Hunter's Blood Special Edition (Cursed by Blood Saga) (19 page)

Stalking across the room, she picked
up her leather jeans from one of the club chairs facing the fireplace, and
jammed her legs into them. She threw on a plunging, black v-neck sweater and
her leather jacket, stuffing her feet into her biker boots as she mumbled to
herself. From the side table, she grabbed her black wool scarf and her gloves,
and was out like a shot, slamming the door behind her.
Hell hath no fury?
Bullshit! Forget scorned, and try threatened and pissed off. They hadn’t seen
anything yet.

She looked like something out of
Hell’s Angels, as she stalked across the frozen snow toward the great hall.
Without stopping, she kicked open the double doors. Sweeping the room with a
single glance, no one had to guess who she’d come for.

In one fluid motion, Lily grabbed a
ritual lance from the sidewall and sent the lethal, steel tipped spear racing
toward Edward Parr’s head. Fear flashed across the man’s face and he jerked
sideways, barely avoiding the razor sharp edge. The lance grazed his sleeve,
tearing his robes and pinning the shredded material to the center of the chair
behind him. The spear pierced the wood to its core, impaling the painted crest
on the back of the chair, Parr’s crest.

Visibly paled, the man grabbed the
hilt, but the lance wouldn’t budge. Throwing his hands off in disgust, he
narrowed his eyes and took a step toward Lily. Sean growled, moving away from
the Alpha’s chair closer to Lily, but she put up a staying hand. This was her
fight.

Parr stopped, his eyes darting around.
She could see his Machiavellian mind clearly weighing the pros and cons of
harming her in plain sight. Rearranging his robes, he shot her a slow, arrogant
smile. “Hot-blooded. I’ll have to remember that,” he said, as his eyes swept Lily’s
body.

“In your dreams, old man. The only
thing you need to remember about me, is to watch your back.” Lily’s gaze swept
the room. “I have to thank you gentlemen for including me in your
deliberations. It’s such a comfort knowing my well-being is so high on your
list of priorities.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

“These proceedings were closed! How
dare you!” Robert Stanton, delegate from the Avian collective, yelled, as he
came to stand beside Parr.

“Oh, come on,” Lily shot back, cutting
the man off midsentence. “You can spare me the self-righteous outrage and the
surprised face, Robert. While you and the rest of your cronies were busy
deciding my fate, you forgot I have my own specialized set of skills. Did you
honestly expect me to accept whatever you dictate and come quietly? I mean,
really—do you know me at all?” Lily’s tone was matter-of-fact, but her gaze was
deadly.

Parr’s face was a mask of
indifference. “Don’t look so annoyed, my dear. We mean you no harm, and let us
remember that evolution is a painful business, and that’s all this amounts to,
really, the advancement of our kind,” he replied, his voice like silk.

Staring him down, Lily crossed her
arms in front of her chest. “We both know that’s not the case here, you pompous
gasbag. You’re not looking for these people to progress you’re looking to
revert them centuries. How does that qualify as evolution, or are you really as
deluded as you sound?”

Parr’s face hardened. “Weres need a
blunt reminder of the rich and powerful culture we once had. We are completely
different from your kind, superior in every way. Unfortunately, allowing such
proximity to humans and, of course, the resultant fraternization, has all but
obscured that fact. Eventually, you’ll understand. But don’t be dismayed. Weres
have always had a weakness for humans, titillating creatures that you are.” His
eyes drifted over Lily’s lush curves.

“Council tenets may have made our
illustrious Alpha inaccessible to you for the time being, but I’m sure another,
more
satisfying
proposition can be arranged.” He hissed out the
‘S’
in satisfying, the lascivious tone making Lily’s skin crawl. His snakelike
tongue darted out wetting his thin lips. He smiled arrogantly, sending her a
mental image of her, naked and submissive, kneeling before him.

A heavy oak chair hurtled past,
splintering just inches from where Parr stood. His arm shot upward, shielding
his face from the debris. Across the room, a menacing growl pierced the air.
Sean’s gaze seethed as his eyes shifted from blue to yellow, his body crouched,
seconds from phasing.

Deadlocked, Lily’s eyes moved quickly
from one man to the other. This was exactly the reaction Parr wanted, and Sean
was playing right into his hand.

“He’s baiting you, Sean,” she said,
keeping her voice steady and calm. “Don’t give him what he wants. He’s no
threat to me. You know it, and he knows it.”

Sean’s muscles rippled and constricted
beneath his skin. If he phased and attacked, everything they hoped to
accomplish would be lost. Lily reached out to him with her mind. In his anger,
he let the wall keeping her out of his head crumble, and Lily saw the effort it
took for him not to kill Parr right then and there. His protective fury raged
red and black, and her heart squeezed.
“Don’t do this, Sean. Can’t you see
it’s a trap?”
Her voice was like a feather as it floated across his
churning mind.

His eyes flashed to hers, and his mind
calmed. She sent all her love along their shared mind link, leaving the channel
open for every telepath in the room to see and feel the depth of their
commitment.

Sean straightened. His eyes were still
narrowed and furious, but at least now, they were blue.

Mitch tossed Lily another lance. She
caught it with one hand, and stood with her legs shoulder width apart, twirling
it once front of her, like a Japanese bo staff. Council members shifted
nervously in their places, clearly uneasy at having her this close and armed,
especially after her obvious show of solidarity with the Alpha and his hunters.

Lily brought the lance to a halt, the
sound of the blade a sharp
whoosh
as it cut the air. Her gaze swept the
room. Most expressions were anxious, but Sean’s lips curved upward. The words
,
‘that’s my girl’
, feathered across her mind, and she blew him a mental
kiss.

A few of Parr’s men took a step
forward, but Lily stood her ground, sliding into a defensive stance and holding
the lance across her body with both hands. Sean and Mitch moved in, flanking
her sides. “Not everyone’s drinking the Kool-Aid, Lily. Problem is, they’re
just too chicken-shit to stand up to Parr,” Mitch offered. “But the rest of us
have got your back.”

Lily pushed the lance out from her
body, its bladed edge pointed right at Parr. “I know that Mitch, and I won’t
forget it.”

Moving a step forward, Lily skillfully
twirled the lance once more, bringing it up and over her head in one graceful
motion. Holding it aloft it with both hands, she paused for effect. Smiling
coldly, she quickly swept its blade within inches of Parr’s men in a deft
downward pass. As they jumped back, she caught the lance’s shaft with a
practiced hand and brought its blunt end down with a bang. “I’m out gentlemen,
and if you’re smart, you won’t try to stop me.”

Fixing Parr with a hard stare, she
continued. “And just in case the pack blowhard here decides to twist my words
when I’m gone, I want to set the record straight. I intend to do whatever I can
to help your doctors fight this virus. I will make myself available to them
should they need me, but I will do so from a distance. By turning your back on
a leader whose loyalty is apparent in everything he does, you’ve done nothing
but prove to me how fickle you are.

“If all it takes is someone to wave
nostalgia and fear mongering under your noses for you to turn on each other,
then you don’t deserve the leader you have, or his allegiance. I have no
intention of allowing myself to be turned,
ever
…and for anyone who
thinks otherwise…” Lily tilted the blade of the lance toward her hand. Without
flinching, she slowly ran her thumb over its sharp edge, her eyes never leaving
theirs as blood tricked down her wrist. “Well, I think you get the picture.”

Lily stormed off, feeling dirty. Sean
had his hands full with only a select few to help him. She was truly on her
own. Had she been foolish? No. She had made her point, and everyone there knew
it. Now all she could do was hope common sense would prevail, and that things
would get back to normal—well, as normal as things could be in a community of
supernaturals.

Yesterday, she had been certain it
eventually would. Now, not so much. But it no longer mattered. Either way, she
was headed home to the New York. Problem was, this time it no longer felt like
home.

***

Lily sat up. Bleary eyed, she peered
around the darkened room. Outside, the sun crept its way over the horizon, cutting
a pink and gold swath through the dark landscape. Her mind was silent, except
for the dull ache that had settled behind her eyes from lack of sleep, and the
dull throb in her hand where she had sliced her thumb open on the lance.

Running her fingers over the white
gauze, she thought about how bandaged up she was when Sean had first brought
her here, after Jerard’s attack on the cliffs outside the town of Ogunquit. A
little over eight weeks, that’s all it had been since her life had changed
irrevocably.

The Council’s debate had broken after
her little display. In all honesty, she was a little surprised they hadn’t
tried to stop her, but then again, it was still early. Sean had showed up at
her door a little while after, but she had refused to see him. She knew if he
asked her to stay, she didn’t stand a chance.

Her bags were packed and stacked in
the corner near the door. Not that she had much, but whatever she had, it was
coming with her, except for the red velvet gown she wore the night of the Wolf
Moon Ball. Had it only been days since Sean twirled her around the dance floor?
Their new world had seemed so full of hope and magic—that is until Edward Parr
ruined it for them, again. She had reason to hate him before, but after
tonight, the gloves were off.

Stretching, she tensed and released
every muscle in her arms, legs and torso. Opening her senses to their shared
mind link, she felt for Sean, but only sensed the wind. He was in animal form.
A soft whoosh always replaced the usual onslaught of thought whenever Sean
phased, and he always took to the woods whenever he needed focus.

A slight tapping against the window
broke the silence, and Lily turned toward the darkened glass. An owl was
perched on the sill, its large eyes peering in at her from the gloom.
Sean.

She shivered getting out of bed, and
padded across the cold floor to open the window. A blast of icy air gusted in
as she did, and she crossed her arms in front of her chest in a feeble attempt
to ward off the chill. “Sean, what are you doing? Are you crazy?”

The owl hooted low, spreading its
wings. The majestic bird launched itself from the sill and did a single lazy
pass around the ceiling before setting down on the bed. In a snap of
electricity and ozone, it was gone. “And I thought you’d be happy to see me,
especially now that you’ve calmed down,” Sean replied, stretching his full six
foot, three inch frame out on the bed.

Still standing with her arms folded,
Lily smirked. “Aren’t we a little old to be playing cat and mouse? Sneaking
into my room like a horny teenager isn’t exactly your style.” Turning, she
closed the window and grabbed a throw blanket from the chair in the corner.
“And it’s not going to do any good. I’m still leaving in the morning,” she
added, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders, waiting for him to reply. But
the battle was lost before it had even begun.

“You know,” he said, with his head
cocked and a suggestive smile on his lips. “I can do a better job of warming
you up than that blanket ever will. And in case you didn’t notice, it’s morning
already.”

“Well then, you can just morph into a
sparrow or some other innocuous day bird, and fly out the way you came. I
guarantee the Council had no clue what they were getting themselves into when
they gifted you with the power to shift into any form, wolf boy.”

“They knew exactly what they were
doing.”

“Hmmph. Like they know what they’re
doing now?”

“Different times, different
circumstances. Besides, I’m still in control, remember?”

“Sean…”

“Shhh… I am the Alpha Council, Lily. No
one is going to question me regarding you. Trust me.”

“But…”

“Lily…” he said, pushing himself up
and off the bed. “I’m not going to just let you walk out of my life.” He stood
there in all his naked glory, purposefully not having manifested any clothes when
he phased back to human form.

Lily couldn’t help it, she licked her
lips. He walked toward her, lean muscled, and as predatory and graceful as
ever, and her heart skipped a beat.

“I did a lot of thinking out in the
woods tonight. I’m done with trying to bend just to be politically correct. If
Parr wants things to be the way they used to, then so be it. Whether he likes
it or not, I’m the Alpha. My will must be obeyed or otherwise challenged, so if
it’s a challenge he wants, then bring it on. Now, the only bending I plan on
doing is bending you over till that gorgeous ass of yours is in the air.”