Bloodrunner Bear (Harper's Mountains Book 2) (9 page)

“Okay, I will,” Alana said, eyes bugging out of her head as the alpha of the Bloodrunner Crew released her. “Um, Harper? If you ever feel like coming to Bryson city early, coffee is on me at the café. It’s just down the street. It has my name on the sign out front.”

“I’ll visit you this week,” Harper promised. “I need someone to talk about normal stuff with. I don’t know any ladies around here yet, and I need a break from all the fart jokes.”

Ryder looked at his alpha with a truly offended expression. “What’s wrong with fart jokes?”

Harper sighed tiredly and squeezed Alana’s hand, offered her a
see-what-I-mean
look, then made her way toward the door with the glowing red exit sign above it.

As Alana waved off the Bloodrunner Crew and watched them file through the door and out into the night beyond, another layer of confusion settled into her chest.

Tonight had just made her decision to move or stay even harder.

Popcorn

Hair in a messy bun

Sexy leopard-print push-up bra

Cherry flavored lip gloss

Cutest pajama set

Mood music

Romantic comedy

Alana checked the TV, the glowing screen paused on the opening credits of a classic mushy movie. With a satisfied sigh, she marked out the last of her to-do list with a purple gel pen. Then she tossed the scribbled paper into the trash just as a knock sounded on the door. She took a moment to ball her hands up and run in place, silently squealing with excitement. Too much energy. She had to get herself under control or she would start shaking in front of Aaron.
Be cool.

Alana tiptoed over to the mirror right beside the door, checked herself once, then blew out three quick breaths before she pulled open the door.

Her disappointment was instantaneously consuming. It wasn’t Aaron at the door, but a tall, lanky man with brown mussed hair and the same navy blue Bryson City Fire Department shirt Aaron wore on his shifts.

Her heart dropped to the ground as realization suddenly flooded over her. “Is Aaron okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course. Sorry. I’m not here with bad news, and I’m really sorry it’s so late.” He put his hands on the doorframe and looked around inside her house. “I’m a friend of Aaron’s and was wondering if I could come in and talk to you for a minute? It’s important.”

“It’s midnight.”

“Yeah.” The man linked his hands behind his neck and gave her a charming hot-guy grin. That shit would’ve worked on her last week, but Aaron’s was better. “Again, I’m so sorry about the time. Can I come in?”

“I’m not comfortable with that. I’m glad to meet another friend of Aaron’s, but whatever you need to talk about, you can do from there. Or tomorrow. Tomorrow would be good.”

The man’s eyes flashed with a surprising coolness for just a moment before it was gone. He looked down the street and let off a laugh that echoed around her porch and bounced around in her head. Chills rippled up her spine, and with a gasp, she shoved the door to close it.

“Stop.”
The word was clear as a bell, but the man’s mouth hadn’t moved from the cruel, twisted smile.

Alana stood frozen, holding the edge of her door, trying and failing to move a single muscle to close it.

“You don’t want to do that. Don’t want to do that. Don’t want to.”
The deep, dark words tumbled over each other in her mind.
“Invite me in. Invite me. Invite me in, Alana Warren.”

Fuck you
. She wanted to say it so badly. The words sat there on the end of her tongue, ready like ammunition in the chamber of a gun. But when she forced air past her vocal cords, all that came out was, “Won’t you come in?”

She whimpered as her traitorous hand opened the door wider.

The man wore a pleased expression as he murmured, “Good girl,” and stepped one echoing, ominous boot onto her wooden floors, then shut and locked the door behind him.

Linking his hands behind his back, he made his way slowly around her living room, looking at this and that while Alana stood plastered against the wall, no more mobile than the old sconce beside her cheek. She tried with everything she had to move a single muscle. Just one, so she could be in control of her body again, but she couldn’t. “Wh-who are you?”

“I’m Aric.” He turned to her and lifted his chin proudly. “I’ll be your maker.”

“No.” Her eyes burned with the realization of what he was. Of what she’d stumbled into.
Vampire
. No, no, no, this wasn’t happening. Alana sucked in air and screamed, “Aaron!”

Aric disintegrated into hundreds of fluttering, flapping bats immersed in a thick, purple smoke, the tendrils reaching for her.

“Help me!” she screamed.

Aric appeared in front of her, inches away, and cupped his hand roughly over her mouth, stifling her shriek. “Shhhh.” Aric canted his head and dipped his gaze to her neck. “The last leader of my coven liked pain. She liked people to scream while she drank them up, but I’m not like her. Don’t be scared. Don’t cry. This won’t hurt much. I’ll be gentle and fast, and when you wake up, you will have paid the Bloodrunner Dragon’s debt.”

Alana opened her mouth to tell him she didn’t understand. To beg him not to do this, not to hurt her, but as his lips curled back, her words died in her throat. His teeth were razor sharp, growing longer by the second.

She was going to die here, alone with this monster. She wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to her dad, Lissa, or her nieces. There would be no more breathless moments with Aaron. There would only be pain, and then nothing at all.

“You’re going to stay still for me, won’t you Alana? So I don’t hurt you any more than I have to. No screaming. Say it.”

He pulled his hand off her mouth, and she choked on the words as she repeated, “No screaming.”

Move body! Do something! Don’t just stand here and die!

An almost-human emotion flitted across Aric’s eyes—regret perhaps—before he inhaled deeply and leaned into her. She could feel the warmth of his breath and the sharp points of his fangs. A single tear slipped down her cheek as she fought off the vision of Aaron’s lips right before he’d kissed her. Her mind was trying to run to something good, but he didn’t belong here in this dark moment. She couldn’t taint her memory of Aaron like that.

Pain, pain, pain and then…nothing.

Aric blasted backward and broke clean through the sheetrock of the opposite wall. Bats poured from the hole, squeaking a sickening sound as the arms of smoke flowed this way and that. Aaron stood in front of her now, his shoulders looking even more massive as he clenched his hands and heaved breath.

Alana slid to the floor on her numb legs as a wave of bats circled Aaron. “No,” she whispered, desperate to claw her way toward him. She had to do something, but Aaron didn’t need her help. He reached into the smog with unbridled focus and precision, and then slammed something onto the floor so hard the boards shook beneath her. Aric’s form solidified, his throat in Aaron’s hand. Aaron’s muscles bulged as he squeezed.

“Please. Don’t!” Aric begged, and it was then that she saw it. Her coffee table was toppled over, and in Aaron’s grip was the fourth splintered leg, pressed against Aric’s chest right over his heart.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t give you your final death,” Aaron growled in an inhuman voice.

“I was going to be gentle. I have to avenge Arabella. Please, just let me explain. I’m trying to avoid war!”

Aaron slammed him on the ground so hard Alana could hear the sickening crack of Aric’s head. He pushed the table leg into the vampire’s chest by millimeters, and behind Aric’s gritted teeth came a pained keening sound, like nails on a chalkboard.

“If you kill me, that will be a queen and a king, and that can’t be forgiven, Bloodrunner! It won’t just be the Asheville Coven wanting revenge. You’ll have the entirety of my kind fighting over your deaths. Nothing will save you then.”

Aaron straddled the monster. Every muscle bulging and tense, Aaron glanced over at Alana with wild eyes. “Look away.”

“Aaron, listen to him.”

“Alana,” Aaron warned. “Look away now.”

“I care about human life! I wasn’t going to kill her, only Turn her.”

“She isn’t yours to Turn, Aric! I fucking tried with you, man. I tried working alongside of you after all that you’ve done. Your queen tried to break Wyatt. Your coven came for Harper. You ripped my fucking throat out, and now this? It isn’t her fate to be a monster!” Aaron roared, the veins in his throat protruding. “I’ve watched you work to save human life. I’ve seen the look in your eyes when you lose one. It affects you, so how can you do this to Alana?”

“Because we don’t work like you! We don’t have the same rules. A Bloodrunner killed my queen, and yeah, she deserved it. Aaah!” Aric made a choking sound as Aaron pushed on the leg of the table. “She deserved it! Arabella was too old to rule, was undergoing The Sickening, and she played with Wyatt to make her feel steady. I hated it. We all did, but she was our queen. The first rule for a new king or queen is to avenge the last! I
have
to avenge her, Aaron! I can rule my people better, but not without meeting the Rule of Vengeance. A life for a life. My people want the dragon. They want Harper, but I don’t want war. This is the best I could negotiate. A life for a life. I was going to Turn Alana, not kill her. It would’ve satisfied the blood debt. Don’t do this. Don’t start a war. No one will survive.”

“Fuck!” Aaron yelled, pulling the make-shift stake from Aric’s chest. He shoved off him and paced to Alana, then back to the vampire. “Her fucking pupils are blown out, man. Get out of her head. Fix her. Now!”

The relief was instant. It was as if she’d been suffocating with a plastic bag over her head, and it was that glorious moment when her lungs filled with beautiful life-giving oxygen. Alana’s muscles relaxed, but then tensed again when she scrambled upward, cupping her throbbing neck.

Aric was on his hands and knees now, gasping and holding his chest where he’d been inches away from wood through the heart. Aaron wasn’t okay. He was snarling savagely and pacing, and the air in her small apartment was almost too thick to breath. “She’s mine, Aric.”

“I know. That’s why—”

“Shut the fuck up and listen! She’s mine. My claim, my mate. If you can’t convince your coven to leave her alone, you’ll have that war. Only it won’t be two hundred vamps against the Bloodrunners. I’ll call in every fucking crew of shifters on the goddamn planet. Every dragon, every bear, every boar, every big cat, every gorilla, every bird of prey will be fighting for your final deaths. You won’t be able to find a hole deep enough to hide from my wrath, is that clear?”

“There are rules—”

“Aric, I’m saving your people from extinction right now when all I want to do is stake you and piss on your fucking ashes. Yes or no? Is. That. Clear?”

The vampire’s eyes glowed with fury in the moment before he wised up and dropped his gaze from Aaron’s. “We’re clear. I’ll handle my coven.”

“Get out.”

Aaron’s greenish gold eyes tracked the vampire as he strode immediately out the open doorway. The door was lopsided on the frame, held up by one bent hinge, and the small window on it was shattered. Where it had been locked, the deadbolt had ripped right through the doorframe. Aaron had forced his way in, and now she realized how much power he’d been hiding from her. She knew about vampires. Everyone did, and they were supposed to be the strongest beings on earth. Someone had lied to the humans. Aaron Keller had just cowed the King of the Asheville Coven, and he hadn’t even broken a sweat.

Shifters ruled the world, and no one even knew it but them.

She had stayed strong up until the moment Aaron’s attention swung slowly to her. The feral snarl was gone, and in its place, worry. “Are you okay?” he whispered, approaching her slowly.

What was the point in lying if he could sense it? “No.” She looked around her apartment, which had been trashed by Aric’s bats. The floor was covered in shattered glass and debris, and her neck stung like Aric’s teeth were still piercing her. “I didn’t mean to let him in.” She hated feeling weak, and for some reason, this all felt like… “It’s my fault.”

“No, it’s really not.” Aaron shook his head, and his blazing eyes filled with ruthless honesty. “This is his fault. It’s my fault. It isn’t your fault. Let me see.” He pried her cupped hand away from her neck and grimaced. “Do you have a first aid kit?”

“No.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because I’m not a shifter, Aaron. Maybe you bleed all the time, but I’ve never had more than a papercut in this apartment. I’m Steady Alana, remember? Boring life. Safe life. No bleeding, no need for first aid.” She wasn’t being fair. This really wasn’t his fault either, but she was panicking and desperate to place the blame somewhere just to cope with what had happened.

Aaron drew her in close, crushed her against his chest. “Alana, you’re okay. I swear I’ll keep you safe. That’ll never happen again.”

She closed her eyes and clutched onto his shirt as a sob wrenched its way up her throat. How would she ever be able to feel truly okay again? Aric had controlled her mind, her body. She was supposed to be some blood-debt for the Bloodrunners, whatever that meant.

Aaron sighed and pulled her behind him to the bathroom. He dug through the linen closet and found a washrag, then pressed it against her neck. And without any explanation, he started shoving some of her clothes willy-nilly into an oversize black tote bag.

“Where are we going?”

“To Harper’s Mountains.” His hand shook as he reached for a blouse on her bed, and he hesitated, clenched his fist like he was trying to steady it. “You can’t stay here. Not when you’ve already invited Aric in. Not when the damn door is off its hinges.” His voice was an unrecognizable growl now. It was clear he was struggling with something she didn’t understand—his bear perhaps?

She rested her hand gently on his back, and he tensed. Locking his arms against the bed, he said, “Please don’t fight this, Alana. I can’t be away from you right now. I just can’t.”

“Okay. I want to go. I want to stay with you.”