Glancing back at Leif, Stellan shouted something in Finnish. He kept talking to Leif, but he didn’t take his eyes off us. Ezra could understand everything he said, but he played dumb.
“Did you know this was our territory?” Dodge asked when Stellan finished his rant.
“No. This is a National Park, isn’t it?” Ezra pretended to be confused.
Leif and Dodge exchanged looks. They seemed skeptical of our intentions. But based on Dodge’s casual shrug and Leif’s nod, they didn’t think we were a danger to them. We probably weren’t, so that made sense.
“This is lycan territory.” Leif looked gravely at us. “It’s best if you don’t wander around here.”
“We’ll be more careful in the future,” Ezra apologized.
“Make sure that you do,” Dodge said, abandoning his earlier humor. His face and voice hardened, resembling Stellan’s. They were threatening us.
Ezra nodded at them and ushered me away, back the way we came. The lycans didn’t move, and I felt their eyes on us as we hurried through the forest. Ezra kept his hand on my back, pushing me to go faster. I started to say something several times, but he shushed me until we got to the car.
“What are we doing?” I asked when he unlocked the Range Rover and got inside.
“Get in,” Ezra commanded and slammed his door shut.
“It’s only one-thirty.” I climbed in after him. “We have plenty of time to look for Peter.”
“If they caught us in the woods again tonight…” He trailed off.
He made sure the doors were locked before racing down the snowy road. He kept glancing in the rearview mirror, and I turned around, half expecting to see a pack of wolves chasing after us. But there was only an empty road.
“What’s going on? They didn’t really seem that bad. In fact, other than the Finnish one in the river, they seemed like ordinary vampires,” I said.
“That’s not the whole pack.” His eyes flitted back to the rearview mirror. “They were following us, and that’s why I wouldn’t let you say anything in the woods. Now they’ve seen us, and they know our vehicle. We can’t do anything more tonight.”
“You’re just being paranoid.” I shook my head, but his certainty was unnerving.
The road had patches of snow and black ice, and the signs on the side warned of reindeer crossing. In spite of that, Ezra sped up faster, and his eyes rarely stayed on the road in front of us.
“I don’t want to scare you,” he confessed randomly.
“Thanks,” I said.
“I’m not sure how many lycans are in his pack anymore. At times there were as many as fifteen or twenty, and other times there were as few as four. It depends on what kind of mood he’s in. He’ll wipe out his entire pack for the hell of it, and start over fresh,” Ezra talked as if he was explaining something to me, but he started in the middle of the idea.
“Who are you talking about?” I looked over at him.
“Gunnar.” His eyes went to the mirror again, as if saying his name summoned him. “He’s led a pack in the Lapland for the better part of three centuries. They winter up here, and summer in Russia and Siberia.”
“How do you know that he’s still the leader?” I asked.
“It’s been fifty years or more since I saw him last,” Ezra admitted. “But when I was told of Peter’s troubles, Gunnar was mentioned by name.”
“So you knew exactly what you were getting into when we came here?” I narrowed my eyes at him, and he pursed his lips. “Then why are you so freaked out by this? If you knew that’s who were dealing with.”
“I was hoping to avoid him entirely. I thought we’d find Peter and depart, before they knew we’d been here,” he sighed. “And that’s how I know Peter’s on a suicide mission. He was with me the last time we encountered Gunnar.”
I sank back in the seat and finally grasped what frazzled Ezra so much. They outnumbered us, and they were pissed off. We had just very narrowly escaped death.
“How do you kill a vampire?” I breathed.
With my murder becoming increasingly imminent, I wanted to know possible methods for my demise. Ezra once mentioned starvation lasting for months or years led to death, but that seemed unlikely here. I imagined something more instant, more violent.
“Head. Heart.” He shifted uneasily, but the car slowed, meaning his initial panic ebbed. “Our bones are nearly unbreakable, but another vampire could do it rather easily. We’re our only enemy in this world.”
The imagery of my heart getting ripped out was enough to keep me silent for the rest of the car ride back to the hotel. When we parked, Ezra didn’t check behind him for lycan, but I did.
The clerk behind the desk made googley eyes at me when we came in, but I barely even noticed. There were far more important things on my mind. Like how I planned on surviving.
We made our circles wider around the lycan territory, but after three days, we had no choice but to move in closer. Besides that, everything Ezra heard said Peter was imbedded in lycan land. It was all part of his suicide plan, I guess. Hang out around them long enough until they slaughtered him.
Since we saw the lycan, Ezra became hesitant about bringing me with him. His whole plan for getting Peter rested on my ability to convince him, but that wasn’t fool proof. Neither of us were sure how he’d respond to me.
Except… the last kiss we shared, the only time Peter truly kissed me, I felt something different.
Peter tasted Jack on me, he knew Jack had bitten me, but Peter didn’t come back to kill him. Everything inside him, the insistent bond in his blood, screamed that he should kill Jack, but he hadn’t.
Instead, he planned on really letting me go, not because of his own fears or what his body demanded, but because he knew that would be what made me the happiest. The one true kiss we ever shared had been a kiss goodbye. Underneath all of his chemicals and reservations, Peter had to have genuine feelings for me, otherwise he never would’ve let me be with Jack.
That just happened to be when Jack walked in, and he set off an entirely different chain of events than what Peter had in mind.
That’s what kept me coming back out in the woods, even with the full understanding of what we were up against. I thought that Peter might really listen to me, and even if he didn’t, I had to try.
We walked through the woods in silence, but I knew when we got closer to the lycan homeland. Ezra walked faster but made sure his steps matched mine. He looked around more and kept incredibly close to me, so sometimes I was almost tripping over him.
Ezra would risk anything for Peter, but he didn’t feel the same way about me risking everything. In the hotel today before we left, he asked if I wanted to stay behind. I said no, but he continued recommending it until I refused to talk about it anymore.
We were going back to the exact area the lycans had warned us away from, but that had to be where Peter was, assuming that Peter was still alive.
“Shouldn’t we be calling his name or something?” I asked when the silence and the search became too much for me.
Ezra shook his head, and I ducked underneath a low-hanging branch. The one thing I could say for this was that I was getting a lot more nimble and agile. I wasn’t getting as tired out as I used to, and I hadn’t been quite as hungry. If nothing else, this would get me through vampire boot camp.
“I just don’t think we’re doing that much,” I said, keeping my words hushed. “We’re just wandering around the trees. How are we supposed to find Peter? You have this carefully calculated plan of where to look, but when we get here, we don’t even do anything.”
“They can’t know we’re looking.” Ezra was barely loud enough to be heard over the crunch of our boots in the snow.
“I get that, but Peter has to know. Or how else will we find him?”
“Smell him. Hear him. See him.” He shrugged but slowed, almost pausing to look at me. “Can you still… feel him?”
Whenever I had been around Peter before, my b
ody automatically pulled towards him. My natural inclination had been to be with him, and that would be really helpful in a search party.
“I don’t know,” I said, although I didn’t think so.
If I thought about Peter or talked about him, I didn’t get all fluttery and intense anymore. I have a bond with Jack, and I feel things like that for him, which means that I probably can’t for Peter anymore.
“Oh well.” His pace picked up again, and I scampered behind him to catch up. “We’ll find him anyway.”
We passed over the river where we had met the lycan, and my heart skipped. He glanced back at me, and I hated that he could hear my heart. I could tell he was about to ask me if I wanted to turn back, but I shook my head and insisted we plow ahead.
Hopefully, Ezra tracked better than I did, because I couldn’t even smell the lycan anymore. They smelled of animals that lived outside, like reindeer but not. There was something edgier about the lycan scent, like livestock and… road kill.
A branch cracked loud enough that even a human could hear, and I whirled towards it. Ezra moved in front of me, his posture defensive.
It had been an hour since we passed the river, so we were well into their territory, and we had yet to see any animals. I inhaled deeply, but I could only smell the cold. Snow. Trees. Dirt. Maybe an owl…
A flap of wings followed by the rustle of branches, and I saw a large owl take flight in front of the moon. Relief washed over me, but Ezra didn’t relax at all. If anything he tensed up more, and then I heard something else too.
The soft crunch of footsteps in the snow, softer than hooves, softer than shoes. Barefoot.
- 7 –
In the moonlight, I saw the lycan. Several yards ahead of us, he walked towards us with his hands held up, the sign of surrender.
It was Leif, the kind one with large brown eyes. He wore the same clothes he did the other day, and they appeared even dirtier. Ezra, on the other hand, looked dapper for a midnight hike. He wore a black cashmere sweater with a thick collar, but in most ways, Ezra appeared to be an entirely different species than Leif.
“I’m alone,” Leif announced as he got closer to us.
Leif stopped a few feet in front of us, but that was still much closer than I’d like. Ezra kept his body partially blocking mine, shielding me.
“I am alone. I know you don’t trust me, but it’s the truth,” Leif said.
He sounded American or maybe Canadian. He pushed a strand of his thick hair off his forehead and chewed his lip. His eyes roamed around us, unsure of where to let them settle, and he glanced up at the moon.
“They’re in Sweden, hunting,” Leif continued, as if we had asked. “Dodge was convinced that we’d scared you away, so they left.”
“But you weren’t?” Ezra asked, and his stance grew more rigid. Leif shrugged in response and lowered his eyes to the ground. “Is that why you stayed behind? To see if we came back?”
“Maybe,” Leif said, then quickly added, “But not like you think.”
“You don’t know what I think,” Ezra said evenly.
Leif shifted and looked at the moon again. Rubbing his arm, he looked like he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words.
“You’re after Peter, aren’t you?” Leif asked, and I stiffened. “I’m not out to get him. He killed my brother, but it was self-defense. Krist had a temper and…
“Peter had no business being here,” Leif went on. “He was ‘trying out’ for the pack, but that’s not how it works. Gunnar put him through all these tests, and Krist was one of them. But Peter started winning…” He looked apologetic, his eyes wide and sincere. “It wasn’t fair what they did to him. What they’re still doing to him.”
“Still?” The fear in Ezra’s voice made me wince.
My head swam with images, and Ezra had seen far worse than I had. He knew what true torture could be for a vampire.
“He’s alive. He’s okay.” Leif’s voice cracked on the last word.
“What are they doing? Where is he?” Ezra demanded in a low growl, and Leif shrunk back. Any pretense that Ezra had of submitting to the lycans was over.
I didn’t think scaring Leif worked to our benefit, so I put a hand on Ezra’s arm. Reluctantly, he responded and took a step back. Leif nodded his appreciation and stood up taller.
“I don’t know exactly,” Leif said. “They’ve been hunting him.”
“He’s in Sweden?” I raised an eyebrow.
“No, he’s still here,” Leif shook his head. “The pack is in Sweden.”
“I don’t understand. Why is he still here? If they’re gone, why didn’t he just come home?” I asked, and Leif and Ezra exchanged a look. “What? Why won’t Peter leave?” I looked at Ezra since Leif didn’t answer.
“Us,” Ezra said thickly. “The pack will track him if he leaves and follow him back to us.”
“If they’re so good at tracking, then why haven’t they killed him yet?” I asked, ignoring the implications.
If they could follow him across the Atlantic, then they could find one vampire in their own territory. Why would they leave him alive, especially after all this time?
“They like to play with their food,” Ezra said, and Leif looked at the ground. “They want him to wait in fear, wondering when they’re going to strike, jumping at every noise. Eventually, he’ll either go mad or come home, which is a prize itself.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked as nausea welled up inside me.
“Why don’t you explain it to her?” Ezra growled at Leif.
“It’s not my idea.” Leif looked ashamed. “I’m here, telling you this, at risk to myself.”
“You didn’t do anything to stop it, did you?” Ezra took several steps toward him. This time, Leif didn’t back down. “You wouldn’t have said anything to us if you hadn’t seen us.”
“I couldn’t stop it! I can’t go up against them.” Leif shook his head. “This is my pack. Peter’s just a stupid, arrogant…”
Leif rubbed his neck, and Ezra sighed, repressing his urge to fight him. Regardless of what Leif had or hadn’t done, he was the only one trying to help now. If we were going to find Peter, he’d be our best bet.
“I still don’t understand what you want with keeping Peter alive,” I said.
“Peter has a death wish, otherwise he wouldn’t be here,” Leif explained. “Killing him would give him satisfaction, and they want him to suffer. They’ll make him watch as they kill everything he cares about. That’s his real punishment. Gunnar won’t even kill him in the end, because sometimes, living forever is worse.”
Jack, Milo, and Mae were sitting at home, alone, unguarded. Ezra and Peter were here, thousands of miles away from them. A cold shudder ran through me.
“Are you sure the pack’s in Sweden?” I asked, hearing my voice tremble. “They didn’t go anywhere else?” Ezra caught onto what I was saying and narrowed his eyes at Leif.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Leif looked bewildered, but then it dawned him. “No! They didn’t think you had anything to do with Peter. If they did, they would’ve killed you already, and left your bodies for him to find.”
“We need to get out of here,” I said. Even if he was telling the truth, the thought had been put in my head, and I was desperate to see Jack, to know he was safe.
“Where is Peter?” Ezra asked.
“I can tell you the area he’s in, but I can’t take you there,” Leif said. “They’ll smell my scent mixed with yours, leading you to him.”
“Where is he?” Ezra repeated.
“He’s about a kilometer and a half east, past a small lake. He’s been hiding in a little cave in the ground.” Leif pointed in the direction he’d told us, the direction he’d been walking from.
Without waiting for me, Ezra raced towards Peter. I knew I’d have to rush to keep up with him, but I paused. Leif looked so apologetic and forlorn, I couldn’t help but feel drawn to him.
It wasn’t until that momen
t, when I looked directly at him, that I realized what it was that I liked so much about him. He had eyes just like my brother’s.
“Thank you,” I told him earnestly.
“Just go. Get him. Get out of here.”
Ezra was already a blur in the trees ahead of me. He had a far better sense of direction than I did, so I had to catch up with him.
I’d made great strides in grace lately, but at this speed, it became impossible to maintain. I slipped and stumbled over everything and hit my head on several branches. By the time I came to the small lake, I was covered in snow and pine needles.
Ezra stopped sharply, and I didn’t notice him until it was too late. I slid on the ice and slammed right into him, which was like running into a brick wall. Bouncing off his back, I fell to the ground. I crouched, preparing to stand up, but then I glimpsed something through Ezra’s legs and I froze.
His eyes were unmistakable, but they were even greener than I remembered. Peter stood a few feet in front of Ezra, looking mangy. His chestnut hair hung down to his shoulders, growing several inches in the last few weeks. Thick stubble covered his face, but wasn’t quite a beard. His clothes were filthy and ragged, and Peter had always prided himself on his appearance.
He still looked gorgeous, and somehow, I had expected that to fade. But it turned out that he was just plain stunning, and that had nothing to do with whether I was bonded with him or not.
I waited, expecting that intense pull at the sight of him. But nothing happened. Even when his eyes briefly met mine, I never had to remind myself to breathe. He no longer captivated me.
“You brought her?” Peter asked Ezra, but it wasn’t lined with that familiar disgust and contempt he tried to hold for me. Instead, he sounded nervous and concerned.
“She insisted on coming,” Ezra said.
An odd tension brewed between them. I had thought Ezra would just come up and say something like, “Alright, that’s enough Peter, let’s go home” but he barely said anything. He almost seemed afraid of Peter.
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