He charged me with human speed, and I ducked again, following his weight with the flow of energy. He rolled off my back, landing unsteadily on his feet. I used his instability to sweep my leg trying to knock his out from under him. It worked, and he looked up at me with surprise with his nose already healing from the break.
"Took you long enough to find that instinct," Zane remarked.
"You pulled your attack," I tsked.
Still laying on his back, his lips quirked, showing me the tip of a fang. "Do you really think I would do anything to actually hurt you?"
“But by doing that, you underestimated me. And now you are on your back.” I bantered back playfully and grinned cockily.
His expression became cynical and his fangs propped open his mouth before he swept his leg behind mine, and I fell on my back, groaning. I wasn't groaning because of pain, but rather because he had just humbled me. I stayed there, regulating my breathing, looking up at the ceiling. He crawled on top of me with his fangs still exposed glaring at me but giving me access to my arms. His eyes settled to a warm storm before he spoke.
“You shouldn’t have gotten so cocky. You lost your advantage. And now here I am with the opportunity to finish you off.” He licked his lips as if trying to scare me, but I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. He wanted me to be, but I just couldn’t.
I put my fist gently against his chest. “And now you’re dead.”
His face a mask of confusion.
I sighed, exasperated. “If I had a stake in my hand right now, it wouldn’t take much to push it through.” I tapped his chest again, making him realize. “You have already given me the weight of your body as an external force.”
He smiled approvingly at me. I looked at his lips and noticed how close they were to mine. That was all that it took, and that drat lustful feeling warmed my body again, as he still lay on top of me. I smelled his anger, burnt rubber, before I saw it in his face and he quickly sprang to his feet.
“You have to stop that!” He shouted making a slashing sign with his hand.
I stood up slowly, stretching out the kinks. I was irritated beyond belief.
“Like I can help it!” I shouted back. “I’m sorry that I disgust you so.”
Some emotion briefly flew across his face, and before I could identify it, it was gone.
“Do you think that I like my body being attracted to you?” I glared at him. “I have no control. I don’t care anything about you up here. " I pointed to my head. "Trust me."
His rage slowly started to simmer down. I wanted to be angrier with him, but I couldn’t.
He smirked at me suddenly. “So you really have no interest in me?”
His question lit a fuse within me.
“OH MY GOD! Get it through your thick egotistical head! NO, I DON’T!” I shouted in anger. “I’m a hormonal teenager who has never had any physical contact with a male before. How do you think my body is going to react when I’m in very close proximity to the opposite sex?!”
His face was void of any emotion, and I couldn't even see signs of it from his body. I breathed in and out a couple of times, trying to regain my composure, refusing to look at him until I was sure I was calm.
“Besides, I’m in love with another,” I teased, flipping my hair indignantly.
He smiled and relaxed, which helped me relax. He turned his back to me, arranging articles of clothing and grabbing something from underneath the stack. He came back to me with a box of thin stakes that looked a little like camping stakes. They were about ten inches of silver in length and circularly thin. But the top was like a handle where I could place my hand, like on swords and knives. And the points were sharp like they had been sharpened.
“Stick these in your boots.”
He handed me the box, and I placed them in each of my boots. Magic surged off of them. Different from Fae magic, but still very powerful. Fae magic had become a natural feeling to me, like a steady constant stream from an open channel. The magic off the stakes was like a rush as if a dam broke. Looking at them, from the light glinting off the magically imbued blades, they were solid silver, but touching them, they were durable. Magic was holding them together, and I was able to feel it.
After, putting them in the boot-slots, I jumped up and down to make sure they wouldn't be loose or fall out when I ran or exerted myself. Zane raised an eyebrow at me as I shrugged, ignoring him. I then thought how awkward it would be to reach down to grab a stake at the moment. It could mean the moment between life and death.
If only I could attach a couple to my arms.
“Do you have a couple of ace bandages?”
He was concerned as he looked my way. “Are you hurt?”
I shook my head. "No, I want to attach these to my arms, so I have something to grab quickly in case I don't have time to reach for my boots."
He walked to a cabinet on the wall and came back with something strappy and black. He twirled his finger around like he wanted me to turn around. I followed his instruction as he ran the straps around my front and then tightened them in back with a clip and a pull. Two pockets ran along the sides in my front.
"This is a holster. It was made for the stakes. When we do weapon training, I'll have bigger ones for you and even some wrist holsters," Zane stated as he was still behind me. "This goes under your jacket. And make sure no one can see it. It needs to be concealed at all times."
I nodded and turned around, putting two more stakes in the holsters. He handed me my denim jacket. I glanced at my reflection in the mirror that ran the length of the ceiling to floor and sighed.
"I look ridiculous. These boots do not match my sweatpants, and you can definitely see the holster under my jacket."
Zane was still not looking at me, but I could see a sideways grin as he put on his own jacket. “This is a trial run. We’ll get you better prepared tomorrow night.”
I shrugged and turned to face him. He looked almost similar with his own shitkickers underneath his pair of black nylon workout pants. His own black muscle shirt matched mine, but his black leather jacket hid the holster quite well. It was not as long as the one he wore when I met him for the first time. It fell to the length of his hips. He was oddly matched as well, but at least he looked as dangerous as the pretense he gave off. He made it work. He motioned for me to come to him and I followed silently. He stood momentarily at a loss or awkward.
Then he sighed and rolled his eyes. "I'm going to have to grab you tightly. And you're going to hold onto me like glue, understand?"
“What for?” I squirmed in my own awkwardness.
“I find it faster to travel the way I do, but for you to follow me, you’re going to have to basically be a part of me.”
I paused a moment before approaching him. I placed my arms around his neck and clenched my body as close to his as I could.
“Closer,” he gulped hoarsely.
I wrapped my legs around his and squeezed with my arms.
He stood motionless, not even breathing in. "Don't move. And whatever you do, don't let go until I tell you to." His voice was raspy, and I thought perhaps nervous.
I nodded in agreement, feeling just as anxious, my head rubbing against the stubble on his chin.
He closed his eyes in concentration.
I became light-headed to the point that I thought I was going to pass out. My vision became grey and foggy like I was suddenly thrown into a mist. I didn't feel like I was holding onto Zane anymore, but I didn't move, remembering his warning. I was like air, and then suddenly I was hurled forward as if I was on a roller-coaster, moving fast and everything around me blurred more than the fog that I was in previously. It stopped like a dime, and I was once more gripped in Zane's embrace. Nausea bubbled in my stomach and threatened to spill out of my mouth.
“You can let go,” he barely whispered.
I released and turned to the side in time to vomit away from him. There went my lunch. I stumbled back some more, and my legs had not solidified, and I f
ell on my ass. He was still standing, seemingly unconcerned by my reaction. I felt for the ground and waited until I was steady to look up.
“What was that?” I asked in my own raspy voice.
He seemed calm, but his eyes gave away his emotions. They were a murky, glacial blue with flecks of that luminescence shining through. This light wasn't cold or exciting and wild, but rather warm and haunting. I could almost make out his fangs that were a little more elongated than usual.
"I can dematerialize. Like dissolve and reappear elsewhere." His voice was level but soft.
“All the time?” I was still breathless and on the ground.
He tilted his head to the side. “It takes all my focus and energy to bring someone with me. I have to be well...”
“Well?”
He took a minute before answering me. “When I have been sated.”
Ah, sated. In other words, when Zane was well fed.
He offered his hand, and I gladly took it. I brushed myself off, looking around at our location. We were in a cemetery. Not any that I had seen before, but nonetheless, it was still a cemetery. There was a small wooden fence that ran by a fresh grave as a boundary marker. We both leaned against it as we got our bearings.
“Are we still in Ohio?” I asked, not identifying the area.
He smirked. “Of course we are. We are just a little more rural.”
I looked again at the fresh grave. The tombstone read Robert Jackson and had a date that made him thirty-eight when he had just recently died.
“So, this Robert Jackson, he’s a vampire, huh?”
Zane pulled something out of his pocket that looked like a hand-rolled cigarette. He lit it and inhaled before he began speaking.
“Yep,” he exhaled clouds of smoke that smelled like clove. “A perfect candidate for the Scelesti.” He inhaled again.
“What did he do?”
“Rapist and murderer. He was killed and turned in jail. He is your trial run. It shouldn’t be too difficult.” He looked at the sky as the sun was still on the horizon. “We are a little early.” He took another hit off his cigarette.
“You know, you shouldn’t smoke.”
He grinned wryly and raised one of those dark brown eyebrows at me. “What? Like it’s going to kill me?”
I was dumbstruck for a moment. Zane wasn't exactly wrong.
“What about my health? I’m still human, remember?” I finally came up with a comeback.
He glanced at me without expression. “You’re kind of not," he mumbled but put out the cigarette anyway.
I rolled my eyes in response and paused long enough to feel the uncomfortable silence. “So . . . we have some time to kill, huh?”
He didn't acknowledge me but stared in the distance watching the sun set.
“Can all vampires smell emotions? Like empaths can? Or even me when they are strong enough?”
His eyes peered my way, but his face was still forward. “Most can. Usually, they are familiar with fear and lust,” he sighed, inclining his head, still not focusing on me.
“What is your special ability?”
He barked a laugh. “I’m not playing twenty questions with you.”
I looked annoyingly in his direction. “That was like two. Not twenty. I have eighteen more.”
He sighed again.
“How come you can be in the sunlight?”
“It’s one of the perks of being a Casti vampire.”
“But you are not Casti.”
“No.”
“And you are no longer Scelesti.”
“No.”
“So . . . how can you be in Sunlight?”
“The closer I become to Casti, the better the perks.”
“What are the other perks?”
Again, he paused before answering almost thinking about his answer. “Humanity in a sense.”
My face was a picture of puzzlement.
“Time is different for the creatures of the Mundus Noctis. It almost stands still. The ridiculous things that humans worry about have very little meaning. We find most of it petty; especially since your lives are so short. But there are some things that even we envy humans. Casti vampires can age and die . . . , but they age slowly. Very slowly. They have heartbeats. They can reproduce, creating vampires from their own bloodlines-”
“But only when mated, right?” I interrupted.
He looked at me in complete shocked. “You know very little about our world, but somehow know about mating?”
I shrugged, suddenly feeling shy. “I’m a fast learner.”
He gave me a sideways glance before he stared off toward the horizon again.
“So, is that something you are hoping for?” I prodded. “Humanity? A mate? Offspring?”
He shrugged. “I’ve done lifetimes of evil. It would take those same lifetimes of good for me to be like them.”
Uneasiness settled in my skin as I remembered Sera’s words. “Did you really massacre my ancestor's village?” My voice was barely a whisper.
This time he did look at me, but it was without any emotion, not even a change in his eyes, and a chill was sent down my spine.
“Yes.” His voice was stripped of emotion, and I saw the killer underneath.
“Why?” My heart felt heavy. I wanted it to be a misunderstanding. Or that he was forced. Or something that would take away the fact that at one time, he truly was evil.
“Does it matter?”
“It might to me,” I pleaded, but was denied an answer as he looked away from me, keeping his callousness front and center.
I watched the sun sink beneath the horizon, glowing orange across the sky. I allowed the vampire discussion to be put on hold for a moment. I wasn’t sure if he would answer any more of my questions, or maybe I wasn't sure I wanted the answers. But there was one that I was dying to know the answer to, and I thought it was harmless enough.
“So were you a werewolf first or vampire?”
Again, I was able to get his full attention, but instead of shocked, he glared angrily at me with his wolf eyes, which I officially now recognized.
“What?!” He face was twisted up in a sour expression. Like he had just sucked on a bunch of lemons.
“I can sense your wolf. His smell even . . . so were you a wolf first or vampire?”
He was shell-shocked, and his scent became stronger. I inhaled the evergreen wilderness through my nose and smiled like I was bathing in the sun basking in his scent which almost calmed me.
“I like the way you smell.”
“Unbelievable,” he whispered hoarsely. He cleared his throat. “Werewolf first.”
“How did it happen?”
“We should be concentrating on Mr. Jackson here.” He shifted uncomfortably and pointed to the plot of land.
“I think we still have time.”
Although the orange was fading fast.
“So, how did it happen?”
He shrugged again and sighed. "The quick version . . . I was attacked on my family's land at the age of eleven by a rogue wolf. Because no one was aware of werewolves, no one suspected anything until I was fifty." He snorted in disgust. "I was fifty and looked twenty-five. The wolf lets a person grow until they've reached physical maturity. I was chased out of my village for being different." He stopped his story even though I knew there was more.
Being chased out of a town that knew everything about you had to be difficult. No wonder why part of Zane was resentful.
“What about the vampire?”
He rolled his eyes. “Do you ever stop asking questions?”
“Nope.”
He groaned in agitation, but he continued. “Sometime passed and this demon found me. He thought I would be a neat toy. Especially since I was so close to becoming a feral wolf at the time. He wanted to see if he could save the man, but keep the savageness of the wolf. See, . . . vampires and werewolves cancel each other out. They can’t become one another. But he thought he would try. He was hoping to make me into so
me sort of super-soldier-hybrid.”
“Wouldn’t that be seen as an abomination?” I asked after recently learning what I had about the view of half-breeds.
“He’s a demon. He doesn’t exactly follow the rules. Scelesti creatures pick and choose which rules they follow. Most don’t follow any rules except the rules of Obscurus. Whatever makes you strong, makes you last. And he was higher on the power scale than most Scelesti.”
“How many half-breeds do the Scelesti half?” I was suddenly eager to know.
“None that I know of anymore. I am sure that Obscurus has some hidden in his world. He is a collector. But any known half-breeds . . . -” He eyed me, shaking his head. “Peacekeepers, beings descended from angels, were sent to destroy them all.”
My stomach took a nosedive. Not a promising sign for my existence. I cleared my suddenly clogged throat. “How come you are still around?”
“Because I am not a half-breed. What the demon did, didn’t work. The vampire trapped the wolf. And here I am.” He spread his arms out like he was the main attraction.
“So, you can’t change between them?”
He shook his head again but didn't answer. He refused to look at me, and I suddenly felt such compassion for him. Perhaps I understood him a little more and his reasons why he was what he was. He thought he was a freak. I put my hand on top of his, and he looked down at the contact.
I was about to open my mouth to tell him that I accepted him when I heard a crack. Then some more cracking followed by the sound of ground moving. Zane and I looked at each other spoiling whatever moment had been between us in anticipation of my first victim.
I stalked over the grave, facing the tombstone and pulling a stake out of my holster. I waited for Robert to rise. I saw his hands spurt forth from the earth and push forward until his arms were free. His square head sprang forth, and he shook his shaggy brown hair covered with dirt like a dog. His fangs were extremely elongated. They almost ran down the length of his chin. His eyes were blazing luminescent green, but flat lacking any emotion other than hunger. He struggled some more until he had pulled himself up out to the end of his rib cage. And then glared at me.
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