Kiss Of The Alpha : A YA Paranormal Romance

Chapter 65: Chapter 65

Heather

I floored it down the road, trying to go in vaguely the same direction I remembered traveling in my vision.

"Do some navigating," I said to Serena, who was sitting in the front passenger seat. "We need to go that way." I pointed straight and slightly to the left of where we were headed. "There has to be a better road. A turn off. Hell, a trail would do."

Beeps rang through the car as she tapped on the map looking for roads. "There’s nothing!" Serena frantically pushed more buttons. "Absolutely nothing. Do you have like a coordinate or something that I could punch in?"

I snorted. "Unfortunately, my visions don’t come loaded with GPS." This wasn’t going well. I swerved onto the shoulder. "We don’t have long before sunset. We need to run from here."

Everyone in the backseat started taking off their clothes.

"What the fuck are you doing! This isn’t orgy time. It’s fucking kick ass time."

"We’re going to shift, you idjit," Leslie said.

Harsh but she was right. I was being dense. They were probably faster on four legs. "Fine." I got out of the car with my witchy backpack and slammed the door. "Catch up with me when you’re done."

I took off running. Wind whipped through my long hair as I sprinted. Serena kept pace with me. She moved soundlessly but the heat her body gave off meant she wasn’t more than a step behind me.

I gave out a girly cry when the wolves crashed through the bushes next to me before I realized it was just Xander, Adrian and Leslie.

I pushed harder. Raced around trees. Branches scraped my arms hard enough to draw blood, but I had to keep moving. I couldn’t lose the feeling, the connection to Brent. And if I didn’t get there fast enough, he was going to be seriously hurt. Or worse.

I stumbled to a stop.

"What is it?" Serena said.

"I don’t know. I think we’re here, but I don’t see anything."

I scanned the forest. Oak trees towered above me, but there was a strange silence. I closed my eyes and focused in on Brent—that bond that we had. It had gotten stronger since that first vision I’d had in Los Angeles, but it still took focus for me to find it.

We were close. Really close. I climbed up a massive fallen tree. The cave’s entrance gaped behind the dead branches.

The three wolves were sniffing next to the entrance. The red wolf—Leslie—let out a quiet growl. I wondered what wolf-y noses could smell that I couldn’t.

Serena moved closer to the wolves and inhaled deeply. "Do you smell that?"

I closed the distance to the wolves and a foul stench hit me. I pulled my T-shirt over my nose.

"Vampires," Serena said.

"Why do they have to smell so bad?"

Serena stared at me for a second. "They’re undead. Piles of rotting flesh that live by drinking blood."

"When you put it that way, yuck. I guess when I think of vampire, I picture Brad Pitt or Robert Pattinson. More sexy, less stinky."

The black wolf—Adrian let out a quiet howl, and nudged the fallen tree with his nose. Leslie went under the tree and Adrian quickly followed.

I started to move the trunk over, but Serena stopped me.

"Don’t touch anything. It might be a booby trap."

I wondered how she knew, but didn’t ask. We’d already wasted enough time. She slid herself under the branches. I followed her into the mouth of the cave. It stunk something fierce—worse than rotting fish on the beach—inside. I gagged and tried to focus on breathing through my mouth, but then I could taste the smell.

My pulse hammered and I wondered if vampires could hear it like they did in the movies.

It was pitch black in the cave. "I can’t see anything. Can you?"

The blond wolf—Xander huffed, and started walking into the darkness.

I pulled my backpack off and started digging around. If my cousins stuck a flashlight in there, I was going to owe them big time.

My hand touched a familiar shape, and I flipped the button. "Nice."

There were three tunnels ahead of us. Christ. We didn’t have time to get lost.

"I’ll go down this one," Serena said. "Adrian, you go down that way—"

Xander turned back to human. Fully naked human.

I spun around. "Jesus. Give me some warning next time."

He chuckled. "Didn’t mean to offend. But I wanted to tell Serena that splitting up was a terrible idea. Have you never watched a scary movie?"

They started arguing, but I ignored them and focused on Brent again.

He was down the left tunnel. I was sure of it. "This way."

"Wait. What?" Serena said.

"Xander, go wolf again. I don’t need to see your junk."

"He’s furry," Serena said after a few seconds.

"Good." I flashed my light down the left tunnel. "Let’s go."

Every time we reached another fork, I did the same thing.

The stench became stronger with each passing step, until finally it got so bad that I gagged.

"Don’t," Serena said. "If you throw up, then I’m going to throw up."

"No promises."

We turned a corner, and Xander—in wolf form—jumped in front of me.

"Sweet baby Jesus," Serena said. "I hope your cousins packed us some fucking good weapons."

I swallowed. The next cave room was huge—at least a city block wide and long. The ceiling was super far up, a good fifty-sixty feet. There was a hole in it revealing the dark oranges of sunset. Night was only minutes away, and I realized that getting here had taken much, much longer than I thought it would.

Under the hole was a giant rock formation surrounded by stalagmites. Four bound figures sat atop it.

"You might be wanting to hurry up. They’ll be waking up soon." Donovan’s voice echoed in the cave.

Between their rock island and our perch on the wall, a sea of vampires lay dead on the recessed cave floor. We would have to hop down from our ledge, not impossible for us supes, and then hopscotch over each body. They’d left no clear path.

My heart pounded at the thought of walking over hundreds of sleeping vampires. But the thought of walking over hundreds of almost awake vampires was infinitely worse. I was the last to jump down from the ledge.

I missed my mark and crunched awkwardly on a vampire hand. I couldn’t move. More noxious fumes rose from the corpse, but otherwise he didn’t stir. I tried to breathe as little as possible and not step on them, but they were so densely packed in the room, it didn’t last for long.

The cavern was getting darker by the second.

Serena and my three wolfy friends weren’t as easily spooked as me. They ran off, leaving me to trail behind.

A vampire near my leg reached out, brushing my ankle. "Holy shit. They’re waking up." Suddenly, I didn’t care so much about stepping on them.

I ran forward, glancing up only to keep track of the direction I needed to go, and desperately trying to keep my balance as I stepped on the barely moving vampires.

I let out a breath as I finally caught up. The three wolves faced outward at the seethe. Serena was in just her bra, the remains of her shirt falling apart in her hands as she tried to remove the silver from Donovan.

Serena cried out. "It burned through my T-shirt. I can’t get them off. I can’t get them off."

"Calm yourself, love," Donovan said. He looked like he was perfectly fine relaxing on this rock, but his skin was smoking where the chains touched him. There was no way that didn’t hurt like a bitch.

She turned to me franticly. "I can’t get them off. What are we going to do now?"

"How the hell did they get them on in the first place?"

"Special gloves made of inorganic material," Sebastian said. "But they didn’t leave those behind after the cowards tied us up and left us here."

Perfect.

I didn’t need to see the sheen of sweat covering Brent’s skin to know he was in pain. I could feel it nagging at the end of our bond.

"You’re going to get out of this cave. Now." Brent put a bit of power behind his demand, and I let it fly by me.

"Shut up." I couldn’t let myself panic like Serena was. There was no other option but to get Brent out. I’d burn off my own hands before I’d leave him chained here.

I crouched by him. "I didn’t walk through a room full of half-asleep vampires for nothing." The chain holding him was long, thin, and silver. It wrapped around his hands until it was an inch thick, and then the chain ran down his back to snake around his ankles. The chain had burned through his jeans. I swear I could hear a little sizzle coming from the silver against his skin. "I guess the silver thing isn’t just in the movies."

Brent’s face was white with pain but he wasn’t crying out. "No."

"Great. Well, good thing I’m new."

"You can’t—"

Before he could stop me, I ripped the chains that were holding his wrists and ankles together. It didn’t burn me at all.

"You’re lucky your mate has bruja blood," Donovan said. "Me next, if you will, lass."

"Sure." I started to unwind the chain from around Brent’s wrists. Chunks of his skin peeled off when I moved the last bit of chain. I hesitated, not wanting to hurt him more.

"Do it."