“Why don’t you take a seat?” my mother said with a warm smile. She pulled up chairs for each of them, and they sat down around us.
“Well,” my mother said, looking back at Field, “maybe we’ll have to decide on a birthday for you.”
We sat with each other a while longer—the other boys were a little more talkative than Field, asking questions about our island and how it came to be. Then my mother suggested that she go and find them some spare accommodations where they could have a shower, and be provided with some new clothes… as well as a haircut, if they wanted it. None of them volunteered for the latter, though they were all accepting of accommodations and clothing.
I remained staring at Field as he stood up, and all of them headed out of the room with my mother.
Field reminded me of somebody who had been traumatized—out of touch with other people and himself. He had a lot of growing to do emotionally. But I found myself looking forward to spending more time with him. To cracking him, chiseling away at his stony exterior and discovering the young man he really was underneath. My brother.
I felt in a daze as the door shut behind them. I even forgot momentarily that Lawrence was still with me in the room.
I turned to look at Lawrence, my eyes widening. “Just when you think life can’t get any stranger,” I murmured.
He chuckled. “I know the feeling.”
I lay back on the bed, heaving out a long, deep sigh and staring up at the ceiling. “At least you’re not my long-lost sibling.”
“Consider me glad, too,” Lawrence muttered.
“You could have been, for all I knew, when we found you in the basement in The Woodlands… You could have been some genetic experiment. You even showed symptoms of a half-blood.”
“I was closer to a Bloodless than I ever was to a vampire,” Lawrence said. “I still am, though you wouldn’t know it by looking at me.”
I sat up abruptly as I remembered Orlando. “Oh! Let’s go and check on Orlando. He’s supposed to be taking the antidote—probably anytime now.”
Lawrence stole a kiss from me before sitting me upright and helping me into my wheelchair. Then he pushed me out of the room and into the hallway outside.
“Where is Orlando supposed to be?” he asked, as we glanced up and down.
“Let’s head down that way,” I said, pointing to our left. There weren’t many doors to our right, and all of them appeared to be open.
As we moved along, Lawrence briefly pressed an ear against each closed door until he stopped, about seven along. “Sounds like Corrine is in here.”
He pushed me to the door and allowed me to listen too. It was Corrine. I reached out and knocked.
We entered to find Orlando lying in bed, Corrine by his side.
“Hey,” I said, offering him a smile as Lawrence pushed me toward them. “What’s going on?”
“We gave Orlando the antidote,” Corrine said, eyeing him. “He seems to be making progress. Of course, the change is not going to be as drastic as it was with you. But if the antidote can purge the Bloodless virus from Orlando’s system, which is what is making him so ill, he should be healthy again very soon.”
I narrowed my eyes, examining his complexion. I didn’t think it was my imagination—he definitely looked warmer than the last time I saw him… Though that had been just when he had walked in on me and Lawrence kissing. I could hardly expect him not to have a pale face after witnessing that.
“How are you feeling?” I asked Orlando.
He avoided my gaze. “Fine.”
“I’ve got to go and check on some things,” Corrine said, patting Orlando on the arm. “You stay here and rest.”
As Corrine left, I glanced at Lawrence. I really owed Orlando some time, just the two of us. “Hey, Lawrence, do you mind giving Orlando and me a few minutes?”
“Sure,” Lawrence said, even as he frowned slightly. “I’ll, uh, wait outside.”
He backed out of the room and closed the door politely behind him, while I returned my focus to Orlando. Now that we were on our own, he looked at me. His brown eyes were glassy.
I reached out and held his hand, which felt almost warm. “Hey. I… I wanted to talk about earlier.” About us. “Lawrence… he’s my boyfriend.”
Orlando nodded, curtly. “Oh, I know. I saw.”
My lips felt a tad dry all of a sudden. “I’m sorry.”
Orlando shook his head, while his eyes wandered to the other side of the room. “Nothing to apologize for.”
I hated how abrupt he was being. How cold and distant. How shut off.
But I wasn’t sure what more to say. He clearly didn’t want to be having this conversation. So I merely swallowed, squeezed his hand and said, “I guess I’ll leave you to rest now… I’m so relieved the procedure went okay. You really do look like you’re recovering.”
“Yeah,” he said faintly.
I gripped the wheels of my chair and backed myself away from his bed. After casting one last, guilt-ridden look over at Orlando, who was still determinedly avoiding me, I headed to the door and rolled outside. Lawrence was waiting for me on a bench in the hallway.
He gave me a questioning look as I approached, but he did not ask me anything. He waited for me to offer an answer, which I gave after we had moved back down the hallway and into my room.
Lawrence sat on the edge of the bed while I stayed in my chair. I took his hand in mine and rested it on my lap while gazing down at it.
“Some time ago, Orlando kissed me,” I said quietly.
Lawrence went still, though he swallowed rather audibly.
“He did it just a few hours before I found you in Aviary.” A few hours before I kissed you.
I raised Lawrence’s hand and placed a kiss over the back of it, finally meeting his gaze. I didn’t like how uncomfortable he looked. “I love you, Lawrence,” I said softly. “And I told Orlando that you’re my boyfriend. I just… I worry for him.”
I wouldn’t even be alive if it wasn’t for Orlando. Although Maura had also helped in saving me from the Bloodless down in that sewage tunnel in Bloodless Chicago, it had been Orlando who had convinced her to allow me to come with them. I wouldn’t have lasted another hour if they hadn’t taken me up to that rooftop hideout.
Lawrence breathed in. “Well… I, uh… I’m not sure what to say.”
“I don’t expect you to say anything. I just needed to tell you.”
Lawrence nodded. “I understand.”
I leaned in to kiss the side of Lawrence’s face, my lips grazing his stubble. He wrapped his arms around me.
I just hoped that Orlando was going to be okay. Even if he was cured now, and was no longer waiting to die, he struck me as quite the tightly strung sort. Without his sister… and now without me… I couldn’t help but worry for him.
Victoria
We could only speculate about what had happened to Yuraya. But Bastien feared that she might have returned to The Woodlands to report us to the Mortclaws.
I was not sure what we could do. How could we run? The Mortclaws could locate us with their supernatural senses.
If they were indeed coming after us, they would hunt us down faster than the three of us could make it back to The Woodlands to seek Mona’s help. I tried carrying both Bastien and Cecil at once, but I traveled far slower and it was tiring. I wasn’t a full Mortclaw, after all. I was still primarily human, and my newfound strength only stretched so far.
It seemed incredibly dangerous to begin our journey across the ocean—for who knew how many miles—when I wasn’t sure I would even have the strength to complete it with their extra weight pulling me down. If we found ourselves stranded, we would be without a boat, and at risk from all kinds of dangerous water beasts.
It seemed that our only option was to stay put and make our way back to The Woodlands as fast as we could travel by vessel. If we met the Mortclaws on the way, then… so be it.
Bastien, of course, pushed for me to fly away alone, back
to Mona. But I reminded him in a rather terse manner that I was his wife now, and I had chosen to stay.
I feared that Bastien was at risk from them, even though he was Sendira’s son. Those Mortclaws were so unpredictable. I would not put anything past them.
And so, with tense chests, we went on with our journey.
We stayed close to each other on the deck, huddled together in the control cabin with Cecil. If Bastien’s family did arrive, we would be better off together than scattered around different parts of the ship.
I began to mistake every flock of birds in the sky for the Mortclaws zooming in our direction.
Finally, I spotted the harrowing sight I had been waiting for… well, not exactly.
It was a single werewolf hurtling toward us.
Bastien immediately shot to his feet, gripping my arm and pushing me behind him. Which I found rather ironic. Of the two of us, I was actually more capable of defending myself from this young woman than Bastien was. I possessed supernatural speed and flight.
Within a few seconds, she had landed on the deck. She stood before us in her humanoid form.
Fury burned in her irises as they locked with Bastien’s. I feared that she was about to shoot her laser-like fire… but she saved that for me.
As she turned to me, I saw what was coming before she could act. I hurtled into the air, and as I glanced back to check her distance, Yuraya looked stunned. She had not been expecting that. At all.
Maybe I took a page or two out of your book, wolf.
Recovering, she zoomed after me with renewed vigor. As she chased after me in the sky, I refused to look back in case I met her eyes. But I could sense that she was closing in on me far faster than was comfortable.
In an attempt to shake her off at least somewhat, I dove into the water and passed beneath the boat. I burst out on the other side.
That hardly did much to distract her. She was already catching up again.
As fast as I could travel, I exchanged a panicked glance with Bastien. I didn’t know how to handle the situation. Keep running from her? She would only keep chasing me until she had me in her grip, turned into a wolf and tore me apart—likely eating me in the process.
Even if I was supposedly one of her own, any connection she might have felt to me because of the potion was completely overpowered by her sheer envy. I could have been her sister and she would have acted the same.
“Yuraya!” Bastien bellowed up. I could see how frustrated he was, being bound to the ground. If he could fly, he would have been chasing after her. “Come down here!” he demanded of her. “Talk to me!”
I would have let out a dry chuckle had I not been so focused on dodging Yuraya as she lunged for me. Talking was obviously the last thing that Yuraya planned on doing for a while.
“Leave her alone!” he roared. “If you want to fight, do it with someone your own size. Come and fight me!”
What was Bastien saying? He wasn’t her own size. He wasn’t anywhere near her size once she had transformed into a wolf. She was a giant.
To my horror, Yuraya paused in the sky and glanced down at Bastien.
I couldn’t believe that she was actually considering his words and averting her focus from me.
“And what if I won, Bastien? What if I pinned you down and squashed your throat until you were one breath away from your last? Then what? What difference would it make?” Her voice faltered and, to my surprise, the corners of her eyes moistened. “You would still not love me! You have given yourself to this… this bitch!”
“Come down here,” Bastien repeated, his voice remarkably steady. “Come down here to my level.”
As I distanced myself from her, she glanced up at me, reluctance filling her face. I was just about ready to avert my eyes again in case she shot more fire, but then, with a shuddering sigh, she descended to the deck in front of Bastien. Now I found myself lowering, afraid of what she was going to do next. I could hardly imagine a more unpredictable creature than a slighted she-wolf. They could be hard to predict even at the best of times.
Bastien eyed her with similar trepidation. He took a step back, maintaining his distance from her like she was an escaped zoo animal. Which, really, she was.
“You are my cousin,” Bastien said, looking her firmly in the eye. “You and I will always have a connection because of that. We are family. Your blood runs in mine… But I do not love you as my wife. I do not love you in that way, and I could not make you happy if we were married. I would leave you unfulfilled. Because you could never fulfill me. Victoria is my mate now. We have bonded. You need to accept that.”
Ouch.
Bastien was trying to be honest with her, but oh, dear, I did not see that going well.
It didn’t.
She immediately started seething again, and in a burst of fury, she leapt on Bastien and began ripping apart his clothes.
He wrestled with her, trying to get her under control, but her strength was too much for him. Panicking, I lowered to the deck, looking for anything that I could use to pry her off.
“Victoria!” Cecil hissed.
Having been backed up against a corner in fear, now he fumbled against his belt and drew out a small dagger. He shoved it into my hands.
I stared at the blade glinting in my hands, but only for three seconds.
There was no asking a wolf like Yuraya. With the sound of Bastien’s struggles loud in my ears, there was only one thing that I could think to do.
Tightening my grip around the knife, I surged forward. Her back was still facing me as she maintained control over Bastien. I rose into the air behind her. My heart thumping, I lifted the blade and brought it down, plunging it into the back of her neck.
She let out a frightening choking sound, her grip around Bastien loosening. Her arms rose behind her, hands clutching at the blade. They closed around the hilt and managed to pull it out… but the damage had been done. She coughed and spluttered, blood beginning to spill from her lips.
I stared at her, hardly believing what I had just done.
Even if, as a Mortclaw, she possessed healing powers, I doubted they would be strong enough to get her out of this. I had fatally wounded her.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion—her knees giving way, her crumpling flat on the ground, her blood pooling around her.
Cecil, Bastien and I stood stunned.
Oh, my. What have I done?
Mona
What were we going to do? The question still plagued Brock and me as we held the Mortclaws hostage outside Blackhall Mountain.
Brock suggested that maybe we ought to get rid of them, kill them, since they were only going to continue killing others in our absence. But that didn’t sit right with me. These days, I did everything I possibly could to avoid claiming another’s life.
They were Bastien’s parents and pack, after all. Victoria’s parents-in-law if they ever got married. They ought to be treated with some respect at least, for that reason alone.
I had already exchanged strong words with them, informing the werewolves—as if they didn’t know—that it was simply not appropriate to eat their fellow citizens, and that I would not stand for it. But they had replied with what I knew all along: that they couldn’t help but crave their fellow wolves’ flesh. They had been touched by the black witches—whom I had assisted at the time—and that was what gave them their craving.
I sat down on the grass, mulling over our options even as my eyes remained on the line of giant werewolves.
Somehow, we needed to remove this ghastly spell from them. I pulled out the vial from my bag and gazed at it. Those black witches, even after their death, had left behind a legacy of destruction.
I could only be thankful that Rhys had made his exit from the world when he had.
I sloshed the liquid around and around in the glass. Breaking this vial would put a stop to their cannibalism for sure. But the problem was, I did not know exactly what else it might put a stop to. It could poten
tially put their very lives in the balance, which meant that even Bastien and Victoria could be affected, both of whom had consumed the elixir to differing degrees.
“What are you thinking?” my son asked, slumping down next to me.
“I’m thinking that we need to find a way to lift the spell. Transform them back into regular wolves, the way they were before Rhys came along and meddled with them.”
They might’ve been a strong tribe to begin with, but they were still werewolves, like the others. Even if they retained their craving for cannibalism, for their fellow wolves’ flesh, at least they would no longer have such an unfair advantage. The other wolf packs could conceivably band together to protect themselves. As it was, the Mortclaws were simply killing machines. There was no fight involved. The Mortclaws decided who they wanted to attack and eat, and it was done.
The black witches had meddled with nature’s balance in The Woodlands by creating these abominations, and somehow, we had to put it back.
“What if you opened the vial and tried to… I don’t know, alter the potion somehow?” Brock suggested.
I frowned doubtfully. “I could try it,” I said. “But again, I’m worried about Bastien and Victoria.”
“But whatever you did wouldn’t be as harmful as smashing the vial, would it? The risk wouldn’t be so great?” Brock pressed.
He had a point. “No. If I was cautious, the risk should not be as great.”
“Then maybe some risks have to be taken,” Brock said.
The other option, of course, was to attempt to lock the Mortclaws away again. But what if at some point in the future, they somehow found a way back out again? I did not like unfinished business, and simply bundling these creatures back in a hole felt like just that. It felt like we needed to solve this problem, once and for all.
I heaved a sigh and wandered back over to the Mortclaws, holding their gazes as I walked past each of them.
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