Wild Blood: The Trueborn Saga Book 1 Read online

  "Fuck me, Emmett," she demands in a harsh inhuman voice. "Fuck me hard."

  I answer with a fierce growl as I lift her off of me, my aching dick slipping out of her. I set her on her feet and spin her around, then put a hand between her shoulders and bend her over. I pull her ass roughly up against my groin as she reaches out to grip the railing in front of her. I grab a handful of her hair as I notch my cock against her soaked and swollen pussy, then slam into her with a harsh and violent snarl.

  "Yes!" she wails. "More!"

  I pull back and power into her again, reveling in the sudden realization that I don't have to be careful with her anymore. She's not human. She's just as strong and tough as I am now, and I can take her like I want to without fear of hurting her. I let myself go completely then and start fucking her hard and deep like she asked for, and she arches back into me greedily, wailing in approval. I speed up as the fingers of one hand dig bruisingly into her hip, and I yank on her hair with other. We're nothing but mindless rutting beasts now, lost to our mutual animalistic lust. Nothing else exists beyond the deep and visceral bond between us as I pound into her, snarling and grunting in a mad fervor to own and possess my mate.

  When we finally detonate together in an explosion of soul-searing pleasure, it's like nothing I've ever felt before. I'm connected to Raven to my very core in this moment of sheer and perfect bliss, and I know for certain that I'll never get enough of this, of her. Never. I am complete now. I am whole.

  30

  RAVEN

  The chilly autumn breeze feels so good on my face as I fly along the narrow country road with the windows down. I should be freezing, but I'm not since my body runs so hot now that I didn't feel the need to wear my jacket. The air is laced with layers of vivid scents like I've never experienced before since my sense of smell is heightened now. Emmett tells me it and all my other senses will get even stronger after a few more shifts. I breathe in and identify the acrid tang of burning leaves, the moist earthy soil, and the musty scent of corn that's close to harvest. I can't even begin to catalog all the other new smells I can discern. I find myself leaning my head out the open window of my little truck to take in more of it. When I glance over at the passenger side to see Luna doing the exact same thing, I snort out a laugh and pull my head back into the cab with a shake of my head.

  I focus ahead again, my headlights lighting the way along the darkening road as the sun starts to dip below the horizon, nearing its transition into twilight. I'm on my way to Rowdy's Tavern for my first official work shift since that fateful night two weeks ago when I met Emmett, and my entire life changed.

  And boy had it changed. I've never felt so strong and in tune with my body and the world around me. I haven't taken my medication in over a week and there's been no sign or even a hint of a seizure since the night I began suffering through the change nine days ago. I can just feel deep inside that my epilepsy is a thing of the past, along with a life that was controlled and held captive by my seizures for so very long. I feel free and more like myself than I ever have before, and all because of Emmett, my mate and the love of my life. He helped me discover who and what I really am, a trueborn werewolf.

  I still can't wrap my head around it, even if it is the undeniable truth. I can always feel my she-wolf hovering just beneath the surface now, even though I haven't shifted a second time yet. Emmett says I need to let my body and mind recover, and to wait for my wolf to tell me when she's ready to emerge again. Frankly, I'm perfectly fine with that since it took several days of near constant sleeping to regain my strength. That first shift was the most excruciating and frightening experience of my entire life so far. Emmett assures me it gets easier and less painful with time, but I'm not in any hurry to repeat it just yet. Even if being in wolf form was the most exhilarating experience of my life.

  The brightly lit up sign for Rowdy's Tavern finally comes into sight up ahead, and I frown as I take in the empty gravel parking lot. I pull in off the road and drive past the front entrance. The lights are on inside, but the open sign isn't on. That's odd. I know I'm here about twenty minutes earlier than when Chavez told me to show up, but the place should have been open already. I shake my head in confusion and drive around toward the back of the building where the employees park. There are only two vehicles parked there. Weird. Between Brett the bartender, the small kitchen staff, and Chavez there should have been more cars here than this.

  I pull into the spot closest to the back entrance, then throw the truck into park and close the windows before cutting the engine. I unfasten my seat belt, planning on heading in with Luna to see what the hell is going on, when I notice that the heavy steel door leading inside is hanging partially open. I freeze with my hand on my truck's door handle. What the? Luna lets out a low growl as a shivering feeling of foreboding falls over me, and I reach for my purse to get my phone. I pull it out and wake the screen, intending on calling 9-1-1, but pause with my finger hovering over the nine.

  Dad still isn't too keen on me working here after what happened last time, even if Chavez convinced him it's safe now. But I'm not as vulnerable anymore since I'm no longer human. What if I call the cops, and nothing is actually wrong here? I caused my dad so much fear and worry already this last week or so, that I didn't want to do anything hasty and end up freaking him out over nothing. No, I'm not going to do that if I can avoid it. I glance at the open back door again and sigh in resignation. I just need to go in and take a quick peek before I decide if I'm going to call the police. After all, there's probably a perfectly good explanation what's going on here, and I'm most likely panicking for no good reason. Besides, I'm a werewolf now, and I have nothing to fear from any human.

  I shove my phone in my back pocket and open the truck door. "Stay here, baby," I tell Luna as she tries to follow me. There's no way in hell I'm risking her getting hurt again if I can help it. I shut the truck door on a pathetically whining and yipping Luna and crunch across the gravel toward the door with slow and cautious steps.

  I approach the door and reach out to pull it open farther, cringing as it makes a loud creak, and silently slip inside. I'm instantly hit by the scents of cheap beer and the acrid stench of stale cigarette smoke. I wrinkle my nose in distaste since it's a hell of a lot stronger than I remember it being thanks to my new super sniffer.

  I glance around and see that the bar is eerily empty with the juke box in the corner playing some twangy country song. Brand new glossy wood tables and shiny black vinyl chairs now grace the center of the room. The bar fight that broke out the last time I worked here is responsible for that since it wrecked most of the old tables and chairs. Everything looks fine except for one overturned chair near the bar. I frown and walk over to right it, then notice that the nearby door leading to the backroom, where the office and the storage rooms are, is wide open. That's strange. Chavez always keeps it closed.

  I head that direction and cautiously peer through the doorway to find the short hallway empty. I walk down the hall and glance into the storage room to find it unoccupied, then keep moving toward Chavez's office. I hear nothing as I approach the open door, but the scent of Chavez's potent cologne assaults me. It practically burns my nose, and frankly, it's kind of nauseating too. Is this what it smells like to Luna? No wonder the poor dog had a sneezing fit over it the first time. I'm fighting one myself now.

  I peek around the door frame into the small and simply furnished office and gasp. There lying on the floor in front of the old metal beast of a desk is Brett the bartender's limp form.

  "Shit," I blurt out and rush over to drop to my knees next to his prone body. I can smell blood and pain and fear. "Brett?" I say as I gently place a hand on his shoulder.

  Thankfully, he's alive and breathing, but his face is bruised and battered with one eye swollen shut. Someone beat the shit out of him. Was the bar robbed?

  "Brett," I say more forcefully and give him a little shake.

  He stirs and gasps in a ragged breath, his one good eye f
luttering open. It takes him a long moment to focus on my face. "Raven?" he slurs out, then grimaces in pain thanks to his swollen and bloody lip. I can see blood in his dark short-cropped hair oozing from a gash just behind his left temple.

  "Shh," I tell him gently. "I'm going to get you some help, okay?"

  "Ch...ch..." he stutters as his eye starts drifting closed again.

  "Don't talk," I say in a freaked out tone as I pull my phone out of my pocket. "You're going to be fine." God, I hope I'm not lying to him. He's out again by the time I wake the screen up.

  I dial the nine and the one, then hear the faint creaking noise of the already open door moving behind me. I start to whirl around toward the sound, but before I've barely moved something hard and heavy slams into the back of my head. In an instant, the world fades out and everything goes black.

  31

  EMMETT

  I frown down at my phone again as what started as an inkling of worry continues to grow inside me. Raven told me she'd text me when she made it to work, but I've yet to hear from her even though she should have arrived at Rowdy's twenty minutes ago. When Chavez called yesterday wanting to know if she could work this weekend, she told him yes.

  During one of her lucid moments during the change, she called him to say she was sick and couldn't work last weekend. I wanted her to wait another week before she started working, to give her body and mind a little longer to adjust to all the changes, but she insisted that she felt fine now. She told me she wanted to get back to normal after the chaos of the last few weeks. Of course, I listened to her and grudgingly agreed because I wanted to make her happy. Now, I wonder if I should have fought her on it, even if that made me a controlling asshole. I sigh heavily and slip my phone into my pocket, then drop down to slouch back into the corner of my parent's leather sectional sofa.

  "Is everything okay over there, loverboy?" Lyric asks from one end of the couch, where she's curled up with her long legs tucked under her. Amusement sparks in her baby blue eyes.

  "I should have heard from her by now," I say tensely, ignoring my little sister's new nickname for me yet again. God, she can be annoying.

  "Did you try calling her?" Beck asks helpfully from the opposite end of the couch where he's sprawled out with his bare feet on the coffee table.

  "No," I reply bitingly with heavy sarcasm. "I didn't think of that at all." She didn't answer any of my calls or texts on my drive over to Mom and Dad's place.

  "Don't be a dick," Wyatt growls out irritably from the nearby recliner without even looking my way as he browses through Netflix for a movie we all can agree on. Good luck with that. We'll probably end up watching some sappy rom-com that Lyric chooses, since we're all pushovers for our baby sister and her pleading puppy-dog eyes.

  I scowl at him, and he turns his head to scowl right back at me with an arched brow. Eventually, I look away first and glare at the TV instead. I can admit that Wyatt is way more alpha than I'll ever be, even when he pisses me off.

  "Why don't you call her dad?" Harmony suggests with a sympathetic expression as she walks into the living room with a humongous bowl of popcorn. "Maybe he's heard from her."

  Shit, that's actually a good idea. I pull my phone back out as she puts the bowl on the coffee table and plops down next to me. I call Brandon Cade as I watch my siblings converge on the popcorn like a pack of starving wild animals. Food is very important to all the Weylin clan. Although, right now my appetite is pretty much nonexistent, thanks to the sick feeling of worry in my gut.

  "Is everything alright, Emmett?" Brandon says as his greeting. I put his number in my phone last week, in case of an emergency with Raven while she was going through the change, but I've never called him before now.

  "Um...I'm not sure," I tell him. "I haven't heard from Raven since she left my place for work." She's been staying with me since her first shift, in case she needs me, but I'm hoping it becomes permanent. "She's not answering any of my calls or texts either. Have you heard from her?"

  A tense moment of silence follows before her replies. "No, and that's not like her."

  Well, that's not what I wanted to hear. My worry begins morphing into actual fear. Before I can respond, his police radio goes off in the background. He must be in his squad car. It's mostly garbled, but I catch the name Rowdy Boudreau. I still until the radio goes silent, and Brandon speaks again.

  "Did you hear that name?"

  "Yeah," I answer.

  "Does this Rowdy have anything to do with Rowdy's Tavern?" he asks suspiciously.

  "He's the previous owner," I say.

  More silence, and then he says, "Someone found his body earlier tonight."

  "What?"

  "The medical examiner just identified Rowdy, and from what I understand, it looks suspicious."

  I shake my head in bafflement. "I was told he sold the bar to Chavez and moved to Florida, but it didn't make any sense to me at the time. I didn't know him well so I didn't question it much, but he never struck me as the snowbird type."

  "How well do you know this Chavez guy?" he asks next.

  "I don't," I say. "I've never even met him, but Raven thinks he's a good guy."

  "I only met him once," Brandon continues gravely. "He seemed on the level, but now that I think about it, he's awfully keen on getting my daughter to work for him." I hear typing on a keyboard. "Let me do a background check on him." After a few moments, he swears under his breath. "Son of a bitch. This guy is a real piece of work. He's wanted a couple of states over for multiple assaults, and a suspect in a couple of unsolved homicides. And he's a known associate of a person of interest to the FBI that they suspect is involved in all kinds of illegal shit they haven't been able to pin on him." He pauses again, while I absently notice Mom out of the corner of my eye as she walks in with a tray of snacks for us. "A guy named, Viktor Bravas, with a 'k'."

  "Viktor Bravas?" I ask curiously. The name sounded vaguely familiar.

  A gasp captures my attention. I jerk my head to the left to see Mom standing there stock still as the tray slips from her hands and hits the hardwood floor with a loud crash. Food and pieces of broken crockery scatter at her feet as she stares at me with a pale and ashen face, her eyes wide with panicked terror.

  "Mom?" I say in concern as I fly to my feet, along with my siblings. Brandon asks what the hell is going on, and I absently tell him to hold on.

  Dad hurries into the room and rushes to Mom's side, taking in the mess with a worried frown. "Cadie? What's wrong, honey?"

  "V...V...V..." she stutters out fearfully as she points at me, then bursts into sudden tears and turns to bury her face against Dad's chest.

  Dad looks at me questioningly as he holds his now sobbing and inconsolable wife.

  "All I said was the name, Viktor Bravas," I told him, feeling really confused and freaked out right now. I've never seen my mother break down like this.

  His face hardens into instant granite as silver flames of rage ignite in his eyes. I briefly glance at my siblings. Beck and Lyric appear just as confused as I do, but I see grim recognition in Harmony and Wyatt's expressions.

  "Put me on speaker," Brandon barks over the phone I'm still holding up to my ear, and I comply since he needs to hear this. I set the phone down on the coffee table.

  "I remember that name," Harmony says gravely.

  "So do I," Wyatt snarls out, eying our mother like he'd take on the whole damn world for her. He would. We all would. "Who the fuck is he?"

  "Bravas was our old pack's mage," Dad answers in a gravelly tone laced with anger. I know that most packs employ a magic practitioner when they're able. Ours is Cooper's sister, Scarlett.

  "Wait a second," Brandon cut in. "When you say mage, do you mean someone who actually uses magic?" he asks in disbelief.

  "Yes," Dad answers succinctly.

  Brandon makes a scoffing noise. "Next you'll be telling me that vampires and fairies are real too."

  "They are," my father said grimly.

&nbs
p; Silence falls over the phone line at that. Poor guy. Here's another mind-blowing crash course in the supernatural for you.

  Dad continues with a teeth-baring scowl. "Bravas is the reason we fled our old pack twenty-two years ago."

  "Apparently, he's also a person of interest to the FBI," Brandon adds.

  "That doesn't surprise me," Dad says bitterly. "He never bothered to follow pack law, why would he care about any federal ones."

  "This Chavez guy is a known associate of Bravas. Do you know him too?" Brandon asks next. "Because I'm starting to think he had something to do with Rowdy Boudreau's body being found tonight since he's conveniently the new owner now."

  "Boudreau is dead?" Dad asks incredulously.

  "Yeah," I told him. "And apparently, the bullshit I was fed about him moving to Florida isn't true."

  "I can't imagine that grumpy old fart would ever want to live there," Dad says with a frown over Mom's still shaking shoulders. "I've never heard of this Chavez, but I haven't heard or seen Bravas since we fled all those years ago. Who knows who or what he brought into his fucked-up cause or what fucked-up things the slimy bastard has done since then."

  Wow. My father hardly ever curses, so he must really hate this guy. Dad rarely discusses our old pack, but I know from the few times he actually has that it was more of a dictatorship than the more democratic way he runs ours. I had no idea it was this bad though. No wonder he didn't discuss it much, but I need to understand why, whether he wants to talk about it or not.

  "Why did you leave the pack?" Lyric asks before I can.

  "Our Alpha was Bravas' father. Bravas turned him into a mouthpiece for his own agenda by manipulating him psychologically, and I suspect with magic too."