by Lily Harlem
Dashing for the door, I slammed it shut, then retrieved the chair and shoved it up against the handle.
The poker was heavy but I gripped it like a sword, reclaimed the knife and clutched that too. Then I rushed to the front window to see what was happening.
The window was fogged and I hastily wiped away the vapor. Three wolves were looking up at the roof of the cabin. They were snarling and growling with their hackles raised.
Above me there were more thumps and bumps. A shriek rang out.
I looked at the fire, decided to throw yet another log onto it to seal that entry point. Just in case, now she was desperate, she reconsidered it as an option.
By the time I got back to the window the wolves at the front of the cabin had gone. The overhead thudding had changed, swiftly, and was now above the kitchen. I dashed through the doorway, wondering what the hell was going on.
Although I was terrified, I was also invested in the wolves being able to bring Elfrida down, and my heart pounded with both excitement and fear.
A sudden swoop by the pane had me backing into the wall and the air knocking from my lungs. Elfrida had jumped, her dress a swish of black and her hair a streak of red. She didn’t pause as she hit the floor, just took off, past the shed and into the distance. She ran so much faster than any human, her body a blur as she diminished in size and put space between her and the cabin.
The wolves barked and howled and then from both sides of the house emerged at a gallop. They chased after her and hurtled toward the trees.
Silence fell all around me. The noise and chaos of moments ago still ringing in my ears but not through the cabin. I was breathing heavily, my pulse rate rapid. I moved to the fire that was building up to a roaring heat and poked at the top log to secure it more firmly.
Would the wolves catch her? Certainly it seemed they’d have a good chance—she was well outnumbered. As long as they could match her pace and somehow corner her. Maybe they’d trap her, surround her, force her into a part of the forest or cliff edge that she wouldn’t be able to run from.
Because running seemed to be her thing. Rather than standing and fighting, when threatened she made off at high speed.
A howl peeled toward me and I leaned the poker against the wall and went into my bedroom. I could see some kind of commotion in the tree line, but the shadows were dense. Squinting and straining my neck, I still couldn’t make out what was happening.
Two trees shivered, their snow-laden branches dumping their loads in small avalanches that puffed like powder as the snow hit the ground.
Another howl.
Farther into the distance a row of trees shook.
Was Elfrida flying through the upper boughs? Had she gone skyward in order to evade the wolves?
I had no way of knowing and I certainly wasn’t about to go outside and find out.
Three wolves burst from the shadows, careering at speed, and then shot back into the darkness.
I was frantic and didn’t know what to do with myself. I paced to Caleb and Isaac’s room, rested my hands on the sill beneath their window and stared out. I couldn’t see any movement from this angle. Despite the fact it seemed to be the way the chase was going.
After a few minutes of nothing, I noticed that I was still clutching the knife, the sharp point digging into the wood. Wandering back into the kitchen, I shuddered at what would have happened had Elfrida got into the cabin. The pack, and Isaac and Caleb, were a couple of minutes behind her. She’d have sucked the life from my veins by the time they arrived. It would have all been over for me.
Suddenly I missed Aimery and Ryle more than ever. I wished they were here to hold me, soothe me, protect me. What the hell was I going to do with my life? Even if the pack did capture Elfrida and destroy her, it wouldn’t bring back my two adorable husbands, the men I wanted to spend the rest of my days with.
I would still be alone.
I would always be alone.
Two hours later, and I’d just made yet another cup of tea and slowed my frantic pacing, the cabin door burst open.
Caleb stood there, his human form silhouetted by the setting sun. His fists were clenched, his breaths coming hard and fast. He wore just denims and boots.
“Caleb,” I banged my mug on the table and rushed to him. “Where is Isaac? Is he okay?”
Caleb didn’t speak. I heard him clear his throat.
“What? Oh, God, don’t tell me something has happened to him.” Terror snaked up my spine.
Caleb stepped into the room, sprinkling snow onto the doormat from his boots and body.
“Caleb,” I gripped his bare arm. His hot skin was dewed with cool air.
“Isaac is fine,” Caleb said, rubbing at his temples and frowning.
“So what is it? Why do you look so worried? Did Elfrida get away again?” As I’d spoken my heart sank at the thought. I’d been relying on them catching her this time. Her being eradicated was key to me trying to put my life back together, not that I thought I ever would, not properly.
“No,” he said with a frown. “We captured her, near the pass.”
“What? Wow, that’s brilliant.” I clapped my hands together. Thank goodness.
“Yes, the bitch put up quite a fight but there were too many of us and once she was cornered, that was it, just a matter of time.”
“So where is she now?”
“At the den. Aatu has her chained in silver.”
“Silver, yes, that makes sense, they hate silver. It burns their skin and gives them great pain.” I had to glance away, remembering the silver flogger Ryle had asked me to use on him that last night we were together, just before…But that silver had generated pain of the erotic variety, he’d orgasmed long and hard with a few strikes and a few deft strokes.
“Bea, there’s something else,” Caleb said.
“What?” He looked so worried but I couldn’t imagine why. They’d caught their prey and had her subdued and imprisoned. What was the problem?
“I think you should come with me.”
“Well yes, but…where?”
“To the den. There’s something you need to see.”
I shook my head. “I don’t need to see Elfrida beheaded and burned.” I shivered. Much as I didn’t like the woman and butchery was my thing, seeing a woman, vampire or no vampire, disposed of in that way was something I could do without.
“That will happen before midnight,” Caleb said, glancing at the streaks of orange slicing across the horizon in long fingers. “But I think you should come, now.”
“Why.”
“Stop asking questions and just get your damn coat and boots, Bea.”
Caleb and I set off across snow that was glowing golden as the setting sunlight stretched over it.
He didn’t shift and I took that as a sign that he felt the vampire danger really had been eradicated. Instead he reached for my cold hand and wrapped his big one around it, letting his heat bleed into my skin.
My body wasn’t cold though, despite the crisp, starry night that was encroaching. My coat and my new boots were as cozy as they had been earlier.
He’d told me that it was a twenty-minute journey for him as a wolf, going at a trotting pace, so walking on two legs would likely take over an hour to reach the den.
“We should hurry though,” he said. “The sooner the better.”
“Will you just tell me what’s going on?” I asked, jogging a little to keep up with him.
“You’ll see soon enough.”
“But—?”
“Save your breath for hurrying.”
After marching beyond the Ridge and down into a gulley, Caleb turned into a dense patch of woodland. The snow was deeper here and I really had to stomp to get through it. He pulled me along and I navigated over several branches. There were lots of wolf prints, big pad-shaped holes in the snow and the track appeared well used.
I began to feel a little nervous about coming face to face with the entire Carlton Pack. Caleb and Isaac m
ight be part of them, but they lived on the outskirts of the community and I knew them to be kind and gentle in their human-forms. The wolves, to me, without having seen them shift, were just wolves; beasts with big, sharp teeth, keen eyes and huge, powerful bodies.
“We’re here,” Caleb said, stopping and turning to face me. He reached out and gripped my shoulders.
Something passed over his eyes—concern, apprehension, regret? I wasn’t sure. “Caleb?”
“This may be a shock, Bea and I want you to know I’ll do what I can to help you, but Isaac and I don’t have much sway with the pack these days.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will.” He leaned forward, pressed a quick kiss to the tip of my nose and then tugged me behind him.
The snow flattened out, it was no longer difficult to walk. The scent of a fire caught in my nostrils at the same time its glow slunk from between the tree trunks. I could hear it too, crackling, the logs popping, and with it the low hum of conversation.
Several more steps and I could see who was talking. It was Aatu, seated on a log near the fire with half a dozen men around him and a few women. They were all naked from the waist up, including the women. Some of his companions ate what looked like hunks of meat; others held mugs of steaming liquid.
“Finally, you’re here.” Isaac appeared and came toward me, a grim look on his face.
Behind him Aatu stood and stared my way. His eyes flashed and his fists clenched. Seeing the two men together I could see the similarity in their features, strong and big-boned with intelligent eyes and dark body hair.
“Have you told her?” Isaac asked Caleb.
“No.” Caleb shook his head.
“What?” I asked. “Tell me what?”
“Bring her here,” Aatu called. “Now.”
“Come on,” Isaac said. “All will become clear, Bea.”
“But?”
“Shh…” he said, frowning. “We must obey the alpha, and that includes you.”
Caleb and Isaac flanked me as we went to stand before Aatu. He stood tall and imposing, his wide arms crossed over his chest and his chin tilted upward. The low murmuring of the people around the fire ceased as they all turned to him.
“I must commend you on your bravery,” he said to me.
“Bravery?” It seemed to me I’d done nothing but cower in the cabin for months. Nothing brave about that. “I haven’t been brave.”
“How very modest of you, but it was quite something to agree to be bait in order to lure Elfrida down from the mountains.”
“Bait? I wasn’t bait.”
“That wasn’t our intention at all,” Caleb said, circling his hand around my waist. “We would never do anything to risk Bea.”
Aatu raised his eyebrows. “Yet you take her to the Ridge, let her scent swirl over all the trees, settle in the valley and soar to the top of the highest peak?”
“I just wanted to go out,” I said. “I needed a walk, some fresh air.”
“And if it lured Elfrida out of hiding then all the better,” Isaac said firmly.
Aatu smiled and nodded at Isaac. “You’re a man of great thought and keen strategy, Isaac.”
I looked up at Isaac who’d glanced away, toward the forest. Had he really thought that by taking me out it would bring an end to my house arrest? Was his intention to tempt Elfrida to try her luck? Bait? I didn’t know and I didn’t really care. Whatever he’d done, wittingly or not, it had generated the result we needed.
Attu spoke again, his voice was suddenly softer, “Just because you’re not living with the pack, never think I don’t understand how you tick, my son.”
Isaac looked at him, he opened his mouth to speak but then closed it again.
I got the sense something momentous had passed between them. Perhaps it had been the first time in a long time that he’d been referred to as “son” by Aatu. Maybe it had just been a rare compliment.
An owl called above our heads. Aatu pointed to what I could now see was a cave set in the jagged side of a cliff. At the dark entrance a massive wolf rested on its haunches watching Aatu closely.
“Come,” Aatu said, “the ceremony will start shortly.”
Caleb urged me to follow by pressing his palm into the small of my back. “Bea, stay strong, no matter what happens, stay strong and think straight. Above all else, think straight.”
“Yes, of course.” God, this whole process was going to be really awful and Caleb clearly wasn’t holding out much confidence that I’d cope.
I steeled myself and stepped past a torch holding a long, licking flame.
The light from the fire made the dark gray fur on the wolf sitting next to it shimmer and his shadow stretched out behind him and up the wall of the cliff. A low rumbling growl came from his throat.
“Calm, Darz, all is under control,” Aatu said, resting his palm on the massive head of the guarding wolf who had one blue and one brown eye.
The growling stopped.
From a dip in the wall of the cave, Aatu took another flame burning on a stick and held it aloft.
“She is here,” Aatu said, flashing his torch over a figure slumped against the wall. Her head was lolling, chin to chest, and her arms and legs bound in metal straps.
I pressed my hand over my chest. It was Elfrida, even with her red hair hanging over her face and her body shrunk as small as she could make it in the dim light, I recognized her.
Aatu jabbed his foot against her thigh.
She whimpered and recoiled, then stilled, raised her head and stared straight at me.
The hate in her eyes was tangible.
I gasped.
She opened her mouth, slid down her fangs and tried to lunge forward.
The chains rattled and the wolf at the entrance stood and bared his teeth
Caleb pushed me behind him, but there was no need. Elfrida could go nowhere. Her binds were tight and she’d barely moved a few inches from the wall.
I peered around his shoulder and saw her face contorting in agony as the silver did its job. She moaned in frustration, gave another shake of her body then whimpered as if in great pain.
“Give it up, Elfrida. It’s all over for you,” Aatu said. “You’ve broken the agreements between the Order and this pack. You will surrender to the ultimate punishment.”
“It all her fault,” Elfrida snarled, a stream of saliva running from her mouth. “That bitch, if only they’d been honest from the beginning instead of hiding her from me. It was my right to have her, to drain her, not theirs. I am their superior.”
“Who should have been honest?” Aatu said and then huffed. “Not that it makes any difference to your cause now.”
She bared her sharp teeth, her eyes were wide and wild as she nodded to the right. “Them, those bastards. They should have given her to me, not taken her as their own.”
Aatu gave a slow nod. “Ah, you mean your fellow prisoners should have given their Bombay to you, to drain and kill. Well, I guess the fact they didn’t puts them marginally up in my estimation.” He snorted. “But they’re still goddamn vampires.” He stepped to the side, swung his burning torch low and kicked at another figure lying chained to the wall.
Chapter Twenty
They had another prisoner?
Two more prisoners by the looks of it.
I peered through the dim light and spotted more silver shackles catching the flickering light from the torch. It appeared to be two men with silver bound wrists and ankles and like Elfrida they were slumped as though exhausted.
I pushed past Caleb, stepped closer and scrutinized their outlines. Both were dressed in light clothing, jeans, smart pants and a sweater and a shirt, not at all suitable for the conditions. Neither had snow boots on; one wore smart leather shoes and the other sneakers.
Suddenly the breath squeezed from me. My heart somersaulted and a rush of heat burst over my skin.
The hair, the hair on the prisoner closest to me. It was brilliant white blond an
d shorn close to his head. There were a few dirty patches but…
Ryle?
It couldn’t be.
It sure as hell looked like it.
I dropped to my knees and lifted his slumped face to examine it. There was no sign of life, no breathy mist leaving his mouth. My mind was spinning, my body floating. It was Ryle, he was filthy and unconscious but he was here, whole. He wasn’t dead and burned to a pile of ashes in a train wreck. And of course there was no breath in the air—their breath was cold as ice.
“Bea, no.” Isaac put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me back. “Stay away.”
“Get off,” I said, shaking his hand from me. “Get the hell off me, Isaac.” I caught Ryle’s cheeks in my palms. “Ryle, wake up, it’s me, Bea.”
No response.
“Please, Ryle, wake up,” I said earnestly. “I’m here. It’s okay.”
“Beatrice, he’s dangerous, come away.” Isaac pulled me again but I slapped at his hand and twisted wildly from his grip.
“It’s Ryle,” I said. “It’s my Ryle.”
“Beatrice?” A weak voice to the right. “Beatrice is that you?”
“Yes. Oh, God, Aimery?” I scrambled over Ryle’s knees and reached for Aimery. I couldn’t believe they were here. It must be a vision; my brain was playing tricks on me after the stress of the day.
Ryle and Aimery were being held prisoner by the Carlton Pack. They weren’t dead. Was it true?
“Are you all right?” I asked, lifting Aimery’s chin from where it was collapsed against his chest. He had a silver band around his neck and it was digging into his flesh. “God, no, of course you’re not…”
“Better now…found you,” he mumbled, his voice feeble and tired, a far cry from his commanding, confident usual tone.
I pressed my lips to his dry ones. “You’re not dead.”
“Weak,” he whispered. “Too weak to…continue for long.”
“Oh, God, no…Ryle.” I moved back to Ryle, frantic, he too had a silver collar that was attached to the wall. Now I looked I could see how much it was cutting into him.
