“You said you’d lead us somewhere safe,” Lyssa growled. “Somewhere away from the packs and Skinners.”
“I don’t see neither of them around here, luv.”
“You changed us. Made us better. There’s no reason for this.”
Leaning in so he could be heard over the commotion of the other Full Blood’s struggle with Max and the hybrid, Liam said, “Randolph ain’t the sort who plays well with others. Never was.”
Since she was no match for the werewolf in a one-on-one fight, and her pleading was falling upon deaf ears, Lyssa only had one remaining option. She clenched her eyes shut, relaxed in Liam’s grip, and bared her neck to him.
Recognizing the gesture that would bring an end to a great number of disputes between wolves, Liam seethed with an anger that showed even within the ravaged pit of his right eye socket. “What are you doing?” he snarled as he tightened his grip on her. “You wanted to be one of us? A Full Blood defers to no one. Not ever! You make me sick, you pathetic little bitch. Killing you is too damn easy.”
“Liam.”
If the ebon werewolf heard his name, he didn’t acknowledge it. He was taking too much pleasure in slowly grinding his claws within Lyssa’s flesh. “You know how long I made humans suffer when I led the charge against their city? I had to keep them alive so they’d survive long enough to turn into a Half Breed. But you, luv,” he said in a voice that was less intense but twice as chilling. “You can take so much more punishment than one of them.”
“You’ll be taking some punishment yourself if you don’t back up.”
Blinking as if he’d been awoken from a dream, Liam turned toward the source of the voice. Randolph stood behind him in his human form. His fur had receded all the way under his skin, leaving him naked but still less vulnerable than any of the other Mongrels in the vicinity. Liam sought them out next. He spotted the hybrid curled against the far side of the basin licking one of several wounds. Max emerged from another hole and stretched his neck out toward Liam’s belly. All of the Mongrel’s teeth were bared and poised to eviscerate the Full Blood. Even if Max couldn’t get the job done, he was bound to make a hell of a mess.
“You really think you can put me down before I get to you?” Liam growled.
“That doesn’t matter,” Randolph said. “I wanted to find out what these Mongrels were made of, and they’ve shown me plenty.”
“We’re not Mongrels anymore,” Lyssa said. “Kayla was very specific about that.”
“Well you’re sure as hell not Full Bloods,” Liam pointed out. “And if this little bugger doesn’t crawl back into his hole pretty damn quickly, he won’t even be a resident of this plane of existence.”
Reluctantly, Max eased back into his tunnel. As he retraced the path he’d dug beneath the surface, dislodged earthen plates rattled over his squirming back. The motion stopped and one of the plates was shoved aside so he could poke his head up several paces away from either of the werewolves. “He’s right,” Max said to the other Mongrels. “We shouldn’t follow someone like Kayla if she’s not willing to accept us. But we won’t follow the likes of you, Liam. Not anymore.”
“I’ve never seen anything like you,” Randolph admitted. “Our two kinds have fought many times, but there have never been survivors to go through this sort of change.”
“That’s not true,” Max said. “The survivors of those battles were always killed after the fight was over. Put down for their own good, we were told.”
“It’s in our history,” Lyssa told him. “Most of it’s known only to the pack leaders, but it’s there. I saw it for myself in Kansas City. Some of the Mongrels that were wounded while fighting you were killed by Kayla herself. I was tending to my husband after he was wounded by Liam when she came and told me to rest. She thought I was gone, but I watched from a distance and saw her slash his throat. After it was done, she told me he’d died and that we should burn his body immediately.”
Randolph’s brow lifted slightly above his crystalline eyes. “So she knows about the change?”
“She knows the rumor,” Max said. “I spoke to her when the humans in KC were still cleaning up the mess Liam made. She knew something would happen, but not what. I think she was hoping to find some missing element that would make a difference between us changing into whatever she feared and changing into a Full Blood.” Looking to Randolph, he asked, “Is there?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. Most of the times I’ve encountered Mongrels, I’ve been forced to fight back a swarm of them intent on killing me.” Holding up a thick hand before the inevitable argument came, he added, “Whatever the reason for our past conflict, it’s behind us for now.” The wounds on that hand were closing like clay being reshaped by an unseen sculptor. His leg was in much worse condition, but not as bad as it had been a short while ago. “Things are different. Do you know of a Skinner named Jonah Lancroft?”
“The Mind Singer spoke of him,” Lyssa said. “For a while I thought I’d only dreamt that name. Is he real?”
“He was, but I lost track of him over sixty years ago. Lancroft was a creator. He made things to help the Skinner cause, and it’s possible he came up with a way to hide his scent from us. There are groups of Skinners meeting in Philadelphia right now. Loose talk among them mentions Lancroft’s name and that he was the one behind the Mud Flu. It’s also said that he was killed by his own kind.”
“Does Lancroft have a way to complete our conversion into Full Bloods?” Lyssa asked.
Always quick to pounce on an opportunity, Liam jumped in with, “If anyone would have such a thing, it would have been him.”
“Their intent is to kill us, not help us become more powerful. The reason I asked about Lancroft is that he was rumored to have created a way to inhibit our ability to heal. The Skinners must rely on antiquated methods of harming us, but we’ve still been able to heal after surviving a fight with them.”
“Well,” Liam said as he turned the right side of his face toward the others, “more or less.”
“Liam’s eye may well heal if given enough time,” Randolph said. “Anyone who has seen the Mind Singer knows that some of his wounds never did.”
“Got his neck snapped somewhere along the line,” Liam said. “Something like that should have either killed poor Henry before he became one of us or cleared up after his first change.”
“He was a Full Blood, wasn’t he?” Max asked. “Wasn’t that enough to sustain him?”
Randolph sighed and turned his back on the others as if he’d either become fascinated by the rugged landscape or bored with the company he was forced to keep. “I’ve had my neck broken a few times. It’s not pleasant but it’s also not fatal for us.”
“I been hung,” Liam said with the same tone he might use if comparing his story to the ones told by a bunch of drunken fishermen. “Rope burns are just as bad as the bone gettin’ snapped.”
Continuing as though Liam hadn’t opened his mouth, Randolph said, “Henry’s neck was broken while he was held in Lancroft Reformatory. I’ve been through the ruins of that place and found nothing but a single intriguing scent. Years later I’d assumed whatever advances Lancroft had made were either lost after the place became a Half Breed den or taken when it was cleaned out by the Skinners. This new discovery in Philadelphia has unearthed more than Lancroft’s research. Much more. The place is swarming with Skinners. They’re anxious and expecting to be attacked. Fortunately, all five of us have advantages that go beyond brute strength or speed.”
“Perhaps we could talk to them,” Max said. “Some of them are more open to reason than others. After working with them in KC, they may still trust us.”
“Talk will come later.” Shifting his eyes to the other Full Blood, Randolph said, “They think Liam’s dead. Or, they would have if he hadn’t been intent on sending childish taunts to them.”