Cross My Heart

by Elizabeth Morgan

  “No, but Nathan found a folder that he brought with him. It mentions the Were-gene, which makes me wonder” I took a step forward. “Have any of your Pack gone missing in the last two months?”

  The Werewolf headbutted the man’s shoulder, and he sighed, suddenly looking defeated.

  “When was all this?”

  “He was held in a facility for six weeks.”

  “They were going to move me somewhere, but I managed to escape into the forest,” Nathan continued. “That was about ten days ago.”

  “That coincides with the fire.” An Irish lilt met my ears.

  I glanced over my left shoulder as a middle-aged male walked into the room, paying us no attention he walked straight past us, stopping when he stood in front of our interrogator. “Everything clear?”

  The blond lowered his eyes slightly. “No signs of any other Leeches.”

  “Good. The others have set off back t’Carter with the Colony Leader.”

  “You have Michael?”

  The older male ignored my question. “Would you go and help Al and Chris with maintenance?”

  “Sure.” The blond’s focus moved to Nathan one last time. “Shout if you need any assistance.” He strolled out of the room, the Werewolf at his heels.

  “You’re Heather’s cousin?”

  The Irish man finally turned to us. He was broad-shouldered, dressed in a black T-shirt and jogging bottoms. Blood marked his skin, but I couldn’t see the wounds it had wept from.

  “Danielle, and this is my friend Nathan.”

  His gaze briefly flicked to Nathan before returning to me. “I’m Graham. Pack doctor.”

  I could see it. He had an empathetic face, but with an edge of ‘didn’t-take-no-shite’ mixed in. It had to be the warm brown eyes paired with such a serious brow and broad nose. Stubble coated his jaw, making his cheekbones sharper. His hair was a wave of dark brown that gave him a casual air, as did the fact he was currently bare-footed and clearly not bothered about the fact he had walked through charred Vampire remains. The black ash coated his tanned skin.

  I glanced around the room. “What are you all doing here? What’s going on?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and took a deep, thoughtful breath. It reminded me of the doctors you saw on TV when they were about to explain something to the patient’s family or give them bad news.

  “Your cousin and Brendan were kidnapped while they were out looking for a Vampire in London. They were taken to the same facility that your—” His jaw flexed as if he had a bitter taste in his mouth. “—friend here was held at.”

  “Heather was—?”

  He held his hand up. “They ran tests on her and on Brendan, who as you know, is a member of our Pack and as you stated earlier was asked t’help Heather by your relative. The Pack rescued them, but your cousin wanted t’go back as she had discovered a large room of … I’ve forgotten what you call them.” His brow furrowed. “Before a victim fully turns?”

  My eyes widened. “They had a room full of Infecteds?”

  “I believe that was the term. I think she wanted t’put them out of their misery.” He shrugged. “Anyway, it was a trap, and the Leeches set the facility on fire. They all managed to escape only t’come back and find that the Vampires had also set fire to the Pack keep and kidnapped three Pack members, one of which is our Alpha’s daughter. The other is my nephew.” His eyes darkened, shoulders tensing. “The Pack has been hunting for them since that night, and this Nest was the final place we needed to search.”

  Yeah, he was a doctor. Facts delivered calm and emotionless until he mentioned his only family member had been taken.

  “Shit,” Nathan exclaimed.

  Heather had been kidnapped and experimented on. The Vampires had a room full of Infecteds. The Vampires had set fire to the facility. A facility that both Heather and Nathan had been kept at. Werewolves had been taken. Werewolves had hunted down all the Vampires in the United Kingdom, which at least explains why we hadn’t run in to any in the last few hours.

  The world felt as though it had been tilted on its axis as I ran the details around and around in my head. My focus moved around the destroyed room we currently stood in for the fifth time, noting the piles of ash.

  “You’ve slaughtered them all?” The words were quiet as they left my lips in stunned belief, but the doctor seemed to hear me just fine.

  “Not all.” His dark focus moved to Nathan once more.

  “Nathan isn’t like them.”

  “He’s a Vampire.”

  “Yeah, but not by choice,” Nathan replied, a hint of frustration tainting his words.

  “He came t’me for help.” I scrubbed my hands across my face. “He wants t’find out what they did t’him.”

  “It’s one of the reasons we are looking for Heather,” Nathan continued. “She will have a better understand of why they were experimenting on me. What they were trying t’achieve.”

  “They’re trying t’recreate themselves,” he answered flatly. “Or rather, create more superior versions.”

  Some will want to use you. Sofia’s voice flittered through my mind.

  “That’s why they took Heather.” I turned to Nathan, my fingers pressed against my throbbing temples. “They want t’figure out how she’s survived so long as an Infected.”

  He turned toward me and lowered his voice. “They’re the crazy ones, right?”

  “Aye.” Dropping my arms to my side, I stepped closer to Graham. “Can you take me t’her?”

  The warmth had filtered back into his eyes, which evaluated me. Finally, he replied. “I can take you.”

  “Nathan comes with me.”

  A dry laugh left him. “Not possible. If my Alpha sees him, he will kill him.”

  “He had nothing t’do with any of this. He didn’t ask for this. He and his friend were taken and turned against their will.”

  “Isn’t that what Vampires do?”

  “No. They feed or kill. If they create an Infected, they give them the option. Nathan wasn’t given that option.”

  “I wouldn’t have chosen this.”

  Nathan’s voice cracked with unshed tears, and I felt a piece of my heart breaking.

  “Maybe he can help Heather and you all figure out what the Vampires are up to. You said they experimented on Brendan, and Nathan’s file says Were-gene, and you just admitted that three of your Pack have been taken, which means they have already been targeting Werewolves.”

  No such thing as coincidences. Sofia always said that.

  This all couldn’t be a coincidence. It just couldn’t.

  A muscle ticked in the side of Graham’s neck.

  “Look, Than is just as mixed up in all of this as you and I are. He means no harm t’you or your Pack. If he tries anything, I will kill him myself.” I held my hand out. “I promise.”

  “She will. Trust me.” Nathan sighed. “She’s nearly done so twice already.”

  “You’re not helping,” I mumbled under my breath as I glanced over my right shoulder.

  Graham’s large hand wrapped around mine. His skin was boiling, his grip bone crushing. “I will hold you t’that.”

  I gave him a curt nod. With one swift shake, he freed my hand from his grasp.

  “We have things t’do here. If you stay and help us get it done, then I will take you both t’Carter, but I warn you he won’t be welcoming to a Vampire regardless of how he came t’be or how long you have been friends for. His truce with them is over. All Leeches are fair game.”

  I glanced at Nathan and then back at Graham. “We understand.”

  ***

  So, when Graham said that they had things to do, it was basically cleaning up all the Leeches’ charred remains and moving the broken furniture down to the basement. I found this strange and asked why they bothered if they hated the creatures so much. It earned me a laugh.

  “We’re only tidying up what we need to in order to hide the existence of their kind and therefore o
urs.”

  Okay, I suppose that made sense.

  He had said that all Vampires were fair game and that the ‘understanding’ that the Leeches and Werewolves had was over—that understanding being that they kept to their territories and out of each other’s way as best as possible.

  Did that mean they had killed every Vampire in the UK? He said they had been hunting for a week straight and any Vampire that stood in their path would have met their end. It was justice for what had been done to their Keep and for who they had taken.

  I could understand their reasoning, but surely, that was going to cause a shitload of trouble in the long run. Had they even considered what would happen if there were no more Leeches in the UK?

  It was the early hours of the morning by the time we had all finished the ‘maintenance.’ The four other Werewolves who had been present left in pairs, taking different exits out of one of the three houses.

  Graham agreed to meet us at Heather’s house in a couple of hours so we could set off to meet the Alpha who lived in Scotland. Should we have been surprised by the location? No. Nothing was ever a coincidence, especially if it needed to be convenient. After a short explanation from Graham about trouble that they had had with the Vampires themselves back in the summer, it now made sense why the Leeches had a facility in Scotland—it was Werewolf territory. Easier access to the Were-gene? Easier to stay under the radar and away from Sofia and Heather’s attention? Also, another reason why the Pack would be so pissed at the Vampires, they had breached the heart of Werewolf territory.

  He confirmed that everything Nathan and I had been wondering matched up with the conclusions that both he and his Pack had come to after hearing what Heather and Brendan had been put through.

  The blood suckers were hoping to recreate the fluke luck that had made Heather the only born Infected. And somehow, they thought they could achieve something by adding the Were-gene to the cocktail.

  If I was honest, my head was pounding as Nathan and I made our way back to Heather’s. I was relieved my cousin was alive and safe, relieved I now knew where The Pack were located, but in my three weeks of wondering where she was and the forty-eight hours of scouring through everything to find a lead on where she could be … well, I never would have guessed any of this. It was crazy, and considering my family and our lives, that was saying an awful lot.

  The only thing I was still confused about was the question of whether Sofia had seen all of this? And if she had, how could she put her own granddaughter through it all?

  God, my parents were going to freak when I updated them.

  Chapter Ten

  Sunday 18th October, 2015

  With Nathan tucked away and settled in the backseat under storage and set with a couple of bottles of mixture, we left London around eleven. I had the feeling that Graham had wanted to leave earlier, but my understanding was that it had been a long week, and the rest he had managed to catch up on was much needed.

  He had chosen to sit in the back. I never liked feeling like a taxi driver, but something told me it was more to do with the resting Vampire travelling with us. By sitting in the back, his weight kept the lid to Nathan’s makeshift coffin shut, so he couldn’t get out even if he asked politely.

  Or maybe it was because I had a dagger? Maybe it was because we were strangers and he could keep an eye on me from his position? Whatever the reason, I didn’t care. I was in my car, and we were on our way to Heather. That was all that mattered right now.

  I was just pleased that there was no traffic. The drive was long enough without some idiot doing something stupid and causing a pile-up on the M6. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck on the motorway with a strange Werewolf who had hardly said a word since we’d set off. Usually, silence didn’t bother me, but my travel buddy sure knew how to make a quiet drive feel super awkward.

  After a couple of hours, I finally decided to break the ice. “So, you’re a doctor?”

  “I am.”

  A glance through my overhead mirror confirmed he hadn’t moved a muscle since we had set off. He sat slap bang in the middle of the back seat, his head leaning on the headrest, eyes closed, arms folded over his navy sweater-covered chest.

  “That must be pretty helpful, but I thought you guys heal quickly?”

  “It depends on the wound and what was used to inflict it.”

  That made sense. “You seemed t’be unscathed from yesterday’s slaughter.”

  “You seem very unsettled by all of it considering you slaughter Vampires on a daily basis?”

  Was I unsettled? Shocked, perhaps. I certainly didn’t expect to walk into the UK Colony Nest and find no Vampires but stumble upon a handful of Werewolves instead. And I admit I was a little unsettled at being told that the Werewolves had been on a week-long rampage, hunting down Vampires and killing them. The fact that they’d hit the Nest ... Jesus, they were a new level of pissed off and had clearly been out for blood.

  I guess what unsettled me the most was the realization of what it meant if there were no Vampires left in the UK. Home had been different. Ireland had never had a high level of activity except for the years that Alexis, Sofia, and Heather had lived there. When they’d left, so had the bulk of the Vampires, and yet, that had never seemed worrying. Perhaps it was because I knew that the Colony was situated in London, that Leech activity would naturally be higher in England.

  No Vampires in Ireland didn’t mean much, but none in the UK, that was a completely different matter.

  “I guess I’m just intrigued at your lack of concern of the consequences.”

  “What consequences?”

  It had been the question that had kept me awake for a few hours. What would the consequences be now there were no Vampires in the United Kingdom?

  “Well, you’re almost certain that you have rid the UK of Vampires.”

  “I’m sure there are a few strays.”

  “Maybe, but you do know that if you kill a Vampire who has Bloodlings, their Bloodlings die, too?”

  “Cure an infection, and it will wipe everything clean.”

  But how long would it stay clean before a new infection appeared? There were more Vampires in this world than anyone would like to imagine.

  “If you have wiped out a Colony, there will be retaliation.”

  “Do y’think we care?”

  Well, it definitely doesn’t seem like they do. “You should. Any remaining Vampires will be pissed. You have basically done what they have done t’your Pack.”

  “Nothing can compare to what they have done.” His voice dropped to a rich timbre, a growl vibrating in his chest. “Let them retaliate.”

  “What I mean is they came on t’your Alpha’s land, they kidnapped three of your Pack, and they burnt down the Keep. So you slaughter them all as payback.” I risked a glance in the mirror. “They will want payback for the slaughter of a ton of their kind. And if there is anyone left, and they call for help from other Colonies across the world?”

  Eyes open, his attention was fixed on the right window, though I doubted he was paying attention to the scenery. Or the light rain that had started to fall. His jaw had tensed, and uncertainty had claimed his features.

  “Acting on the spot isn’t always the sensible thing t’do, even though your reasons were understandable.”

  He remained quiet. Perhaps it wasn’t sensible of me to prod the sleeping bear, or wolf, rather.

  “You said Michael had been taken?” But then, being sensible wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

  “T’Carter. Aye.”

  “He will kill him?”

  “Is that a serious question?”

  Yes. Just possibly a very stupid one. “Which will also mean there is no Leader.”

  “There are no Vampires left t’lead.” A hint of uncertainty rang in his tone.

  He wasn’t a hundred percent sure if they had gotten them all, and how could he be?

  I met his gaze in the mirror. “But there is now a defenceless territo
ry for others t’claim.”

  “This territory is not defenceless.”

  At the flash in his eyes and the growl that edged his voice, I decided it was time to stop pointing out how unbelievably stupid it had been for his Pack to wipe out the Colony. Realistically, I should be happy. He was right—this is what I was trained to do, slay Vampires. The Pack had possibly done me and my family a favour. I mean, all we did was kill the odd one when needed, but that was because we knew that the only safe way to wipe out a species was to kill the source. And that was Marko. Were there other ancients out in the world? Maybe, but Marko was the only one we knew of for sure, and naturally, the only one my family had an issue with.

  Destroying Marko Pavel was how we planned to rid the world of Leeches, and if there were stragglers, it would be easy to discard of them. What the Pack had done was just create an opening for trouble, and although I wasn’t sure what form it would come in, I knew deep in my gut that destroying the UK Colony had been the mother of all bad moves.

  ***

  Being autumn, the sun had set shortly after six, which was around the time we had finally decided to stop at a junction and stretch our legs. We still had a couple hours to go, and at the sound of the doc’s rumbling stomach, it was clear he wouldn’t make it without some food, plus, I had to use the little girl’s room.

  Leaving the car unlocked, I told Nathan that we would be back shortly and that the sun had set if he wished to sit shotgun. Something Graham hadn’t been too pleased about, but seven hours was far too long to be cooped up in such a small space.

  Half an hour later, we were back in the car. The doc remained in the centre of the back seat, McDonalds bags piled up on his left.

  At the scent of cheeseburgers and fries, my stomach rumbled, and the ham salad baguette I had purchased no longer seemed appealing. To my surprise, a brown bag appeared at the side of my face as Graham offered it me.

  “You sure?”

  “Aye.”