Wolf's Bane: Book Three of the Demimonde

by Unknown

  I flipped through the pages, translating what I could and skipping what looked as impossible as Organic Chemistry. Eventually, I came across a picture that looked very familiar. I'd located the page Marek had originally shown me, the spindly drawing of a Grecian-type woman in robes, holding a lantern that emitted a cloud-like plume, under which was the word SOPHIA. The text surrounding the image was in Greek. There'd be no way I could translate it unless I downloaded a Greek keyboard.

  A thin scrap of velvet still marked the page. Instead of hanging free, the end was tucked into another page near the back of the book. Curious, I turned to the other page.

  The language was completely foreign to me, and there wasn't a single picture to give me a hit as to the nature of the text. It was footnoted six ways to Sunday, though.

  Someone had made hand-written notes in the margin. Although the pencil was faint, I recognized the even scrawl of script.

  And, the notes were in English. Thank you, Marek.

  Although the printed text was foreign, I could read Marek's notes with ease. The phrases "Horus equation" and "hybrid machine" and a few other equally curious terms, with references to other sources, presumably the other canons.

  Where did Marek get this book? And why did he make these strange notes in them?

  I turned a page and noticed a thin sheet of yellowing paper tucked inside. Unfolding the paper, I looked at the pencil drawing that had been hastily drawn upon it. A triangle, each corner bearing an odd symbol and one of three terms: puer lunae, puer solis, filia oceani. Large letters below it: Divinum Coniunctione.

  What struck me as the oddest part was that the first corner, puer lunae, was crossed out and in a different hand, were the words enfant de la magie. In bigger letters, below the original title, same hand as the previous alteration: L'appareil.

  I pondered this picture a moment. Marek had drawn it, someone else had added to it. Who? And what did it mean?

  Most of all, why did it make me think that badness was coming?

  "Sophie?"

  My attention was broken by the sound of a young woman calling me from the hallway. I shut the book with a thump and left it on the chair before running out to the hall, mysterious diagram forgotten.

  Shiloh was home.

  After a barrage of hugs that only left my ribs bruised, she half-carried me to the tri-suites. She needed to check out the fridge, she said. She'd been worried I had neglected it.

  I grabbed a can of sweet tea and perched on a stool as she fixed herself a snack. First thing I noticed were her duffle bags. The second thing was that the door to the empty bedroom was closed. "What's up with that? Somebody come home with you?"

  "Just mother."

  I paused mid-swig, unsure I heard right. "Aurelia?"

  "Mmm hmm." Her voice was muffled while she peered through the fridge. Standing up and shutting the door, apparently disappointed at the holdings within, she scowled. "I'm supposed to be with Bree this weekend and instead she made me bring over some of her stuff. I get that she wants to bond, okay? But I'm almost eighteen. I lived this long without her. I don't know why she wants to push so hard. She said we need girl time."

  "Shiloh, why do I feel like you are leaving out the one clue I need to understand what you're talking about?"

  "I just told you. Mother is going to start staying over. She doesn't want me to be alone. I guess she reconsidered the position she maintained for the last seventeen years."

  "Stay here?" That was a horrifying thought. "Why would she do that?"

  She shrugged. "I guess some kind of latent nurturing instinct."

  "You're fine here with me."

  "But you won't be here anymore." She clung to me, suddenly, burying her face in my neck. "I know all about it."

  "Your dad told you? But he said—"

  "He didn't have to. I knew something was wrong for a while now. I came home a few days after you met that Were. You felt different. You feel different, now. It's like there is another person under your skin. Like a parasite. Maybe something less gross, but still." Her eyes unfocused, and I felt her power sweep across me, the way Greco's did whenever he scanned me. "You have a hitch hiker inside you."

  What exactly could she sense? Apart from their enormity, Shiloh's cusped powers were a mystery to me. She didn't like talking about them with me, and I always got the impression that she was trying to protect me somehow. It never left me with a peaceful feeling. Still, maybe now was the time to come clean, about her and about me. "We should talk about this."

  "I don't need to. Mother told me everything I need to know. Look, I don't blame you. I know who he is. You have his CDs all over the office. But I never thought you'd hook up with a Were."

  Whoa, Nelly. I held up both hands and pushed the thought away. "I didn't hook up with anyone."

  "It's okay, I get it. Everyone needs a mate. It's all I hear about from mother, anyway. Sometimes I think she's trying to arrange my marriage or something."

  "It's not a done deal, Shy. There is still a chance—"

  "No. There's not. Mother says I have to accept it. When the full moon comes, you'll be gone." She took a deep breath and hugged me again. "I just want to spend time with you while I can. While you're still you."

  I was stunned. I'd been written off. Is this how Rodrian felt, too? Like I was already gone?

  I tried to shake the feeling of being packed up and ready to ship. She chatted while we ate dinner together, after Shiloh had run downstairs to whip the kitchen staff into a frenzy. She told me all about school and cross-training with Bree and all about the amazing creature Aurelia was.

  Shiloh didn't love her, exactly, but admired her, without doubt. Aurelia was a woman of means—style, wealth, ambition, although Shy didn't mention the fights I'd overheard. Shiloh didn't identify her as a parent—there was no affection, no parental protection. I got the feeling Aurelia was fostering a peer-like relationship.

  Just great. Aurelia was the last role-model I wanted for Shiloh, what with her egotistical obsession with herself. I wanted Shiloh to have a better chance at learning how to grow into an emotionally-balanced woman.

  Not that I was capable of providing an ideal example for relationship development. But I did want her to be happy. At least I'd encourage her to learn from my mistakes, instead of Aurelia's desire to encourage making those mistakes.

  I wasn't comfortable voicing my concerns, though How I felt about Aurelia was my own personal opinion. Shiloh wasn't my daughter. I didn't have the right to influence her.

  Or did I?

  I was still Sophia. I still had a duty.

  And I was failing at it, more and more, with every new sliver of moon that shined each night.

  Waxing gibbous | moon 12% visible

  King Pissy Pants didn't call me once over the weekend. He didn't show up Monday to take me to work and he didn't call me at lunch. By two o'clock, when I had thoroughly enough of Jasmine—

  Oh, yeah. Forgot to mention. I met my intern, Jasmine. Joy to the freaking world.

  First off, I didn't like the way she already knew her way about my office. She knew what files went where, she knew how to log into the column account, and she was extremely adept at following my submission schedule. Jasmine knew the office layout, knew each department and their purpose, and knew who to circumvent if I wanted something done in a hurry.

  She was a good intern. God, I hated her.

  I hated the way she wore her hair—a tight gelled-back bun that gave her a phony plastic doll appearance. I hated the way she made condescending little noises as she read through the column work. I hated the way she'd dump out my mug every time I left my office (oh, I thought you were done with that, she'd say). But the worst of it?

  I hated the way she'd make suggestions because they were good suggestions that I hadn't thought of first. She stirred my territorial instincts and sent them clawing to the surface. At two, I sent Jasmine out to the supply room for something I didn't need and I dialed Dierk's mobile number, ke
eping a hawkeyed lookout for her severe dark-blonde bun and her dark-rimmed eyes and her probably dark-intentioned pit of a soul.

  "Yes?" No hello, no hi, Sophie. His voice sounded clipped and precise, more so than usual.

  "Dierk? It's me."

  Stiff inhale through his nose. "Yes. Sophie. Something you require?"

  "No." His abruptness caught me off guard. I figured he'd be thrilled that I called. "I just…"

  "If you do not need my urgent attention, I apologize but I am attending business. May we speak at a more convenient time?"

  "Are you blowing me off?" I almost pulled the phone away from my ear to stare at it, I was so incredulous.

  "Nothing of the sort. I am simply—preoccupied." His voice deepened at the end, curling itself around a secret. That throaty chuckle he added at the end infuriated me. It made absolutely no room for me.

  I started to protest when there came a noise as if his phone rubbed against something, a clacking, then a new voice, close to the receiver.

  "Mein König is busy, human. He'll call you when he has time for you. Maybe." The line went dead.

  I knew that voice, although it took a second to penetrate. Cacilia.

  Kind of killed the impulse to hit the redial button.

  I moped all the way home. I don't know why his brush-off bothered me, but it did. I guessed part of me had pretty much decided I was stuck with him and he had just given me the heave-ho.

  The TTS was in the driveway when I pulled up. That brightened my spirit. What did Rodrian and Dierk talk about Friday evening? Dierk had stormed off without saying anything and Rodrian left before I could ask. Maybe he'd share.

  Rodrian was in the den, trying to look busy. Funny how he still thought he could fool me after all this time. His center was a coil of agony and conflict, and he expected me to believe he was only distracted by a stupid budget.

  I lingered at the door, hesitant. "Hey."

  He didn't look up. "Oh. You're here."

  "Yeah, I—just came in. Are you busy?"

  "Well, I have to get these documents to a courier but—" His briefcase was open on the bar, and several folders had been spread out. He stopped shuffling papers around and looked at me. Kind of. He wouldn't look me in the eyes. "I guess it can wait a minute."

  I took a deep breath and ripped off the mental bandage. "You know I love you, Rode."

  He flinched as if I fired a gun. "But?"

  "But nothing." I spread my hands and ventured closer. "You're my family. I never wanted you to feel the way you've been feeling."

  "It's not your fault." Rodrian shuffled his papers in a new order, a senseless pre-occupation of hands. It wasn't like him.

  "Part of it is." I gently drew the papers out of his hands and lay them on the bar. "I didn't have to go out that night. I certainly didn't have to go backstage."

  "You can't think like that."

  "Trust me, I know that but, when I look at you, I do. I think I should have stayed here with you."

  Rodrian backed away a step. "Your place isn't here with me."

  "And Aurelia loves nothing more than to remind me. But I can forget her, Rode, because I remember what it was like before she showed up. You were willing to put me under glass and protect me like I was a fragile thing. I should have let you keep doing that but truth is—that's what made me go out that night. I was tired of being treated like a fragile thing. I love you and I know you feel the same—"

  "No." His voice took on the hard edge I'd come to recognize. It was the sound of him trying to harden his heart against vulnerability, disappointment. He almost always used that tone when he talked about the way he felt about me, as if it was the source of his greatest pain. "Not the same way, and you know it."

  Yes, I knew it. It shamed me because I also knew I had exploited that love in the past, just to feel wanted. I would exploit it again in a hot second if I thought it would solve any part of this mess. His pain should keep me from such selfish thoughts, but the depth of his feelings only enforced the conviction that I could keep doing it without consequence.

  I pulled my hair back, wanting to rip it, tear it, punish myself. I didn't deserve to be Sophia. "So what? We can't have it. You said it yourself, my place isn't with you. For a little moment, I thought that I might actually have something on my own."

  "Well, you found it." He didn't say it in a mean way. It was just a hard truth.

  "Dierk says…" I glanced at him, hoping the name of his adversary wouldn't set him off. "Destiny has its way and we can't change it. Well, I think it's a load of horseshit."

  He began to laugh but smothered it behind his hand. "And do you plan to do something about it?"

  "Like what? I can't even get the cable company to give me free HBO for a week. Full moon is coming, Rode. I feel—wrong, like something is sliding around under my skin. I don't know what I can do to stop it from happening. I keep having weird dreams and my joints feel tight and—"

  I didn't want to tell him about that woman's voice I'd heard the night before when I was out in the moonlight.

  I didn't have to tell him.

  "So." His throat moved, a painful-looking swallow. "It's really happening. I'm losing you."

  Hearing it out loud from the person I trusted most in the world had a strangle-hold effect on me. "Don't say that."

  "I have to. I have to say it so that it sinks in. It's the mistake I made with my brother. Maybe if it sinks in, I will accept it and it won't hurt so much."

  I just gazed at him, my heart torn asunder by the pain in his power, and covered my mouth, peering over my fingers through a wave of tears.

  "Maybe it still will hurt, all the same," he said. Pulling me against him, he tucked me under his chin and hugged me, tighter than he'd ever held me. I pressed full against him, wanting to feel as much of him as I could. He pushed his fingers into my hair on the back of my head, encircling me.

  The sensation, so solid and real, gave me anchor once more. As long as I had him, I could find the strength to face another day. A temporary reprieve from the horror.

  The front door slammed and he jumped, the shock causing him to release me. He ran his palms over his thighs and peered through the door toward the sound of clicking heels.

  "Let yourself in, why don't you?" I glared at Aurelia when she posed herself in the doorway.

  "You were busy." A tint of cold amusement colored her voice. "Didn't want to disturb such a tender moment."

  What a liar. Her smile, that slit of ice, said it all.

  Rodrian patted his pockets. "I need to run upstairs for my keys. Meet you outside, Aurelia."

  His voice was low, heavy with something more than suggestion. I wondered if bossy jerk worked on a woman like her. She blew a kiss at him as he stalked past her, earning a stern look from him in reply.

  I just pinched my lips together to keep from commenting and walked out.

  "Where are you going, Sophia? Don't you want to chat until he comes down?"

  She'd never been openly hostile toward me before. Now, I could hear the heat behind her words, her longing to burn me and cause me pain. "Don't you have someone better to torment?"

  "No, I don't." She crossed her arms and smiled.

  "Well, I don't hate myself enough to linger." I headed upstairs, intending to lock myself in my room.

  "Rodrian doesn't need you, you know."

  I froze mid-step. I should be running from confrontation like this. But no one came between me and my Demivamps, especially not that one. I gripped the bannister until my fingers paled beneath the strain, feeling a motion inside me kick up like a jet engine.

  "For some insane reason," she continued, "he wants you, and I am getting tired of the energy I have to put into showing him his folly. He thinks he needs you, but I am happy to say that he is beginning to remember why he is my mate, not yours."

  I twisted and dropped a contemptuous look on her. "Rode and I aren't like that. We don't—"

  "Mmm." She waved her had at me. "Don't
waste your time trying to convince me. He lusts after you with his heart, Sophia. He has a vulnerability, a weakness for sentimentality. But when you aren't around, he remembers his true nature. You aren't one of us, Sophia. You aren't even one of your own kind. You are only you. Sad, lonely you. And soon, Rodrian will forget you, just like Marek did."

  A knot of flame tied itself around my stomach and I squeezed my eyes closed, holding my mouth shut with every ounce of constraint within myself. The jet engine was primed and waiting for a flip of the switch.

  "You should be glad the Were have taken you." She strutted out into the center of the foyer and kept on. "You are not much of anything on your own."

  I couldn't take anymore. I shot a shielded strike toward her, wanting to smack a Sophia-sized hole in her attitude. My touch was met with a blunt rebuke of sharp power when she slapped my intention aside.

  She placed her hands on her hips, leaning into her stance. "Stop trying to tap me, or whatever nonsense it is you do. You cannot diminish my strength and you cannot weaken my position."

  She wouldn't take a touch of Sophia? Fine by me. I stomped down stairs, readying a fistful of good ole fashioned Galen. I'd knock her on her stilettoed ass if it was the last thing I did.

  Three feet from her, I realized I had no idea what her DV strength was. I could be fatally outmatched and not even know it. I hovered at the edge of my self-control and took a caustic tone. "You remind me of a bitch I once knew."

  "I should hope I remind you of every bitch you ever knew." She bent her neck, bringing her that much closer to me, taunting. "I'd settle for nothing less."

  "Aurelia, out." Rodrian hit the top step at a jog and hurried down the stairs. "Next time I tell you to wait outside, you will do it."

  "Yes, darling." Aurelia waved her fingers at me before she sauntered out, leaving the door wide open in her wake.

  "Soph…" Rodrian paused near me, licking his lips.