His hair lifted as the three vampires moved past them, and Elior, Rebecca and Nate appeared momentarily as silhouettes against the whirring blue and red lights, before launching into attack, tossing the rioters like confetti. The screams and yells rose to new pitch, and the crowd scattered back. Gunshot rang out in a sharp, repetitive, automatic bark.
Raiden brought Lia to the ground, and she felt the bite of the bitumen on her knees as he covered her with his body. His breath was a heavy heat against her ear as he looked ahead, to see what happened. The other werewolves had hit the ground around them, and she met Wade’s eyes. He nodded slightly in reassurance.
“Those people,” she protested the vampires’ violence.
“We can’t save everyone,” Wade told her quietly. “But the vampires have gone… feral,” he agreed. “Be wary of them, Lia.”
Elior appeared suddenly before them, his appearance evidence of Wade’s warning, blood smeared, his normally tidy hair wild around his shoulders, and the Other glowing hot and red. He inhaled, his eyes dropping to Lia’s skinned knees.
“Let me fix those for you,” he dropped to his knees and licked across her grazed kneecaps to heal them before she could protest, or Raiden could drag her back out of his reach. Elior was standing again, too quickly for her eyes to track, and his grin was wicked even as she formed the words to stop him. “Keep moving. Lucian is on pack territory. He thinks Lia and I are in a den.”
“Shit,” Wade was alarmed, bringing his phone to his ear as they moved forward. “No answer,” he met Raiden’s eyes over Lia’s head.
They moved passed the police officers. Elior and his children had torn the vampires to pieces, and the sight turned Lia’s stomach. “You killed them too?”
“They work for Lucian,” Rebecca appeared at her side, causing Wade to take a step to the side, startled. “Worked.” She amended with a grin and disappeared again.
Lia shivered in the breeze raised by her departure.
“I would be tempted to take the car,” Will commented. “But it might attract the wrong type of attention from the rioters.”
“Any car on the road, at this time, is more a liability than an advantage,” Wade replied grimly. A muscle worked in the corner of his jaw, and Lia knew he thought of his mate, and the pack.
“You could travel faster if you shifted,” she realized. “I am slowing you down. Shift and go help the pack.”
“If Lucian is on pack territory,” Raiden said suddenly, meeting his father’s eyes. “Should we take Lia there?”
The three vampires appeared before them suddenly, breathing heavy and grinning.
“It is time for battle, Werewolf Grenmeyer. We know where the enemy is, and we are prepared,” Elior replied fervently. “We need the pack to rise to aid us, and so we need the alpha pair to lead them to battle. The font must come with us, both as lure for Lucian, and because there is no other choice.”
“I am really disliking the use of font,” Raiden muttered, sliding his father a look. It did not bode well.
“Lia,” Elior conceded because of Raiden’s discomfort. “There is no safe place, and no spare guardians. Lia must come with us.”
“There is me,” Cael dropped from the sky and landed on the road before them, his wings held out at full spread, the white of his feathers stark in the night, and the almost sheer fineness of his clothing very out of place.
Raiden growled the Other flashing into his eyes.
“Cael to the rescue again,” Cael pointed out smugly preening. “This slave led Armageddon is causing stirs on my realm. The balance on this realm is tipping, and there is debate about whether my people should intervene. You really don’t want us to intervene,” he added with a smirk. “So, again, I offer to take Lia to safety.”
“Who the f-k and what the f-k are you?” Elior demanded.
The vampires’ moved to surround Cael, their passage stirring the feathers of his wings, and tossing his golden hair.
Cael tilted his head, his eyes narrowing as he assessed them. “Interesting,” he murmured. “What has caused this acceleration in these bloodsuckers?”
Elior stopped before him and bared his sharp teeth with a hiss. “Answer or we will pluck the answer from you, a feather at a time.”
There was a blur as the vampires made to follow through on their leader’s threat, and Cael responded, a golden shield appearing around him, pushing the vampires back.
Rebecca shrieked as she brushed against it, the sleeve of her top peeling back as if exposed to heat. Her skin blistered immediately, and she slapped a hand over the wound before lifting it to her mouth and licking it to sooth and heal it.
The vampires drew back, snarling and spitting, to a respectful distance.
Cael smiled smugly, and the glow faded. “Be polite slaves. Lia,” he turned to her with appeal, holding out his hand. “We are meant to be together. Evelyn was betrothed to my ancestor. It is that bond that ties us, carried through the generations. Come with me. I can keep you safe.” His eyes were brilliant, glowing blue. “You are mine.”
“F-k that,” Raiden’s snarled. “My mate.”
“You are not meant to whelp litters, Lia. You are no ordinary witch,” Cael’s lips curled up in a sneer. “You are something else. Something extraordinary. Don’t let your fondness for the dog waste your potential.”
The vampires listened with interest, watching the winged man warily, their eyes sliding from him to Lia, and back.
“Evelyn’s child was half human and would have been a witch, and each new generation has been with humans, werewolves, or Other slaves, depending on that person’s preference,” Lia murmured under her breath.
“Lia?” Raiden looked at her in concern. Her attention was not on the winged man, the vampires, the werewolves, or the riot that carried on around them, but internalized.
“When Evelyn’s wings were amputated,” Lia looked up, focusing back on Cael, her expression lighting with revelation. She opened her hands, her power flaring to life, zapping up her forearms, and lifting her hair. “And she survived, it created a mutation in her unborn child.”
Raiden felt the current of the power through his grasp on her waist, the tingle of it in his teeth, rising beyond the edge of discomfort into pain like an electric shock, forcing him to release her and step back.
He saw Cael’s uncertainty cross his face, and the vampires’ reverence on theirs.
“I am not whatever you are Cael, angel or devil,” she continued. “And I am not a witch, nor am I one of the Wingless. I am something else, entirely. Something that is all of those things, and many Others as well. A hybrid.”
Raiden slid her a look from the corner of his eye. This was the first she had spoken of what she was. Her attention was fixed on the winged man and her power cast a ghostly blue light over her face, the electric sparks echoing in her eyes.
She closed her fists, pinching out the power and blue glow.
Raiden felt the hair that had risen along his forearms and the back of his neck settle. He placed his hand on her waist again, feeling the need to maintain connection with her as his Other rose in response to his unease.
“I don’t belong to you, Cael,” Lia said quietly. “I don’t belong to anyone. I belong to myself, and I choose to be with Raiden. He is my mate. I am sorry that you feel a bond, but I am not responsible for it or how you feel because of it. Now, you have a choice,” she took a step forward. “Fall in or fly away.”
Cael seemed about to speak when his attention shifted, his gaze turning inwards as if hearing a voice that they could not. “What…?!” His voice was alarmed as he leapt, his wings catching the air and blowing it across them as he lifted over their heads. There was a flash of red hued light, and he disappeared into the darkness of the sky.
“Not the response I was hoping for,” Lia frowned after him.
“Something happened…” Will murmured. “Where did he go?”
“Back to his realm,” she told him. “He sort of moves between. It is against the rules, but he does it anyway. He doesn’t seem to care much.”
“Right,” Will met Raiden’s eyes and raised his eyebrows.
The werewolves fell in around her again and the vampires disappeared as their speed carried them beyond the detection of vision.
“What was that?” Raiden asked the question he knew preoccupied the werewolves around him. “About being a hybrid?”
“The book,” she replied, and the shadow of surprise in her tone told him that she had been just as taken aback by what she had said as he had been. “I guess, I know the information the book contained. All of it. It just came to me when he said I wasn’t an ordinary witch.”
“Hybrid,” Wade repeated and there was something in his expression that added to Raiden’s unease. “Your family has mated with werewolves before?”
“Along the path, yes,” she paused. “My grandmother’s ghost said as much to me,” she added thoughtfully. “That we were compatible with all the Others.”
“Why has the Other not held in the line?” Wade wondered. “It does between human and werewolves. A werewolf and human mating produces werewolves, not humans. If your ancestors mated with werewolves, they should have been werewolves, and part of the pack… You should have been born one of us.”
“I guess because of what else we are, it doesn’t work out that way,” she said apologetically, meeting Raiden’s eyes, her expression becoming grief stricken as the impact of the statement was felt. “I am sorry.”
“What does that mean?” His heart ached. Deep down, he knew the answer, but his mind rebelled against the information. “What does that mean, Lia?”
“Your cub might not be,” Wade explained gently. “And Lia might not turn.”
“She is my mate,” Raiden protested. “And it is my cub.”
“Yes,” Wade was uncertain however, and the uncertainty crept into his tone. “But will the mating hold true if she doesn’t turn?”
“No,” Raiden pulled Lia against him and buried his face into her hair. “She is my mate. I know it.”
“Let’s worry about that when we get to it,” Wade decided, and his expression changed as he came to a stop. “We have more pressing matters to worry about.”
Ahead of them, the road into the werewolves’ estate was cordoned off and blocked by police cars, their lights cutting the dark with red and blue. Beyond them was parked an army tank, its gun pointed down the road to deter any who would enter.
Ethan’s jaw dropped. “Shit.”
The street was thick with vampires in army and police uniforms, and the sweet-bitter scent of vampire was heavy in the air.
“Well,” Elior appeared beside them. “Don’t just stand there, fools. Hide.”