Blood Enchantment (19 page)

“It's not just that,” Julia says, her tone of voice hard. “It's that Adi and Slash had been circling being together for months. Slash hadn't wanted to go past a certain invisible line because Lawrence wouldn't have allowed the mating outside her pack; he was following Were protocol. But then Lawrence died.”

“Yeah. Awesome,” Cynthia says, “except for Manny.”

Julia gives a solemn nod. “Emmanuel was good to me.”

“Me, too,” Cynthia agrees quietly. A note in her voice causes Scott to study her features. Maybe she liked Manny more than anyone realized. But Scott doesn’t have time to consider Cynthia’s emotional state.

Victor charges back into the room. “The Were is gone.”

“
What
? Tramack? Why?” Cynthia says.

Victor shrugs. “He wasn't enough of a concern to keep in any event. His escape isn't as important as us securing the Region.”

Scott nods decisively, they didn't have the people to contain him anyway. “Agreed.”

Julia's hand moves to his forearm. “I need us to stick together.”

Scott rubs the back of her neck. “There was never a question of that.” He looks to Victor. “Let's go see our people. I think they'll be a little relieved that we're okay.”

“I hoped you guys were down there. I just didn't say it out loud,” Cynthia says, hiking a thumb toward the bunker.

“How'd you know?” Julia asks.

“Trackers could smell you. They'd been looking.”

“Oh,” Julia's eyes light on the direction of the portal at the end of the long hallway they'd just traveled.

Scott doesn't think she needs the constant reminder of her former husband's brains plastered everywhere.

He tugs her out of the house. Scott glances over his shoulder as Victor moves down the hall with a new rug to cover a portal best left unseen.

Adi

“Wakey-wakey,” Adi says softly, gently slapping Nurse Jenni's face.

Vivid root beer eyes blink apart rapidly. They widen, the whites looking alarmingly freaked, and Adi says, “It's okay.”

“It's
not
okay,” Jenni says in a voice that trembles slightly. “You've told me you're a werewolf, which I'm inclined to believe.”

“Good practical logic there, nurse.” Adi gives a crooked grin.

Jenni cringes away.

Maybe quarter-change is a little too much.

“Hey, me being a werewolf isn't so bad. You knew something was off anyways. Later, you can say I was a lunatic, hopped up on LSD or something.”

“Later?” Jenni asks, rubbing her eyes with a fist.

Probably trying to make me disappear.

Adi picks her up by the armpits, and Jenni's eyes widen impossibly farther.

“Yeah. There can't be proof of our existence.”

Jenni's lips purse. “Well, bad job on getting discovered, quite frankly—as you ran out and got hit by a car on a busy highway.” She puts her hands on her hips.

Adi's eyes narrow, and she suddenly scents the acute fear smell.
Prey.
Adi inhales deeply, realizes her eyes have gone wolfen, and calms the fuck down.
Moon.

“Listen,” Adi says, regaining control of the conversation, “I know this is a shit ton to take in. Me being a werewolf and all. But aside from all that, I'm a woman, and as such, I feel second class. There's a reason I'm petrified and ran into the highway on purpose—to escape three Lycan males.”

“Lycan?”

Adi's nose scrunches. “Lycan—werewolf, same thing. Don't go all soft on me now. I need you to shelve your disbelief of Lycankind for just five minutes so you understand the danger I'm in. And you, by association.”

Jenni's throat convulses as she swallows. “All right.”

Adi slowly releases her grip on Jenni's Cheshire Cat scrubs.
Hmmm.
The wrinkled material sits up at attention from where Adi had fisted it.

Jenni absently smooths the material.

“This will be the quickest rundown of supernatural history I can relay.”

Jenni blinks.

“I'm young. We live for hundreds of years, but I'm just out of whelphood—teenage adolescence. So we go into heat for the first time two to five years past whelp.”

Jenni's eyebrows sweep together. “Heat?” she slides her jaw back and forth. “What does this have to do with why you threw yourself in traffic?”

Adi huffs in irritation. “I'm getting to that.”

Jenni's lips thin.

Adi's struck by how pretty she would be without the harsh hair color and makeup.
And terminal cancer. That'll do it.

“So I found this great male—he's way older than me. I've been crushing on him since—well, forever. He used to play with me when I was a whelp. He's a great warrior.”

Jenni studies her.

A great male.
Adi clenches her fists, holding her eyes wide so tears don't fall in front of this human female she doesn't even know.

“He hurt you?” Jenni asks quietly, getting to the heart of it like a perfectly shot arrow.

Compassion rims irises that darken from the words Adi doesn't say. This chick absolutely knows Adi's pain. Her empathy makes Adi feel vulnerable, which she hates. It's too late to hold back, though. Three asshat males are waiting in the wings to take her.

“Yes,” Adi manages. “But those aren't the facts. I gave myself to him when the big ass admitted to loving me.” She swipes a tear that falls despite her best efforts to hold it back. “Then when a pack of jerk Lycan show up, they kick our butts—we're outnumbered—they got Slash really bad.” Adi's eyes rise to hers. “They paralyzed him, Jenni.”

Jenni's hands go to her mouth, but Adi hears her easily. “Slash is your husband?”

Jenni's moved to stand right in front of Adi. She's much taller than Adi. “No—my mate. But it's the same thing in our world as husband in yours.” Adi slowly lets out a painful exhale, hoping to plow through this next part. “He told me to get the fuck away from him. That he didn't want me anymore.” Adi chokes on the last word. She's really on a stupid rant now—outing the Lycan race while confessing her embarrassing rejection and stupid faith in someone.

Confusion washes over Jenni's face. “You were hurt—both of you. Why would he do that? It doesn't make sense. Actually…” Jenni's face falls. “None of this makes sense.”

Probably from a human perspective, that's true. “I don't know why,” Adi says. More tears fall, and Jenni plucks a nearby tissue from a box and hands it over.

“I bet you never thought you'd be comforting a werewolf?” Adi says, blotting her eyes and doing a messy blow of her nose into the damp tissue.

“No,” Jenni admits softly. “It doesn't seem real.”

Adi gives her serious eyes. “It is.”

They look at each other.

“So now what? Slash…” She pauses over his name before continuing, “Has let you go, and there's some other Lycan—?”

“Yes. I guess Slash and I—our interlude”—Adi quickly looks at Jenni, expecting condemnation, but finding a quiet understanding—“brought my heat early. And that's
so bad
. To be a female in heat, without a male escort…” Adi shudders.

“So these men—they somehow found you?”

“There's no
somehow
about it. They scented my cycle, and without a male, I'm vulnerable.” Adi can't keep the disdain out of her voice.  “Even if I could kick one of their asses, I can't do three.”

“No,” Jenni agrees easily.

In that, there's no problem figuring out the logistics of that scenario. She's a chick; Jenni knows the score.

“That's why we were overpowered to begin with. There were too many.” Adi's eyes fill again.
Moon dammit
.
What in the hell is wrong with me?
“There were four Lycan males and just me and Slash. We didn't stand a chance.”

Jenni cups her elbows, expression pensive. “I feel like I'll wake up any second, and you'll be a normal woman.”

Adi laughs. “Nope.”

Jenni's shoulders slump. “Okay. So your healing powers have convinced me. You are some
thing
. But I can't just leave my post here and take off with an unidentified patient without more information.”

“I'm not unidentified,” Adi states reasonably.

Jenni rolls her eyes. “Uh-huh. You say your name is Adrianna.”

Adi shifts her weight. “Nobody calls me that but Slash. Adi's my nickname.”

Jenni nods, nervously playing with her stethoscope. “How can you convince me?”

“My eyes weren't enough?”

“That
was
weird,” she concedes.

“Are you always this skeptical?”

Jenni nods. “Pretty much. And for the record, nurses are primarily in the science-math vocation. You know—science. Prove it.”

“Does anyone know about the cancer?”

Jenni's face crumples, and Adi feels like an ass.

“Sorry.”

Her direct gaze moves to Adi as she inhales deeply. “Don't be. I guess I'm in the anger stage of my diagnosis. I'm only twenty-eight and—” She tosses out a frustrated breath. “I feel like my body's betrayed me.”

Adi gets a great idea, but she can't voice it. She knows what the pack would say:
You can't save everyone.
And on the heels of that:
humans are lowly.

Besides, she's got her own backyard to mow. Still, her epiphany niggles.

“Just get me out of here, but first, we have to camouflage my scent. And even with that, they might scent me.”

“You smell all yummy now?” Jenni asks. But the solemn look on Adi's face makes Jenni's smile fade.

Adi nods slowly. “Oh
yeah
.”

Jenni frowns. “What about Slash? Wouldn't he smell you, too?”

Adi looks at her bare feet.
“Yeah,” she whispers.

“So you're telling me that the guy that said he loved you and wanted to be your ʻmate,ʼ took your virginity then told you to get lost?
Then
let you go out there to be cherry-picked by wandering werewolves?” She shakes her head in clear disbelief, flipping her palm out as if to ask for an explanation.

When said like that, it makes Slash sound awful.

Maybe he is.
“Looks like it.”

“That's terrible.” Then Jenni's face perks up. “Well, we're a pair. But I have to say—this Slash? He took more than your v-card.”

Adi nods, a defeated breath whistling out of her.

Jenni puts a hand on her shoulder.

She looks up into Jenni's compassionate face. “You know,
I'm
supposed to be the bad ass werewolf here.”

“Right now, I just see a woman with a broken heart.”

Jenni's scrubs catch her tears.

*

“This is desecrating the dead.” Jenni mutters in revulsion, wrinkling her nose.

“The dead don't know anything,” Adi says, rubbing liquefied decomposing human organs over her arms and around her neck.

“I can get in so much trouble,
and
it's gross.”

Adi gives her a look of pure frustration. “I'm the one wearing the guts. I know I reek like road kill.”

“It's
so
bad. And a must be against some religion somewhere. Ugh.”

Probably all of them.

“But these humans’ remains had already been used for their donor purposes. This is just remnants.” Adi gives her a
be logical
look.

“This better work,” Jenni mutters.

Adi grips her shoulders. “It's not going to work. It'll only buy us time. I'm hoping, once we're inside your car—”

“What?” Jenny screeches, horrified.

“Shh!” Adi scans the inside of the morgue. The metallic, impersonal surfaces reflect back at her with the dimmed LED lighting. In a low voice, Adi continues, “Once we're in your vehicle, it would take an awesome tracker to find me.”

“We slather you with human remains and that allows you to slip away in the interim?”

“Exactly—now get my face.”

Adi closes her eyes, and Jenni marks her with cold decomposing human soup, putting two fingers’ worth above her eyes and each cheekbone.

Jenni grimaces. “There. Ick.” She removes latex gloves, tossing them with two fingertips in the bio-hazard can.

Adi steps back and moves to the deep washbasin. Looking at the warped mirror above the sink, she slaps the faucet lever on.

The gore of dead humans decorates her face like war paint. Her eyes are seated in the mess of blood and human tissue like stranded jewels of mixed gold, brown, and flecks of green. Adi's hair is slicked back and thrown in a messy dark-gold topknot at the crown of her head.

She
does
look pretty sick. Adi smiles. None of those pervs are going to dig her now. She smells like a corpse. Adi turns, winking at Jenni.

Jenni crosses her arms and groans. Then she says for the millionth time, “I can't believe I'm doing this.”

Adi hides a smile. “Me, either.”

“Anyone ever tell you you're kind of difficult?” Jenni asks.

“All the time.” Adi flicks her eyes at the rolling stainless steel cart. “Now let's toss me in the body bag and get to the garage.”

“Right. And just for the record, I don't normally haul the dead that way. Or any way. I'm a nurse. For the living.”

Adi feels her eyes go wolfen, hot—itchy. She's already quarter-changed, she has to be. But her wolf roils beneath her skin. “I can feel the heat, Jenni.”

Her beast wants to breed, and her mate is nowhere. Not that she'd let Slash touch her again.

Adi's chin kicks up and her shoulders straighten. “The hell with it, I can live through this heat bullshit, but I gotta get out of here.”

Jenni sighs. “I'm bringing some plastic for my car.”

Adi turns so Jenni won't see the smirk.
Cars.
So not a priority.
She slips into the cold body bag. The plastic crunches around her body as though rejecting her because she’s not dead.

Tough.

Jenni's face appears above the opening. They stare at each other for a moment.

“I'm zipping you.”

Adi nods.

The zipper slides up, and the view narrows. Jenni's a couple of inches from closing it when the zipper stalls. “You'll suffocate.”

“It's okay,” Adi says, already wanting to claw her way out. But Jenni leaves that tiny gap for her.

The smell of death is like a cocoon around her. Her beast doesn't like plastic—or being contained.