Hadley Werewolves, page 17
He kicked himself to focus. “So how much distance are we talking here? You were inside the house when I walked away. Right now, I’m about a football field’s length from the house. So any farther than that and I get a free ass-kicking, right?”
“Unfortunately.”
Up close, her eyes drew him in. They were a pretty yellow, not exactly hazel, but lighter than that. Most humans didn’t have eyes so light-colored. A film of sweat covered her brow and she wiped it away with a weak swipe. The September heat began to rise around them.
“Maybe we should go back inside where it’s cooler.”
“I’m fine. I’d rather hang out here for a second.”
Her voice quivered for a moment. The resolve she held onto so strongly faltered, and the woman before him sat on the dirty ground, not caring to rest instead on a nearby path.
Unsure of standing above her, he took a seat beside her. He took a rock and played with it. The smooth texture rolled between his fingers as he tossed it from hand to hand. The expanse of the house had a beautiful view of the Las Vegas valley. He took in the surrounding mountains and sighed.
“Did you come with Charly to fight the demons, too?” Her voice was soft this time, a hint of feminine along the razor edge.
“Yeah, I came to offer a hand. I’m a cop back home and I’m tired of people dying all around me.”
After some time, she finally tried to stand and he followed. The wolf within him stirred as he inhaled her minty scent.
“That pain was a doozy,” she said with a groan. “I don’t remember seeing you leave.”
“Sorry about that—”
“You didn’t know. How could you?”
“So what happens now?” he asked.
“We talked about the last raid I did on the compound to rescue the missing. We have three more holdouts. They’re either dead or still in hiding. I have to go back tonight to find them.”
“Who’s left?”
“The kind of witches who don’t pay attention when danger is near. The little witchlings.” The conviction in her voice rose.
He looked her over. “Are you in any shape to help anyone?”
“Before you made a hundred-yard dash down the lawn, I was improving by leaps and bounds.” A hint of a smile touched her lips.
He chuckled. Laughter was welcome right about now. “Do witches have fast healing like werewolves?”
“Not really.” She limped toward the house so he headed that way too. “We bleed and heal just like humans do. We can try to decrease the amount of bleeding through a few spells that take care of that kind of thing, but they only do so much against a gunshot wound or a stabbing.” She snorted. “Even a slit throat leads to a dead-end street. Especially when that slit throat is your own.” She walked faster.
He hadn’t witnessed firsthand what Charly could do before she became a werewolf, but based on what Trenton told him, her spells were pretty powerful.
Especially if they could enchant werewolves and enslave them.
As someone opened the door, she turned to make sure he was behind her. The light from outside flashed briefly along her neck, revealing a faint scar from her jaw toward the other side. Her words bounced around his head.
A slit throat leads to a dead-end street. Especially when that slit throat is your own.
Some men, like Kasim, were unforgettable, whether by their actions or their mere presence. The fact that Drew made Nevena remember her former lover angered her even more. Her new friend tagged along with her wherever she went. Whatever privacy she managed to cut from her time with the coven was severed. Which pretty much made it her fault.
She should’ve been more careful. More watchful of others. Hadn’t things turned out this way a long time ago with Kasim? Anger and regret washed over her, but she refused to hold onto the feeling.
Kasim was dead and nothing could change that.
Thinking about him wouldn’t serve her any good right now. Charly and her friends were shown to their rooms, so she had no place to go except her own quarters. Or what she could call her own place. Drew diligently followed her. They safely had at least one hundred and fifty feet at her guesstimation, but after what happened, she didn’t blame him for staying close.
The space was warm. The bedroom, like the mansion, belonged to the Sandoval family, but the room would make do for the time being. Drew found a seat on the opposite side of the room. That suited her just fine. He was close enough for them to maintain distance, but not far enough away to drive her to pain.
Back at the compound, the only space she had was a dorm room meant for the lowest ranking elder. When she’d first arrived to the crow coven when she was eighteen, her room had been even smaller. They considered her nothing then.
“I’m surprised Ophelia approved your transferring here,” Isabella had said during her first day. “Does she see something in you I don’t? All I see is a woman who is too broken to join our ranks. Your weaknesses are etched all over your body. From here” —she traced the line all on her wrist and finally reached the mark on Nevena’s neck—“to here.”
“What doesn’t kill us makes us strong enough to kill other things,” Nevena had said.
Isabella stared at her then, and when Nevena didn’t look away, the older woman broke the gaze off quickly. Since that point, Isabella always backed down. All bark and no bite. That was what most of the elders became while hiding away inside their compound. Not all covens were like this, but not all of them had a demon box to protect.
“Are you hungry?” Drew suddenly asked.
“Not really.” She usually forgot about hunger. The pain from stomach growls usually bled into her other pains so all she ever felt was a dull ache creeping along with her every step. Nevena kept fruit on her at times or some other snacks. During her brief excursions of the compound she’d stop at the convenience store for junk food.
She strolled to the side of the bed and fished out a box from underneath. It hadn’t taken her long to build up a new supply. Not much but a few things. She kicked the box across the wood floor toward him.
He took off the lid and grinned. “Your hidden stash, huh? Not too shabby.” He inhaled a few protein bars.
“It’s illegal for you guys to stay here,” he added between bites. Judgment dripped from his words. “You can’t just take over someone else’s house.”
“I know.”
“What about the family that lives here?” His voice was serious.
She didn’t like staying here either. “They’re alive and asleep. I would’ve been fine staying in a hotel room, instead of our fine digs here.”
Nevena sat on the bed, groaning when pain sliced through her shoulder from the hit earlier by the blood demon. That one would hurt for a while.
“You okay?”
She turned to see him crossing the room toward her and brought up her hand to stop him. “I’m good. I don’t need you to touch me again.”
“You look like you’re in pretty bad shape.” He didn’t bother to stop until he was by her side. “It’s kind of late for me to avoid touching you, isn’t it?”
He did have a point.
“I’m a medic. I promise to be brief.”
Yeah, right.
She stared him down as she had Isabella, holding onto his blue-eyed gaze. He’ll fold easily, she mused. At first glance, he didn’t have a hard edge, rather that small-town feel she’d seen in tourists who came around. As she honed her stare, she held back a laugh. The most he’d probably done was keep the Hadley kids from stealing candy. Maybe fired his gun once at a troublesome armadillo.
He didn’t blink.
She took a deep breath. He’d fold soon. She didn’t waver—until his eyes darkened as his eyebrows lowered. As she fell into his aquamarine eyes, something primal stirred there. Something that made her take in his facial features: his chin to his delicious lips and, finally, his fine cheekbones. The breath she held came out fast, and she looked away. A heat rose in her chest, a familiar sensation she’d pushed away a long time ago after Kasim died.
“Never get into a staring contest with a werewolf,” he said with a chuckle. The low timbre of his voice tickled her senses. He gently reached out for her shoulder, his touch tentative. “We always win.”
To keep herself from thinking about someone touching her after so long, the heat such a touch evoked, she spoke. “How did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“The staring thing.”
She sensed his smile, even though she didn’t look at his face. “In the pack, there’s always the dominance game. You assess others based on both outer and inner strength. Many werewolves like Trenton have both, but some, like me, have enough inner strength to outlast any man.” He continued to check her shoulder as he looked into her eyes briefly. “Or any woman.”
His grip became a bit more painful as he rotated the shoulder to check movement. “Ouch.”
“Your shoulder isn’t broken. That’s a good sign at least.”
She cocked her head. “I like your optimism. It’s disgustingly positive.”
“It’s a part of the job.” He pressed against her lower shoulder blade and she hissed. Now that was the sweet spot.
“Looks like the demon got you good here. Right below the scapula.” He pressed again, and she reached for a knife tucked under her pants’ cuff.
“Easy!” she snapped.
“I just wanted to do this.” He pulled up her arm and supported the shoulder with his arm. The pain lessened considerably.
“Oh,” she gasped.
His right eyebrow rose. “You can put that knife down now.”
“Don’t get cocky.”
“Too late, already happened.” He lowered her arm, and she stifled a painful groan. Couldn’t he hold up her arm for a bit longer?
“I’ll see if I can find something in the room to wrap around your shoulder to offer temporary support. That should give you relief for a while.”
“Magic usually holds me together.”
“So why not cast a spell to help yourself?”
She shrugged. “If I do that, I don’t know my weaknesses anymore. When you’re in battle, you should always know where you’re fragile.” She looked briefly at the palms of her hands, a reminder of the spells she would never forget.
“You got any minor abrasions that need to be cleaned?” He searched through a nearby dresser until he found something he liked. Armed with a black scarf he began wrapping her shoulder. The process was painful but didn’t take long.
“Probably. I don’t want to check.” I refuse to check for them with you in here.
He left her side for the adjoining bathroom, a luxury she never had. He returned with cotton swabs and some rubbing alcohol. “Are you sure? Prolonged exposure in your condition can lead to infection.”
The stern look on his face made her want to clock him.
Over her lifetime, only two wounds had become infected, and unfortunately, both of them had been on her back.
“This is the job I used to do every day, Nevena. I’m a professional.” He sounded so innocent, yet wasn’t this guy a werewolf?
She rubbed her forehead and abruptly stopped. It was a bad habit she needed to break. “Do it quickly. But if I catch you checking me out…”
She unbuttoned her top, turned away so her back would be exposed but her front not-so-much. Well, it wasn’t as if she had anything to brag about. The poor bra she had on wasn’t lacy or pretty. Merely something convenient to keep the twins from bouncing everywhere.
“If you catch me doing something underhanded, you have my permission to give me a stump. A peg leg sounds good,” he replied. Drew gently pulled back her garment.
“That plan of action sounds good—” She flinched when the alcohol touched an open scrape, but she didn’t make a sound. When he touched the next one, she didn’t move.
“Most of them don’t look so bad.” His breath fanned her skin, and she tried to ignore the cooling sensation. Shouldn’t she tell him to hurry up and finish? And he was a werewolf with fantastic vision. Was there a reason for him to be so close?
“Do you need to inject yourself with infusions for your hemophilia?” he asked.
She didn’t want to answer that one. Especially since she didn’t like to reveal her weakness to the other witches. When she was younger, she’d had to inject herself every couple of days to control the bleeding. She still needed the infusions, but it was a private affair she refused to share with him.
“You’re dangerous when you’re quiet,” he said. “Talk to me to distract yourself.”
“About what?” She tried not to sound annoyed.
“How about something good that happened to you?”
She laughed. He’d be done before she thought of something.
“Everybody has a story.” His fingertips across her skin began to feel too good.
“Why don’t you tell one then?” she managed.
“Oh, I got plenty. Not only are you getting medical care from the best EMT in Burlington County, but I happen to be the best chili cook in Hadley. Every year the fire department holds the annual chili contest. It’s kind of turned into a humans versus werewolves thing—”
“The humans know about you?” she bit out.
“Oh yeah, the town’s too small. There were too many half-naked guys running around during the full moon for folks not to notice something.”
His smooth, low-timbre voice went on, talking fondly of the carnival that took place around the cook-off. If she closed her eyes she could picture such a life. Tantalizing burgers fresh off the grill. Easy-listening music playing from a speaker system as townspeople gathered around a town park. A cool desert breeze on her face. A whole world different from her own life hiding away at the compound.
Drew continued. “Greta, the town busybody, thought she had the perfect recipe this year, but I happened to know the latest batch of chili pepper from the grocery store wasn’t as fresh. It didn’t smell as strong this year so I used my resources and—”
“So you cheated?” He touched a sore spot and she flinched.
He sighed. “The word cheat is rather harsh. I strategized and won.”
She laughed and he joined in. “You knew very well yours would taste better so that implies you cheated.”
Her laughter ended abruptly when he pressed near that spot again. It was like she was getting hit again and again with the chair. “What are you doing?”
“This is a pretty bad spot where the demon got you good,” he explained. “There’s major bruising here and a contusion that’s slowly bleeding. Not much, but I’d like to put a bit of pressure there.”
Damn it. “I’m ready.”
He pressed, and she bit in a cry from the bright spark of pain. “It won’t be long.”
Eventually, he withdrew, then added a bit of gauze, and strapped it down with tape. “This should keep everything clean.”
He traced his finger over a scar close to the nape of her neck, eliciting a shiver through her. “What happened to you—”
She jerked away and glared as he held up his hands. “I thought you were just checking my back?”
“Just concerned.”
“Thanks for the help,” she said stiffly.
He stood there while she continued to scowl. This time, whether he was a werewolf or not, she wouldn’t back down. A knock on the door shoved them out of the moment. Their gaze broke, and he backed away to answer the door. It was Charly.
“We’re heading out to check things at the compound.” She peered and then grinned as she spotted Nevena putting her shirt over her shoulder. Sweetly, she asked, “Or you can stay if you’re preoccupied?”
Not funny at all, bitch.
Nevena marched out, still buttoning her shirt. Embarrassment be damned. “I’m coming.”
Chapter 4
Only a few hours had passed since she’d been in the compound. At four o’clock in the afternoon, the sun was still bright, adding a measure of confidence to Nevena’s step. But that sun wouldn’t last long. Coming to the compound at night wasn’t the wisest choice. Too many shadows left her twitchy.
As the others got out of the van, she took in the compound from the ten-foot iron gate to the dark brown buildings within. The place was just the same as the day she walked in two years ago. She’d been just as determined then as she was now. Perhaps a bit more foolish. Maybe it was the sign with the words “HASTING CONVENT” etched into the wood that made her laugh. Little did the outside world know what a bunch of women did on this property. Convent, her ass.
The witches did receive visitors once in a while from the men who acted as their consorts to the state social workers who came to check on the younger girls on the property. But no matter what cover the crow coven used, this was the only group who offered shelter.
Whenever she walked through that gate, the memory of the events that brought her to the US coursed through her. Two years ago, the elders at her previous home in Cairo had assessed her after Kasim died. No one wanted someone in her condition, especially with the suspicions surrounding Kasim’s death, to be near them. When they read off her affliction’s details, the elders shuddered and whispered among themselves.
Bleeder.
Cursed.
Tainted witch.
She was labeled an outcast before she’d even set foot on the crow coven compound. And yet, Ophelia had accepted her.
“You coming, Nevena?”
She glanced up to see Charly approach the main gate to open it. The compound still had power so the security gate would give them access after she punched in a key code. With an audible click, the double doors widened enough for them to enter. Trenton took the lead with his gun unholstered.
“Let me take point.” Nevena moved ahead of the others. “You don’t know what to expect or where you’re going.”
“On the way, Charly told me about the blood demon,” he whispered. “She gave me an overview of the property.”
“I wonder if she left out the fun parts to protect you,” she said with a grin.
No else spoke as they entered the courtyard where the witches parked cars and delivery trucks. Usually someone could be spotted walking around—a sentry or two. Seeing absolute stillness played with the mind and allowed the shadows to elongate and collapse.
