by Haley Weir
“I want to be like you,” I said after a moment of hesitation.
“What, bullheaded and belligerent?” he chuckled.
“No—strong.”
“You don’t need to be strong,” he said tenderly. “I will always protect you.”
“I want to be strong,” I insisted. “And if you don’t teach me, then I will find a way myself.”
I expected him to be annoyed or angry at my argumentative response, but instead he smiled.
“You know,” he said. “Addicus told me that I would be turned by a pretty face someday, and I told him that wouldn’t tempt me. It’s your strength that called to me, from the innermost parts of you, to the innermost part of me. I sensed it even before you knew you had it.”
“Does that mean that you’ll teach me?”
“Yes,” he said as he leaned forward to kiss me. “I’ll teach you Peyton. But the strength will come from inside of you.”
“I want to start now.”
After I said it, I realized that he was too battered and too weary to teach me anything right at this very moment.
“We’ll start with strengthening your mind,” he said as he carefully pulled his shirt back over his head. “You need to know about the shadow world.”
I sat and devoured every word that he spoke. Some of the words, I felt as if I wanted to spit out, but I listened to them all anyway. The shadow world was a place just like Earth—except not. It was a world that lived within the dark places and kept to the corners of intrepid thought. Inside of it, were shadow beings—creatures that crept in the night and despised humanity. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by anything now, but when Jasper told me that vampires, demons, and changelings were real things (among several other beings that I had never heard of before), it still took me a moment to wrap my head around the fact that these such things existed under my nose for my entire life without me ever knowing.
“I guess it makes sense,” I said as I contemplated all the weird things I’d ever seen in Rye. “But if they’ve been creeping around all this time, then why is it only now that they want to start a war?” I asked.
“The shadow world has always sought to usurp humanity and claim dominion over the mortal world. To be honest, I’m not sure why they’ve waited this long to act upon it. It’s a battle that has been long since coming. But—the one thing that resides in our favor, is that the shadow beings are at odds within themselves. Their various sects of people are all battling each other as well, to see who can claim the power to rule.”
“Is that what Addicus is doing? Trying to go against the other shadow beings and claim rule over humans for himself?”
“No. Shifters are not shadow beings. We align ourselves more with humanity than we do with the shadow world because we are half human. Addicus simply wants to fend off the attack from the shadow world when it came, and to have control over all the packs in the wide vicinity. He has no desire to meddle in the affairs of humans, unless the humans get in his way.”
“Like I did,” I murmured.
“Your father’s death was not your fault,” Jasper said as he gently pulled me over to sit in his lap. “Addicus would not have stopped until he killed your father. Ryland was a strong and good alpha. He will be missed by his pack I am sure.”
The sinking feeling returned to my chest as I felt myself falling into grief over my father’s death again. I hadn’t had time to mourn, and I wouldn’t. I was suddenly keenly aware that we were up against two enemies instead of one. Both Jasper’s pack which had laid siege to East Sussex, and the shadow beings that were getting ready to invade humanity, were coming for us.
“You have to teach me how to fight now,” I pleaded. “I need to be able to protect myself.”
“I agree,” he nodded. “You also need to be able to use your shifter abilities.”
“I don’t know how to do that,” I frowned. My father had died before he could show me how to tap into my own secret side of myself that had been so buried, it felt out of reach.
“I’ll try to show you,” he said. “I don’t really know if I’ll make a good teacher, in fact I probably won’t. But I’ll do my best to help you access your wolf side. It’s the best way for me to protect you.”
“I don’t know,” I said thoughtfully as I shifted on his lap and felt his body react to my small movement against him. “I think you might be the only one who can show me.”
“What do you mean?”
“When we made love, I felt something change. Something sparked within me, for lack of a better word. I think you might be exactly what I need in order to access that part of myself.”
“Then we should start working on it right away,” Jasper smiled as he stood up and lifted me with him.
He let out a little groan as I heard some of the flesh beneath his bandages seem to tear open again, but it didn’t slow him from carrying me over to the bed and laying me down. I was falling madly in love with this softer side of Jasper, and as I crawled over the top of him this time‚ he was about to see a bolder side of me.
Chapter Ten
Jasper
We spent a few days lying low and working on training. During the nighttime, we snuck out into the farmland which surrounded Rye, and trained under the cloak of darkness in order to fast-track the development of Peyton’s wolf skills and her fighting technique. Aside from the occasional glinting of reflective eyes in the moonlight, she still hadn’t been able to access her shifter abilities. But Peyton’s fighting was at least getting better. She may not have been able to take down a shifter on her own yet, but at least she would be able to defend herself more than before.
During the day, we stayed hidden in the space above the pub, talking about what we would do when this was all over, and falling more and more in love with each other. The days and nights seemed to blur into one long, continuous stretch of time.
“When are we going to leave here?” she asked as she laid against my chest while I sat in the bed and leaned my back onto the wall it was pushed up against.
“When you’re ready.”
“I’m ready now,” she said eagerly. “I want to go and find what remains of the pack that killed my father. I want to find Addicus.”
“You’re not ready yet,” I said as I shook my head and then kissed the side of her temple.
She felt so small and delicate within my arms. One of my forearms could have fit three of hers, perhaps more. She wasn’t ready to face anyone yet, especially not Addicus. But I knew that vengeance grew within her, and that alone made her fiercer than she had ever been before.
“I am ready,” she argued.
I couldn’t see her face since she was facing away from me, but I didn’t need to see it in order to know that she was frowning impatiently.
“No,” I repeated. “You’re not.”
“Fine,” she huffed indignantly. “Then when will I be ready?”
“When you can shift.”
I could tell that she was about to argue the point again and tell me how frustrated she was getting that shifting didn’t seem to be working for her yet. But she didn’t get the chance to say anything at all because just as she opened her mouth to speak, I put a finger to her lips.
“Shh,” I whispered. “Quiet.”
She turned her head around to look at me to see what the matter was.
There was noise coming from the bar below. There was always some noise coming from the pub beneath the apartment, but it was never this kind of noise. There was a shattering sound like that of glass breaking, and the sound of something large and heavy hitting up against the support beams of the building.
“We need to go see what it is,” she said quietly, and I agreed.
Even if there was something bad going on, sitting up here in the apartment with nowhere to run, wasn’t a good idea. We were trapped and if indeed there was a threat below us, the only way to get out was through it. I took her hand as we crept silently down the narrow staircase to see what was happening.
“Stay behind me,” I said to her in a hushed voice as I postured my body in front of hers before we reached the last step.
I was prepared to fight off my old pack, which I had assumed had found us here. But when we stepped out into the bar, I was shocked to see that it was not my pack that had attacked the pub and killed Brant, whose body laid slaughtered on the top of the polished, wooden bar counter. It was shadow beings. They had overtaken the place with ease.
It was only a small group of shadow beings—mostly demons, and a vampire or two from what I could see with a first, quick glance. They were making a move to sack Rye as well.
“Since when did this little hometown of yours become such a popular destination to host an overthrow?” I asked Peyton sarcastically as we stood unseen at the bottom of the stairs for a moment, watching the chaos that as ensuing before us.
“I don’t know,” she whispered in bewilderment. “I always thought it was bitterly boring here until now. I kind of wish that it would go back to being bitterly boring to be honest with you.”
For whatever reason, East Sussex was turning into ground zero for the battle between the packs and the shadow world. And Rye seemed to be unfortunately right at the heart of it. We didn’t have time to carry on with our musing though, because after another moment, a demon spotted us. Synchronously, as if they could somehow read each other’s minds, the rest of the shadow beings turned and spotted us too. They made a move to attack, and I readied myself to take them all on. But Peyton must have been a startlingly fast learner, because without any effort or forethought at all, she was able to shift right alongside of me. I couldn’t help but be dumbstruck for a moment as I looked at the beautiful, dark wolf beside me with the largest brown eyes I had ever seen. Until the sharp teeth of a demon sunk into the side of my neck and I howled and whipped my head around to crush it in my jaw. I stayed close to Peyton, knowing that this was her very first time in wolf form and that she would need my protection since she had no idea how to move and fight as a wolf. But she not only seemed able to fend off the shadow beings that were attacking her; she also managed to grab one of the smaller female vampires by the wrist and dig her teeth into the vampire’s veins to sink in her grip. I brushed against her side to show her that it was time to make a run for it, and Peyton followed me briskly out of the pub on four fast feet, dragging the vampire girl along with her.
For her very first time as a wolf—Peyton nailed it.
When we had gotten far enough away to know that we hadn’t been followed, I shifted back into human form and waited for Peyton to do the same. I had to admit that seeing her standing unclothed in front of me was pulling at every sensation that I had. I struggled to push the adrenalin of the fight at the pub down, as well as the enticing exhilaration that now coursed through my veins upon seeing Peyton, fresh from her shifted form.
She dropped the vampire girl as soon as she shifted, and the vamp lay quivering at her feet, cradling her bloodied and gnarled wrist to her chest. As much as I only wanted to stare at Peyton until I couldn’t stand it anymore; I needed to find out what the shadow beings were up to in Rye.
“Why were you and your friends at the pub?” I growled in a low voice at the vamp as I knelt down beside her.
For a moment, her eyes lingered on the massive cock that hung between my legs and touched the ground as I kneeled. I heard a muted snarling sound coming from Peyton and felt almost amused that she would be jealous of a vampire female. Apparently, Peyton didn’t fully grasp the concept of being claimed—it worked both ways.
“They weren’t my friends,” the vampire scowled as she clutched her wrist against her. “And even if they were, I wouldn’t tell you anything.”
“Great,” Peyton sighed. “What do we do with her now?”
“We bring her with us,” I said, pulling her up by her good wrist.
“Why?”
“Because at some point, she’ll talk.”
I could tell that Peyton wasn’t fond of the idea of having this woman along on our journey.
“I don’t see what good bringing a fragile, pouty vampire along with us is going to do,” she said.
“Hmph,” the woman snorted. “I have a name you know.”
“Well,” Peyton glared at her. “What is it then?”
“Cerine.”
Chapter Eleven
Peyton
At first, I wasn’t fond of the idea of bringing Cerine with us, but the more we walked, the more I started to feel bad for her. I had really given her quite a bite in the wrist. It was my first time as a wolf, and I had no idea what I was doing or how strong and sharp my teeth were. Granted, I would have done the same thing over again anyway. Bart was a friend, and I was exceedingly pissed-off that this woman and her band of shadow goons had killed him. But now that I saw her getting even more translucent than her pale vampire skin already was and noticed the sputtering blood which still tricked from the puncture wounds in her wrist which had definitely torn through the muscle; I was feeling kind of bad. I was also pretty damn impressed that she hadn’t made a single whine or whimper this entire time. That had to hurt something fierce.
“I see a barn up there,” Jasper said as he pointed to a structure up ahead. “Let’s go check it out and see if there’s anyone there. If not, it would make as good a place as any to stop and rest now.”
We were just on the outskirts of Rye, nestled within a valley and hidden in a thicket of trees. The barn was abandoned, and from the look of it, it had been empty for a long time. We walked inside and shut the door behind us. Not that Cerise could have escaped and gotten very far on foot even if she wanted to—she was starting to look as if she would pass out at any moment.
Once inside, Jasper grabbed Cerise and tied her up to one of the wooden beams with a long rope that was hanging on the outside of a stall. There were blankets, a lantern, and even an iron kettle; all of which would make it a suitable place to sleep and stay warm for the night while we tried to figure out what to do next.
“I think we should leave here and get as far away from East Sussex as we possibly can,” Jasper suggested. “We are in the middle of something coming that we don’t want to be caught up in.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” I said. “But we can’t just leave. This is my home. And the shifters here were part of my father’s pack. I can’t just abandon it all.”
“Peyton, although I admire your sense of purpose here, you didn’t even know that shifters existed a couple of days ago. It’s not your duty to save East Sussex.”
“Perhaps not, but it is my responsibility to make sure that my father didn’t die in vain,” I said resolutely. “Besides, you yourself said that if the shadow beings are successful in beating the packs, then they will continue to conquer the rest of the world so there won’t be a safe place anywhere for us to go if we don’t stop them here.”
“Ugh, please don’t use my own words against me,” he said as he rolled his eyes at me.
I was having trouble not looking at his bare chest and thinking about what it felt like when he made love to me. At least he had covered his lower half with a blanket as he sat now, because I already knew that I wouldn’t be able to concentrate if he hadn’t.
“I want to stay here in my hometown and do something to stop the shadow beings,” I insisted.
“Look, I understand that you want to avenge your father,” he said. “But we have no pack now. We wouldn’t stand a chance against either of the two groups that are trying to kill us. Addicus and his pack will slaughter us as soon as he replenishes his numbers. And the shadow beings will probably come for us even before that. We’re so dramatically outnumbered by either of those groups that we won’t last a second against them without a pack. It doesn’t matter how strong I am; it’s just too many adversaries for us to handle.”
I stopped to think about what he said, and after a few minutes, I came up with an idea—a ridiculous idea.
“Then let’s just make our own pack,” I said.
“What?” I asked.
“You can’t just make a pack,” he said, obviously flabbergasted that I would even suggest such a thing.
“Why not?”
“It’s just not how that works,” he said.
His answer was vague and completely unhelpful. I didn’t care if it wasn’t how things worked in the past; I didn’t see why they couldn’t work that way now.
“You’re certainly strong enough to be an alpha,” I said. “And you already have to pack members to start off with.”
“Two?”
“Yeah, me and Cerise.”
Jasper laughed in a genuine amusement.
“Peyton, a vampire can’t be a member of a wolf pack.”
“Why not?” I asked again.
“Does she always ask the same question repeatedly?” Cerise asked Jasper with a grin that gave away she was trying to start trouble.
“Because,” Jasper said as he finally answered a question directly. “Wolf packs are for shifters, not for shadow beings. Vampires don’t even belong to a pack.”
“Little do you know,” Cerise taunted. “But we belong to covens, which is a very similar thing.”
“What so you want to join my hand-me-down wolf pack now?” he asked her as he started to get annoyed.
“Maybe,” she smirked. “If it’ll piss you off, that might be fun.”
He threw his hands in the air and shook his head in frustration.
“Calm down there, you big dog,” Cerise teased. “I was just kidding. There’s no way I would want to be a member of your pack. Obviously, it’s unheard of.”
“I think you’re both being closed-minded,” I said gruffly. “It might be time for a new way of doing things.”
Chapter Twelve
Jasper
This vampire was really starting to get on my nerves. Cerise was extremely difficult and resistant. She used every chance that she got to spit on me when I came to bring her food and water, and purposefully yelled her words out instead of speaking them, as we were trying to stay hidden inside the abandoned barn. We were barely scrounging by (thanks for foraging skills that I had picked up during my time living in the wild), and Cerise was certainly not making it any easier.
