Blood Ties: The First (A Bane Pack Novel)

Kendra, Conor, Felix and Jenna ran through the forest like rampaging dogs were chasing them. Kendra and Conor had no problems running through the nearly pitch black woods, but Jenna and Felix kept tripping over exposed roots and nearly braining themselves on trees.

“We’ll meet you guys there!” Jenna yelled right before a root caught her foot and she was flung to the ground. Felix bent down next to her, helping her back to her feet.

Kendra shot Jenna a nervous look, but she nodded her head. She handed Conor back his coat and shifted. Conor morphed into his wolf/human hybrid state and together, they raced off. The darkness was suddenly lit up in mono-chromatic amber colors. Her powerful wolf form propelled her at a somewhat alarming rate. She quickly dodged trees and jumped over any obstacles. She had no problems with direction. She just followed the scents in the air until she came back to the clearing where she’d found Jenna’s odor before.

She stopped there. Conor stood next to her. They could see the mansion clear as day, and they could also hear the unmistakable sounds of gunfire. Flashes of light lit up several windows near the front doors.

She shifted again, taking back Conor’s coat.

“We’re too late,” she said.

A blast of wind nearly threw her to the ground. She stumbled and looked behind her. Felix and Jenna were standing there.

“How did you guys do that?” she stammered, shocked.

“Magic,” Jenna replied with a smile. She looked at the mansion and the smile slid off her face. All humor in her eyes was gone, replaced by a look of determination. “We need to get down there. Let’s go.”

She took off running, crashing through the woods on a direct course for the mansion. The rest followed after her.

The doors were still thrown open and Jenna was inside a split second before Kendra. They both stopped and looked around. Men and monsters were fighting each other. Several wolves were lying on the ground, not moving. There were Knights and mages thrown all over the place as well, seeming to triple the number of downed werewolves.

Kendra felt her blood run cold as she looked at her fallen pack members. Off in the corner, standing over a wolf that had been badly burned were Elijah Bishop and a man with white hair.

“Show no mercy!” she heard Elijah yell.

“Stop!” Kendra yelled, her voice booming over the sounds of battle.

Every man, mage, and werewolf present, stopped what they were doing and turned to look at her. Her eyes glowed with amber fire. She forgot about all her fears of being a werewolf. She forgot about all her anger at being turned into one against her will. She even forgot she was standing there in nothing but a heavy winter coat.

The only thing she felt was fury.

They had hurt her pack.

“K-Kendra?” she heard Elijah ask. She watched him carefully. He looked dazed for a moment and then he saw Jenna standing there as well. “Jenna?”

“Kill her!” the white-haired man yelled.

He placed a hand on Elijah’s arm. Elijah immediately screamed in pain, his eyes pulsing with red light.

That’s exactly what happened with Merrick, Kendra thought, her mind racing with theories and explanations.

Her fury rose even higher as she looked at the white-haired man.

Him. Everything is his fault. He did something to Merrick and now he is trying to do the same thing to Elijah. Somehow, he was controlling the both of them. He was using his magic to invade their minds and turn them into puppets.

Everything, she realized, led back to that guy. Her father’s death. Her brother going insane. This war. He’d orchestrated all of it.

“Stop it!” she heard Jenna scream, but it was distant and unimportant.

That bestial, primal energy inside her rose up in a wave of raw power. It washed over her and she let it as she focused on the real enemy.

Things happened very quickly after that. She shifted, but something was strange and different about it. Her arms bulged and lengthened, including her fingers. The nails there grew into wicked-looking claws. She felt her face push outward, forming a muzzle. Auburn fur sprouted along the entire length of her body. Her teeth shot out, one right after the other, and turned into flesh-ripping fangs. Her ears slid to the top of her head and became pointed, tufts of hair sprouting out of their tips. Her chest bulged out. Her legs grew. Her feet seemed to burst into monstrous paws. The nails there clacked against the granite tile of the foyer.

Everyone there stared at her with obvious shock and fear, including the werewolves themselves.

She stood over eight feet tall and was something no one there had ever seen before outside of a Hollywood horror movie.

She didn’t look like a pure werewolf or the hybrid creature that Conor was. She was something entirely new. Something entirely different.

But one thing remained the same.

She was the Alpha.

| | | | |

Jonah stared at what used to be Kendra. He’d never seen anything like that before. He could feel fear invading his mind like a cancer, but he ruthlessly burned it away. His goal was almost within reach. He turned to Elijah, but the man was barely coherent. He wouldn’t be of any use to his plans now. He would have to progress things along without him. He didn’t think that would be much of a problem now. Several Knights and mages were either wounded or killed. The ones left standing would cry out for blood.

“Kill her!” he shouted, pointing to Kendra. “She leads these monsters! These monsters that have killed your brethren!”

Kendra whirled to look at him.

Jonah could see murder in her eyes, clear as day.

“You,” she said, the words rough and odd coming out of her muzzle. But he could still understand her perfectly.

The fact that she was talking sent another wave of panic racing through his mind. It was unnatural.

“You started this,” Kendra said. Then she growled, the sound terrifying. “I’m going to end you.”

As soon as the last word was out of her mouth, she was rushed him.

She was so fast Jonah could barely track her. He managed to raise a shield of writhing flames in front of him a split second before she reached him, but it did no good. She plowed through them as if they weren’t even there. She swung one of her hugely muscled, powerful arms at him in a backward swing. It smacked into the middle of his chest with enough force to crack his ribs. He sailed through the air, his chest on fire and his head spinning. Then he hit one of the walls. The impact knocked the breath out of him and he wasted precious seconds trying to breathe again.

He slowly got to his feet.

Then he started laughing.

“You think you can stop me?” he mocked. “I have spent years developing this plan to eradicate your pack.” He spit a mouthful of blood out and then wiped his forearm across his blood-stained lips. “Do you honestly think an upstart werewolf like yourself can stop me?”

“I will,” she responded, coming towards him again.

He laughed cruelly.

“You aren’t strong enough,” he told her. His eyes turned cold and calculating. “Your brother wasn’t.” He turned and looked at Elijah. “Neither was he.”

Enraged, Kendra ran at him again, but that’s what Jonah was expecting. He waited for his moment. When she could almost touch him, he vanished in a blast of fire and heat. Her momentum was too much for her to stop and she ran head first into the wall. Dazed, she stumbled back.

Jonah reappeared next to her and immediately grabbed her huge head with his hands. Before she could throw him off, fire flooded through her mind. She sank to her knees in pain.

[Kill them. Kill your pack. You will murder all of them. Do it. Do it NOW!]

She let out an ear-splitting roar, but she couldn’t break away from him.

NO! Get out of my HEAD!

[You will obey me!] An even bigger wave of pain and fire hit her and she almost buckled underneath it. [Kill THEM!]

She cried out, her body shrinking. The power she felt before was draining away, hampered by the pain. As she turned back into a human, Jonah didn’t let up. He gripped her head even harder and the pain tripled and then quadrupled.

[DO IT!]

“Ne-never,” she whispered, her voice weak. It hurt so much. She wanted it to end.

{Don’t give in. I’m here Kendra. Together, we can beat him.}

The shock of hearing that voice lessened the pain.

Mom?

{I’m here.}

[Impossible!]

But it wasn’t. Kendra knew that voice anywhere, even though she hadn’t heard it in over twenty years.

Help me. Please, Kendra called out. It hurts so much.

Strength that wasn’t coming from her washed away the pain and the fire raging through her mind. She redoubled her efforts and was able to hold the man off. He pushed harder, bearing down on her with everything he had.

And then, with all the power and strength of will she had, Kendra pushed back.

The fire grew unbearable again for what seemed like an eternity, and then she felt it leaving her. She felt like it was…rebounding off some impenetrable wall inside her mind and heading straight for the white-haired man.

And he wasn’t prepared for the backlash of his own power.

He yelled in pain. His eyes, nose, mouth and ears flashed with bright red color. Then his skin started glowing. Kendra backed away, suddenly afraid he might explode and take her with him.

Then the light winked out. Jonah crumpled to his knees. His face was slack and his body slumped forward. His eyes were staring straight ahead.

They were now completely white.

She got shakily to her feet. A woman, she thought it might’ve been Deirdre, came over to her and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.

She looked around. The mansion was a wreck, but the fighting, at least, had stopped. Werewolves, Knights, and mages looked at her with open curiosity and a lot of fear.

When she felt more or less like herself, she turned to Elijah. He seemed better now. More himself.

“We need to talk,” she told him.

He looked at her and nodded.

“I,” she paused, blinking several times as a wave of dizziness hit her. “I’ll get dressed. Please tell your Knights and their mages to leave. Now.”

“You heard her,” Elijah immediately yelled. “Fall back. This fight is over.”

The Knights all fumbled around for a minute. The mages looked flustered. She caught several dirty looks from some of the people there, including Natalie Paxton. Somehow, Kendra wasn’t surprised to see her

“Retrieve the wounded and our fallen. Make sure everyone gets medical treatment that needs it and see to the preparations for the dead,” Elijah continued.

The Knights did as they were told, the mages following along behind them.

Kendra turned and walked upstairs, Jenna on one side and Deirdre on the other. Each one had an arm around her and Kendra found it increasingly weird that she had a Knight on one side of her and a werewolf on the other. She hoped since Jenna wasn’t actually present for the storming of the mansion, then Deirdre would cut her a little slack.

They got to her room. Things were still a mess from her fight with Merrick. The bed was a wreck and splinters of wood were lying around everywhere.

“What happened here?” Jenna asked.

“My brother paid a visit,” she responded, her voice slurring slightly from exhaustion.

“Brother?” Jenna asked.

Kendra found it comforting to know that there were still some things her friend didn’t know about.

“Merle’s son. Probably my half-brother since he went completely wolf instead of half-wolf,” she replied.

“You need to leave her alone. She’s been through enough already without a Knight interrogating her,” Deirdre said, harshly. She even managed to make Knight sound like a dirty word.

Jenna’s jaw clenched for a second, anger in her eyes, but she quickly controlled herself.

“You’re right. Now’s not the time,” she said instead.

They both helped Kendra get into some clothes that Deidre brought over from her room. They fit her reasonably well, although the shirt was a little big in the boob area. She might’ve gotten a helping hand in that department from the change but she had nothing on Deirdre.

When she was reasonably put together and presentable, they went back downstairs. The werewolves-the ones still capable of standing anyway-were in a loose ring around Elijah. Some of them were snarling and had their fangs bared.

“That’s enough,” Kendra said. She didn’t raise her voice or yell. She said it with quiet authority. Every werewolf present immediately backed up and even Deirdre flinched slightly. Kendra turned to Jenna and Deirdre. “I can take it from here. Jenna, you should go home.”

Jenna looked like she wanted to protest.

“It’s not a good idea for you to be here right now,” Kendra explained.

After another second of hesitation, she finally relented.

“Call me when you get a chance,” she said and then left. Felix was outside waiting for her and the both of them disappeared into a cyclone of wind and blue-white light.

Kendra turned her attention to Elijah.

“We’ll talk in here,” she told him. She walked to the study with her family pictures all over the walls. She sat down heavily on a plush couch. Elijah came in and shut the door behind him. He walked over to her, his face stern, and sat down across from her.

“The treaty will stand as is,” she said.

“Will it?” Elijah asked, a slight smile on his face.

“It will. My pack did nothing to provoke your attack. The one responsible is a woman named Deanna Shade. She turned on us and, I’m guessing, was working with the man that influenced you and Merrick.”

“Ah, yes. Your brother,” Elijah said. He ran a hand through his hair and looked at her. His eyes had lost their humor. “It’s a fact that Merrick has succumbed to the blood hunger.”

“That man did something to him, just like he did to you. When Merrick attacked me earlier tonight, he stopped himself. Then his eyes started flashing red. It’s exactly what happened to you when that man touched you. Whatever he’s done, he is not responsible for it.”

“And what about this woman, Deanna Shade? Was she under Jonah’s influence as well?” he asked.

“I didn’t see any evidence to support that,” she told him. “From what I can tell, she acted of her own free will. As I said, she was working outside of the pack’s knowledge. My protection as the Alpha does not extend to her.”

Elijah considered her words for a long time.

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay?”

“The treaty will stand as follows, under one condition.”

“And what’s that?”

“You will find your brother and make sure that he does not murder innocent people. If I find out that he has, then I am honor bound to kill him.”

“He won’t be an issue,” she said.

Elijah got up to leave.

“I’m not done yet,” she said, her voice flat. She thought about asking him about hearing her mother’s voice but rejected the idea. She didn’t think he would have any answers and she wasn’t sure she wanted anyone else to know about it anyway. “Why were you and Merle protecting me? Jenna said that you and my father had an agreement concerning me. What was it and why?”

He breathed deeply for a long time. His eyes found hers and she could see pain there.

“That was between him and myself, Kendra. What he did to you broke that agreement and if he were alive, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill him for it.”

Her eyes narrowed in anger.

“He did it so I would have a fighting chance to survive.”

“He turned you into a monster,” he snapped. “You might think otherwise, but that’s the simple truth. Neither of us wanted this for you. The fact that he went against our pact accomplished nothing but putting you in even greater danger. Forcing you to be the new Alpha put you in the middle of things you can’t even begin to understand.”

“He didn’t have a choice,” she whispered.

“There’s always a choice, Kendra. If he made the right one is something we’ll never know.”

He got up again and looked down on her.

“Get some sleep. You look tired. You can take a couple days off, but I want you back in the office as soon as you’re more…yourself.”

Then he walked out, leaving her with more questions than answers.

| | | | |

Deanna walked into a Starbucks on lower West Main Street the day after the attack on the mansion had failed. The place was filled with people chatting away. Off in a corner, sitting by herself, was what appeared to be a middle-aged woman. She had grey streaks in her hair, but she had a beautiful face. It was almost hauntingly pretty.

The woman’s pale green eyes fixed onto Deanna the minute she walked inside. She felt her heart beat faster in her chest as the woman’s cold eyes appraised her. Fear raged inside her mind and she found herself contemplating on what she was going to tell her.

She got to the woman’s table and pulled out a chair. She sat down and regarded her, trying to appear more confident than she felt.

“Tell me, my little wolf, did things go as planned?” The mysterious woman sipped her coffee and then set it back down. Her cold, green eyes never seemed to leave Deanna’s.

“Unfortunately, no,” she said. “Kendra Henner managed to locate Jenna Bishop. She was also able to defeat your fire mage, Jonah. For whatever reason, his magic failed on her.”

The woman said nothing. She simply sipped her coffee again.

Deanna went on, trying to control her growing nervousness. The woman in front of her was incredibly dangerous and wouldn’t hesitate to kill her.

“When Jonah’s enthrallments ceased, Elijah and Kendra were able to restore order. Jonah, from what I was able to piece together, suffered a backlash of his own power. It destroyed his mind. He’s nothing but an empty shell now,” Deanna explained.

“That’s…unfortunate. He was a useful tool,” the woman replied nonchalantly.

“Kendra has become the pack’s newest Alpha. Merrick cannot be found. The Knights and the werewolf treaty stand. What will you have me do now?”

“Did you know that Merle was Alrich’s son?” the woman said, ignoring Deanna’s question. “He bred with a werewolf bitch that he turned.”

“I didn’t know, although I assumed he was of the original’s blood,” Deanna replied, carefully.

The woman stared back at her, seemingly calm and serene. Then her face contorted in rage. Her skin turned ash grey and spidery, black veins flowed out from around the hollows of her eyes.

“I wanted his bloodline destroyed!” she yelled, sounding ridiculously like a bratty child that hasn’t gotten their way. She slammed her hands onto the table and a gaping crack raced down the middle before it broke in half. No one else in the coffee shop so much as glanced in their direction. Deanna looked around nervously but it was like the two of them weren’t even there. “I wanted to wipe any trace of Alrich’s blood off the face of this wretched world.”

“I know that I’ve failed you, but I promise we will eradicate them,” Deanna urged. She shoved in all of the confidence she could into her words, despite the fact that she was extremely terrified.

“Good,” the woman replied calmly, sitting back in her chair and crossing her legs. “Make sure that you don’t fail me again Deanna Shade. If you do, then I will visit untold misery and pain on you.”

Deanna felt a shiver run up her spine. She knew the woman could do it and she didn’t even want to think about what kinds of torture she had in mind.

“I understand, Bendis.”

| | | | |

Kendra woke up feeling rejuvenated. She looked at her alarm clock blaring and shut it off. She was in her own bed, in her own apartment, and she felt good for the first time in a really long time.

Her life was just…better.

Work was great. She’d even nailed a huge new account and gotten promoted to Creative Director. Things had been tense with Elijah for the first few days, but he was back to his old self around her.

The pack had been trickier. The majority of them disliked and distrusted her. The funerals for Merle and Patrick just made the situation worse. Some of her pack felt she was the cause of their deaths.

She’d tried to keep her emotions bottled up. She wanted to be strong in front of her pack, but watching them lower Merle into the ground was one of the hardest things she’d ever been through. That, on top of the anger in her pack, was almost enough to send her over the edge. She wasn’t sure how she managed to get past it, but she did.

It was also clear that being connected to the head of the Defaeco Knights-and being best friends with his daughter-didn’t win her any favors.

Thankfully, however, they were beginning to come around.

The fact that she got the Knights off their backs was a big help in that. She even sat down to peace talks with them on several occasions and reworked the treaty. From now on, the Knights, the mages (or the Order of the White, as they called themselves), and the werewolves would enter into a partnership and keep the city free of monsters together. It wasn’t easy, but she’d felt it was the best solution at the time and that it would, eventually, erase some of the tension between the three groups.

Deirdre had been a wreck for weeks afterward and Kendra felt bad. Patrick had been her husband, and to make matters worse, Deirdre was pregnant. Deidre wanted to hunt down Merrick and kill him, and for a long time, she hated Kendra for telling her no. But when she was finally calm enough to listen, Kendra explained what Jonah had done to her brother and that Jonah was in a state worse than death now. Her twin sister, however, was free game and Deirdre had rights to bring her in first. Part of the reason her husband was dead was her fault and Kendra couldn’t really say no to that. So, almost every night, Deirdre went hunting for Deanna, but so far, she’d eluded capture.

Jenna acted like nothing had ever happened and things were no different, which was a relief to Kendra. Her life had changed so much in the past couple of weeks. It was comforting that her friendship with Jenna hadn’t changed. Felix was awkward around her now, but Felix was awkward around a lot of people so she didn’t feel too bad about that.

As for Conor.

She rose out of bed and got dressed. As soon as she got out of her room, there was a knock on her door. She smiled to herself and went to answer it.

“You look beautiful,” Conor said. “You ready?”

“Our first date,” she replied, and then she punched him lightly on the arm. “Better make it good.”

“Have fun Kendra!” Jenna yelled from the couch.

“I don’t think that will be an issue,” Kendra said, smiling as Conor took hold of her hand.

Sometimes change is good, she thought to herself.