Scarlet Heat Read online

  “Good luck with that,” I said and turned toward the hill. I could smell Taylor, though I couldn’t hear her voice. I just prayed she was still alive and that I was in time to save her. If I lost her, I didn’t know what I would do.

  Lose myself, probably, I thought as I made my way quickly but stealthily up the hill. In all probability if Taylor died, my curse would overtake me and never let go. I was struggling right now to keep the beast inside me in check but only because I was afraid I might kill everyone—Taylor included—if I let go and gave in to the change. Have to keep it together, I told myself, lifting my head to scent the wind. Just long enough to save her and see her safely back to Addison and Corbin. Then I can change and hunt…hunt down every single fucker who hurt her.

  That was my goal anyway but the burning at my lower back made me wonder if I would achieve it. Have to, I told myself. I have to—

  Suddenly, I saw someone up ahead, crouched in the underbrush. The moonlight was bright enough to let me make out that it was a male and my nose told me it was a vampire. Clearly, Celeste had sent him to wait for me but I didn’t think he’d seen me yet.

  I circled warily around and came up from behind him. Then, as silently as possible, I pounced. I had no weapons but the beast inside had forced a partial change, just as it had the night before. My eyes felt hot and my fangs were long and sharp and hungry for blood—I ripped his throat out before he could even struggle.

  The tang of cool, metallic vampire blood filled my mouth making me want to gag. Disgusting—it tasted like meat that was just about to spoil. I spit it out and was lowering the vamp to the ground when what felt like five more jumped me from behind.

  “What the fuck?” I roared, trying to throw them off. But there were too many of them—a confusing mixture of vamp and were, according to my nose.

  “Just exacting some justice, sugar.” LeeAnn suddenly popped up in front of me and slipped a thick silver chain around my neck. The caustic metal burned me at once, making me throw back my head and howl. The others who had grabbed me looped silver chains around my arms, binding them behind my back.

  I was trapped.

  I wanted to change, wanted to let the beast inside out and rip them all to shreds but I couldn’t yet—I had to free Taylor and get her to safety first. Somehow I stayed human—mostly, anyway. I had no idea how the other wolves were managing to keep in human form during the full moon night. They must have already changed and satisfied the call of the moon in order to manage it. The fact that they were both buck naked except for thick hide gloves to protect themselves from the silver chains, seemed to confirm my guess.

  “Look at him,” another were muttered nervously, staring at me. “His eyes are fucking red. Damn, I wish I never woulda got into this. No money’s worth messing with a cursed one.”

  “Shut your fool mouth, Tozer, and let’s get him to Celeste,” LeeAnn snapped. “The sooner she does her little spell on his fanger girlfriend, the sooner I can kill him.”

  “You’re the one who’s going to die tonight,” I told her, my voice dipping down into a growl.

  “Oh, please,” she scoffed as they started dragging me up the hill. “I know your type, Victor—you’d never break the pack laws and do violence to a female.”

  “I wouldn’t,” I said. “But the thing inside me—the beast—it doesn’t care, LeeAnn. All it wants is blood. And if I can’t control it…”

  The wolf called Tozer went pale.

  “You hear that, LeeAnn? We need to get up out of here.”

  “We’ll be fine,” she said, giving him an exasperated look. “All that talk about cursed ones is just superstition and foolishness.”

  “That’s what you think,” he said darkly. “That’s 'cause you never seen what a cursed one can do. Your daddy has—that’s why he told you to leave this guy alone.”

  “Oh please.” LeeAnn rolled her eyes. “Daddy’s just trying to scare me so I’ll take the wolf he wants as the next pack master. Problem is, the only one I wanted was Victor.” She yanked viciously at the chain around my neck until I choked. “But he turned out to me a lying, cheating sack of shit.”

  “I never cheated on you,” I said hoarsely. “Because we were never together. Because my dad taught me not to dip my dick in crazy.”

  “Shut up,” she snarled. “You would have been lucky to have me—any wolf would!”

  “That kind of luck I can live without,” I growled. “Thanks but no fucking thanks.”

  At that point we got to the top of the large, flat hill and I saw Taylor for the first time. She was wearing a thin white gown that whipped around her legs in the night breeze and she was gagged with silver. I saw her eyes move as she looked at me and a knot I hadn’t known I had suddenly loosened inside my chest. She was alive—thank God, she was alive.

  My heart leapt when I realized she was okay…and then sank down to my shoes. She was chained to a big old oak at the center of the hill—completely helpless. If I let the curse take me, if I gave in to the call of the moon, she would be a sitting duck. Way too easy to kill if the beast went on a rampage. I knew the wolf inside me recognized her as mine but I wasn’t sure the beast could be trusted.

  A sudden image surfaced in my mind—a memory I had done my best to suppress. When I was younger, I’d had a pet, a dog called Champ. He was a mut—a lab/golden mix with a little terrier thrown in—the best pet a kid could have. Champ was with me during my first change. When puberty hit and the wolf came forward for the first time, we ran together under the full moon and I woke up the next morning to find him licking my face. After that, he always came with me on full moon nights—just a boy and his dog, happy as they could be.

  That was until the first time the curse took me.

  The beast didn’t care that Champ was a friend, a much loved pet I’d had for years. The morning after that change I had woken up to find Champ’s severed head lying in the grass at my feet and his disemboweled body a few yards away. I wanted to believe that some other animal had gotten to him but there was blood on my mouth—Champ’s blood. Apparently the beast had seen him as either a competitor or prey.

  I had been horrified by what I had done and I mourned Champ for months afterward. The combination of guilt and grief had been damn near crippling and to be honest, in a way I had never really gotten over it. I started distancing myself from my family and it wasn’t too long after that I admitted to my father what was happening to me.

  I didn’t expect compassion or understanding from him—he wasn’t that kind of a male. But his choice to brand me as cursed before he drove me away still hurt. It hurt but I understood it. The brand was a warning to others of my kind. Not to be trusted, it said. Violent. Unpredictable. Dangerous.

  Was it any wonder, then, that I fought so hard to keep myself from making a complete change to the mindless beast that lived just under the surface? I couldn’t risk letting that part of me out—couldn’t risk waking up to find Taylor lying in pieces on the grass around me with a look of terror and pain on her face.

  I’ll die first, I told myself. I’ll let them kill me before I change.

  Little did I know how close I was going to come to having that promise come true.

  “Tie him to the stake,” Celeste said, coming forward to gloat. “Where’s Carl?”

  “Didn’t make it,” one of the vamps said shortly.

  “A pity.” She sighed. “I hated to use him as bait but what could I do? Some losses are always inevitable.” So the vampire I’d killed had been merely there to lure me in—great. Corbin had been right when he said it was a trap set with me in mind. And I had walked right into it. Speaking of Corbin, where was he? How much longer was it going to take to get through the barrier? I could use a little help, here guys!

  As I was kicking myself for being an idiot and wondering if I was going to get any backup, the vamps and weres who had jumped me fastened my chained hands to a thick metal pole. It was driven into the ground right across from where Taylor was tied to th