Wolf's Bane: Book Three of the Demimonde

by Unknown

  I didn't want to do it. I had to. If I didn't let it sink in, he might be fooled into doing it all again.

  I put all my energy into researching the Horus equation. I still had a purpose. There was still Marek. I didn't need to let him down the way I kept letting everyone else down. However, as the days wore on, I knew I couldn't avoid Rodrian forever.

  Rodrian became more and more withdrawn. He had a perpetual sense of wanting to spill his guts but he wouldn't do it. On the occasions he did speak, it was trite and trivial. He never talked about the things he'd done with her. His shame was a glow that he couldn't dampen on his own, and I knew from his lengthy silences and burdened sighs that he tried everything he could to rationalize his behavior.

  Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. One evening, I cornered him in the den, and told him enough as enough already.

  I pushed him down onto the couch and straddled him, pinning his shoulders to the tops of the cushions. Copper heat burned within his eyes, his surprise and involuntary physical lust playing in his parted lips, the lines around his eyes, the weight of his hands on my hips.

  I set him straight real fast. This was not sex.

  I washed him clean with the coolness of the Sophia, trapping him in my arms and my barriers and my power. He would not deny me. I washed him, flooded him with all that I knew of him—his strengths, his charm, his kindness, his love, or whatever it was, for me. I held him down, quelling his struggles.

  He wanted to suffer. He wanted to be punished. And I wouldn't let him punish himself over her anymore.

  When I rolled up my sleeve and pressed my forearm to his mouth, silently begging him for the communion, the connection, tears rolled down his cheeks. He didn't feel he deserved it. He was not redeemable. He was past saving.

  And I denied him his hell.

  When he succumbed to me, when he could resist me no longer, he took my arm in both hands and broke the skin. He didn't use sex appeal to hide the pain.

  I smiled, a hard determined smile that matched the iron I knew was in my eyes. I had wanted it to hurt, too, and I enjoyed it every bit as much as if he'd brought me to a throbbing conclusion.

  That pain was sacred to me. When we finally released each other, I knew he'd be okay—his guilt had dimmed, his need for punishment forgotten. I gave him that blood because I wanted to undo the damage she'd done to him that night she pushed him onto blood rush. I had a life to repay because that kill was my sin, my doing, for not seeing what she was sooner. I should have been there—

  And no, the irony was not lost upon me. I was the one who wanted the pain, the punishment. It wasn't a sacrifice I'd make for anyone else. Rodrian was mine to guard, just as Marek was. I had a duty to save them. The entire time I was off with Dierk, no matter how much the situation was out of my control, I still had a duty to the DV. To my DV.

  I pulled my arm from his mouth before he could tidy the wound. I wanted that mark as a reminder.

  Over the days that followed, things slowly returned to normal. Shiloh stayed home more often, and Dahlia and Toby came to watch TV. Nobody said anything about kings or destinies, and nobody mentioned the tell-tale mark on my arm, or the even more obvious change in Rodrian. He was acting more like his bossy jerk of a self and the battles with Shiloh and curfews were quickly becoming legendary. The Stocks were starting to feel like home again.

  And the Wolfram still flew in my skies.

  Early one morning, I stood on the balcony, listening to its greeting when it spied me on my own perch, reminding me it still lived, still needed me. I traced my finger over the mark of Rodrian's bite, over and over, imagining the scar and its position over the line of vein on my forearm gave the impression of the shape of an ankh, the symbol of life. The shape of a miracle. It reminded me what I had to do.

  I was in the business of salvation, and it was time to get back to work.

  The office was getting back to normal, too. There was no more talk about interns.

  One day, after lunch, I got a visitor. When Stohl stuck his head into my office and asked for a minute, I just nodded, speechless.

  I wasn't sure if he was Were again. Truthfully, I just tried to forget about him and hoped he would do the same to me. Guessed not.

  "Hello, Sophie." He sounded stiff, like blue jeans dried on a line.

  "Hello. Can I do something for you?"

  "I wanted to stop in." He looked over his shoulder as if concerned somebody might overhear and lowered his voice. "To apologize."

  "For what?" I waved him in and he closed the door behind him. Was there a twelve-step program for Weres I didn't know about? I thought of Toby's past crusade to Boy Scout me and cringed. Not again.

  "For being difficult, mostly. But more because I gave you a hard time when you were with Dierk. If I had just left you alone, he could have been happy for a time, at least."

  "Oh." All my smart-assedness and my indignation poofed away and I sobered. "How is he?"

  He shrugged, his hands in his pockets. "I don't know. We don't really talk."

  "Are you…"

  "Were?" Again, a look over his shoulder. It seemed automatic, as if he spent a lot of time checking to see who followed. Now I recognized the look in his eyes. Hunted.

  I didn't fear him anymore. I feared for him. My concern for Stohl, of all men, unsettled me because it made the line between friend and enemy too blurry to feel safe.

  "No," he said, oblivious to my deductions. "I decided to wait before I went for therapy. I need time to make sure it's what I really want."

  "But I thought they'd give you an amnesia treatment if you didn't, ah, convert."

  "Dierk intervened. He gave me a choice. I chose to keep my memory, because it's my life. I need all of it, good and bad. I made mistakes, and I don't want to make them again unknowingly."

  "I understand." I met his gaze for the first time, and connected with him briefly. He nodded, acknowledging it, before stiffening once more and looking over my head. "Are you going to stay here in town?"

  "For now. The pack has requested that I remain. I think they want to keep track of me. I cannot say I blame them. I'm human again, and I know too much. And considering the kind of person I am, I don't blame them for not trusting me." He hunched his shoulders as if apologetic, but I suspected otherwise. His species may have changed overnight, but I doubted the same happened to his personality. "I don't miss it, you know. Full moon was last week."

  "I know." I'd never gotten around to deleting the app Nakia had given me the month before. Thankfully, the moon and its crazy lady didn't try talking to me again. Then again, I didn't give it much of a chance.

  "I only know it because I watch the sky out of habit. She does not talk to me anymore. I do not hear her voice. Ironic, isn't it? You were the target. You were supposed to be the victim, and you are the only one who came through all this unchanged."

  I crossed my arms and looked at him. He didn't look angry or frustrated, only looked confused. Maybe that was what made him look so human now. When I first met Stohl, he had a sense of boiling under the surface, like the magma chamber under Yellowstone. Always angry, always ready to explode into action, making him easy to define in two simple words: dangerous potential.

  He didn't look human now just because he was no longer Were. Come to think of it, I'd never really seen him as wolf. Now, Stohl looked human because he finally acted human.

  I thought about what he said: I was the only one who came through all this unchanged. Sometimes men could be so stupid. Instead of arguing, though, I just shrugged. "There was no way of knowing what would happen. You don't always get what you want. It's the not getting that makes us appreciate what we have."

  He nodded as if I'd said something wise. I supposed he took my words and extrapolated them to fit the confines of his new reality.

  Fine by me. I supposed that's why so many people read my column. No matter what I said, my words could mean just about anything to anybody. They were as accurate and as intensely personal as a
newspaper horoscope.

  I guessed he didn't have anything else to say, because he gave me a nod and left. I didn't expect a toodle-loo or a hug or anything so his departure made me feel relieved more than anything else. Go, before you decided you needed me, or, worse yet, decided I was the one to blame, after all.

  I peered after him, watching him walk away. I supposed I wanted to be sure he left. Were or not Were, I didn't trust him. He never stopped looking around as if he expected someone to pop out at him. Paranoia has a way of making even the toughest guy look vulnerable. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

  Honestly, I didn't feel bad at all. Stohl had been a menace and the world was better off now that he could no longer infect people with his hate.

  Maybe I didn't have the right to pass judgment. It wasn't like I changed him on purpose. I simply wasn't interested in feeling guilty about it. I had enough stuff bringing me down. I'd gotten better at picking my battles, and this one definitely wasn't mine to fight.

  I closed the last report cover and rubbed my eyes, disappointed but not surprised. Placing it upon the stack, I leaned back and sighed.

  My allegiance with the Wolfenkinder had opened new avenues of cooperation. One benefit was that I'd been able to gain access to hybrid research no DV had ever seen before. The Were laboratories in Delaware were just as advanced and as extensive as the DV labs in Bluebell, and apparently they've done work on their own wasn't part of the DV/werewolf co-op.

  Unfortunately, none of it was helpful. The Were labs hadn't come any closer to duplicating—or undoing—a hybrid any more than the DV had.

  My last hope had run out. I guessed Marek really was gone for good.

  I pushed back from the desk and stood to look out the windows. It was so hard to admit defeat. I had really thought I'd find something in all that research, but I had nothing to show for it.

  Maybe if I'd tried to stay objective it wouldn't have been so bad, but I'd read Marek's journals. I had finally heard his thoughts his feelings since he'd stopped seeing me. Knowing how he'd felt about not wanting to leave me, knowing now that there could have been hope for us after all—and watching it float away like dust motes when I closed that final research report.

  I wanted to scream, but I didn't. I did the only mature thing that I could.

  Crossing the office to the stereo system, I rooted around until I found the CD Dierk had given me. I read his curving European handwriting and smiled a little, missing him already but glad that things had worked out the way they did.

  I'd learned to love the man, but never, ever did I want to become Were. My monthly troubles were trouble enough on their own without adding howling at the moon to them.

  The music was loud, and I turned it up even louder. The sound was heavy and tribal, classic rock and thrash. Not pretty boys' music. It was unpolished, primal, and I remembered why I favored their more recent work. I sank down in the chair, closed my eyes, and just listened.

  Dierk had told me so much about his journey through life and through music. These songs were the beginning. They deserved to be heard.

  The boldness and the beat chipped away my frustration. He had told me his bass player wrote these songs to conquer hopelessness. Life went on. Everything managed its own way somehow. There is yet hope. I just don't know where.

  Yet, I amended.

  The last few years of my life had completely rearranged my perception of life, of love, and of hope. I supposed near-death experiences and attacks by vampires and werewolves played a big part in those changes, but that wasn't all.

  It was being needed by so many; it was being loved by such remarkable people; it was the experience of grief so profound that the world could fall away and I'd never notice; it was belonging and being valued in an otherwise impersonal and stranger-filled world.

  And while I had developed some of these things at one point or another in my life, they took on new meaning and new depth the day I visited a museum and crashed into a stranger named Marek.

  The song faded at the end, and in the lapse I heard the scream of a bird far across the field. Going to the window once more, I scanned the sky, wondering if I could see it. Wondering if it was the Wolfram. Wondering if it was mine.

  The CD played on, and the notes of an acoustic piece tripped like a medieval fountain. It was one of the bardic songs that Dierk had mentioned. I listened and distractedly watched for the bird, pushing open the door. I leaned out as the music streamed out around me.

  The bird flew high on a warm spring thermal over the patch of woods standing to the north. It circled lazily; was it hunting or relaxing? It edged closer, but never close enough for me to see it well.

  I gave up and wandered over to the stereo to restart the track. I closed my eyes again and listened. Ocean's Daughter it was called, written like a bard's tale and set to a minstrel tune. I recognized this song, although I didn't know it well; maybe I'd heard it long ago, or maybe the melodies were recycled in later songs.

  Now, for the first time I listened to it carefully, word for word. Halfway through it, I sat bolt upright, eyes wide, wondering if I'd heard him right.

  Before the music ended, I flew out the door and down the steps, calling for Rodrian as loudly as I could.

  Shortly, he joined me in the office listening to the same song. His hands were folded and he rested his chin upon them, eyebrows bunched in concentration

  He signaled to me and I paused the CD. "What does he say right there?"

  "The wolf is gone, that lived in me, a bitter empty shell," I said.

  "Are you sure?"

  I nodded.

  He rubbed the tip of his nose. "I don't know how you can even tell what he's saying."

  "I read the lyrics online." Which was part of the truth, anyways. Fact was, I knew his voice now.

  Resuming the track, we listened to it all the way out. I shuffled through the papers on my desk to find the song sheet I had printed.

  "Well?" I asked.

  "Well, what?"

  "Ocean's Daughter. She turned a Were into a regular person."

  "It's just a song, Sophie." Rodrian pinched his brow, looking weary.

  No, it was more than a song. Rudy may have written it, but we just lived through it. I felt the gut-connection, a tight one that wouldn't let go. "A song that was written by werewolves."

  "That doesn't mean it's real."

  "It may," I said. "I haven't told you about Stohl."

  "Great." Rodrian looked away, hands on his hips. "Another Were boy-toy?"

  "Hardly. He hated my guts."

  He snorted, looking somewhat mollified that I hadn't had every mutt in the pack lapping at my heels. Rodrian was such a petty jerk sometimes. And it was so nice to have him back. "What about him?"

  "He was the one who bit me."

  Rodrian's temper ignited faster than a superhero yelling flame on! His eyes were angry and bright. Glinting with vengeance. "Was he, now?"

  "Relax," I said. "He can't hurt me anymore. Well, I guess he could. Anybody could. I'm not bulletproof, and I don't always watch crossing the street—"

  "Soph," he interrupted.

  "Right. Stohl bit me, and when the full moon came I didn't change and neither did he."

  He actually looked surprised. "He didn't?"

  "No, he didn't." I shook my head and flopped into my chair. "None of them would discuss much in front of me. Not in English, anyways. But he's human. Dierk knew as soon as he smelled him, and I felt him. I mean, you know, felt him."

  Rodrian rubbed the back of his neck. "I never thought it was possible. Why you?"

  I restarted the track and fast-forwarded it to the line lady white, with brightest blue of eyes. "Think it was a Sophia?"

  For she was Ocean's Daughter—and she has killed the moon.

  Gunshot-memories echoed in my head.

  Stohl's voice: she killed the moon.

  The priestess: Ocean and his children.

  "Any possibility that word can get out?" Rodrian's voic
e may have sounded smooth, but I felt his anxiety trip up the waves of his power, like ripples on a pond. "This is dangerous news. There are a lot of people who would try to use you."

  "What else is new?" I sighed. "I don't know about DV or vamp, but I shouldn't have any Were or Witchkinder trouble."

  His skeptical expression urged me to tell him of the protection agreements Dierk had forged before he left. Rodrian nodded thoughtfully as I told him what the Weres and the witch had said.

  "That was good of him to do," he said. "An oath to the Were King won't easily be broken."

  "Yeah, well. He was kind of sweet on me."

  He looked sour but refrained from commenting. "So. Let's say you are Ocean's Daughter. What's it mean to us?"

  I looked him straight in the eyes. "Everything."

  "Everything, how?"

  "Rode, if I am Ocean's Daughter or whatever—if Stohl wasn't some fluke—then maybe—" A shrill scream of falcon made us both look up. "Maybe I can bring Marek back."

  Aerogenetek Laboratories. The building felt empty, but I'd called ahead to make sure my connection would be around.

  The last time I'd been here, I'd met with the head technician. Kevin Corby had seemed nice enough but looked really doubtful when he handed me the flash drive Rodrian requested. He didn't think I'd get any closer to solving the Horus Equation, as he called it, than anyone on his team.

  He didn't know I'd end up with a team of my own. Shoot, I didn't know, myself.

  Funny thing, destiny.

  Funny, too, that decades of research on the DV side and an equal amount by the Were labs did nothing on their own. Then there was me, stuck in the middle, pulling it all together. Always in the middle. Always trying to desperately make sense where there wasn't any.

  I looked up at the rear view mirror. In the back of the SUV was the Wolfram. He was stuck in the middle, too. And we were both ready to pick a side.