by Heather Karn
“Yeah, that’s fine. Hey, it’s time for dinner so I need to go. I’ll call you again soon. I promise.”
“We love you, sweetheart,” Mom cooed.
“I love you too.”
After we hung up, I sent a quick text to Lee. I talked to our parents. They’re fine. Don’t tell them what I am. I want to tell them in person.
His response came back a few minutes later. It’s your news, so I won’t say a word, but if you don’t get up here, I promise you there won’t be any slices of Shannon’s pecan pie left for dinner. It’s now or never.
Without a second thought, I raced through the basement to the stairs.
“Where’s the fire?” Raven yelled through his open office doorway.
“Shannon has pecan pie and it’s almost gone,” I cried back.
“I’m right behind you. Save me a slice or you run ten miles before breakfast tomorrow.”
That settled that. If there wasn’t a slice of pie left for Raven, I’d kill whoever took the last piece. Then I’d run ten miles.
Chapter 17
“You know what tonight is, don’t you?” Jackson laughed, his air of excitement contagious. “It’s werewolf night.”
The day had been spent sparring with Raven as I tried not to choke on my sore throat. My eyes had taken to watering from the searing pain. The mention of werewolves and possible action to take my mind from the agony perked my attention. I set down my fork as everyone else dug into their meals. “It’s the full moon?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jackson crowed before sticking a large chunk of steak in his mouth.
Shannon wiped her lips with a napkin before shaking her head at her familiar. “Cool it, boy,” she teased, earning a playful growl from the man. “It’s Jonas’s team’s turn for werewolf duty this month. We’re just the backup.”
“Even still, we should be prepared,” Raven warned. He cast a glance up at Luella, who’d been gone with her bear shifter boyfriend last night without even letting him know. “You’ll need to stick close tonight.”
She pouted her lips in faux disappointment. “You’re telling me I’m grounded for the evening?”
“I’m telling you you’ll be grounded for a month if you leave the house tonight.” Raven wasn’t playing. The clipped tone of his words ended Luella’s teasing. He’d been in a particularly bad mood today, and I was still no closer to figuring him out. Well, it likely had something to do with the fact that I still wouldn’t drink blood and my throat was almost raw. He’d called an end to this afternoon’s training after thirty minutes when I was wheezing and nearly in tears from the pain.
“Okay, let’s all calm down,” Shannon urged, eyeing Raven with a pointed stare. “Take your frustrations out another way, Raven.”
“I’m not frustrated,” Raven growled back, but even I felt the tension oozing from him.
“Yes, you are. Now, the sun is still up. Why don’t you be the one to get out of here for a few hours to relax before it sets and we wait for a call from Jonas? You haven’t left the house all day, and every time you’ve gone anywhere this week it’s been work related. Even you can’t stay cooped up forever in your black hole down there.”
Growling between clenched teeth, Raven stood so suddenly I jumped. When he tapped me hard on the shoulder, I winced. Looking up at him, I found his magenta eyes burning. They’d faded in their vibrancy, but not their intensity.
“Let’s go. You need to get out too.”
I wanted to argue that I was fine, but the way he glared told me I didn’t have a choice. In other words, he wanted to talk, and I knew about what. It was the elephant in the room between us.
“I’ll be right back.”
Running downstairs, I used the bathroom just in case we were called away unexpectedly since I’d learned from that first time, and I grabbed my purse and cell phone. I was almost to the apartment exit when a niggling at the back of my mind stopped me. Turning around, I faced the mini fridge, a feeling of foreboding weighing down on me. It wasn’t that we’d receive a call and I’d need the strength, or that we’d receive a call and I’d be stuck in the truck. No, it was that we would most likely be around people. It didn’t matter what race or species. If they had blood, they tempted me. Even sitting at the dinner table, it had been difficult to keep my teeth to myself.
It didn’t take but another second of thought for reason to kick in. I crossed the room and took out Raven’s two vials. At this point, I’d probably need to suck down both for my first blood. After sticking them in my purse as a last resort before I chomped on some unsuspecting victim, I went in search of Raven.
He waited in the main foyer, a leather jacket covering his uniform and bare arms. Since receiving my uniform, I’d worn it every second like the others. Who knew when we’d be called out, and we needed to be ready. It had amazed me how many pairs had fit into the suctioned bags.
When I joined him, Raven held out a leather jacket that was my size. I gave him a questioning stare, but his answer was a shrug. Yeah, that didn’t tell me anything. When the jacket was in place, we walked outside and headed for the waiting truck.
“Do you like ice cream?” Raven asked, starting the truck.
I jerked at the unexpected question. “Um, yes?”
He turned to me, an eyebrow raised with an “are you kidding” expression.
“Yes, I like ice cream,” I answered, a bit frustrated with him. My hoarse voice didn’t quite have the effect I wanted. Instead of frustration, I sounded weak and whiny.
“Good because I want some. And it’ll likely help ease your sore throat while you eat it. I won’t even guess at how long that might last.” His condescending tone made me want to slap him, and I was miserable enough to do it. The only thing staying my hand was knowing he’d set a pretty high workout punishment for me if I did it.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Raven.”
“I know, which is why we aren’t going to talk about it.” His words shocked me, and I stared until he noticed and a hint of his annoyance gave way to humor as one corner of his mouth tipped up. “When you’re ready to stop suffering, you’ll drink your first blood. Until then, I’ll try to accept that it’s not me, but you that’s holding you up.”
Wait, what?
“You think I don’t want to drink blood because of you?”
He shook his head, turning us down an expressway on-ramp. “No, not me personally, but my kind. I’d thought after a day or two you’d accept that you’re a blood drinker, but I guess your human raising that all blood drinkers are monsters must be what’s holding you up. If you drink blood, you’re the person that’s wrong with the world, the danger?” Raven arched an eyebrow at me, but I turned away. “That’s what I thought.”
There was silence between us for several minutes as Raven drove and I thought of the best way to explain to him what I was thinking. Since there really wasn’t a good way to say any of it, I started blabbing, hoping it would make sense to him.
“It’s not you or our kind exactly. Yes, it has to do with me being a blood drinker. I was raised with the old human way of thinking that all blood drinkers are monsters, but I learned in school that they aren’t. Most are, but not all. And after meeting you, I know that vamlures aren’t monsters, no matter if we drink blood. It’s just the thought of drinking it that disgusts me. I’ve always hated the sight of blood, let alone the thought of drinking it. Raven, I’m a blood drinker who hates blood. I need some time to work up to this. I’m sorry if I made you feel like it was you that was my problem.”
He didn’t relax like I’d expected, and I went back to watching outside, waiting for him to work out his own conclusions from my words.
“Raven, I don’t get it,” I groaned past my sore throat, setting my head against the window, but keenly aware of him beside me. “Why do you care so much about this? Because I’m your trainee and you don’t want to mess up your first time? Because I can’t fight and defend myself? Or is it because I’m a vamlure? You need to
be straight with me.”
“All of the above, but mostly, like I’ve told you, because you’re a female-.”
“And you want me to be an example to the female vamlure. I got it. What if I don’t want to be an example? What if I just want to be me?”
Raven groaned, taking an exit. “You don’t understand, Koda.”
“Then please explain it to me,” I all but yelled at him in the loudest voice I could muster. “How can I understand if you don’t explain it to me in a way I can understand?”
He was silent for the next mile until he pulled into the parking lot of a small mom and pop ice cream shop. However, the cones and sundaes that a group of teenagers nearby sported didn’t even appetize me. I was too focused on the male in the seat beside me as he turned off the car.
“I don’t move out of this seat until we’re done,” I snarled between clenched teeth.
“I told you a little about the Blood War, but not all of it. It was a dark time, and most would prefer to never speak of it.”
“Keep going.”
“The witches were the ones who started the war, and they were backed up by the shifters and the rest of the true magic users. They didn’t care what they killed except that it was a blood drinker. Our kind didn’t see it coming until it was too late. They took out the children first because they were weakest, so the females fled with the remaining children into hiding, but not before an attack was made on the females.
“Vampires have to be made to produce another vampire, whereas with us, we produce a vamlure with a vampire or human. We actually give birth to vamlure young. The witches noticed and went after our women, cutting down any that they saw. They were weak, having been driven away from their blood sources and were forced to rely on the blood from one another. In times of peace, that is acceptable, but in times of war, taking blood from one another without a way to replenish your own is suicide. Over half of the females were killed.
“So, you see, the females have reason to fear, and I have a reason to protect you. Our kind, even all these years later, still faces extinction. Most never leave hiding, too afraid that another war will start with us as the targets, and we are too few to survive another war of that scale, but, if we can show the world that we aren’t the monsters they see when they look at us, then we have a chance of flourishing like we did before the War. And we need every female that we have. We can’t afford to lose any, no matter the reason.”
I was quiet, taking in everything that he said and trying to fit it together as to how it applied to me. With several theories in mind, and not liking most of them, I began my interrogation once again.
“Are you saying you want me as a breeder?”
“No, that’s not what I meant.”
“But you do want me to find a male. Did you choose me so we could become a pair?”
He stiffened, affirming my suspicion. “No, Koda, I didn’t.” His voice quivered, but he continued before I could call him out on it, my physical misery making me more outspoken by the second. “To be honest, I’ve never hoped for a mate, or a wife. I’ve all but convinced myself it will never happen. There are too few single females of our kind, and no human female would ever take me. I chose you as my trainee to train you both to survive and about our kind so that one day when you’re ready and willing, if you meet a male that suites you and you fall in love, you’ll be alive and educated in our ways to marry him. I have never once since meeting you believed that male to be myself.”
“But you hope it will,” I spoke before I could sensor my mouth.
He turned away from me. “I never dream to hope for something like that. Hoping for such a thing is useless and a waste of time. There’s nothing to be gained by it.”
Well no wonder Raven was always grumpy with that outlook on life. With those few statements my temper extinguished and my heart ached for him. I hadn’t realized the extent of the loss my kind had suffered, but in his eyes as he stared out the windshield, I could see it. I’d been raised human, where all was fine and dandy until the big reveal ten years ago. I knew history the way humans did, and the supernatural world was still sorting through theirs and releasing it to the public. When Raven had mentioned the Blood War I’d figured it was just like every other war. It happened, people were devastated, but in a matter of years they picked up the pieces and moved on. From what Raven was saying, our kind had never moved on. And why should they? Vampires were still hunted for being blood drinkers.
“There’s more to this story if you’re willing to hear it,” Raven murmured, and I nodded.
“I want to know it all.”
“You’ve heard of the Salem Witch Trials?”
Having learned US history, the human version at least, I knew of it. “Yup.”
“The truth of how that started is a bit different than the textbooks say. Some of us are working to correct this, but it’s slow going. It was at the end of the Blood War, and we were desperate. A group of our kind posing as humans started the witch hunt. Many witches and other magic users were killed because of this. The fear of the hunt on witches forced them into hiding, but not as much as it did us. For retribution for what had happened, a group of magic users, which included witches, warlocks, shifters, and others attacked the group who had started the witch hunt and all but destroyed them. If the Blood War hadn’t been enough to cause fear for our kind, that was.
“You don’t realize it, but you can bring hope to our people. Hope that someday our people can be free of that fear and live in harmony with the rest of supernatural kind. But if you don’t accept who you are, and accept that one day you will marry one of our kind, what little hope the rest of our kind holds will be gone. It’s a lot to ask of you, but I’m asking it. We deserve a chance at happiness and survival, just like every other peaceful race, but in order for that to happen, we must emerge out of the shadows. I do what I can to prove we’re worthy of living among the world, but I’m only one person, and few of us live like this. And we’re all male.”
“I get it,” I interrupted, holding up a hand. “You can stop now. I understand.”
“But you still want nothing to do with it.”
“I want an ice cream cone to cool my throat. And I want time, Raven. It hasn’t even been a week. Can’t you give me that? Especially when you start throwing the word ‘marriage’ around like it’s something that I want.”
“You don’t?” he asked, eyebrows pinching together.
“Not yet. Right now I want to focus on not dying. When I can do that successfully, then I’ll consider marriage.”
Raven chuckled, reaching for his door handle. “Well then, I guess I need to keep training you not to die so we can change your focus. Until then, let’s eat some ice cream.”
Chapter 18
The ice cream didn’t help my throat one bit. By the time I finished, my throat was as raw as ever and Raven was back in his grumpy mood. Heck, so was I, and I was likely the one who put him back there. We stayed seated on our bench longer than I expected since Raven began quizzing me on the shop’s patrons. What species they were, the best way to kill them, their strengths and weaknesses, species social structure. By the end, he was impressed with my level of knowledge, grumpy or not, but he wouldn’t say it.
We were just throwing away our trash when Raven’s phone rang. My first thought was to look at the moon, which was rising in the sky, and I prayed it wasn’t a call about a werewolf. It would be my luck.
Raven pointed toward the truck as he spoke, giving nothing away as we climbed inside, but when he told Jonas we’d be right there, my stomach sunk. When he hung up, Raven wasted no time in calling Avery using the truck’s Bluetooth so that I could hear.
“Yes, boss?” Avery asked, his tone too happy and amused for the hard expression on Raven’s face.
“Gather the team and meet us on campus at the event center. Apparently a werewolf broke out of the restricted compound and is terrorizing the campus. There’s a banquet happening as we speak and Jonas’s
team is requesting backup to help them protect the partygoers. So far, they’re keeping the werewolf away from the event center, but they’re having a difficult time killing the beast.”
“Got it. We’re saddling up now. I’ll grab your gear.”
Raven darted a glance at me. “I’ve got a sword in the truck and Koda won’t be fighting this one. She and I had a deal and she’s not keeping up her end of the bargain.” I didn’t like the way he worded that statement, but it was effectively true.
Avery’s chuckle made me clench my fists. “Well, I’ll grab some knives for her in case she changes her mind. I’m having Luella drive. We’ll be there in ten.”
Ending the call without so much as a goodbye, Raven backed out of the parking space and sent us, tires squealing, down the road. I stayed quiet, feeling the rage pent up inside my trainer spilling out of him. Something about his reaction now, and his reaction at dinner when werewolves were brought up made me think his earlier responses and grumpiness had little or nothing to do with me at all. It was werewolves. This time my misery kept my mouth shut, which I was more than thankful for. In Raven’s mood, he’d be having me do two hundred sit ups before breakfast and after dinner for a full week.
“You stay here,” Raven ordered, pulling into the event center’s driveway right behind the team’s Suburban. Luella had waved hello enthusiastically until Raven snarled at her.
“Fine.”
That attitude lasted for as long as it took for Lee to climb from the back seat of the SUV, a sword strapped on his back. My brother was going in there after a werewolf without me? And here I would be, sitting useless, waiting for my team to come back. All I had to do was drink the blood. That was it. If I did, Raven would let me go.
Reaching for the zipper of my purse, my hand stilled. I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t just about the blood. This process would change so much of who I was inside and outside. So much had already changed over the last week, and I was reluctant to give any more.
