Standing Before Monsters (Vorans and Vampires) (24 page)

He felt her hand slip behind his head pulling him closer as she lifted on her toes raising her lips to meet his as she added, “You’re being modest. It was probably the awesome sex.”

Longing made him want to take off his clothes and take her again, but it wasn’t long before Logan and Kate found their way into the clearing hand in hand. It was easy to see that they were in love. Nick just wondered if it was written on his face as well.

Charlotte had just started dressing when they appeared and even from a distance, Nick could make out Kate blushing at his notice. He wasn’t a werewolf. Even though she had been naked with her pack many times, it seemed to be a bit different with Nick around. Still the two returned and took their clothes from the hood where he had replaced them. The morning dew had begun to dry before he had. It was also the reason he had put them inside the car for the night.

Noticing Charlotte looking healthy Logan started to say, “Charlotte, you’re looking better. Did you...?” He came up short as he discovered his sister’s new eye coloring. “What happened to your eyes?”

“Oh wow!” Kate added looking from her clothing to her friend in shock. Putting on their clothes was forgotten as the two moved to look at her closer.

Shrugging, Charlotte directed them to finish dressing with an unspoken command just by pointing with her finger as she answered, “I’m not sure. We were going to ask if something like this had
happened to you after you and Logan..., um, bonded,” she finished unwilling to even say a more descriptive word about how Kate and her brother had fixed the bond.

The two shook their heads.

Nick sighed and had to wonder what caused the change, but then again everything about the last several days had been pretty much a never ending rollercoaster of mysteries and revelations. Why not add changing eye color to the mix?

Charlotte’s eye color was quickly ignored as Kate asked with a knowing grin, “So you two ‘bonded’ last night for quite a long time too. We weren’t sure a voran could fix you, but you look radiant. I wish I looked as beautiful as you.”

Logan swatted her on the rear surprising the other brunette. “You look beautiful to me,” he apprised his lover.

Glad her brother had disrupted Kate’s interest, Charlotte simply said, “I guess Eric was wrong about the full moon fixing me. If Nick hadn’t come along, I am afraid what would have happened to me last night. I wonder if I would have burned up inside?”

Logan threw an arm around her in a brotherly hug and replied, “Let’s be glad that we didn’t have to find out.

Looking to Nick he added, “Welcome to the pack officially, brother.”

Not wanting to contradict the man, since Nick hadn’t exactly run with the wolves after all, he understood what Logan meant and merely nodded. They were a pack in a way and it was a strange one at that. Three werewolves, a voran and a vampire making up an unexpected group had to be a first.

“Well, who’s hungry?” Nick asked starting to move around the back of the car working his way to the driver’s door. A healthy chorus of hungry werewolves set the four in motion for a quick breakfast before returning home.

Chapter 14- In the Dog House

The bill for breakfast was going be big, Nick thought to himself as Logan and the girls tore through two breakfasts each. Looking at the slim women, he wondered how fast their metabolisms must be, though for most of the month their appetites were reasonably feminine by comparison. His food bills used to be very conservative when it was just him in the apartment, he thought again wistfully.

Charlotte leaned against his shoulder and placed her left hand on his thigh rubbing it without even seeming to think about it as the other hand manipulated her fork and the food on her second breakfast plate. Her affectionate touches made him smile fondly for the pretty girl.

“Thanks again for breakfast,” Kate said for the third time as she looked guiltily at his small meal and coffee. The voran had been nursing a trio of pancakes, eggs and three pieces of bacon managing to take as much time as they were taking for two. Only Charlotte managed to restrain herself from wolfing down the first breakfast before starting on the second. Logan was already finished and already eyeing the last pancake and remaining eggs on Nick’s plate.

Taking the last piece of bacon, the voran slid the plate towards the larger man. “Go ahead, Logan. Even as big as you are, I can’t believe you’re still hungry.”

Charlotte giggled charmingly next to him as she replied, “You should have seen the morning after the big run at the pack house. We needed two houses just to try and feed everyone. The ones making breakfast were eating half before the rest could see the pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, waffles and whatever else they could find. We’d have four or five bags of bread for toast and some just would make sandwiches by the handful.”

Grinning at his sister, Logan added, “Then there would always be Charlotte daintily cutting her pancakes and eggs taking her time like she is now. She’d lose half her plate to marauders and get seconds just to make one plate by the time she finished.”

With a shrug, the dark haired woman retorted quietly, “I just never saw a reason why we couldn’t still act a bit more civilized. We didn’t have to act like animals. Even you held back more than the rest of them.”

Kate used her fork to move her last waffle onto Logan’s plate before leaning against his shoulder looking both tired and stuffed. She contradicted Charlotte in only one matter, “Logan still ate as much as most of them. He was just better at guarding his plate than you were.”

“My sister’s always been more controlled even before turning. She was preparing to become a lawyer and always studied more than she played. As pretty as Charlotte is, she barely dated through high school. I believe she said that there would time for that after she finished law school.”

Kate shook her head and stated, “Then you would be a lawyer and I hear the good ones never have much time for a love life.”

“Well, it’s all changed now anyway,” Charlotte replied wiping her lips daintily with a napkin. As if being reminded, Kate picked up her napkin following suit though perhaps a little less lady like in comparison. “I never finished college and with five years away, I’d never get looked at seriously for law school now.

“Looking back, I guess it was all a waste.”

Nick shook his head, and rebuked, “Having an education is never a waste of time. I’ve been to seven different colleges and attained degrees each time. Building your mind is never a waste.”

Nodding his head, the former doctor agreed saying, “Things didn’t go the way we wanted them to, but apparently you’re with someone who values intelligence as well. So there you go.”

Nick’s phone suddenly rang and the voran pulled his cell from his pocket noticing the incoming number with a bit of surprise, “Eric?”

“Nick, can you come to the house and bring Logan. There’s been an incident.”

“Of course, we were just finishing breakfast. We can come right away,” the voran replied looking at Logan who could hear with his enhanced hearing.

Flagging down the waitress for their check, Kate said quietly, “It sounds like someone might have been hurt last night.”

Logan nodded, but added, “Though incident could mean more than that also. Eric wouldn’t call me back tot he pack unless it was an emergency.”

Paying the check quickly, the four hurried to the Escape and drove a few miles out of their way back to the Beverly area on the southwest side of the city. When they arrived in front of the house, Nick was surprised to see all three of the werewolves’ vehicles sitting in front of the house.

As he passed them heading up the sidewalk, Nick could also smell fresh blood and he thought some new scents were on the air as well. It made him nervous and the voran wondered what the werewolves had gotten themselves into this time. The last time he had found the werewolves injured at this house, they had been attacked by vampires before he had used Marek’s people to draw them away to try and save Lena.

They weren’t even to the door and it was opened by a woman with wild auburn hair. She was one that Nick had met many times and though the werewolf often left her hair a bit mussed, this time she looked like she had run through bushes letting them pull her hair into crazed patterns.

“Hurry,” she said and her blue eyes looked as frantic as her hair as the woman glanced from those arriving to the houses around them checking if anyone noticed.

“What’s going on?” Nick asked as he slowed near the door.

“Not out here. Get inside first,” Aubrey ordered gesturing inside quickly.

Once he was through the door, the smell of fresh blood intensified. It was everywhere and the kitchen to his right looked like a triage center and werewolves were bleeding through bandages as they sat in chairs or lay on the table. The
smallest of the wounded, one of the Japanese twins, Sally, was the one occupying the table and she looked to be barely conscious. Her sister was holding her hand crying and never even looked up at the new arrivals.

“What happened here?” Logan asked immediately taking in the injuries and moving to Sally’s aid first as the girl looked to be in the worst straights.

Eric was there already trying to help keep pressure on the wounded leg of one of his men, Carl, if Nick remembered correctly. There were some werewolves he knew well and most of those had been in the primary house. This was one of the men staying in the second house under Eric’s second in command Terrell.

The leader of the werewolves spoke up quickly as he was often one of the calmest in a crisis after his many years as head of the pack. “We began our run and ran into hunters. They had traps and guns. The pack responded in kind after Sakura was shot in the shoulder. Ray took a bullet, while Carl and Aaron stepped on traps they had hidden near a tree with one of the hunters settled on a branch.

Feeling his chest tighten, Nick went into crisis mode at the words even as Logan pulled away the wet, red towel from Sakura, nicknamed Sally. Her shirt was already discarded and another towel over her breasts maintained a level of decency that the wolves often didn’t worry about. Most likely her sister Min was the source of such modesty not wanting to see her sister’s suffering added to while they waited for the only doctor they could trust to come.

Logan assessed the situation saying, “The bullet is lodged deep. It is close to a main artery and probably shifted when she changed back to human. Charlotte, get the bag from the counter, please.”

The man had never returned for the tools of the trade that he had managed to procure over the years. He was once an intern who had nearly achieved full status as a doctor. When Kate came into the emergency room that he had been working at, her nails had dug deep as she had lashed out from the gurney after being mauled by the werewolf who had attacked her. It had ended his career in hospitals, but not his calling completely.

He had joined the pack after Eric found them and had tended the members of the pack as best he could in the situations he found himself. Now that part of him, which was a doctor, took over as he used his enhanced senses to make up for simple tools and the basics of a kitchen.

“What happened to the hunters?” Nick asked as he checked the others. Ray looked surprisingly strong considering he had his shirt off showing a hole in his upper arm and a grazing on the side of his chest.

Eric nodded his head to Vanessa. The woman was his current mate and as much a leader as Jake. The red head led Nick to the living room where she turned the big screen on and flicked the input button. A live view through a security camera revealed a brown haired woman with a torn jacket and a white shirt stained red. Her brown matching pants had an entire leg torn free and scratches still bled from her wounds.

“Damn it,” he cursed even as he started looking at the man beside her looking beat up and bloody. A second man lay face down in front of the cage. He hadn’t survived the attack.

Vanessa noted his eyes and knew that his curse was for more than just the predicament they were in now. “What is it?” she asked curiously.

“I’ve met her before. She’s a park ranger,” Nick noted and followed up by asking, “How are their wounds?”

“Not as bad as Sally’s, but one of the men didn’t make it. When the wolves managed to leap up the tree, he was so surprised he fell and broke his neck. Eric would have taken them all hostage normally, until he decided what to do with them.”

“They’re bitten and will change?” he made the question more of a statement understanding how the turning process was supposed to work. Bites were certain to inject the wolf virus into the victim. As long as they were strong enough, they would change into wolves by the next full moon if not sooner. Claws weren’t necessarily a guarantee, but fingers as humans touched faces where the bacteria could sit long enough to be under their nails and transfer the virus. The last way would be a direct transfer from a werewolf’s blood.

Vanessa responded with a shrug.

Taking a deep breath, he asked, “Has anyone checked on them since they were thrown down there?”

The woman shook her head. “If they had killed any of the pack, you probably wouldn’t even be able to talk to them,” she said quietly. “Min will shove her blade through the hunter for sure. He’s the one who shot her sister.”