Chapter 14

Fourteen

"Every now and then I wonder what life is like for those who graduated from Coldspring high and went on to college or whatever it was they had planned. Classes, books, making new friends. Looking back at high school, thinking how everything that had seemed like a big deal during that time really wasn't. It was a drop in the ocean. Would I trade the hard, dangerous life that I live for that one? Nope. At least in this life I get to behead things. Oh, and of course I got Dec and the little hellion. Way better than college and all that other stuff." ~ Jen

"F ane texted while we were sleeping," Decebel said as they gathered in the main room of Maxim's house. "There's a nine-hour time difference and we're ahead," he continued. "Which means they're most likely asleep now. He wanted us to know that all their missions are complete."

"Cain's dead?" Jen asked as she looked at her mate and her heart sped up in her chest. Had she wanted to be there when the vamp was taken out? Absolutely, but it mattered more that he was dead whether she'd gotten to see it or not.

"He is," Decebel confirmed.

"Did they get his head?" she asked and then held up her hand and shook her head. "Wait, don't answer that. I'll just be jealous of the person who got it and I need to be focused on killing hybrids. I can be jealous later."

"Anyone ever tell you that you should consider psychological testing?" Alice asked from where she stood, her hands in the pockets of her well worn jeans.

Jen smiled at her. "Doc, you are a doc right?"

"MD not PhD," Alice nodded.

"Excellent, easy nickname. And all my other nicknames are probably not appropriate."

"Why is that stopping you?" Stella asked her.

Jen pursed her lips. "I'm trying to grow."

Stella smothered a laugh and Jen flipped her off. "Suck it Aretha."

"A talented, black singer?" Stella smirked. "That's the best you could do?"

Jen shrugged. "I could go with something that had to do with your profession and poles, but as I said, I'm trying to grow."

"Fair," Stella lifted a shoulder slightly as her head tilted to the side.

Jen turned her attention back to Alice. "So, Doc, back to the psych mumbo jumbo. I don't need to spend money on an evaluation that will tell us what we all already know."

"That you're batshit crazy, disturbed, completely unstable, and most likely a borderline psychopath?" Adam asked as he strolled in with Crina in tow.

"Takes one to know one," Jen sang. She pointed to her empty pockets on her cargo pants and looked at Adam. "Can you weapon me up?"

Adam snapped his fingers, and his hand was suddenly full of daggers.

Jen clapped and snatched them up, putting them in any spot she could.

"Why do you need blades if you are a wolf?"

From where she'd been crouched, Jen looked up at Alice and slipped a blade into her boot. "I prefer to fight in my human form. Especially if there's not a fae nearby to fix the naked thing when I phase back. Dec tends to get a little snappy when I'm naked around anyone but him."

"You don't say?" Alice's brow rose.

Jen huffed. "I know. It's completely ridiculous. Also, I just like knives."

"I told you she's unstable." Adam glanced at Maxim's mate before he made more weapons appear and handed them out to those who wanted them.

"I'm beginning to understand." Alice's brow rose.

"Maxim." As usual, Decebel ignored most of Jen's banter with everyone else. She figured it was his way of maintaining his sanity. "Fane said for us to check the news via the internet and see where the crime, deaths, or disappearances have gone up. Those are the places we need to go to first."

Maxim inclined his head.

"I'll get on that." Adam pulled out his phone. "Since I'll be the one getting us there."

Jen walked over to Stella and nudged her shoulder. "You good?" She noticed the healer seemed a tad pensive, regardless of their earlier banter.

Stella frowned. "I don't know. Something is off."

"Something to do with the healers? Or something here?" Jen's senses were on high alert.

"Healers. Jewel, to be specific. Whatever is going on with her, it's getting worse."

Jen narrowed her eyes and looked at the healer. "Now that Cain is taken care of, I'm sure Fane will help Dalton figure out what's going on with Jewel, and they'll fix it. No matter what she might have gotten herself into, we won't give up until she's safe."

Stella looked into Jen's eyes. Jen knew she'd see nothing but truth. "I know. I just feel like she's been through enough, ya know?"

"We don't get to pick the number of trials we face or the difficulty of those trials. All we can do is lean on the Great Luna, and friends and family, and keep putting one foot in front of the other. When we get through it, we always come out stronger and wiser on the other side."

Stella's eyes widened. "Wiser?"

Jen laughed and gently shoved her. "Shut up. You didn't know me a few years ago. I've come a long way."

Stella chuckled. "If you say so. I'll take your word for it."

"Okay, people." Maxim's deep voice filled the room. "With the twenty-two in our pack and the six I brought with me, there are twenty-eight of us." He looked at Adam, "How many can you take?"

"Just gotta have a hand on me or be holding the hand of someone that is touching me. I wouldn't recommend having long extensions of people holding hands though," Adam explained. "If they let go, I have no way of controlling where they go. There's no telling where they could end up."

"Okay," Maxim agreed. "Then let's keep it to direct contact to Adam. Where to first?"

Adam looked at his phone, his finger sliding across the screen and his eyes moving as he read whatever was on it. "Oklahoma City seems to have the highest amount of deaths and disappearances, from what I can tell." Adam continued to look at his screen. "It's the one that has the most headlines."

"The OC it is." Jen grabbed Dec's hand and then placed her other hand on Adam's shoulder.

"I can put a cloak around us," Adam said, "but since I'm the only fae, I can't guarantee it won't slip a bit when I'm focused on fighting."

"We'll try and keep you covered so you can focus on the shield," Decebel said.

Jen patted Adam when his face fell. "Don't be sad. You'll have another chance to beat my kill rate."

"You suck," Adam grumbled.

"Don't say it, Jennifer." Decebel's voice was calm, but the tension through the bond told her she should probably at least try to behave for a little while.

They flashed and reappeared on a street corner with a light shining above them. It was dark, seeing as how it was nighttime in the US.

"Be right back." Adam flashed again to get the others. After three total trips, they had their whole group together. The fae spoke in his language, his hands raised, and a moment later he said, "It's done."

Decebel took a deep breath, and Jen did the same thing. It was faint, but she smelled it. Blood. Her head snapped to the side. "That way." As one they turned and started off at a lope. Jen's eyes moved from side to side and then up to make sure there was no threat on top of the buildings. She knew her mate, who was way more experienced at battle than she was, was keeping tabs on everything around them and doing a better job than her. But Jen improved with each fight and every hunt.

It didn't take them long to come up on the source of the blood. Five males were taking turns on a guy in the middle of their circle. Several bodies were already lying on the ground, discarded and forgotten. They'd push the guy from one to the other, each taking bites and feeding, then giving him to someone else. The man could barely stand, and he didn't seem to have the strength to make a sound, or perhaps his throat no longer worked.

"Dec," Jen whispered softly. She couldn't stand here any longer and watch these monsters play with a human like a cat with a mouse.

Dec held up his hand, and Jen knew it meant for all of them to stay put. He moved fast, and surprise was on his side. Within a few seconds, each vampire's neck was broken, and they'd dropped to the ground like a bag of rocks.

Alice sucked in a breath and Jen turned to look at her. "You good, Doc?"

"He's fast."

"He's the beta of the strongest alpha ever. He can draw on Fane's strength," Jen explained. "He was badass before he had that, but now his already lethal abilities are magnified."

"All of the wolves that belong to Fane's pack are affected this way?"

"To a degree," Jen answered. "Those that are closest to him and his most dominant are affected more."

"Their heads need to be removed. They need to be burned."

Jen smiled at Decebel, and her eyebrows bounced up and down. "I'm up." And she turned and jogged toward her mate.

Adam incinerated the vamps once their heads had been removed, and there was nothing left but ashes.

"We'll leave the bodies for the authorities to find so their families can have closure," Decebel said.

"Let's keep moving." Maxim motioned with his head. "And hope they're all that easy to kill."

Dec snorted. "That would just be boring."

"So Jen's not the only crazy one in the relationship?" Alice asked as she jogged along with the group.

"He'd have to be at least a little unstable to mate her," Crina said. "No sane person would take her on as a mate."

Jen blew her a kiss. "I love you too, pixie-chick."

"I hate that nickname," Crina grumbled.

Alice's brow rose in question.

"It's the short hair." Jen pointed. "It's called a pixie cut. Not to mention, she's all cute, like a pixie."

"I look nothing like a pixie," Crina snapped.

"Especially not the one who had a penis for a nose," Adam pointed out.

Alice sputtered as multiple heads whipped around to look at Adam.

The fae male grinned. "That's a story for another time. When we don't need to focus on a new breed of supernaturals terrorizing cities."

"Speaking of which," Maxim rumbled as he pointed to the left. Their group turned as one and headed toward the smell and the sound of growling and whimpering.

This time, there were more than five, and these looked different from the others Decebel had just killed. They were bigger, they smelled unusual and their eyes glowed like that of a wolf.

"Hybrids," Alice whispered.

All the heads turned in unison, obviously having heard them arrive, or Alice's voice, or both. They hissed, and Jen rolled her eyes. "Seriously? They're half wolf and they hiss instead of growl. I mean, which sound is scarier?"

"Jen, fight now, talk later," her mate grumbled.

"This conversation isn't over," she said as they moved forward.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jen saw Crina lean toward Alice. "Thankfully, Jen has a squirrel memory. So the convo is most likely over."

"I heard that," Jen snapped.

"Take it out on the hybrids." Adam stayed back, his hands held up again, no doubt trying to keep the sounds of their fighting from being heard.

Jen dove into the fight, daggers in both hands. She slashed, stabbed, and laughed as the blade sunk deep into her first opponent's chest. Straight into his heart. She lifted her leg and put her foot against his stomach and shoved, pulling her dagger from him at the same time. Ciro was there a second later, and he ripped the hybrid's head off as if he was snapping a twig. He was so quiet and subdued most of the time that she forgot he was an old, powerful alpha.

"Jennifer, duck," she heard her mate and, without hesitation, Jen dropped to the ground. She felt the breeze of something passing over her head and then saw a body hit the ground with a hard thud. There was a gaping hole in the man's chest where his heart should have been. Jen stood and walked over to the hybrid's head. Without a thought, she brought her blade down on his throat. It took several chops before the head was severed, but she managed it. Fae blades were much stronger and sharper than human ones.

Suddenly, it was silent around them. She turned and saw that all the hybrids were dead. She looked their group over. Not everyone had made it out unscathed. Some had claw marks that tore their clothes and into their skin. A couple had bites on their necks.

"Will the bite cause them to turn?" Jen asked Alice, motioning to two of the males from Maxim's pack that had the marks.

Alice shook her head. "They'd have to share their blood."

That made Jen think of something, and her eyes went to the faces of their group. "Did anyone use teeth to kill?"

Thank the Great Luna. They all shook their heads.

"Don't," Decebel said. "If Alice is right, that means we could be made into hybrids, and we have no idea how we'd react to it. Some people become crazy."

Adam once again burned the bodies, and they left the victims to be found.

"Why aren't the hybrids turning any of their victims?" Jen asked no one in particular.

Alice answered, "I don't know. Unless they're not able to control themselves and can't stop before they kill them."

"Let's keep moving." Decebel grabbed Jen's hand before he started off.

They fought another three groups of hybrids before they decided to move on to the next city, which happened to be just north, in Topeka, Kansas. The hybrids seem to be sticking to populated areas, which made some sense if they wanted to do the most damage possible.

Soon, Jen noticed the groups getting larger and more frenzied. "Hmm, maybe some of the hybrids do have restraint. These ones seem like new recruits," she remarked after dispatching another gang of monsters.

"That's a scary thought," said Alice.

The group rested in a side alley. Adam passed out some of the fae food that was filled with instant energy. It brought back memories of being in the woods in Romania, and Jen found herself amazed at how much time had passed and all they'd endured since then.

"We've come a long way since mate-fest," Decebel said through their bond with a chuckle.

Jen smiled as she looked at him. "Wouldn't change a second of it." She paused and then amended. "Okay, there are some things I would change regarding what Thia has been through, but the rest of it, it's made us who we are today."

Decebel nodded and leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead. He started to say something, but a movement on their right drew their attention.

Jen groaned. "Bloody hell. Do we seriously have to deal with those nasty demons again?"

"Demons?" Alice's voice took on a high-pitched squeak.

"The last time a portal opened, demons came out of it." Jen got into a fighting crouch. "We killed them all, but they stunk to high heaven."

"Oh," Alice said, a little breathlessly. "That's good to know. That you killed them, not that they stunk."

Jen watched, waiting for the nasty denizens of hell to appear. Instead, people came walking through. She stood up, frowning. Then got a whiff. Not people. Hybrids. Lots of hybrids.

"Adam, stop worrying about the sound barrier and get ready to fight." Decebel looked at Jen. "Stay close. Don't get their blood in your mouth."

"Would this be an appropriate time to talk about the only things I want going in my mouth?" Jen's question caused several people to laugh and some to sound like they were choking.

Dec smirked. "Have I ever told you that you're going to be the death of me?"

"Better me than them." Jen motioned to the men and women looking at them and hissing. "Death by Jen will at least be pleasurable."

"Is there anything you take seriously?" Alice asked as she stayed close to Maxim.

Crina shook her head. "We really need to go over the things you should and shouldn't ask the psycho."

Jen's head tilted slightly as she met the eyes of the scientist turned gypsy vamp. "Pack. I take my pack very seriously. Mess with my pack and I will gut you while singing a jig and drinking a glass of wine." She paused and then added, "And sex. Sex should always be taken seriously. It's the foundation of a good relationship. Let me know if you and Moscow need any counseling."

"Don't let her know. Focus, Jennifer."

"I'm focused, Dec. Jeez. You know I can multitask."

"Jen," Adam yelled from the far right. "I've already got two. You're falling behind while you yap."

Decebel lunged forward, and Jen was right behind him. "You should know by now, fairy-boy, I don't lose."