Sealed With a Curse(20)

The metallic scent of blood burned through my nose.

“Stop the car!”

“What?”

I shoved my feet back into Taran’s death traps. “Stop the car now!”

The cabbie pulled to the side. I bolted out before he finished parking. “Hey, wait. You have to pay!”

I raced toward the scent of death and spilled blood saturating an alleyway between a hair salon and a bookstore. Taran’s shoes dug into my tender feet like white-hot needles, but I didn’t stop, propelled by the need to investigate the dread plaguing the starlit night.

But when I stumbled into the alley, my pace slowed to a crawl.

There wasn’t a body there.

There were two.

Both women. Both young. Both with clothes splattered with their own blood. Their broken bodies lay near a Dumpster, amid a scattered field of discarded newspaper and tabloid magazines.

I wished fang marks had pierced their necks. Fang marks would have been welcome. Instead chunks of serrated flesh hollowed through to the vertebra, like a hungry dog had chewed down to the bone.

Except it hadn’t been a dog.

Their bodies were nothing more than sunken shells of gray shriveled skin over bone and withered muscle, drained of the blood that once nourished their organs and allowed them to breathe, laugh…live.

One of the women, a dark brunette, rested with hips twisted in the opposite direction from her torso, her eyes wide with blatant terror and pain. She probably would have screamed. But you needed a throat and vocal cords to scream. She had neither, just portions of mutilated flesh.

My heart stopped when I caught sight of the petite honey blonde with long wavy hair. Jesus. She could have been my Emme.

Heavy footsteps echoed behind me. I whipped around, growling.

The cabbie stumbled to a halt, falling to his knees and panting heavily. His stark white face traveled from my protruding fangs to the dead women at my feet. He staggered backward. “Don’t hurt me….I didn’t see anything. I-I-I didn’t see anything.”

I retracted my claws and scary teeth. “I’m not going to hurt—”

The cabbie shook his head feverishly. “I didn’t see anything!” He stumbled to his feet, slamming into a garbage can in his haste to get away. Large empty bottles of hair product bounced and rolled onto the concrete behind the terrified cabbie. His heavy legs pumped until he skidded around the dark corner and disappeared.

I reached for my phone and just stared at it, unsure who to call. An infected vampire was on the loose. More people would die. Bren would race down here to be with me, but then what would we do? Calling the police seemed appropriate…if I were dealing with any run-of-the-mill psycho serial killer.

Shit.

My fingers swept across my touch screen, searching for Misha’s phone number. In my haste, I continued to hit the wrong contact. Twice I dialed my manager at work. Yeah, like Maureen would charge to the rescue. I took a breath to steady my thundering heart and finally pushed the right button.

The phone rang once, twice.

“Hello?” a sleepy female’s voice purred.

I hung up.

Shit. Shit. Shit. And that’s when it hit me. Pack weres, like the ones with my sisters, guarded the earth from mystical evil. My eyes skimmed over the women and their mummified physiques. Oh, yeah. I think this qualifies.

I hit the speed dial. Come on, come—

A rush of fury, sweat, and fresh blood swept in from the entranceway.

And that’s when I knew I was no longer alone.

“Don’t. Move.” The deep voice sounded more animal than human. But screw him—I moved anyway, crouching with arms and claws out.

Two weres the size of my refrigerator lurked at the mouth of the alley, their stances wide, blocking my escape. Tears and gashes covered their T-shirts and jeans. Blood and drool caked their chests. They marched toward me, fists clenched, growls low and deep.

I glanced down at the bodies, no longer certain an infected vamp had feasted.

I tried to swallow back a growl. It didn’t work. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“Too late for that, sweetheart. Chris, she’s yours. We’ll cover you.”

We’ll?

A wolf leaped over the far brick wall with the fluid ease of an eel in water. Except I’d rather have taken on an eel. Four hundred pounds of pissed-off lupine with midnight black fur stalked toward me baring his razor-sharp fangs.

He charged. Goddamn it, he was fast.

But tigers are faster than wolves.

I pivoted, digging my claws into the nape of his neck and his back. With a grunt, I used the wolf’s momentum to propel him headfirst into the wall. The entire building rumbled, chunks of brick fell like hail, and a crack the size of my wrist split the mortar above his head. He shuddered once and slumped, his head firmly fixed to the building.