Mated & Blooded, A Blood Ties Novel, Book 1 (17 page)

Then he started the process started over
again. I felt him begin to shove my hand and wrist between his
right wrist and the shackles. I knew what to expect and started to
scream with every fiber of my being. I knew that no amount of
pleading, begging or screaming was going to make him stop, but it
was my only release for the pain. I felt my bones begin to shatter
and thank god my world turned black.

I was still having a hard time getting myself
and my wolf under control. Kalli had been so forward in her sexual
attention to me earlier this evening that both my wolf and I wanted
to run upstairs and finalize mating and bonding with her. Even now,
her scent of arousal floated down the stairs taunting me. I wanted
her so badly, but I promised to wait for her to accept me. I
grunted in frustration and started to manhandle the pillows on the
couch.

I knew I would be spending the majority of
the night awake. I heard her tell her mother that she was fine
sleeping without me, but I was having one hell of a time sleeping
without her. At least I knew she was safe and nearby. I heard her
moan in what I think was sexual frustration and had to smile to
myself. I was pleased that my little shewolf was struggling as much
as I was. I decided that trying to force myself to sleep was a
waste of time, so I got up and headed into the kitchen with the
intention of having a warm cup of milk.

Just as I passed the front window that is
still semi boarded up, I watched a blur pass by. I breathed in
deeply and immediately identified the scent of my father. I don’t
know how he managed to escape from the cave under Lucas’s mansion
but he did. I burst through the window and immediately charged
after him. My father was a strong wolf and still very powerful and
fast. He was moving like lighting in his wolf form. I knew I needed
to shift if I had any chance of catching up to him. I allowed my
wolf to burst out of me and take control.

I was doing my best to stay on my father’s
trail. I knew I was close, but I wasn’t getting any closer. It
seemed the harder I ran, the harder he ran. We were obviously
equally matched in speed. I still knew I had the advantage though
since I would have the stamina that came with youth. My father
would tire sooner than I did and I would be ready to take advantage
of that.

We ran for hours. It suddenly occurred to me
that we were approaching the Northern Star pack border. It was then
that I realized my father was trying to take advantage of my new
BlueRidge alpha status. I cursed myself for telling him earlier
this evening. My father wanted to reach Northern Star territory so
that I would be honor bound to stop chasing him. The thought of him
getting away enraged me and my wolf. We found strength deep within
us that we hadn’t previously known existed.

I was closing in on him now. He was less than
five hundred feet in front of me when I watched his wolf stumble
over a downed tree. It was the opportunity I needed and without
hesitation I pounced on him. He bucked me off and I slammed into
the ground and had the wind momentarily knocked out of me. My
father of course used the time to his advantage and had now taken
steps relocate to higher ground. He now had a tactical advantage
since he was surrounded on three sides with tall rock formations. I
would have to attack him straight on an expose myself in the
process. This was going to get really bloody, really fast.

I finished cleaning up the bedroom and
decided I’d better go check on Lidia before she gets herself into
trouble. It had been over an hour since I heard her clumsily try to
leave the house. Chances are in her weakened condition she hadn’t
made it very far. I was in a bad mood, and I really wasn’t in any
rush to find her. The truth was I only bothered to look for her at
all because she was once a member of BlueRidge. There is still a
small part of me, albeit a very small part of me that is getting
smaller by the day that still feels responsible for Anthony
Howard's old pack members. That small part of me feels like his
memory and friendship deserves a few minutes of my time.

So here I was outside in the middle of the
night, pissed off and tired using my nose to follow around a
mentally deranged shewolf. She seemed to go around and round in
circles before locking in on a destination. That’s when it hit me.
She was headed directly for my underground cave. I stopped
following her scent and instead immediately headed for the
entrance. The moment I entered the foyer, all of my senses were
overwhelmed with the scent of freshly spilled blood and lots of
it.

I sprinted into the main room of the cave and
saw Lidia’s body sprawled across the concrete floor. Her arms were
ripped from their sockets and looked like they had been mauled on.
Her heart was torn from her chest and had been shoved into her own
open mouth.

The smell and sight of her dead body caused a
gag reflex in the back of my throat. I pulled out a handkerchief
from my pocket and covered my nose. I looked at her for a few more
moments and said a silent prayer that her soul had safely crossed
from this world into the next before I turned to exit the room. I
would need to send someone in later to clean up the mess and burn
her remains.

Realizing that Logan had obviously done this
sickening act of violence had me immediately worrying about my
beloved. I started running towards the BlueRidge pack house with
the intention of checking on my beloved and her pack members. Just
as I was about to burst through the front door I picked up the
scent of Logan and Lucas moving away from the pack house towards
the Northwest.

Deciding that I needed to know Kalli was okay
before I continued to pursue Logan I opened the door to the pack
house and hollered in for Kalli and Marie. Kalli came barreling
down the steps followed by Marie both of them looked shocked to see
me.

“Nikoli, what’s wrong?” said Marie followed
by Kalli saying

“Where is Lucas?” as she looked over towards
the couch. I cleared my throat and said

“I believe Lucas is chasing after his father.
I wanted to check on the two of you before I went after them.”

I momentarily pondered if I should tell them
about Lidia but decided there was no benefit to them knowing at
this time. I felt a little guilty that I wasn’t being completely
honest with Kalli but I needed to put some distance between us so
it was better that she didn’t know the truth. I could tell Marie
and Kalli wanted to ask me more questions, but I really didn’t want
to discuss anything right now.

Looking at Kalli standing there in nothing
but one of Lucas’s tee-shirts was driving me nuts. I chose instead
to embrace them both then make a quick exit. I reached out and
grabbed Marie first. She was a little surprise but then returned my
hug. She even went so far as to peck my cheek. I turned to Kalli
next and was surprised when she quickly jabbed her hand into my
chest and said

“Don’t’ my wolf is going nuts”

“I’m going after them and ending this
tonight. I don’t want to have to ever worry about Logan hurting any
of you again”.

I didn’t want to say or hear anything more.
My heart couldn’t take any more rejection tonight so I took off at
full speed in the direction I could tell they went in. I was
somewhat shocked when I heard Kalli invade my mind and say

“Be careful Nikoli, come back safe to me”

Today was my first day as alpha of the
Northern Star wolf pack. I’d gone to bed shortly after finishing
the territory run with the pack. It had been invigorating and so
much more than I could have wished for. I was in a deep sleep when
Lance my new Beta burst into my bedroom and awoke me.

“Rob! Wake up!” he shouted at the top of his
lungs. Then continued in a lower but very rushed tone when he saw
my eyes part

“Ah I mean Alpha we have a problem! We have
two wolves and a vampire approaching our eastern border at full
speed. At this pace they will cross into Northern Star territory in
the next fifteen minutes. We have three guards on that border ready
to meet them, but they will be nothing more than a small
distraction for a vampire. We need you to tell us what to do”

I processed the information quickly as I
threw on some clothes. I instructed Lance to get our best sixteen
wolves and meet me at the jeeps. We needed to get out there right
away. We could probably get to the eastern border in about twenty
minutes. That left five minutes for my wolves to hold back the
vampire. Most likely they would all be dead before we arrived but
we had to try.

When I arrived at the border I was shocked to
see the sight before me. It looked like everyone was dead with the
exception of Joey one of my border wolves and the vampire. The more
I looked the more I started to process what it was I was seeing.
One of the wolves was my father and his body was scattered in
pieces. Then I spotted my brother Lucas it looked like he’d put up
one hell of a fight but his throat was torn out and was most likely
dead.

My other two border wolves were covered in
blood and they too looked to be dead. The vampire was now sitting
just outside of my border not saying a word and refusing to move. I
approached the scene with caution and hollered out to Joey to move
closer to us. Once he moved behind the bunch of us who now stood
facing the vampire just over our border I said

“Joey, what the hell is going on here?” He
turned to look at me still shaking.

“Oh god Alpha, it was, it was” he paused,
wiped his hand over his face then started to cry. Realizing that I
wasn’t getting anywhere with him I spoke to the vampire.

“I am Alpha Robert of the Northern Star
territory. What is your business here any why did you kill my
wolves?”

The vampire looked up at me with what I would
call a look of disdain and said

“My name is Nikoli Sven. I’m here because I
was chasing your old alpha Logan. He dared to try and harm my
beloved. I killed him and the other wolves because they were stupid
enough to attack me. Your brother Lucas isn’t dead. If you throw
him over to me I can help to heal him.” I mulled over his words and
said

“Do you intend to cross my border and attack
the rest of us?” The vampire tilted his head to the side and
snarled at me

“All you care about is if I am going to
attack the rest of you? Don’t you care that I ripped your father to
shreds or that your brother is dying just inches away from
you?”

I turned back to face my new pack and decided
that a bit of delicacy was needed. I wanted to say no I could care
less or even better, why yes I do care and thank you for getting
rid of my problems for me, but instead I found myself saying

“I understand why you killed my father
truthfully he will not be missed, but my brother is a good wolf you
should not have harmed him. We will attack and kill you if you move
over that border. There are more than enough of us here to take you
down. Think carefully vampire. I would suggest you turn around and
go back to where you came from.”

I knew I’d said the right thing because the
wolves behind me all started to bay in agreement. I even heard
several of them start to shift. We were prepared to protect our
border. The vampire would not survive this night if he crossed over
towards us. The vampire looked pointedly at me, then behind me at
my pack mates before saying.

“I mean Lucas no harm. He is important to my
beloved. Give him to me so that I can heal him.”

This vampire was insane. There was no way a
vampire was going to heal a wolf. Even if I didn’t want my brother
alive to challenge me I wasn’t stupid enough to turn him over to a
vampire in front of my pack mates. That would reflect negatively on
me. I needed my pack to support me. I didn’t have the kind of mind
powers my father had. I needed to rule the pack the old fashioned
way with approval and wits. I shouted out to him

“You are not coming near my brother. We will
take him home and heal him the best we can. You must think we’re
stupid. We know no vampire would ever heal a wolf. You are our
natural enemy.“ Before I could even blink the vampire crossed our
boundary, snatched my brother and took off.

(Kenyan – An Elder Vampire)

I arrived at the home of Nikoli Sven and had
been greeted by nothing more than a human blood donor. I was a bit
peeved that after I took the time to actually come and meet with
him, that he hadn’t even had the decency to be here. He was lucky
that I Kenyan the ancient had actually deemed him worthy enough of
my time. I was the only elder that was going to come. Most had
laughed when he phoned us and claimed that he’d found his beloved
and that she’d been a wolf.

I’ve been alive since the dawning of time.
Vampires and wolves did not mix. It is an impossibility that our
beloved would be a wolf. Wolf blood is poison to us; we could never
be blooded with a wolf. Knowing that Nikoli was more likely insane,
I had decided to grace him with my presence and end his existence
rather than allow him to suffer with the crazy idea that his
beloved was a wolf.

Entering his home and finding it empty other
than the blood donor infuriated me. I would need to find ways to
amuse myself until he returned. Looking over at the donor again I
found myself a bit hungry so I reached out and grabbed the blood
donor by the throat and drank her dry. There were those of my race
that treated all life as precious, they believed that any given
human could be someones beloved. I however wasn’t burdened by any
of those foolish notions. I have been alive too long and have seen
too much in my years. Life is just life, humans are born and die.
There is nothing spectacular about their existence.

I looked back at the now dead female blood
donor and huffed. She’d obviously been used recently since she’d
hadn’t provided me with enough blood to fully satisfy my thirst. I
dropped her now limp dead body onto the ceramic floor and reached
out with my mind to determine if there were other donors
nearby.