Bloodbound (BBW Shifter Romance Novel) (Moonfate Serial Book 3) Page 2

  I never used to be bothered by noise. When I was six, I made a drum kit out of pots and pans that I happily whaled away on for hours. If my family had had a chalkboard I’m sure I would’ve used my nails to try to play it, too. To me every sound had its own hidden melody, and I was determined to draw them all out.

  Then werewolves killed my parents.

  Now all it takes is a single cry to curdle my stomach.

  “What’s Cal doing to him?” I push against Orion’s chest, but he’s as unmovable as the stone his muscles feel like.

  “It’s not what Cal’s doing.” Orion looks over my head through the trees to the field beyond, as if he can see exactly what’s happening even though it’s hundreds of yards away. “It’s what she’s already done. She killed his mate.”

  The coyote’s cry comes again. Louder.

  I plug my ears with my fingers. “Jesus Christ.”

  “Your gods can’t help the coyote now. No one can.” Orion strides past me with predatory grace, his chin inclined upward, his nose twitching. “But he can help us. He’s the one who killed the pufferfish. And there’s an even better chance that he knows where your friend is.” The corner of his mouth folds upward as he takes in the scents around us.

  He’s enjoying the hunt.

  As he held me, I forgot about the darkness in him that even now lurks around me. But the coyote’s cry makes me remember. Just because he cares about the crimes his kind has committed doesn’t mean that he’s free of sin himself.

  The coyote doesn’t cry again. I shiver.

  “Come,” Orion commands.

  Desire slithers through my body at his words, but before I can fight it, Orion continues.

  “I’m going to change, and you’re going to get on my back so we can leave this place quickly.” Before Orion has even finished speaking he’s already begun to shift. It happens more slowly this time than it did in the field.

  Above us a crescent of white peeks through the clouds, marbling the darkening purple sky. We’re still a couple of weeks off a full moon. So each of Orion’s shifts will take a little longer than the last if Beasts, Blood & Bonds is to be believed.

  Orion’s muscles elongate and contract as his fur sprouts in patches instead of all at once. What only took ten seconds before now takes at least twenty. But even though it happens slowly enough that I can watch his teeth sharpen into canines, when it’s over I still can’t believe that the creature standing in front of me is Orion.

  He’s even larger up close.

  Instinctively, I stumble backward, avoiding a maple. I am so not getting on his back.

  Wolf Orion pads over to me. His eyes never leave mine, and even though they’re surrounded by luxuriously long snow-white fur, something about him still seems human.

  Soon Orion the wolf is right up against me. His fur feels just as soft as it looks, and he’s so big that his face comes up nearly to my collarbone. Still not breaking away from my gaze, he bends his knee. I don’t mount him.

  He nudges me with the tip of his moist nose. More from surprise at the texture than anything else, I vault up onto his back. After the initial shock wears off, I’m surprised by how comfortable a seat he is. What his body lacks in padding, it makes up for in softness.

  And his scent. That clean mix of pine and mint has a headier, darker note to it now. I lean in closer, without even thinking, and inhale more of it. Alcoholic, enticing, the force of it sets my head spinning and stokes a heat between my legs.

  A sound that has more in common with a purr than a growl rumbles through Orion’s body, sending vibrations up my thighs toward my core. I lean backward, realizing the implications of what I just did.

  I smelled him.

  Like I was an animal.

  Or his mate.

  With every passing moment I spend in Orion’s presence, that fact seems to sink further and further into my marrow. Thankfully, before can I think about it much longer, Orion starts to move.

  At first his gait is steady as he weaves through the trees, but once the uneven ground gives way to the leveler field he picks up speed. Suddenly we’re practically galloping.

  I don’t get a chance to look out for the coyote, because I have to lean forward to hold on.

  His powerful shoulder muscles jostle me as we gain more and more ground. His scent is getting stronger, curling up around me, settling into my hair and skin. Even his very presence seems to claim me, own me.

  He stops, and I careen backward as I stumble off of him and fight both the nausea that has taken root in my stomach from running and that other heat already beginning to permeate my body.

  Unfortunately, the first thing I see when the vertigo has passed enough for me to open my eyes makes me want to close them again.

  Cal.

  Finally clothed, she stands with one arm cocked on her leather-clad hip. She manages to look Amazonian and curvy at the same time and is made even more imposing by the flashes of orange and black fur that crisscross her face like scars. The coyote’s mate’s blood is gone from her dark, full mouth. But the sneer on her face makes up for it.

  “Well, you took fucking forever,” Cal spits.

  She’s staring down at the coyote. He’s curled up into a ball, looking smaller and much less ferocious than I remember. His front paws are tied to his back ones with a suspiciously familiar piece of nylon rope. The one from the van.

  My heart hardens at that thought.

  “Not that either of you is much better company than this bastard.” Cal circles the coyote, nudging him in the side with her chunky combat boot none-too-delicately.

  He keens.

  “Stop it,” I say. “You don’t have to hurt him.”

  Cal flicks an acid sneer my way, and I’m half convinced that she’s going to walk over and kick me in the stomach too. Instead, she kicks the coyote again, this time with enough force that he rolls over, exposing the piebald fur of his bony underbelly.

  “I can’t get him to shift human,” she says.

  “Leave that to me. You take Artemis back to the car.”

  I jump when Orion’s deep voice sounds near my ear and he places a hand on my shoulder. I didn’t even notice him change.

  Cal takes one look at me, one at the coyote and then gives an overdramatic roll of her eyes before muttering something that sounds like, “Babysitting.”

  “Wait,” I call.

  Ignoring me, Cal starts to march toward the car. “Come on, human.”

  “Artemis.” Using the hand on my shoulder, Orion gently turns me to face him. “You won’t want to see this.”

  I don’t look away, though. I reach out with the back of my hand, the way I’ve seen dog owners do to get their pets accustomed to their scent, and stroke his face. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to torture him to get information. That only works in movies.”

  He stiffens, inhales, but doesn’t draw back.

  He’s smelling me, too. A blush suffuses my cheeks.

  Then, before I can stop him, he grasps my face with both of his hands and drags me into a deep kiss. He tastes just like he smells, wild and pure, and my core ignites with heat immediately, even though his tongue never parts his lips to seek out my mouth, and his hands don’t wander.

  After only a few moments he breaks the kiss, looking at me with an expression I’ve never seen before on his face, a kind of restrained longing. As if he wants to take so much more from me, but is holding himself back. Barely.

  My lips pulse, swollen from his ministrations. “Orion, please—”

  “You don’t have to lecture me on interrogation techniques, Little Mate. I’m not going to torture him,” he says roughly.

  A manic grin splits my face. “You’re not?” I don’t know if this should even count as a victory, that my mate isn’t going to torture someone, but I’ll take what I can get.

  Orion doesn’t share my excitement. “No. I’m going to give him the one thing he wants most in exchange for telling me where they took your f
riend.”

  “What does he want?”

  At our feet the coyote turns onto his side, twitching, and I notice that he’s not so much scrabbling at his restraints as he is biting himself. The movements are weak, not enough to threaten me. It looks more like death throes than an attempt at escape.

  “He wants what all werebeasts want when they’ve lost their mate, whether they know it or not.” Orion surveys the coyote with no sympathy at all. “To die.”

  “No—” I yell, but it’s too late. Cal has already doubled back and is grabbing my arm.

  “Take her,” Orion says, before he kneels down to whisper something into the coyote’s ear.

  I wonder if they’re the last words the coyote will ever hear.

  3

  I have talked much about the powers that weremates have and their ability to ultimately decide their own fates. Unfortunately, werebeasts don’t have the same luxury. No matter what or who their mate, once they claim them, they are bound to crave them, to protect them, and if need be, die for them.

  Beasts, Blood & Bonds: A History of Werebeasts and Their Mates

  By Dr. Nina M. Strike

  Cal has no qualms about practically dislocating my shoulder as she drags me away from Orion and through the muddy field. I don’t fight her. If I turn around I’ll have to face the consequences of Orion’s last words. I’ll have to watch someone else die in part because of me.

  And that’s not the most disturbing thing.

  “The only thing a werebeast wants when his mate dies is to die himself.”

  I’ve heard tales of weremates and werebeasts dying of broken hearts, and everyone knows the story of the doomed werebeast Romeo and his huntress weremate Juliet, but I never thought the stories were true. Not like this.

  To take my mind off what’s behind me, I look forward. The field slopes gently upward toward the road. The van is nowhere to be seen and the Camry is parked on the shoulder of the highway. It’s as if we just had some car trouble instead of a life-or-death chase.

  The only clue that anything strange has happened here at all is the tracks. There are two sets. One with wider tires that must be from the van leads from the road straight off into the woods. The other set, which I assume is from the Camry, loops from the highway to the field and then back up onto the pavement again.

  I’d guess that Cal found the keys in the van somewhere and drove it off into the forest, except for one thing. The van was on its side after the crash. So the only way she could’ve moved it is if she set it right-side-up again. Holy shit.

  I look up at her with wide eyes. “Did you lift up the car, Cal?”

  Cal clicks her tongue and tugs me faster through the field. “Are you a weresnail in disguise? Because this is going painfully slowly.”

  I take that for a yes and remain silent for the rest of the walk. Trusting that I’m not going to run away, Cal lets go of my hand.

  Eventually we reach the car, and with what should be an unsurprising show of dexterity at this point, Cal opens the door with only a kick of her combat boot, while still keeping her arms crossed. She turns looking pissed into a vicious ballet.

  “In,” she says.

  Ignoring her ever-present rudeness, I slide into the now familiar space of the Camry and close the door behind me with a slam. My hand remains on the door handle even after it closes.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Cal drawls lazily.

  “What?” I knot my hands together in my lap.

  “Running out there and doing something stupid again. Orion will murder me if you get hurt.”

  My right hand moves from my lap to playing with the knob on the side of my seat. The seat jerks backward, sending a spasm of pain through my already-whiplash-sore neck.

  Cal thumps her combat boots onto the dashboard, sending a coating of mud splattering in every direction. My lips purse with a mixture of annoyance and admiration. How does Cal seem to give so few shits? A psychopath she may be, but she’s not afraid of anything. She’s certainly not afraid of Orion. In fact, the ease of their banter…

  A question springs from my lips before I have a chance to stop it.

  “So, you and Orion are close friends? Have you known him long?” The strain in my voice makes it painfully clear that my question is anything but casual.

  Cal smirks at me. “I’m not fucking him. Never have. Never will.”

  “That’s not what I asked,” I splutter. But my blush gives me away.

  “It’s what you meant.”

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “I’m not sorry. Your whiny little glances were getting annoying as fuck. Orion and I are friends.” She spits out the word “friends” with such vehemence that I’m not sure if she understands its definition.

  “We met a couple of years ago, after I left my gig at the circus. He was trying to hide his nature, but he was the first person I’d met who didn’t laugh awkwardly when I said I’d been bitten by a radioactive tiger, instead of explaining my marks away as a rare medical condition. And that kind of gave it away.” Then, so quickly I’m worried that with her enhanced strength she’s going to break the plastic, she tilts her seat to recline all the way backward.

  I turn to Cal, but since she’s now lying down, all I can really see of her are her combat boots and her giant explosion of black curls.

  “You were bitten by a radioactive tiger?” I ask. “That’s why you’re a female werebeast?”

  “Fuck, no.” She crosses one foot over the other, sending a fresh cascade of dirt onto the dashboard. “I got exposed to some messed-up chemical factory shit when I was a baby in India, before my parents came to the States. And”—she gives a sarcastic approximation of jazz hands—“voila!”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “You asked,” she says scathingly.

  Technically, I didn’t, but that was more from fear of another put-down or worse, her turning into a tiger, than out of a lack of curiosity, so I backtrack. “No, I mean… You don’t like me. Isn’t this top-secret stuff?”

  “I don’t like much of anyone.” Cal shrugs. “You’re only like bottom fiftieth percentile.”

  A man screams. It’s not as bone-rattling as the coyote’s yips, but it cuts through the protective bubble of the car and makes me flinch all the same.

  “Damn it,” I hiss under my breath.

  “Calm down,” the tigress snaps. She doesn’t move at all from her position. “You’re going to have to learn how to not freak out so much.”

  “You say that like this will happen again.” I press my hands up against the glass.

  “Something like it will. We work for the FBSI. It’s pretty much a disaster a day.” Cal stretches her arms behind her, cracking each of her knuckles one by one.

  My skin prickles with unease at the mention of the FBSI, but Cal just barrels onward, giving no indication that she has any idea about my worries or my past. Thankfully. Orion said it was the people in Washington who faked my death. But how can he be sure? How can he trust anyone?

  “And with Orion as your mate, even if you’re not directly involved in his work, you’ll have to get used to violence. It’s in his nature. And the people he’s hurting deserve it. Sometimes they want it, even. No one wants to live after they’ve lost their mate, and most find a way not to,” she says flatly.

  Thoughts of the FBSI evaporate from my mind, replaced with a growing dread. “Orion said something like that. But not every werebeast dies after their mate does. That’s only in the stories.”

  “Really, weresnail? You’re the mate of a werewolf and you’re using the ‘that’s only in the stories’ defense?”

  “No, but I mean…” I know I have reasons why what Cal has just said can’t be true, but they all flee when I try to grab hold of them. “I don’t understand. What makes losing your mate so bad? Is it physical pain?”

  “Ha!” Cal gives a bitter laugh, and then, with a quick, jerky movement that reminds me of B-horror movie zombies sitting up out
of the grave, she’s suddenly upright. “If it was just physical pain, that would be a blessing. Unlike you pathetic humans, we can handle that,” she growls.

  I catch a flash of her face in the rearview mirror. Up close her canines are even longer and thicker than Orion’s. They almost brush her lower lip when she juts them out.

  Which she does.

  My stomach twists with instinctual fear. The furry, hot scent of tiger fills the car.

  But I press forward anyway. I have to know. “What makes it so bad, then?”

  Cal lets out a long breath and continues, sounding only marginally more in control. “Physical pain has a source. With enough meditation you can block it. Or, if that doesn’t work, unleash it on others.” Lazily Cal drags one of her fingernails across the dashboard. “Losing a mate is different.”

  Her nail leaves a gouge in its wake, even though I would swear she isn’t applying that much pressure. “It’s like living your whole life in a perfect, beautiful dream.” She pauses, and then in an abrupt, vicious twist, plunges her finger through the padding of the dashboard. “And then waking up. The worst part isn’t that the dream is over or even that your soul feels like it’s been shattered into a million fucking microscopic pieces.” She digs in deeper until the whole of her nail is submerged. “It’s that everything you ever felt, everything you ever wanted, everything you ever loved—it’s all suddenly a lie. A dream. An impossibility you’ll never have, even if it feels close enough to touch.”

  She closes her eyes, brow furrowed so tightly, it’s like she’s trying to pull some half-forgotten memory out of her mind with only the force of her will.

  I can’t help but remember Orion’s face, the fury he displayed when he first saw that I had been captured by the werecoyote’s mate. It makes so much more sense now.

  He wasn’t actually worried about me. He was worried about himself. His protectiveness of me is just another side effect of the bond.

  “The only hope a werebeast might have of avoiding death after their mate dies is if you never completed the bonding process in the first place. Then it’s manageable. Barely. Otherwise you go insane.”