Claimed by the Beast Bundle (19 page)

Chapter 6

Crystal followed Ember out of the trailer and saw everyone was either on their bikes or standing next to them. Hank smiled and waved from beside his bike and Crystal started towards him. She let out a yelp when Ember grabbed her hand and stopped her so fast she almost fell.

“Uh uh,” Ember said. She grinned and winked at her. “You’re riding with me, sweet cheeks.”

Crystal yelped again when Ember’s hand slapped her on the butt. She spun, hands going to her stinging injury. Ember was already heading towards her bike. Crystal whipped her head around and saw Hank staring with his eyes wide open. She shook her head and held up her hands but didn’t know what to say.

Ember had her sunglasses on and was sitting on her bike. She reached back to pat the seat behind her. “Come on, you’re riding bitch.”

Crystal spun. “What?”

“Just get on.”

“Got a helmet?”

“Nope.”

Crystal frowned. “If my mom finds out—”

“She can bitch me out,” Ember said. “That’s if you make it back from seeing Clover.”

Crystal clamped her teeth together. She’d done a good job repressing the memory of what was happening today. With the blatant reminder in her face, she walked over and stuffed her purse into the saddlebag before climbing onto the back of Ember’s bike.

“Hold on,” Ember said. “And don’t try anything funny.”

Crystal let the joke pass. Her thoughts were on what was at the end of the ride. Adrian’s bike fired up and then Guntar’s and Hank’s. Ember turned her motorcycle on, making the engine rumble beneath them. Ember shimmied in her seat and turned her head back to grin at Crystal. Her smile faded when she saw Crystal wasn’t amused.

“Hey, lighten up,” the redhead said. “One way or another, you’re going to learn something today.”

“Can’t wait.”

Ember stared at her a moment longer and then turned when Adrian honked. “Hold on,” Ember said again and then started the bike forward. She turned slowly and followed the others out. Hank rolled out behind them, bringing up the rear of the pack.

They drove along the outskirts of town, stopping when they hit a red light at Main Street. Ember turned her face and tilted her head, blocking the rising sun that was in their eyes and on their left. Crystal felt her stiffen and lift her head. She turned to see what had startled Ember as the woman said, “Oh, shit.”

It was Stephanie, driving towards them in her pink Camaro with the top down. She turned and stared at them as she drove past. Her brake lights flared once she was through the light. The bike lurched forward beneath Crystal, startling a yelp out of her and making her clamp her hands down on Ember’s sides. The light was green and they were moving.

They drove out of town and picked up speed, causing Ember’s ponytail to blow in her face and tickle her nose. She leaned back and wrinkled her nose to keep from sneezing. Mid-way through the fight, she heard the first honk behind her. She turned and felt the bike shift under her, making her jerk her head back and lean the other way.

The horn of a car blared again. She tried to look again, compensating for shifting her balance. Stephanie’s pink Camaro was pulling up next to them. The bike shifted again under her, making her spin back around. It leaned and she heard Ember curse. She fell forward as the bike slowed, slamming her face into the back of Ember’s head.

The bike started jumping and bouncing beneath her. Her feet slipped off the pegs and she jammed them out, trying to break her fall. Ember’s ponytail was in her eyes, stinging them and making it impossible to see. The bike leaned and jerked and something hit her foot. Crystal screamed as she saw the blue sky go tilting past and then the green grass and brown dirt beside the road. It took more time to think about throwing her arms out to catch herself than it did for the ground to reach up and kiss her.

Crystal bounced and rolled, losing track of everything except the need to try to protect herself. She pulled her arms against her chest and squeezed her eyes shut. Her head bounced off the ground and she slid along the grass until she rolled into the ditch beside the road. Her leg slammed into a hard object that refused to move. She flipped up and came down on her chest and face in a trickle of water that ran through the drainage ditch.

She lay still in the ditch, afraid to move. She hurt everywhere and she was afraid of what that meant. Her leg was throbbing and her face was on fire in spite of the water half her face was resting in. The rest of her body, aside from the stinging scrapes and aches where she’d hit something, felt loose and tingled.

“Crystal!”

Hank. That sounded like Hank. Crystal smiled and felt a tooth shift against her split lips. She smelled blood and dirt. Her blood.

“Crystal!”

Stephanie?

“That was stupid!”

Ember.

Crystal almost smiled again. She tried to move her arm and found it still worked. She reached out and pushed against the ground, trying to roll herself back out of the spring runoff. Something heavy slammed into the ground beside her and blocked out the sunshine.

“Hank?” she breathed.

“Don’t move,” he growled. He knelt down and touched her face. His fingers were large and strong, but gentle. “How bad?”

“I don’t know,” Crystal said. Somebody else ran into the ditch beside her. She sniffed and smelled Ember’s scent along with the blood, dirt, Hank, and burnt rubber. Burnt rubber? “Did you crash?”

“No,” Ember said as she fell to her knees in the mud next to Crystal’s head. She reached down and cleaned some dirt and hair off Crystal’s face. “Damn it, you’re a wreck.”

“You didn’t crash?” Crystal asked again. She blinked and lifted her eyes to see Ember, albeit upside down. “Then why did I?”

“You panicked and didn’t keep your legs on the bike,” Hank told her. “She dipped off the road and you went flying.”

“Now you know—when you’ve got the chance, keep your legs wrapped around me.”

“Oh my God,” Crystal mumbled. She tried to roll again and winced. “Sumbitch!”

“Crystal! Are you okay? Ember, is she—”

Ember rolled her eyes. She glared at Crystal. “Your fault,” she hissed before she rose up. She turned and intercepted Stephanie on her way down the shoulder. “Give her some room. She’s shaken up but I think she’s all right. She got lucky.”

“I’m broken,” Crystal groaned.

Hank turned and looked up and down her body before he focused on her face again. He smiled. “You’re a mess, but you’re going to live.”

“How? We had to be going ninety!”

“Ember slowed down to less than twenty before she went off the pavement and gave it some gas.”

“Gave it some gas? Is she crazy?”

“That’s how you stabilize a bike. Keep the weight on the rear tire,” Hank explained. “Don’t ever take a job as a stuntwoman.”

Crystal grimaced as she felt something shift in her leg. A searing pain shot up her leg and then it faded. “Something happened.”

Hank’s brow furrowed. “What?”

“My leg,” she said.

Hank turned and reached down. She felt his fingers against her skin and jerked in surprise. Her jeans should have been there. He grunted and then turned away as Guntar, Gwen, and Adrian jogged up to join them. “Her leg,” Hank said and then stopped.

Crystal craned her neck and saw Adrian glaring at him. Gwen met her eyes and turned to head towards Ember and Stephanie. Adrian and Guntar came closer and knelt down around her. “Hi,” she said.

“It just reset itself,” Hank said in a hushed rumble. He glanced down at her thigh. “Her pants are torn up where she hit something but there’s hardly any blood.”

“I can see it healing!” Adrian whispered and leaned closer to her. “Amazing.”

Guntar grunted and turned his attention to Crystal’s face. “You make it through this weekend and you’re taking riding lessons.”

“I’m sorry,” Crystal said. Her eyes began to water. “I didn’t mean to do anything stupid; it’s just what I do. I always screw things up.”

“Crystal, stop,” Hank said.

Guntar nodded. “He’s right. Stop talking. You’re going to be fine.”

She blinked the tears from her eyes and felt the hot liquid roll down her cheeks and cool against her face. Her stomach rumbled and she suddenly felt warm. She shuddered as the heat inside of her made the water soaking half her body send chills down her spine.

“Did you see that!” Guntar asked.

Adrian grunted. “I did. I don’t know what it was, but I saw it.”

“What?” Crystal whimpered.

Adrian and Guntar looked at each other but Hank met her troubled eyes. “Your skin just rippled. That usually doesn’t happen until the change. That, or for someone who’s already changed and has learned to control the hunter they can heal themselves quickly.”

“Is that good?”

Adrian and Guntar looked at each other again, but only a brief glance. Adrian looked back at her and said, “We don’t know.”

“Oh,” Crystal said as fresh tears blurred her vision.

“I hope so.”

Crystal nodded and tried to blink away the tears.

Stephanie’s voice reached her ears as she got tired of dealing with Ember and Gwen and called out, “Crys? Oh Jesus, is she okay?”

Crystal sighed. “Help me up.”

“Are you sure?” Hank asked.

Crystal looked to Guntar and he deferred to Adrian. Adrian swept his eyes across her body again and shrugged. “You look fine to me.”

“I feel like I got hit by a truck.”

Hank frowned. “You do?”

Crystal opened her mouth and hesitated. She looked down at herself and then moved her arms to support herself as she tried to sit up. Hank moved to support and help her, earning a smile from her. Her smile helped her realize her lips didn’t hurt anymore. She pressed her tongue against her teeth and felt how solid they were. She snorted and picked herself up until she was standing with Hank’s help.

“I guess I’m good,” she said as she took her weight fully on her feet. Her cold feet. She looked down and realized she was standing in one wet sock. Her other was lying nearby. Her shoes were a dozen feet away.

“Crys? Oh my God! You’re okay!”

Crystal held up her hand to stop Stephanie from crashing into her. “Yeah, sort of,” she said. She looked down at herself and grimaced. Her pants were torn and covered in dirt and blood. Her shirt had similar tears and stains and both mud and blood caked her from head to toe.

“Is that blood? Holy shit!”

“No,” Crystal said. “Mud mostly. Well, my nose was bleeding but it stopped.”

Stephanie shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re okay!”

“Yeah, well, I’m just lucky I guess.”

“Wow. Um, do you need a ride home?”

Crystal glanced at the others and then back to Stephanie. “No, I’m good. My stuff’s back at, uh, Hank’s place.”

Stephanie looked at Hank and then back to her. “Why were you riding with Ember?”

“My bike’s got bad shocks and bearings,” Hank explained. “Didn’t want to risk it.”

Stephanie snorted. “Lot of good that did.”

“Hey,” Ember snapped as she walked up behind her. She slipped her arm around Stephanie’s waist. “My bike’s still fine. She screwed up. Doesn’t know how to wrap herself around a woman.”

“Oh my God!” Crystal gasped.

Stephanie blushed and glanced around. It was obvious she was uncomfortable and anxious to get away. “Okay, um, I was on my way to the mall. Did you need anything or want to come?”

“Can’t—we got to ride,” Hank said.

“It’s a biker thing,” Ember said. “We’re still on for later, though?”

Stephanie’s eyes widened and her cheeks flushed beneath her makeup. She nodded.

“Come on, I’ll walk you to your car.”

“Um, okay.” She turned to look at Crystal. “I can’t believe you’re okay. I’m glad—you had me scared! Please be careful, okay?”

Crystal nodded. “Thanks. I will.”

Stephanie nodded and bit her lip. She turned away and walked hand in hand with Ember to her car. Crystal shook her head after she was sure Stephanie wasn’t going to turn back. “She’s amazing,” she muttered.

“What?” Hank blurted out.

“Not her, Ember,” Crystal explained. “I can’t imagine anybody making Steph act so nice!”

Chapter 7

By the time they reached the swamp, Crystal did not feel well. Her injuries had healed but her stomach was in her throat and she had to take shallow breaths to try to keep her nausea at bay. When Ember parked, Crystal stumbled off the bike and fell to her knees on the soft gravel lot. Her hands hit the ground and she gagged a moment before she threw up.

She sagged onto her right elbow and then rolled onto her side, ignoring the discomfort of the rocks poking into her back and side. She gasped for breath and stared up at the sky through the treetops.

“Shit,” Ember hissed as she jumped off her bike and hurried to her side. Hank was there a heartbeat later, his large frame blocking out the sun.

Crystal tried to reach up but her hand barely lifted off her stomach. She wiggled it and wheezed, “Cold—move.”

“What?” Hank asked and looked up.

Ember grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. “She said she’s cold and you’re blocking the sun. Got muscles in your ears?”

“Oh,” he mumbled and shifted to move around so he could be by her without blocking the sun.

“This can’t be happening,” Adrian muttered as he stared down at the puddle of vomit. It was mostly blood.

“I’d say she was changing, but so soon? That’s never happened,” Gwen said.

Guntar looked at the puddle and frowned. “Internal injuries?”

Adrian sniffed and shook his head. “It’s her blood.”

“Of course it’s her blood,” Guntar said. “That’s why I wondered if she might have torn something inside.”

“It would have healed,” Adrian argued.

“Then why? I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Adrian frowned. “There’s something very odd about her.”

“We need to get to Clover,” Ember decided. She stood up and glanced around at the small parking lot of the roadside park and then began stripping off her clothes. Crystal looked up at her, watching her disrobe and noticing that she was a true redhead. She wanted to laugh but a spasm passed through her that stole her breath.

“She can’t walk,” Gwen said while pulling her boots off.

“I’ve got her,” Hank said.

“You can’t change if you do that,” Guntar said.

Hank shrugged. “So I walk. She would have had to.”

“Unless she can change,” Adrian asked.

“What?” Guntar and Gwen both asked.

Adrian held his hands up. “Crystal has defied all the rules we know about our kind. If this were normal, I’d say we have to tend her and hope she can fight through the change. But I’ve never seen anyone reject their own blood before.”

Ember knelt down next to her, knees spread and displaying herself lewdly right next to Crystal’s head without showing any concern or awareness. “Crys, are you hearing all of this?”

Crystal nodded and clutched her hands to her chest. She was shivering. “Yes,” she hissed through chattering teeth.

“Think there’s anything to it?”

“I don’t—don’t know how.”

Ember looked up at the others. Each of them looked back with faces that might as well have been etched in stone. They turned to Adrian one after another and he finally sighed before looking to Guntar. “It’s your call.”

“W—what?” Crystal asked.

Ember reached down to rub her cheek with her palm. “It’s part of the rule of becoming one of us. You have to find the way on your own. You have to learn to walk before you can run, and you have to know what it means to be alone before you can be in a pack.”

Gwen rolled her clothes into a bundle and tucked them under her arm. “If Guntar tells you, it will violate that rule. And we will all know about it.”

Crystal couldn’t stop shivering. She tried to clamp her teeth together but only managed to bite her cheek. She gave up and asked “S—so?”

“There is no so to it. It simply is,” Guntar said. “It doesn’t matter if we tell you; nothing can prepare you. Nothing can help you face what is waking up inside you.”

Crystal whimpered and twisted away from Ember so she could curl into a fetal position. “Something inside me,” she moaned.

“Hank, pick her up,” Guntar decided.

Crystal felt something soft against her cheek again. Then it felt cold and slippery. Wet. She blinked her eyes open, distracted from the contractions inside. She was just in time to see a long pink tongue lick a tear off her cheek. A red and gray wolf crouched next to her. Ember nuzzled into her, pushing her snout into Crystal’s neck and sharing her furry warmth with her.

“Watch out,” Hank warned.

Ember bolted away as he scooped Crystal up into his arms like a bride on her wedding night. She clung to him, stealing what warmth she could.

“She’s burning up,” Hank said.

Crystal stared up at him without having the strength to speak. Burning up? Then why did she feel like she was drowning in ice water!

She managed to turn her head and saw Gwen drop forward and landed on four paws instead of her hands and feet. Guntar shoved the last of his bundle of clothes into the saddlebag of his bike and then stuffed Ember’s into hers. Adrian did the same before it was only Crystal and Hank in the midst of four wolves.

She saw a glint of sunlight around Gwen’s neck and remembered the crescent moon necklace she wore. It looked like a collar now.

“We’re ready,” Hank announced.

All four wolves turned and led the way to the edge of the parking lot. The ground fell away and turned spongy. Ember and Gwen stayed behind, Ember falling back to their right and Gwen to the left, while Guntar and Adrian moved ahead and guided them along the high spots through the marshy ground.

Crystal lost track of time as they walked. She buried her head against Hank’s side and felt the wetness on her cheeks soaking into his jacket. Her stomach rumbled and her heart started beating faster. She felt Hank lurch forward and catch himself as water splashed against her leg. She was barely aware of it; all she could do was try to slow her panting before she made herself pass out.

Hank adjusted his grip on her and held her tighter against him. She relished the contact but she was starting to tingle and feel warm. In seconds, the warmth escalated and she felt like she might burst into flames. She groaned and shifted away from him, trying to get more air on her skin. It wasn’t working.

Hank clutched her tighter. “I think we’re close. Hang in there,” he said.

There was no soothing her. She found the strength to grab her shirt and peel it up and away from her sweaty skin. Dirt and blood were smeared and left behind skin that glistened with moisture. The air felt good against her and goaded her into pulling hard. Her shirt was trapped against Hank’s stomach, stopping her.

Crystal let loose a groan and shoved her fingers through the fabric. It shredded under her nails, letting her rip the shirt up to the sewn seam at the neckline. She moved her hands down and struggled with her pants, fumbling with them until she unbuttoned her jeans and then started to shove them down her hips.

“Crys! Stop!” Hank hissed. “What are you doing?”

“Hot,” Crystal whimpered as she ignored him and kept trying to shove her pants down. “Please, help me cool down.”

Hank shook his head and broke into a trot. “Hurry,” he growled to the pack surrounding them.

Crystal heard the splashes and sucking noises as Hank ran through the swamp. He slipped from time to time but kept his balance and kept her clenched tight against him. She was aching from the heat burning in her belly. Her pants were around her knees and even her underwear had been rolled halfway down her cheeks. She twisted and felt the clenching in her belly that made her convulse and curl up.

Hank stopped and had to adjust his grip to keep her from falling.

“Set me down,” Crystal hissed. “Quick!”

“No!”

Crystal turned and opened her mouth, exploding liquid fire onto his chest. Hank gagged and staggered back, but didn’t let go of her. As soon as the spasm passed, Crystal sagged in his arms and felt her body cooling again. The stink of her bile and blood made her eyes water worse than they already were. Dark black specks stuck to his jacket and shirt.

“I’m sorry,” Crystal sobbed against him.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“No,” she cried and turned her head away. “I’m such a fucking loser.”

“You haven’t lost anything yet,” Hank growled. “Clothes can be replaced. You can’t. You do whatever you need to do, just stay with me.”

Crystal nodded and started to turn back to him. She pulled the destroyed halves of her shirt together and then gagged when she saw how stained they were. She pulled the unbroken neckline and snapped it, and then tugged on it until she yanked it free and let it fall to the ground.

“I’m cold,” she muttered before hugging her arms tight against her belly.

“Typical woman,” Hank said. “Always hot and cold.”

Crystal stared up at him and saw the tender smile on his face. Her chest relaxed and her heart felt like it beat easier in her chest. She bit her lips and blinked the tears out of her eyes. She loved him. She had to. He was so tender and gentle and strong and understanding. He was perfect.

She opened her mouth to spill her guts—about her emotions this time, not the poison festering in her belly—when Adrian barked.

Hank jerked his head up and she twisted her neck around to see a copse of trees that grew out of the swamp. Vines and moss covered in brilliant flowers were strung across them so thickly it made walls of vegetation. Boards were strung up to make decking and stairs that led to a doorway into the living cottage.

“We made it,” Hank whispered.

Crystal studied the vibrant growth for a long moment before she asked, “This is where the swamp witch lives?”

The shadows shifted and a long leg emerged from the doorway. A second one followed, both of them wearing nothing but skin. The legs joined hips that were concealed by a loincloth hanging from a belt with a few sacks and pouches tied to it. Her hair was brown and blond, with flowers threaded through it. It was long enough to hang over her shoulders and conceal her breasts. The only other thing she wore was a necklace made of vines with bones and shiny objects hanging from it that dipped into the valley between her breasts.

Crystal’s confusion and discomfort faded into the background as she stared at the woman. Something about her felt right. Natural. “Clover,” she breathed.