Blood Ties: The First (A Bane Pack Novel)

Kendra watched the whole thing unfold, safely hidden in a secret bolt-hole the size of a closet. It was behind a false wall panel. She pressed her face against narrow, nearly invisible slits. She could barely see the fight when it had been over by the wide doorway, but she saw things clearly now. She saw the twisted savagery on Merrick’s face as he held Conor by the throat. She saw the blood splattered over his body nearly from head to toe.

That’s the blood of the people that were trying to protect me and keep me safe from that lunatic, she thought to herself, horrified. That’s the blood of my pack!

Sometime during the fight, Conor reverted to his normal, human body. The fur and fangs were gone. The only thing left was an exhausted man with his face turning first red and now a sickly, purplish color. And Merrick was enjoying every minute of his victim’s pain and suffering.

Anger, pure and bright, flared up in her. It was more powerful than when she dealt with Tyler and Marco. More powerful than anything she’d ever experienced before. Its fire burned away the gnawing icicles of fear that had clamped down on the pit of her stomach. It burned away her doubts. It burned away all her worries. The only thing left was a sense of righteousness and purpose.

She stood up with a determined look on her face. She pushed the panel open, hearing the ancient hinges screech as they protested against the strain. She saw Merrick’s smile widen broadly, drawing out the flickering insanity in his eyes more deeply.

He could smell her fear, the scent powerful and intoxicating.

“Finally,” Merrick told her. He had the nerve to look exasperated with her, like she was a child that didn’t know the meaning of the word hurry.

“Let him go, Merrick,” Kendra said, remembering the psycho’s name from when Conor had used it.

He laughed.

“That’s cute,” he responded, looking at Conor. His gaze swung back to her. There was a cruel, vicious smile on his face.

The pit of her stomach erupted with terror as she realized Merrick meant to kill Conor anyway. All of a sudden, it felt like she’d swallowed a nest of snakes.

Merrick sneered at her.

Time slowed down and everything was highlighted in agonizing detail. She watched as Merrick crushed Conor’s throat. Blood spurted between his fingers. Conor’s eyes went wide, and he started wheezing and whistling as he tried to draw in enough air through the massive trauma he suffered.

Merrick dropped him to the ground.

“NO!” Kendra screamed.

Her rage suddenly magnified a thousand-fold. There was so much of it she could barely contain it. Her eyes turned first amber, and then lit up with bright, golden fire. Her body felt like it exploded outward and the wolf buried inside her ripped its way to the surface. She stood facing Merrick, a loud snarl rumbling out between bared fangs. The coppery sheen on her fur shone bright in the moonlight that flooded the room through its large windows. A patch of dark, nearly black fur encircled her throat.

“Now that’s more like it!” Merrick yelled boisterously. His wide, crazy-looking grin showed off his blood-stained teeth. “I love a good fight.”

He shifted too.

Kendra got swallowed up in the raw power of her wolf form and attacked first. She ran at Merrick and the both of them crashed into each other in a fight full of violent power.

She could feel how strong he was and it frightened her immediately. She moved to dodge, but he was faster. His jaws latched onto her back leg and she howled with pain. Her huge head snapped back at him but again he was too fast. He jumped away, a wolfish grin on his muzzle. He growled loudly at her and then attacked again. Kendra was ready this time. She met his lunge with a huge paw, smashing him to the floor like a rag doll. Then she jumped on him, her claws digging into his struggling body. He squirmed and she saw pain in his amber colored-eyes. Her head flashed in and she bit down. Her teeth grinded against the bone of his skull but didn’t do any lasting damage. In fact, the wound she opened up in his skull healed over a second later.

Merrick managed to kick her off, sending her hurtling into one of the posts to the huge bed in her room. She crashed through it, splinters of wood flying out in a big cloud. She hit the far wall and fell to the floor, laying there in a foggy daze. Her wolf form disappeared and she found herself back as her human self.

Merrick capitalized on her weakness without hesitation. He darted forward, jaws huge and wide. She couldn’t move, let alone defend herself. She tried. All she could manage were a few weak jerks. She closed her eyes and waited. There was a grunt of impact, a yelp of pain, and the crash of glass. She looked around in confusion, blinking her eyes slowly. She saw Conor next to her with one of his hands to his throat and a knee on the ground. His throat was a raw, bleeding mess, but she could already see signs of it healing. He looked at her through a pain-filled gaze, his eyes somewhat glassy.

“G-go,” he rasped. Then his eyes rolled up in his head and he passed out again.

She crawled over and rolled him onto his back. His throat was still crushed, but it was healing. Definitely healing. She saw him breathing and figured he would eventually be okay again. It would have to do.

She was determined to finish what she’d started with Merrick. She got to her feet, wobbling a little before her strength completely returned, and went to the window. She saw him down there, pacing back and forth. She could hear him growling, looking up at the window. His eyes locked onto her and she could feel the malice radiating from them. Her own anger surged forward, nearly ripping her mind down a flood of pure hatred. She tried to control it but suddenly found herself not wanting to. Her strange, newfound power lit up her system, filling every muscle fiber and every nerve. It filled every corner and crevice of her mind. It sang with every beat of her pulsing heart.

She remembered Merle getting ripped apart by that thing.

She remembered how he’d casually crushed Conor’s throat, just so he could get a rise out of her.

She remembered the pain and anguish of that woman, Deirdre.

She remembered the blood that covered him, the blood of the people that were trying to protect her.

The anger washed through her until something in her snapped. She looked down at herself and wasn’t surprised to see that all her injuries had healed themselves.

She watched Merrick for a moment more and then jumped out the window. She shifted in mid-air and landed on all fours, a roar ripping its way out of her throat.

Merrick attacked with ruthless ferocity, fangs and claws lashing out at her as soon as she hit the ground. She backed up, getting away from him, and then struck back with lightning quickness. Her claws opened up deep gashes on his muzzle and he howled with pain as he leaped away from her.

She got caught up in a new surge of power, losing herself to its strength. Merrick seemed to sense it, like it was pouring out of her. His fear became a rank, acrid smell in her nose that only fueled that power even more.

He backed away from her, trying to put some distance between them.

She growled and charged forward. He tried a feint to the left but she planted her paws, dug them into the soft earth, switched direction and shot forward. A second later, she managed to bowl her shoulder into him. She used all the power she had and connected with bone crunching force. She watched him roll and tumble across the ground and hit the brick wall. He fell to the ground but then, surprisingly, got back to his feet. She didn’t give him time to recover, however. She flew at him, ripping and tearing. He took the blows, each one deadlier than the last, until he could barely stand. She smelled blood and saw it dripping from him. He was limping severely and there was a low whine coming out of him.

She went after him again, but something was wrong. The power that had made her so much stronger than Merrick seemed to be waning. She walked toward him but didn’t get far. The last of the power left her and she slumped to the ground in a limp heap. She was way past exhausted. It was like what happens to the body after adrenaline leaves the system. She could barely even move. All she could do was watch as Merrick came into view, still in his werewolf form. She saw his limp fade and then disappear altogether as his battered body regenerated itself.

He shifted back into his human form at about the same time as she was melting back into hers. She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t stop it from happening.

Her own fear exploded in her mind like a firework now, going off in mind numbing-brilliance. She realized with horror that she’d been tricked.

Merrick knelt down next to her, his head tilted to the side.

“That was impressive,” he said with a derisive laugh. “But you have something that I want and I am going to take it now.”

She was scared. Terrified really. She was too weak to move and there was nothing she could do to stop him. She watched as he leaned in close. She could see the gleam of insanity in his eyes, glittering like twin fires. The terror was in full blown force now. Even if she hadn’t been half-paralyzed with exhaustion already, she would’ve been frozen with fear.

“It’s okay, little pup,” he cooed softly. The nails on his hands were growing into claws. He drew each one across her throat, lightly at first and then digging in a little. She cried out and tried to back away, but her body still wouldn’t respond.

“Little pup,” he said again, thoughtfully this time.

He stared at her strangely. Then he looked confused for a second. He looked…hesitant. His eyes flashed red for a split second, so fast that she had doubts she’d even seen it. His hesitation suddenly disappeared and he slashed his hand toward her chest, trying to rip her heart out.

She closed her eyes tightly.

She waited for her death, her body trembling, but the blow never fell. There was only silence and a cold wind gliding across her naked flesh. After a moment, she looked up at him. His hand was still poised over her chest, but the claws were gone. There was only disbelief on his face.

“K-kendra?” he asked.

There was something different about him. It took her a moment to realize that the gleam in his eyes, that insane, murderous gleam, was entirely gone.

“Is that you?”

She had no idea what was going on. What was he doing?

“No, no, no!” he shouted. He looked at her again, at the state she was in. There was real, genuine worry in his eyes. “You shouldn’t be here, Kendra. You shouldn’t be here.”

She groaned loudly, every joint and muscle in her body felt like they’d been pounded on by a sadistic bastard with a sledgehammer. Some strength finally returned to her and she managed to roll over, away from him. She got slowly to her knees, her anger forgotten for the moment.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, her voice raspy. She coughed harshly.

“Where’s dad?” he asked instead of answering her. Something dropped like a stone in her mind.

Dad? It couldn’t be.

She watched him as he looked toward the mansion.

“Dad!? DAD!?” he yelled. Tears were streaming down his face. He looked back at Kendra. “Where is he? Where’s dad?”

Kendra managed to get to her feet. She looked at the man in front of her, the one that had killed her father and had, until a second ago, been trying to kill her.

“He’s gone,” she returned. “He’s dead.”

“What?” he asked, shocked. His legs seemed to drop out from beneath him, as if they no longer had any strength, and he fell to the ground on his knees.

“He’s dead.”

“H-how?” he asked.

“You did it. You murdered him in cold blood,” she explained, her voice iron hard. “What are you playing at now? What game is this?”

“Game? What are you talking about?” His tears were streaming faster now. “Please, Kendra. I don’t know what’s happening.”

She kept her distance, expecting some kind of trick. She didn’t know him, but she knew enough about him to realize he was completely insane. It made sense that he would mess with her before he actually killed her.

“How do you know me?” she asked instead. “Who are you to me, Merrick?”

He looked up at her.

“You don’t remember me?” he asked her.

When she heard Conor use his name before, it had rung some far away distant bell, but she couldn’t remember why she thought she’d heard it before at the time. Now she had an idea, a truly unpleasant and scary idea.

“No, I guess you wouldn’t.”

Merrick got unsteadily to his feet and wiped a bloodied hand across his face. He didn’t seem to notice the blood at first. When he did, he freaked out.

“My God! What have I done?” He nearly screamed the words out. “What is this?”

“Hey!” Kendra shouted at him. His eyes snapped to hers. “You were trying to kill me, trying to kill everyone,” she explained. She showed him her palm, the one with the Alpha mark on it. It seemed to gleam a dull red in the moonlight. “For this. Merle made me kill him so that the power wouldn’t go to you.”

His eyes widened.

“No,” he said. “No, this isn’t happening. I would never…never try to hurt you. Not you, pup.”

“Stop calling me that!” she yelled out, her own eyes furious and blurred by tears. The words were starting to echo in her head. They bashed against a wall in there which had neatly amputated all the memories of her life before her mother had tried to drown her. “I don’t know you.” But she thought she was wrong about that. That name. Little pup. It sounded familiar.

And let’s not forget about him calling Merle dad.

She shook her head, not wanting to believe it.

He walked toward her, but she backed away.

From out of nowhere, a scream ripped out of him. She flinched, frightened. He gripped his head and fell to the ground, rolling around like he was on fire. That wasn’t the worst thing either. She could see his eyes. They were pulsing. One second they were almost slate grey and the next they were a bright red. They kept changing, over and over again. All the while he was screaming out in pain.

“What…,” she started to ask.

“Get away from him!”

She turned around and saw Conor coming out the back door. She couldn’t help but feel a wave of relief wash through her. He’d healed all the way. His throat was bright red, but other than that, he seemed fine. Halfway to her, he shifted into his werewolf form, that weird mix between man and animal. He jumped toward her, sailing through the air a good ten feet, and landed next to her. A threatening, warning growl erupted from his throat. He started toward Merrick, who was still rolling on the ground, but Kendra stopped him.

“Wait,” she said. He turned to look at her, but she didn’t look back. Her eyes were focused on Merrick and Merrick alone.

She started toward him. Conor put out a hand to pull her back but she brushed him off. She came to where Merrick was and knelt down beside him. She put a hand to his head and pulled it back with a hiss of pain. His forehead was burning hot. All the while, his eyes were still pulsing back and forth between grey and red.

She felt, more than saw, Conor kneeling next to her.

“What’s happening to him?” she asked.

“I…I don’t know,” he said. He was back in his human form now, in nothing but a pair of jeans. He took a closer look. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

They watched the man struggle against….something. They watched him fight it. Then the pulsing stopped and his eyes were that clear, slate grey. Conor pulled Kendra away, despite her protests. They watched as he got slowly up on his hands and knees and then onto his feet. He looked at them out of pain-filled, haunted eyes.

Then he shifted and ran away, jumping over the wall with ease.

| | | | |

Kendra sat with her knees pulled up to her chin and stared blankly at the people around her. Her hair was wet and cold from the shower she’d taken and she was dressed in a soft robe the color of lilacs. When she shifted, her clothes had been shredded. Conor was hunting through the mansion, trying to find her some that would fit.

Despite the shower, she still felt dirty. She felt…tainted. Something inside her was so fundamentally different now she wasn’t sure if she could hold herself together anymore.

She looked numbly at the rest of the werewolves. They were spread across the large living room. Most of them were lying across furniture, healing from different types of bloody wounds and injuries. She could see the woman, Deirdre, off in a corner crying into her hands and rocking back and forth. Two men were with her. One was young looking, hardly out of his teens, with blonde hair and pale skin. The other one was older. He had grey hair and rough stubble. He was holding Deidre’s hand and trying to console her. Kendra could see a cut high up on his forehead, near his hairline, that was still bleeding. She watched it slowly start to heal.

Merrick hurt them because of her.

He murdered one of them….because of her.

And yet Merrick wasn’t able to kill her.

She remembered that gleam in his eyes, that flicker of insanity, and she remembered when it disappeared. She felt so confused. She felt so conflicted.

She looked up. Conor was back now. He stood in front of her holding a pile of neatly folded clothes. She had tears in her eyes and was trying hard not to cry. Some part of her didn’t want to show weakness in front of the others. She thought they deserved someone who could be a strong leader.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she sobbed.

He looked at her for a moment, as if he was trying to decide to tell her the truth or not. He sighed and rubbed his forehead. He glanced away, but not before she could see remorse buried in his eyes.

She didn’t get angry with him, however. She was too exhausted for that. She simply got up and walked off.

“Kendra,” he said as he followed after her.

He was still holding her clean clothes. He managed to catch her as her hand grabbed the doorknob to the front door. He clutched her arm, but she whirled on him.

“How could you?” she asked. The anger was there, but it was buried under the steady waves of emotional pain she felt.

It might not have been physical pain, but it still hurt.

“How could you not tell me who he was?” She felt betrayed by both Conor and Merle. It felt like a knife was buried in her heart.

Conor lead her away from door. He pulled her down a side hallway and into a large room with a high ceiling. He flicked on the lights. The wall to her right was covered in framed pictures. She recognized the people in them immediately. They were her parents. Merle and her mother were in one, side by side. They looked happy. She found others with her in it but most of those were from when she was only a baby. A rare few, however, was from when she was a little older. She found one picture where she looked to be about four years old. In that one, her parents were with her. A sandy-haired man was there also, smiling broadly. He looked very happy. Even though she barely knew him, she recognized him as Merrick.

She stared at that wall for a long time. That wall was a window. A window into a past she knew nothing about. A past where she’d actually had a family.

A family that loved her. And cared about her. It was like looking into am alternate world.

“Here,” Conor said, handing her the clothes. “You should get dressed.”

She took them halfheartedly and watched as Conor turned his back on her to give her some privacy. Despite her anger, she smiled at that. She’d been completely nude a couple of times in front him. Inadvertently, true, but he’d already seen her naked.

She put the clothes on and yanked her wet hair out of her shirt.

“Done,” she said.

Conor turned around and gestured toward a plush leather chair. “Sit down. There’s a lot to tell you.”

She did so and then stared at the photos on the wall. She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off them.

“Around the time you left us, Merrick started acting strange. He became erratic,” Conor began. He wasn’t looking at her now. He was looking at the photos on the wall too. He seemed just as lost in that past as her. “Not long after that, Merle suspected he’d given over to the blood hunger.”

Kendra’s eyes snapped to his. All the old horror movies about werewolves flashed through her mind again. Savage beasts with nothing on their primitive brains but ripping and tearing into any living creature that they came across, humans included.

“What is the blood hunger?’ she asked. There was really no need. She could guess well enough, but she wanted to hear Conor’s explanation.

“Wolves are natural predators. They hunt and they kill,” Conor explained. “The blood hunger is that part of us. We learn to control it when we’re younger. Sometimes, however, one of us will decide it’s…,” he paused for a moment, searching for the right word, “easier to just give in. They decide they don’t want to fight that part of themselves anymore.”

“Why?” she asked. “Why would anyone want that?”

“The killing and the hunting.” He stopped and looked momentarily wistful. The expression sickened her instantly. She realized with dawning horror that he was speaking from experience. “It’s addictive. Very addictive.”

He tried to grab her hand but she jerked it out of his reach. She saw the hurt in him, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about his feelings at all.

“Why did Merle do this his to me? Why did he turn me into a monster?” she yelled.

Her sudden anger was so strong she had to fight hard to suppress the urge to slap Conor across the face. All of the anger, sadness, grief, rage, fury, and the tons of other emotions swirling in her head were overwhelming. She got up and walked away, breathing steadily and deeply.

“Merle didn’t tell me everything,” he said, almost pleadingly.

“Then what did he tell you?” she asked, her voice heavy with bitterness. “What the hell did he tell you?”

“Merrick was becoming increasingly dangerous. Traditionally, an Alpha’s successor is his first born son. When Merle told Merrick that it wasn’t going to pass to him, Merrick lost control. They fought. Merle was able to beat him but instead of killing him, he let him go. No matter what Merrick had done, he still couldn’t bring himself to kill his own son. Merrick left and hasn’t been back here since. Until today that is.”

“What has all this got to do with me?” she asked.

Conor looked up at her and felt a spike of guilt stab at him. She looked worn out, emotionally and physically. She had her arms folded around her stomach. Her hair was a wild mess and her eyes were still red and puffy from crying.

She gave him an irritated glance and rolled her hand in a hurry-this-along gesture. He sighed to himself and continued.

“Merrick’s anger and blood hunger escalated. He started attacking people. Sometimes in broad daylight,” Conor continued. “We thought it was just the blood hunger making him do those things, but we were wrong. He was trying to lure Merle out so he could kill him and become the next Alpha.“

Conor stopped talking and looked directly at her. It wasn’t hard for her to understand the look.

“He threatened to come after me?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Whether you know it or not, Kendra, your father has always loved and protected you,” he told her. “As a matter of fact, it was his only weakness.”

“I made him weak?” She didn’t bother trying to disguise her anger. She blatantly threw it at him.

“You don’t want to hear that, I know, but it doesn’t change the fact that it was true,” Conor went on. “Merle realized it too and he also knew it was only a matter of time before Merrick killed him because of it. He knew that if he was gone, Merrick wouldn’t stop trying to hurt you either. He was so far gone at that point that he’d do it just to spite him. So he was left with a choice: either keep you defenseless and human, or turn you and give you a fighting chance to survive against Merrick.”

“Where was my choice, Conor?” she yelled at him, but he didn’t answer.

She could tell by his face that he was on her father’s side. He thought Merle had done the right thing.

“You’re an asshole. You and Merle both. You could’ve just left me alone. My life wasn’t great but at least I wasn’t a monster!”

“It doesn’t have to turn you into that!” he yelled back.

“Look what it did to my brother!” she shouted at him. She went to one of the pictures on the walls. Merrick was in it with a little girl version of her riding on his broad shoulders. Her little legs were wrapped around his head. Both of them were smiling. Both of them were happy. She pointed to it and looked accusingly at him. “You think he wanted to be a monster! You think he wanted that!”

Conor didn’t answer her for a long time. He took a breath and then did.

“No. Merrick believed in what we were doing…once. He loved your father and he loved you too. He was the last person I thought would give into the blood hunger.”

“Then did any of you ever ask why?” Her voice never dropped her accusing tone. “He could’ve killed me.” She grabbed his face with her hands and pulled his eyes up to hers. She could feel the sharp bristles of his stubble stabbing her palms. “But he didn’t. He... couldn’t. And when he stopped himself, something bad happened to him.”

“I remember,” Conor replied. He stared into her amazingly soft, brown eyes and remembered the way Merrick’s had pulsed with that odd red color. He hadn’t been lying. He’d never seen anything like that before.

She stepped away from him and stared at the framed pictures on the wall, her back to him.

He ran his hands through his hair, frustrated. He felt lost. Merle had been a good, strong leader and now he was gone, replaced by his daughter, a woman who had, until today, been completely human. She knew nothing of the werewolves or their way of life. She knew nothing of the pack she was now the leader of. She had no idea what was really out there at all. Merle asked him to be there for her. To help her, but he had no idea how to do that.

He felt like a failure already and he wasn’t sure how to protect her anymore. She had too much of her father in her. She was all too willing to put herself at risk for the sake of protecting someone else.

He glanced up and found Kendra looking at him.

She put a hand up to her neck, rubbing the tattoo there. The shirt he’d found had a low collar and he could see it pretty clearly. It was an intricate, detailed thing that was incredibly beautiful. It looked good on her too. Like it was made for her alone. He could feel his own tattoo on the back of his left shoulder, a stylized picture of a phoenix that Merle had drawn for him. For werewolves, getting the tattoo was an honor. It was a privilege and a rite of passage. But then again, Conor thought, most of the werewolves knew the history and knew what they were getting into. They knew what they were fighting for. Kendra knew none of it and it was up to him to make her understand.

“I need to know everything,” Kendra said. Her voice broke his thoughts apart like a glass shattering on the floor. “Start from the beginning.”