Werewolves Rule (The Rule Series) Read online

  WEREWOLVES RULE

  by K. C. Blake

  Werewolves Rule

  Copyright ©2011 by K. C. Blake

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  THANK YOU NOTES

  I would like to thank the winner of the Name A Villain Contest.

  Congratulations, Nicole also known as Wishstar on my blog.

  And last time I forgot to thank a very special person without whom Vampires Rule would not have been written, so I am giving him a BIG giant THANK YOU now. To my nephew Jonathan for asking me when I was going to finish the vampire book, and for being the first one to read it and love it. I appreciate your suggestions. Jonathan gave me the teen point of view on these books. When I caught his interest, I knew I had it.

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  Chapter One:

  A NIGHTMARE

  Blood seeped through Jack’s tightly aligned fingers. No matter how hard he pressed on the wound, it continued to hemorrhage, and he was beyond scared. During his time as a vampire, Jack had become unusually attuned to the workings of his own body. He didn’t need a psychic to tell him that he was in deep trouble. The blood should have stopped flowing by now. In fact the wound should have completely healed over fifteen minutes ago.

  Although he wasn’t a vampire anymore, Jack still had some of the powers including instantaneous healing. When he cut himself while shaving last week, the wound had healed before the single-syllable curse word left his mouth. Too bad the power didn’t seem to be working today.

  He desperately wanted to look down to measure the growing red stain on his shirt, but he couldn’t risk drawing his brother’s attention to it. He covertly stole a glance at Billy instead. Passing streetlights illuminated Billy’s face in short rolls of light. His profile was rigid, and his lips compressed into a hard line. He stared straight ahead, hands tight on the steering wheel as if he was trying to strangle it.

  Billy was pissed off.

  Who could blame him after the night they’d had?

  Jack, relatively new to the art of hunting, couldn’t believe what a disaster a simple werewolf-hunt had become. Two huge werewolves on steroids had nearly killed them. At least Billy had only gotten kicked, punched, and thrown around like a softball. He sported a puffy eye, maybe a couple of bruised ribs, but those were the extent of his injuries.

  One of the werewolves had stabbed Jack with a knife. A knife! Whoever heard of a stupid werewolf using a blade? What had happened to the good old days when they’d relied on their claws?

  Burning pain spread throughout his middle, growing in intensity with each passing second. He struggled to breathe. Perspiration dotted his upper lip and forehead. Then the car hit a bump, and the abrupt movement threatened to rip the wound open another inch. Somehow Jack managed to bite back a startled yelp. His hand tightened on the wound. Exhaustion battled the pain to see which could take him down first. His eyes drifted shut. Some rest might help him to heal faster.

  “Are you dying?” Billy asked. His odd, toneless voice cut through the silence, a bomb in a peaceful village. Jack reluctantly forced his eyes open and turned his head against the vinyl seat to reassure his brother. Before he could say anything, Billy added, “Seriously. Do I need to take you to the hospital or what?”

  “Course not.” Jack’s voice cracked under the strain. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “I heal fast. Remember?”

  “Yeah, it’s like having Superman for a brother.”

  Sarcasm. Poor Billy hadn’t completely adjusted to having a freak show living under his roof. Their relationship remained strained even in the best of times. Jack’s eyelids grew heavy. They closed of their own volition as he mumbled, “Just need some sleep.”

  He barely heard his brother’s taut warning.

  “Yeah, well if you see a bright light, stay the hell away from it.”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  Jack began to drift, unattached thoughts floating through his mind like confused cars headed in opposite directions. He lost his tenuous grasp on reality. Sleep claimed him on a temporary basis, and he went willingly into the comforting darkness. At least the pain didn’t follow him down. He was safe and comfortable... for the moment.

  ******

  The dream began.

  Jack sprinted across uneven ground that was covered with thick foliage and surrounded by tall trees that blocked out direct sunlight. Once again he played two parts, spectator and participant. He stood off to the side and watched himself jump over a fallen log, weave around a tree, and race across a grassy knoll. Even with the expanded viewpoint it took him a while to realize he had four legs.

  A majestic gray wolf, he began to run faster. No longer a spectator, his two halves melded together until he was the wolf in every possible sense of the word. A breeze ruffled his fur as he ran faster still. It felt incredible, better than anything in his recent memories.

  A whistle pierced the peaceful morning air. He stopped, cocked his head to the left, and his triangular fur-covered ears tilted as they tried to identify the noise. That was when he saw the girl in the distance. She waved her arm high in the air, back and forth like a stranded survivor on an island when a helicopter draws near. She definitely wanted him to notice her. Her dark hair blew back long enough to reveal an angular face with almond-shaped eyes and full lips.

  Her name eluded him, but he was certain he should know it. If he dug deep enough, he’d eventually find it. He was supposed to know her. Confused, he waited for her to say something. Maybe she would introduce herself. His muscles tightened, and a horrible feeling assaulted his nerves.

  Something bad was about to happen.

  Instinct told him it was time to change from wolf to man. Closing his eyes, he tried to force the transformation, and his body shook with the effort. An uncomfortable squeezing on his internal organs almost made him lose control of his bowels. His paws refused to hold him up any longer; he collapsed.

  “Tobias!” the brunette shouted.

  Tobias? The name didn’t belong to him and yet it did. His mind reeled, torn in two different directions at once until he thought insanity was just around the corner. At some point his name had been Tobias, and he had been a werewolf. He had known the brunette girl, had been close to her, but he still couldn’t remember her name. Memories tried to push their way forward, but he forced them back into a mental closet. He slammed the door shut. He would have locked it too if he could. Somehow he knew the memories would come with a great deal of pain.

  Better not to give in to them.

  Knowing it was a dream, Jack tried to open his physical eyes. He screamed silently to force himself awake, but it didn't work. He focused on being in the car with his brother, headed for home, yet he remained trapped in the wolf’s body. What now?

  A quake of epic proportions shook him from head to paws. For a moment he thought the world around him was coming undone, changing, but it was only him. First he went hot all over with what had to be a raging fever. Then his body seemed to melt into liquid and expand, shifting until he was standing on two human feet. Now he knew what it felt like to be a werewolf. It totally sucked beyond measure.

  The brunette crooked a finger at him, and a seductive smile played on her lips. “I’ve been waiting for you, Tobias. Come to me.”

  Without thinking, he instantly moved to obey.

  “Jack?”

  The familiar voice wafted over him, calming him like nothing else could. It soothed his nerves and settled his queasy stomach. He turned to find Silver on the opposite side of the meadow. Wary, her eyes glided back and forth between him and the new girl. There was a slight hesitation before she lifte
d her hand and held it out to him. She seemed desperate to talk to him, but she didn’t even try to meet him halfway. It was almost as if her feet were glued to the ground.

  He started in her direction.

  “Tobias, no! You have to come to me.”

  Jack looked at the brunette again. She appeared to be in great distress over something. Maybe she needed his help. He turned, prepared to go to her first, but Silver screamed for him. “Jack, I need you! I can’t explain right now, but you have to trust me. Please.”

  Of course he trusted her. With an apologetic smile for the brunette, he went to Silver, running as fast as he could on two legs. By the time he reached her, he was out of breath. Funny, it hadn’t seemed like she was that far away when he’d started out.

  “What is it?” he asked, panting lightly. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.” Her lips parted on a dazzling smile, and her eyes sparkled like blue diamonds. It was odd how one smile from her could fill him with unbelievable joy. She beamed up at him and said, “Everything’s great now. You chose me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Look out!” she screamed, her wide eyes on something just over his shoulder.

  Jack spun around. The brunette was right there, so close he could feel her hot breath on his cheek. How had she crossed the meadow so quickly? Before he could ask the question, she took a step back and whipped around in a tight circle, a long blade in her hands. There wasn’t time for him to react. The sword hit him hard in the throat, sliced through flesh and bone with a single whack. His head fell off his shoulders and rolled across the leaf-covered ground. The brunette’s unemotional voice punctuated the brutal act with a period instead of an exclamation point.

  “Sorry, Tobias, but you asked for it.”

  ******

  The car screeched to an abrupt stop, and Jack flew forward in his seat. The sudden movement woke him instantly. His hands automatically went out to keep his face from hitting the dashboard. Frantic, his gaze whipped around, trying to acclimate himself to his new surroundings. He took a quick inventory of his body. Everything seemed to be in place—including his head.

  That crazy brunette had killed him, and it had seemed so real. They say when you see yourself die in a dream, you actually die. Good thing they were wrong.

  He glanced out the passenger side window at the farmhouse he shared with his younger brother. A few of the downstairs windows blazed with golden light, welcoming them home. He could go inside, watch television and relax. The one thing he wasn’t going to do was try to sleep again. If he didn’t have another dream all year, it would still be too soon.

  Jack worked on regulating his breathing. More sweat accumulated on his face and under his arms, and another wave of pain shot through his abdomen. Something was definitely wrong. Maybe he was coming down with the flu. It didn’t have to be a horrible malfunction of his powers, he assured himself. Mortals were known to get sick.

  “For the last time, are you one hundred percent sure that you’re okay?” Billy shut the engine off. He turned to Jack, a deep scowl in place. “I've dug up dead bodies that looked better than you do right now.”

  Jack hesitated before lifting the bottom of his shirt to check the wound. The bloody edges pulsated as his flesh tried to renew and recover. For some reason it was taking longer than usual, but he was going to live. Relief flooded his system. Trying hard not to sound as surprised as he felt, he said, “It’s healing. See?”

  “Let’s get you inside.”

  “Don’t you have a date tonight?”

  Billy had a new girlfriend, a nurse at the local hospital. She worked the nightshift so Billy could only see her in the early morning hours between work and sleep. Jack had no idea what Billy had told her that he did for a living. Jack hadn’t bothered to ask. Billy got weird about things like that. He carefully guarded his privacy now that he was an adult.

  Billy shrugged. “I’ll call Mary and cancel. She’ll understand.”

  “No, she won’t.” Jack couldn’t believe Billy was going to blow off the only girl he’d liked in three years just to stay home and watch him heal. “Not unless you’re going to explain the whole werewolf thing to her.”

  Billy glared at him. “You know I’m not going to tell her that. She’d flip out. She’s normal, not like us. I need to keep her in the dark, at least for now.”

  Jack silently agreed. The regular folks living in Bliss, Nebraska did not need to know about the werewolf problem. They lived in blissful ignorance—hence the name. Jack opened the car door and slowly climbed out. His hand held tight to the wound, making sure his guts didn’t spill all over the ground. He leaned back in through the open window for a second and said, “Go on your date. I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I can call you if I need anything. Just go.”

  Billy nodded. He couldn’t contain the smile threatening to overtake his face. A familiar light danced in his eyes, and Jack knew his brother was thinking about his girlfriend. What a goofy smile. Idiot.

  Jack hoped he didn’t get that expression on his face when he thought about Silver. He took a few steps back and watched Billy drive down the long dirt road leading away from their farmhouse. The tires kicked up a wall of dust. Jack lifted a hand and waved. It took a lot of effort. His abdomen burned like crazy. Once again he wondered why he wasn’t healing faster.

  A new scent caught his attention; there were vampires nearby. His hand froze in mid-wave, and a chill shot through him. Jack watched Billy's taillights fade into the distance, his only hope for survival—gone. He considered chasing his brother down the road, yelling for help, but that would just put Billy at risk too. There were weapons in the trunk and in the house, but Jack didn’t have anything on him. His wound continued to bleed, and he was physically exhausted from the earlier battle. He couldn't handle a violent confrontation with vampires. Not yet.

  A flash of panic clogged his throat.

  For four months now, ever since his magical transformation from vampire to human, he’d had a target on his back. It seemed like every werewolf and vampire within a thousand mile radius wanted to kill him. Silver and her mom had warned him this would happen, but he hadn’t truly believed it. Because he was destined to kill the head werewolf and stop the oncoming war between the two species, every creature of the night wanted to be the one to bag him.

  Maybe he had time to get out his cell and call Silver’s parents. They were professional hunters, and they didn’t live that far from his house. He might be able to keep the vampires busy until help arrived.

  A new hope infiltrated his brain. It was possible that he smelled a friendly vampire. It could even be an old friend from his past. Cowboy might have returned to make amends. That would be a nice, unexpected surprise.

  He glanced up at the house and found a familiar vampire standing on the front porch. Every hope he had of surviving the night went up in invisible flames. It was the last vampire he wanted to see: Blaine. If he was Superman, Blaine was Lex Luthor. For the second time in his seventeen years, he was going to die, and this death would be worse than the first because vampires were notoriously imaginative. A werewolf would rip you apart, but a vampire could do so much worse.

  Blaine stepped forward until he stood directly under the porch light. It gave him the spotlight he continuously craved. With white hair halfway down his back, ridiculously fair skin even for a vampire, and blue eyes so transparent the color was almost nonexistent, Blaine was known as the Albino Vampire.

  “Is it true?” Blaine asked, although he apparently already knew the answer. His voice had an annoying sing-song quality to it that Jack was certain had to be as fake as his bleached hair. Blaine’s raucous laughter filled the air. “It is. You’re human now. Look, friends, look at our former rival, look what he’s become. What a special moment for us all.”

  Jack turned to see who Blaine was speaking to, and his heart nearly stopped beating. Several vampires lined up in fron
t of the pasture fence. Jack recognized every last one of them, and a new fear crawled across his skin. They were going to torture him before they killed him.

  Blaine continued to talk, loving the sound of his own voice. “I heard the rumors, of course, we all did, but who could believe such a story? A vampire turning mortal? What a scandal. Friends, did you know Jackpot was abandoned by Cowboy? The rest of his group died sadly. It’s true. We have no fear of retaliation for killing him. No one will avenge him.”

  A few of the vampires snickered.

  Jack swallowed the growing lump in his throat. It was possible he could stall long enough to heal, or perhaps Blaine would talk until the sun came up. Jack forced a smile and gave his plan a try because it was the only one he had. “It’s been a long time, Blaine? How have things been going for you?”

  “Dandy. My life is one perfect moment after another. I’m golden.”

  “Good. I’d heard you were killed by a werewolf a couple of years ago, but here you are. You can’t really trust rumors I guess. Most of them aren’t worth the breath it takes to repeat them.”

  Blaine made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Not nice to try to fool an old friend. It isn’t going to work. Not with me. I’ve been looking forward to this for so long, I just can’t tell you how much. We’ve been waiting here for hours, anxious to see you. Some of my friends thought you weren’t coming home, but I am so glad they were wrong. And look at you.

  “You haven’t changed a bit.” Blaine put his hands together four times in a slow, soft clap. “Good for you. I would hate to see those beautiful eyes get wrinkles under them. But never fear. Blaine is going to make sure that doesn’t happen to you. You should thank me for saving you from old age. I’ve seen what it does to people. Frankly, I’d rather be dead. Wouldn’t you?”

  Blaine advanced, and Jack held his ground even though he wanted to run as fast as he could in the opposite direction. He was trapped in a sea of vampires, too many to count. Blaine continued walking until he was only a few inches from Jack’s face.