The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance) (59 page)

Alan nodded, the smile fading. “I do. I'd bank
on him having wolf blood in there somewhere though.”

They looked at each other for a swollen moment.
“That region has a plethora of Singers. Where there's that many
Singers...”

“There is Were,” Alan added.

“And drinkers,” David finished on a somber
note.

Always them
, Alan thought with
distaste.

David gave a small shrug. Small for a male that
was as big as he. “There's a lot of mixed blood in Alaska.”

“Too much,” Alan ground out. It was well known
how the packs from the last frontier were managed. Badly.

David waggled his finger. “Now, now... don't be
an elitist, Alan.”

Alan rolled his eyes skyward. “It is not my
intent, Packmaster,” giving the natural deference accorded his
leader. “You of all Were understand the trouble with the mutts.
They contaminate everything.”

“But a mixed-blood Singer is fine,” David
reminded.

“Yes,” Alan said as if that was the most obvious
thing in the world.

David narrowed his eyes on his first. “Just so
we're clear, Julia Caldwell is not up for acquisition.”

Alan nodded sagely. “Too many fingers in that
pie.”

David smiled. “We don't need the Rare One. But
having the one who is close to her is a very powerful position as
well. It is no surprise that she was from Alaska. That everyone who
surrounded her was of Singer heritage.”

“Yes, no surprise there,” Alan agreed thinking
of the unconscious magnet a Rare One would be to others of her kind
and waited on the Packmaster's thoughts.

David deliberated. “What intel do you have from
Slash?”

“He nears Region One of the Singers.”

David gave a low whistle, heard only by certain
creatures. “So the danger draws near.”

Alan thought about Cynthia traveling with that
abuser with only Slash as guard and a light sweat broke over him.
It had taken every fiber of his control not to Change and go
charging after her when she was taken. Rather, allowing the
kidnapping to occur after her initial arrival in Washington. It had
killed something inside him not offering her his instinctive
protection.

Cynthia was Singer enough to warrant it.

He was Alpha enough to seek it.

Alan gave a low contemplative growl and his
Packmaster smiled in grim agreement, intuiting the exact nature of
his feelings. Patience was not a strong suit of the Were. To
implement it was always a tenuous thing at best.

As was the case at the moment.

*

Truman

Karl Truman loved to dig. When he was digging,
as he was now, he was truly in his element. When he stumbled across
the tidbit before it was erased forever he was overcome with joy.
His nose hadn't lied. Everything was connected.

Every damn thing.
The details of his
investigation came together in a rush of perfection and everything
made sense.

Karl hadn't been looking for the connection but
that shred of memory was enough to give him pause:

Lacey Greene was the woman attacked by the perp
Anthony Daniel Laurent in the late 70s.

She was also the sister of the good old boy
manager at Red Robin, Alan Greene. All of this almost forty year
old bad blood was a convoluted mess to be found by just the right
person.

Truman was that guy.

He dismissed the commonality of their names
because of dates. When in reality, he should have been thinking
outside the box on this one. They didn't age like humans.
Period.

The manager was almost certainly one of the
werewolves and he'd been underneath Karl's nose the entire time. No
wonder it'd been twitching.

Karl thought about it. Werewolves in Homer
murder the Caldwell kid, his buddy Kevin and take Julia Caldwell,
leaving Cynthia Adams untouched. Then, another group of werewolves
hire her at the local burger joint when she arrives in Kent, the
very place Julia was taken. Finally, two years later, werewolves
kidnap the Adams girl, best friend of Julia.

Truman didn't believe in coincidence of this
magnitude. Actually, Karl wasn't much of a believer in coincidence
of any degree.

However, Alan Greene had seemed almost cavalier
about the sudden absence of Cynthia Adams, nonchalant with her
missing in action status. He'd even asked Karl where he thought she
was. The bastard knew, Karl would stake his life on it.

He just might.

Truman stewed, thinking about every angle,
turning each one over in his mind carefully, dismissing the absurd,
finally embracing a facet that made sense.

There was some cooperative thing going down
between wolf packs or whatever the hell they were called. He nodded
to himself, that was it.

Cynthia Adams was relatively safe. He speculated
she was being used like a pawn on a chessboard, an elaborate game
played between the packs.

Truman was guessing they didn't get along. Not a
big leap of logic there. How was Anthony Laurent tied with Alan
Greene besides the assault against his sister? Was he one of the
wolves that had torn Cynthia from Karl in that meadow? And why
would Alan Greene stand by and allow his sister's attacker to take
another female? It made no sense. But the truth was there; buried
and waiting. He knew it.

Karl tapped in one last thing on the anonymous
computer at the local King County Library:
last known address
for Anthony “Tony” Daniel Laurent.

A spinning hour glass moved for almost thirty
seconds while Karl restrained both the urge to grab a phantom pack
of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and to give the big monitor a
whack with his palm. Damn thing.

Then the hit came back:
Gig Harbor.

It couldn't be that easy
, Truman thought,
they'd have covered their tracks better than that. Of course,
nearly forty years ago, they might not have had reason to. In
current times, with technology as it was, the wolves had more
incentive.

Like with cops that had a keen sense of smell.
Truman's face broke out in a grin.

Hot damn, a genuine lead. He grabbed his
lightweight jacket and took off, the door grazing his butt as he
exited.

*

Slash

Slash went for the throat of Emmanuel, his
imperative to protect the female Singer the only one which
mattered. His packmates, which was a misnomer as he belonged by
blood ties to another, had Turned and the Singer was in danger.

Emmanuel had wrapped the Singer's fragile
forearm in his hand, long since springing talons and was
immediately blasted in the side by Slash.

They rolled in a tide of bristled fur and
swiping claws to the left of Cynthia's position.

Tony moved in and Adi plunged her mouth into his
flank as he bashed her with his half-formed hand, retracting his
claws on the backswing so he wouldn't hurt her.

Too badly.

Adi rolled on the forest floor, dazed by the
blow. She was an excellent fighter, but so was Tony, pound for
pound, squaring off with him was suicide with their uneven weight
and muscle distribution. She lay on the ground, panting, her
objective met: distraction.

Jason grabbed Cyn and she yelped, stopping the
momentum of fur that had erupted in a frenzy of slashing claws and
battering hands, with deadly knives flashing like weapons of
bone.

Jason bellowed in an ear-splitting wail, “Stop!”
He backed up, holding a nearly catatonic Cyn, Adi on her side,
clutching a gash to her wolfen face while Tony came for him.

Bring it,
Jason thought. Tony had been
begging for an ass-kicking from day one and Jason was happy to
deliver.

It was one of the other Were who stopped the
fighting in a low voice, “They're close.”

Tony whirled to face him, his coat so deep a
brown it was almost black. “Who?”

The other wolf, as different from Tony as night
and day, his coat matching the whitish gray of Adi's said, “Does
your anger hold you prisoner so that you no longer scent danger?”
the other asked without a trace of sarcasm, his eyes straying to
the injured female wolf at his feet.

Tony scowled, the expression almost comical on
his snout. He lifted his face into the air and noticed the smell
almost too late.

“Drinkers,” Tony growled.

Emmanuel and Slash rose from the mess they'd
made of each other, blood wounds closing, haphazard gashes
reversing their depth, new flesh filling in like bright pink water,
plumping the holes as Cynthia watched, slightly nauseous from the
sight.

Gawd these guys were gross,
she thought
in a daze.

Jason stepped forward, dragging a swaying
Cynthia behind him as he scooped up the female that had been beaten
by that loser Tony. He wasn't up on Were politics but he was
thinking that beating a female, werewolf or not, was frowned
upon.

He was right in his supposition, the other males
circling Tony.

“You hit the female,” Slash accused, his eyes
shifting to Cynthia briefly, Jason caught it and thought it was
weird but assumed he was making sure she was okay.

Manny growled at Tony, he'd had about enough of
his abuse against females. How many times would Lawrence cover his
indiscretions before the Were were disciplined or discovered
because of them? He didn't care if Tony was a pureblood, who his
parents had been or how great of a soldier to the Were he proved to
be. In Emmanuel's eyes, he was a liability, a ticking time
bomb.

Set to detonate at any moment.

“She drew first blood,” Tony said as a weak
excuse, indicating his side where a row of perfect puncture marks
were even now filling in.

Manny gave a disgusted snort and drilled Tony
with his eyes. Any male knew that a female was of no concern.
Adrianna was barely humored in her war with the Were. It was a
well-guarded secret that they allowed her to fight to secure her
compliance. Alpha females were a difficult group to corral. Adi was
no different. When she was fully grown, she would breed. That is
what her true value was. It was callous but factual. However,
Tony's mistreatment of a valuable female werewolf would not be
tolerated, they were a rare treasure to be safeguarded, not harmed.
Emmanuel's opinion was shared by the others as they growled, a
prelude to a group attack against an Alpha that needed pack
reprimand.

Again the gray wolf spoke, “They are but ten
miles due north and approaching.”

It broke the spell of the impending fight, an
uneasy truce brought on by enemies of merit, Tony allowed a stay of
execution.

For now.

Jason uttered a swearword that was almost too
low to hear and Cynthia offered an olive branch saying, “I heard
that Caldwell.”

He gave a small smile and she looked up at him.
“Maybe you can redeem your sorry ass?”

“That's what I'm trying to do, if you'd have
listened to me, Cyn,” he said, trying not to get too hopeful that
she'd forgive, that she'd help his hopeless cause to get Julia back
at his side where she belonged.

“Let us go,” Emmanuel said, allowing no uptick
or rapport to develop between the two. He would stake his claim
subtly and wherever he could.

Jason gave Emmanuel a small frown, he'd been one
of the Were that he'd actually liked and now he was peeing in
corners, marking his metaphorical territory. Jason deliberated
whether he should make a stand. But one thing he knew, when it came
to females, any female, unless he had a romantic interest in one,
he stayed the hell away. He sure didn't have one inkling of
romantic interest in Cyn, she was... like a sister or something.
And of course, there was Julia.

Jason gave a neutral expression, if such a thing
was possible with his half-human face but it worked and Emmanuel
relaxed his tense posture. Jason also knew that it was all about
subtleties in the world of Weres. Little physical gestures packed a
punch when it came to communication.

Tony smirked.
Saved by the blood
drinkers
, he thought, an unlikely event. Ah... he led a charmed
life. He looked at Adi, marking her with his dominant eye contact.
His eyes delivered the message clearly:
mine.

Adi glared back at him. Her eyes responded in
kind:
piss off.

Twice.

They held their stare of animosity for a moment,
breaking it only when Jason said for all, “I will carry Cyn.”

Protestation broke all around, mainly words
delivered in a growling mutter.

Emmanuel put up an taloned-hand in silence. “She
cannot run and speed is needed. The Singers will have established a
form of protection that will be in place as the vampires circle
from the east and we position from the south. Let us group near
their Region and plan our attack based on timing.” He then looked
at Tony significantly and added, “Instead of reactive emotion.”

Tony glared at Manny and they all turned and
faced north. In only a few hours, they would cover enough ground to
put them into attack position. There would be no repeat of the
earlier conflict resulting in the near-death of the Rare One.

An untenable loss.

They ran as the vampires that were now tied to
William came from the east. Summoned by him, their loyalties now
shifted from Merlin to their new leader, put there by blood and
death.

By providence.

*

Julia

“Please, sit,” Marcus indicated with a palm,
looking at Julia carefully, dark circles underneath her whiskey
eyes, her expression anxious.

The Combatant were everywhere but inside the
room, Julia could vaguely feel Scott and to a lesser extent,
Victor. Their presence was softened by Paul. Who, true to his word,
had kept the voices of the other Singers to a muted roar.

“You had a dream,” Marcus prompted.

Julia nodded, sitting in an overstuffed chair
that faced the massive desk Marcus sat behind. “Jen told you?”