Page 19 of Bloodbane
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Age-old Blood Feuds
{ G R A Y S O N }
The slamming of the station door drowns out protesting springs as I sink onto the familiar bunk. I drop my aching head low, grateful for the call that has Jones leaving the station.
The deputy has been surprisingly decent this morning. He’d supplied the blankets as promised without so much as a grumble or dirty look. In fact, all outward hostility has disappeared. He’d even made jokes, mostly at Ruby’s expense, on the way, and I found myself appreciating my chaperone’s dry sense of humor and easy-going attitude. Still, it’s taken my every ounce of self-control to refrain from popping the good deputy like a juice box and gulping him down, squeezing out every last drop before letting him crumple, empty, to the floor.
Just the thought has my dry fangs aching with desperation. I might as well have swallowed the sun for the thirst that scorches my throat. The tattered remains of my willpower are slipping from my grasp rapidly, and it’s only a matter of time before my need to feed will eclipse all else, and then no one will be safe. Not even Ruby. My initial plan to wait until I’m handed over to the Troopers before disappearing isn’t going to hold. The fallout for my escape may land on Ruby, but it’s better than the alternative. The longer I stay, the more danger she’s in—from the wolves and my thirst.
I have to leave. Tonight.
In the hour between Ruby’s abrupt exit and Jones’ arrival, I had little to do but plan. My blood may be battle-borne, but this is not a war I can charge into unprepared. There’s no room for error—a mistake could cost a life I am not willing to forfeit.
Though days still remain until the full moon, the blood trail I’ll leave for the shifters will hold. Sensitive noses will pick up my scent easily and follow the path without question. Biology will win out: age-old blood feuds overpower any petty desire to hunt humans. And once the mutts find me, there’ll be nothing left but broken bodies in the snow.
It’s not the scuffle outside that makes my head snap up, it’s the scent. It’s undeniably lycan—the stink of filthy, wet dog—but each shifter has a unique odor, and this one is familiar.
The station door bursts open to reveal two men locked together, stumbling forward out of the swirling white. Jones has an arm locked around the lycan’s throat and a fistful of dark hair. The mutt, shorter than Jones but broader, isn’t struggling against the chokehold, but he’s not cooperating, either. Jones toes the edge of the door with his boot, catching it and kicking it closed.
Taking advantage of the distraction and shifting weight, the lycan jabs an elbow backward and slips his confines as Jones doubles over with a grunt. Free of human restraints, the shifter pivots and brings his knee up, slamming it into Jones’ face. The spray of blood from his nose paints a gruesome pattern over the shifter’s pants before the deputy collapses to the floor. His head lolls lifelessly to the side.
My rise from the bunk grabs the lycan’s attention. The stench—riding the sharp notes of adrenaline rushing from the bastard’s skin—is the same that I caught on the lake.
This is the shifter that escaped.
The prey I’ve been tracking for years: Arlo Pretorius.
The mutt that almost killed Ruby.