Blood for Blood (A Keira Blackwater Novel, #2) Read online

  BLOOD FOR BLOOD

  A KEIRA BLACKWATER NOVEL

  K. R. WILLIS

  Copyright © 2018 by K.R. Willis

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Publisher's note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Edited by Kristen Corrects, Inc.

  Cover art design by Humbert Glaffo.

  First edition published 2018

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Blood for Blood (A Keira Blackwater Novel, #2)

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue: Sam

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  For my husband, Tracy. I couldn’t do this without your love and support. You are my rock.

  I’d like to thank my editor, Kristen Hamilton of Kristen Corrects, for helping make my books what they are today, and for pushing me.

  And I’d like to thank you, the reader. You’re what keeps me writing. Without you, none of this would be possible.

  OTHER NOVELS BY K. R. WILLIS

  KEIRA BLACKWATER NOVELS

  Blood Cure

  Chapter 1

  I hopped out of Old Red’s cab and stretched my stiff muscles. Thirty minutes of driving the old Chevy followed by thirty minutes of waiting for Sally on the truck’s bench seat had left me numb in several places. Clouds had moved in, partially covering the setting sun, and cast shadows on the tombstones as I headed toward Sally. The last place I wanted to be in the dark was a cemetery, but Sally, my best friend since childhood, needed to do this and I’d promised to come with her.

  Less than two weeks had passed since her werewolf boyfriend, Tom, died at the hands of a love-crazed woman named Lilith. She’d fallen in love with Tom and when he wouldn’t turn her, tricked his pack-mate, Brian, into turning her into a werewolf so she could be with him. When he still refused, she killed them both with a weapon her scientist father developed after she stole my blood, which is the only known cure for the virus that created supernaturals.

  Lilith captured me and nearly killed Sally, and her father collected my blood with every intention of farming me so he could continue to create his weapon in his quest for vengeance against supernaturals, something he had held on to for twenty of the thirty some-odd years since supernaturals announced their existence to the world. It all backfired when the Vampire Council raided the compound and put a stop to it. Sally went to Tom’s funeral, but with everything that happened, she hadn’t had a chance to come see him and tell him one last goodbye.

  Crisp grass crunched beneath my boots as I followed the gravel path through the cemetery. Aside from my breath fogging slightly in the cool air, the place looked the same as it had the day we attended the funeral. The old rock church stood proud among the trees, overlooking the gravestones like a mother guarding her children.

  Sally glanced over her shoulder as I approached, but didn’t say anything. I walked up beside her and knelt in the grass in front of Brian’s tombstone. They had been best friends in life, so the pack buried them side by side in death.

  I’d liked Brian. We only met once at the Blu Moon, a club Sally and I frequented, but there had been sparks and a desire to get to know one another better. A ghostly charge of electricity zipped along my skin, making my hair stand on end as I remembered our dance and the power he’d teased me with. It made me sad and angry that Lilith had stolen our chance, but I’d moved past it. Several leaves obscured part of his headstone, so I brushed them away and tidied the surrounding area. With my cleaning duties done, I sat in the grass beside Sally and waited.

  The sun dropped behind the trees, casting large shadows across the tombstones and giving them an even more eerie appearance, before Sally finally looked at me. “He’s really gone, isn’t he?” she asked. Tears shimmered in her green eyes, distorting them slightly like ripples in a pond, and her bottom lip quivered. My chest tightened.

  I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her into a fierce hug. “Yeah,” I said. “He is.”

  She leaned into me and I rocked her while she wept, careful not to hurt her injured shoulder. When Lilith shot her it tore several muscles and tendons, leaving her with limited use of it and months of rehab ahead. If I could go back, I’d find Lilith’s body and kill her again myself for everything she did.

  Enough time passed that the only lights to see by now were the lanterns hanging outside the church and the occasional light that lit the path back to the parking lot. Sally’s crying had turned into random sobs, so I patted her on the back and said, “It’s getting pretty late; we should head home.”

  She nodded against my side and sat up, wiping her tears on her sleeve. She leaned forward toward Tom’s headstone, kissed her fingers, then placed them against the stone where his name had been carved. “I’ll always love you,” she whispered. When she tried to push to her feet and wobbled, I grabbed her arm, got to my feet, and helped her up. “I’m okay,” she said, but I wrapped my arm around her anyway, and she leaned on my shoulder as we walked in silence back to Old Red.

  Halfway across the tombstone littered grass, the loud snap of a twig breaking from somewhere in the woods behind us shattered the silence. Sally and I both paused and turned. Nothing moved or made a sound. Just a light wind rustled the leaves.

  Rya, do you sense anything? I asked, using the telepathic link between us. Rya was my Spirit Warrior. Raging Buffalo, my tribe’s powerful old healer, gave her to me on the night of my birth when he sacrificed himself to save me. She’d been an inert tattoo on my side most of my life, until the Great Spirit awarded her to me after I nearly died saving Leo, a vampire who had sacrificed himself to save me in a fight against the werewolves when they blamed me for Tom and Brian’s deaths. Leo had since become my...friend? Suitor? I didn’t know what we were to each other yet, but there was definitely something intriguing there.

  The puma tattoo on my right side, which is how she spent part of her time, bunched and pulled on my skin as she moved. Something is there, just beyond the trees, but I’m not sure what. My heart skipped a beat. Do you wish me to go investigate? she asked.

  No, I said quickly. Sally and I didn’t have far to go to reach the truck, and that sounded like a much better idea than having Rya go running off into the dark woods this time of night. Especially after everything we’d been through recently. To Sally I said, “Rya says something is out there, but she can’t tell what. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not find out.”

  Sally nodded her agreement and we hurried toward the truck, not quite running as to alert whoever—or whatever—watched us to the fact we knew they were there, but fast enough that we quickly closed the distance.

  We flung Old Red’s doors open and hopped inside, hearts racing, then slammed the doors shut.
The old engine roared to life. I slapped the lock on my door and heard Sally do the same. As I backed into a parking spot behind me, the angle of the truck and the shine of the headlights allowed me a good look at the woods where the sound had come from. I froze.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Sally asked from the passenger seat.

  My heart rate ratcheted up several notches. Twin sets of glowing amber eyes stared at us from the edge of the woods where the mowed part of the cemetery met the tall grassy area. I’d seen eyes like that before. Werewolves. More than likely looking for me.

  For several seconds it was hard to breathe, like someone had sucked the oxygen out of the cab.

  I’d known they’d come after me sooner or later for the part I played in the death of several of their pack mates, including the Alpha pair, but I’d hoped for later. Much, much later. The fact it had been in self-defense didn’t seem to matter to them.

  “Yeah,” I said. Gravel shot out behind us as I shoved the truck into drive and gunned the engine. Her engine roared like an angry lion, and the tires ate up the paved road as we put as much distance between them and us as we could.

  This is their territory, Rya offered in explanation. Maybe they’re just out for a run. Or they came to visit some of their pack buried in the cemetery.

  Maybe. But my gut screamed that they had been there for me. I really hoped I was wrong.

  ∞∞∞

  The next morning I pulled into the parking lot in front of the firehouse that served as my classic car shop, and killed the engine. Rya lounged on the bench seat next to me, her large puma head resting on my leg like a small bowling ball. “Come on, Rya, let’s go. Time for work.”

  She stood up on the seat and stretched until her back end hit the passenger side window, then she yawned, showing me her teeth. I returned her yawn. Though I’d managed to keep my dreams from impacting her for the most part, last night had been a bad one. I’d kicked her twice where she slept at the foot of the bed.

  I hadn’t slept well since Lilith captured me and took me to her father’s military base. After being relieved of a couple pints of blood and thrown in a cell, I’d used my shadowing ability—something that had been given to me by another Spirit Warrior and that allowed me to pass through solid objects—to escape the cell.

  But it had come at a high price: It landed me inside the prison of the Evil One, a powerful demon that had been summoned and released into the world. He rained death and destruction down on mankind until a band of supernaturals forced him back to the underworld, only for him to be released again by accident and then imprisoned by Raging Buffalo. When I’d landed in his prison, he’d used some of the magic he still possessed to make me believe he’d skinned Rya, and tortured Sam, my other best friend. I’d had nightmares almost nightly since then.

  A shudder ran through me. I had to figure out a way to get past the nightmares and get some sleep. It was starting to catch up with me and affect Rya.

  Are you okay?

  Her voice in my head startled me, and I realized I’d zoned out. She stood on the seat staring at me, waiting for me to open the door. Sorry, just thinking, I said. I took a deep breath to try to clear my head, then climbed out of Old Red and stretched, attempting to wake my muscles. I was so tired. Bone weary, I think they called it. If I didn’t get some nightmare-free sleep soon, I was liable to lose my mind, or put the wrong part on the wrong car. Which would basically be the same thing.

  The amulet around my neck grew warm against my skin as I walked toward the shop and watched Rya lope off toward the trees behind it. I touched the smooth sides of the clear crystal with my right hand, and wondered, not for the first time, what it meant. Every so often since I’d been given the crystal, it would grow warm. Sometimes downright hot. It had done it often enough I was starting to become concerned, but I didn’t know how to find the witch that gave it to me as a thank-you when Leo rescued us both from the military base, and ask her what it might mean.

  Regardless, I hadn’t taken it off since I got it two weeks ago. Not even to shower. For some reason, every time I started to remove it, a feeling of dread came over me and I’d break out sweating. Trembling even. It had become so intense the last time I’d tried to remove it, that I’d stopped trying. The witch told me it was supposed to protect the wearer, so I couldn’t shake the feeling it was trying to tell me something. What, I didn’t know. I fingered the crystal one last time, then let it drop back into the little dip between my breasts to keep it safe while I worked.

  As soon as I unlocked the door and stepped into the shop, I took a deep breath. Car exhaust, grease, and the salty smell of sweat charged my senses. It wasn’t necessarily the aromas themselves that made me happy, it’s what they represented. My father. My passion. My livelihood. Sam upstairs in his dojo. These things, as much as the house two hours away in Browning, represented home. Something I would fight for, which I had done more than once recently. I took one last breath, and headed for the office in the back corner.

  ∞∞∞

  At some point during the day I’d buried myself under the hood of a ’68 GTO, trying to fix a head gasket the owner blew when he let it overheat. Young kid didn’t have a clue. Old Red and I picked up the car and hauled it back to the shop after dropping the kid at home. I’d debated whether to tell the kid’s parents that he’d blown the gasket racing his friends, but decided in the end to let it go. I got paid to fix the cars, not the people who broke them.

  After finally getting the new gasket in and fixing several other issues I found, and realizing how late it was, I decided to call it quits for the day. It was Friday, and Sally and I had plans to visit a new club. With Tom dying and the Blu Moon, our usual club, where they always met up, she just couldn’t bring herself to go back there yet. So we’d decided to try a club called Nite Vale we’d heard about on the radio. I was covered in grease and grime, so a trip home to clean up before she picked me up was in order.

  “Sam, I’m leaving!” I yelled up the old metal staircase. His dojo took up the upper half of the firehouse. “You still coming with us?”

  Sam rarely ever went clubbing with us, but he had vowed to not let me out of his sight for an unspecified amount of time after my capture and what I’d gone through. So far, he’d held good on his promise, all except the part where he threatened to not let me use the restroom by myself. I’d managed to talk him out of that one. A girl needed her privacy in some matters.

  He wrapped his arms around the fireman’s pole and slid down, bending his knees to absorb the landing, then he strode toward me. “Crap, is that tonight?” he asked. “I forgot what day it was.” He rubbed the back of his neck, and then glanced away, not quite meeting my eyes. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he looked guilty of something.

  “Is something wrong?” I’d never seen him look so awkward before. It was almost comical.

  “Everything’s fine, it’s just...” He paced away from me a few steps, and then back. “I kind of have a date tonight. I’ll call and cancel. I’m sure she’ll understand.”

  I perked up. “You have a date?” It had been months since he’d shown interest in anyone.

  “Had,” he reiterated. He grabbed his phone out of his pocket and started to walk away, but I snatched it out of his hand.

  “You are not canceling your date so you can play babysitter with me and Sally. We’re both adults, and it’s a public place. We can take care of ourselves.” Although recent events didn’t give a ringing endorsement in that regard. Still, I refused to cower or be afraid to go out in public, and Sam, who hadn’t had a date in what seemed like forever, shouldn’t have to give that up for us. My curiosity piqued. “Who is she? What’s her name?”

  He tried to snatch his phone back, but I danced out of the way before he could. “She came to one of my defense classes,” he finally admitted. “Her name is Jamie.” He faked to the left, and when I fell for it he snatched his phone out of my hand. He began punching in what I assumed was her number.<
br />
  “Sam, stop.”

  He paused and looked at me.

  “Life’s too short,” I said in my best motherly advice voice. “I know that better than anyone now. Go on your date. Have fun. Sally and I will be fine.”

  He stared at me like he was considering my words. I pushed a little more confidence into my next statement.

  “Besides, I have Rya. She’ll take care of us.”

  Sam stood quiet for a moment, thinking. I could see the need to protect me warring with the urge to have a social life play out in the expressions on his face. After a few more seconds, he turned his phone off, and let his arm drop. I sighed, relieved. He always thought of me and Sally before himself. Since he didn’t seem to be trying to back out any longer, I took the opportunity to tease him a little. I bumped him on the shoulder, and waggled my eyebrows suggestively. “Who knows...you might get lucky. You know they say, ‘if you don’t use it, you lose it.’”

  That did it. He burst out laughing and the rest of the tension evaporated.

  Sam shook his head and smiled at me. “You always did know what to say,” he said. Then his smile disappeared, and his voice deepened into that tone all big brothers seemed to have mastered at a young age. “Are you sure? You know you and Sally come first. I can go out and have fun later when all this has blown over.”

  By this I knew he meant the ordeal with the werewolves. They seemed to be our immediate concern.

  Loukas, head of the Vampire Council and grand sire of them all, as well as the Evil One, were also a concern—but not an immediate one. Or so I hoped. I trapped Loukas in the lair with the Evil One when he found me at the military compound where I was held prisoner, and tried to kill me. I didn’t know how long it would take for him to find a way out, and no one knew when the Evil One would break through the spell that held him captive. The clock was ticking, which is what made whatever time we had before then so precious.

  I placed my hands on Sam’s shoulders, and looked him dead in the eye. “I’m positive. Sally and I will be fine. Rya will keep watch. We’re going to have fun, and you should, too.” He searched my eyes for a moment, then nodded.