by Aila Cline
I nodded.
He nodded in return. “You seem to have such a knack for survival, my dear.”
“Cut the shit, Josh,” I said suddenly. “I hurt, I’m tired, and I want to know why I’m alive. You made it sound like I wouldn’t survive the experience.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
That left me silent long enough for him to fill the gap.
“Vampires feed exclusively on those with the Lycanthrope gene,” he explained. “As you know, we let off a particular scent.”
At first, I couldn’t believe he was telling me this. I had been with his pack for half a year and he had never mentioned anything about the topic. Never would I have imagined that, to be cliché, the hunters become the hunted.
My thoughts tumbled over Will and Luka’s disdain for the Children of Dacre. “I don’t understand,” I said tentatively, hoping my sudden fragility would invite him to tell me more.
His earnest gaze caught me off guard. He really is a gorgeous specimen of a man, no matter how much I hate him now. “Do you know how they are created?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what you know.”
I struggled to pull up the fragments of what I had pieced together over my born-in-blood tutorial in the underworld of America. “Death. Or something like it. To make a Lycanti, you have to exchange the blood before the heart stops beating. Vampires are made when the blood exchange comes too late. The person is dead.”
“Very good. But I understand you know this because your Change was uncontrolled. You almost died, correct?”
The memory of it still scalded me from time to time. “Yes.”
“No true Lycanthrope allows such things to be out of his control. No one should go through what you did. The Change should be joyous, the beautiful bond of loyalty between master and servant made surreal.” He paced. If I did not know him so intimately, I would have assumed he was nervous.
It was the most human I had ever seen him. I spoke to him quietly. “You can say that to me? Speak to me of beauty and surrealism after what you’ve put me through?”
He did not deign to look at me. “You now know the beauty of loyalty. I saw your eyes as the pack left instantly. You love my power over them, just as you fear my power over you.” He continued speaking to the flames. “I am the link between the savagery of man and the strength of a Lycanthrope. I am what Man should aspire to be.”
I grunted in disagreement. Not a ladylike sound at all, but it was the only sound I could fathom to his statement without sounding completely argumentative. I had to keep up the façade to stay alive.
His blue eyes finally turned to me, assessing me with his eyes not as prey, but as all the things I had been to him: lover, companion, pack mate. He had wanted my loyalty above all other things.
“You don’t agree? You don’t think all men should have access to this? Look at John. Do you think he represents the best of mankind?”
The shiver ran through me as I recalled the night in the feeding pen, John digging his human hands into my back, my neck, the corners of my mouth. I had taken particular pleasure in helping to hunt and devour the man called John. Apparently I had spat out some expletive about John without realizing it. My neck still burned from the rope, and my thighs still quivered with the remembrance of pain.
Josh’s eyebrows shot upward at my rude tone denying his opinion on one of the male humans in our fold.
“No? You don’t agree? You want to argue with me? You are always unusually submissive to men. How odd. Even when Layla reported your treatment among the cattle, she commented on how you accepted your fate and did what you were told. You didn’t even fight against those men who sought to hurt you even after you Changed.”
I pushed away those memories. Too much of them and I would have Changed, which he would have seen as an immediate challenge. Instead I let my words come out, laced with sarcasm. “You don’t qualify as a man, therefore I can argue with you.”
“Oh?” Josh leaned towards her as she fought revulsion from his closeness. “And tell me, my boarding school educated lovely, what is a man if not the very essence of domination and strength?”
I fought to keep my cool as he dismissed my education. “A man is someone who accepts his responsibilities. You don’t. You run from them.”
He smiled patiently, an overeducated father indulging his fledgeling high school daughter. “And what here in this godless country tells me when I become a man?”
I tried to gather my thoughts to answer, but he continued in that lazy, educated tone: “Even the barbarous Lycanthrope have a Ceremony when a child may take on a man’s responsibilities. He must Change fully at will at withhold the Change during the full moon. Until he learns self-control, he cannot be responsible to control others. Now you tell me where, in an American’s life, does he demonstrate such finesse of self?”
I found my rhetoric in the doctrine which had been beat into me all my life. “The American culture is too much of a melting pot. There’s too many ethnicities and beliefs mixed up. But that’s what it means to be American, and not a completely closed off, pigheaded clan.”
“It is American to throw away time-honored tradition and disgrace your family’s honor?”
I sighed. “Ugh. No. You’re impossible.”
He waved away my dismissive attitude. “In my mind, America has a handful of real men. There are too many boys running around thinking they are men and even calling themselves men, yet they’ve done nothing to prove themselves worthy of that label and its rights and privileges thereof.”
“And yourself?” I countered. “What have you done?”
Josh pulled up a well-tailored sleeve. “As you’ve probably noticed, I subscribe to the ultimate theory of self-control.” He gestured at a row of raised flesh. “Those scars are the result of a blistering hot band of metal fastened around my arm for several moments while I recited selected excerpts from The Code of Hammurabi. Mind over matter. The delicate balance of physical strength and iron will.”
“That’s stupid,” I said hotly. “You’re not a monk.”
He yanked his sleeve down over the scars. Maybe I had ruffled his pride a bit. “So says the Whore of Babylon who spreads her legs for anyone randy enough to take her. Do not mock that which you do not understand, especially when you are not yet a woman.”
I ignored his insult. Of course he wanted to draw first blood. “I believe I possess all the necessary parts, ones which you enjoy frequently whether I approve or not.”
“Yes, and you possess all the stupidities your sex is steeped in as well. Perhaps I am mistaken. Welcome to womanhood. I hope it’s everything you expected. Now take off your clothes. I need some relaxation after this oh-so-startling debate of wits.” His condescending tone mocked my entire existence in one sentence.
“I am not a whore.” My voice came out shakier than I would have wished, but I cannot fall back on my intelligence for many things when Josh is concerned. He is just so much smarter than me in everything—not that I would ever tell him that.
“Not a whore?” he asked incredibly. Then, his voice dropped several octaves as he recited in a chilling, methodic rhythm: “’And on her forehead was written a name of mystery. Behold the great mother of harlots, and of earth’s abominations. And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her I marveled greatly.’”
I stared at him for a moment too long.
“It’s from the Bible, Emily.”
“I know that,” I snapped.
“You’re too pretty for your own good, but also too uneducated about your life and ours to offer much in the way of amusement. You love this life and you hate it, but you don’t know what to do with it. You need a purpose, Emily. Hating me will not fulfill that purpose. Let me guide you to a greater purpose.”
I mulled quietly over his words, my anger sitting coldly in my gut.
“Now,” he murmured, almost tenderly. “Do something useful wit
h that open mouth instead of contemplating scripture. Be a good little pack mate. Blow me.”
“I am not your whore.”
“You’ve said that. It is now a moot point since you will obviously have sex whenever you are told, as demonstrated by not only me, but even the lowest humans of this camp. It would take a phenomenal effort to rape someone like you. Even then, you would probably enjoy it.”
“I’ve been raped before,” I solidly stated. I felt the anger in me rising, but did not want him to have that control over me. “I don’t understand those women who get off on it. Personally, I think that entire erotic fantasy of being raped is overrated.”
He looked at me as if I were indeed crazy. “The experience doesn’t seem to have bothered you too much. I must be right.”
“I came to love him.”
He laughed, which made me jump since it was a reaction I hadn’t expected.
“You fell in love with your rapist?”
“Yes.”
“You are a seriously messed up young lady.”
I bristled. “You shouldn’t mock what you don’t understand,” I mimicked in his educated drawl. “Dickhead.”
His eyes turned hard and a hand shot to my throat. I pulled away, but his quick movements caught me and my breaths came out in rasps. Frustrated with my helplessness, I Changed in his grip. His hands loosened as I yanked myself away from him.
He, however, was not angry, only amused.
“Think you’ll bite me or something?” he asked coyly.
I flexed my claws in the dirt. It was cool and stable, something I was not at the moment. I growled deeply as the hair on my neck slowly rose with my building fury. I knew I could survive anything that happened as long as I didn’t lose too much blood or he didn’t sever anything vital.
He smiled and removed his shirt, slowly and sensually as I knew he would. My clothes lay in a desperate pile beneath me, but Josh hated to lose his stylish threads—the thought of blood on them would be anathema to him.
I stepped forward as his hands went to his designer jeans.
“Now don’t go cheating by jumping the gun,” he warned. “Then I’d have to do something equally unfair.” The glint of metal caught my eye as he allowed the gun to wink at me from the low pocket of his jeans. “And you’re too pretty to waste a bullet on.”
Gun or no gun, I leapt. Of course his reflexes were just as good as mine, so up came the gun and pop—
I was out.
Obviously I’m not dead, but a bullet to the skull—silver or not—will down even the best of us.
I awoke human, naked, dizzy from blood loss and slightly confused as to what had happened. Then I remembered:
The motherfucker shot me.
The anger coursed through me, but I wasn’t strong enough to Change. Between the attack from the vampires, the pregnancy, and the gunshot, I could barely summon the strength to crawl. So the anger surged through me in its rawest, most human form I had experienced before meeting Will almost a year prior.
I went through so much for him, allowed him to break my rage into bits small enough for his use, traded in my dignity for loyalty, and he tried to kill me. It was then that I knew the things I’d do, the people I would hurt, and the ones I would lie to. I would use whoever I had to get back at him. I would destroy him.
Luckily for me, there are people out there just as bent on achieving that goal.
Unluckily for me, I can count. Using a calendar and the bits of my fragmented memories with Josh, I’ve figured out that if the father of my child was willing to kill me in self-defense, then surely I could do as much to a man who thought he was the father of my child. I would never take Luka’s life, but after these events ran their course, I knew I would be dead to him—a fate worse than death, as they say. Only Shasta and her band of vampire brethren would be of equal rank to me in Luka’s eyes by the end of it.
Shasta
I never wanted to meet her like that. Especially when I found out what a good person she is. I was starving that day in the market. The others are too strong. We knew we could never take Josh, and the others always stayed together. But when she ventured out alone, she was easy prey. I hadn’t eaten in almost two months. The Lycanti were finding ways around us all the time. The young foolish ones we usually preyed on found packs to run with. We were all hungry. Desperation destroys.
She lay there that night on the ground with the stink of Josh and his clan all over her. They, however, were no longer around. They had moved on to Alaska by that second night, running hard against the bitter winds. My own family was now safe, and we could feed in peace. So we moved in on the young girl to finish the job which had been interrupted by the proximity of her pack two days ago.
She never even heard me coming. I took her throat in my mouth, savoring that woodsy scent of her as I bit down. She was so weak that night, barely lifting a hand towards me. I could practically feel her disorientation inside her veins, all swim-swirly in my mouth. Her eyes widened as she saw my pale skin. But only one word slipped out of her mouth.
“Shasta.”
I pulled my mouth away from her. The blood trickled down from the puncture wounds in her neck, slithering over the wounds from my last feeding. I was completely taken aback. No one had called me that since I Died.
My eyes strained against the darkness. No, just like two days ago, there was nothing discernible about her which I remembered. She was just another girl.
I watched as her eyelids fluttered and her consciousness faded. Humans are always easier to take in this state. I hate it when they fight.
Emily
“This place bring back memories for you, doesn’t it?”
The Brazilian palm trees waved only slightly in the tropical heat. I lay in a hotel bed watching them with a touch of apathy. I still hurt from Maria’s vicious attack, and watching Luka sullenly stare at a wall instead of making conversation was getting to me.
Luka looked at me, his bright blue eyes searching my face. “Yes. I am reminded of happier times, before all the turmoil. Before my service in America.”
“Before you met Will.”
“Before I met you.”
That stung a little. I cringed and his searching eyes saw it all.
“I love Brooke, but I still want you. I do not understand it.”
“And I loved Will, but I always wanted you. Why do you fight it now? You didn’t fight it that night in the woods.”
His face twisted with emotion. “I was weak. I will not be weak again. Why do you keep bringing this up? Why must I tell you again and again that it was a mistake, and neither of us will make that mistake again? It is beyond you to understand?”
I didn’t feel angry at this, just sad, and can’t explain why.
“Luka, I’m sorry.”
He shrugged noncommittally. We were both tired of revisiting the same mistakes, I think, but it’s so hard for me to let it go. I felt the tension between us with every overdrawn breath, lust practically breathing out onto the surfaces before us.
“Luka, look at me.”
Amazingly, he did. And I fell into those sapphire orbs the same way I did the first night we met, when he was just Will’s friend, and I Will’s new toy.
“I am sick of looking at you, Emily. You seem to think you hold some power over me if I look at you. That is the thought of a vain little girl.”
Now that did piss me off. “Do you feel the need to be an utter asshole the entire time we’re here?” He glared at me. “You’re fucking home. Enjoy it, for Christ’s sake.”
He stood as fluid as water from his chair. “And you have a son in Mexico somewhere beneath the roof of the woman who just tried to kill you. Yet you sit here lounging, staring at trees as if they hold the secrets to life.” He waved his hands at me in dismissal.
Heat rose through my limbs, flooding every inch of me. “I think about Micah every minute of the day, but I don’t feel the need to bitch, moan, and complain about it every minute of the day! You
, however...”
In a flash, his snarling face was in front of mine, eyes a dangerous aqua wave in my face; my words got stuck in my throat. The heat of his skin felt like any moment it would ignite and combust the heat from mine own. The deeply kindled ashes felt like they would begin to burn again if he stayed close to me even though his eyes blazed with resentment.
His hand slid down over my breast, but he didn’t stop the fondle me. Instead, his fingers jabbed into my tender, broken ribs. I grunted with the pain, and my hands shot up to clench over the fleshy steel of his arm. It was no use to try to remove them; Luka was far more toned than I would ever be.
My breath came in ragged gasps as I struggled against him. A sad sight I must have been as I had just been stitched up with a total of 148 stiches in various parts of my torso, arms, and legs, but I wriggled nonetheless, howling with the pain.
Luka’s voice cut sharply through my protests and curses. “Silence!”
I whimpered a little. His fingers had eased on the pressure to my ribs, but they hovered there, a constant threat. They moved slowly down to my hips, and I loosened my grip on his arms, hoping that this would help me be calm and breathe more slowly. His hot breath pushed its way into my face, its pleasantness ruffling the loose strands of my hair. He leaned over me as if here were going to kiss me, but I knew it was only to hold me down if I struggled.
“Now that you have calmed yourself, you will listen,” he stated evenly. His hand crept back upward, but this time his hand lifted my shirt. He caressed the skin with his coppery fingers and a sliver of warmth rushed up to that point. His face now brushed my ear and he leaned fully on the bed, his manhood dangerously close to my body as he leveraged his weight while teasing the fringes of the stitches up my left side.
He continued, “You have brought discord to the Lycanthrope clan with your demands. You are a Lycanti through and through, of that I now have no doubt.” His voice fell to a hoarse whisper. “Your deceit and arrogance has put you in danger, but now you endanger my family as well. And I will have the truth from you: Whose genes does Micah carry?”
