Dustin looked up, the light bulb flickering to life in his mind. “So, it wasn’t your fault… It was mine.” A sadness clouded Darren’s features in an indecipherable expression. “Samuel could have sent those hunters, and when they came to your cottage, they must have tried to get information from Ellie. When she refused, they killed her and your daughter and moved on. After we had left France, we covered our tracks well enough that the hunters couldn’t find us again. That’s why we never knew they were there to begin with. The hunters killed your family to get to me. It had nothing to do with you.”
“You led the hunters right to us, and you never told me.”
Dustin took a step forward. “No, Darren. I never had a clue they would follow me. I didn’t even know my father-in-law suspected me of being a faoladh. You have to believe me. If I knew that I was being followed, I would have distanced myself from you and Ellie the minute I suspected it.”
Darren turned his face away, brows knitted together in a glare that Dustin didn’t fully deserve.
All the grief, the anger, and the blame resurfaced after being shoved into the recesses of his memory for over two hundred years. Darren had to face the truth once again that hunters had killed his family. They were senseless deaths. The hunters lived on for many years later and probably died of old age in a warm bed somewhere, while justice dictated that they should have choked on their own intestines for murdering two innocent females.
“Don’t stay silent, Darren. Yell, scream, anything but the silence. Hit me, kill me, do something. Don’t fester in it.”
Darren lifted his stare and his face contorted with pain and agony. Night was creeping along outside the walls of their home, and the wolf was itching to run and leave these terrible human emotions behind. “I can’t kill you,” he snarled. “You couldn’t have known that the hunters were after you. Killing you won’t bring Ellie back from the dead, and it won’t change what those men did to her.”
Wisdom won once again, but Dustin could still read the turmoil of grief in his alpha. Like the beta, it was his job to protect both him and their pack. How could he protect Darren from something as metaphysical as a bleeding heart?
“You need to get outside before you rip your clothes.”
Darren let his remark slide and nodded as his face began to gleam with sweat. “You’re right. Get Ben.”
“Coming.” Dustin heard the omega dash from the living room to the billiard room, stripping his shirt off as he went.
“I’ll take care of Katey and Logan,” he assured Darren. “Don’t worry about them.”
Darren gave a hard look to his beta and nodded again. “I know you will, but it won’t stop me from worrying about their safety.”
Ben preceded his alpha out the side door that led to the gardens and grassy lawn beyond. From the gust of frigid air that slipped into the house, he could tell that the vampires had practically invaded the property. Michael had certainly kept his word and Dustin had every intention to keep his. He owed Darren that much after the terrible day he must have had.
Chapter Eleven
“Don’t think so much about it, Logan. Just relax and focus on the inside. Feel your inner spirit.”
Logan curled his fingers into fists, feeling the bitter rage rise in his chest again. “I don’t want to feel inside. I don’t want to feel anything.”
“You must always feel something,” Adam said, his deep lilting voice like a pocket of calm air as Logan traversed through the storm. “You and your wolf will always be there, inside. Unless you learn to accept its presence, you will always be at war with yourself.”
“But I don’t want this!” Logan shouted, his voice echoing through the tree canopy high above them. “I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”
Adam’s sage green eyes narrowed on his pupil. “Logan, this is your life. Your wolf is your life. To reject it is to reject yourself and the air you are breathing right now. It is by your wolf that your heart beats.”
Logan felt that familiar wash of coolness fall over his eyes, and he knew the monster was just as irritated as he was. “Maybe I’d rather my heart stop beating altogether. Then I wouldn’t have to feel this pain.”
Logan blinked and stared out the window from the back seat of Michael’s luxury SUV. The windows were tinted to a near black, but he could still see the faint orange orbs of street lamps and neon store signs as they drove toward the dance studio.
Michael’s speech about the ancient civilization filled the car, entrancing everyone except for Logan. Yes, it was a fascinating concept, that loups-garous and vampires once coexisted in a perfect world free of war and prejudice. Logan’s mind was on far more troublesome things than some fantastical utopia.
He chanced a look at Katey who was perched on the edge of the leather seats, leaning over until she could rest her forearms on the console between the front seats. She changed into a flowing black skirt and equally flattering blouse for the evening, her long brown hair cascaded down her back in that natural beachy wave style that most girls spent hours pruning in front of the mirror to accomplish.
Logan could distinguish the twist and curl of the streaks of blonde in her hair that he had given her after he turned her. It was done unconsciously, but along with giving her the gift of loup-garou, Logan had infused some of his own characteristics with hers. The same phenomena happened to Ben after Dustin had bitten him. Ben’s hair had once been blonde and thin but now was thick and brown like Dustin’s. He also wondered how much of their personalities transferred in the process.
The lights from the dashboard illuminated her face and her engrossed expression clearly. The twinkle in her eye and the broad smile across her lips were a dead giveaway that she hung on Michael’s every word. She had a right to.
Since Michael walked through the door, he had stolen Katey’s interest with his knowledge of her past and future. He was the only one who knew who her parents had been from the start and the expedition to the ancient civilization he spoke of made him an authority on what was expected of the host for the spirit of Tanatia.
Logan watched her and listened to her questions, vaguely aware of Michael’s answers. Her beauty hadn’t changed, and she was the same woman that he fell in love with, but he could no longer react the same to Katey.
His heart throbbed urgently in his chest, and his palms sweated, but one little fact held him back from wrapping his arms around her waist to serve as the seatbelt she neglected to wear.
Katey was Adam’s daughter.
Those words reverberated in his mind like a haunting reminder. In his youth, Logan had been rebellious and insufferable. Still reeling from the knowledge that the beast within him killed his parents, Logan wanted nothing more than to isolate himself from the world and continually attempt suicide until he couldn’t feel that fiery presence of the wolf in his chest.
His new instincts wouldn’t let him rest until he found a dominant wolf to latch onto and learn from. He found that wolf in Darren and Adam. Those first few months in Devia had been the most turbulent of his life, filled with tantrums and confusing contradictions in his mind that made no sense.
At the time, he rejected any help that Adam wanted to give. Hindsight shamed him for the way he tuned out sound advice that could have been vital to his training. Over the last century, he had wanted to seek out Adam and apologize for his unruly attitude and perhaps glean more wisdom from the loup-garou.
To know that he was eighteen years too late in reaching out, caused a resurgence of sullenness in Logan that he could scarcely restrain. He hated himself for being so headstrong. He hated the vampires for killing Adam and Katey’s mother. He hated the cruel fate that his disobedience had made for him.
Yet, if Katey were anything like Adam, there was hope for him yet. Whatever wisdom she knew innately might prove useful to him and his efforts to change willfully and correct a mistake made long ago.
Then again, it posed a fresh problem for them as a couple.
Katey no
w appeared to him as something sacred and untouchable. She was the daughter of his former mentor, an idol within the society of loups-garous all over the world. There was no one who wasn’t at least aware of Adam and his father, Geoffrey, and their uncanny ability to tame wolves with old world methods such as meditation.
All the lustful thoughts and intentions he had toward Katey after they came home from Alaska now seemed even more sinful than at their conception. He no longer felt worthy to mate with the daughter of such a prominent loup-garou. He couldn’t even change at will and Katey had already surpassed what other loups-garous had tried for decades to accomplish. Mating with her would have been like an uneducated stable boy marrying a princess. In some ways, she was a princess.
Logan felt humbled just to be sharing the same air with her. He sighed and passed a hand over his eyes, leaning against the car door and distancing himself from the temptation to touch her.
“Katey, sit back,” Dustin ordered, giving a slight tug on the back material of her blouse.
She obeyed, and Logan could feel her eyes fall upon him. Logan refused to even look at her. She must have been aware that something was wrong, but there was no way he could articulate his feelings.
“We took meticulous notes while we were in the temple,” Michael explained, “and managed to find some manuscripts written in the ancient language of the society. Yaverik and I later decoded them, but it was only the murals and hieroglyphs on the walls that told us about Tanatia. Interestingly enough, in all of the council minutes, they pause for a moment of prayer to invite the spirit of Tanatia to preside over the meeting to ensure that the most peaceful agreement could be reached.”
“Did the assassins who killed her ever stand trial?” Dustin asked, also enthralled by the story. “Or did they even have a justice system back then?”
“Actually, the king and queen did sentence them to death for killing their daughter, but as the legend says, Tanatia appeared in spirit before the assembly and pled for their lives. She was wise beyond her years before she was assassinated, but her appearance at the execution canonized her as the spirit of peace for the society.”
“So even after they killed her, she asked her parents to be merciful?” Katey questioned, her attention now back to her grandfather.
“Yes. That’s what makes her legend so extraordinary.”
“So, if she was supposed to be like the guiding hand in all council decisions,” she asked, “how did the feud even get started? Wouldn’t she have intervened?”
Dustin huffed. “You talk like she’s a god or something, having a divine influence over everything.”
“In a way,” Michael replied, “Tanatia was like a goddess, but just like all religions, she fell into obscurity. The werewolves and vampires of the civilization forgot about her as the centuries passed and when the war broke out, there was nothing to ground the people in mercy and understanding. The War Beast took the place of Tanatia in their minds and disassembled the society.”
“War Beast?” she inquired. “What’s that?”
Their driver, who happened to be human, pulled up in front of the ballroom dance studio. Logan could hear the lively music and laughter vibrate the windows of the building outside. Inside, humans mingled in groups and couples sat at tables with votive candles flickering in the middle of an elegant centerpiece.
“The War Beast is the polar opposite of Tanatia. He represented division, confusion, hatred, and every evil thing that plagued their society before Tanatia’s time. It was a monster, neither werewolf nor vampire that rampaged through villages, doing unspeakable things to the inhabitance. It took half a legion of werewolves and vampires to subdue him. He was impervious to sunlight, silver, and death itself. It was only through their cooperation that the War Beast was weakened enough to be killed. Some believe, however, that his spirit still hovers over the earth, waiting for the right host.”
Katey shivered. “So, kind of like an Antichrist?”
Michael turned around in his seat to face her. “Much worse, I’m afraid. This is why your appearance means so much to the world. Yaverik, before he came face to face with Tanatia, was ready to offer himself as a host to the War Beast.”
“So, if Katey hadn’t been there and did what she did –“ Dustin began.
“The War Beast would be among us now, and the world would surely be destroyed. With our two feuding races as they are, they would not be able to unite together to capture the War Beast again. It’s a lucky thing that not many people know of the War Beast. Besides Yaverik, I know many other vampires who would want nothing more than to herald in the Apocalypse.”
“What a lovely thought,” Dustin gibed.
The driver snorted a laugh but quieted himself after Michael shot him a look.
Katey blew out her cheeks, and Logan didn’t have to touch her to know that she was trembling. Her distant and unfocused gaze told him that she was thinking about all Michael had said. Logan wanted to reproach the vampire for filling her head with far-flung worries that needn’t concern her at present. They had enough to worry about with hunters on the loose. None of them needed to think of what would happen if this War Beast emerged.
Forsaking his previous hesitations about drawing close to Katey, Logan squeezed her hand in an attempt to comfort her.
Through it all, even if she were a vampire or a witch, or some other being that loups-garous abhorred, Logan still loved Katey with an abounding passion that transcended beyond sense. Their bond, formed early in their relationship, could never be denied or extinguished. Death was the only thing that could severe their ties, but Logan was sure that even death would not stop him from loving her into the afterlife or whatever lay for him when the light was snuffed out in him.
If death couldn’t stop his love for her, then a simple matter of her parentage wouldn’t stop him either. Logan still felt the kernel of unease in his gut when she locked eyes with him. They were Adam’s eyes; he realized that now. Green as the spring forest leaves and just as full of life. When would he be able to distinguish between who Katey was and the inheritance that Adam had left for her?
Certainly, she was her own person with her own ideas and passions. Yet, there were so many similarities that he hadn’t noticed before. If he had been looking for them, Logan would have known that she was a child of Adam as soon as he laid eyes on her that night in the cemetery when they met.
Despite her nervousness, he saw the corners of her mouth pull into a smile. The strain between them was abated, but only for a moment.
“Did you two come here to dance or make goo-goo eyes?” Dustin’s voice broke through as he opened the car door on his side of the back seat.
Logan opened his door as Michael was sliding out of his seat and with his hand still wrapped around Katey’s, he assisted her out of the vehicle.
While they made their way to the front door, Michael advised his driver to come back in exactly one hour and tossed his cloak over the back of his seat. Beneath the cloak, Michael was dressed as if he knew they would be attending a dance. A crisp white button-down shirt was tucked into a pair of black slacks with an equally black vest over top of it. All that was missing was the claw-hammer tuxedo jacket.
Without the cloak, Logan could see what a strong and powerful man Michael was, even in his old age. In a fight, Logan wasn’t so sure he could defeat the man, but Dustin or Ben would be more than a match against the vampire.
A breeze made the branches of the guarded trees that dotted along the sidewalk shiver and Logan could detect the faint scent of several vampires nearby. Their presence was nearly cloaked by the city smells of fast food joints and car emissions.
“Do you have vamps all over the city, Michael?” Logan questioned, the first words he had spoken since they left the house.
The elder vampire stepped up onto the curb and fell in next to Katey, opposite from Logan and Dustin. “I told you I had my guards patrolling the city. Did you doubt my word?”
Logan hadn’t necessarily
trusted Michael since they first met in the castle after Katey was shot. In fact, he still struggled with the idea that vampires were their allies now, instead of their enemies. For Katey’s sake, he accepted her grandfather’s new place in their lives, but he didn’t have to like it. With their innate powers of empathy, Logan was sure that they could both sense his intense dislike of the notion that they would have to work closely with the vampires.
“I didn’t say that,” he replied, turning his attention to the studio.
The last time he was there, Katey had just gotten out of the hospital, and she had twisted his arm into escorting her for the sake of a party just like this one. As they stepped inside, however, he could tell there was a distinct difference between the two events. The one the month before was somewhat organized, and Katey had served in the station of an instructor, alongside Lily and Forest.
Tonight, there were only a small handful of instructors that he didn’t recognize from that time before and there was a DJ set up in a corner of the dance floor instead of a laptop and playlist blaring over the speakers.
When they passed over the threshold, Michael and Dustin slipped to the side and found a table away from the activity. Out of the two dozen guests present, only a few turned their heads to acknowledge the newcomers.
“Where’s Lily?” Katey asked. “I don’t think I even saw her car outside.”
Logan scanned the room, but could only confirm her observation. “I don’t see her either.”
“Did she leave with Forrest?”
Logan met the eyes of a curious woman some distance away. She smiled in a coquettish way that incited disproportionate anger within him. He looked to Katey and bent low to plant a kiss on her lips.
Caught off guard by the act, she still didn’t seem to mind and kissed him back, grinning beneath his show of affection.
He pulled away but kept their foreheads just barely touching. “He wasn’t in the evacuations. I thought he left earlier.”
Beast Within (Loup-Garou Series Book 3) Page 17
