by Tanith Frost
Almost.
And yet I haven’t heard a word from him since everything came crashing down here. My chest tightens as I think of him, of the hard look he used to get in his eyes when I disappointed him during training. I can only imagine how he’d look at me now if he knew what I’d done.
I fed on a werewolf, an act that is strictly and clearly forbidden. I defiled my body with an enemy species. I stood against vampires to defend his kind and preserve a power that seems to be the antithesis of ours.
Unforgivable sins, even among a species that hardly believes in right and wrong.
Still, imagining Daniel is angry because Miranda has shared my secrets with him is better than the alternative. On my lowest days, when I haven’t had blood for too long and my thoughts turn dark, I imagine far worse things.
We’re not mortal creatures, but we’re not invincible, either. It’s hard to believe Daniel wouldn’t have at least called to end things with me if he’d finally decided I wasn’t worth the trouble he’s been dealing with since the night he first laid eyes on me.
Maybe he can’t call. Daniel does dangerous work for Maelstrom. He’s a legend in our clan, the best rogue hunter we’ve got, ruthless and strong.
But no one is perfect. I wonder whether anyone would bother to tell me if he’d fallen in pursuit of an enemy.
I wrestle my thoughts away from that and try to focus again on the now. On the night air. The forest. The creature walking beside me who’s almost a friend.
She catches me looking and wrinkles her nose. I’m being weird tonight. I know it. But it never seems to bother her.
I guess walking through the woods at night with a corpse isn’t exactly normal behaviour for her, either. If the other werewolves knew she was hanging out with a vampire as often as she has, if they knew my presence at the cabin went beyond letting the resident vampire keep an eye on things, they’d think she was nuts.
I wrinkle my nose right back at her and look away, though not before I catch her bemused smile.
Maybe it was wrong of me to make werewolves my allies and stand against vampires. Maybe my screwed-up powers are part of the price I’m paying for disrupting the supernatural balance between us, and maybe there’s nothing I can do to pay for my sins.
But I can’t say I regret what I did.
Violet shoves her hands into the pockets of my jacket. She’s got to be freezing by now. She’d have been fine if she’d stayed in wolf form until we got back to the cabins, but I think she knew I needed her voice to break the silence and interrupt my thoughts.
Damn werewolves. They can’t help what they are. But being around them, being reminded of the fact that I don’t truly belong with them any more than I do with my own kind, is a weird sort of torture. I’ve spent the last year neither here nor there, ignored by my clan and rejected by most werewolves, strengthening myself and searching for peace in the space between while I wait for something—anything—to happen.
Welcome to Limbo. Population: Me.
Everyone should be asleep when we get back, but a dim light is glowing in Irene’s private quarters. Violet’s golden eyes narrow and her shoulders hunch under my jacket. I tense, too, as we creep toward the little cabin.
It’s not the light that bothers us so much, but the scent of automobile exhaust lingering in the air. Not one member of the pack likes to come or go this late at night, and even if they did, they’d park in plain sight.
We’ve got company.
I peer in the window and spot Irene seated at the little wooden table in her kitchenette, sipping from a steaming mug. She’s listening to whoever’s sitting across the table from her—someone I can’t see, no matter how I twist my neck.
“She seems fine,” I tell Violet. “You go get dressed. I’ll take a look.”
She darts off toward her room in the big cabin.
I stretch my neck from side to side and roll my shoulders forward and back.
I don’t anticipate a fight, but I need to be ready. Only a vampire would brave the forest roads this late at night.
I harden myself. Whatever comes next, I’ll handle it. If I’m lucky it will be Chester, the perpetually flustered head of the Department of Unnatural Resources. He’s a pencil pusher, no threat to me. My void power is flowing through me like the cool water of an underground river, wakening my senses and priming muscles that are strong from my self-imposed training schedule. If it’s not Chester—if it’s Miranda, God forbid, or one of the elders I haven’t met—I’m as ready as I can be.
Of course, there’s still the small matter of the other power that flows through my own. Violet and Irene don’t sense it in me, but that doesn’t mean vampires won’t. For all I know I’m walking in there with what amounts to a scarlet letter on my breast, announcing my crimes to all.
No point worrying about it now, though, or even thinking about it. Denial is a far safer place for me to hide. Whoever it is, they’ll sense my agitation and question it. Or exploit it. I need to project strength now, and nothing else.
I arrange my features into a neutral mask and knock softly at the door. If it were Violet’s room, I’d just barge in—much as I’ve tried to keep my distance, we don’t have many secrets at this point. But Irene is another sort of creature. She’s kind to me, and welcoming. She seems to trust me. But there’s something about the alpha of this pack that commands a respectful distance.
A chair scrapes across the unfinished boards of the floor inside, and I step back as Irene opens the door.
She’s the same woman I met when her life was under vampire control, and yet she’s not. Governing a larger pack in a freer environment has taken a toll on her, but it’s also made her stronger. She stands taller, and in spite of her slight, middle-aged human appearance, she commands control of any space she occupies. Her greying hair seems more mane-like now than ever. True leadership suits her.
“Aviva,” she says, and offers me a tight smile. “Please, come in.”
She seems calm, though she’s not hiding the faint tension around her eyes. Maybe this isn’t about me. Maybe the time has finally come, and Maelstrom has given her permission to leave this place behind and move her pack to Labrador. It’s been her plan since she negotiated freedom for her kind.
Or maybe it’s bad news. Maybe—
The thought isn’t fully formed before it dies, drowned in the faint hint of well-concealed power that sends a hard shiver up my spine.
I stop in my tracks before I’ve made it through the door. My chest tightens into a hard knot that sinks into my stomach, and I struggle to hold my composure as I take in the source of that familiar energy. The quick burst of relief that warms me for a moment is quickly snuffed by anger.
Son of a fuck.
I step into the cabin, and he sets his mug down on the table.
I cross my arms over my chest and give him the coldest glare I can muster. “Hello, Daniel.”
Chapter Two
Wherever Daniel has been, he’s none the worse for wear. His clothes are clean and his button-down shirt is pressed, even if he hasn’t dressed up for the occasion. His thick brown hair is in its usual state of appealing disarray.
His expression gives nothing away. Not pleasure at seeing me, though his gaze flicks quickly up and down my body before resting on my face. Not relief that I don’t appear to have gone completely insane since he left. His hazel eyes are as cold as I remember, the same ones I’ve been seeing in my dreams.
“I thought you were dead,” I tell him, my voice tight but even. No tremble, as there once might have been. Daniel is as intimidating as ever, in spite of his casual posture at the table and the faint smile on his lips, but I won’t cower. I’m not the reluctant vampire he plucked from the recovery facility or the angry young woman whose murder he witnessed before he turned me.
I don’t know what I am now, but I’m stronger than all of that. I can’t let myself step back into old weakness.
He rises, and I fight the urge to retreat.
“Technically you weren’t wrong,” he says. “I’m as dead as I was the day I met you.”
“You know what I mean. Where the hell have you been?”
“We’ll have to discuss that later.” He sets his battered leather messenger bag on the table and motions for me to take the seat across from him.
“Tea, Aviva?” Irene asks. I nod, though she’s already pouring from the teapot. She doesn’t need to ask. That little wedge of uncertainty is for Daniel’s sake, I’m sure. One more little thing that I owe her for.
She sets the steaming mug of Earl Grey on the table.
“Thank you.” I take the chair, sitting straight-backed and stiff. Daniel isn’t an elder, but he outranks me, and I’d be out of line to tell him off. I need to remember that. This isn’t a werewolf pack, where members get into violent disagreements with whomever they please and usually walk away as friends afterward. This is Maelstrom. This is vampires. And though Daniel once sheltered me and Trixie, my co-trainee, from the harshest of its realities, I now have a good idea of what the consequences might be if I step out of line.
Miranda made my absolute bottom-rung powerlessness quite clear.
I sip my tea, letting it burn the inside of my mouth, and watch him.
I have no illusions that he’s come here tonight out of affection for me, no matter how many pleasant memories flash through my mind as I watch his big hands flick through the papers in his bag.
My skin prickles. Not from a desire to flee, but from another familiar desire he has such a habit of evoking in me—one that so often seems mixed up in my awareness of his fearsome power.
I’m pissed at him, and no sculpted jaw or piercing gaze is going to change that. But I can appreciate the view while I wait for a decree of my fate, can’t I? It’s been a long damn year, and after my brief fling with Silas on the heels of Daniel’s cold and knee-weakening touch, I was hardly prepared for the dry spell I’ve been experiencing.
I declared werewolves verboten after Silas’ death. Playing with fire is dangerous, especially for a vampire. It’s not a lesson I need to learn twice.
But God, I’ve missed sex. Admitting this to myself when I was alive would have caused a wave of shame, the aftertaste of lessons I learned well in church and had a hard time leaving behind when slip-ups and sins left me an outcast. Now, I’m free to understand that I need it. I need touch. I need pleasure, given and received. This, at least, is not technically off-limits within the laws and rules of our clan, as long as that’s all it is.
And Daniel has yet to disappoint me on that front, no matter how uncomfortable things might be between us otherwise.
I shake those thoughts away, but not before he catches something in my eyes as I imagine pinning him to the table. He presses his lips together, holding back a smile I only spot in a brief moment when his guard slips. His gaze falls to the v-neck of my black t-shirt. I set my cup down and lean back in my chair, resting one elbow behind me, arching my back slightly, improving the view without offering so much as an encouraging smile.
Odds are he hasn’t starved as I have over the past year, but I can still help him suffer.
Daniel clears his throat and looks away, then sits. He pulls a thin stack of papers from his bag, but doesn’t offer them to me. I raise my eyebrows at him as Violet enters the cabin.
“We should get on the road,” he says as he checks his watch. “I’ll explain on the way.”
“On the way where?”
His eyes lock on mine, and there’s no softness or affection there. “To your next assignment. It wouldn’t be appropriate to discuss it here.”
“Heavens, no,” Violet mutters, and Irene shushes her.
“I appreciate your hospitality,” he tells Irene, ignoring Violet completely. He hands the alpha the papers. “Chester asked me to deliver these. You’re free to go. There’s a list of acceptable locations here. All quite isolated, of course. We will be in touch if there are any incidents that violate your agreements.”
She nods, but her shoulders tense visibly at the implication of the untrustworthiness of her species. Daniel stands, and I’m glad she doesn’t rush to get the door for him.
He’s never made a secret of his dislike for werewolves. I don’t know whether his opinion would change if he got to know them better. It’s a moot point, I suppose. He’d never hang around here long enough for that to happen. He’s all vampire, this one.
I used to envy that. I still do, in a way. He has certainty. Not safety of body, but definitely of position. The elders trust him, even ask him for advice. He’s solid. Loyal.
Daniel is essentially Not A Fuckup. That, I absolutely envy.
But a year spent away from vampires has left me less than eager to accept the more monstrous side of my nature, one which he embraces. I remember the faint jealousy in his voice when he said I shouldn’t tell him how good it felt to kill when I fed. He wants to experience that, to let loose the monster he knows he truly is. He feels no remorse for the loss of light, because he’s too busy revelling in darkness.
Daniel’s acceptance of his nature allows him to function in Maelstrom. I’m not sure where my current attitude will leave me. Denying what I am now is like denying my humanity when I lived, but with fewer options for functioning on the fringes of society. Maelstrom is what I’ve got.
I may be fucked if I don’t change my attitude, and soon.
“How long will it take you to pack?” Daniel asks me.
I stiffen at the question. He doesn’t ask whether I want to come, whether I’m ready to leave. Those questions don’t exist. There can only be obedience.
“Aviva.”
I look up. He’s standing by the door, waiting. He looks apologetic—almost—but doesn’t offer me another option.
“Five minutes,” I tell him. “Maybe ten.”
“I’m parked in front of the main building. I’ll meet you there.” He nods to Irene again and leaves.
I only relax when his car door slams in the distance. The knot in my chest loosens, and I sip my tea. Strong and hot, just the way I like it.
Violet drums her long nails on the counter. “He seems as pleasant as ever,” she notes.
“I’d forgotten you’d met. He’s… yeah.”
I don’t know what else to say, or what I expected to happen when we met again. I’ve changed. Daniel hasn’t.
“Nice ass, though,” she adds with a wry smile. “At least he’s got something going for him.”
I sigh and sip the hot tea. “He’s got more than that. He just hides it well.”
Irene rests a hand on my shoulder. “Will you let us know where you’re going?”
It takes me a second to speak around the lump that forms in my throat. “I can’t. I’ll be in enough shit as it is if they find out I’m practically living here. Staying in touch would be…”
Irene squeezes my shoulder and releases me. “I understand. This has to have been a job for you. Nothing more.”
I want to cry. I won’t, though. I haven’t since the night Silas died, when I learned a portion of the bedrock-solid logic beneath the vampire rule to not care too deeply for anyone.
I may be near immortal, but I’m not invulnerable. If I love the living, I will lose them sooner or later, and I will compromise myself. I will feel pain that I’ll carry with me forever. No one needs that kind of baggage.
I push my chair back and rise. “Daniel won’t wait forever.”
“You want help packing?” Violet asks, her dark brows furrowing with concern.
I force a smile. “No, but thanks. It’s not like I have much to take.” My room here is almost empty. Just a few things I ordered to replace what got destroyed in the fire at the compound last summer. This job didn’t pay well, but it’s not like I had a lot of expenses, either. I’ve got credit to my name, and I as soon as I get back to town I plan on spending it on the finest drug-laden tonics the Inferno has to offer, ones that will tempt the strongest stock available.
Stock who
se names I don’t know, who for all I care don’t even have real lives outside the club. Not like the couple in Bloody Bight who I came to know all too well over the past year.
I focus on the blissful thought of anonymous blood. Returning to vampire society won’t be all bad. I just have to watch my step.
Violet wraps my jacket around my shoulders, and I slide my arms into the sleeves. The right one is scarred, torn into by werewolf fangs not long after I arrived at the sanctuary. I never found out which one of the males did that. It seemed irrelevant once we achieved some kind of peace.
“Keep the scarf,” I tell her. “It looked better on you.”
She nods. There’s nothing else to say.
Neither of them follows as I head to my room to gather my things.
It takes fifteen minutes, but I’m not too worried about making Daniel simmer a bit. If we can’t get where we’re going by morning, we’ll find somewhere to stop for the day. I need to take my time, process this shift in plans, force my nervous tension to chill the fuck out. I feel like an elastic band that’s been stretched beyond its limits, and until I know where I’m going and where I stand with Daniel, I can’t afford to snap.
I try not to think about another long drive we took more than a year ago. I was anxious about my destination then, too, but at least I knew where I was going. And having Daniel there helped. He wanted to be with me, and that meant everything. Of course, he left me in the end. Maelstrom and duty called, and he couldn’t disobey.
Or he wouldn’t. But he’s back now, and I wish I knew why. The question of whether he’s here because he has to be or because he wants to be weighs heavy on my mind as I go through my stuff. Heavier even than the question of my next assignment.
