Page 6 of Taken By Raider Kings
“Zach…” someone said, a word that had no meaning.
He thumped back into himself as the Change receded.Julia was sobbing, openly and messily as a child; sirens pierced the night with diamond stitchery.There was other noise, too—people, normal bleeders, noticing something amiss.
The instinct of hiding among prey all his life prodded hard.Theupirwas dead, great, but he had to get his Family out of here before they were seen, or, God forbid,caught.A Carcajou couldn’t be held for long, but if other Tribe caught wind of their presence as a result, it could get ugly.
You mean uglier than it already is?The Change trembled inside his bones, spikes of sweet glassy pain.
“Zach?”Brenn whispered again.It was the sound of a child in a nightmare.Theupir’s body was already breaking down, a stinking sludge inside a sodden white ruffled shirt and the ragged remains of leather pants, the boots falling over and spilling nasty black liquid, a tide of corruption skoosh-splattering over Kyle’s half-Changed body.Fur receded into his little brother’s skin, Kyle’s entrails a spill of tangled grayish-blue, the lake of blood from the wide-open abdominal aorta black as theupir’s leaking.
His corpse would be full bleeder—what parts of it theupir’s caustic sludge didn’t eat away, of course.Even in death, their kind hid from the teeming masses of human prey.
Another alpha, dead.Zach’s stomach cramped, hard.He hadn’t eaten yet tonight, and the smell was enough to make him glad.My fault again, I should have?—
“Come on.”Eric yanked at his arm.“We have togo.”
Where is she?He glanced around, but the woman he’d followed was gone.A crowd of people had magically appeared—prey,his animal side whispered.The beast was now casting around for that thread of light brunette scent that he somehowknew.
She was nowhere in sight.He had to find her.
What the hell is going?—
“Comeon!” Eric yelled, wrenching at his eldest brother’s arm.Julia let out a keening wail like a jolt of fresh bloodscent, jarring Zach into full alertness.
He showed his teeth, still searching for the woman; he and his Family scrambled away, Julia catching a high-hung fire-escape ladder and bolting, Brenn right behind her, Eric using the full measure of his strength and speed to hop onto a dumpster’s top and land behind the knot of people who had somehow arrived to cluster in the alley’s bottleneck.A roil of surprise echoed off the brick walls.
“Did you see?—”
“Holyshit!”
“Jesus!”
Zach’s throat ached, denied another growl and the hunting cry.We are Carcajou, and you are our rightful prey—but not right now.Not when there’s likely another predator around.
He moved among them like a cold wind, quick fingers plucking, and grabbed a few more wallets for good measure.They would see only a blur, anyway; the habitual necessity to take what he could was very close to the surface.Along with other instincts—like the urge to rip through flesh instead of clothing, to spill blood instead of cash.
A few feet clear of the alley he paused, because he smelledheragain, very close.
The animal locked in his bones snarled.Twin compulsions, possession and vengeance, forced the beast to turn in circles—and thankfully, gave him enough room to reassert control.
Goddammit, Kyle.You should have waited, we could have baited and trapped it, killed it together.And kept Julia out of the way, for fuck’s sake.The howling hit, Julia’s voice lifted in a paroxysm of grief, and he had to move.She was likely to hurt herself or someone else, and he was the only one who could manage her when she got like this.
But he had to find that woman.She smelled like ice, like moonlight, like salvation.
She smelled, in fact, like a shaman potential.
The scent drifted across his sensitive nose once more.He glanced back—more people crowding, spilling out of the emergency exits, most with their phones out and lifted high.
A stupid, milling herd.He could probably scare them, scatter them like bleating sheep.
But the scent of her, close and warm and living, filled his head and took precedence.Zach drew in a deep lungful, loping easily.
Christ, Kyle, why didn’t you wait?But he knew why.His little brother had taken on the responsibility of an alpha—first into battle to defend his own.
And it was Zach’s fault.
five
Her heels clatter-tattooedon the uneven sidewalk, and Sophie didn’t know she was screaming until she had to whoop in enough breath to keep running.Lucy’s little jeweled purse bumped against her side, a muscle in her back seized with sharp tearing pain, and cold air whipped her throat as she dragged in another breath, suddenly very sure she was going to screamagain.
