Page 126 of Blade's Battle
“And grab a bite down at the cookhouse.” With one hand cupping the back of her head, he pulled her in for a long kiss.
“Be careful, Blade! We still don’t know if you. . .”
She stopped herself, but he knew she was worried about his abilities. His healing abilities might be too compromised to save him if he got hurt. As long as he could walk and talk, however, he wasn’t going to sit back and watch his brothers fight when he could be helping them.
* * *
ANNA
Even before the tests on the salt were done, Anna knew what she had. The rest of her work could sit for a while, long enough to figure out why the everyday noises outside had grown quiet. She poked her head out, to see a few women and kids scurrying into buildings. Except for a few stragglers, the compound was empty.
“What’s going on?” she asked one of the women she recognized from the cookhouse.
“Drake’s pack is massing at the border. Damien’s ordered everyone inside. Get to a common area,” she shouted as she rushed toward the lodge.
Blade had told Anna what had happened at the ceremony, the parts she couldn’t remember with Drake. War, because Drake believed she was his? It made no sense. Why the hell would he care about her? She’d never understood why he’d tried to force her into blood-bonding him, especially when there were female shifters in his pack. Most shifters avoided bonding to a human due to the risk, and an alpha was particularly susceptible. Some believed it was a death sentence for an alpha to blood-bond a human. If nothing else, weakening his abilities would make him vulnerable to a challenger.
A series of howls sounded in the distance. Anna slammed the door shut to her lab and ran to Damien and Tess’s house. She nearly crashed into Tess as the shifter barreled down the steps of her house.
“You’re back!” Tess said.
“An hour ago.”
They hugged and then Tess pulled back, scrutinizing her. “The bruises are gone.” She lightly touched under Anna’s right eye. “And your nose looks straighter. Very fast healing for a human. Does this mean you blood-bonded?” Tess was bouncing with joy, which made Anna feel slightly guilty that Tess hadn’t been there to see them finally blood-bond.
“In a cave of all places.”
“How. . . romantic?”
“I would have blood-bonded him in a garbage dump.”
“We really have to work on your sense of romance. But not today. Too much going on.”
“I heard, sort of. Is this about me?”
Tess frowned. “Yes and no.” Then she pulled the cuff of the white robe Anna was still wearing. “Go up and change into something of mine, and then we’ll talk on the way. Pick something dark, camouflage colors preferably. I can shift, but your best defense is staying hidden.”
“Where exactly are we going?”
“To the front line, of course.”
“I promised Blade I’d stay safe.”
“You’re taking a guard, so you’ll be safe.”
“What guard?”
“Me,” Tess said, her eyes sparkling. “Shifter here, remember? Thanks to you I have my abilities back, and while I’m not as strong as the guys, I can run circles around them, and you don’t grow up with an older sister like mine and not learn a few tricks along the way.
After Anna quickly changed into a pair of jeans and long sleeve black shirt, she and Tess headed to the northeastern border of Damien’s territory, the section that bordered both Drake and Liam’s territories.
“Damien called in Liam to settle the dispute,” Tess began as they walked. “Drake is claiming he has rights to you.”
“I’m not a possession.”
“Of course not, but there are few laws that transcend wolf-shifter packs. Actually, the one Drake is citing is the only one I can really think of. No one can keep a blood-bonded pair apart, period. Even if the female refuses to go with the male, which is unheard of, few will listen to her. It would be considered a dispute between the pair at that point. Blood-bonding is sacred, and no one is allowed to come between the pair, for any reason.”
Anna looked at her ring and her palm. “I’m blood-bonded to Blade, not Drake.” Though the bonding to Blade had worked and was a true bond—her rapid healing proved that—she worried that the fact that Drake had bonded her first could supersede her bonding to Blade. “What if Liam sides with Drake? I won’t go with him, Tess.”
