by Carmen Caine
The passage led me to what was clearly one of the fabled, lost New York City cow tunnels. Torches burned in iron sconces embedded in its old, brick-lined walls. Damp mud and broken bits of brick covered the floor.
Anya’s scent saturated the place but came strongest from the left.
With a cautious step, I inched along, finally emerging out onto a platform overlooking a work pit of some kind.
“Who’s there?” a voice called. A woman’s voice.
Shoot. I pulled back sharply, hugging the wall and held still.
After a few minutes, I heard a few scuffling sounds. Footsteps. It had to be Anya, climbing out of her hole.
Swearing under my breath, I glanced around, looking for a place to hide and spied what appeared to be a crevice above me. I barely managed to haul myself up into it before a small figure stepped out of the shadows, wearing a red cloak.
Anya was a delicately boned woman with gray eyes, long blonde hair and a sour face that oddly reminded me of a monkey. Maybe it was the shape of her mouth, one that clearly housed teeth a bit too large, or maybe it was the fact that I took an instant dislike to her and searched for something to pick on. Whatever the reason, I found her an unlikely match for Lord Lucian Rowle. Surely, she had to have known she’d caught a fish out of her league. What game was she playing?
She paused almost directly below me.
I held my breath.
After a few minutes, she moved away, heading back to the pit.
I waited until the scraping of her shoes against the ladder’s iron rungs receded before dropping back onto the platform once more.
Yeah, my job was done. A record, actually. I could most likely drop the spelled nanos on her undetected in this kind of darkness. She’d probably never even notice. It was almost too easy. But the job really wasn’t my focus here.
This was my best chance to find him.
Moving slowly, I crept to the platform’s edge and peered over.
Apparently, I’d found Anya’s private lab. It was a dark, dreary place, but the kind of place spiders preferred. They hung from thick webs spanning every surface, attached to every table and chair. She didn’t seem to care much for the spider’s comfort or even their lives, though. As I watched, she barreled right through several webs, stepping on a few spiders along the way to unlock what looked like a high school gym locker tilted against the wall.
Yeah, she was definitely an odd duck.
A soft curl of wind wafted past me then, tickling my nose.
I froze.
That scent.
It made my pulse pound and my heart stop.
He was here.
At last.
As if from far away, I heard a man’s voice in the lab below, speaking with an Italian lilt. “Show me what you have found, mia figlia. Be quick, rapidamente, Anya, very quick. I have not time to waste.”
Anya looked over her shoulder as a vampire, a Chosen One, strolled into my view, square-jawed, olive-skinned, and with dark, glossy hair.
My lips curled back from my teeth. Already, I could feel my canines growing. At last. At last, the murderer of my pack stood within my grasp. Nothing would stop me from sinking my teeth into his throat and ripping it out before I dined on his lifeless vampiric heart.
But I heard her then.
A soft, whimpering whine.
Startled, my eyes fell on the ball of fur hanging from Anya’s harsh grip as she turned away from the lockers.
A wolf pup with her scraggly ears pinned down to her neck. I sniffed. Female. Young. A fawn-colored brindle. Couldn’t have been more than five weeks old. The same age I’d been ousted into the cold, uncaring arms of the world. But she was scrawnier than I’d been. Most likely, she wouldn’t have survived, even if she hadn’t been caught by the likes of Anya.
Biting back a snarl, I clenched my jaw and forced my eyes back to the vampire.
“I have her here, father,” Anya was saying as she raised the pup high. “A Wolf of the Mists. The last of her pack. The others are disposed of.”
I held still.
The vampire strolled to where his daughter stood, his hands folded behind his back. It took him only a moment to spit in displeasure. “No, foolish girl. Sei idiota! That is not a Wolf of the Mists. This creature is useless to me. Useless!” Grabbing the pup by the scruff of the neck, he flung her to the ground.
The poor pup howled.
Anya jerked back as if she’d been slapped. “Well, then, Emilio,” she replied, stressing his name as she lowered her voice in anger. “Find your wolf yourself, then. After all, it’s your fault. You shouldn’t have killed them all.”
A shiver rippled down my spine.
Emilio.
My enemy had a name.
Emilio.
I licked my lips, anticipating the salty taste of his foul blood on my tongue, the blood of revenge.
Rising to my feet, I prepared to drop into the pit when a vice-like grip grabbed my forearm from behind.
"No, no. Non, non, non, ma belle louve," a sexy voice sizzled in my ear. "This is not a fight you can win alone.”
Ma Belle Louve
The vampire murmuring in my ear was obviously an ancient and powerful one, possessing such speed and stealth that I hadn’t caught one whiff of his approach. In a split second, he’d grabbed my arm, secured me against his hard chest, and clamped his ice-cold fingers over my mouth, stifling any reaction I might have had.
“Who is it?” Anya hissed from the pit below.
My captor didn’t respond. Instead, he carried me back down the cow tunnel before her words had scarcely finished echoing in the darkness around me.
I struggled, fighting back, but he anticipated my moves no matter how much I writhed and twisted with my boots scrabbling against the gravel and rubble strewn floor.
Fine. I couldn’t break free.
Not as a human, anyway.
Switching gears, I melted into my wolf form.
Again, he seemed oddly prepared. Was that a chuckle reverberating deep in his chest? Without breaking his stride, he grabbed the scruff of my neck, and treating me as a wayward, paralyzed pup, sped through the dark maze of tunnels fanning out under the city.
Unable to move, I hung there, noticing his unusual scent for the first time. Under that Chosen One aroma something vaguely familiar teased my nostrils, something I couldn’t place. Had I met him before? No, I didn’t think so. I didn’t hang around vampires much.
At last, he stopped in a narrow, dome-shaped enclave lit by a single flickering lightbulb. Along the back wall, the black iron rungs of a ladder disappeared into a dark hole in the ceiling. The mix of smells riding the currents down from above announced it as the way back up to the city.
“You should go now, ma belle louve,” the vampire said, dropping me to the ground. “This battle is not yours to fight.”
Oh? How arrogant of him. The moment he let me go, I attacked, pulling my lips back into a snarl and lunged for his throat. I owed him nothing. In fact, he may have just cost me my sole chance to avenge my pack’s death.
He fended me off easily enough, once again acting as if he’d expected my reaction. I caught the brief flash of white teeth as his lips split into a grin.
A … grin?
That reaction startled me, enough to allow him to once again catch me by the scruff of the neck.
“Impressive,” his deep voice judged with a chuckle. Elegance marked his every move as he knelt, setting me on the floor. Tilting his head to one side, he looked deeply into my eyes.
He wouldn’t have any luck hypnotizing me. As a Wolf of the Mists, I could easily resist such tricks since hypnotism is done in some part by using sound. But he didn’t go for hypnosis. He simply crouched there, locking his gaze with mine.
I got a good look at him then.
The shadows from the single lightbulb played over his well-defined features. He was nothing short of lovely, if that adjective can be applied to the male form. His dark, compelling eyes sucke
d me in, drawing me into his world and for several moments in time, I felt lost in the wealth of emotion I saw there. Finally, I ripped my gaze away to inspect his strong, straight nose, carved lips, and the scar running down the side of his face, curving over his square jaw before disappearing into his dark, collar-length hair. A vampire with a scar? I hadn’t thought that possible. Yet, somehow, on this particular vampire, it only served to enhance his mystery.
But a mystery I didn’t really have time for. Not with my discovery of Emilio. Now, I had business to finish. Now, I could avenge my pack’s death.
I bared my teeth and growled my lowest Wolf of the Mists rumble of a warning. I’d never yet met a vampire who didn’t flinch at the sound—or flee.
This vampire, however, lifted the corners of his carved lips and deepened his smile.
I took it as a signal that he’d dropped his guard
In a flash, I zipped back to my human form and jumped to my feet. As he leapt to his, I spun around and landed a kick in his ribs, sending him back to the floor. He fell, but at the last second, caught my ankle and pulled me down after him.
I fell and rolled away just as the ground beneath me began to rumble. A shower of dust and grit rained down from above, but I refused to let it distract me. Laser-focused on my quarry, I dove, pinning him down with my body, and straddling his chest, unsheathed a silver blade. As a subway rocketed past in a dull roar somewhere above our heads, I pressed the tip of the dagger up under his chin.
The vampire clearly didn’t care that I’d trapped him. “Stunning focus, ma belle louve,” he murmured in approval, flashing me a mischievous smile.
The fight had freed my hair from my ponytail. It fell loose over my shoulders. Blowing a stray lock of hair out of my face, I demanded, “Why were you following me? Who are you?” I pushed my knife tip a little deeper into his flesh to show him I meant business.
I heard a faint sizzle as the silver burned vampire flesh. At the very least, it had to sting, but he didn’t seem bothered by it. “I could ask you the same questions, my dear, as wolves aren’t wont to run in the cow tunnels of New York City,” he replied conversationally, folding his arms behind his neck and shifting his hips a little.
He lay extraordinarily relaxed beneath my thighs and with a nagging look in his eye that I struggled to place.
It hit me then. Attraction. Pure, raw attraction. He looked as if he wanted to devour me whole.
What did he think this was? A seduction?
I twisted my blade deeper and adding a brassy edge to my growl, probed further. “Who do you work for? Tell me, and quickly.”
He lowered his thick, dark lashes slowly. “I can’t place your pack,” he observed in a low rumble, dropping his gaze over my body and back up again as if mentally undressing me. “Your bloodlines are most unusual, ma belle louve. Most unusual.”
The pure primal intensity of his voice sent a shiver down my spine. I saw it then, deep in his dark pupils: the unmistakable golden flicker of a wolf.
Shocked, I took a deep breath, and this time recognized what I’d missed before. Under that vampire scent ran the thread of the wolf kindred, an obvious motif I shouldn’t have missed—perhaps because it was just that: so obvious.
He’d lost a shirt button in our scuffles, leaving the hollow of his throat exposed. I shifted uneasily, suddenly aware of his muscular, hard body as every cell in mine flared to life.
The odd thought of licking a solid line over his collarbone crossed my mind. Heat coursed through my blood, igniting a strange hunger inside me or maybe more of a need.
And then, I snorted in disgust.
Really, Raven? A vampire?
Damn. It didn’t matter he’d once been a wolf. He was still a vampire now.
Summoning my aggression, I extended my canines again and repeated, “Who are you?”
“Could it be…” he mused, lost in thought.
I waited, but he didn’t finish the sentence—and then I caught myself. Me? Waiting? I didn’t wait for anyone. I found the unsettling effect he had on me downright annoying.
The gleam of amusement grew in his eyes. He knew. Oh, he knew very well that my body had started to respond to his. But I wasn’t the melting, vulnerable type. I gripped the handle of my knife and pressed it harder against his flesh even as my gaze fell on his lean jaw.
“That scar,” I said, my eyes tracing the winding length of it. “How did you get it?”
His eyes darkened. “A Wolf of the Mists, are you not, ma bell louve?” he deflected my question with one of his own.
I scarcely heard him. The scar had snagged my attention. Curiosity got the better of me. Still jamming the knife up under his chin, I lifted my other hand to drag a fingertip over his scar.
For a brief moment, his eyes glimmered, revealing the brute of a creature he’d once been. I knew then, why the scar remained. His heart still beat as a wolf.
The next instant, he’d risen to his feet, carrying me with him. Slamming me back against the wall, he planted his face inches from mine, his vampire fangs extended to their fullest. Wolf he may be, but something stronger ran in his blood now.
He didn’t frighten me, though. Quite the contrary. My blood ignited in a liquid fire and I bared my sharp canines, half in the hot ache of desire and half in anger. I placed my hands on his broad chest and shoved him back.
He fell back a step and jerked his head at the metal rungs disappearing into the darkness above. “Go,” he clipped the word. The next moment, he pressed me back against the brick wall with his hard body, and dropping his head, whispered in my ear, his breath hot against my neck, “It’s too dangerous for you here. These tunnels crawl with my kind and they’ll not resist such a delicious, mouthwatering morsel.”
I preferred avoiding vampires mostly for that exact same reason. Last week, I’d barely escaped being served as a vampire’s main course. But this time?
This time, it was different.
The haze of attraction faded for me then. Emilio. Right. I wasn’t going anywhere. Not when I’d just discovered my lifelong foe inhabited the cow tunnels underneath the city. I’d be putting an end to him tonight, regardless of just what the vampire with a wolf’s heart thought about it.
It was time to yank myself back on track.
First things first, I had to get away, and if this wolf-vampire dude simply planned on letting me go, well, all the better.
“Right then,” I said, moving sideways to grab an iron ladder run embedded in the wall. “I’m going. I’ve seen enough.”
He didn’t move to stop me.
Wary, I turned my back on him, one hand hovering over my knife blade even as I began to climb, my boots echoing ominously in the air.
I must’ve been at least twenty feet up before I finally gave into the temptation and looked down.
He was gone.
I released a pent breath and frowned. Good. Glad he left. Hopefully, I’d never see him again. I found him … unsettling, and I didn’t need unsettling distractions in my life—especially when the source of said distraction was vampire in nature.
I paused where I was and hung off the ladder, should I backtrack or keep climbing? I had to find Anya and Emilio. I could try my luck at navigating the cow tunnels by scent or emerge from a manhole and zip back to the parking structure to retrace my first foray into the underworld.
Backtracking won. It would, by far, be the quickest.
I descended into the darkness below, at times holding my breath and straining to hear any signs of the vampires the wolf-hearted one had warned me of. But I heard nothing, save the rumble and roar of the passing subways rattling various tunnels in the distance.
Satisfied, I dropped to the floor, phasing into my wolf shape before I hit the ground and began retracing my steps. I found the trail easily enough and moving like a shadow in the night, silently loped through the crisscrossed network of cow tunnels. Once or twice, I heard the echoes of vampire voices, but they didn’t come my way, either because they
hadn’t detected my presence or simply didn’t care.
Finally, I stood at the entrance of the tunnel leading to Anya’s pit, but a different aroma met my nostrils now. The stench of burning flesh curdled the air.
In seconds, I peered into the pit, my eyes widening at the macabre scene below.
There had been a fight. A big one. Wadded clumps of webs clustered near the pit walls. Overturned tables and chairs scattered the floor. The locker had been knocked sideways with its doors torn off.
I saw him then, the wolf-hearted vampire, slumped against the locker with his head bowed to his chest and his lean body draped in silver chains. The pain must have bordered on the unbearable. At his feet, the wolf pup crouched, a prone, submissive scruff of fur hugging the floor.
I bared my teeth and cast a glance around for who might have done this. Anya’s scent had already faded. I’d lost my chance to mark her. This time, anyway.
And my enemy, Emilio?
I’d scarcely thought his name when in my peripheral vision, I spied someone separating from the shadows to the left.
Emilio.
I drew my lips back, revealing rows of white, razor-sharp teeth and crouched, ready to spring.
“Jacques, Jacques, Jacques,” my enemy half sang as he approached the vampire covered in chains.
So. The vampire with the heart of a wolf was named Jacques.
“A worthy foe,” Emilio continued slowly, shaking his head from side to side. “Most imposing. Pericoloso. But I grow weary of watching my back. Let’s finish this.”
Emilio squatted next to Jacques and reaching over, picked up one of the many silver chains to rattle it in his face.
I caught a startled breath.
Could it be that silver didn’t effect Emilio? He held the chain in his bare hands as if it were a piece of rope. How was that possible? He was a Chosen One. A vampire. I watched, wondering if it wasn’t silver at all, but at that moment he dropped the chain on Jacques’ neck and face, making him choke and gasp.
