by Hannah Pole
And maybe a little with the fact that ‘half-breeds’, as he called it, weren’t accepted into his world any more than they were in her own world.
So she focused on that, she focused on something that she could logically be pissed off about, and thrust away any residual feelings she had towards him.
‘The problem is, supernaturals tend to sleep with humans; it may just be a one-night stand or a fling but, hell, accidents happen. Frequently. And if a human woman gets pregnant and doesn’t realise her baby is half wolf or half vampire, then it creates a real problem when they come of age and turn.’
‘But that’s no reason to treat them any differently,’ she shot back defensively.
‘We don’t! Well, our pack doesn’t. The Council have a very different attitude towards two natured people. They generally turn them into slaves or kill them outright.’ He spat the words out like they left a sour taste on his tongue. ‘That’s why your father and I were hoping you wouldn’t change, were hoping you could live in this world and not have to bend to the Council’s rule.’
‘Leyth, take me home,’ she whispered. She needed to be away from him, away from this craziness. They stood in silence. She could see he wanted to help her walk, but she wasn’t going to allow it. She had healed well. Her ankle was sore and her stomach was still red and puckered, but she could damn well walk.
They left the clinic in silence; she hobbled all the way to the car and slid into the passenger’s side on her own.
‘I’m sorry, Tamriel, but you are a half-breed and better off living your life away from my pack and the Council.’ He grunted as he slid into the driver’s side and revved the engine.
Tamriel could barely contain the anger that flared inside her. To hell with the ridiculous feelings she may previously have had for this man! He’d made it as clear as day that he didn’t want her around, didn’t want her in his life or in his pack.
She’d always been an outsider in this world, someone who never really fitted in with the crowd. Nothing had changed.
‘So you don’t like half-breeds either, huh?’ she heard herself say as they thundered down the road towards Folkestone.
‘What?’
‘You’re a full wolf, right? So you don’t want half-breeds around either.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’
‘How many of us do you know?’
‘Well, loads, but Julian keeps them separated from us because—’ Leyth’s excuses were lost as blinding rage swept through her. Images of her life of loneliness flooded her mind, the pain of it all was almost too much to bear. As Tam rode out the waves of fury, all that was left in its wake was cold weariness.
She just felt empty. Lost.
Tam absently watched the world go by out of the window as Leyth drove, feeling worse by the second. His words were bouncing around in her mind. You are a half-breed. You really are better off living your life away from my pack.
Eventually they began to near her own town, flying through streets she recognised. It was all too much.
‘Stop the car,’ she whispered.
‘What?’
‘Stop the car,’ she hissed. This man, this wolf, came into her life when he wasn’t wanted, turned everything upside down and just expected her to be OK with it?
‘Tamriel—’
‘You don’t know me. You don’t know my life.’ She shoved the door open as he pulled the car to a halt, his words reverberating through her still. You’re better off living your life away from my pack.
Leyth just stared at her, his icy, pale eyes confused, hurt.
‘I don’t want to look at you any more, I don’t want to ever see you again. Christ. You’ve been watching me for weeks. Stalking me! I don’t know you!’
She staggered out of the car door and slammed it in his face.
She was so pissed off at the world, at him, at herself. He had been stalking her and she’d let him into her home anyway, let him get under her skin with lies and magic tricks and she’d believed him. What an idiot she was.
Heaving a deep breath, she hobbled forward, away from the car. Leyth just sat there, staring after her, but she ignored him. He’d managed to get so far under her skin in a matter of hours that she could still smell him, still feel the caress of his hand on her skin. What was it about him that called so strongly to her heart? To her soul? Goddamn it.
The memory of him was burnt into her eyelids, all she could think about was him, and when she pushed the memory of him away, all that came to mind was her time with that wolf. That huge wolf that she’d chased into the woods, that she had bonded with so strongly. The wolf that apparently was a man.
The cold winter wind whipped past her, fanning her hair out and cooling the tears running down her face. Her mind was buzzing with unanswered questions, she just hadn’t the strength to think about it all now.
Instinctively she carried on, towards the sea, towards the Leas.
The sea breeze was calling her, memories beckoning her towards the Marlowe building.
There was a story here, hidden beneath all of this madness, and she was going to find it. She was going to.
Chapter Seven
God, what an idiot he was. Leyth stalked the night, mentally kicking himself for how much of an arse he’d been.
Yeah, I do know half-breeds, but Julian keeps them separated.
What a stupid thing to say. Any trust she’d had in him was well and truly squashed now. She must hate him.
What was he going to do now? He’d have to go to Julian and beg him to put another wolf on to watch her. She had to be looked after if she changed, even if it wasn’t by him. The anger that roared to the surface of his mind at the thought of another male being near Tamriel sent him flying at the closest wall, taking his fury out on the ungiving brick, leaving his fists bloody and bruised. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her.
Glancing back at her flat, he didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t walk away from her, but he had to. She was better off without him and he was no better off at all.
The idea of a life without Tam was excruciating. He might as well go to the Circle and become a tomb. He needed to fight. He needed to pummel the shit out of something and pretend that something was himself.
Breaking into a jog, Leyth ran towards the centre of town. He had no doubt the Council would have its minions out stalking the streets for half-breed supernaturals that hadn’t been found by the Council yet and as such weren’t part of their ‘programme’.
The Council had eyes everywhere, and if they were lucky they would find these kids first, but if they didn’t? If the Circle found them?
A supposedly ‘like-minded’ tomb would draw the innocent half-breed into a false sense of security and take them to the Circle to have their souls bound against their will, turning them into a tomb to use as another pawn in the Circle battle.
Sure as hell, as he came to the outskirts of the town centre, the scent of death rode his senses, making his skin crawl. He followed his nose, trying desperately to breathe shallow, until he came to the back of the local supermarket. In a small space behind the shopping centre, there was a scrawny-looking teenager talking to a beefy tomb. The boy looked terrified, but determined, as the tomb locked an arm around him, leading him out of the place. Not on Leyth’s watch. Entering the space at a flat-out run, Leyth ripped the tomb away from the boy.
‘Hide!’ he barked, as he swung the tomb around.
‘Get off me, wolf!’ The tomb staggered backwards, staring him down.
‘You’re not a tuhrned?’ Leyth spat.
‘Yes I am.’ The thing’s voice distorted as Leyth looked at him, the eyes that seemed normal, brown in colour and full of life, slowly glazed over and turned black.
‘The Circle have more control than you think, wolf.’ The tomb’s fangs started to lengthen, and it came at him with speed. Vampire. Out of instinct, Leyth threw up an arm as the thing hit him fang first, ripping flesh from his forearm as it sank its teeth in, blood soak
ed through his jacket and dripped onto the floor as he hissed in pain. Reaching for his knives, he cursed. Tam still had them. And his bolo was still at the centre. It was beginning to look like this was going to be a battle of strengths.
Ripping the tomb off his arm, he snapped its head round, cracking bone as he went. Working fast, he sent a kick to its stomach, knocking it off its feet. Clutching his injured arm to his chest, he made quick work of cracking limbs and joints so the tomb couldn’t get up. Legs were the first to go; he snapped its knees. Then he went for the arms; grabbing at the tomb’s wrists, he twisted the limb around as far as it would go and thrust a knee against the elbow, the joint cracked and broke as easily as cardboard.
As he let go of the arm, the tomb lunged, its broken limbs flopping around as it used only the strength of its stomach muscles to heft its body forward. Catching Leyth off guard, the zombified bastard bit him again. Hard. His teeth sank into his leg and ripped at the muscle. The tomb started sucking, taking huge pulls at the wound. Leyth could feel blood gushing into its mouth, could feel his energy taking a back seat as it did.
Letting himself fall back, the motion ripping his leg out of the tomb’s mouth, its teeth tearing skin and muscle as it went, Leyth scrambled backwards. Barking out a curse, he struggled to stand up… Then he saw the kid whip forward with a bit of wood he’d managed to find in the dumpster and crack the remaining arm, catching the tomb’s elbow, stopping it from dragging itself forward. The kid hissed, fangs bared, and plunged the wood into the stomach of the decaying bastard, blood bursting its way out from the tomb’s stomach.
As the thing’s eyes locked on to the two of them, the tomb laughed, We are closer than you think. With that, the blackened eyes began to recede, leaving lifeless brown irises in their place. The life holding the vampire together had long since faded. It was only the magi controlling it that kept the body going once the host died, and now they had retreated, they left nothing but death in their wake.
Leyth and the rest of the White Wolf pack had thought that the body was dead as soon as the ritual had happened, as soon as the soul was bound. But having seen this tomb with normal eyes, and what seemed to be self-control before the Council took him over, suggested that the tombs could actually control themselves. If the Circle let them.
‘Who… What was that?’ the kid vampire panted.
‘That was a tuhrned. You’re lucky you didn’t leave with him.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Leyth. I’m a wolf.’
‘A wolf?’
‘Yeah.’ Christ, Leyth didn’t have the time or energy to be answering all these questions. He pulled his mobile from his pocket and called Carl.
‘Hey, buddy, haven’t heard from you for a while!’ The American-accented drawl came down the line.
‘Yeah, sorry, man. Had shit to deal with.’
‘I need to talk to you about that last call in—’
‘Yeah, tell me later. I got another one here, really public, behind ASDA, a clean-up ASAP. No casualties, one dead tomb, one alive, but he’s a new vampire.’
‘Half-breed?’Leyth cringed at the word.
‘Er, yeah, looks like it. Look, I gotta go.’
‘No you don’t. You stay there until we get there. OK? I’m only two minutes out. Do not leave that vamp,’ Carl instructed.
‘OK, OK. Keep your panties on. See you in two.’
Leyth shoved the phone back into his pocket. The sense that he was running out of time washed over him, but he had no idea why. Urgency heated his blood, making him twitchy.
‘Did, did you call me a vampire?’ The kid inched forward, brown eyes filled with terror and confusion.
‘Ah, man. Look, I don’t know exactly, but yeah, seems that way.’
‘That kind of makes sense, I keep getting these cravings.’
‘What?’
‘You know… For blood,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve been really ill lately. Mum was really worried. But I just couldn’t stay there. I bit my dog and—’ The kid trailed off, tears welling up in those wide eyes of his and falling down his pale cheeks. ‘And now I’ve killed someone. What am I going to do?’
‘Look, kid, you’re going to be OK. Trust me. We’ve got you, we’ll look after you,’ Leyth huffed, trying desperately to sound kind and sincere.
A van screeched to a halt and Carl jumped out, his thinning grey hair pushed back off his face, his ratty ponytail swinging with his powerful strides. He looked like crap. Carl was a shifter, so much stronger than most humans, and his size used to dominate even Leyth. Now he just looked tired. Life had clearly taken its toll on the male; his body seemed to sag under the strain of stress. His skin was pasty and dark circles dominated the space underneath his eyes. His clothes hung off his thinning frame.
‘I need to talk to you,’ Carl snapped as he marched over to Leyth, clocking the kid at the last minute. Turning around swiftly, he hollered, ‘Sapphire!’
The door at the back of the van swung open and the female in question stuck her head out, her long red hair almost brushing the floor as she leant out of the van, green eyes sparkling as they met his.
‘What? Hey, Leyth, long time, no see!’ Her sultry tones hit his ears, making him smile.
‘Hey, Saph—’ Carl shot Leyth a scowl, cutting him off, then turned to Sapphire. Carl pointed a finger in her direction and nodded his head back at the kid in a not-so-subtle way of saying ‘get this kid out of the way so I can tell this bastard how pissed off I am with him in private’.
Leyth snorted and clapped a hand on the kid’s shoulder. ‘Buddy, go and see Saph, she’ll look after you.’
The kid glanced at the female, then back to Leyth for confirmation.
‘She’s cool, man, don’t worry,’ Leyth reassured him.
The kid scuttled over to the shifter, and she took him in her arms, muttering quiet, comforting words of the ‘don’t worry, it’s going to be OK’ variety.
With the kid safely in the van, Carl’s team started putting up plastic barriers and police tape around the area, cutting it off from the view of nosey humans. The powerful male wrapped a fist around Leyth’s jacket, shoving him roughly up against the wall. ‘Where the hell have you been the last few days?’
‘Sorry, man, I had something I had to deal with.’
‘Ever heard of checking your damn messages?’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘No buts. The tuhrned you called in about the other day was gone when we got there.’ That stopped Leyth. He just gaped at Carl.
‘Yeah. That’s right. And so was the girl.’ Crap. Not good.
‘Do you—’
‘Shut up. She was a wolf, right?’
‘Yeah, maybe. I didn’t really have time to look at her. I was too—’ Leyth started to explain.
‘What colour was her hair?’ Carl interrupted.
‘Blonde.’
‘Like Julian’s?’
‘Yeah.’ Shit. Shit. Shit.
‘Julian’s sister has gone missing.’
Finally, after miles of walking, Tamriel came to an alleyway. Memories began to flash back, hammering her poor brain. Someone crying out for help. The scent of blood. She crept along the alley, wincing as she put weight on her ankle and feeling a sense of déjà vu as she came the space behind the Marlowe building.
More broken memories flooded back. The blonde girl falling to the floor. A heavily muscled man with black eyes. He had her against the wall; he was choking her.
Tam flinched at the memory of the man’s beefy hands around her throat. His black, lifeless eyes that bore into her like knives. The distinct scent of death.
You fought one of the tuhrned behind the Marlowe flats before your fever hit.
Christ, just the echo of his voice made her angry.
Pushing the memory of his voice away, Tam stalked forward, pulling herself together. Fear thundered through her. She really shouldn’t be here alone; she hadn’t even told anyone where she was going. But the drive to find
out what was going on, to find the story, was too great. She was going to get a good story out of this if it was the last thing she did.
Her gaze roamed the area. Heavy brick lined the walls, so high that it seemed to suck the light out of the small square space. Bins lined the alleyway, giving it a distinct rotting rubbish stench that did little to hide the metallic sharpness of blood hiding beneath. Tam’s eyes scanned the small area, picking it apart, looking for the hidden detail beneath what appeared to be normal, coming to rest on the wall at the far end. She bent down and ran her fingertips across the cool grey concrete floor next to the wall; there had to be something here. The journalist in her leapt to the surface.
Eyeing the concrete, Tam couldn’t help but feel she was missing something. But then, that wasn’t hard in the dark depths of this little courtyard between buildings. The sun couldn’t reach her, and the patchy light provided little to work with.
Tamriel lay her palm flat against the cool grubby floor, cringing at the grime that was surely seeping its way into her skin. She was going to need one hell of a hot shower later. Tam closed her eyes and centred herself. The growing turmoil bubbling within her calmed as she focused on nothing but her breathing. She needed to concentrate. She tried desperately to pull at the memories her mind was hiding from her; they would tell her what happened here if only she could grasp them for long enough.
When nothing appeared, she swore, frustration coursing through her veins. They were her own memories, why in the hell couldn’t she access them? Goddamn it! It was too dark and dingy to see anything. She wished blindly that she’d brought a torch or even something as simple as a lighter. The flickering flame would be better than this.
Tamriel all but jumped out of her skin as heat caressed her palm. Bringing her hand up, she was absolutely sure that her palm was ablaze for just a moment, casting light across the concrete floor, making the shadows the bins were creating dance and writhe on the walls as the eerie blue flames cascaded, flickering and illuminating the area.
