Unstable by Lacey Carter Andersen
16
Cole
The Enforcers continueto ignore me. Not that I’m much of a threat, now that my hands are tied behind my back and I’m in a corner of the motel room. Beside me, the Blood Mage is tied up the same way, but casts me the occasional dirty look. Clearly, my plan didn’t work out exactly the way I had thought it would. Okay, not at all the way I had planned, but I wasn’t counting myself out yet.
The dark lines running down my arm and wrist are starting to make me seriously nervous. If I’m tied up here, and that ragtag group is in charge of saving us, I have a feeling I’ll end up dead.
Never before have I trusted someone else to save me. I’m not about to start now.
For some reason though, I hadn’t been able to take off and leave the Blood Mage. Okay, it’s not for some reason. It’s because I realized who she was when we saw her in cuffs with the Enforcers. Every repressed memory I’d ever had about my mother had hit me at once, and I was sure, down to my very soul, that this woman was a member of the Blood Pack.
Maybe I was wrong, but I didn’t think so. And I had to know.
“Asha,” I whisper her name.
“Ah, the hero has something to say?”
Okay, so I’d tried to save her and made the whole thing a hell of a lot worse, so I didn’t blame her for being pissed. But we were in this situation now, and if we had any chance of escaping, we needed to work together.
After I got the truth.
“Are you a member of the Blood Pack?”
Her eyes widen, and even though she doesn’t say a word, I know the truth.
“I knew it,” I say, but my words come out filled with disbelief.
She seems to remember how to talk. “No, I’m not. They’re all dead. They were exterminated, like vermin.”
The pain in her voice cuts me to my core. “My mother was a witch, a healer, who served the Blood Pack. She left shortly before the attack, and did everything she could to stay hidden… but they still found her.”
Asha’s eyes flash with fury. “Who? Who are they? I live and breathe to kill those bastards. They took everything from me. Everything.”
I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know. She sent me to live with my father, so they wouldn’t know I existed. It’s the only reason I’m alive today.”
She looks like she wants to rip someone to pieces, and I don’t blame her. The story of what had happened to her pack haunted me as a kid. It kept me up at night. All I could imagine was a town in the middle of the woods splashed with blood. Coated, dripping from the trees, and innocent bodies thrown about like broken toys.
How this woman had survived, I have no idea. But I did know that the Blood Mages were different from her. Her pack had mostly been half vampire and half wolf, with other misfit half-breeds thrown into the mix. The only pack of its kind, if my mom was right. The mages weren’t shifters. They had magic and they were vampires. The shifter thing belonged to her pack alone.
“Is that why you tried to help me?” she asked, less anger in her words.
I nod, not knowing what else to say.
“Then why aren’t you helping the others? They’re good people. So if you’re against them, you must be an asshole. You must be a villain.”
I shake my head. “It’s not that easy.”
“Yes, it is,” she says.
I feel strange. Like the day I’d heard my mother had been slaughtered in our home. I hadn’t seen her body. I wasn’t even able to go to her funeral. My role was to be a playmate to Maxen and stay safe under the shadow of his father. My mom had been clear about that. But even though she was gone from my life when I was with Maxen, I’d always known she was still… there. The day I learned she’d died, I’d felt raw, vulnerable. So damn broken.
Like how I feel now.
So it was time for some harsh truths, even if I only said them aloud to this woman who likely wouldn’t be alive to see tomorrow. “Emory is my… well, he’s my brother. He doesn’t know it, but he is. I see myself in his eyes. He just sees me as the same kind of evil as Maxen. None of them will ever accept me. As a half-breed. As Maxen’s man. There’s no future with them. But I’ve sacrificed everything to be trusted by Maxen, and I can’t just walk away from that now.”
She’s quiet for so long that I don’t think she’ll speak, and then she says. “I don’t believe you. I think you know that your future is with them, and you’re scared. Following a ruthless dictator is better than the unknown. You’re scared of an unstable future. But trust me, the unknown is better than being sure you’re on the wrong side of the world. And even though I’m not gullible, or an optimist, I know without a doubt that you’re going to do the right thing. So much so that I’m going to help you get out of here.”
I frown. “What? No. I’m here to save you.”
Her intelligent gaze meets mine. “These guys… I think they’re the key to finding my people, whether I like it or not. I’m where I’m supposed to be. But you? You’re lost, and I’m going to help you get back on track. When you see your chance, take it. You understand me? And don’t look back or everything I’ll have done will be for nothing.”
I don’t know what to say when she shifts into a pure white wolf. The process is soundless. One minute she’s a woman, and the next the ropes fall away, and she’s an animal. The Enforcers are busy looking at papers spread on a desk in the crappy motel, along with the laptop. But I expect them to turn and look at us at any moment.
She moves to me and bites the ropes at my wrists, tearing them off like butter.
I undo the ropes around my ankles, and then I tense.
Her piercing gaze finds me one more time, and then she turns to face our enemies. Every muscle in her body tenses, and my muscles tense too. And then, she attacks.
I don’t stop to watch. I bolt for the door, throwing it open and running. Behind me there are growls and shouts. My body jerks when I hear gun shots, but I don’t stop. Outside, a man is about to drive off on a motorcycle. I knock him off, get on, and take off, flying out onto the main road.
In my rearview mirror, I chance a glance back. No one is following me. I feel sick, imagining the bullets were meant for her instead of me. But I do as she told me to and drive faster.
For some reason, trying to save this woman felt like a chance to save my mom in a weird way. To protect at leave one member from the pack she spoke about with such wonder. But now? Now, I felt like I failed my mom all over again. And this time I couldn’t say I wasn’t there, or I was too young to help, there was simply no excuse for my failure.
And it hurt. Fuck. It shatters something inside of me.
Emory’s eyes are like mother’s.I shake the thought aside. They weren’t even related. They just both had pale blue eyes. That was all.
What is wrong with me?
I stiffen on the bike. Kiera’s beauty and strength had put me under some kind of spell. Being near the brother I had always longed to have a connection with had brought up past tramas I, apparently, hadn’t healed from. But none of that is an excuse to be stupid. I need to bury every ounce of emotion that’s threatening to overwhelm me and focus on the logical.
What logically is the best thing to do right now?The question turns and turns in my mind as time passes.
The road flies by beneath me, and I go until the gas light comes on. Stopping at the first gas station, I fill up my tank, then use the phone outside to make my call.
Maxen answers after the second ring. “What?”
“It’s me. Cole,” I say.
Am I doing the right thing? Fuck, I don’t know.
“Do you have her?” he sounds so damned excited.
An image flashes in my mind of Maxen touching Kiera and rage sears through me. This prick shouldn’t get to breathe the same air as her. This asshole should be on his knees in front of her, not the other way around.
“Cole!”
His voice snaps me back to the present. “No, I lost her, but I’m hot on her tail.”
I hear something smash in the background and a woman screams. A shiver runs down my spine, and then the scream cuts off.
I’m sweating. The silence is worse than the screaming.
“Okay, well, you bring her back to me and I’ll reward you greatly. Anything you ever wanted.”
It’s hard to breathe. “What if I wanted peace. A little place in the woods on my own and no more fighting.”
He answers, too quickly. “Anything you want, Cole.”
I don’t like the way he says my name. Instead of a promise of something good, it feels like a promise to do something horrible to me.
“Then, trust me, my king. I’ll get you everything you deserve and more.”
“I knew I could count of you,” he responds, his words almost kind.
Kind.
I hang up the phone and know what I’m going to do.
