A Guardians Passion (22 page)

Screams and threatening shouts meant little to the vampiress, who stood by and watched with a mocking attempt at pity.

Helena, her veil of strength slipping, approached the bars and gripped the thick columns. Her voice was low with fear. “W-where are you taking them?”

The vamp, perhaps emboldened by the terror radiating from the weres in Helena’s cell, approached the cage, oblivious to the danger. She leaned in close to Helena and smiled. “To get cleaned up, of course. I can’t present you curs all mangy and smelling of smoke and blood. Don’t worry though. Your turn will come. Even an old dog like you will be useful, Sohon.” Placing her hand through the bars, she shoved Helena backward, causing her to fall upon the ground.

Freya’s anger broke free as she rushed to the front of her cell. Wanting nothing more than for the arrogant bitch to attempt to get close to her, she sneered. “Motherfucking goddamn zombie-cousin bitch of a—”

Several hands gripped her shoulders, her arms, and her back. “Freya! Quiet. Please,” she heard Benna whimpering behind her.

The vampiress reared back and fanned herself with a hand. Narrowing her eyes at Freya, she replied, “Whew. You…you have a mouth on you! You’re going to be hard to place, I suspect. But I will find you a very nice owner, dog. You just wait.”

Freya jerked free of the blanket of hands covering her and blew out several calming breaths. “Good.”

“Good?”

Freya nodded, meeting the vampiress’s smug grin with one of her own. She had a few friends who she felt sure would want to meet the vamp. Freya herself was eager to add new names and faces to her personal Do Not Revive listing. “Yeah. I just hate waiting.”

Chapter Thirteen

Despite the rain softly falling, no one worried over umbrellas. They were too impatient to fret about the weather as they stood waiting for directions. Just off the shores of Melbourne Beach, Florida, a convoy of nearly twelve cars was lined up along the road outside the closed-off barrier.

Rayne didn’t care for all of the company. He knew how the others felt, that they were worried sick over their loved ones and ready to pounce upon anyone found guilty of causing their loss. However, they were near useless. He wasn’t about to tell any of them they didn’t have a right to be on standby, although he wanted to.

There were plenty of large, clawed footprints in the sand despite the wind doing its best to blow them away. While the indentations would be gone with the rising sun, the telltale scent of oranges was plentiful to the nostrils of wolves, but only because Fenris had found it.

Fenris was crouched down with his snout over the sand. He was deep in concentration. The transformation he had made this time looked more bearlike than wolf: his snout shortened, nostrils wider, paws flat and broad. His tail was a club waving back and forth, ready and eager to bash. Rayne stood at his side. He was just as focused, not on scents but on his alpha.

Wisely, the other wolves gave him him and Fenris a wide berth, but with Fenris changing so frequently and Rayne using so much energy, he wasn’t sure how much longer his leash would hold.

Fenris went rigid, lifting his muzzle from the sand as Elian Sohon dared to come within ten feet. Elian stopped beside Rayne and crossed his arms as if he had a criticism.

Rayne hoped that he didn’t when Fenris lifted his snout and bristled. “Easy, Fen. Calm,” Rayne coaxed his alpha, all the while sending waves of healing energy through thick fur, muscle, and bone.

“Can he find the next jump?”

“I…I can,” snarled Fenris before Rayne could even think to reply. His alpha’s voice was so hoarse, undoubtedly due to the strain of maintaining at least a little focus with mutated vocal cords.

Elian’s gasp was audible as he stared at Fenris. “I didn’t know…that Lunas could speak.”

“Fenris isn’t like any other Luna.”

“Ever think that it’s only because of you?”

Rayne blinked, stunned at Elian’s gall. He felt heat within his chest as he struggled not to react with outright offense. Slaughtering Elian where he stood would get them no closer to Freya, certainly not sooner. Aware of Fenris moving beneath his palm, Rayne detected the threat and was lax to curb it. He allowed his hand to slip from Fenris’s back while looking Elian in the eye.

He smiled as Fenris took two steps toward the Sohon male.

The sound of sand being crunched underneath boots interrupted what could have been unnecessary violence as Rayne turned and noted a tall, regal-looking were approaching. With ink-black hair, thick eyebrows, and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache, the man looked like cognac and murder all at once. The black wolf was huge, both in height and in girth, shaped like a barrel with logs for arms, but although he had the look of a brawler, he wore a sleek, tailored suit. The male was flanked by four obvious bodyguards as he walked. The male’s shimmering silver eyes went directly to the beast glaring at him. Rayne leaned down and embraced his alpha.

“Fenris. Rayne,” came the greeting from the true Sohon alpha, Vaegar Sohon.

He had probably jumped on his private jet at first word of the incident, flying in from Chicago like a god from on high, thought Rayne. Although the Sohon Pack might have been civilized entrepreneurs, exuding etiquette and order like cologne, there was no amount of tailoring or money that could hide the feral nature of Vaegar.

“Leave us for a moment, Elian.”

“But—”

Vaegar’s nostrils flared as he looked crossways at the significantly leaner and younger Sohon. “Go, cub. Round up the boys and put them back in their cars. Now,” he commanded.

Elian gave a dip of his chin and set off to do as told.

Vaegar met Rayne’s gaze with the command of an alpha. “You’re going to have to let him go, Rayne. Truly.”

Rayne had feared that Vaegar would take the direct approach. He had only met the Sohon twice. The first time they met, Rayne had been fifteen, already firmly entrenched with Fenris’s pack. Fenris’s secret had been tightly kept until Vaegar arrived. All had been fine until the Sohon alpha attempted to seduce Gaea alone in the hot tub, at which point Fenris, seeing his mother grappling with the big were, set all mysteries aside. Neither Fenris nor his mother appreciated Vaegar’s advances, and in Luna form, Fenris’s least concern was hiding the fact that he could rend Vaegar to pieces. It had taken Rayne nearly an hour to calm his alpha down then, even though Vaeger rebounded far more easily with the help of six pints.

Rayne’s second meeting with the brash alpha was at a prize fight, where Vaegar pummeled the champion mercilessly for scoffing at the Sohon clan. Rayne supposed the alpha liked to show his strength whenever possible, just not against Fenris.

With Vaegar looking stern before him, Rayne was not intimidated, but he did have a reason for pause. Vaegar was an extremely influential male but not the smartest.

“No.” Rayne stepped up, eyeing Fenris to make sure his alpha didn’t seem on the cusp of attacking. It had nothing to do with dominance, but Fenris was ready for any excuse. Rayne could see it in the slow, measured rise of his chest, smell it exuding from Fenris’s fur. “No. He’s unstable, especially now.”

“And? You can heal him, witch. You can bring him down.” Glaring at Rayne, the big wolf gave a sarcastic chuff. “What? You doubt yourself? You wish your female to come to harm? Your cub?”

“No! I don’t.” Surely the Sohon wasn’t so thick as to not know the danger. Then, it had been years, and Fenris had been a teen when Vaegar saw Fenris as a Luna for the first time. Vaegar apparently had no clue what Fenris could truly become. “Look, I don’t want a bloodbath. I don’t. If Fenris falls in too deep…”

Vaegar waited as Rayne shook his head. After a time, Vaegar shrugged. “Then you will get him back. It may be hard, but you can do it. You are a fighter too, I know.” Vaegar turned his attention to Rayne’s alpha and pleaded his case. “Fenris,” he said. “Once you give over to the true beast inside of you, this will go much faster. I believe the attack stems from an old feud. The vampires aspire to have werewolves beneath their claws as in the old days, brainwashing them to loyalty from birth. They have struck some bargain with the asprega. From what I know, there may be female asprega being used as bargaining chips. Their own females are very rare and would be extremely valuable to the males, who would possibly do something like this if they thought that they could benefit, attain those females.

“With the help of human science, a petri dish or two, the vamps have been able to take something very rare and produce a good deal.”

“You mean to tell me they’re making asprega? Wait a fucking moment,” Rayne interjected, a suspicion spurring him. “You knew about this?”

Vaegar nodded, chin held high all the while. “I did. What I didn’t know was what they intended them for.”

“No…safe…guards?” Fenris growled.

“Contrary to popular belief, we Sohons do
not
know everything.”

Rayne stepped up to Fenris’s side, deftly stroking the length of his alpha’s back to calm him. “You fucking should have. Everyone should have been on alert. Barriers put in place, runes set up!”

“You think vampires are our only concern,” Vaegar scoffed. “We have hundreds of threats to deal with, but fear is never one of them. We believed our compounds to be safe. The vampires have had asprega for a decade and have not confronted us. We believed the truce to be valid, the truce struck and adhered to since the eighteen hundreds.”

“Null and void. Null. Void.”

Rayne wound both of his arms around his alpha, noting the clipped, guttural speech. He melded his body to the massive build of iron covered by fur and placed his ear to searing heat. Fenris’s pulse had quickened, and Rayne swore he felt muscle expanding anew. “Fen?”

“He is the only way we will find the females. Take your hands from him. Give him free rein to let loose the beast, and we will have our females.”

Enough. Shut the fuck up, Rayne prayed. “No. You have to let Fen and me work. We’ve got this.”

“You’ve got what?”

Rayne recognized the voice and then the scent upon the wind. Without turning to confirm, he sighed at the sound of Gaea, Fenris’s mother. How she had gotten to them so fast was a mystery and relief all in one. Surely she must have received the call from Cole, or more likely Cole’s new alpha, but as far as Rayne knew, Gaea had no access to a jet.

As far as he knew.

Gaea fearlessly walked over to her son. She stopped at Fenris’s other side and caressed his face, gazed into the same cobalt-blue orbs as her own. “Fen.
Sonur minn
.”

Shoulders hunched, head bowed, Fenris labored over each breath. “Taken. Her. Freya.” He then threw his head back and let out a keening wail before setting his attention back on Vaegar as if he were the threat or as if his idea had been a good one. Rayne couldn’t really tell.

He got a feeling that Fenris liked Vaegar’s idea when he boldly reared up. “Free. Me,” Fenris suggested somewhat sadly, as if he knew the risk he flirted with and was willing.

Rayne struggled with the decision, looking to Gaea for any advice, any indication that he would be making the right choice. With Fenris already in the stasis of moderate control, allowing him to run rampant, to truly flirt with chaos, was more than just an experiment in Fenris’s skills; it would be a test of Rayne’s as well.

The wave of intense heat emanating from Fenris’s body, which had only begun to abate at Gaea’s presence, flared anew as Fenris roared, echoing like a jet engine in the night. Rayne gripped his alpha and closed his eyes. He concentrated on the heat and fought fiercely to send a counteracting chill deep to the fibers of his alpha’s core. He listened with his fingertips, maneuvering healing energy to the heartbeat thrumming so wildly.

“Fenris, hold,” Gaea pleaded, although it was doubtful that her son could hear her. Fenris was trembling with rage, paws already huge were doubling in size, and to Rayne’s dismay, two triangular sets of prongs were extending from Fenris’s shoulders. Rayne’s blood went cold as he realized what Fenris was trying to do.

Wings.

Gaea shook her head then. “Rayne, no. Stop him.”

He hated himself for having to pull his alpha back. Rayne despised having to choose between the woman he loved, the male, and their child. But the only way he could ensure the safety of all was to leash his alpha. He thought back to the first time Freya had been under threat. Fenris had transformed, had sought and rescued her…but the bond had been nowhere as strong as it currently was. His alpha was hurting, and the pain would take him from Rayne’s help completely if allowed to run rampant.

Panting as he used his strength to overcome the primal surge, Rayne closed his eyes and shut out the world surrounding him. Nothing mattered, only the harmony of magic that taxed every fiber of his being, asked for greater, for more.

Rayne was no fool. He knew that he was lucky to even be able to connect with Fenris, as most Lunas were immune to magic. What he needed to do was possible only because Fenris hadn’t completely given in. Had never. Rayne feared the day when Fenris ignored him. “Fen, don’t. Just a little longer. We will find her. Please.”

“Rayne—”

“Shut up,” Rayne snarled at Vaegar. “You don’t know what you’re asking for. I’ve got him!”

“Do you?” Vaegar asked, although standing several feet away. “This is no battle lust. This is his female and child. You want to get them back, correct?”

“Vaegar! Enough. Shut the hell up,” Gaea snapped.

“What in the fuck is going on here?”

Rayne’s concentration slipped as Fenris’s adrenaline suddenly dropped low, the beast within calming without his aid. Somehow Fenris was regressing, losing his rage. Rayne released his grip and turned to the sound of another familiar voice…almost like that of his Freya.

“This sure as hell is
not
the time for grandstanding and growling. All of you standing around, hackles raised, when our girls are sitting somewhere waiting for rescue, counting on it in fact. Shit!”

“Ger,” Vaegar groaned under his breath.

Rayne, comfortable enough with Fenris’s decrease in aggression to be able to remove one hand, turned and set his gaze on the impressive female who was his mother-in-law. “Geraldine.”