Stepping back, she let him see that the rear seat had been laid flat, expanding the cargo area to hold dozens of cameras.
“Jumping in with both feet,” he said, glancing at her with those brilliantly verdant eyes.
She set the tip of the camera pod on the ground and leaned her weight into it. Syre didn’t want the lycans to know just how much they were needed, but there’d been too many skeletons popping out of closets already. Considering who they both were—hunters of the highest caliber for their respective factions—there would certainly be more transgressions they’d hate each other for. Neither of them could afford to hold back from this point forward, just as they couldn’t delve too deeply into their pasts. Theirs was a merger of necessity. Regardless of the things they’d done previously, they needed each other now. Digging up secrets would only make the going more difficult; it couldn’t change the route.
Vash met his gaze. “What choice do we have?”
“Right.” But the line of his mouth softened.
“These are just a temporary precaution. We’ll start moving your people out of here in the morning. I know you’ll want to be near rural areas, but we need a command center with easy transportation access. I’ve got specs on some properties that meld the two needs. Money isn’t a concern.”
He shifted his stance, and his irises took on a preternatural glow. Her hackles rose. She spun around before she heard the rustle behind her, kicking herself inwardly for being caught unawares, another sign that Elijah had knocked her off her game.
A slender woman stepped into the clearing. Dressed in a simple sleeveless floral dress with buttons down the front, she looked fresh and innocent except for her eyes, which were narrowed and hot with hatred.
Rachel. The mate of the lycan Vash had tortured in an effort to find Elijah, whose blood had been left at the scene of Nikki’s abduction.
“Back off, Rachel,” Elijah warned.
“She’s mine, El.”
Vash moved subtly, firming her stance and preparing to unsheathe the blades on her back. She commiserated with Rachel’s loss and she didn’t disagree with the lycan’s right to challenge her—after all, revenge for a murdered mate was a goal they shared—but damned if she’d go down for anyone without fight.
“No, Rachel,” he growled softly. “She’s mine.”
“You owe me this. He died protecting you.”
“He didn’t give me up. I won’t deny that.” He moved closer, stepping in front of Vash, acting as a shield. “But Micah set me up in the first place. He planted my blood, and that lured Vash to hunt me.”
Rachel’s mouth curved, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “How would he do that? Only Sentinels have access to the cryogenic storage facilities.”
“The same Sentinel or Sentinels who took Lindsay from Angels’ Point?”
If Vash hadn’t been watching so closely, she might’ve missed the shiver of fear that raised the hairs on Rachel’s arms. As it was, Vash felt a grudging admiration for the Alpha, who was so swiftly piecing together a picture of double-crosses and fractured loyalties.
Rachel ripped open the front of her dress and shifted, and Vash whipped out her blades. Elijah darted forward in human form, catching the snarling she-wolf in the air and deflecting her.
If Vash had harbored any doubts that he was an Alpha, they would have been completely dispelled. She’d never heard of a lycan able to resist a shift while under attack. Never thought she’d see it.
“Stop it,” Elijah barked, his words cracking like a whip.
But Rachel was beyond caring. She hunkered low and came at Vash again. Vash leaped to the roof of the Jeep to gain the high ground and prepared to slice back, but Elijah pivoted with a roar, grabbing Rachel and crushing her spine to his chest. Standing on her hind legs in lupine form, the female was bigger than he was. She clawed at the air with her forepaws, her jaws snapping over her shoulder.
“Cut it out.” His bare feet skidded on the ground as he wrestled her writhing body. “Don’t make me hurt you, Rach. Don’t— Damn it.”
Rachel’s back paw scraped his calf, eliciting a bellow of pain and fresh gushing of blood as his injury from the day before rent anew. The potent scent of his blood filled Vash’s nostrils. Her fangs descended; her body tightened with hunger. She crouched, her gaze shooting to the mouth of the cave. A witness would be helpful, but she saw none forthcoming.
Elijah hurled the wolf aside again and tore open his button fly. In a split second, he’d shifted into a pony-sized wolf with rich chocolate fur and a lupine face as majestic as his human one was gorgeous. He howled, the sound echoing off the red rock and rolling like thunder through the canyon.
Rachel slinked across the dusty ground, her lips pulled back in a snarling display of wickedly sharp teeth. Elijah stalked her, growling low and deep with unmistakable menace. Vash’s breathing quickened. She smelled the third lycan before she saw him.
In human form, Stephan leaped onto the rooftop beside her and landed nimbly on his feet. “Jesus,” the Beta hissed. “This is the last thing we need.”
“You’re my witness,” she said, before diving off the SUV with her blades leading the charge, her body stretched to its full length.
The she-wolf pounced with a bark, meeting her halfway. Her katanas were a mere inch from fur-covered flesh and muscle when Elijah tackled Rachel from the side, slamming her out of the way. Vash’s blades sank into the ground where the she-wolf had been a mere second before. Using the anchored swords as leverage, she held the hilts and flipped, her legs arcing over her head and landing on the other side. She hit the ground in a crouch, her boots pounding into the dirt. The sickening crunch of broken bone sounded behind her.
“Fuckin’ A,” she cursed, knowing death when she heard it.
* * *
Elijah shifted forms, the power of his lycan sight diminishing into that of a human’s, then blurring with tears. He stared down at the lycan lying at his feet, watching fur melt into flesh as life flowed out of Rachel’s body from the punctures in her broken neck. Dropping heavily to his knees, he threw his head back and howled his grief.
“Damn it,” Vash snapped at his back. “You should’ve let me do it. It would have been self-defense. The others would’ve accepted that easier than they will you killing a lycan while protecting a vamp.”
A growl at his back alerted him to Stephan’s presence behind him. Bracing for the agony of a bite he wouldn’t defend himself against, he was startled when the expected attack didn’t come and Vashti spoke instead.
“I’m not going to hit him while he’s down, Beta,” she said drily. “You don’t have to protect him from me, even if he does need a smack upside the head for jumping in when I can protect myself.”
“I didn’t do it for you.” Gathering himself, Elijah stood and collected his jeans, yanking them on. “I can’t afford disobedience now. Letting you two get to each other after I ordered Rachel away would only prove that my word isn’t law, and it needs to be.”
His chest heaving, he swiped his tears away and fought down the rising bile in his throat. An icy lump had settled in his gut, guilt eating through him like acid. He’d killed the woman he had promised to protect from harm, the widow of his closest friend. While her death had been certain from the moment Micah died—lycans couldn’t live long after the loss of their mate—he’d never imagined the nightmare of being the hand that dealt the fatal blow.
Stephan shifted, but kept a defensive position between Elijah and Vash.
“Alpha.” His voice was calm and controlled. “How do you want to handle this?”
Elijah faced him. “I’ll inform the others. Take whoever you need and see Rachel buried as well as possible. Then take these cameras and set them around the perimeter in ever-widening circles. If you need help setting up the feed, Vashti will assist you.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Stephan’s immediate compliance might’ve soothed him, if that had been even remotely possible
. Before his Beta walked away, he stopped him. “Stephan…thank you. For everything.”
Giving a brief nod of acknowledgment, Stephan gathered his clothes from the ground and moved away.
Elijah set off toward the caves. Remorse weighted his shoulders and stung his eyes. He’d never wanted this, never wanted the responsibility of making such brutal decisions or having the power to see them enforced.
“Hold up, Alpha.” Vash drew abreast of him, swords still in hand. “I’m coming with you.”
The way she strode by his side, armed, offered her support without words. They were a united front. Allies. He almost laughed at the terrible absurdity.
“You have to put it away, Alpha.”
He came to an abrupt halt, his hands fisting at his sides.
“Wanna take it out on someone?” she asked softly, facing him and sliding one blade into its scabbard. “I’m your girl. I’m always up for a heated sparring match. But you’ll regret carrying that baggage in front of the others. Trust me. I know.”
“Do you?” he challenged. “Have you killed someone you promised to protect with your life?”
Amazingly, her beautiful amber eyes softened with something like sympathy. “I’ve done some horrible things, things I’m not proud of and have a hard time living with. It’s part of the job of being a leader. I’m not saying you should suck it up and get over it, because you’re not going to get over it. That’s also part of the job—if you stop caring, you’re worthless. I’m just saying you can’t stand in front of your troops seething with guilt, because that implies culpability and this was an assisted suicide. Rachel had to know she couldn’t possibly win against you or me. She was ready to go, and this was how she chose to do it.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” His friendships were precious to him. As frustrated as he was with Rachel, she was still a friend and a pack member and he ached from her loss.
Vash shrugged. “Nothing will. But you didn’t do anything wrong. It was a shitty thing to do, yeah, but it had to be done. For her sake, my sake, your sake, and the sake of this alliance that we both really fucking need. As I said, if you wanna knock it out, I’m here. Just don’t take it in there.”
“There will be more,” he muttered, respecting her counsel and appreciating—however reluctantly—that she’d offered it. “The others didn’t know what they were getting into when they orchestrated this revolt, and many of them aren’t going to be happy with the decisions I’m making.”
“Fuck ’em. Until they’ve been in command, they can’t know what it’s like.”
He snorted. She knew what it was like, which created an unexpected affinity between them.
She smacked him on the shoulder. “Ready, puppy?”
Fuck. She was hot as hell but totally crazy. Irreverent and unpredictable, too. Yet when he’d researched her, he’d heard the stories of her hunts—she was like a lycan on the scent when she pursued, dogged and unwavering, dependable for those who hunted with her. And now it seemed there was a method to her madness.
He growled. It’d been better when the only thing he admired about her was her tits. “Stick close to me.”
“I’ve got your back.”
“Fine. Make it easy for me to have yours.”
She glanced at him as they entered the main cavern. Blood still stained the ground from his earlier fight and he was trudging in more, his wounded leg leaving a crimson trail in his wake.
Throwing his head back, he howled, a purely inhuman sound. Within moments, the space began to fill. Vash appeared startled by the number of lycans who poured in. “Jeez. Who knew so many furries could fit in one cave?”
Elijah waited until the room was so full that a mere five feet of clearance surrounded them. He relayed the recent events without inflection—starting with Vashti’s arrival and ending with his reason for taking the life of a packmate. His remorse and frustration roiled, twisting around his vitals, but he contained them, even as he expressed sincere regret that they’d lost one of their own.
As some of the lycans in the room shifted into their lupine forms, Vash lifted her blade and set the flat of it against her shoulder. While her pose was casual, it conveyed her battle readiness. The beasts paced and she tracked them with her gaze.
“I’m asking you to trust the orders I give and the actions I take,” he finished, “whether you understand and agree with them or not. If you can’t, I won’t stop you from leaving and I won’t think less of you. If you stay, some of you will be on the move tomorrow and working with vampires. In either case, try to get some rest tonight. Things will be stressful for all of us for the next while.”
He started forward, heading for the cavern he was using as sleeping quarters. The female who’d announced Vash’s arrival the day before stepped into his path. Sarah was a young Omega—he guessed mid-twenties—and exceptionally pretty, with long straight black hair and tip-tilted eyes.
“Alpha.” She met his gaze shyly. “Allow me to tend your wounds.”
He almost brushed her off, his emotions too volatile to welcome company. But her earnestness touched him. While there were many who would challenge him, there were others who needed a different sort of guidance—a soft touch and gentle words to go along with a firm hand. It was the sort of leadership he longed to provide and hoped he could eventually achieve once their situation became less precarious. “I’d be grateful if you would, Sarah.”
Battery-operated lights lined the passageway. Gesturing at his office, he spoke over his shoulder to Vashti. “Grab your bag.”
She muttered something under her breath, but complied. She joined him a few minutes later in his room, entering at the moment he had his hands on his fly. He shed his ruined pants and sat on the military locker placed at the foot of his air mattress. Sarah sank to her knees between his spread legs and opened the first-aid kit.
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Vash queried tightly.
Elijah looked up at her, noting the rigidness of her jaw and her narrowed gaze. Nudity was nothing to a lycan, but perhaps it meant something to Vashti. Wondering if the vampress could possibly be feeling as proprietary about him as he felt about her, he reached out and tucked Sarah’s hair behind one ear. Vash stepped closer, the hand not holding her duffel wrapping tightly around the hilt of a blade strapped to her thigh.
“Where’s my room?” she demanded. “I’ll give you some privacy.”
“You’re standing in it.”
Her gaze lifted from his cock to his eyes. “What?”
“You’re rooming with me.”
“Like hell.”
Canting his arms back, he gripped the rear edge of the trunk and stretched his wounded leg out. “It’s the one place I can trust you’ll be safe.”
“I can damn well take care of myself.”
He took a deep breath, released it. “No argument, but the odds are against you.”
“If I can’t fight off a pack of puppies, I deserve to bite it.”
“And Syre would come down on me in a swarm of vamps. How much shit am I expected to have shoveled on me?”
That knocked her back a bit. She looked at the queen-sized air mattress, clearly debating the risks and benefits of sharing it with him.
“We’re both adults,” he pointed out. Then he groaned softly as Sarah smoothed ointment over his torn skin. He’d be healing faster if he was eating properly, but he was quickly becoming undernourished on the sparse amount of food to be found while roughing it. “Nothing will happen that you don’t want.”
“I don’t want anything besides you keeping your end of our agreement.”
“Then you’ve got no worries. Why don’t you show me those property specs you mentioned?”
Vash stared at him for a long moment, then muttered something beneath her breath and dug in her bag. She set it down on the ground a moment later, her hand emerging from the depths with a folder clutched in her grip. She looked at Sarah, who was tying off a bandage. “Are you done
yet?”
Sarah’s gaze searched Elijah’s face for instruction.
He dismissed her with an easy, “Thank you, Sarah.”
The lycan closed the first-aid kit and said, “I’ll get you some dinner, Alpha. Esther made an awesome venison stew.”
“I appreciate that.” Ideally, they’d each be eating their own deer, but they weren’t in a position to dine well under the circumstances. Instead they were divvying up what they caught among everyone, which kept them alive. Barely.
“Also…” She offered a timid smile. “I’d like to stay with you when you make the arrangements to send some of us out with the vampires.”
“Aw,” Vash crooned with syrupy sweetness. “Puppy love. How touching.”
Sarah rose to her feet with graceful dignity, but the look she shot Vashti was poisonous, a rare display of hatred from an Omega.
“I’ll work something out,” Elijah answered, his decision taking into account her innate Omega gift for soothing and comforting others. She’d be best utilized in a support position, rather than on a hunt.
“Thank you, Alpha.” She left the room in a calm, graceful glide.
Pushing to his feet, he rolled his shoulders back, feeling better already. He felt Vash’s gaze slide over him and he glanced at her with an arched brow.
“Will you put some damn clothes on?” she snapped.
“Why don’t you take yours off?”
She bared her fangs. “In your wet dreams, lycan.”
He shrugged. “Worth a shot.”
CHAPTER 5
They were on the road before dawn and across the Utah/Nevada border before midmorning.
Vash gripped the steering wheel and tried not to think about the restless night behind her. Elijah, damn him, had slept like a log, which said more clearly than anything that he didn’t consider her a threat at all.
She’d tried to work. There was so much to be done. But she’d been distracted by the way he had stretched out next to her with one arm tossed carelessly over his head, showing off beautifully defined biceps. And the way the sheet had clung tantalizingly low on his hips…A tiny tug would have revealed all of his impressive assets.