Blood Ties: The First (A Bane Pack Novel)

Kendra got over her initial shock. It was hard, though. She wasn’t sure what was going on or if she wanted any part of it but she didn’t really have a choice. It was Merle and he was dying. She scrabbled to him, tears swimming in her eyes. He wasn’t dead yet, although he looked close. He looked so close and that only made her cry harder.

There was still some time. Maybe he could still be saved.

She went over to her purse and yanked her cell phone out of it. In her haste, her purse tumbled to the ground but she left it there.

She ran back to Merle and fell to her knees next to him, trying as hard as she could to work her damn phone. She could barely manage it through her tears and hysteria. Finally, she got it unlocked and dialed 911. Before the first ring even went through, the phone was snatched from her hand. She flew to her feet, her tears momentarily forgotten. The only thing she knew in that moment was anger.

“Give that back,” she said, her voice a low, growling whisper.

She felt herself get caught up in a swirl of that same primal energy she’d felt before. It was something massive and powerful. It felt like getting a double shot of pure adrenaline.

Her eyes flashed with amber light. Her teeth lengthened into fangs. The nails on both hands extended until they were deadly claws. She crouched down and glared at the stranger that saved her life just a few minutes before.

The man eyed her for a second and then ran at her. He ducked under one of her swiping hands and then abruptly speared her. Kendra felt the power in his body as it slammed into her and lifted her off her feet. Then he crushed her onto the floor, pinning her there. She fought like a woman possessed, her own strength formidable but not enough to free herself.

“We don’t have time for this!” he yelled. He was angry too, but there was something else buried in his eyes as well. He was afraid. “I need you to listen!”

“Get…off!!” she screamed back. Her voice was deeper, more animalistic.

He slapped her then. The shock of it was enough to silence her. The primal surge of energy receded, dimmed, and then winked out. She blinked her eyes once….twice. Then she looked up at the stranger.

“Wh-what just happened?” she asked in a croaking whisper. Her throat felt like it was on fire.

“Not here. I’ll explain everything to you, but not here,” he said, his eyes pleading with her. “First, there’s something you need to do.”

He got off her and helped her to her feet. She heard Merle’s shallow breathing and the flood of concern she had for him overrode her anger. She suddenly felt ashamed for her outburst.

“He needs a hospital,” she stated. She was at Merle’s side again, gripping his hand in her own. “He’s dying.”

“Yes,” the stranger told her, his voice grave and sympathetic. “And you need to be the one to finish him.”

She blinked at him in confusion, wondering if she really heard what she just heard.

“What?” she finally asked, shocked and a little outraged.

“You need to finish it. You need to be the one to do it.”

He wasn’t being mean or angry about it. He actually seemed saddened by what he was asking her to do. He knew how insane it sounded and how cruel.

“I can’t explain things right now, but I know this is what Merle wants. This is what he had planned for you.”

“I can’t kill him.”

“K-Kendra…p-please,” Merle croaked. His voice sounded so strange. It was weak and more of a whisper than anything else. It was at complete odds with the normal, confident one he usually had.

She turned to Merle, crying helplessly now. His grey eyes were open and staring at her with compassion and love. A blossom of fear rose up in her heart. He didn’t look good. She checked his neck. There was a blood-soaked piece of shirt there now. The stranger must’ve applied it when she went over to get her cell phone. She glanced at him and sure enough, a piece had been ripped off the bottom of his shirt.

The hand she was gripping suddenly tightened. Merle’s eyes widened slightly and then closed. His breathing seemed almost non-existent.

“You have to…have to…,” he stopped, took a hitching breath and started again, “do what Conor says. K-kill me…be-before it’s too late.”

“What the hell is wrong with you two? Stop it!” she shouted as she cried.

Her tears were hot as they streamed down her cheeks. Her mind was a cluttered mess of anger, fear, and confusion. She didn’t know what to do or think. Her hands trembled now at the mere thought of killing Merle, of killing her own father (even though she just found out who he really was only a few minutes ago). It sounded like something right out of a Greek tragedy.

What the hell is going on!? her mind screamed at her. The thought was so loud, so overpowering, she flinched from it. This is a dream…this is a dream…. WAKE UP!

But it was no dream.

She looked at the stranger and vigorously shook her head no. His hand, however, was outstretched with a small pointed object resting on his open palm. It was a pocket knife roughly four inches long. Not much in a real fight, but enough to do the job they both wanted her to do.

“Now,” Conor told her. There was a strained look on his face and his eyes darted nervously from side to side.

Distantly, she heard the sound of sirens.

“I’m terribly s-sorry,” she heard Merle say. She turned back to him. “I didn’t…want this for you. But you n-need to…do what he says.”

Conor placed the knife in her free hand.

“I can’t,” she cried. “I can’t.”

“It’s okay,” he told her, smiling at her warmly. “I love you. Al-always have.”

He grabbed her hand with the knife in it and positioned it over his heart. Hers were trembling viciously and it was hard to keep them steady. She looked at him pleadingly, begging him not to make her do this.

But he just closed his eyes and gave her a tiny nod.

“Hurry!” Conor said behind her. The sirens were closer now.

Wondering if she’d lost her mind like her mother, Kendra sobbed loudly as she plunged the knife into Merle’s chest. It grated against bone for a second and then slipped through. He let out several gurgling, choked gasps that seemed to last for an eternity before he finally went still. She waited do a few seconds, fully sobbing now. Her tears mixed with the blood pooling around the knife wound in Merle’s chest.

The wound I made! The wound that killed him! How could I do that? she asked herself.

She finally took out the knife. She did it as gently as she could but when she saw Merle’s blood all over it, her hand went nerveless and it dropped on the floor. It clattered with a sound that seemed too loud in the oppressing silence that followed. She stumbled away from him after that, her mind numb with shock. She could feel the blood (Merle’s blood) on her hands.

Kendra freaked out.

She got up and grabbed a napkin dispenser, ripping out paper napkins in frantic jerks. She tried to get the blood off. She had to get the blood off, but the napkins only smeared it around and made it worse.

She looked around with wild eyes, holding out her sticky, bloodied hands like they’d been struck with leprosy.

All the while, the sirens were getting closer.

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Conor heard them too and his urgency was palpable. He rushed over to Kendra and placed his big hands on her shoulders, turning her around so she faced him.

“We have to go,” he said.

His voice was as calm as he could make it but she wasn’t cooperating. She was focused on her hands, on the blood. There was so much of it.

Conor went over to Merle’s body and as gently as he could, lifted him onto his shoulders. Then he grabbed the bloodied knife in his other hand and stood back up. Next, he went back to Kendra, grabbed her forearm, and hauled her out of the restaurant.

Outside, parked diagonally across two parking spots, was his dirt flecked Jeep Wrangler. Conor put Kendra in the passenger seat and placed Merle in the back, covering him with a canvas tarp. He ran to the driver’s seat, got in, and drove away.

About five minutes later, the police, ambulance, and even animal control crews finally arrived.

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Merrick watched them leave, his anger roiling inside him like a living thing. He hadn’t finished the job. He could feel it, or rather the lack of it. The surge of power he’d expected never came, along with the mark.

That fucking half-breed!

He felt that snake of anger inside him surge violently forward. He wanted to run. He wanted to hunt. He wanted to rip Conor’s throat out but instead, he controlled himself. The authorities were at the restaurant now and his window of opportunity to attack was gone. There was no more time left. The only thing he could count as a success was the death of the old man. The fact that he didn’t kill him was a setback, but at least he was dead.

His new target should be a considerably easier mark.

He calmly walked toward the restaurant and set out on his new course of action. Emergency crews were all over the fast food place. There were four cops and a pair of animal control officers there now. Merrick didn’t let that bother him though.

He walked calmly into the trashed Burger King and hunted around. All he needed was something with the girl’s scent on it. It took him several hurried minutes of searching, but he finally found an object he could use. The girl’s purse. He picked it up with care and left.

All four cops and both animal control officers were dead, their throats slashed.

Merrick walked eastward for about a mile or two before he got to an area that afforded him some measure of privacy. He let out three sharp, short whistles, then zipped up his designer leather jacket and waited. In his left hand, he still clutched the purse.

He smelled the creature before he actually saw her. It was a heady, intoxicating scent that snared him and threatened to make him lose control. He looked to the right and saw her slinking out of the shadows, her soft, blondish fur practically shining from an overhead light attached to a building.

The wolf was beautiful and enormous. She dwarfed everything near her except for the buildings beside them. He breathed in her scent again, more deeply this time, letting himself get lost in it. He pictured himself shifting and running with her, gorging themselves on whatever they happened to hunt down. The thrill of that thought sent electricity shooting down his limbs but he forced himself to control the urge, to beat it down.

There’ll be plenty of time for that later, he reasoned with himself.

He watched the she-wolf glide effortlessly over to him, shifting back into her human form along the way. She was as beautiful in that form as her wolf form. She had long, blonde hair that fell to the small of her back and swayed from side to side as she walked up to him. Her pale, naked flesh was smooth and beautiful. Over her left breast was a tribal tattoo of swirling, vicious looking spikes that reached up to graze her shoulder.

When she was inches away from him, his control slipped. He ran his hand through her hair and gripped the back of her neck, pulling her to him with vicious speed. Then he kissed her. A soft moan escaped her as she returned it with equal passion.

His control reasserted and he broke away from her, breathing hard.

“I have a job for you,” he told her, letting his hand rub along her hip.

“Do you want me to kill?” she asked, her voice thick with eagerness.

As an answer, he gave her the purse he was holding.

“Track the scent back to where she lives,” he instructed. “Find out everything you can about her.”

She nodded slightly, taking the purse and bringing it up to her nose. She breathed deeply and then slung it over one shoulder. She walked off, but some of the eagerness had disappeared from her eyes. Disappointment replaced it.

“And love?” he called to her. “If there’s anyone there, kill them.”

Sparks of insane hunger and eagerness leaped back into her eyes and she smiled at him. Then she shifted back into a wolf and disappeared into a thick swatch of shadows, the purse now hanging from her massive jaws.

When she was gone, Merrick made his way back to his Porsche and drove off, racing down the streets at ridiculous speeds.

He had his agenda to attend to, after all.

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The she-wolf ran through the city, trusting herself to the instincts and skills of her wolf form. She’d rummaged through the woman’s purse first, but hadn’t been able to find anything with her address on it. The only thing she did see was an old college ID. The name on it read Kendra Henner.

It took almost an hour to track the scent in the chaos of the city around her. It took her about half an hour to sift through all the different smells, but she finally found the one she was looking for. Then she backtracked it. It was hard work at times but she kept following it with mindless determination and eventually came to a rather upscale apartment building in the downtown area. She watched it from a dark alley for several moments before shifting into her human form again (which was still completely naked).

Several shops lined the street across from the apartment building. She went around to the back of a small boutique and found a simple steel door. She grabbed the handle and snapped it off, flinging the piece of metal behind her. She stepped back as the door swung open.

The first thing she heard was an alarm blaring inside. The noise was piercing and it irritated her. She slammed a fist into its console as she slipped into the darkened store. She smiled with satisfaction when she heard the box hiss and pop.

She didn’t take long. She quickly found some clothes and a pair of black stiletto heels, put them on, and then walked back into the alley. She crossed the street and headed over to the apartment building, sniffing the air as she went. She felt a surge of excitement as she followed the trail up to its doors.

“Can I help you?” a doorman asked her as she walked up.

She looked at him, her eyes instantly turning sultry. Her body language adapted an air of intense seduction.

The doorman’s somewhat wary stance relaxed a bit.

“I found this purse at a pub this evening and thought I’d return it to its owner. I’m sure she’d like to have it back,” she explained, letting her lilting accent thicken. She took the purse off her shoulder and presented it to the doorman. He was about to take it, but she jerked it away from him before he could touch it.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know you. How am I supposed to trust you?” she asked him.

“M’am, I’ll have to take it here,” he said, but she was already shaking her head no.

“I’d like to bring it to her myself, please.” She laid a hand on his shoulder, caressing it gently. “I’d feel guilty if I gave it over to you and then you’ve stolen everything inside the moment I’ve left.”

“I can assure you…,” he started to say.

“Please. You can escort me if you’d like.” She smiled at him. “It won’t take long.”

She could see the indecision in him as he warred with what he knew he should do and with doing whatever the stunning, beautiful woman in front of him asked of him.

In the end, she won. Like usual.

“Alright. Who does the purse belong to?” he asked with a heavy sigh.

He waited patiently as she rummaged through it and brought out the ID she’d found earlier. She handed it to him and she saw his eyebrows furrow together.

“That’s Kendra’s purse?” he asked.

That stoked her interest. He knew the bitch. Thoughts of making him scream in pain instantly filled her mind, pleasing her so much that she had to suppress a smile.

“Okay. I’ll take you up to her apartment. Her roommate should be there. You can give it to her,” the doorman said.

They went inside the building and she took in the opulent splendor. The lobby was a grand, well-appointed affair with expensive couches, tables, art, and live plants. Hanging from the ceiling was a one-of-a-kind, crystal chandelier and the floor was done in sparkled granite.

The doorman headed to the elevators, so she followed after him. He pressed the button and stepped back. She waited behind him, listening to the pounding jugular vein in the side of his throat. Her stomach roiled slightly and her mouth salivated as she imagined sinking her teeth into his flesh.

There was a ding and the elevator on their left side opened. They stepped inside and she took a spot in the back right corner. The doorman stood slightly ahead of her.

She could feel her body singing with exhilaration, her mind racing away from her with thoughts of blood and death. She could feel the wolf inside her struggling to fight free, but she suppressed it.

For now, she thought.

She noticed the doorman watching her and smiled sweetly at him. A moment later, the elevator doors opened again.

She followed the doorman down the hall, trailing slightly behind him, until they got to the apartment. She glanced curiously at a hole in the drywall across from it. The doorman followed her gaze to it and she heard him let out a bitter sigh.

“Hold on for just a second,” he told her.

He walked a couple feet down the hall. When he deemed himself far enough away from her range of hearing, he pulled out a slim black cell phone from his pocket. He quickly dialed a number and held it up to his ear.

He wasn’t anywhere close to being out of her range of hearing, however. She’d always enjoyed eavesdropping, so she listened in.

“Dammit, Earl,” the doorman half-whispered, “you were supposed to fix this hole on the tenth floor hours ago. If you don’t get it patched up tonight I’m gonna have to fire you.”

“Hold yer damn horses. I’ll be up there in about an hour,” Earl responded.

She could hear enough of him to know that the guy was drunk off his ass and that he had no intentions of patching up the hole at all.

The doorman let out a frustrated grunt and hung up. Then he walked back over to where she was patiently waiting.

“Sorry about that,” he said, his expression one of embarrassment. “Just had some business I needed to take care of first.”

“Don’t worry,” she assured him.

He smiled awkwardly at her and then knocked on the apartment door. A moment later, it opened to reveal a stunning woman with bright blue eyes, sleep tussled hair, and rumpled pj’s. She blinked drowsily at them.

“Felix?” she asked.

“This woman wanted to return Kendra’s purse to you personally,” he explained.

The sleepy eyed woman at the door turned her focus on the strange woman.

The she-wolf smiled with her human form. A second after her smile dropped off her face, she let out a deep-throated growl and let her wolf form explode out of her.

Then she charged forward.