Shadow Bloodlines (Shadow Bloodlines #1) (7 page)

Nerves danced along my skin. I’d forgotten about my cell, so I dug it out of my pocket and checked. Forty-three messages.
What the hell?

After Jacqueline hooked up my phone through the car’s built-in audio/phone call system, she punched in my mom’s number. I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear as the phone rang through the car’s speakers.

“Hello?” My mom’s voice filled the car.

“Hey, Mom, it’s me.” My shoulders relaxed.

“Bethany Alexandra Bender! What are you involved in? There have been men in suits here for hours. You get yourself here right now!”

“I-I’m just with…” I glanced over at Jacqui and her eyes widened. My hand flew over my mouth. This couldn’t be my mom. She never used my full name, no matter how mad she got at me, and she knew I was spending the weekend with Jacqueline. But if men did show up…I hoped I was wrong. Please let me be wrong. “Sorry, it’s Dad’s weekend, remember? Should I tell him to drop…”

“How about I meet you both? For dinner? Just tell me where and I’ll be there.”

“Sure, Mom.” I swallowed. “We’ll head to Little Cucina. Love you.” I fingered the frayed black dress I wore with one hand as I drove with the other.

“Love you too.” And she hung up.

Tears streamed down my face and I scrubbed them away. I couldn’t see the road, so I pulled off into a bank parking lot.

I switched off the car and turned sideways, lifting my knees and hugged them to my chest. Glittering through my tears, headlights zoomed past. Amar squeezed my shoulder from the backseat.

“I’m sorry, Beth.” Jacqui hugged me. “Guess they got your mom? We need to go to the police.”

“I-it’s her voice.” I sniffed. “But she knows my dad isn’t around. I guess they don’t. We can’t go home.” And I’d sent the bastards to the other side of town.

“We can’t go to the police.” Amar ran a hand through his black hair. “They are the authorities, yes? The Blood Shadows would just infiltrate them until they captured us. We can’t just sit here. Maybe I can drive us…”

“Not a good idea.” Jacqui disentangled herself from me.

I rubbed my face and turned away from Amar. How uncool is it to be snotty face with a handsome guy in the car? Even if he does have wings.

Rather than comment on my appearance, he rubbed my back and sent shivers down my body and into my fingers and toes. It was comforting, but I still thought about my mom. Did it hurt what they did? Or was it quick? Then my gut knotted and I waved off his hands.

“D-do you know what happens when they take a human and do whatever it is that they do to them?” I knew I wasn’t making much sense, but I hoped he could understand my gibberish anyway. I hugged my knees to my chest as I stared at the traffic driving past.

“I won’t lie… it’s painful. But a human wouldn’t last too long under the procedure. A shifter, well we’d be in agony for days before our spirit died.” His feathers ruffled. “I’m sorry.”

I nodded and sniffed. I was alone now. My mom replaced by psycho shifter-killers and my dad… who knows where he was. God, my mom! I tucked my face into my knees and cried.

Rather than offering condolences, Amar handed me a box of tissue he must have found in the back. Neither he nor Jacqueline said anything for a long time. I knew it was dangerous, just sitting here, so close to where we’d just used cards for gas and money. But I just needed to gather myself first. My mom was all the family I had. The buffer between me and the world, and she was gone.

After my tears dried up, numbness crawled inside my chest. It still hurt like hell, but I felt as though I was moving in slow motion.

“We need to get back on the road.” Amar’s leather seat squeaked from his movement.

“I can drive if you want.” Jacqueline reached for the door.

“No. I’ll drive for a bit longer.”

Two hours later, I pulled into a burger joint and ordered food. I didn’t feel like eating. There was an empty gnawing pit inside my stomach. Instead, while the others ate, I went to the restroom, changed into the new clothes. When I saw my reflection in the mirror, I laughed until I cried reading the words, ‘Drink More Beer’ across my chest.

After I splashed my face with water, I slumped back to the car. Again, none of us said a word as Jacqui drove, while I stared outside the passenger window, watching the world blur past.

“Want a French fry?”

I shook my head, but she shoved it into my hand.

“Eat. If you don’t eat, you’ll be weak when they come back.”

Amar said around a mouthful of food, “She’s right. Focus on one hour at a time. You need to remain strong to fight them.”

“And make them pay?” I lifted my head and pushed my hair out of my face. “I want revenge for what they did.”

“Revenge never…” Amar said.

I glared at him and he stopped midsentence. The logical part of me knew he was right, but I didn’t care. I wanted them to hurt for killing my mom. I wasn’t afraid anymore. I dug through the burger bag and brought out mine. I ate the fries even though they tasted like paste. I would find a way to wipe out these things chasing us.

Maybe
if
my dad had hung around, he could have warned us. Joined the shifter secret society or something, rather than sending an obscure text too late. I stared out the window as we headed into the next small town. My dad was just as guilty as the blood creatures. Maybe I could get him to teach me all he knew so I could battle these smoke beings—after I chewed him out.

But how would I find him? I’d already sent a reply message to his text and received an undeliverable answer. And when I dialed the number, it was a voicemail message saying the number had been disconnected.

The only clues we had of my dad’s whereabouts were a few snapshots of him over eighteen years ago, and an unlisted number. One photo was at a carnival, but that could be anywhere. He had blue eyes with a gold ring around his pupils, like mine, but his didn’t have three colors like mine did.

We finally stopped in Jennis, population six hundred and fifty-nine. This time, we just stretched our legs. I shook my head when Jacqueline asked if I needed a snack or something to drink. No use leaving a credit trail for Ms. Moor to follow, besides we could buy food later with the cash we still had.

Dusk colored the sky in pinks and oranges, the latter being my mom’s favorite color, and my mouth dried as I got out of the car. Putting as much distance as possible between us and the Spirits of Blood was a good thing. Once I found my father, I’d learn how to fight these nasty beings. Then I’d pile on the guilt of mom’s death and leaving us. He was just as guilty as the Blood Spirits. If he had told us what was going on, we might be better equipped to protect ourselves.

When Amar unlatched his door, I spun around blocking him from exiting the car, “Wait. You can’t come out like you are on the side of the road. People will freak out about your wings.”

“I have been cramped back here for hours. I don’t think I could spread my wings and fly even if our lives depended on it. And they just might.”

“Well, just stay put a few more minutes… until we find a deserted patch of woods or rest stop.” Which here, in hick town should be easy.

“Next are clothes.” Jacqui thrust a box of chocolate raisins at me. “And I’m going to call my dad and see if he knows anything about these people after you or where we should go.”

“Find a place that’s safe for Amar to unfold, then you can call your dad.”

She looked at me with her eyebrow raised.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing.” When I grabbed a hold of her arm as she turned to leave, she winked. “Just the way you say his name… Amar like it’s got several syllables in it.” With a flip of her hair, she opened the car and shut it with a loud thunk.

Did she think I liked him? I didn’t… I mean he was handsome, but like thousands of years older than me even though he only looked about twenty-ish. If he was my boyfriend, I shook my head; no, he wouldn’t be for long. All the girls in my entire school would be after him.

I was eighteen and never been kissed. Never even had a boyfriend. Once, when I was ten, a neighborhood boy tried to kiss me, but I didn’t know what he was doing. He had me pinned against the wall of my house, but I ducked under his arm and ran. Looking back, I assume he was going to kiss me. If I had known at the time, I would have stayed trapped.

I climbed into the passenger’s seat and offered Amar my chocolate. He took a few, but I could tell his legs and wings were cramping from his curled shoulders, the wings folded against the ceiling of the car.

Finally, Jacqui found a dirt road that led to a cabin, surrounded by woods. “This looks like some hillbilly place with serial killers inside.”

“Perfect.” I was being sarcastic, but I guessed Amar would do fine against ordinary humans. Maybe I needed to tell him not to hurt them if any attacked us.

“Hurry and do what you have to,” she said as she waved a red licorice stick around, “I don’t want to have to pay a fine for trespassing.”

“That would be the least of our worries.” I got out of the car and paced around to make sure no one could see us.

Amar rose out of the car and shook himself, his black wings quivering as they unfolded and stretched out to twice his height. They were amazing, shining a brilliant black onyx color with the edges as if dipped in dark purple, almost like a raven’s wing in sunlight.

“Let’s go over to the trees.” More coverage in case anyone drove down this dirt road.

“Here is fine.” He grimaced.

“How’s the wing?” I shoved my hands in the pockets of my shorts.

“Good. It’s nearly healed. I can fly fine; even carry you if you don’t believe me.” He took a step closer. “Shifters heal faster than humans.”

“No, I’m good… but thanks.”

I guess he thought of himself as my protector and didn’t want me out of his sight. Part of me wished it was because he liked me, not that I was some weird octopus shifter girl. Another part believed he’d bail as soon as Ms. Moor and her creatures weren’t after me anymore.

“How about we walk through the woods for a while? And you can tell me all about how to find a shifter whose been hiding for over eighteen years.” Hopefully, he would know something about my dad. Or at least how to find him.

We hiked through the woods in silence for a bit, then he unfurled his wings again and shook them. My stomach did a flip. I saw one of his wings was covered in blood along the edge, and where he had lost a few feathers during the fight; each wing was massive, and I felt the wind stir my hair from his flapping. Jacqueline was wrong to call him birdboy. He was much more and gorgeous. He had saved me and continued to put his life in danger to protect me… maybe even to be with me. What did he get out of it?

“I need to stretch my wings and test flying.” His grey eyes twinkled mischievously. “Want to fly with me?”

My nails bit into my palms. I was afraid of heights. Or falling from heights was more accurate. He hadn’t dropped me, but he was injured now. Could he hold our weight?

“Trust me, I will not allow you to fall.” He gestured to his injured wing. “I have been injured far worse than this, and I know my limits. I will not put you in danger.” He held out his hand to me.

I couldn’t help but nod at the idea of being in his arms again. Glancing back the way we’d come, the car and Jacqui were out of sight. She wouldn’t notice anything.

He held out a hand and I stepped forward, clasping it in mine. A tingle coursed through me and my breath hitched.

Without another word, he swooped me up and we were over the tops of the trees. His damaged wing did not match the smoothness of his other or the previous flight I’d had with him, but we mostly glided.

My mom would have loved this, she wasn’t afraid of heights like I am. My tears started again, but the wind whipped them from my face faster than they could fall.

Amar held me closer as we dove toward the ground. Through my tears from the gush of air, the trees started spinning and I turned my head into his chest. Musk, cement, and that sweet spicy scent like cinnamon filled my nostrils.

We touched down and I stayed in his arms a moment longer. I didn’t want to face the world just yet but pretend I was safe in his embrace. Maybe if I kissed him again? Did he feel the same way about me? Attracted to each other like lightning to a lightning rod.

My lips parted and my eyelids grew heavy as I stared at his mouth. Even his lips were perfect, equal and lush.

“Bethany?”

“Hmmm?” I tightened my hold around his neck and stood on my tiptoes. Just a kiss. Something to hold onto no matter the absurdity of it. No matter that death chased me. Anything to not feel this aching guilt of what I was, and what had happened to my mom.

“I-I cannot.” His hands moved to my arms gently tugging them apart. “A guardian’s duty is to protect a shifter. I cannot compromise my judgment by…”

“Of course not.” I jerked away. “I was just going to thank you for not dropping me.” I tried to laugh, but it came out as a stuttering giggle.

Damn, my emotions and stupidity! I should have known he didn’t have an iota of romantic thoughts towards me. He was just doing a job.

I didn’t have time for this—we didn’t have time. My hormones and imagination needed to back off. How could a hunk like Amar like me? Me, a senior in high school with an absentee father, and now added doom and gloom surrounding me. I wouldn’t want to be around me either.

He cupped my chin in his hands forcing me to look up at him.

“They cannot hurt your mother anymore.” His eyes searched mine. “At least find peace in that.”

“They will pay for what they’ve done.” I stepped away from him and folded my arms across my stomach. The gnawing ache was back and it coated my insides with burning acid. “Now, how do we find my father?”