by Fawn Atondo
“Come on,” Alex sneered.
The Alpha was all too happy to oblige. With one powerful leap he landed behind Alex then knocked him to the ground. Alex felt the powerful teeth of the Alpha as they sank into his neck. He had not fought with an Alpha werewolf in his lifetime. Vampires and werewolves were not friendly however they had not fought one another since the Great War. They merely avoided each other. Alex had no way of knowing how much stronger an Alpha would be than an ordinary werewolf.
Alex kept his wits about him. He still had lightning speed on his side, and in his pocket, he had two doses of silver in a syringe. These would take out either a vampire or a werewolf. So in one swift motion he pulled one free then sinking it into the Alpha’s side. Within seconds he felt the jaws of the wolf go slack. Alex shoved the Alpha off him.
Falyn was in the passenger seat, her eyes wide with shock. Alex jumped back onto the hood of the car. Falyn stared at him. Her mouth was hanging open and Alex could see her teeth were already growing. Her eyes were glowing bright yellow.
Alex reached through the broken windscreen and pulled her to him. Quickly using the other dose of silver on her.
“Alex!” she screamed, as he brought her face to his.
“Falyn, it seems you have been keeping a few things from me!” Alex gave her slow smile before he tugged her into his arms.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“You’re a good liar, I’ll give you that, little wolf!” Alex was already moving at vampire speed toward his Jeep.
“Did you kill them?” she growled into his neck. “What are you? I thought you were a human!”
“Well, makes us even then because I thought you were merely a human too,” Alex snarled at her. “And I didn’t kill them, merely incapacitate them.”
“You’re mad at me for not telling you I was a werewolf?” Falyn demanded in shock.
“Easy there, little wolf. You didn’t feel it but I gave you a shot of silver. You won’t be changing anytime soon,” he cooed in her ear.
“What…is…? I’m starting to hate you!” she hissed at him.
“Good feelings only get in the way of a job,” Alex muttered as he tossed her into his car.
“What are you going to do with me?”
“I am taking you home to Daddy,” Alex told her sweetly.
“No,” Falyn whispered, the effects of sliver working their way through her bloodstream.
“I’m not worried about what you want, babe, I have a job to finish!”
“Is that all I am to you… A job?” Falyn asked, her voice soft.
“Yeah, sweetheart, that’s all.”
He laughed, not because she was so wrong but because, for a while, he too had thought there was more to his feelings. She let out a gasp but didn’t say another word. Her eyes went dark, but not before he saw the pain in them.
Alex felt horrible about it the second the words left his mouth. He would not take it back. He would not try to fix the rift between them: after all, she was just another job.
Malcom would be waiting for his daughter at his compound in the Rockies. Alex had been there a few times. It wasn’t a bad place. It was large, seemed Malcom had made a good home for him and his pack there. He was Falyn’s father meaning he would not harm her. She would be safe, plus Malcom would keep the others from her.
Alex looked over at the young woman. Even as he told himself he did not care about her, something stirred inside him, something he could not explain.
The shot of silver had knocked her out. It would also keep her from going all wolf on him for over twenty-four hours. And it would only be another hour now before he pulled up in front of her father’s home. For the last eighteen hours his mind had been trying to convince him his gut was wrong.
Still, he could not rid himself of the feeling of dread at handing her over as he arrived at the compound. His heartbeat was slow, not because it had been days since he last fed, but because he was unsure about a job for the first time in his life.
Malcom met him at his car as soon as he pulled in. He opened the door taking Falyn out. He looked pleased to see her.
“What is the plan… for Falyn?” Alex asked him.
Malcom smiled at him as he handed his daughter over to one of his pack members.
“Don’t worry, Alex, she will be well cared for. She’s safe here.”
Malcom gave Alex his pay before turning to walk up the stairs into his home.
Alex set there in the parking lot for a while, staring at the front door trying to convince himself Falyn was going to be fine now. With a promise to himself to come check up on her in a few months, he pulled out of the parking lot, back to his life as a tracker.
Chapter Seven: Betrayed
Broken was how she felt: broken and alone. She was being punished again by the man who called himself her father. From the moment she had awoken in his compound, her life had been hell. It had been six months since Alex had turned her over to her father.
At first he had seemed caring. She awoke in a plush bed in a large room with a view of the snowcapped mountain. Her father told her the sad story of how he lost her after her mother had a mental breakdown during her pregnancy. It all fit into a story book just fine.
As Falyn quickly found out, that was all it was: a fairy-tale created to brainwash her into giving over whatever magic he seemed to think she had.
He stared out with a nice approach, offering to train her on how to use it better, but Falyn had no idea what magic he was seeking. She showed him how she found people but that, he felt, was a wolf gift and not the magic her mother’s people had. Her mother, it turned out, was considerably more than merely a shape shifting Native.
No, her mother had a much older, scared race in her bloodline. Druids, her father told her.
Still, despite all this info cramped into her brain and all the lessons he gave her, she could not find a link to this magic. She was not even sure she had such a gift. Falyn told him this many times but each time he would swear she did.
Yet it took only a few weeks for him to resort to darker means, locking her in a cell with nothing but metal and concrete around her. Starving her, and, worse yet, denying her body to change by forcing silver into her veins. Her whole body now ached with the need to change. Muscles, bones all burning for it. Even her mind was being affected after three months of not turning.
“Please!” she begged again as he stood outside her cell.
“Please what, Falyn? Please let you out? Please let you change? You have to give me more than ‘please’!” Malcom’s voice may have been soft but it was hardly friendly.
“Please let me out,” she moaned as her body twisted on the cool floor.
“I’ll give you everything you want, daughter, if you only show me your power.”
God, Falyn thought, how many times is he going to ask for the one thing I can’t do?
“I don’t know how,” she moaned again.
“ENOUGH!” he roared at her. “You’re not trying. You’re being weak, refusing to reach deep to pull the magic free!” His tone was harsh.
“No, you’re wrong.” Falyn pleaded with him, too weak to do much else.
When she came to once more, she was alone again. She felt like hell. If she had ever wondered what could be worse than death, she no longer needed to. The pain was so bad now that she would die willingly. Why was he not killing her yet? She was not able to do what he wanted, so what would finally push him over the edge and make him snap?
The cell door slammed open then and a man she had not seen before pulled her up, forcing her to walk. With each step her legs screamed in pain.
“Come on, work through it!” he told her.
She tried to look at his face, but she didn’t have enough strength to move her hair from her eyes to see. She stumbled to the ground. Whereas the other men who dragged her out of her cell would kick her if she fell, this one scooped her up in his arms.
&nb
sp; Her hair fell back from her face as he lifted her so she could now see the man. He was older than the others, and the more she stared at him, the more she saw how much like Malcom he looked.
“Ah, you see it now, don’t you?” he asked softly.
He didn’t stop to wait for her to answer.
“Yes, Malcom is my son, making you my granddaughter. I don’t agree with his plans for you. See, little one I plan to help you but it is going to come at a price,” he told her.
Falyn had lost her will and ability to speak so she only closed her eyes as he carried her out into the night air. Setting her down on the ground, it felt like heaven: the earth, the night air and, more comforting, the moonlight.
“I can free you, Falyn, but you will lose your human form, along with your wolf too. You will be stuck in the middle in a form the magic picks. This source of magic is not from our world.”
His words made no sense.
“I brought you out here to ask if this is something you would be willing to do to be free, but now I know I must do it without asking because it is the only way. I owe this to you as I should have done it for your mother.”
He stroked her hair as she looked up into the pale moon.
“You see, an old friend has come looking for you but I can’t free you, not without it being obvious that I did. I am the only one among this pack that deals with magic. I have something which will help you get away from him. It’s not much but hopefully enough to aid you.” He was looking at her now. “And in turn you can leave safely with your friend… a man by the name of Alex.”
His words brought her eyes wide open.
“Alex?” she repeated softly.
“Ah, so he means something to you… Um, odd, a vampire and a werewolf!” He chuckled at this.
Falyn could not wrap her head around the word ‘vampire’. Of course, she knew they roamed around along with the other immortals, but she had never come face to face with one until Alex. Still, a vampire? It was odd to put this word to Alex!
“You know that it is forbidden to be with him? The Lycan Court would never allow it. But it is too late now. He wears your mark, one your father will take much joy in burning off if he ever lays eyes on it.”
Seeing her eyes go big, he knew it was affecting her, the idea of Alex being hurt.
“So you care for him! I will give you this fix, your freedom, but you will have to deal with the issues it brings you. Falyn, you’re running out of time!”
He tipped her head back pouring a sweet liquid into her mouth. The sweet taste raced along her throat and through her body till she felt she was burning from the inside. Closing her eyes she felt her muscles finally release and her bones break, letting her mind go free of the insanity from not changing in months.
When her eyes next opened, she was inside once more but not in her cell. She looked around her, sensing at once something was wrong. As her grandfather had warned, she was neither in human nor wolf form. Looking down she saw paws but not the massive ones that should be there!
Running down the halls, she followed the sound of voices until she came to a large room. It was some kind of meeting room, judging from the large table with rows of chairs. Her father was in there, along with the man calling himself her grandfather – the man who had saved her by turning her… But what had he turned her into?
Alex stood up as she came in to view, and while her father looked at her with an air of curiosity, her grandfather was looking at her with a warning in his eyes.
“Ah Alex, I told you your dog would find you!” her grandfather said.
Alex looked shocked for about half a second before he nodded.
Was this how she was going to get out of her father’s house? As a dog?
“I would say that is more of a wolf then a dog, Father,” Malcom observed as he studied her again.
“Seems wolves make good bounty hunters, don’t they, Alex?” Once more her grandfather was offering up a story for her.
“Yes indeed,” Alex agreed, eyeing her with a questioning look.
“Well Malcom, seeing how Falyn is not here I should get back on the road. Please tell her I stopped by.” Alex made a move toward the door.
“You’re sure you won’t wait around for her to return?” Malcom asked softly.
“No, I have a job with a tight deadline I’m afraid, but I’ll call again.”
“I’ll walk the vampire out,” her grandfather said, following Alex out the door.
“What’s going on, Rae?” Alex asked once they were far enough away that Malcom could no longer hear them.
“The wolf is Falyn,” Falyn’s grandfather said.
“What?” Alex demanded, coming to a stop.
“Keep moving, vampire, else she will never be free!” Rae kept walking.
Alex picked up his pace again as he listened to Rae telling him how she had been kept in a cell and tortured until she gave her father what he wanted.
“I had a feeling… I should have listened to my gut!” Alex mumbled as he came to the door.
“It’s too late for ‘should haves’ now. Take her away from here, Alex. While she is in this form no one will want her. She’s useless to anyone who hopes to use her gifts. But Falyn will be stuck like this for as long as she remains in this world,” Rae told them both.
“Meaning?” Alex asked.
“I don’t have time to explain it all. You must go. I give it mere hours, maybe less, before Malcom learns Falyn is gone. You need to be far away from here.”
Alex looked down at Falyn, his eyes full of emotions she could not ask about. He headed toward a Jeep in the back of the parking lot.
“God, this is not what I thought I would find, Falyn. I thought I would come and see you happily enjoying your new home, not being held prisoner or being tortured by your own father!” Alex said angrily, getting into the jeep.
Falyn looked at him, hoping he would see the confusion in her eyes. She let out a low whine and rested her head on his lap. He stroked her head as he drove, lost in thought.
“I also looked into why so many people want you. You know what I found?” he asked her out of the blue. “I learned they seem to think you have the blood of a druid, meaning you have powers many are going to want,” Alex told her.
It was nothing new to Falyn – her father had talked about it so much that she hated the words ‘magic’ and ‘druid’ and anything to do with the other world!
“You’re the only one who can open the Gate to the other world; the only one who can let someone in or out of the other side.” Alex kept his voice soft but it did not cover his worry fully. “So those wanting in or needing to get someone out are going to be hunting you… no matter the fact you can’t work these powers at the moment.” Alex was once more petting her head.
Falyn was not sure what the other world was exactly. She knew that the Immortal Guard were held there. These were the keepers of the immortals, their law makers. She also knew that many people like her father wanted to take over ruling the immortal Guard themselves.
“It’s my fault. I gave you to that monster… I’m going to help you, Falyn, and I think I know where to start,” Alex declared.
Falyn closed her eyes. Laying her head down, she tried not to panic, but as minutes turned into hours as they drove, she could not help but wonder what would become of her now. Was she going to be stuck like this for the rest of her life? How could she even get to the other world if she could not work the magic everyone seemed to think she had?
Chapter Eight: Magic
Falyn wasn’t sure how long she slept but once the Jeep stopped, she got up to see out the window. It was a partially sunny day and she could see the ocean below was mostly calm. There was a large white house with a porch wrapped around it, covered in netting. Blown glass and wooden seagulls decorated the railings. There was even a large carved whale in the front yard.
It was like the house was at one with the sea that was so cl
ose to it. Alex got out of the car and left the driver door open. Falyn decided he wanted her to follow him. So Falyn jumped out and trotted behind Alex up to the front steps, where she stopped as Alex knocked on the door.
Within moments the door opened and out stepped a girl. At first Falyn was sure it was a girl, but when she looked closer, she saw it was a woman, but a very small one. Her eyes were the color of a storm-tossed sea, her hair much longer then Falyn’s was a pale blonde, shining nearly white in the sun.
“Alex, how nice to see you. It’s been far too long!” she cried, giving him a warm embrace.
“It has been a long time, Break, and I’m sorry about that.”
Falyn felt the fur around her neck puff up. A low growl built but she forced it back down. She was not a wild animal, after all.
Break peeked around Alex to look at her.
“And who is this?” Break asked in a soft voice as she knelt down to greet Falyn.
“So you know this is not a mere dog?” Alex asked.
“Of course. A mermaid sees the soul and her soul is not that of a dog,” Break said airily.
“Thank God!” Alex muttered. “I was starting to wonder if this was even Falyn,” he confessed to her
“Then rest easy knowing this is no dog,” Break said reassuringly. “Come in, both of you.”
Alex followed Break inside, leaving Falyn to chase after them. It was really humbling being a dog, and Falyn did not like it one bit. However, Break did not make her feel like a dog and this was helpful. She felt welcomed.
Break’s home inside was much like the outside, all done up with things from the sea. It was white, like the exterior, but color was added by the blown glass mixed with sea shells they seemed to be everywhere. The windows also danced with color, each one being painted glass with a different scene of some ocean theme.
“What brings you here today, Alex? Is it this woman?” Break asked as she looked at Falyn.
“Yes, something is wrong. She can’t change back to her normal self – this is not her normal form – but I can’t ask her what happened.”
