Chapter 1 #2
I stopped and peered into her cell. She stared back at me without a single ounce of fear.
That was… unusual.
“Keep walking, wolf. I’m not afraid of your kind,” she challenged, and I stared more closely at her.
Long ago, the vampire and shifter families had come together to create an ancient pact to keep our existence secret from mortals.
There were humans in the world that knew of us, but they were few and far between.
She was young, perhaps in her mid-twenties. The fact that she could recognize me without seeing me shift was unexpected, to say the least.
I approached the cage, casually reaching for the bars. These ones weren’t silver, and I could grasp them easily. They would be strong, sure, but no match for me. She wouldn’t be safe in her cage from the likes of a beast like me.
I took several long moments to study her fiery gaze staring back at me.
Her deep blue eyes nearly glittered with challenge.
Her jawline was tense, but it did nothing to hide the beautiful curve of her high cheekbones and full pink lips.
Her eyes were framed by exquisitely thick lashes.
In the dim light, her dark mahogany hair still shone, lush and exquisitely long enough to reach at least the middle of her back, but with her sitting against the wall I couldn’t be completely certain.
She cocked her head as she watched me scrutinizing her and nearly snarled once my gaze dropped below her chin.
She was wearing a dark long-sleeve jacket and a dark shirt, but I could see enough to know that her breasts could fill each of my hands. Her hips curved in the most delicious way and her long legs were a sight to behold.
She was sinfully beautiful, and I breathed in deep, catching her scent for the first time.
My cock hardened almost immediately.
The aroma of fragrant wildflowers and brown sugar and vanilla swirled around me, holding me captive for several long moments before I managed to get ahold of myself. Carefully, I wrapped my fingers around an iron bar and cocked my head in her direction.
“What could the vampires want with a human like you?” I asked.
She shrugged, feigning indifference. I knew at once it was a lie. Everything in her body language screamed to me that she knew what she was here for. She just didn’t want to tell me.
No matter.
“I can’t imagine they’d let a pretty thing like you go. They’d drain you before they let you walk out their doors,” I murmured. Her gaze hardened. I’d struck a nerve.
“They wouldn’t dare kill me,” she answered, and I raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
Even though she knew we existed, that didn’t change the fact that vampires and shifters were far more powerful than any human just by sheer strength alone.
She wouldn’t be able to fight off even a single one. She didn’t have a chance.
Quickly, I glanced over at Genzo and my men. They were still hard at work on getting Toboe’s cell open so that we could rescue him.
“Are you sure of that, human?” I asked carefully, turning my gaze back toward the furious eyes of the curious little package I’d happened to find locked away down here. If I left her, she’d be trapped in a viper’s den of vampires. There was no way she’d ever get out of here alive.
The only chance she’d have was to come with my pack.
I grasped the bars of her cage and pulled on them hard, using my strength to bend them far enough apart so that she could slip through.
She watched me with skepticism, studying my expression as I worked to free her.
She didn’t say a word, probably trying to figure out why a random shifter stranger would help free her from a vampire prison deep underground.
Once I bent the bars enough, which wasn’t that much because she was pretty small, I took a step back and casually glanced at her.
“If you want to get out, you’re welcome to come with us. If not, you’re welcome to stay here and die with the Venuti,” I offered.
I turned away and it was at that point that all hell broke loose.
Our presence had apparently been noticed.
The odor of vampire grew even stronger and more rank. There were at least two dozen coming for us, if not more.
I grinned. This was going to be a good fight.
I heard the tiny female scrambling behind me and I turned back. She shouldn’t be here for this. I wouldn’t allow it. I looked around and saw Lucas close by. I called out to him.
“Lucas, see to it she makes it out safely. I don’t want her here when the fight breaks out. Take her and move,” I ordered. Without a word, he obeyed me. He pushed past me and just when I turned my back, the sounds of a scuffle made me pause and look to see what possibly could be holding him up.
She was fighting him. He was a wolf shifter at least double her size and she was holding her own against him.
That was unheard of. I’d never seen or heard of anything like it.
Even though a small army of vampires were so close that the hair on the back of my neck was raised in alarm, I watched in awe as she spun out of his range and then back to just dip out of his grasp so that she could strike him.
She had a knife.
Where the fuck had she gotten a knife? Surely the vampires had searched her before they flung her in that cell. They’d have found any weapons on her.
Apparently, assuming that was wrong.
She fought him hard. There was a distinctly fluid motion to the way she fought, as if she could anticipate Lucas’ movements before he made them.
I watched her gaze studying him, so intently focused that I realized that was exactly what she was doing.
She’d had training and a lot of it. I couldn’t be certain exactly which martial arts she had studied, but her skill was impressive.
Honestly, it was a little arousing just to watch.
I couldn’t help but smirk as I watched Lucas try to contend with the feisty little human. He’d clearly underestimated her, as had I, but I wasn’t the one everyone would see fighting against her.
After this was over, the rest of the pack wouldn’t ever let him live that down.
He tried to grab at her arm, and she slipped far enough away that she just barely escaped his reach. She didn’t make a run for it as I would have expected. Instead, she moved in with her knife with brutal intent. She slashed at him, her movement extremely precise.
I crossed my arms, enjoying the show. If she managed to cut him, it wouldn’t much matter. Getting slashed with a knife was certainly no walk in the park. It would hurt, but he’d heal almost instantly. Our healing abilities were insanely useful for things like that.
As I expected, he didn’t jerk out of the way. He’d thought to use her closer proximity and take the blow so that he could grab her and disarm her quickly, but as she cut across the right of his torso, his roar of agony was far louder than it should have been.
His flesh sizzled where the knife pressed against it. I could see the steam rising into the air from it.
She knew enough to have a silver knife in her possession.
This little female was growing far more interesting by the second.
Lucas roared once more and his hands rushed to his side, trying to stem the flow of blood as he collapsed to the floor. She’d cut him deep. It probably wasn’t a wound that would kill him, but with the coming fight he would be severely weakened.
Wounds made by silver weapons didn’t heal like they were supposed to. I grimaced. I needed to protect my pack, not her.
“Shift, Lucas,” I demanded. “Leave her to fight her own way.”
He didn’t even hesitate. At once, his body began to grow bigger, thick gray fur spurting out from beneath his skin.
In a flurry of movement that took no more than a second, his spine expanded and crouched forward so that his paws met the floor.
His teeth lengthened and his nails sharpened into thick claws.
He roared as he shifted into his wolf form and he staggered under the pain of the injury the woman had inflicted, but it would be better for him this way.
Silver knives were more effective in our human forms when we had nothing to protect us.
In wolf form, however, our fur made it far more difficult to inflict that kind of injury.
Plus, we shifted into an animal about the size of a bear.
Our enemies were less likely to be able to get close enough to strike us in our wolf form.
The woman took a step back, probably trying to evaluate her strategy going forward.
Her angry eyes met mine, her pretty little mouth set in a firm scowl.
As much as I wanted to handle her myself, now was not the time for it.
My pack needed me and as their alpha, I would never abandon them. She’d have to get out on her own.
“Good luck, human,” I snarled, and I rushed into the fray just as the metal door we’d broken through slammed against the wall. A stream of vampires armed to the teeth rushed through the doors, many of them with rifles and a few of them with flamethrowers and even more with knives and pistols.
I would bet that all of them were armed with silver bullets.
Fuck. This was bad.
Just in time, Toboe’s cell door slid open. Genzo had been able to hack it and Toboe raced out of it.
“Shift,” I ordered my pack and they obeyed immediately.
At once the room was full of massive red, gray, white, black, and brown wolves.
I followed suit and in a rush, my sense of smell was stronger, my vision remarkably improved, and my hearing was heightened.
Even in human form, my senses were quite strong, but in my wolf form they were truly extraordinary.
Our only true equals were vampires. Our wolf forms had evolved so that we could stand against them. A cocky wolf would think himself stronger than them, but that would be foolish.