“I was wondering if he was still here, that’s all.”
“Why?” He suddenly began to feel nervous. The looks on the two men’s faces said more than anything she was asking him. They looked pissed. They looked like they meant business too. Why me? Why can’t I just get lucky once in a while without having something looking for Jimmy?
“Is he still protecting her?” Her voice still purred but her blood red eyes told him that she was no such thing. She was no kitten. She was a lion ready to pounce for a kill.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He tried to get up off the bed, but the two men rushed him so fast that they grabbed each arm and pulled him off it instead before he had the chance. They had him against the wall just as fast. His feet were even hanging off the floor as they held him up.
Samantha now stood up in front of him. “Is he still protecting the woman? Is he still willing to die for her?”
Hearing that, only one person popped into his head. “Rachel? Why do you want to know about her?” He now tried to swallow a dry mouth. It fought him with every move he made. He just couldn’t do it.
“Is he still protecting her? It’s an easy question Brandon. He is, or isn’t.”
He blinked. He tried to struggle but couldn’t. He could just hang there wondering what to do next. He thought of nothing. He always did.
6
I hate him when he acts this way. Sasha had to let him go. She didn’t want to, but truly, she didn’t feel like she had the choice. To force him to stay would have told him something that she wasn’t sure if she wanted him to know. How could she, even though she did. He acts like a two year old sometimes. And an asshole to boot. She followed him down the street, keeping behind him, keeping quiet and in the shadows. He never once turned to see if she was there. Of course, he wouldn’t. Why would he care about what I think? Why would he give a shit about what I feel?
At the third corner he turned. He was heading towards the sound of music, playing from what sounded like a crowd of people, just up ahead of them and to the right. He’s heading to that damn bar again. Goddamn you Brandon. Why? Why in the hell would you do this to me?
She stopped, watching him turn again. Just around the corner, she could smell the people. She could see their auras. They were almost there.
She watched him go inside the building.
Fuck this Sasha. He just doesn’t feel for you like that, that’s all. He’s a child—and an ungrateful little boy that just wants you to feed him once and a while; give him a roof over his head, and someone to talk to. He doesn’t care about you. He just wants what he wants, and that’s it. What she really hated was the fact that she hated him for doing what he was. She knew that her feelings for him were a lot more than this. Was she in love with him, she didn’t know about that, but she did feel something for him. Every time, she thought everything would go further and move on to something else, he would just screw it up. She hated him for doing that. In fact, she hated him for doing many different things.
Did she find him attractive, why yes? She thought he was funny. She thought that he had an overall good head on his shoulders. She knew that he took care of her—in his own little way. So, was it love, or just a crush? She just didn’t know, but she did know that he felt nothing of anything for her, so why even think about it.
Just go back home. You shouldn’t have followed him here. It’s only going to make you pissed off at him and not want to talk to him for a few days. Just go home and ignore it. Act like it never happened. She turned to the wall of the building behind her. She reached back to the corner of the sidewalk and stopped. But it did happen damn it. He did do it. How can I just ignore it? I can’t do it. I can’t pretend that I just don’t care.
She turned back to the bar. A slight tear formed over her right eye. Even with it there, she could see him come back outside. A woman led him to the left. She looked like she was even dragging him. Seeing that, she couldn’t believe it. At the same time, she could. That son of a bitch! She turned, but again couldn’t reach the corner because something else caught her attention. The woman looked odd to her. She almost missed it but right at the end, didn’t.
When she turned back and caught the two of them, just as they entered another door at the building one block down, she realized why.
The woman’s aura shone with a deep orange colored red. As she watched Brandon disappear behind the door, she saw his aura was a deep red.
That’s weird. She stepped away from the wall. With the way she was dragging him, I felt almost sure that she was a vampire. But, her aura is orange. Vampires are all red. Why is she different?
Not long after the door closed and Brandon vanished, two men came down the sidewalk and headed straight to the same door. They opened the door and likewise disappeared behind it. The one that went in first wore a deep red halo around him, while the one behind him also looked orange.
Seeing both, and thinking about it, it made her heart clench. Something is wrong. Something just doesn’t feel right about this. Why are there three of them? She went on thinking. Every answer came back with a sense of dread. After that, she didn’t need to think about anything else.
She ran back down the sidewalk, passed the bar, and headed straight to the door. Fear now controlled her heart. Fear controlled her strength. She had to find out why she felt like this in the first place and wouldn’t stop until she had her answer.
7
“Why do you want her?” Brandon tried to push at the arms holding him, but couldn’t. He tried to move, and likewise didn’t. Every ounce of energy he tried to use, the two men holding him would simply push him harder back to the wall. He felt helpless. He felt afraid.
“What does she matter to you Brandon?” Samantha paced around in front of him, growing more and more restless with every minute that passed by her. She grew frustrated with every question he asked. She grew angry with every answer he wouldn’t give her. “She’s only a woman, Brandon, a human. She’s nothing to you—to us.”
“She’s my friend.”
With that, she laughed. “Friend?” She stopped, stepping right in front of his face. She reached both hands and cupped the sides of his face with her palms. She held him rather softly, all considering what she really wanted to do to him. “We don’t have friends my dear boy. We have food, and we have family. There is nothing else but those two things”
He tried to pull his face away from her touch, but couldn’t. Quite frankly, his head had nowhere to go. “Then she’s my family then.”
That was enough. She couldn’t take this anymore. Either way, she knew that she had to kill this man. She was told that much, but besides that, she hated wasting time. She hated it more than the idea of death itself. She let her fangs protrude out from her top lips. With them hanging low, they made her anger only grow with them.
He saw her eyes flare to a bright, blazing red. He saw her fangs lengthen from her top teeth. “You’re going to have to kill me then.” It’s funny how one can accept their fate when it shines right in their eyes at the end. For right then, right at that very moment, he felt it. Hell, he saw it. He accepted it like a long lost friend that finally came home. He closed his eyes. He waited for the strike to his neck and the end to come.
What he didn’t expect, was the sound of the large crash that echoed around the room. He didn’t expect the wall to shake with a thunder. He didn’t expect the sounds of the deep snarl, and then the high hissing screams that followed everything else.
Samantha didn’t expect it either. The crash came to her right. She felt the wood smack the right side of her head as it flew at her face. She even felt the heat of the beast as it blew back her hair. When she turned, she watched a tall black wolf burst into the room with a resounding bang. The hissing sounds came from her. She couldn’t believe it. He’s here. By all the darkness in the world, he’s already fucking here!
The black wolf shook off the remaining pieces of wood and wall that were on it, and charged. It w
ent for the closest man to it. It didn’t hesitate. It came with speed. It came with awe-inspiring power.
The man was just able to let go of Brandon as the wolf reached for his neck. With one solid swipe, he felt his throat gone, and the front of his shirt covered with the warmth of his own blood. He felt the gagging come fast. He felt the pain flow through him like heat burns your flesh. He felt the air leave through the whole in his throat, as he fell to the wall and slid down it to the floor behind him.
The second man likewise dropped Brandon and stepped back. Unfortunately, the bed was standing right beside him, and while hitting it, he spilled on it and slid to the opposite side to the floor.
Samantha backed off. She went to the wall towards the foot of the bed. She leaned against it. She watched with horror as the black wolf looked at her next.
Brandon was now standing back on his feet. He felt rather dazed, all considering, but at least he was standing again. He also felt rather excited. He felt everything all at once, but mostly it was just a simple case of relief. Thank Christ! He stood there and watched the black wolf do its thing.
The black wolf turned.
He watched it step in between him and Samantha. He heard it snarl and saw nothing but its huge and massive back after that.
Samantha saw enough. She had no way to fight him. She knew that the room confined her. That small fact made her vulnerable. She also felt more alone than ever. She turned and looked to the door, or saw what was left of it, saw it blocked by the wolf, and so she turned to the wall on her left. That was the only way out. It was her only escape. “Not today!” She screamed, allowing her body to burn. She allowed her fingers to move. She allowed her bones to break. She allowed the animal inside her to go free.
The black wolf watched as the woman with the orange glow screamed and screeched out a huge snakelike high-pitched sound. The hissing became an echoed bang. Her face turned beyond pale, and her nose turned up. Her long black hair fell out all around her head, and it flowed around her shoulders until every strand of it fell to the floor at her feet. A cracking sound followed her screech as her arms suddenly grew long and her fingers grew out. A webbed looking flesh now dangled between her growing fingers. Her chest heaved and hawed. Her ears slid tall and pointed on the sides of her now baldhead. She looked eerie, even to a wolf.
The wolf whined. It tilted its head.
Brandon heard the noises in front of him but couldn’t see anything, but he had to look. He had no other choice, so he peered around the wolf, and when he saw the tall white looking bat like creature, he wished he hadn’t.
The huge white bat unfurled her wings. With a gust, she flung herself towards her left. With a huge blur, and then a crashing sound of wood, plaster, and brick, she smashed through the wall. It was gone just as fast.
The second man stood up from the bed, and as soon as the wall was now nothing but a hole, he lunged for it. With a blur of wind, he followed her. He was gone with nothing but the blur left behind where he was.
Watching them leave, and finally gone, Brandon finally breathed. He was actually more shocked than relieved. “That fucking chick just turned into a bat!” He looked back to the wolf.
The black wolf seemed to catch its breath. The sound was closer to Brandon’s sigh than a sound of victory.
“Thank you.” He smiled and watched as the wolf began to shrink.
It took only seconds for its black hair to disappear. It took another second for its black skin to turn white. Another second and Sasha stood there with a very pissed off look written all over her face.
Seeing it, Brandon gasped. “What did I do?” He winced. He blinked.
Sasha pouted some under her breath. “You can be such an idiot sometimes Brandon.” She was pissed and she didn’t care if he saw it either. She was tired of playing the games he played. After all, she wasn’t his damn mother.
He couldn’t believe what she just called him. “Why am I an idiot?” If he weren’t so thankful that she rescued him, she’d really be making him mad at her.
That really got her blood boiling. “If you’d just fucking think with your other head instead of the one you use all the time, you wouldn’t keep getting into this shit.”
Now he was really getting upset. Besides, none of this was his fucking fault, was it? “I can’t help it Sasha. You be a vampire sometime. It’s not easy. I think about two things, feeding and fucking. I can’t stop it, just like you can’t stop the full moon from driving you crazy for fucking deer meat every month!”
She huffed again. “That’s not fair Brandon. You don’t help me with that like I help you.”
He laughed some. “Like I can become a fucking deer.”
She slapped her hips with the palms of both hands. “At least I help you with one of your problems. You never ask me for help with the other one.”
Instantly, his feeling for being upset with her slipped away and it became replaced with one of shock. Shock that she said what she just did. “You never said you would help me with the other one.”
“Well, you never asked me.” She crossed her arms over her bare chest.
With that, he didn’t know what else to say. He felt speechless and completely dumbfounded. One of which he never was and the other, well, he couldn’t help but being it—all the time.
“You…you are not him. There are two of you.” Sasha heard spoken behind her. A soft voice with a heavy gurgling sound within it came from the floor.
She turned and saw the man whose throat she tore out at the back wall, leaning against it on the floor. He had both hands to his throat. He was trying to stop it from gushing, but it wasn’t going to work. It was just the matter of time before he would bleed to death and he knew it.
With nothing left to say, she left Brandon. “What did you want from him shade?” She stepped closer to him and stopped right at his feet. She saw the blood, and by the looks of how much there was, she knew that he was going to die soon. If they were going to understand what they wanted, she had to ask him questions and fast.
Brandon stepped away from the wall and stood beside Sasha. Her being mad at him was going to have to wait. With him being speechless, well he had to wait for that to stop too. Hearing what she called this man made everything else a moot point, at least for now. “What did you call him?”
Sasha huffed some as she answered. “He’s a nightshade. He’s a walker that turns into a bat instead of a wolf. I’ve hear about them, but I thought they were just myths.”
Brandon laughed some under his breath. “Like werewolves and vampires are huh?” He bent down over the man, but stayed closer to his feet. “What did you want with Rachel?”
“Rachel?” That perked up her ears.
“Yeah. They were asking me if Jimmy is still protecting her.”
The man, the nightshade, gagged.
Sasha instantly felt worried.
Brandon looked over the man and right then, he truly felt sorry for him. He could feel his heart slowing. He could feel his life fading away. Even with what they just tried to do with him, he still felt for him like this. He was slowly bleeding to death, and with it, he felt his pain. He felt his ache in having to die. “I’ll end your life quickly.” He bent in over his waist, getting closer. He could now smell the blood, and it seemed to course through him like honey covers your fingers. It came like a smothering. It came like a slime drenching goodness. “Tell me what you wanted with her, and I’ll take you before you long for it.”
The man laughed some. With the blood oozing through his throat, it sounded more like water boiling on a stove. “You will be too late anyway.” He barely got out.
“Too late for what?” Sasha watched. Her mind raced. She felt for Jimmy. She felt for Rachel. She felt for her friends.
“They will take her if they can.” The man could feel his mind fade some. Death was a slow journey that he now knew has come down to only moments.
“Take her?” Brandon looked up to Sasha and back to the man.
&nb
sp; He now had his eyes closed. “They are going for her. The black wolf…”
Brandon could feel his heart skipping into slow ebbing glances. He had only seconds left. “What about him?”
The man dropped his arms to his sides. Blood flowed down his chest. The air coming from his lungs made tiny bubbles form just below his chin.
“We have to warn him. We have to find Jimmy.” Sasha turned to the other wall. She suddenly felt helpless. She had to do something to stop the feeling from building into a mountain of pain.
Brandon stood up. “You want him?” He turned to her.
She looked back and their eyes met. “Vampires taste like rotted meet. If shades taste anything like they do then no thank you.”
He looked at her with rather big eyes. He couldn’t believe what she just said.
She shrugged. “Sorry, but they do.”
He nodded.
“You take him. Feed on his strength.”
The blood oozed. The sweet smell coursed around him like the smell of a warm soup caresses the mind on a cold day. Smelling it, he didn’t need to think about it anymore. With a flash, he pounced, jumping onto the man with every bit of his hunger burning his every bit of his being. The taste came like magic. The warmth of it came like a need. He sucked every drop he could take.
Sasha stood there and waited for him to finish. Thankfully, he was finished fast.
“We have to find Jimmy.” He finished and joined her by the bed. He wiped his mouth with the back of his right hand. He had almost nothing on it. He felt satisfied that he got every drop he could.
She turned to him only briefly. “We’ll find him at Collins’ old place. We’ll see him there.”
He nodded.
They left the room. They left the building.
He followed her there.
8
Sharlia didn’t stop running until she went across the river. When she hit Brooklyn, she slowed down to a steady walk. This was after all, her part of the city. No other wolves, walkers, anything, would dare come here. Here she could be safe. Here she controlled everything around her. That didn’t mean that she was still going to be reckless, though. She still looked back from time to time to make sure she wasn’t being followed. She kept her eyes searching for anything. She kept on guard. She did what she needed to do, until she reached her family’s home in Queens. In fact, she didn’t even breathe again until she reached the front steps to the mansion.
A Werewolf's Saga Books 4, 5, & 6 (A Werewolf's Saga Boxed Sets Book 2) Page 4
