There was someone here with me, and this time it wasn’t a voice in my head.
My senses heightened and sharpened to a fine point. I scanned the woods, keeping my eyes and ears peeled for any kind of movement, but the dark forest was still, save for the rustling of leaves swaying with the night’s cool breaths. Until it wasn’t. The shape I saw skulking near a closely packed group of trees distinguished itself from its surroundings by stepping forward, allowing pale slivers of moonlight to touch its body, revealing its menace.
It wasn’t human, not by a long shot. Its shoulders were broad, and it had a hunch of some kind. The moonlight created an aura around its body that suggested only one thing—it was covered in fur. The thing took one massive, unsubtle step forward, digging one of its feet into the soft earth with a squelchy thump, and I responded by backing up and balling my hands into fists.
“Get away from me,” I warned, but the creature only dipped its head low, showing me its ears and snout. I searched the immediate area around me, spotted a rock, and went for it. “Back the fuck off, asshole!” I said, holding the rock up.
The creature—the werewolf—took another step, and I hurled the rock at its torso. The rock hit with a resounding whack, then it fell to the wet earth, inert. Its lips peeled back to display many sharp teeth, each catching the moonlight like razorblades. I hadn’t hurt it with the rock; all I had done was piss it off, and now it was going to kill me.
The werewolf threw itself on all fours and charged, a semi-luminous moving shape in the darkness that almost filled my field of vision. How big exactly was that thing? Breaking my momentary paralysis, I turned tail and started to run, realizing after taking barely a few steps that I was wearing high heels. One of the heels embedded itself into the soil, and I went sprawling to the ground.
I sat up as quick as I could, knowing the thing was only inches away from me, and after pulling my heel free from the soil, I thrust my foot out toward the monster. The heel struck the werewolf’s tough hide hard enough to pierce it. Maybe the werewolf hadn’t been expecting pain, but it flinched its shoulder away, freeing itself from my foot. It retreated a step, warm blood spilling from its wound and spraying me across the face.
That thing lured you out of the mansion, the voice in my mind said, it bit you once, and made you hurt Aiden… now, go and kick its ass.
The werewolf, having quickly recovered from the injury, reached for my leg and grabbed it like a Neanderthal. I grabbed at the base of a nearby tree, but the beast was too fast, too strong. It pulled me by my leg and began running, sprinting deeper into the woods with me in tow. Pain shrieked through my body as my back dragged over rocks and fallen branches. Gritting my teeth against the pain, I summoned all of the energy I could into my core and pulled myself up, reaching for this thing’s massive biceps with outstretched hands. The werewolf turned its head just as I managed to grab hold of it. I curled my body around its arm, despite it having a hold of my leg, and again it squealed from a sudden, sharp pain. I almost couldn’t understand what had happened; I had only grabbed it.
But then I looked at my hands, and they weren’t my hands anymore—the skin had gone black, my fingers had dug right into its tough hide, and were drawing blood.
Kill it! the voice said again, this time more urgently.
I looked at the werewolf, but I was just as surprised at having hurt it as it was, and I didn’t take advantage of the situation. The werewolf twisted its body and came at me with the gleaming claws of its free hand, connected to an arm as thick as a tree trunk. I let go of its bicep and let myself fall flat again just as it swung for me. I managed to, just barely, avoid the world of hurt those claws would have introduced me to, but it still had a hold of my foot, and as long as it had me, I was vulnerable.
The beast roared, frustrated that it hadn’t managed to land the blow on me, and then it yanked my foot so hard I sailed across the cold, wet earth. When it looked at me, its bright yellow eyes began to swirl with a smoky miasma so bright the light illuminated the tip of its snout all the way up to its eyebrows.
My heart leapt into my throat as the moment of liftoff occurred. I saw myself float up toward the trees, toward the moon, and then reach my peak height before coming crashing back down hard to the earth. Every single bone in my body cried out with pain, but the flowers of hurt that bloomed the hardest were in my ankle, my shoulder, and my back. It took everything I had to stifle the scream that wanted to escape my mouth, but I held it. I wouldn’t give the creature the satisfaction.
It lowered its snout toward me and sniffed my hair, growling low in my ear. If it could have spoken, I thought it might have. Maybe it would have told me to be a good girl and do as it said, or maybe it would have given me some cliched line about how delicious I smelled. But the werewolf seemed to lack the capacity to speak, which meant it also lacked the capacity to be reasoned with.
I stared up into its swirling, yellow eyes, and took a ragged, shallow breath to spit into one of them.
It shut its eyes, arched its head back, and roared. I went for another kick to the hand it had tightly wrapped around my ankle, digging my heel into the webbing between its thumb and index finger; an odd sight considering wolves didn’t have fingers. A groan of pain filled the forest, and for an instant its hold on my foot slackened, but an instant was all I needed. I scrambled away from it and got to my feet way faster, and with much more acrobatic flair, than I thought I had in me. The werewolf beat its fists into the ground, roared again, and came at me, claws swinging wildly and jaws snapping. I was able to stay ahead of its movements, but only barely. This thing was fast, and I was having to expend every ounce of my concentration on keeping its deadly weaponry from touching my delicate, still very much human, flesh.
Then I saw my opportunity. I had no silver bullets on me, and if the books were to be believed, a silver bullet was the only way to kill a werewolf, but I had something else; I had a height advantage.
I ducked out of the way of a deadly right hook, then turned around, and leapt onto a tree trunk, using my unnaturally sharp nails to dig into the bark, and then propelled myself up along the tree itself. I was like a spider monkey, deftly navigating the tangle of branches that seemed to only thicken the higher I went, edged to climb faster and harder by the hulking werewolf giving chase and snapping at my feet. I couldn’t believe what I was doing! My mouth turned up into a smile as the air became cooler the higher I went, eyes brighter as thrill itself filled every fiber of my being.
Reach the top, I thought, just reach the top. When I did, I looked up at the sky and shut my eyes without giving my surroundings a second thought. The sensation of changing was similar to a muscle spasm, but not an entirely uncomfortable one. The limbs extended from my shoulders, stretching out to about five feet on either side of my body. When they were at full stretch, I concentrated as hard as I could and willed for them to beat the way a bird’s wings beat. It was difficult at first, like using a muscle I’d never used before, but then I got the rhythm, and in no time, I felt confident enough to push myself off the tree… and start gaining altitude.
The werewolf, as I had hoped, saw me rising into the night sky and threw itself at me, hands stretched, and grabbed onto both of my feet. The weight was tremendous, and suddenly keeping myself airborne became a true test of strength and endurance. I had never used these things before, and as my altitude began to decline, my panic increased, but I gritted my teeth and dug deep, pushing my alien wings to beat harder, to pull me higher.
Only, my goal wasn’t to go up into the night sky; I wanted to take it closer to the mansion.
It suddenly let go of one of my legs and I thought it was going to let itself drop, better that than be caught inside the bubble of protection around the mansion, but then the werewolf swung its hand back up, this time digging its claws into my thigh and tugging hard on the flesh. I screamed, now—a banshee-like screech that exploded into the night, causing sleeping birds to wake and take flight.
Blood was
pouring out of the wound in my leg, and when I looked down, I saw the werewolf intended to use its new position as leverage to clamp its jaws around my ankle. I felt the energy ebb from my body with the flow of blood, the strength in my wings dissipating until I found myself in a freefall, wings limp, body flaccid.
The werewolf struck the trees before I did, which was a blessing because it meant it took the brunt of the damage as we fell. Maybe if I was lucky, the fall would knock it out; and if I was really lucky, I would land on its body and not hurt myself any further. I decided to take maybe out of the equation and, with my last burst of energy, pulled myself closer to it instead of trying to get away.
We landed hard, an impact so intense it made my teeth rattle. I had pulled myself close to the werewolf to absorb the blow, but it was like hitting an airbag at high speed; it’ll save your life, but it’ll knock the wind out of your sails. I rolled off the thing’s hairy chest, wondering strangely if I would ever get the smell of wet dog out of my nose after this—if I made it at all. I let myself relax on the wet earth.
I turned my head to look at the werewolf and noticed a distinct lack of movement on its part. Had the fall knocked it unconscious? Carefully, and against my better judgment, I reached for its arm and prodded it. Nothing. Not a twitch or a growl. Its massive chest wasn’t moving, either. Is it dead? But, how?
My vision started to slip, to fade to black, but the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps brought me back from the brink.
“Over here!” Raphael yelled. Of course it was him. He was always so aware of me, of where I was.
People converged all around me. I was bleeding out, darkness encroaching on my vision, and all I could say was, “Aiden?”
“He’s fine,” Dante said. He took my hand. “You’re going to be fine, too.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Cold Welcome
The time spent between my fight with the werewolf and being in my bed, fully conscious and in only a slight amount of pain, was a dark patch in my mind I never thought I would recover. It wasn’t like waking up—that would have implied I was unconscious, and I was fairly certain I hadn’t passed out. But I was in my bed, fully clothed and not covered in dirt. Had I been washed and dressed? I thought maybe I had done that myself and simply forgotten, and since a lot of what had just happened was a blur, I decided not to question it.
A quick scan of the bedroom was all I needed to notice the note sitting on my dresser. It was from Dante, and he wanted to see me as soon as I was up and ready to talk. So, I got dressed—black leggings and a Black Veil Brides t-shirt, and walked toward the library where he said he would be. When I walked into the library, I caught him with a decanter of what looked like bourbon and two crystal glasses. He sat them all down and started to pour the bourbon into one of the glasses. There were already ice cubes in them.
I approached and looked around. “Have you been waiting long?” I asked.
“Not at all,” he said, handing me a glass. “You drink bourbon?”
I took the glass. “What time is it?”
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not.”
He poured himself a glass, closed the decanter, and then raised his drink to me. “Here’s to you attaining your birthright.”
“And for not dying at the hands of a werewolf.”
We toasted and drank. The liquor was cold on my lips, but it went down warm and smooth. Much like Dante himself, I guessed.
“Do you feel alright?” Dante asked.
“I think so. I’m a little shaky, still—a little off balance.”
“Perfectly normal,” he said, taking a sip of his drink. He set the glass down. “You’re going to feel odd for the next few days. You’re probably going to dream a lot, and they’re probably going to be… nightmarish. We had to repair the damage to your leg using powerful magic, and sometimes magic leaves a little residue behind that can cause strange things to take place.”
“I think I can handle a few nightmares and a couple of weird days. I’ve been to festivals before where I’ve ended up hungover for an entire week.”
He regarded me a little too carefully. “I’m surprised…”
“At?”
“Do you have any idea what you did last night?”
I took another sip of the bourbon. “I was initiated, then… something happened.”
I had kissed Aiden, had taken too much from him, and had knocked him out. The last time I had seen him, he was unconscious at the foot of the fountain around the back of the house, and I was sure he hadn’t been with the rescue party that had found me in the woods.
“Aiden is alright,” Dante said, preempting my question.
“Thank God.”
“God had nothing to do with it. The werewolf, on the other hand, is quite dead.”
“Dead? How did I kill it?”
“You didn’t; you brought it right into the field of magic surrounding the mansion and dropped him into it. I assume that had been your plan.”
“It… was. Wow. I didn’t think that would have killed it, though— maybe paralyze it or force it to flee.”
“The magic surrounding this place is old and deadly to non-sanctioned supernaturals. The werewolf’s heart stopped before he hit the ground. You should be impressed to have outsmarted, and killed, a werewolf. That’s something none of us can say. Lycanthropes aren’t rampaging beasts; they’re intelligent and ferocious.”
I took another sip of my drink. “I don’t care about that. I’m just glad everyone’s okay.”
“And I’m thankful for your modesty...”
I narrowed my eyes. “Seems like you’re going to throw a ‘but’ in my direction…”
“I am.”
I set the glass of bourbon down next to his, then sighed. “Alright,” I said. “What is it?”
Dante took a deep breath. “I’m worried that you won’t have someone to instruct you in your… ways.”
“I won’t?”
He shook his head. “No one has seen a succubus in over a hundred years, which means there are no tutors, at least none that I know of. And even if there were, what would be the odds we could convince them to come here and train you?”
“I… don’t know. Isn’t that your job? To figure that out?”
“I have already figured it out, and I’m of the opinion that we’re going to have trouble finding someone to teach you what you need to know in order to be able to defend yourself.”
I shrugged. “How difficult can it be to learn how to do things that are instinctive to me? I killed a werewolf last night. You said yourself that was impressive.”
“There’s more to it than that, Lilith,” he said, and the way he said my name made the pit of my stomach quiver. “I didn’t expect this. I had thought maybe you would be a mage, or at the very worst, another werewolf. You had that kind of air about you. A succubus was the last thing I had expected you to be.”
“If there’s one thing my deadbeat mom taught me, it’s to always expect the unexpected, but I still think I can figure everything out on my own. I don’t need a tutor.”
“It’s not as easy as that.”
“Well, why can’t you teach me?”
“Out of the question. I’m not a teacher.”
“What about the Keeper?”
“He isn’t a succubus.”
“So, what are you trying to tell me? Because it seems like you’re kicking me out. No tutor equals no learning, which means… what?”
Dante took a deep breath. “No one is kicking you out, but you do need someone to teach you what to do, or you could end up hurting yourself or others.”
“You mean like I hurt Aiden?”
The air between us suddenly electrified. My hackles rose as I said it, and his jaw tightened the way it did when he was stressed. I had come to learn that about him.
“I know you didn’t mean to hurt him,” Dante said.
“I didn’t. I wasn’t in control, but you’re still afraid, aren’t y
ou? Afraid that I’m going to kiss you and hurt you, too.”
“I’m not afraid of your kiss.”
“No?” I asked, advancing on him, partly motivated by the bourbon in my blood, partly by anger. “What makes you so sure?”
He took my waist in his hands and pulled me tightly to his body, immediately making my heart skip and bringing a tingling sensation up through my core and into my chest. The feel of him so close to me was turning me on. I could smell bourbon on his breath, mixing with his cologne to create an exotic aroma that just seemed to draw me in even closer.
Our mouths closed in on each other, hearts racing, cheeks and chest warm. One more inch, maybe less, and we would kiss; I would taste his lips, feel his heat. My hands climbed along his chest, his shoulders, his neck, up to his jawline, his cheeks, my fingers delicately touching his skin as we drew nearer and nearer, until his mouth stopped short of mine.
“I’m not afraid of you,” Dante said, “because your kiss can’t hurt me.”
“Bullshit,” I said.
“I haven’t lied to you yet, so why would I start now?” he said, still holding me close.
“What makes you different from everyone else?”
“Because he’s an Incubus,” the Keeper’s voice cut through the silence like a knife through skin. I jumped at the sound and instinctively removed my hands from Dante’s face. I stepped away from him, but my movements had been too sudden, too obvious. He’d have to have been blind to not have noticed what just happened.
I looked at the Keeper, then at Dante, tilting my head to the side. “An… incubus?” I asked.
Dante glanced at me, eyes sharp and narrow, and nodded. Without saying a word, he picked up a third crystal glass and added two fingers of bourbon to it. This one didn’t have ice in it. Dante handed him the glass, and the Keeper swirled the amber liquor around before taking a drink. He, like Dante, also carried a dark cloud with him. Something was up, but I needed an answer to my question first, so I asked again.
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