The Alpha's Desire 4 (4 page)

Chapter Six

Just as I’d taken a few steps onto the fourth floor, moving forward just enough to allow the wolf posse behind me enough room, we found ourselves blinded by a flood of lights. I saw stars, blinking as if I’d just looked up at the sun. Only, I couldn’t look away. The light surrounded us, wiping out our vision completely, seemingly coming from all directions at once. Night went to day in an instant, and it took a few moments to adjust, until the dots floating before my eyes began to clear.

In the meantime, no one moved except to serve to smother me with their protection. I didn’t mind at all. Pushed against a wall, I knew a wall of beasts stood between me and those who wished to take me. I just kept waiting for something to hit us, to explode around us, for some startling end of my life to come. Yes, they wanted me alive, but in the fight, I could be easily lost in the crossfire. Only, nothing happened outside of my worst case scenario thoughts. My eyes adjusted slowly, letting me see Nira’s face that looked even paler in the glaring light. Now she looked her part, like the ghostly skinned vampires on TV. She held me tight, sending pain shooting down through my arm from the grip she had there. I knew she didn’t mean it. Still, the fear making her do it was worse than any physical ache she caused me.

I tried once again to look out in front of us, but the light was too much, too insanely bright at its sources, which seemed to be in many corners of the room. Blinking furiously, glancing just a little toward the light, I managed to make out the flood lights, like the kind a construction crew working late at night to clear a bad accident would use, sitting at each of the four corners of the room. One was even aimed at our back, insuring that as we turned around, we would still be blinded.

I looked to my side, toward the wolf, my eyes aching from trying to at least place the source of the sudden light. I looked at the shiny glow of Alex’s fur, hearing the low growl that emanated from deep in his chest as he too looked around, waited. His stance was predatory, waiting to pounce. Then, forms moved between the farthest two lights, making us all look at once.

I, too, braced myself, widening my stance, straightening my arms, and clenching my hands into fists as the others did. I tried to count, looking as well as I could at the line of wolves that formed between the lights. I’d no idea where they’d come from. I guess they had been lining the far walls. We couldn’t see them in the dark or with this light until they stepped into the room to make themselves known. Counting, I got to eleven. The pack had been twelve, I thought, and they’d already taken out one. I did, however, take notice of the absence of the man in the black suit, unless he was one of the wolves there. I didn’t know if he was counted in the pack number or not. Still, I figured he’d assigned himself to guarding Lex. 

I could still feel him as if he were breathing his last breaths. I knew him to be above us still. I couldn’t feel Vivian and Riker, though, even now. If they were even there, I wasn’t sure that I would or could. I had no wolf protector or intimate connection with either of them. Plus, here, I doubted I could replicate that spell used to open up my psychic whatevers and use my magic to track someone. Of course, that could have only been for use with Lex and our connection.

With Nira stepping to the side, almost undetectable, she moved me further into the room, behind the line of wolves as well as away from those treacherous stairs. The idea that she too had worried about being shoved down them as the fight began was not comforting. Wasn’t like I couldn’t be broken by being pushed back against this wall by two of their bodies battling it out. I watched as she took her small flashlight and signaled the three-flash SOS they’d established. We were outnumbered here, almost two to one, and needed back-up, as Nira would not leave my side, I knew.

I heard the metal steps cry out as six more came, vampire and then wolf, leaving the fight evenly matched even with Nira out of the battle. My stomach rolled, not wanting to even so much as witness what would come next. Whatever happened, good or bad, I knew that Nira would not leave me. In fact, what hit me hardest at that moment was the knowledge that she would take me to safety before she would trade me for Lex or Vivian or Riker’s lives.

I was currently what the man in the black suit wanted, and these vampires and werewolves around me would fight to the death to prevent him from getting me. While there was some small measure of comfort in it, it also brought about the horrible possibility of Lex being left behind to die. I didn’t feel he had much longer, whatever they were doing to him. I was so close now that I couldn’t imagine being forced to leave without him.

I had been, and planned to continue, to follow their lead, but faced with being forced to leave without him, it might just end up my breaking point. I didn’t know what I’d do. In my mind, I would sacrifice myself to be with him, even if just for a short time. It all terrified me, and left me trembling violently in Nira’s grasp.

Chapter Seven

I just watched as the battle lines were drawn, like out of some old movie I had to watch in high school where the greasers fought a group called the socs. Small steps were taken until the eleven pairs matched up, some werewolf against werewolf with others vamp against werewolf. The growls and hisses grew, nonverbal threats I guessed, as feet seemed to stomp on the ground, bodies appearing to shake to prepare themselves.

I held my breath, waiting for the first clash of bodies to happen. Like that stillness before a storm, the room grew silent, like no one even dared to breathe. Next thing I knew, I jumped half out of my skin as a stronger gust of wind blew and dropped another piece of window to the ground. While Nira grabbed onto me, I assumed expecting the worst, for that sound to be the final straw, all hell broke out in the room. Like I was a child, though I took no offense, she’d gone from having one simple arm around my shoulders to using her free hand to bring my head to her chest. I could still see enough of the room, though. I don’t think she meant to shield my vison, just my head from injury, given whatever might fly.

Closest to us, a werewolf raised up onto his hind quarters, almost daring the vampire across from him to come at him. In response, the vampire threw his hands out to his sides, fingers held ridged, tense, curling in. When the werewolf fell back to all fours, the vampire actually took two steps back. If I hadn’t met them prior to this point, I’d have thought this a sign of weakness, but I realized as I saw the vampire’s shoulders raise and his teeth elongate that he was just playing with the wolf, pissing him off, in fact. It was working all too well, I feared.

I had these fleeting moments of wanting to cry out, to tell one of them to look out, but again, I bit my lip so as not to do so. I’d only serve as a distraction. At times, I wanted to cover my face, to not have to watch, while at others, I wanted to root someone on. It was like watching a cage fight, that MMA stuff on TV. I’d gone out with a guy once that was into it. He’d thought it cool to introduce me to it. I’d never returned any of his calls after that.

While I expected at any minute for words to be exchanged, taunts thrown, maybe a few curse words tossed about, I remembered when I heard another frustrated growl that the werewolves couldn’t talk in this form. I felt like an idiot, even knowing how new this all was to me. The vampire, however, let out a wickedly evil laugh that chilled me to my core. The true werewolf’s next move was to shake his head before cocking it to the side and letting out a roar that was deafening, especially as combined with all the other battle sounds coming from the room. 

The vampire closest to us opened his mouth and let out a wicked, indescribable sound, showing all of his teeth, more than just two fangs, longer than they should be by my brief count. I say brief because I looked away on instinct, the same sort of instinct that caused me to cover my eyes during a horror movie. This was an epic thriller playing out in real life before my eyes.

Yet, much the same, I peeked again, having a hard time watching but unable to completely look away. The werewolf raised up to stand on only his hind legs again. While at first I thought this left him rather defenseless, showing his underside which I would assume was vulnerable, like being punched in the gut left a human, he actually used that pose to go on the offensive. With a leap, he threw himself against the vampire. His four hairy, thick legs came around the thin, tall vampire, looking like he took him down in a bear hug.

A screech like none I’d ever heard emanated from the vamp. I tensed, waiting for the shake of the floor when their bodies hit the ground. Nira grabbed the wall, holding me to her as it felt like the floor would just drop out from under us. The earth may not have shook, but the floor damn well did, and then some. Not able to completely process all the sights and sounds around me, in my probably driven to delusional mind, I could see each floor hit another until we ended up bodies splattered all over the machines we’d encountered on the first floor.

It didn’t happen. We stayed put, though my body continued to be rocked with each hit, whether in front of me or not. I watched the bodies rock back and forth on the ground, an intimate twisted dance of fighting to the death, until something hot and wet hit me. As my breath whooshed out from my lungs like someone had just punched me in the gut, I realized the liquid to be werewolf blood.

As they’d wrestled, the vampire had ripped a large chunk from the neck of the furry beast. It yipped, a sound shocking and high pitched. I expected the wolf to just sort of fall over dead, but that didn’t happen. He got back up to all fours with a jump before leaping on the vampire again, this time using the full force of his animal body to hit the vamp right in his core, curving him over, pushing him back against the wall right beside us.

Yes, despite the sound, and the very trembling of the building, it seemed, my brain did go to the fact that just a few inches to the right, and I would have been crushed to death by the blow that vampire walked away from. Not only that, but the vampire had pushed the werewolf body off of him, pushing him back, making all four of his legs stumble with the force and motion created. With one large step, the vampire leaned over and hit the wolf with two hands landing square on his shoulders. These guys took a licking and kept on ticking. It served to point out to me, though, the level of strength and resilience they actually possessed. It was mind boggling.

While the wolf stumbled again, the vamp took to punching, fists landing on the wolf’s muzzle, and then his chest once his head raised, teeth bared. The roar that came next shook me, rattled my teeth like fingers down a chalkboard. Nira clenched and shifted her weight. I understood the sentiment, wanting so badly to defend someone myself. My palms practically burned with the heat of my powers.

As the wolf shook off the last blow, my hands served as a distraction, the light emanating from them catching his eyes before I could shove them back in my pockets. I’d not been aware of when the light had gone out, but it was back and brighter than ever now. The vampire took that moment to hit the wolf again, sending the wolf’s body down to the ground and onto his side. The vampire flew rather than jumped, landing on the wolf, raining down punches on his midsection. I watched the wolf writhe until he shook off the vamp, sending him sprawling to the ground.

When the wolf made it back to all fours, shaky but standing, I was still amazed how much their bodies could withstand. I wanted to cry out. Not sure at what, but the air filled my lungs before I stopped it. Attempting to let it out slowly, then taking a deep breath in, I could never explain the scent that filled my nose, and raised the bile from my stomach to my throat. Between blood and sweat and fur, I don’t know, but it smelled rank, something like what I assumed a dead body would smell like after a few days of rotting in a musty basement.

In a nose dive, the wolf leapt to where the vampire laid on the ground, seemingly stunned. Mouth open, slobbery teeth glinting in the light like icicles made of ivory, his mouth came around the vampire’s side, chomping down. Figuring that to be the death blow, I turned my face into Nira, hiding from the rest of the battle. I suffocated myself in her jacket even as I struggled for breath. Anything was better than watching blood spill and people die. The weight of this battle to save me and the man I loved grew too great to bear.

More hot liquid hit me, making my clothes begin to stick to my flesh. The world spun below my feet, leaving me a quivering mess, having lost control of my body and my mind as fight or flight went into overdrive, and I had nowhere to flee.

Chapter Eight

All I found I could do was to reach out to Lex with my mind. All I felt I had left was our connection, for however long we had here. The win of that true wolf closest to me had shaken me up to my core. I couldn’t see where the rest of them stood, not for the blur of bodies and fur covered in blood. Besides that smell, and my now shallow breathing, there were the sounds of animals and something close to a human crying out in pain along with the continued war cries. The sound of skin or hide being punctured and ripped open was more than my stomach could handle.

In my mind, I saw Lex on a floor, struggling to breathe himself. He appeared so close to death that I feared by the time this battle was over that he would be gone, and there wouldn’t be a Lex to save. I couldn’t, and didn’t want to, live without him. They’d still take me to the Royal Island with or without him, if I survived this, and I didn’t want to live there without him.

Peeking out from Nira’s jacket that I had pulled over my eyes like I was a small child, I got a glimpse of those stairs. I knew I had it bad when, thinking of rushing up them, I’d barely even considered my fear of them or how high up they were off the ground now. If one stair broke, I’d bounce off the next and break something or many somethings before falling to my death. I found I couldn’t care less as my breathing grew shallow enough to match his.

Looking up at Nira, I saw that her fangs were out, her eyes red, and her face held as tight as her body. She glared, and I realized she hissed, as well. She wanted desperately to be in this battle, to help her family. She was a good woman who I was grateful to know. And, while she had an obligation to protect me, I knew how much it cost her. I had been paying my own price remaining here while the one I loved suffered just a floor above me.

I squirmed, and Nira let up her grip, to give me room to do so, I guessed. With that singular second of leeway, I took off to the steps. I’m sure I shocked her by moving, as she didn’t immediately snatch me back up. When I reached the stairs, stopping and grabbing the hand rail, I turned around to the thud of heavy feet, four of them, hitting the ground close behind me. A black blur was stopped by the roadblock of fur. In seconds, Nira’s body hit the ground.

She looked up at me for a second and I gave her the best face I could to express my apologies for taking off. I wanted to tell her I would be okay. I wanted to say I was sorry for not following the plan. I felt I should also apologize in case my disobedience came back on her in any way other than her hitting a werewolf. I wanted to tell her to fight, like she wanted to, to save her family. Yet, all I could do was to give her a brief look of sincere apology and turn to race up those stairs as fast as my shaking legs would take me.