by Evie Ryan
It was terrifying. He didn’t want to lose her. And he was afraid he already had.
All eyes were on Brandon as he stomped over to meet the pack, but he played it off by supplying a casual shrug to the group then locking eyes with Mark Houston, whose friendly face was often Brandon’s go-to safe haven whenever he rolled in late. Mark wasn’t offering much comfort, though. Unwilling to get caught fraternizing with the problem werewolf, Mark stiffened and regarded Elektra and Ismay who were standing at the head of the assembly.
“The Seattle Police Department is sweeping the Evergrove campsite to our north,” shouted Elektra, addressing all twenty-eight members of the pack by meeting their gazes one by one, as she got the group up to speed. “They’re searching for Gwen Keller who has been in our care for just over a week. Under no circumstances will we allow them to locate and collect Ms. Keller. It would be detrimental to her wellbeing, as well as the human community that is attempting to retrieve her. Right now the search party is functioning with the hope that Ms. Keller is alive. We don’t want to dispel that hope.”
Ismay tossed a pair of jean shorts towards the left side of the pack and Mark caught them. On instinct, he brought them to his nose, inhaled deeply, then passed the shorts on to the next werewolf, as Ismay tossed a grey sweatshirt towards the right side for others to pick up the scent.
“They have men. They have dogs,” Elektra went on. “We need to lure them out of the Cascades. They’ve wrongfully killed too many animals that crossed their path. We need to plant her scent strategically so that they are guided away from our territories. Let’s aim to get them into Porter Hills by sunrise. It should be far more believable that a doe-eyed blond weighing in at 115 lbs decided to hike Porter.”
“Tear the clothes,” ordered Ismay. “Spread the scent.”
The pack ripped the jeans and sweatshirt in a matter of seconds and distributed the shreds amongst them, as Brandon hung back under Joseph’s heavy stare.
“Be careful out there,” Elektra warned. “They’ll shoot anything that moves. Go as wolves!”
On command, the men and women collapsed into their wolf forms, holding the cloth bits in their teeth, then took off sprinting north up the canyon rift.
“Why are you standing there?” She asked Brandon.
“I think she heard them,” he said nervously.
“We all did,” Elektra said dryly.
“No, I mean this afternoon, at dusk. We were in the western territory-”
“When did you first become aware of the search party?” She interrupted sharply.
“At that time,” he stated, suddenly realizing the admission had landed him in hot water.
“Why didn’t you report it?” Asked Joseph.
“It was late. I was with Gwen,” he said, rattling off excuses, though aware that each one sounded worse than the last.
“Four bears have been killed in the last hour and this could’ve been prevented if you’d reported it,” Elektra admonished.
Brandon stammered an apology, but it was absorbed by their dark glares.
“Where’s your head at, Brandon?” She asked.
“I wasn’t thinking,” he mumbled.
“No, I think you were, just about the wrong thing,” she snapped, highlighting his interest in Gwen. “You promised us a big change, Brandon. That was the condition the Administration set in exchange for restoring Ms. Keller’s life. You’ve been reckless in the past, but never at the Sanctuary’s expense. This time you’ve jeopardized the safety of the entire community, shifters and wildlife.”
“Gwen Keller’s enrollment here is risking all our lives,” Ismay added.
“I expected a lot more from you,” she concluded.
“Your neck is bleeding,” said Joseph, as he took Brandon’s chin between his fingers, lifting it to expose his throat.
Brandon jerked his chin free and backed away with a snarl, as Elektra shot daggers at him on the edge of her glare. That glare told him there was no question in her mind as to why his neck was bleeding, why he’d been late for the assembly, and why his head was most definitely in the wrong place.
“We’ll be meeting with the Board about this, I promise you,” she sneered in a tone so deep it rattled Brandon’s bones. “Off with you.”
As Brandon collapsed into his wolf form, the shame that was stinging his guts twisted into rage. The search party, the Administration, the bloodstain down his neck that marked the great lengths his dark urges had dragged him, all seemed to be pressing in on him, crushing his hopes, and suffocating his dreams. He tore through the wilderness, as though he could escape the tangle of lust, hatred, and murderous instincts in his heart. To save what he loved, for the first time Brandon Scott was ready to kill something human.
* * *
Gwen hadn’t slept a wink since Brandon had run from her room half dressed and thoroughly alarmed by the harrowing chant of her name. He’d told her not to go anywhere and on the same breath had let it slip that no one could know about them. It would be bad...
The long night hours had passed painfully slow, as dread crept up her throat, tasting as bitter as the blood that had changed her.
Maybe she didn’t want to change.
Maybe she didn’t have to.
Maybe it wasn’t too late?
She’d hoped...
But just when she thought she’d grasped the thread of hope, maybe it wasn’t too late an onslaught of miserable revelations swirled through her mind like smoke, each one contradicting the last and competing to unnerve her.
The news that they were looking for her kept clouding her vision.
The fear that the blood thirst had stripped her of all humanity kept threatening her sense of self.
And the assumption that Brandon cared for her, kept sabotaging her train of thought until her mind was knotted in anguish.
By the time the sun was rising, Gwen was deeply disturbed.
She stood at her bedroom window, kneading her hands and staring out, as though Brandon would sense her distress and appear. He didn’t.
There was only one way to cut through the noise of her racing thoughts: talk to Christoph. She glanced at the clock on her nightstand. If she left now for her morning session, she’d be a half hour early and suffering just the same, but maybe the change of scenery would help.
She left her room, exited Little Bear, and started across the campus towards the Training Center, all the while getting pulled into a fresh assault of dark thoughts. If she had wanted to explore who Vampire Gwen was, and she had, she now regretted it. She wasn’t sure how she was going to live with herself now that she’d seen the pure darkness that was plaguing her soul and she wasn’t sure how she felt about Brandon now that she understood his role in coaxing that evil out.
Her parents came to mind, their quirky marriage and the adorable tiffs they’d get into. Her mother’s obsession with keeping the kitchen tidy and her father’s absentminded disregard for where he’d left a dirty mug, a soiled saucer, a cake stained napkin, was often the source of their quarrels. Gwen missed those quarrels. She missed visiting every Sunday and rolling her eyes at their interest in her love life. She missed her older sister and the way her niece hung from Margot’s arms like she was a human jungle gym.
Until she’d heard her name called out through the darkness of night, she hadn’t thought about her family. She’d been blinded by her desperation to make sense of what had happened to her, and realizing how blind she’d been, how self-centered and forgetful, caused a wealth of guilt to well up inside her. Her parents had been looking for her, probably panicked out of their minds at the thought of what they might find searching through the endless wilderness.
She couldn’t stand the thought of putting them through that any longer so when she barreled through the classroom door into the black room and discovered Christoph was just as early as she was, Gwen hesitated not one bit to find a way to have it all.
“My parents are looking for me,” she blurted out.
“There’s a whole search party out there sweeping the mountain for me,” she went on, swallowing each word through heaving breaths. “I have to do something.”
“You aren’t ready, Gwen. It’s barely been a day.”
“I need to talk to them,” she ranted on. “They’re out there worried sick that I’m dead or dying alone in the woods. I can’t let them think that.”
“For the time being you have no choice,” he stated with an air of authority that set Gwen’s teeth on edge.
“How long am I supposed to stay here? When do I get to go back? When do I get to have a real life?”
“As soon as you’re ready,” he said, as though that might reassure her, but the ambiguity only seemed to be mocking her anxiety.
“I’ve nailed glamour. I’ve successfully fed. I’ve flown with a decent amount of control-”
“You’ve fed?” He interrupted.
“That’s right,” she said, holding her head high.
“When? Who? Under what circumstance?” He demanded.
“As if you care,” she said in a tone that was a little snide for both their tastes. Gwen took a breath to reel in her animosity then tried a different approach. “Where were you?”
“Just because I wasn’t here doesn’t give you the right to get ahead of the curriculum.”
“I was starving. I was offered blood. I didn’t see the harm in it,” she began, “Until I actually drank it, that is. It unleashed something inside me, Christoph that I seriously can’t handle. I just want to go back to Seattle. When will I be allowed to do that?”
“You’re a vampire now. It’s dark. You’ll get used to it. As for returning, I can’t tell you when that’s going to happen, if ever. It takes years to master the darkness, to learn to control it so that it doesn’t control you. It’s not safe to live among the humans after just having been turned. You’d be at risk for attacking someone. You could get caught. Most vampires live with their kind for decades at least before they attempt to integrate aspects of their former lives.”
“It’s not fair to my parents,” she argued.
“Not fair to them or not fair to you?” He challenged.
Gwen fell silent.
“You didn’t ask for this. I know that. But none-the-less, it is reality,” he said in a softer tone.
“It’s too dark, Christoph. I feel swallowed up by it. I’m disappearing.”
He took a few steps towards her eyeing her with curiosity. His piercing green eyes seemed to bore through Gwen, as though he was peering into her soul and concerned for what he saw there. “It shouldn’t feel that dark,” he said as he gazed more and more deeply. “It should feel right to you, like coming home.”
“It doesn’t,” she said softly. “It feels like hell.”
“Since when? Since you woke up in the infirmary?”
“Since I fed,” she admitted.
“Whose blood did you drink?” He asked, but calmly this time.
“Brandon’s.”
Christoph sighed, releasing her from the intensity of his stare. “I thought I told you not to drink from shifters.”
“You didn’t tell me why,” she argued, as though if he’d supplied a reason she might not have been so easily convinced by Brandon’s sensual persuasion.
“My God, Gwen. I left you for one night. Newly turned vampires can’t have blood within the first forty-eight hours of waking. It interferes with the fresh vampire blood in their system. You have my blood in your body. It needs time to take root and influence the cells in your entire body.”
“You never explained that,” she said accusingly.
“You are a problem,” he stated offhandedly as a side note before continuing, “That’s why you’re feeling overwhelmed by darkness. You weren’t supposed to have any blood, and you drew from a shifter no less. That’s the absolute worst thing you could’ve done.”
“Why? Why are shifters so bad?”
“You can’t feed from the undead. Their blood doesn’t have the life your body requires. It’s like pouring sludge into the water supply. It’s poison. Brandon’s a werewolf. His soul carries a form of darkness that is diametrically opposed to the dark power in your vampire heart. He’s poisoned you.”
“So what do I do?”
“Well you don’t return to Seattle for one,” he snapped then drew in a deep breath while racking his brain for possible solutions. “What an idiot,” he muttered under his breath.
“I don’t appreciate that,” she said, sternly defending herself.
“Not you. Brandon.”
“He meant well,” she said hoping to yank him out of his sudden preoccupation with Brandon’s idiocy.
“He’s just trying to get into your pants,” said Christoph disgustedly, as though he was trying to get a bad taste out of his mouth.
“I don’t mind,” she countered.
Christoph’s eyes snapped up to meet hers. “He interests you?”
Gwen nodded, holding her ground. “I find him attractive,” she stated proudly. “He’s nice to me. He’s made me feel welcome.”
“That’s because he’s a dog who is trying to get in your pants,” he said astonished at her foolishness.
“And I find it charming,” she said without a trace of shame. “He’s a good looking guy,” she went on, leveling with him. “I’d go for him if we’d met in Seattle.”
“Let me make one thing perfectly clear,” he began, gravely dropping his tone an octave so that the severity of what he was about to say would register. “You cannot fall for a werewolf. A vampire cannot be with a werewolf. If you want a real second chance at life, if you want to live, if you want to find a way back to your parents and restore what you can of your life, then you cannot, under any circumstances, allow yourself to fall in love with Brandon Scott. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said, crumbling under the weight of his warning, though in truth she understood his words, but not the meaning behind them.
“Now,” he said, easing out of the intensity he’d used to warn her. “We need to replenish your vampire blood so that Brandon’s doesn’t harass you any longer.” Christoph approached Gwen, as he unbuttoned the collar of his crisply press shirt, opening the neckline. “You’ll need to drink quite a bit. And hopefully it’ll flush out the poisonous werewolf blood, as well as the darkness that’s disturbing you.”
Gwen watched Christoph peel his dress shirt off then pull the white undershirt he was wearing up and over his head so that he was standing before her with no encumbrances. His skin was like silk, pale and flawless, and she could feel the heat rising off of him just as easily as she was able to smell his sweet tinny scent: the blood beneath his skin. It was intoxicating, like downing a glass of champagne on an empty stomach. If the sight of him aroused her appetite, she could only imagine what the taste of his blood might do.
Christoph angled his head to the side, as a means to offer her his throat. He looked delectable. She could almost taste the power his blood carried. But her promise to Brandon was screaming in the forefront of her mind.
She couldn’t deny her feelings for him. They were real. He meant something to her, but what Gwen questioned in this moment was whether or not that meaning outweighed the life she’d left behind. Her parents were out there. They wanted to find her and she wanted to be found. Christoph could be the means to that end. What if Brandon didn’t have to know she’d broken her promise?
“I have to set my parents’ mind at ease,” she whispered, as Christoph aligned his smooth neck to her lips.
She hadn’t meant for the quiver in her voice to be an invitation to him, but Christoph ran his warm fingertips up her bare arm, sending shivers of arousal rippling through her. He spoke softly in her ear, brushing his lips across her cheek as he said, “I can make that happen, but first you must drink.”
As his
soft words washed over her, Gwen melted into his arms. He enveloped her. So tender was his embrace that she couldn’t distinguish his body from a warm bath. She felt suddenly transported, merging into the peaceful pool of his dark power that didn’t seem dark at all, but rather silvery and alluring. She wanted to be silvery and alluring like him. So she drank. And drank, abandoning her promise to the werewolf, while envisioning her old life. And drank...
* * *
Brandon had been sitting on the front steps of Little Bear for twenty minutes when he finally saw Gwen at the far side of the field making her way up the path towards him. He rose to his feet, which caught her attention, but though she quickened her pace to meet him it seemed Gwen was avoiding his gaze, and every fear he’d wrestled down since joining the assembly last night reared back up in his chest.
“Hey,” he said, hoping to read on her face whether or not the long night apart had severed their bond, yet praying it hadn’t. She looked closed off, cold, stiff. “I had to leave last night. There was no getting around it,” he said apologetically.
“I figured that,” she said dryly.
“Are you feeling better?”
“I wasn’t aware that you didn’t want anyone finding out about us,” she said point blank. “You came off pretty strong and it didn’t seem like you were concerned if anyone noticed.”
“True,” he offered. “I’m kind of always on thin ice here. Getting involved with a student doesn’t bode well with the Administration in general. It’s nothing on you.”
“Is that it?” She challenged. “Not the fact that werewolf blood is poisonous?”
Brandon was caught off guard by the information. He hadn’t known.
