The Wolf Within (Purgatory #1)(50)

At least he’d gotten away.

But what would happen to him?

“Holly?” She forced her eyes to stay open as she looked up at Pate. Blood covered him. How was he there? She’d seen the bullet wounds to his chest. She knew the damage they’d done. Humans would die from injuries like those.

They wouldn’t be walking around minutes later.

“How…long…” Holly whispered.

Brent was there. Lifting her into his arms. “Is she supposed to be this cold?”

“No, she’s going to need blood. A lot of it.” Pate put his hand on her cheek. “It’s okay. I’ve got you now. You know your kind can’t afford this much blood loss.”

No, they couldn’t. To kill a vampire, you had to either cut off the vamp’s head or drain all of the vampire’s blood away.

The easy trick for getting the vampire in the position that you could do those things? Paralyze the vamp with a wooden bullet.

But in order to paralyze the vampire, the bullet had to go straight into the heart.

Elias had missed her heart, but he’d sure nicked vital organs and made the blood gush from her. She’d tried to stay strong for as long as she could.

But she was too weak now.

“I’ll take care of you,” Pate whispered.

She didn’t believe him. And, staring at him then, she didn’t trust him, either. She’d risked her life for Pate, died for him, and now, she could only ask, “How long…have you been a-a vampire?”

Because she could see the edge of his fangs.

All emotion drained away from his face. The man she’d known was gone. He stared down at her as a stranger. “Long enough.”

She realized that the world she’d known was a total lie.

Then she was being carried away. She couldn’t fight. Could barely even lift her hand. Behind her, she heard a wolf howl. But the howl was so far away.

***

Holly paced her living room. Again and again. As soon as she’d gotten an infusion of blood—okay, four infusions—she’d run away from Pate.

He’d let her go.

Probably because he knew there was no place she could escape to that he couldn’t follow.

Pate…a vampire? How had she not known about him? Why hadn’t he told her? Had he been a vampire that night, when she’d been so desperate to save him? By that time, had he already been changed? No wonder he was so keen for her to find a cure. The guy must have been using her karahydrelene, too.

Her hand lifted and smoothed over the wound on her chest. Well, not really a wound any longer. It had healed as she ingested the blood.

The Para Unit’s containment facility in the woods was being shut down. The order had come from above. The place had been deemed too unsecure and dangerous.

Only one prisoner was still alive in that building—and Connor was due to be immediately transferred to Purgatory. The other wolves—even Saul—had all died from silver poisoning. Their collars had been cranked up to full power.

And as for Duncan…

He was a wanted man. Werewolf.

Pate was searching the city for him, and Duncan was assumed to be a deadly threat.

When the power went out, six more guards had been killed in the containment facility. So many lives…lost. And all six of those men had been killed by a werewolf’s claws.

Only the werewolves had been killed, too. Except for Connor. But it seemed Connor had never made it out of his cell, so he couldn’t be responsible for all of those deaths.

Every sign pointed to the fact that Elias had been the one to hijack the system and take control of the collars, but he wasn’t a werewolf. He couldn’t have killed the humans in the facility.

So who had?

She knew Pate thought it was Duncan. She’d told her brother, again and again, that Duncan had been in his cell.

But he didn’t believe her. He seemed to think that Duncan had escaped and gone on a rampage. He had no trust in Duncan.

And she wasn’t exactly big on trusting her brother any longer.

When did you change, Pate? When?

Shane couldn’t back her up. Because he was dead. Too much blood loss. So said Pate.

Another lie? Could a vampire as old as Shane die that easily, that quickly? At this point, Holly wasn’t sure if Pate even knew how to tell the truth any longer.

Holly paced toward her window. It had been fixed, probably by one of Pate’s men, and she stared down at the street below.

Would Duncan run? Get out of the city?

She heard the faint rustle of a footstep behind her.

Holly’s eyes squeezed shut.

He wouldn’t run.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said without turning around. Her eyes opened. “You know he’ll be watching my house.” Her breath rasped out. “Pate thinks you killed the humans at the facility. He’s hunting you.” Her hands clenched into fists. “Leave now, before he comes.”

The floor creaked.

“Please,” she whispered. “I don’t even know what’s going on. Pate isn’t the man I thought.”

No one was who she thought these days.

The floor creaked again. She could feel him coming closer to her. Feel the warmth of his body seeming to reach out for her. And she could smell him. The rich, slightly wild, masculine scent that was pure Duncan.