The Trail Back (6 page)

“That still makes no sense to me, Charlie. Sorry.”

“It means you are the result of the mating between one shifter parent and one vampire parent. The fact that they had an offspring means that they were mates, despite their different species, like a human and a shifter being mated.”

“My mother is a wolf. I never met my father. I only know his name was Samuel, and he was from Sweden. I guess that means he’s a vampire?”

“A hybrid like yourself, and Aiden’s mate, Kaitlyn, has blood that acts in a special way to vampires. You cannot, however, get pregnant by one unless you are their mate.”

Abbie let out a sigh. That was something, at least. “What day is it? What month?”

“It’s Thursday, the twelfth of March. How long were you held captive?”

“I was drugged and taken from a bar in Lake Louise, Canada, on February seventh. It seemed like I was there a lot longer than just a few weeks. I was worried the whole time that they were trying to get me pregnant.”

“I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through, Abbie. But your blood seems to give them a high, like ecstasy, and greatly increased sexual urges.”

“They took blood from us with a syringe every day.” She hesitated to even speak of the worst time in her life. “But sometimes they would feed from us. The rape felt like it went on for hours. I thought it was a vampire thing. The hunger seemed so inhuman.”

She tried to block out the growls of her mates. She needed these answers so she could understand. So she could close the door on her pain and perhaps put it behind her.

“That is what they want your blood for,” Charlie said softly. “They are selling it to other vampires because of the effect it has on them.”

“I really only remember the one episode, after that I used to fight them so hard that they had to beat me until I was unconscious. It was better that way.” She shuddered. “All our cages were in the one cabin. If it wasn’t me that they fed from it, it was one of the others. I saw what they did to those poor women, to the man. What they must have done to me.”

“We plan on going back for them,” Charlie said. “Aiden and the woman who brought you here, they are going to stop those monsters and free the others.”

“Charlie, it’s Kaitlyn. I have some clothes for the wolf.” She heard more growling and mumbling from the other side of the door. “Abbie. I have some clothes for Abbie.”

Abbie’s lips ached and split painfully as she tried to smile.

“Here.” Charlie handed her a cotton pad, and she used it to mop up the blood she felt running down her chin. “Can Kaitlyn come in?”

Abbie nodded and pulled the coat tighter around herself. The woman who entered looked to be the same height as Abbie herself, but with dark olive skin and dark hair. She was beautiful and was dressed in a flowing gown of blue silk. It looked a little fancy for the room she was sitting in.

“Hello, I’m Kaitlyn. You met one of my mates, Aiden.” She held out a set of grey sweats.

“The vampire?” Abbie said. “Thank you for the clothes.” The woman must have been human. She didn’t scent as shifter. “You can’t be a hybrid, you scent as human.”

“So do you, Abbie. I’m a panther.” She was right. Abbie had always had fun as a pup by sneaking up on pack mates. She’d forgotten that she carried no scent, as she’d always been that way.

“You were attacked by the vampire, too,” Abbie said.

Kaitlyn paled but nodded. “I was running from him when I met my mate. He’s attempted to take me once already. I didn’t suffer as you did, Abbie. I’m here to talk to if you ever need it.”

She stood up to take the clothes from Kaitlyn and cried out as a sharp pain stabbed through her middle. The coat slid to the floor as she clutched at her abdomen. She felt as though she was going to be sick as the room began to shake.

“What happened?” Brayden asked. He lifted her and held her tenderly in his arms. “She looks pale, Charlie. What’s happening to her?”

Abbie wanted to tell him, but the pain was so bad that she just couldn’t seem to draw enough air into her lungs to breathe, let alone speak. Large dark spots swam before her eyes. Josh’s and Shane’s angry faces appeared then disappeared behind the growing dark patches.

“Aiden.” Kaitlyn said. “What’s wrong? What’s she feeling?”

“He can’t hear her thoughts,” Charlie said. “She’s having trouble breathing.”

It was too late. The dark spots swam together into darkness as their voices became fainter. The sound of Brayden’s heartbeat changed from a deep boom to a dull echo as she slipped into the suffocating darkness.
Such pretty wolves, all white and soft with blue, blue eyes.

* * * *

“
Do you want some juice or a piece of cake, Josh?” Brody asked.

He waved a plate in front of Josh, tearing his thoughts away from obsessing over a mate he had no intention of claiming.

“You’ve donated an awful lot of blood, you might faint.”

Josh went to snarl at him and flip him the bird when he saw Landon glaring at him over Brody’s shoulder. He decided to simply shake his head. The demon was a nice little guy. He was genuinely concerned for everyone, even surly bastards like him and Shane.

“Thank you for bringing all this over, Brody,” Brayden said. He took a piece of cake and some juice from the demon. “It’s been a long night.”

They’d rushed Abbie to the new state-of-the-art clinic in the center of town as soon as
Abbie had passed out. The clinic had not yet been opened, as they’d been awaiting Charlie’s arrival. No one anticipated she’d be using it for emergency surgery only hours after her arrival.

Josh and his brothers had been here all night, donating blood to keep Abbie alive while the doctor repaired her damaged liver and kidney.

“She’s ready for you, Josh,” Shane said. He slumped down next to Brayden and took a glass of juice from Brody, nodding his thanks only after a growl of warning from Landon.

Josh strode into the makeshift operating room and rolled up his sleeve. As a shifter he healed quickly and saw no marks on his arm from all the other times he’d done this tonight. “How’s she doing?”

He wanted to bite his tongue for asking. Charlie would think he cared, which he didn’t. He sat down on the chair next to the cot and refused to look at Abbie. Shane had folded like a house of cards when he’d held her. Josh didn’t want to fall victim to the mating bond like that. It would just make it harder to do the right thing.

“She’s doing better now that I’ve sewn up all the damage those vampires did. She’d be dead if she hadn’t come to either Jason or me. Thanks to Aiden, we understand about hybrid physiology, and I was able to keep her alive so her shifter genes can now begin to heal her.”

“Just take the blood, Doc.” Josh didn’t need to know about why she was alive, just that she was, for Brayden’s sake. He was not going to be around much longer. There was no point in telling him anything.

“I understand you intend to kill yourself in the hopes of making the mating successful with Brayden alone.”

“You’re a very blunt person, Doc Charlie,” Josh looked at the wolf shifter as she stuck the needle in his arm and connected the tubing to an empty bag. “I like blunt.”

“It hasn’t been proved that it will work, you know.” She stepped back as the empty bag started to fill. “They may both still die if they attempt to mate without you and Shane.” Josh examined her face and inhaled to check for any sign of deception in her scent.

“Perhaps if you’d already been dead when Brayden had met her?” She frowned and chewed on an already chewed and torn fingernail. “Then it might have worked.”

He could only stare at her. He was rendered speechless. She was serious. She was debating the merits of his planned suicide versus his already having been dead as though she were choosing to buy eggs laid by caged or free-range chickens. She was one unusual person.

“No. I think that now she’s scented all of you, she’ll need all three of you to be included for the mating to be successful. That’s just
my
opinion, though.”

“Did Brayden tell you to say that? Shane perhaps?” He wouldn’t put it past his brothers to try something like that.

“No.” She looked offended by the idea. “Do whatever you like, I was just offering some medical advice. I’ve fulfilled my obligations as a medical practitioner. It’s a shame to have spent all this time and effort saving her for you to then go and kill her anyway.”

She waved her hand in the air dismissively. She was being honest. No tart scent of deception flavored the air. She took the filled bag of blood and connected it to a line running into Abbie. He took a deep breath as she removed the needle from his arm. As she left the room he looked at the door and refused to look anywhere else. When Abbie moaned beside him, his eyes darted to her involuntarily.

“Fucking hell.” She looked so pale that he would have sworn she was dead.

“Do I look that bad?” Her thick, dark lashes fluttered open to reveal her beautiful copper-colored eyes. “You must be Josh? You were a wolf when we met before.” Her jaw clenched as she struggled to sit up.

“Lay still. The doctor just sewed you back together. You don’t want to go and tear something open.”

He remembered the feel of her hand on him. His wolf had wanted to lick the hand stroking him, but Josh wouldn’t allow it. He’d wanted to run from the room and never come back, but the wolf wouldn’t allow it.

“She’s awake,” he said. Josh knew Brayden would come but was unsure as to what Shane would now do. “I have to go now, Abbie.”

He stared at her one final time. Her eyes swam with tears as she stared at him. She was alive. It was time for him to leave. He thought about saying good-bye but shifted instead.

He allowed his wolf one lick of her outstretched hand before he ran from the room. The taste of her was almost his undoing. She tasted like heaven, and he wanted more. He ran straight past Brayden and was joined by Shane in his wolf form before he’d even left the clinic’s back door.

“I’m ending this now,”
Josh said.
“It’s for the best.”
Because if he waited he knew he’d never be able to do it. One taste and he was already consumed with thoughts of her. He wanted to have her soul entwined with his for the rest of their lives. He wanted her to be happy, to be safe, and to be loved—everything a twisted and damaged soul like his could never give her. He knew this, he’d always known this. Those hunters had killed him the day they’d killed his mother. It had just taken him forty-six years to die.

“I’m with you all the way, brother,”
Shane said.

After being careful to remain unseen while they moved through the town, they ran through the forest to Burnt Bridge Gorge. The drop of two hundred feet would soon end their miserable lives, although now their lives were no longer miserable. Abbie had ignited a spark of joy inside him, and it seemed to burn brighter each time he thought of her.

“Do you think the doctor was right?”
Shane asked. They walked to the edge of the cliff and looked into the gorge below.
“That this won’t work now that Abbie has met us?”

Josh looked at the sun as it rose over the opposite side of the gorge. He’d never noticed how beautiful a sunrise was.
“No. It will work. She can’t know for sure.”
He put as much conviction as he could muster into his statement. He was doing this for Brayden.

“If we’re wrong we’ll be killing them both,”
Shane said.

A movement at the edge of the cliff caught his eye. He turned and saw a tall, thin man in a suit standing ten feet away, a man who carried no scent that he could detect—a vampire. He was plucked from midair as he leaped for the vampire’s throat. The vampire threw him, and he flew through the air to collide with the massive trunk of a spruce tree.

“You smell like her. Why do you smell like her?” the vampire said.

Josh struggled to his feet and shook himself. His broken ribs snapped painfully back into place as he turned to look for his brother. The vampire had his hands wrapped around Shane’s throat. Shane was growling and snarling, his jaws just inches from the vampire’s face.

“A vampire has come for Abbie. He recognized her scent on Shane.”
Josh directed his thoughts to the entire pride, knowing whoever was on patrol would hear him. The vampire obviously heard him, too, as he hurled Shane straight at him. Josh moved to the side and let his brother fly past as he continued to advance on the vampire. He might die trying, but he’d do what he could to keep this bastard from getting to his mate.

“Where the fuck are you?”
Prescott said.

Josh told his enforcer where they were and before he’d taken his next step he felt the air around him shimmer and begin to crackle.

“Move back,” Brody shouted.

Josh took a step back and Shane padded over beside him as the vampire began to shake and claw desperately at the air around him. Its fangs grew longer, and its fingers transformed into dagger-like appendages.

“I’m electrifying the air around him,” Brody said calmly. The demon looked unassuming, but he held a staggering amount of power inside him. “It won’t kill him, but he won’t be able to move until I stop.”

Shane ran to the opposite side of the mass of sparking air that surrounded the creature. Josh moved as close as he could. He flinched as the static in the air snapped at his muzzle when he drew too close to the area Brody was affecting. He and Shane snarled. This was how they hunted prey. Shane took out their legs while Josh went for their throat. The vampire screamed as his clothes began to smoke.

“Three, two, one,” Brody said.

On one Josh and Shane initiated their well-practiced attack. Josh’s muzzle burned from the charge still present in the air around the vampire, but it didn’t slow him down as he leaped for the vampire’s throat. He took the vampire’s throat between his jaws and bit down as his momentum continued to propel him forward. The head was severed cleanly when Shane barreled into the vampire’s body from the opposite direction. Josh dropped the head and shook the creature’s blood from his muzzle. He turned and saw Shane standing on the twitching body.