Moon Sworn (37 page)

I grinned and all but bounced out of the van.

One more thing to attend to, and then my life was finally mine.

If
I survived the encounter with Blake, that was.

Chapter 16

As
eager as we all were to confront Blake, getting rid of him wasn’t simply a matter of walking onto Jenson pack land and challenging him. We had to stop his whole damn family, because Blake was simply one poisonous head on the Medusa. Cut him off, and another would grow in his place.

And whoever replaced him would probably be even
more
hell-bent on revenge.

To end the cycle, we needed to bring down the whole lot of them. Maybe then those who didn’t quite fit into the Jenson pack ideal could live free of tyranny and fear.

So we spent precious time tracking down every one of his siblings and his get. Where possible, Jack sent out vampires to read their minds and gather information. It quickly became apparent that the Jenson pack’s change of fortune hadn’t come from good management but rather blackmail, robbery, and even murder. And as I’d suspected some time ago, Henry Bottchelli—the man who’d hired the red Mazda driver to follow me—was one of Blake’s aliases. He had several others, as did Tyson and most of his sons.

We worked practically nonstop. We gathered our evidence, we stuck our fingers into their bank accounts, and we raided their computer systems, and slowly but surely we got ready to snatch the whole damn lot of them.

When Jack wanted vengeance, he went all out. And with the force of the Directorate behind him, it was a pretty awesome sight to behold.

In the end, it took us nearly three days to get to the Northern Territory. Quinn’s plane landed in Alice Springs at four forty-five, and by five, the three of us and our one bag had cleared security and we were heading out into the car park.

The air was clean and warm, and it smelled like home. I inhaled deeply, loving the crispness of it, the way the flavors and the scents suddenly seemed all that much sharper.

It would be nice to come back here occasionally. Maybe once Blake had been dealt with, we could. After all, we now had a reason. We now had family.

You always had family
, Quinn commented.
It’s just that it wasn’t by birth and blood
.

He was right, of course.

When you hang around on this Earth as long as I have, you get to know a thing or two
. He smiled, but his dark eyes were serious.
Whatever happens after today, Liander and I will always be here
.

I know
. And it warmed the places deep inside that had been cold and empty for so long.

A large black SUV pulled up. Evin and Lyndal climbed out. Evin smiled when he saw us, but then surprise crossed his features.

“No guns?”

“We don’t need them,” Rhoan said, his voice calm. Yet an undercurrent of violence and excitement rode through every word and motion. The switch to guardian mode hadn’t been flicked yet, but he wasn’t far from it.

“But the minute we enter pack land, he’ll know,” Lyndal commented softly. “He’ll have shooters in place.”

“Which is why,” I said, opening the SUVs back door, “we asked you to rent this type of truck rather than just a car. You know all the locations of the border guards. You, Lyndal, and Quinn are going to go to each and every one of them and take them out as we stroll onto pack land.”

His frown increased. “But we don’t use SUVs to move from location to location. There’s no need to, when a good run is the best way to get anywhere or to finish a shift. They’ll know something is up the minute they spot it.”

“Blake’s still doing his surprise inspections, isn’t he?” Rhoan asked, resting a hip on the side of the SUV and crossing his arms.

It wasn’t really a question, because we’d already gleaned the answer from the minds of his family.

“Yeah, but—”

“But,” I said, “a recent car accident mangled his leg, and even though he shifted to heal it, infection has set into the bone and he’s recently undergone a series of operations to fix it. He’s been ordered to keep off his leg as much as possible, in either wolf or human form.”

Which is why he’d been limping when he’d confronted me at the truck accident. And why he’d looked so beaten up.

Lyndal stared at us. “How do you know all that, when even we didn’t?”

“We’re guardians,” Rhoan said blithely. “We know all sorts of shit.”

Evin raised an eyebrow, amusement warring with concern. “That doesn’t alter the fact that the minute we get close enough, they’ll know we’re not Blake and warn the pack.”

“Which is where this comes in,” Quinn said, and raised the bag he was carrying. “It’s a jammer. The minute I switch it on, all phones and radios will cease to work. And as we drive up, they
will
see Blake, not us.”

Evin stared at him. “You can do that?”

“Easily.”

“Wow.” He swallowed. Obviously, no one had ever told him just how powerful old vampires could be.

“Besides,” I added, “Rhoan and I walking onto the pack land will catch their attention and give you time. Blake won’t order us to be shot immediately. He’ll want the whole pack to witness our defeat.”

“But—”

“It’ll be fine.
We’ll
be fine. And you and Lyndal will be safe—Quinn will make sure of it.” I glanced at my watch. We were cutting it fine. Jack had his end of the whole show—arresting all various siblings and offspring who weren’t currently on pack land—set to go at six, and it’d take us nearly an hour to get onto Jenson lands.

“Now stop worrying, get in the car, and get us there.”

“I’m not worried about me and Lyndal,” he said, but climbed into the car and started it up.

It was a quiet journey out. I sat in the back between Lyndal and Quinn, with Quinn’s arm draped loosely around my shoulders and his fingers gently caressing my arm. It was comforting, that touch, and yet it gave me strength.

I’d spent most of my life avoiding the confrontation I was now driving toward, and it was damned good to know that I wasn’t doing it alone.

Was I scared?

Hell, yeah.

I’d seen wolf fights. I was well aware of how bloody they could get. How deadly. And while I had faith in both my fighting skills and Rhoan’s, I wasn’t trusting fate. I wasn’t blithely walking in there thinking everything would go our way.

We would both get hurt doing this, I knew that.

But deep inside me, there also burned a hunger to be done with it.

This was the last step in washing my hands of my old life. From now on, I could focus on me, Quinn, Rhoan and Liander, and the pack and the life we were creating for ourselves.

And more than anything else, that’s what drove me past the fear.

The flat red landscape soon gave way to red outcrops of rocks and the soaring hills that filled pack land. The twisting anxiety in my stomach grew the closer we got, and by the time Evin pulled over to the side of the road, I really thought I was going to be sick.

“This is it,” Evin said, looking back at me through the rearview mirror. “We’re five minutes away from our border. We need to cut inland here if we’re to get to the first outpost.”

I took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Then let’s do this.”

Quinn opened the back door and climbed out. The evening air swirled around me, thick with the rawness of nature. I took another deep, steadying breath, then climbed out.

“Good luck,” he whispered, his arms going around my waist as he gently kissed me. “I won’t tell you to be careful because, given what’s about to happen, that’s a pretty useless sentiment. But do try to not get too slashed up. The full moon is in a couple of days, and we have a sunset wedding.”

“I have no intention of either missing our wedding or being too messed up to enjoy our first night as a mated couple.” I kissed him again. “Although you do realize that, since I’ll be a wolf once the moon rises, it’s not going to be the usual human type of night.”

He smiled and ran a finger lightly down my cheek. “We have the rest of our lives to celebrate sexually. That night will be a celebration of an event I never thought would happen.”

“Riley,” Rhoan said softly behind me.

I kissed Quinn quickly one more time, then spun around and looked back at Evin. “Quinn will tell you when it’s safe to approach the compound.”

He nodded. “I’ll see you then.”

I glanced at Lyndal, who was looking decidedly nervous, then caught Rhoan’s hand and walked away without looking back. When we crossed the invisible line that marked the beginnings of pack land, something within me stirred—an eagerness, a hunger that, until now, had remained in the background.

The wolf within me wanted this.

Wanted it
bad
.

We let go of each other and broke into a run. We didn’t run at top speed, simply because we actually wanted to be spotted. Blake needed to know we were coming—and give the all clear—before Quinn, Evin, and Lyndal got to the scouts and put them out of action.

The sensation of being watched soon began to grow, until my whole neck itched with it. The tension emanating from Rhoan suggested he felt it, too.

I kept running, but my gaze swept the barren landscape, looking for watchers that Evin mightn’t have known about. After all, Blake would more than likely have introduced stricter security measures once his plot against me had started. He was smart enough to realize the Directorate would retaliate the minute they found any connection.

It’s just a shame he wasn’t intelligent enough to keep his anger and need for revenge to himself, rather than actually acting upon it.

We started up the long slope that was the final division between us and the place we’d grown up. My stomach was still in knots, and my heart was beating nine to the dozen. We reached the top and, as one, slowed.

Below us lay the valley of our childhood. In many respects, it looked more like a large ranch with lots of outbuildings than a city like Dunedan. The old, wood-shingled buildings blended in with the red of the surrounding countryside and contrasted sharply against the bright pockets of green—the football oval, the cemetery, and the few acres surrounding the dam that had always been the swimming hole for every kid who grew up here.

There were people out and about but, as yet, it didn’t appear that we’d been noticed. My gaze went almost with a will of its own to the ramshackle but beautiful old house that sat one behind—and slightly to the side—of the main gathering house. That’s where we’d grown up. It had been our grandfather’s place, but never really our home, as much as our mom had tried to make it seem otherwise. Our grandfather had tolerated us, he’d fed us, and he’d educated us, but he’d never really loved us. We were half-breeds and, in his eyes, a tarnish on the Jenson name.

Maybe that was why he’d turned a blind eye to so much of what Blake and his family had done to us over the years. He’d always stopped it from going too far, but I think that had been more for Mom’s sake than from any real need to protect us.

Mom.

For the first time since all this had begun, I actually began to think about her. Neither of us had seen her for well over ten years. We didn’t communicate, didn’t share birthdays or Christmas or Easter.

And yet I knew she’d loved us.

How was she going to react when she saw us? When she realized what we were going to do?

How the hell were we going to react when we saw her?

I shivered and rubbed my arms. Rhoan hugged me fiercely. Then, without saying a word, he wrapped his fingers around mine and started off down the hill.

We were spotted about halfway down. Initially it was nothing more than people briefly pausing for a look, then getting on with whatever they were doing, but word of who we were must have gotten around fairly quickly. By the time we’d hit the valley bottom, we’d drawn quite a crowd.

But it was a silent one, and that was weird.

Rhoan released my fingers as we neared the first of the outbuildings, but he kept close, our arms brushing each other as we walked. The tension that had been riding him earlier had gone, and he walked with the loose-limbed ease of a predator who knows his prey cannot get away.

I wished I could imitate him, but it simply wasn’t possible.

Scents swirled around us, rich with familiarity and memories. I closed my mind to them, concentrating on the silent figures watching us, wondering what they were thinking but not daring to find out. Their expressions were closed, unreadable, and for one uneasy moment, I wondered if we’d misjudged the pack. Wondered if we’d bitten off more than we could chew.

We continued up a slight incline, heading toward the main gathering hall. Blake could have been anywhere, but the hall was the seat of power for the pack. It’s where business was handled, where justice was meted out, and where major events were celebrated.

If he knew we were coming—and he surely did by now—then this is where he’d be.

Of course, our confrontation would not happen in the hall itself, but rather in the arena behind it. It was here where the blood disputes were handled and where the challengers to leadership were heard and decided.

Blake had killed my grandfather and taken over the leadership there, and now it was where he would meet his own death.

Behind us, the crowd continued to grow, sweeping in behind us and effectively cutting off our exit. The scent of wolf and home and anticipation swirled around me, filling my lungs and twisting my stomach. I flexed my fingers, but it didn’t do much to help me relax.

Then two figures appeared out of the building above us. Both were males, broad of shoulders and strong of build. Both wore contemptuous expressions.

Blake and his brother Tyson.

I glanced at my watch. It was after six. Jack’s half of the operation had already swung into action. If Blake had any suspicion that his empire was crumbling around his ears, he wouldn’t be standing there so calmly.

We stopped when there were still ten feet or so between us, with Rhoan slightly behind me. This was my gig, my revenge. He was here as my second and my backup, though in truth he was a better fighter than me. And he’d need to be to take out Tyson, who was almost half his width again.