Heather sighed as she sat on the edge of a large building and watched the humans scurry along the sidewalks below.  Her black trench coat flared out behind her as a chilly wind suddenly blew through the city.  Dark blue eyes studied each face for any that wasn’t human.

     Her skin prickled slightly from the chill and she pulled her coat closer to her body since the black corset and leather pants she was wearing left plenty of skin exposed to the wind.

     A crescent moon was hidden by thick clouds drifting through the night sky, creating an almost eerie feeling. 

     Her stomach was twisting in knots as an uneasy feeling tingled through her body.  She quickly blocked her side of the blood bond she and her mate shared and carefully entered the bond she shared with another.

     ‘What are you planning, Darius?’  She clenched her jaw and tried to delve deeper into his mind but a solid wall prevented her from reaching the werewolf leader’s thoughts.  She closed her eyes in frustration, trying again to get through but without success.

     ‘Fuck.  A hybrid stronger than both species, partially bonded with a werewolf, and I can’t even break through a blood block.  What a wonder I am,’ she thought angrily, carefully pulling away from Darius and reopening herself to her mate.

     “Anything?”

     She opened her eyes and looked back at her mate.  Concern lingered in his dark brown eyes as another breeze blew his wavy, jaw-length brown hair away from his face.  Her eyes swept up and down her mate’s body, loving the way his leather pants and satin button-down shirt clung to his muscles.

     “No.  He’s got a tight block on his end.  Normally that’d be a relief but something doesn’t feel right,” she answered quietly, absently wrapping her braided blond hair around her fingers.

     Alex slowly moved behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders, gently rubbing out the tension.

     “It’ll be alright, love.  We’ve got several teams out tonight keeping a perimeter around our team.  They’ve been ordered to keep any lycans from entering this part of the city,” he murmured against her ear.

     Heather smiled and turned to face her mate.

     “You and your over-protectiveness,” she teased, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

     He grinned down at her and kissed the tip of her nose.

     “I haven’t heard you complain.”

     She sent a burst of love through their bond and watched his eyes soften.  Alex gently tilted her chin up and bent down, kissing her lightly as she wrapped her arms around his waist.

     He started to deepen the kiss when a sudden voice over their earpieces startled them apart.

     “We’ve got two lycans south of you and moving quickly,” her brother Soren said tersely.

     “Has anyone spotted more?”  Alex asked as he stepped up to the roof’s edge and scanned the street.  Heather spun around and fought the fear blossoming in the bottom of her stomach.

     “Yeah, three over near me.  How the hell did they sneak past the perimeter?”  Xeko responded, his irritation loud and clear across the radio.

     Dread settled in her stomach as her third brother, Jason, and sister Chrissy also confirmed lycan sightings near where they were patrolling.

     “Alex, try to contact the perimeter teams,” Heather suddenly whispered, numbness spreading throughout her body.

     She stared blankly at the street as Alex failed to contact the others, fairly certain they were already dead.   A slight opening in her bond with Darius jerked her out of her daze and she quickly sifted through his now open thoughts.

     A heart-stopping image suddenly came into focus and she halted her searching in terror.

     “He’s got Kendra!”  She exclaimed as she shot onto her feet and jumped off the ledge.

     “HEATHER, NO!!!”

     Alex’s shout was drowned out by the frantic pounding of her heart as she raced through the streets, her chunky-heeled combat boots never making a sound as she ran.  She vaguely heard her mate ordering her brothers and sister to catch up and stop her through her radio.

     Kendra’s face flashed behind her eyes as she darted in and out of alleys, trying to keep to the shadows.  The precious teenage vampire who looked up to and adored Heather was being held hostage by the worst person possible.

     ‘I’ll kill you for this, Darius,’ Heather mentally snarled.

     ‘Wait!  It’s a trap!’  Alex’s voice echoed through her mind as he used their bond to reach her, desperation and fear underlining his words.

     ‘I don’t care!  I have to save her!’  Heather snapped back.

     “Heather, just wait for us!”  Her sister Chrissy shouted across the radio.

     She skidded around a corner and quickly somersaulted to the side as a lycan rushed at her from the shadows.  A snarl burst from her throat, eyes turning cobalt blue and fangs elongating as she tackled the beast to the ground and viciously snapped its neck.

     A yell over her earpiece broke through the rage swirling in her veins and stopped her cold.  More yelling came across the radio before a squeal of feedback nearly deafened her.  She ripped the piece out of her ear and raced back towards the others, sifting through the still open bond to find Darius had moved near her mate.

     She collapsed into her knees as an enormous wave of pain blasted across the blood bond from Alex, her heart nearly bursting in agony.

     ‘Nononono, damn it, NO!’  Heather screamed in frustration and surged to her feet.

     The image Darius had held in his mind of a hostage Kendra had been a lie.  He tricked her away from her group to spring the true trap and now her mate and family were in danger.

     Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks as she flew through the streets but she pushed them back.

     ‘Not the time to cry.  I can do that later....if there is a later.’

     She quickly ran to the back of the building she had originally been perched on and stopped dead in her tracks at the sight before her.

     Her entire group which consisted of all three of her brothers, her sister, and her mate, were in chokeholds with guns held to their heads.  The lycans holding them smirked cruelly and tightened their holds when she stepped forward.

     “I knew you’d fall for that trick,” Darius’s voice was cold as he walked up behind the lycan holding Alex.  As her mind processed what was happening, Darius switched places with the lycan holding Alex and pressed his own pistol against her mate’s temple.

     She quickly pulled out her own pistols, tensing when the holds on her family tightened and the lycan’s pistols aimed her way.

     A growl rumbled in her chest as she aimed one pistol at Darius and the other at the lycan holding her brother Xeko.

     Darius’s cold green eyes swept up and down her body, his long and curly brown hair pulled back out of his face.  She searched his eyes and tried desperately to find a solution.

     “Go ahead.  Shoot me.  But if you do, I take Alex with me and my men have orders to finish them.  If you willingly come with me, they won’t be hurt,” he sneered.

     Heather struggled to keep her emotions in check, knowing the standoff wouldn’t end well.

     A soothing wave of love and calmness made its way across the blood bond and she relaxed slightly.  Her mate stared calmly at her and she swallowed a wail that threatened to break free.

     “Just shoot the bastard!  Heather, do it!”  Jason yelled before he was abruptly silenced with a hard yank on his throat.

     ‘Once again, Darius holds my entire world in his hands.’

     She bit her cheek hard enough to draw blood and studied the faces she loved more than anything.  Xeko, the irritable but amazing doctor, Jason, his loving boyfriend and co-doctor, Soren, the lovable prankster, and Chrissy, his sweet girlfriend and her closest friend.

     Heather then locked eyes with Alex, the man she loved more than life itself.  She saw confusion mingle with the fear in his eyes as he tried to find what she was thinking.

     Gently, she closed her end of their bond and dropped her arms to her sides.  She turned her eyes on Darius as she holstered one pistol and loosely held the other one against her thigh.

     “They go free, unharmed?”  She asked softly.

     “Yes,” Darius smirked.

     “NO!  Don’t do it!”  Chrissy shrieked before the grip on her throat tightened.

     Her brothers echoed Chrissy’s words before they too were silenced but Alex stayed quiet, staring intently at her with narrowed eyes.

     ‘Darius wants me alive.  I’m not worth anything to him dead….it should give them time to escape their captors,’ she finally made her decision and straightened her shoulders.

     Alex’s eyes widened and he clawed desperately at the hand holding his throat.

     “NO!  HEATHER DON’T, PLEASE DON’T!”  He screamed as he fought to free himself from Darius, completely ignoring the vicious attempts to silence him.

     Heather smiled bitterly as a tear slipped down her cheek, recalling a past conversation with a werewolf ally about her hybrid abilities.

     ‘Xan said my powers are limitless….let’s find out.’

     Alex kept screaming and pleading with her as she pressed the gun under her chin and quickly pulled the trigger, collapsing onto the pavement as the bullet blasted through her skull.

     Pain screamed through her body before a cocoon of soothing peace enveloped her.  She could feel the blood pooling under her head as she lay on the concrete, unable to hear the fight going on around her.

     Her sight was darkening just as a frantic face came into view.  She could just barely see the tears streaming down Alex’s face as he said something she couldn’t hear.  Trying to reopen the bond to tell him one last time how much she loved him, she lost the fight and slipped in darkness.