Bloodmark

  I ran down the hall, away from his touch. I couldn’t keep letting him consume my mind. I couldn’t just give him parts of me—it was all or nothing. I needed to close myself off to him. It hurt too much to feel this way.

  I waited by Beth’s locker until the bell rang. I needed a girl’s help. A normal human girl’s. I couldn’t possibly tell her the whole truth, but maybe that was better. I would get a normal perspective on relationships. Lacey walked by with a smirk on her face.

  “It didn’t take long for him to get bored of you, did it? You’re just trash,” Lacey said. She just kept walking as if I didn’t even exist. I spotted Emma and Beth walking down the hall toward me. They both looked concerned by my expression.

  “Grey and I broke up. His dad won’t let him see me,” I said.

  “What! Why?” Emma said.

  “What a dumbass,” Beth replied.

  “What can we do?” Emma asked as she wrapped her arm around my shoulders.

  “Let’s skip class. I really can’t be here right now, and your company would be the best thing in the world.”

  “Skip?” Emma said.

  “Hell yes!” Beth said. “Let’s go. We’ll take my truck.”

  Beth led the way, orchestrating our escape out the door. It was far too easy to just walk away. No one seemed to notice. We were invisible. I quickly walked a few cars over and left a note for Mund. I slipped it under the windshield wiper and jumped in Beth’s truck.

  Emma was babbling, filling the space between us with her nervousness. Beth slammed the truck into drive, and with that, we raced out of the parking lot to our freedom. Beth drove us across town to an enormous old stone church with a massive stained-glass window. Its presence loomed over the edge of the woods as the gatekeeper to the forest. I slowly opened my door and slid out onto the cobblestone parking lot. The church was nearly alone out here, and it would have been if it weren’t for the hundreds of souls keeping it company in the adjoining graveyard. The hand-carved tombstones were as weathered as the church itself.

  “I’m not sure we should be here,” Emma said.

  “Come on,” Beth said as she dragged us through the archway into the sanctuary. She shut the old doors behind us with an echoing creek. My eyes easily adjusted to the darkness. The church was filled with pieces of the past. Only shards of light streamed through the colored glass, creating mosaics on the floors.

  “Which way?” I asked.

  “We’ll go upstairs,” Beth said, leading the way up a darkened staircase. We followed after her without a word. I could feel Emma’s heart rate increase through her palm. The old church must have made her uneasy. I didn’t mind the looming architecture and dark corners. It reminded me of the Rock. What a foolish child I had been then. The selfish worries of a child. I still yearned for human blood even now, as my friends’ scents swirled around me, but not as I had before. My love for them overpowered any instinctual desires I had. I finally felt a love for them that Old Mother had intended all along.

  We entered a room with large windows facing the forest behind. Beth shut the door, giving us privacy, but there was no one here. Beth plopped down on the floor, and Emma quickly sat next to her. I didn’t know how to start telling them how I was feeling or what had happened. Where could I even begin with a tragedy such as this?

  “So . . . what happened?” Beth asked.

  “I don’t know,” I realized. “Grey’s dad forbade him to date me.”

  “Why?” Beth asked. Leave it to her to cut the crap and get to the real issues.

  Because I’m a werewolf, because Grey’s greater purpose is to kill me, because his father is a Bloodsucker, because his mother died . . . none of these were things I could tell them. What was I thinking when I decided to vent to humans when I could never tell the truth?

  “His father doesn’t like my family, I guess,” I said, finding words to explain without revealing anything I shouldn’t.

  “But your brother is so delicious,” Emma said with a giggle. Beth shot her a dirty look, and I almost laughed.

  “Grey is actually listening to his dad?” Beth asked.

  “Yeah. He broke up with me,” I said. “But then he kissed me today in class. In front of everyone, but he claims he can’t be with me. It doesn’t even make sense. I want so badly to be with him, but I don’t want to be the girl who can’t stand to be alone. I just don’t know what to do.”

  “Oh, Ashling . . . that’s terrible,” Emma said.

  “Who the hell does he think he is?” Beth said. “What a pig.”

  “If he kissed you, that means he still loves you and still wants to be with you. Maybe all he needs is some convincing to show him what he gave up,” Emma said.

  “No way. He deserves to hurt for this,” Beth said.

  “When it was good . . . it was so good,” I said.

  “And now?” Beth asked.

  “Now there is nothing left of me. I need him.”

  “You don’t need any man. Ever. You are just as amazing as you were before he broke your heart. Don’t ever let him tear you down.”

  Hearing her words, I cried. I knew she was right, but wasn’t love the reason we all lived? Without love and compassion, the world was a desolate place. Beth leaned forward, taking my hand in hers.

  “He’s making a stupid mistake. A mistake that has nothing to do with you.”

  “She’s right, Ashling,” Emma agreed. “You can’t beat yourself up because he’s not strong enough to stand up to his dad. That’s silly. And that’s not the Grey we know. He’ll fight for you.”

  “You can have any guy you want—don’t get stuck on him,” Beth said.

  “I want Grey.”

  “What I meant is, you’re amazing. You can do better than him.”

  “He made me whole,” I said. Tears streamed down my cheeks in salty waves of desperation. My body convulsed in heaves pouring out my sorrow. My friends wrapped their arms around me in a protective embrace. I heard their reassurance, but it all seemed so far away. I wasn’t safe anywhere as long as I was without Grey. Every glance, every touch would break my heart again, my soul wept for our love.

  “I don’t like feeling like this.”

  “He’ll come to his senses,” Emma said.

  “Do you want me to beat him up?” Beth asked.

  I laughed through my tears, and I shook my head no. Beth and Emma laughed with me. I held my dear friends tight as I let the laughter overcome the pain and win the race, for today at least.

  Suddenly, the hair on my neck went rigid as the faint smell of a wolf drifted into my nose. With the scent mingled with the musty smell of the church, I couldn’t make out the wolf’s identity. Had Adomnan finally found me? Was this where it would all end? My fear vibrated through the room, and the girls responded to my quietness.

  “What’s wrong?” Emma whispered.

  Footsteps outside the door silenced her. Both Beth’s and Emma’s bodies subconsciously cringed away from the door for fear of what lay on the other side. The door swung open with a heavy thud against the bookcase, revealing Mund. He looked emotionally wrecked.

  “Mund?” I asked.

  “Tegan is in labor, she asked for you. She needs you,” he replied. “I need you.”

  He turned and motioned for me to follow. I ran down the halls after Mund, only as fast as I dared. My friends followed behind me. We opened the church doors to the darkness. It was already evening, and the crisp air bit at my exposed skin. It seemed as though time had stopped while we sat in the church, but it had certainly carried on without us.

  “Thank you,” I said quietly as I hugged my two friends. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Mund was so nervous, his whole body visibly twitched as we drove home. I could smell his fear. His love for her was so deep, it shook his core from its foundation. The only thing that could kill him . . . was his love for her.

  “How is she?” I asked.

  “I don’t know . . . I don’t know,” he said.

>   I reached over and touched his hand to reassure him.

  “I need your help, Ash. She needs you.”

  “I know. I’ll take care of her,” I smiled.

  I wasn’t sure how, but I would, that much I knew. I had been with Mother as she was a midwife for many births. It was something I had always admired about her. She was calm and reassuring to them, and they looked to her for strength. Mother always wanted me with her to talk to the babies before they were born. I seemed to relax them. I had never done a birth alone before, but Mother said my presence painted a dark room in sunshine.

  We ran into the house, and Mund led the way to their room. Baran sat next to the bed, dabbing a cloth on Tegan’s pale face. I rushed to her side and placed my hand on her rock-hard stomach. She opened her eyes and smiled weakly.

  “I’m here, Tegan. It’s going to be okay,” I said. The worry erased from her eyes, and she breathed in my scent.

  “I know,” she replied, “but I don’t think the baby is moving.”

  I slid my hands to the sides of her abdomen, feeling for the baby. No movements came, and I could hear the weakened beat of the baby’s heart. “It’s your time, little one,” I whispered to her stomach. “We are waiting for you.”

  Tegan watched me wide-eyed. Her worry was contagious, and Mund looked stricken with pain. I rubbed my hands over her stomach protectively as I whispered, “I will protect you.”

  “Oh,” she said, “the baby moved!”

  “I think this little one is ready for us now,” I said.

  Tegan nodded slowly, and Mund wrapped his arms around her shoulders and hugged her tightly. Even in the scariest moment, they looked perfectly matched.

  The birth went quickly after that. A lot of screaming, as always, but the radiant baby appeared on schedule into my welcome arms, and I presented her to her glowing parents. She looked like her mother, but strong like her father. They named her Niamh, but I decided to call her Nia. Her name meant “radiance,” a good Irish name that matched her perfect little face. Nia nestled in Tegan’s arms, Tegan wrapped in Mund’s, picture perfect. I left the family to bond.

  We now had something more important to protect than the prophecy, more important than my life. I had to protect Nia.

  16

  Nightmares

  Days turned into weeks as Samhain passed and my family celebrated the beginning of winter. It was already November and the darker half of the year. Grey hadn’t spoken to me, not once, but he was always there, always watching. I thought about my life up to this moment and what I once found important. I had a broken heart that miraculously was still beating, but I had a new perspective. Everything changed the moment I saw Nia. I would always be her ally and protector. When she first opened her eyes and saw me, she knew me.

  Everything felt different now. I didn’t know if it was the talk with Beth and Emma, the birth of Nia, or just a change in myself. I felt surprisingly aware of who I was becoming. Beth was right; I didn’t need Grey to survive, but he was a part of me. Humans couldn’t understand the deeper connection and loyalty of a pack. We live for the pack, we are the pack, and we can’t survive without the pack.

  Grey had to feel some of the pack emotions in him or a connection to Baran. He must be yearning to be a part of the pack, to feel whole. If I could just make him see what he really was, he would know his true place was with us. Even if he weren’t a werewolf. He was a member of Baran’s pack—he belonged with us. He belonged with me.

  I looked out the window into the dark and realized I was looking at my shadow friend. It was there again, watching me . . . always watching me. Every night, there it sat. Who’s watching whom, I dared to wonder. It was almost an eerie comfort night after night. I came to expect it to be there, that shadow of mine. It was odd no one in the family had noticed my shadow out there. Neither Baran, Mund, Tegan, nor Quinn had seen it. Or had they, and they just didn’t want to scare me? I sat down in the window seat, curling up into a ball with my fuzzy blanket, and drifted off to sleep.

  I woke up in the center of an empty, dark room. My hands were bound behind my back, tightly restraining me. The marble floor was cold under my bare skin. I dragged my broken body to the corner, and I cowered there. Light only seeped in from the open doorway.

  Adomnan walked in, and his footsteps echoed off the walls. He stood over me, laughing, delighting in my pain. Blood dripped from his hands onto the floor. My body shook from fear. Light illuminated half his face, leaving the other half menacingly in the dark. His wicked expression felt like a nail in my coffin.

  “Please,” I said.

  He slapped me across the face with the back of his hand, cutting my lower lip open with his ring. My face stung, and I licked the sweet, warm blood off my lip, sucking the cut, trying to hide the scent from him. What did he want from me? I had nothing to give.

  He had already taken everything from me, everyone I had ever loved. Their blood was still on his hands, glistening in the light. The sickening smell of it filled the room. He grabbed a handful of my hair, forcing me to look up into his ugly green eyes. “You will look at me,” he snarled.

  I screamed out in agony.

  I woke from the dream, still screaming. I slapped my hands over my mouth, smothering the sound. It felt as if he really had me. Was it possible Adomnan was coming to me in my dreams? Could he actually haunt me in my own mind? The dreams were coming more often now.

  The shadow in the trees was closer, at the edge, almost breaking into the light. Its eyes glowed a brilliant green in the darkness, like Adomnan’s.

  Baran burst into my room. “Ashling, are you okay?” he said.

  I stood up, shaking like a leaf.

  “I’ve got you,” he said, pulling me into his strong arms.

  I wrapped my arms around his waist, and I pulled myself tighter against his strength. I clung to him like a lifeline away from my horrible dream that threatened to eat me alive. I heard the others come in, but each left silently.

  I clung to Baran. He was the father I never had. He was everything to me that my father never could be. And I loved him for that and so much more. He chose to love me. He chose to protect me. He didn’t have to, and yet here he was, wasting his time on a lost cause like me.

  “I thought you were dying,” he said.

  “Adomnan found me in my dreams, and he killed everyone to get to me,” I whispered. “Everyone.”

  “That will never happen,” he said. I looked up into his chiseled face; his dark eyes were strong and true.

  I looked out the window. My shadow had returned to his original post. I almost couldn’t see him, but he was there. Was it Adomnan, was he finding a way into my head? If I could feel Grey’s physical pain, it could be possible that Adomnan was sitting outside my window, eating away at my sanity. Maybe that was his plan, to destroy me from the inside.

  Whether the shadow was Adomnan or not, the dream had to be a sign. He was close. I hadn’t dreamed of him since before Grey and I were together. Was he actually the reason I had been safe, and without Grey in my life I was left unprotected? But Grey wasn’t mine anymore. I had a greater purpose—to protect Nia and my pack. Maybe I didn’t have a werewolf love. Because Grey wasn’t a wolf. Maybe he was supposed to be, but Brenna made the wrong choice. Maybe the fate Calista wrote of was interrupted by Brenna’s choice to mate with Robert, and all of fate stood differently now.

  My fate wasn’t tied to some old prophecy; it was tied to my soul. And my soul was free—I had to believe that. I had to fight. I wouldn’t let Adomnan hurt my family or break Old Mother’s heart. He wouldn’t spill our sacred blood anymore. I decided I would make my own fate.

  “Baran?”

  “Yes?” he replied.

  “Why . . .” I paused, gathering my strength, “why are you here with me? Why are you still protecting me? I’m not a member of your pack.”

  I couldn’t look at him to ask the question. I didn’t want to know the answer, and yet I had to know. I snuck a peek at hi
s face through my shield of hair. The lines and age of his face showed plainly as he considered my question.

  “Old Mother created three who were the wisest of us all. They had been around for centuries before the others. The power of the three together was meant to bring unity to the earth and create one pack led by your maternal grandmother, Rhea Vanir; Uaid Dvergar; and your paternal great-grandfather, Donal Boru. Mother Rhea, Uaid, and Donal were three sides of the Triquetra; mind, body, and soul. Mother Rhea was the nurturer. Many legends speak of Donal’s wisdom, and Uaid brought strength to the packs. Together, they united our kind, and we all benefited from the Elder Gods standing together. Old Mother had intended them to protect the balance of life and protect her most glorious creation, the humans.

  “But out of their formation, a hierarchy of the packs was created. The Elder Gods, the royal packs, the noble packs, the servant packs, the nomadic packs, and the forsaken packs. In that order of importance.”

  “We aren’t broken into groups like that.”

  “We are, Ashling. You have just never been allowed to see the others before. You were surrounded by what they wanted you to see. Who they wanted you to meet. You, Ashling, are of the royal pack. Not only are you royal, but you descend from both Vanir and Boru Elder Gods, making you and your siblings an even higher-elevated status in the pack hierarchy. I am of Killian. Killians were once royal, but we are nothing more than nomads now. We lost our lands, and with it, our humans to protect and our status.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  Baran was still as night. “Before my father’s royal lands were taken, he swore our lives to the aid and protection of Rhea Vanir and all her offspring. When only my sister and I remained, we had no choice but to serve your father in exchange for his protection. But I still serve Mother Rhea, and I belong to your mother, and so I protect you. As you are of their blood.”

  “So you protect me because you have to?” I said. I knew it was childish, but I wanted his approval and his love rather than to be his burden.

  “Yes. I protect you because it’s in my blood. I could never deny the duty of my blood. But I care about you because I choose to, just as I have always loved your mother and I love you as though you were my own child. Because I choose to. You are as much of me as I am of you. Though I am no longer of your station and should not cross this boundary, I can’t stop myself from caring for you. You have wiggled your way into my heart.”