CHAPTER TEN

 

 

A vampiress tackled me and knocked me against the fridge. As she bashed my head into the stainless steel, I saw Axel get hit by the other vamp. He managed to hold his ground, but that's all I saw before I'd decided I'd had enough and I punched the vampiress in the gut. She winced, but didn't release my head, so I kicked up with my left leg and nailed her hard in the vag.

That did it, she screeched in pain and let go of my head. I thumped against the fridge a final time, with less force. Pushing the vamp off, I rolled over on top of her and pinned her to the ground. My vision was a bit fuzzy, but I maintained my hold.

Gripping her head in my hands, I lifted it and slammed it against the tile floor. She wrapped her hands around my neck and squeezed as I bashed her head down again. She just squeezed tighter and my blurry vision got blurrier.

If I didn't get her hands off my neck soon, I was going to lose consciousness. I tried to focus on her face, but dark spots formed in my vision. I was going to pass out. She was incredibly strong and I couldn't get breath to try my alpha voice on her, which probably wouldn't work anyway, since she wasn't a wolf. Damn it, think.

I let go of her head, stopped bashing it against the tile, and let all my body weight fall to the left. It was entirely counter-intuitive of what I would want to do in a professional fight, but a professional fight would have been called by now.

The vamp followed my body weight to the ground, straddled my waist and applied more pressure. I was pretty sure that, if I hadn't been a werewolf, my throat would have been crushed already. My lungs were on fire and my vision was more black spots than clear sight, but somehow, I was still hanging on. I bucked under the vamp and tried to throw her off, but it was like her knees, on either side of my waist, were cemented to the floor.

Just when my vision was down to little pinpricks of light, I remembered that I could shift. I wasn't sure I could do it from that position, but the very thought called my wolf to the forefront of my brain. I went furry and the vamp lost her grip on my neck. Growling, I pushed her off me, pinning her to the floor with my paws.

I held her there and panted, trying to catch my breath and get my vision back. It returned quicker than I'd have expected, my wolfy healing capabilities must have helped.

The vamp struggled underneath me, but I held her down. I held her down and wondered what I was supposed to do with her. I really didn't want to chew any more heads off. Besides being gross, I hated the idea of having to kill anyone else.

“Enough,” a regal and cool voice shouted.

Strong arms banded around my chest and lifted me off my paws, holding me up to face a tiny woman in what appeared to be a satin ball gown. A satin ball gown with nothing underneath it, judging by the way her nipples were pointing at me.

I struggled against the arms around me, as I could see Axel and Clarissa doing, but whoever held me was incredibly strong. The woman holding Axel in place was shorter and leaner than him.

“Shift back to human, please. We can't have a conversation when you are wolves.”

I growled. I didn't want to shift and be naked again in front of all these people. The vamp holding me whispered a word in my ear, a word in a language I didn't understand, and I felt my body changing, my wolf retreating. It was forced and it hurt, it felt wrong, but I went with it, hoping the change would force the man holding me to lose his grip. It didn't. Axel was still in his human form, but Clarissa had gone wolf and she also shifted back to human.

The regal woman paced closer and looked us over, a smile twitching her lips. “I'm actually quite pleased you showed up here, Axel dear,” she said. “It saves me so much trouble and work. Dear Darius and his ridiculous council always insist on doing things by the books, preventing an uprising he says, but I am an impatient woman.” She narrowed her eyes and stopped in front of me. She ran a finger down my face and her smile widened, revealing a mouth-full of horribly sharp and pointy teeth. “You must be the monster who killed my mate.”

Aw shit, this was bad, really, really bad. “He was going to…” Yeah, telling her he was going to forcibly have sex with me probably wouldn't improve her mood. “It was self-defense.”

She leaned so close I could see the specks of green in her hazel eyes, could see the nearly pore-less perfection of her porcelain skin. I could picture Jeremiah by her side. They would have been a regal, stunning couple, if not classically beautiful. “I don't care why you did it, just that you did it. You will be publicly executed after we've all had our taste of you.”

Like a snake, she snapped her head forward and her teeth sank into the flesh just below my chin. Her teeth through my flesh hurt, and then she began to suck and pain burned from the site of the bite through my whole body.

Axel roared and then the teeth left my flesh as the vamp was pulled off me. The teeth left my neck, but I felt skin go with them. I clamped a hand to my neck, the man behind me still holding me tight, seemingly unconcerned with the possibility of me bleeding out all over him. In fact, was he licking me? Yep, through the pain I could feel his tongue on me. I shuddered and tried to break free, but he didn't budge. “Let me help you,” he said. “My saliva will close the wound.”

“Let me shift and I'll be fine.”

He ignored me and kept licking. I tried to shift, but my wolf curled up and whimpered, refusing. I couldn't speak to her, but I visualized, like I was watching a movie, what would happen if I shifted while the vamp held me: my two front legs would be in a position so awkward they'd likely break. Three vamps pulled Axel off the vampire queen or whatever she was. They held him while the vamp queen smoothed down her now torn dress and patted her hair. “We should take them to our place,” she said. “It will be easier to restrain them there.”

Shivers shuddered through me and not from loss of blood, from the idea of a dank basement with chains to restrain us. If we went there, we'd be dead or, worse, completely under their control. I wouldn't do it.

I struggled against the arms holding me, but I could get no leverage. We needed a plan. We needed help. I needed help.

“Get them some clothes,” the vampire queen said to Alpha.

Alpha leaned back against a wall watching, showing no interest in getting his hands dirty. “They're our prisoners, Neela,” he said with a bit of a pout.

She stalked over to him and growled in his face. “Are you questioning me, Alpha?” she said his chosen name with a sneer.

I'd expected Alpha to back down, to give in and apologize, but he straightened, his eyes narrowing. “I want my people back.”

Neela smiled. “You give us these three, and we'll return three of your people to you. These three will be much more…Sustaining.” She licked her lips as she spoke and looked us over in an overtly lustful way. This was not good.

Neela was clearly more powerful than Alpha, yet she was willing to negotiate with him. What did he have on her? And how was Darius involved in this? None of it made sense.

Alpha pushed off the wall. “I want a guarantee.”

Neela rolled her eyes, but she put her wrist to her mouth, bit down, and held her bleeding wrist to Alpha. He pressed his mouth to her wrist, took three long swallows and stood. The difference was amazing, his skin was no longer yellow and his eyes were brighter, clearer. “I'll get the clothes,” he said.

“What the hell is going on here?” Axel growled. “Darius said you and this pack were at odds.”

Neela licked her wrist and turned to Axel while Alpha disappeared upstairs. “We are at odds,” she said. “I want to have full control of these wolves, but they are less than willing to secede power. Darius has promised me your pack instead.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Axel asked, his tone deathly calm.

Neela walked over to stand in front of him, her smile wicked. “I have something Darius wants and he is willing to give me your pack to get it. We just needed you out of the way. He wanted to make it look as though you lost the territory in a dispute between packs, and if you died…” She shrugged. “He doesn't want to deal with the uprising if other wolves learn of our deal.”

Axel's shock and anger were palpable, so I asked the next question. “What do you have that Darius wants?”

“Money, dear,” Neela said, speaking slowly as though I was an idiot. “And power. Werewolves are cute, but not too bright, and Darius and the council have expensive tastes.”

“Vampires are bottom-sucking parasites,” Clarissa said. “Where are you getting this money?”

Neela smiled and stalked over to Clarissa. She flicked her nose. “Why don't you use that tiny werewolf brain and figure it out?”

“What do you want with our pack?” I asked, sensing our time to get answers running out.

Neela stalked over to me. She rubbed her finger in my drying blood, thankfully the saliva of the vamp holding me had stopped the bleeding. She licked the blood and sighed in pleasure. “I tire of drinking the blood of over-sexed, drunken werewolves. My people need a new source, one fed by clear mountain water.”

“You'll have to kill me first,” Axel roared, clearly not thinking straight.

Neela's smile widened. “Oh, I will, but I want to enjoy you first.” She placed a hand over Axel's crotch and rubbed. He growled and snapped at her, and a matching growl rumbled up from my chest. If I wasn't so pissed, I might have taken a moment to enjoy being able to make that wolfy sound in human form.

Neela stepped back and smiled at both of us. “This is going to be so much fun.”

I struggled to break the grip of the vamp holding me, but he was strong, way too strong. It didn't make sense. I'd been able to fight Jeremiah and he was the king, shouldn't he have been the strongest vamp in his crew? There was something else going on here, and if I didn't figure it out soon, I'd be dead.

Neela slunk over to Clarissa and locked eyes with her. “You will walk down the street with us and you will smile like you are happy to be with us. You won't make a move to get away or to draw attention.”

Clarissa fought, trying not to give in, I could see it in her stony expression, but by the end of Neela's sentence, her expression had gone slack and she was smiling. “I'm happy to be with you.”

The vampire holding her released her and she stepped toward Neela, still smiling. “I'm happy to be with you.”

Neela patted her head like she was a child and moved on to Axel. This was not good. “Don't look in her eyes,” I said to Axel, even though he probably knew more about vamps than I did.

He struggled against the three vamps holding him, but he couldn't break free. He closed his eyes, blocking out the sight of Neela. She leaned in close and pressed a kiss to his lips. When she moved back I could see blood on them. “You are delicious. I think I will keep you for my personal pet.”

“Fuck you,” Axel said, but the words lacked confidence. My heart sank. If Axel was out of confidence, we were all screwed.

Neela laughed. “Oh, you will, wolf. You might not enjoy it at first, but you'll learn.” She gripped his chin in her hands. “Now, open your eyes like a good pet or I'll have Gregory rip the eyelids off that pretty girlfriend of yours.”

Axel opened his eyes and Neela gave him the same orders she'd given Clarissa. He fought it, but eventually he succumbed, just as Clarissa had.

I was next and I knew there was no way I'd be able to fight her stare. It went against every instinct I had, but I only had one shot of getting out of this. Before Neela turned to me, I let my face go slack, let all the fight go out of me. I stared blankly ahead, clearing my mind. I pushed away anger and determination. I remembered the way I'd felt when my father had restrained me, how helpless I'd been to protect myself or my mother. I remembered the fear and the desperate desire to do anything to please him if it meant the abuse would stop. I let myself sink into that place I'd promised myself I'd never re-visit. When Neela walked over to me, I smiled at her, faking a happy expression I didn't feel. It probably looked forced, but that was okay. I understood her, as I'd understood my father. She didn't want me happy, she wanted me submissive, docile, afraid, and in her thrall. “I'm happy to be here,” I said, the words shaky, but audible.

Neela, apparently having no lack of confidence, bounced and clapped. “Oh, you are a gem. So easily enthralled I don't even have to look directly into your eyes. Tell me, how did Jeremiah fail to overpower you?”

I kept the same dopey smile on my face and spoke in a robotic tone, “I didn't give him the chance. He thought I was weak. I shifted and ripped his throat out before he could speak.”

It was only half true, but Neela accepted it. “I told him to drink before he came over here, but he always did overestimate his own power.” For a moment, she looked truly sad, looked almost human. The moment passed as quickly as it had come and her expression hardened. It didn't matter. I'd gotten one more piece of the puzzle. There was something the vamps drank that made them stronger. Was it wolf blood? Or something else? If it was wolf's blood, wouldn't Axel have known about it?

“Let's go,” Neela said. “Everyone smile and chat like we're just out for a friendly walk.”

Neela headed for the front door, confident we'd follow. Clarissa fell into line behind her, her vamp captor close by her side. Axel followed her with his three vamp captors, all of them chatting and laughing. They were probably quite pleased with themselves. I was last and, for a moment, I was alone in the foyer with my vamp captor. I was alone, but Alpha wasn't too far behind us, and his two girlfriends were with him. It was way more than I wanted to take on alone. I waited until I was on the porch and my vamp had closed the front door behind us. I spun, using every bit of speed and skill I had, and kicked the vamp in the thigh. He grunted and listed to one side, surprise written on every feature of his face. I took advantage and jabbed him hard in the throat with the side of my hand.

He roared and leapt at me, but I dodged to the side and he flew over me and stumbled on the stairs. I spun and shoved, knocking him forward and into the three goons who'd grabbed Axel. My vamp only hit one of them and was back on his feet in an instant. I now had two vamps approaching, both bigger and stronger than me. It wasn't the first time I'd fought someone bigger and stronger, but it was the first time I'd fought two people at once. The first time I'd fought two people who wanted to drink my blood.

I sprinted for the side of the porch and leapt over the rail. I hit the grass with a thud and saw Neela approaching me with an inhuman speed. I wouldn't be put under a thrall, I wouldn't submit to her. I'd die first. I'd bleed out on that green grass before I let her touch me.

My wolf roared in agreement and, quicker than I'd done it, yet, I shifted. It was like pulling a shirt over my head, it happened so quickly. I shifted and I lunged at Neela, knowing that if I gave her a moment, even one second, she'd gain control of me. I leapt and I wrapped my mouth around her neck. I didn't think, I didn't acknowledge the cold blood running down my throat, didn't think about the way her flesh felt as it tore under my jaws. I bit and I twisted until I felt her head pull free from her body, and then I dropped her. I wanted to shift back to human, wanted to get the taste of her blood out of my mouth, but I couldn't. I had to help Axel and Clarissa.

I raced back to the front porch, only to find Axel and Clarissa already fighting. Axel was battling the three vamps who'd held him and Clarissa was fighting the other two. They were giving it everything they had, but they were losing. It would only be a matter of moments before the vamps had them restrained again or reinforcements showed up. I ran for the closest guy, the third guy fighting Axel, and leapt on him. I bit down hard on the back of his neck and he went still beneath me. I didn't want to kill anyone else, even though my wolf was howling for us to finish him. I jumped off his bloody back and went after the next guy.

As I ran, I saw Clarissa shift. Once she was wolf, she'd be fine, but Axel wasn't shifting. One guy was holding him while the other guy pummeled him, but Axel just took it, not even trying to shift, struggling against them like a human would. I leapt on the guy pummeling Axel, but he must have heard me coming, because he spun and hit me with the punch he'd been aiming at Axel. It hit me hard, right in the chest and I flew backwards through the air, hitting so hard I had the wind doubly knocked from my chest. Axel screamed my name, but I couldn't catch my breath. I gasped and clawed at the air and, finally, cool oxygen bathed my lungs. My next breath hurt like fuck, so I figured I had at least one broken rib.

I rolled to my feet to see that Axel had shifted and was on top of one of the vamps, clawing at his chest like he wanted to rip his heart out, even though the vamp's head lolled by his own feet. The other vamps were all down and Clarissa was nosing at Axel and whining, trying to get him to stop. I ran full speed at Axel, which was more like a limping fraction of my normal speed at that point and rammed him with my head.

I didn't move him very far, but he stopped clawing at the vamp's shredded chest. I met his eyes and hollered with my mind. “We've got to go.”

He winced and nodded. He looked back at the pack house and then both ways down the street, considering his options.

He looked across the street and stilled. I followed his gaze. There was a crowd of people, all staring at us with wide-open mouths, at least three of them with cell phones pointed our way and one, clearly a pap, with a high-tech camera. Axel growled and started toward them, but I stopped him by nipping his ear. If I knew paps, the pictures or video she'd taken had already been uploaded to some site that would pay her really, really well. We needed to get out of there and we needed a plan.

Axel shifted back to human, apparently deciding it was too late to make anyone think we weren't werewolves. He marched down the street toward his truck. I shifted and followed and so did Clarissa. We all piled into the truck and Axel turned the key, which was still in the ignition.

“We can't go back to the pack,” Clarissa said as Axel pulled out onto the street and away from the pack house.

“We can't escape the council's punishment,” he said. “If I go willingly, they'll likely only punish me. I was responsible for you both.”

“When you say punish,” I asked. “Do you mean kill?”

Axel sighed and ran a hand over his bloody cheek. “It doesn't matter. I fucked up and I'll pay for it.”

“That's bullshit,” Clarissa said. “Darius had some sort of deal going on with the vamps behind our backs and we were defending ourselves.”

“Doesn't matter,” Axel said, his tone utterly defeated. “I messed up, revealed werewolves to humans, and I'll pay. The council will have to make an example of me to prevent others from doing worse.”

I absolutely hated the despair in Axel's voice, but worse was the shame. He sounded ashamed of himself. He probably thought he'd let down his pack and wolves everywhere. He took on so much responsibility for things he couldn't control.

“That's not fair,” I said. “This is as much my fault as it is yours. If I'd never shown up at your pack, none of this would have happened.”

Axel reached across the bench seat, grabbed my arm and pulled until I was against his naked side. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and squeezed. Normally, it would have been sexy, comforting at the very least, but he was covered in blood and smelled like vampires. It made me gag, but Axel held on tight and the feeling passed. He wasn't any grosser than me. “I'm sorry, Julie,” he said. “It's the law. We don't follow the law, we might as well move back to the woods and live full-time as wolves.”

I rolled my eyes. Had he always been this dramatic? “We need time,” I said. “We need to figure out what Darius's up to and figure out a way to get you out of this.”

He squeezed me tighter. “There is no getting out of this. There's nowhere I can go that the council won't find me.”

“I might know a place,” Clarissa said. “Turn right at the next light.”

Axel looked over his shoulder at his pack mate. “You agree with Julie?”

“Yep,” she said. “I'm too young and beautiful to die, and I don't want to lose the best alpha our pack has had in three generations.”

Axel turned his gaze back to the road. “There's no escaping the punishment of the council,” he said. But he turned right at the next light.

 

***

 

“This is it?” Axel asked. He sounded tired and defeated, and I hated it.

I gazed out the front window of the truck at what could only be described as a shack and tried to look on the bright side. “I doubt the council will think to look here.”

“It's better inside,” Clarissa said. “There's a shower out back, and I bet we can find some clothes inside.”

“What is this place?”

“Rowan's aunt's last boyfriend uses it as a hunting cabin in the fall. It's really not as bad as it looks.”

I wiggled out from under Axel's arm. “I for one want to hit that shower before I do anything else.”

Clarissa hopped out and led the way around to the back of the shack. There was a wooden table built from pallets and stained by years of cleaning hunted or fished animals, I would guess. I didn't see a shower. Clarissa pulled a garden hose from a box next to the house.

“That's the shower?”

“Would you rather stay covered in vamp blood?”

I sighed and spread my arms. “Hit me.”

The water was even colder than I'd expected. It was so cold, my skin was bright red and my whole body was shuddering with shivers hard enough to rattle my teeth by the time I was finally clean. “Here,” Axel threw a ratty old towel at me. I dried myself off as best I could while Clarissa hosed him off.

I have to admit, I enjoyed the show. He always looked good enough to eat, even dancing around and cursing about the cold. He smiled at me, even as he shivered and the kindness in his gaze warmed me. I'd do whatever it took to protect him. Whatever it took, even if it meant I had to walk away from him again.

Clean, he grabbed a towel from a pile he'd placed on the hose box and gestured for Clarissa to give him the hose. She took her place on the cracked, cement patio and took her hosing down silently, just shivering and turning when Axel instructed.

Once we were all clean and, mostly, dry, we headed inside. I still smelled like vamp and I wished for shampoo and soap, but I pushed the wish aside. We had far bigger problems to deal with.

The shack wasn’t too bad inside. There was a dusty space heater and a bare cot. Other than the normal accumulation of dust to be expected when a place stood empty for a while, it was surprisingly clean. It was dry and there was even a pantry with pots and pans and a camp stove. There was no food, but there was a suitcase that held hunting clothing. It all reeked of mothballs, but it was clean.

The clothes were a bit small on Axel, but huge on me and Clarissa. We might have looked like we were part of some cult militia group, but at least we weren't naked and, if we had to run into the woods, we'd be well camouflaged. There must have been just the one guy who used the cabin, because there were only about two outfits worth of camo. Axel took the outerwear pants and gave me the matching jacket. Clarissa took the camo coveralls and camo hoody. The jacket was long enough to cover my bare butt, but I wouldn't have minded if the guy had thrown a pair of sweatpants in there, too.

“Okay,” Axel said. “We're safe. For now. What did you want to decide?”

I gave him a little shove, until he was seated on the floor and then I climbed onto his lap. He wrapped his arms around me and pressed a kiss to my hair. If there was a chance in hell that I might lose him, soon, I wasn't going to waste our time together with me on the other side of the room from him. “I think you like me,” he whispered.

“Nope,” I said, at full volume. “I'm just still chilly from that hose bath.”

He chuckled and hugged me tighter.

Clarissa smiled fondly at us. She sat on the cot and pulled her legs up under her. The coveralls didn't look remotely comfortable, but she didn't complain. “Okay, so we know that Darius has got some deal going with the vamps. He wants them to have our territory and our pack, so getting Axel out of the picture would only benefit him. What do the vamps have that he wants?”

“And what makes the vamps so strong?” I asked. “I didn't have much trouble besting Jeremiah, but the vamp holding me was like a steel robot.”

“I don't have any answers,” Axel said. “And even if I did, what would that solve? Knowing why Darius wants the pack isn't going to save me or the pack.”

“Knowing what Darius is up to might give us some leverage,” I said. “Something to use against him in exchange for him letting you live.”

“That kind of leverage doesn't exist,” Axel said. “What just happened is too huge. The council will have to act.”

“Do you have your cell phone?”

He sighed. “It's in the truck.”

Clarissa popped up. “I'll get it.”

She was out the door without even asking what I needed it for. She was good people.

Axel nuzzled my neck and pressed a soft kiss to the spot where Neela had bitten me. “Does it hurt?”

“Not really,” I said. “That vampire saliva is good stuff.”

“Julie, I love that you're trying to help me, but you have to know this is futile. Our way of life depends on secrecy and I've destroyed that. I need you to know—”

I spun in his lap and slapped a hand over his mouth. “That's enough.” If he said what I thought he was going to say, my heart would crack into a million pieces. I needed to hold it together and I needed to save him. Somehow, he'd become the most important person in my life and I'd be damned if I was going to let him go without a fight. “That's bullshit. You said yourself it was only a matter of time before the secret came out and—”

“It came out in the worst possible way. We were filmed ripping the heads off what will look to the world like innocent humans.”

Okay, well, when he put it that way…“But they weren't innocent humans. They were vampires who are ten times more dangerous to humans. We probably saved some human lives by ridding the world of them.” I really had no idea if any of that was true, but I was going with it. “Quit talking like you've already given up and fight. Fight because you want to get back to your pack and make sure they keep their territory and don't get overrun with vamps. You know Darius is going to give your pack to the vamps if you aren't there to defend it.” Something lit in his eyes, a spark of indignation, a bit of panic. “And fight for me. You can't fuck me if you're dead and—”

He pressed his lips to mine and pulled me tight against him. Suddenly, I was ravenous for him and I wrapped my legs around his waist and pressed myself tight against him, my bare hands running over his shoulders and into his thick hair. The door creaked open and then immediately slammed shut. Clarissa was giving us some time and I was going to take it. I was going to take every moment I could get.

Axel pulled away from me, he ran his thumbs over my cheeks and studied my face. “I need you to know, Julie, that this is more to me than sex. I'm crazy about you. No matter what I'm doing or where I am, you are my first thought. You've overtaken my mind and my life. I can't get your scent off my clothes or out of my sheets. I will never regret you coming into my life. I l—”

I gripped his face and slammed my lips against his. That sounded way too much like goodbye and I wasn't going to let him say goodbye. I broke the kiss to reach between us and unbutton his pants. “Nobody wants to hear your pretty words,” I said. “I just want you to shut up and fuck me.”

He grinned and lifted up to slide the pants out of the way. “Tell me how much you hate me.”

“With the fire of a thousand burning hells,” I said, rising and sliding back down onto him. I gasped as he filled me. He felt so fucking good, every fucking time.

He groaned and grabbed my face. “Look me in the eyes and tell me how much you hate me.”

I looked into his eyes, his gorgeous eyes. The eyes that made it hard to breathe and made me want to get naked simultaneously. “I hate you with every fiber of my being,” I said, but the words came out breathy and the very last thing I felt for the man beneath me was hate.

He smiled like I'd told him I loved him. He pulled me to him and kissed me like it was the most important thing he'd ever do. He thrust up and I was lost to sensation, the press of his lips against mine, him moving inside me. This. This was worth fighting for.

 

***

 

“You can come back inside,” Axel hollered. I was still in his arms, but we were both decent. The cabin smelled like sex, but it's not like Clarissa didn't know what we'd been doing in there.

She opened the door and peeked in like she wasn't convinced it was safe. When she saw me on Axel's lap, both of us dressed, she walked all the way inside. “I've really got to stop walking in on you two getting it on.”

“We'd appreciate that, too.”

Clarissa handed me Axel's phone and I handed it to him. “Call Darius and let me talk to him.”

He shook his head. “That's a terrible plan. You really think he's going to tell you anything?”

He had a point. I slumped against him. “You're just going to give up? You're going to let Darius kill you?”

Axel grinned. “I have a better idea.”

He tapped away at his phone and put it up to his ear. “Alpha,” he said.

He listened for a long while. I could hear Alpha chattering away about something, but I couldn't make out the words.

“Yeah,” Axel said. “I'm real sorry about the mess and…Yeah, about killing Neela. I know you two had a sweet set-up.”

There was more chattering and something crashed.

Axel grinned. “You really think I had no idea exactly what was going on, man? I'm not a complete idiot.”

Alpha said something about the council and Axel winced.

“I did take the council's side, but that was in the past. I've been on to Darius for a while now and I'm telling you, man, he's going to find some way to pin this mess on you, too. With you out of the picture, he'll have direct access…”

Alpha was yelling at this point, and I could hear every word. “I've been out of the picture for a while now, asshole. Darius's been dealing directly with the vamps, giving them wolves who are causing him trouble, but lately…He's been handing over prime wolves, man, wolves who haven't done a damn thing to be enslaved by vamps.”

“Didn't seem like you had a problem with vamps,” Axel said. “They sure were crawling all over your pack house.”

“Dude,” Alpha screeched. “I do what I have to do. Trust me, you do not want to get on the bad side of the vamps, because that gets you on the bad side of the council.”

Axel snorted. “I call bullshit. The vamps might have something Darius wants, but he'd never side with them that far.”

Alpha laughed. “Man, you had me going there for a minute. You have no fucking clue what's really going on, do you? If you did, you'd know Darius and Neela were so far up each other's asses, that Neela knew as soon as Darius did that Julie Jacobs had been changed. Neela wanted her, but Darius was worried about the paps on her tail and her fame. It's better to take wolves no one's going to miss when they disappear.”

“But the vamps are just feeding on the wolves, right?” Axel asked. “It's not like they're killing them.”

Alpha laughed. “They're as good as dead, man. They're just shells feeding the vamps to make them stronger than us. Why do you think I drink so much? I'd never be a candidate for their little project.”

“Come on, Alpha. The council would never want vamps to be more powerful than us.”

Alpha snorted. “They think they can handle 'em, man.”

“Why is the wolf blood making the vamps so strong? It's never had that effect before.”

Alpha was silent for a while. “I don't know, but maybe wolf blood has always made them stronger and they just didn't let on.”

“What are the vamps giving the council?” Axel asked.

“What else, man?” Alpha said. “Money. The vamps have been around so long, they got more of it than they know what to do with and you know how the council likes to live. Darius will tell you they need the money to protect the rest of us, to pay off the right people and keep the secret, but they don't give a shit about the rest of us. They're just fucking greedy as hell.”

“Huh,” Axel said. “You sure there's not more to it than that?”

“I'd sure as fuck sleep better at night if there was,” Alpha said. “Hey, no hard feelings, man, but if Darius asks me if I talked to you, I'm going to tell him where and when. You might want to get rid of your phone.”

“Yeah,” Axel said, his gaze going distant. “Thanks.”

“Shit,” Clarissa said, as soon as he hung up. “I didn't think about the GPS tracker in your phone.”

“It doesn't matter,” Axel said. “They'd have found us eventually, anyway.”

He curled his hand into a fist and the phone shattered. “We could run,” I said. “We could go to ground and disappear.”

Axel's expression was so sad my heart stuttered. I knew he didn't want to run, but it was the best shot we had at survival. Axel couldn't help his pack if he was dead and it was clear the council only saw him as an obstacle to their goals. “Yeah,” he said. “I've got a couple hundred dollars in cash. It'd be enough to get us out of here, but it won't get us a place or a—”

“I know someone,” Clarissa said. “At least, I know someone who might know someone.”

Axel rolled his eyes. “I'm not trusting anything that old coot has to say.”

“That old coot knows things,” Clarissa said. “He's our best bet.”

She stood and headed outside to the truck. I pushed off Axel's lap and got to my feet. “Who are we going to see?”

“There's no good way to describe him.”

We had a silent ride back down the hill. Clarissa was texting the whole time and, when we reached the main road, a four-door sedan with tinted windows was waiting for us, pulled over in the dirt. “That's our ride,” Clarissa said. “Get what you need from the truck.”

Axel sighed, but pulled a couple granola bars from the glove box, along with his wallet.

Rowen was bouncing next to the car when Axel and I walked over to it. “You're finally getting your wish,” Axel grumbled.

“I've always wanted to drive his truck,” she said to me, her grin wide enough to split her face. I didn't see what was so special about his truck, it looked like a ginormous penis extension to me, but I didn't know much of anything about cars.

They traded keys and Axel opened the driver's door to the car. I opened the passenger door and looked back to see Clarissa still in the truck, though she was now in the passenger seat. “What are you doing?” Axel roared.

Clarissa rolled down her window. “A life on the run isn't my idea of a good time.”

“The council could very well punish you in my stead.”

She shrugged. “I've got two uncles on that council, and I can blame the whole mess on my alpha. I'll be fine.”

Before Axel could argue any more, Rowan had pulled out onto the road and driven away. Axel growled and punched the roof of the car. “I don't like this.”

Axel punched the car one more time and then climbed in behind the wheel. He started the car and whipped out onto the road before I'd gotten my seatbelt buckled. “Look in the back,” he said. “I bet she brought clothes for us.”

I didn't look in the back, I watched Axel. “We aren't really running, are we?”

“Until we come up with a better plan, that's exactly what we're doing. We're just running far enough that we get a reprieve from the council's punishment, a chance to figure out how to help the pack.”

“And if you decide the best way for you to help the pack is to submit to the council's decision?”

He didn't take his eyes off the road, but his hands tightened on the wheel. “Then that's what I'll do. My first, my only, responsibility is to the pack.”

“They wouldn't want you to die for them.”

“If it's the only way to save the pack, they sure as hell would.”

I couldn't argue with him, no matter how much I wished we could we just run and never look back. I didn't want to lose him, but his dedication to the pack, his love of the pack, was a huge part of what made him the man I was obsessed with. And the truth was, I didn't want to see the pack hurt either, I didn't know all of them, I didn't even know some of them very well, but I felt connected to them all.

I looked in the back and saw my duffel. I yanked it to my lap and changed as he drove. I tossed him a shirt and he pulled it on at the next red light. He drove back to downtown, the downtown of Aspens Whiten, not Mule Creek. He parked in the lot of an assisted living home. “Let me do the talking in there.”

I gave him a look. A look that very clearly said I thought he was being an asshole and he was an idiot if he thought I was just going to sit there and look pretty.

He sighed. “I'm not trying to be a dick, just…” He shook his head. “You'll understand when we get in there.”

 

***

 

The assisted living facility was dreary on the inside, institutional and smelly, with elderly people wandering around, looking like extras from a zombie apocalypse set. One or two smiled and waved at us, but most of them looked sad or vacant. I shivered, hoping that when I reached that age I didn't have to live in such a glum place. Axel's expression was set in a hard frown and he muttered something about humans not taking care of their elders.

I followed him down a long hall to a small room with a bed, a chair, and a television. The room was as dreary and institutional as the rest of the building, but the man seated in the chair, attention on the television, was like a rainbow on a desert plain. He had on a purple ball cap, a neon green t-shirt, and striped pants in a clashing mix of orange and red. “It's birdwatching you fucking idiot,” he shouted at the television. He was watching Wheel-of-fortune at full volume. Axel grabbed something from a shelf by the door. He walked over to the old man and stuck the things in his ears.

The elderly man swatted at his hands. “I don't need those fucking things. Stop touching me you—”

Axel knelt in front of the man so he could see his face and the man immediately stopped yelling. “You are in some serious shit, Axel.”

Axel nodded, seemingly unsurprised that this man already knew about the trouble we'd gotten into. He reached up and slid the hearing aids into the man's ears. The man helped, his expression fond, almost tender. “You here to say goodbye before the council cuts off your nuts and burns you alive?”

I gasped and slapped a hand over my mouth. When Axel said he'd be executed, I'd pictured death by firing squad, not torture. The old man looked my way, clearly able to hear now that he had his hearing aids in. “Who are you?” He growled, the sound so primal it would be clear he was a werewolf, if I hadn't already smelled him. “Who sent you? You leave before I-”

“She's with me,” Axel said.

“With you?” the old man asked, never taking his eyes off me. “I've seen her on the television. She's one of them fighters. You can't trust a fighter, Axel. She's working for them. She's probably called them in already.” He rose to his feet, a gun suddenly in his hand.

I backed out of the room and got ready to run, but Axel had already plucked the gun from the old man's grasp. “Max, this is Julie Jacobs. Julie, this is Maxwell Thompson.”

“Give me back that gun,” Max roared. “It's for your own damn good.”

“How did you even get this in here, Max?”

Max shrugged. “I know people. Want me to call them? They'd take care of this Julie for us, make it look like an accident.”

I was beginning to understand why Axel hadn't wanted me to speak around Max. I was less certain why we were there in the first place. He seemed more than a little crazy.

“Julie is mine, Max. I trust her with my life.”

I went from being angry that Axel referred to me as a belonging, to touched that he trusted me so thoroughly. Of course, he was probably saying both of those things to keep Max from killing me.

Max looked me over. “If you trust her, I trust her, but don't blame me if she stabs you in the back.”

“I swear I won't.” Axel seemed way too serious for what should have been a light-hearted promise. “Can you tell us what you've heard? We have reason to believe the council's in league with the vampires.”

Max waved a hand. “The council's been trying to negotiate with them for ages, since they actually own businesses and properties that make money, unlike the wolves who would rather kill themselves trying to come up with the craziest stunt known to man.”

Axel smirked. “Says the man who invented roof sledding and zip line trapeze.”

Max waved his hand in dismissal. “Sensible occupations compared to what you kids get up to today.”

“So, you've heard the council has promised the vampires my territory and my pack in exchange for a share in their businesses?”

“Heard that,” Max said. “Didn't figure you'd let it happen, but then you had to walk right into their hands by killing vamps in broad daylight on Main Street.” Max shot a glare in my direction as though the whole mess was my fault. Since he wasn't wrong, I accepted his glare with a nod. He grinned like I'd just told him he'd won a million dollars.

“Is the entire council involved in this deal with the vamps or just Darius?”

“Darius and Mary,” Max said. “They're going to use this coup to try and convince the others they should be leading the council.”

“Any chance I can use this information against them and save my own ass?”

Max's eyes widened. “You get hit in the head too hard, boy? The council would welcome news of a negotiation with the vamps and they'd jump for joy at the chance to sacrifice you as the scapegoat.”

Axel nodded unsurprised. “What about my pack? What can I do for them?”

Max's expression sobered. “This is the problem, my boy, with being in the shadows. The council is the highest authority. If they want your pack, they will take your pack. There is nothing you can do.”

“I won't accept that,” Axel said. “There has to be something. I won't just step aside and allow my pack to become vamp food.”

Max rubbed his chin. “What you'll want is dirt on the council members. Blackmail is the only threat that will work.”

Axel's shoulders lost some of their tension. “You got anything for me?”

Max frowned. “Not unless you want to out them as wolves. Other than being greedy, sanctimonious pricks, they keep their personal lives clean and their businesses cleaner. They'd never risk inviting more attention.”

“Right,” Axel said. Again, he didn't look surprised, or worried. It was like he knew everything Max was going to tell us before we'd arrived. “We need a place, Max. Somewhere they'd never think to look, somewhere we can hide until they forget about us.”

Max nodded, his eyes sad. He gave Axel an address, which Axel put into his phone.

Axel started to stand, but Max stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “They'll do whatever they have to do to find you, kid. They'll question the pack members for information and they won't be gentle about it. If you're gone too long, the pack will start to go rogue and the council will use that as an excuse to start killing them, to try to lure you back in by hurting your pack.”

Axel's frown deepened and his eyebrows ticked up only a millimeter, but it was enough for me to know that this information surprised him. My heart sank because I knew he'd never let the pack suffer if he could prevent it and I'd never do anything to keep him from the pack if they needed him. “You've seen this before.”

Max nodded. “I have. It's a messy business.”

Axel thanked and hugged Max, stood, and led me back out the building.

“Why does he live there?” I asked, once Axel had started the truck and gotten us back on the road. “And how does he know so much about the council?”

“His wife was human,” Axel said. “She never lived with the pack and, when she couldn't take care of herself any longer, her family moved her in there. Max tried to convince her to join the pack, to live with him there, but she refused. She wanted to be near her family, to be somewhere they could visit her. Max moved in with her. After she died…He said he'd gotten accustomed to life there and didn't want to leave, but most of his friends in the pack had moved on or passed by that point and I think he felt he wouldn't be welcomed in Mule Creek.”

I couldn't imagine anyone staying there voluntarily, but I'd never been married, never watched my spouse die, never been left all alone. “And the council?”

Axel grinned. “Max has a twin brother, Mort, and the two of them served on the council for more than two decades. Max was asked to resign after some stupid stunt or prank, I can't even remember, but Mort is still there. He tells Max everything.”

“He hasn't figured out that Max will just tell you and your pack?”

Axel shrugged. “That's the problem with ego, you can't see past your own toes.”

“You weren't surprised when he said the council would be glad to see you gone, what's that about?”

Axel's grip on the steering wheel tightened. “When Darius placed me in the Mule Creek pack, the council thought I'd be their puppet, that I'd do whatever they asked.” He shrugged. “I wasn't too keen on giving the council more of our money or punishing pack members with the violence the council felt was necessary to keep a tight rein on the wolves. If our territory wasn't so remote, they probably would have pushed me out a long time ago.”

I took that in for a moment. I would have figured the council would love a pacifist alpha, someone unlikely to draw attention to werewolves, but I was beginning to see that the council was more complicated than that. “So, what's the plan? We aren't just going to hide, are we?”

He kept his eyes on the road, but his eyebrow twitched and his knuckles whitened. “Until we come up with a better plan, that's exactly what we're doing. We'll rescue the pack once the council is focused on something else.”

“Okay.” It sounded like a rational plan, a logical plan, but I wasn't buying it. Something huge would have to happen for the council to forget about Axel and I knew he'd go back at the first news of trouble with the pack. I didn't push him, though, because I was afraid of what he might say. If he decided to sacrifice himself, I couldn't stop him. And, as noble as that choice would be, I was almost certain I'd never be able to forgive him for choosing the pack over me. A selfish, bad feeling, but one I couldn't deny feeling.

“This is going to be a long drive,” Axel said. “You want to nap for the first shift?”

“Sure. Wake me when we stop for food.”

He didn't answer, just stared at the road, his expression bleak. I was sure it had to be hard to walk away from his pack, to leave them to an unknown fate. I was worried about them and I hadn't even known them that long. I told myself they'd be fine. They were tough and we'd figure out a way to help them. I grabbed a sweatshirt from the back seat, balled it up under my head and got as comfortable as I could flying down the road, bouncing over the occasional pothole. I drifted off thinking of the pack and those horrible vamps. Thinking of cold blood sliding down my throat and the dead bodies at my feet.

When I woke, the sky was dark and we were parked outside a nondescript diner that could have been the eatery in Mule Creek, except it had a neon sign declaring it was Molly's Diner. I sighed, stretched, and followed Axel inside.

“How long was I asleep?” I asked after we'd been seated.

“Four hours,” he said. “We crossed the state line into Arizona about an hour ago.”

The waitress came over and we placed our order. I was pretty sure I could eat all the cheeseburgers, but I just ordered one, with an extra side of fries.

“How much farther do we have to go?” I asked.

“'Bout an hour.” He stared out the window, but it was dark out and his own face was reflected back at him. He had to be exhausted after the day we'd had.

“Want me to drive the last hour?”

He looked at me. “No thanks. I'll crash when we get there.”

The waitress delivered our food and I dug in. I was so hungry, I practically inhaled it. Axel did the same, both silent as we ate.

As soon as he was done, he threw money on the table and stood. “We should get moving.”

I stuffed in my last bite of burger and stood with him. I didn't see the harm of sitting there for a bit and letting our food digest, but I could see the worry and tension on his face and in every line of his body. He needed the security of the safe house. I followed him out of the diner and back to the truck.

“Listen,” he said once we were back on the road. “We're going to have lay low for a while. I know you want to let Shelly know you're okay, but you can't call her. You can't call anyone. It's going to have to be like we died to everyone we know until the smoke clears on this mess.”

I hated the idea of not talking to Shelly. I was sure she'd seen the pictures and the videos by now. She had to be terrified for me. “How long do you think it will be before I can talk to her?”

He reached across the bench seat and laced his fingers through mine. He rubbed the back of my hand with his thumb. “It might be a while, Julie. Someone will let us know when it's safe. You have to wait until we get the all clear, no matter what happens, okay?”

I gave his hand a small squeeze. “Of course. I understand the concept of lying low. It'll be fine.”

“Not every wolf needs a pack, but some wolves…You'll know if your wolf is getting antsy, moody, and wants to go out roaming all the time, you'll know she needs a pack. Once you're safe, you can look for a pack.”

“We,” I said.

He glanced over at me, eyebrows raised. “What?”

“We can look for a pack.”

He cleared his throat and kept his eyes on the road. “That's what I meant. We can look for a new pack.”

A cold feeling of dread sank in my chest. He was already planning not being with me. He was already trying to prepare me for what I'd need to do if the council found us, if he was taken from me. “How would we go about finding a new pack?”

He relaxed and spent the next forty-five minutes telling me how to locate other packs and what qualities to look for when choosing a pack. I listened and made all the right sounds, but inside my brain was furiously working, trying to find a way out of this horrible mess.