she instinctively shifts to quarter-change.

The males across the wide creek miss nothing, their nostrils flaring together.

“Let us ease you, female.”

Fuck
that.
Adi retreats a step.

They advance.

One of the three takes a step into the water. The fast-moving current breaks around his foot, making protesting sounds of intrusion.

Adi hears a helpless noise—then realizes she's making it.

They take another step.

A wave of burning hits her hard, and Adi cups her elbows, whimpering against the mess of her body.

They exchange glances. In the next moment, they're crashing through the small river.

Adi wakes up. She whirls, never more thankful she kept the backpack straps loose.

She shifts to wolfen in the next jump.

Adi runs for her life. There are rumors about what happens to unprotected females who move through heat without a male escort. Adi doesn't think of what she's heard.

She runs.

Branches lash at her face and body as she moves through them like a bullet made of muscle and fur.

Her body metabolizes the sugar from the candy, chowing through the little bit of protein hanging on from the prior night and her jerky.

The water hydrates her for the first mile.

Their footsteps gain.

I can't outrun males who are a foot taller!
Her mind agonizes as her body trembles to keep up the crushing pace she sets for it.

Then a miracle occurs. Adi sights 101 and gets a brilliant idea. As she bursts into traffic, a car slams into her. Adi spins in the air, her body on fire to heal the injury. The heat that she is most certainly going through aids the efforts of her body. The imperative of breeding supersedes all others.

She lands hard, cracking her head on the smoothly pebbled asphalt. Ribs break instantly, and breathing as she knew it stops. Adi's head falls to the side, and sees the males swarming the border of the woods. She sucks in a breath; it shudders like shards of glass.

Cars screech to a halt.

Adi has enough presence of mind to shift back to quarter-change from wolfen as humans approach.

“Hey! Oh my God—call 911!” a human man's voice says.

Adi closes her eyes. Tears roll out no matter how hard she squeezes them.
Slash!
she wails, though she knows he's not listening.

Hands touch her. Not to harm, but to help.

Pieces of conversation come to her in scattered bits. “Like this—no, careful!” The wail of sirens draws nearer.

Medics arrive. Gentle hands touch her ankles, throat, and wrist.

She'll heal. But right now, Adi hurts like hell.

But the humans don't know that. “One, two—three!” The hands lift her, transferring her to a gurney. Adi shrieks despite her best efforts not to, feeling weightless as the human responders begin to slide her inside the back of the ambulance.

“Skid marks. Driver was going fast. Did you see how far she was from the vehicle?” one medic asks another.

“Too far.” The voice is ominous.

Adi cracks her eyes open. The males are gone.

A bee sting pierces her arm at the bend of her elbow.

Then she is gone, too.