Vorans and Vampires (Book 1): Voran the Night Guardian

by Donald Wigboldy

  “Well, that was the second time vampires have attacked us, so you can understand my need to ask. There was a man with this group. He was asking for us to give you to them. He might be one of the vampires’ servants. They have them you know, men who give themselves over for a taste of a vampire’s powers. Do you have any idea why they would want you?”

  The girl’s eyes widened in fear, she apparently had no idea why they were interested and said so. “I have no idea. Why would they want a werewolf? Couldn’t they just have taken one of yours?”

  “Maybe it’s because you haven’t been through your first full moon yet? They might believe they can use you against us if they can get to you before you truly know yourself. If we can’t reverse the curse Ramon put on you, I will make sure that you will be safe with us. We take care of our own, Lena. No vampire or their pets will harm you, trust me.”

  A moment’s silence brought a new question that only slightly surprised the werewolf, “Why can’t I go home? People have to be worried about me and I would like to let my folks know that I am ok.”

  She was ok. Eric smiled at that. A single day’s sleep and new clothes had lowered her defenses and now she believed that the werewolves were on her side. She was ok.

  “I wish we could, Lena. If we let you go before the full moon and it being so close, I am afraid of what could happen. With other werewolves around you, we can protect ourselves and you when you turn. The first time is the roughest one unfortunately. You won’t know friend from foe most likely. If that happened while you were with friends or your family I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.”

  “Well, maybe I could just call them…”

  “Give it three days. Once the full moon is over, you should be safe. If you call beforehand, they might try and talk you into coming home. Obviously, that would be a bad idea, but they won’t believe that you’re a werewolf now will they? If you try and prove it, what kind of danger would that put them in until you learn to control your new powers and urges.”

  The girl sighed. He had won. The drugs were already purchased and being used in very small quantities in her food. When the big night came, she had to be as ready to believe as she could be. After the full moon, Eric wasn’t completely sure how he would deal with the inevitable questions. Maybe their heightened powers would let the curse take over before that moment?

  Until that time came, Eric knew they would have to keep trying to make her believe she was a wolf. They also needed to move her. It was no longer safe to hide the girl here. Two attacks in so short of time led him to worry over the house being compromised. It obviously had been spied out somehow by the vampires.

  The werewolf leader took his leave after a few more reassuring words. He needed to prepare his wolves for the change.

  Chapter 16- Comforting Presence

  Lena sat on the same bed she had been allowed to use the day before and thought about the strange feelings she had felt during the night’s battle. She knew it for a true battle, a war between the two races that might never be decided. Then there was that other presence once more.

  It was the same person she had felt so near most of the day and also that brief time two days before that. Lena had even noticed him as she slept with the back of her mind. Who was he? She knew it was a man now and not just some presence she couldn’t define, though what he was eluded her. This sixth sense that had become so strong told her he was different, strong, and… caring. How could she tell something about someone never closer than twenty feet and a werewolf away? Lena couldn’t say, but the girl felt it was true.

  There was something about him that made her want to meet him, but that wasn’t going to happen. Eric and the others were trying to protect her from vampires, which was crazy enough to think about by itself. She didn’t want to be a werewolf, but a vampire was certainly no better.

  Another thing that bugged Lena was the feeling that Eric and the others were lying to her, though she had definitely been feeling odd. The closer to the full moon it got, the more the girl felt strange. It must be the werewolf building inside of her like they kept saying.

  Lena sighed and got up to look at herself in the mirror above a dresser. She wasn’t sure whose room it was, but there were women’s clothes in the drawers. A little snooping had revealed that already.

  Staring at her face, dark eyes looking more tired than normal, lips that could turn pouty and full, a nose that her mother had called cute, Lena brushed her long dark hair back from her face with its high cheek bones. People called her pretty, but now she just saw a monster. She would be some sort of wolf in just a few days. The girl didn’t want to become a monster. The idea frightened her and that sucked. Who wanted to be afraid of one’s self? There was so much out there to be afraid of, that at least the one block of sanity should be yourself.

  Turning to walk over to the window, Lena peeked out past the blinds and drapes. It was sunny again. The gray had given the world a break today.

  He had come from this way. She had felt him down the block with the rest of his vampires before the wolves had actually noticed them. They had waited to attack while the man had slipped behind the houses into their alleyway. It had been coordinated to distract most of the werewolves. The girl had no military background, but she could see that much of the plan.

  Now the million dollar question, why did he want her?

  “Lena,” Charlotte’s voice called from just outside the door. “Are you up?”

  She wondered if the werewolves knew that the girl had been awake for about twenty minutes already. Lena had wanted to gather her thoughts before dealing with the others. Most seemed to accept her among them, but she still felt something unsaid between them. She was an outsider.

  “I’m up,” the girl answered and tried to not sound depressed. They were taking her in. How could she not try and return the charity they showed her now? Her condition was Ramon’s fault and they had tried to change her back. They said so. So how could she be anything but warm to them?

  “Breakfast is ready. You need to eat to keep your strength up. The hunt is coming soon and you’ll need it. If the hunt goes well, we’ll eat well but the winter’s been long enough that any deer we find probably won’t be very meaty.

  “Anyway, the others are already eating, so don’t take too long or there won’t be much left.”

  Stripping off the shirt and shorts she had borrowed for sleeping, Lena found a long shirt that made for a comfortable dress even if it was barely mid thigh length. It was enough to wear for a breakfast anyway. The blue was deep and pretty. She always liked wearing the color and thought she looked good in it, though how the girl really looked probably meant very little to these people.

  With another sigh, Lena went to meet her new family even as her heart wondered at that man who had braved so much to come for her.

  Nick paced his living room floor nervously as the TV, turned down more than usual, kept him company. It was quieter than most days because he had a guest. Marek, Nicola and Marcus had come home with him briefly to discuss what had happened before the men returned to the Lair. Nicola had wanted to spend more time with Nick and, after coming so close to saving the girl, the man didn’t mind having someone to help him wind down from the failure.

  As the sun came up, the vampire retreated to his room to sleep. With drapes and blinds, they could make it dark enough for one of her kind to sleep safely. She had asked him to join her, but he used his excuse of rarely sleeping to avoid it. He wasn’t ready to go there with her. Their relationship wasn’t one of those snuggling to sleep types, at least so far. What he would do with a vampire girlfriend, he didn’t know.

  Nicola was great. She was a bit of fresh air in his life, which was odd considering she was a vampire. The past week he had spent more time with the woman and gotten even closer despite the decades they had known each other. Once Marek’s lover, Nick had never let himself get very close to Nicola, but time seemed to have smoothed things out for them to possibly be heading for love.


  The voran had rarely been able to let himself get close to women. Physically he had known many women in more than one hundred thirty years of living, but Nick had been close to few. The relationships were usually short and that was sad in a life that looked like it could last centuries or more. Even his time with Vivian had never turned overly romantic. They were just two people using each other to get through their loneliness.

  Maybe that was why Nicola worked for him. She was a vampire and virtually immortal. Surely their two races had that much in common. Perhaps the little hiccup of her being dead could be overcome and there was something more primal than with Vivian. Nicola never felt like a vampire to him, at least not since her early days. The need for blood and killing had been there in the woman when she was young. His blood could lessen the hunger for fresh kills, but only over time had it managed to deaden the hunger to such a level that they seemed truly human.

  Sadly a human might still have to worry over their safety if things went awry near one of them. They were all still predators even if his blood kept them more or less tamed. To think of them as safe was like thinking a trained lion couldn’t turn on its master. There were enough recorded maulings to know a predator like a lion was never truly a safe creature left among men. Their strength and speed could reduce a man to dinner in a blink and it happened.

  The TV had a reporter on the werewolves’ block again. Two incidents of noise and fighting had been reported to the police in a very, short time. Nick knew that was true, since the police were pulling up before the vampires had made it back to their escape vehicles. What the werewolves would say to keep from being brought in for questioning made Nick worry about the secret society of night’s creatures.

  At this point, the reporters were discussing if gang style fighting over territory was the likely issue. The story made Nick breath a little easier. If the humans simply thought it was a gang war or something like it, they were technically right. Vampires and werewolves were the ultimate gangs to have in a war for territory. There would be a lot of casualties on both sides if it got out of hand, and then the inevitable deaths and conversions of innocents would happen. He would have to try and nip this war in the bud. Marek and his clan would be glad to avoid such a mess, but what of this new vampire clan?

  Nick wondered if he would have to continue his hunt even after he saved the girl. Or lost her forever, he also had to be honest with himself. Once matters were settled with Lena and the werewolves, would this new vampire threat require his intervention?

  There were times where he wondered if nature hadn’t made his kind as a form of hunter. Vampire hunters and werewolf hunters were in stories, but the voran seemed made for the hunt. With tracking abilities rivaling either race and the aura blades capable of killing them as well, a voran had the tools if properly trained.

  Vivian was a contradiction in a way, but not because he believed her lacking the weapons. The woman lacked the heart to want to kill. She was over three hundred years old, however, so maybe when she was younger the woman had fought her share. Since Nick had known her, it wasn’t true, but she had been alive a long time before his birth.

  He wondered what he would be like after a hundred or more years. Unlike Vivian, he had Marek and his clan. Maybe that kinship with others who would be around for centuries kept him from becoming a recluse like her.

  Glancing towards the door to his bedroom and Nicola inside, Nick considered that part of him. Nicola was another reason not to fade from life as time passed. A man needed a reason to go on just as a woman did. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to be that for his mentor.

  He would have to consider seeing Vivian again soon. Sometime after matters resolved themselves and calmed down here. Hopefully, that wouldn’t be too far into the future.

  His mind returned to the werewolves and Lena as he pulled the laptop towards him from the couch cushion where it sat. The movement activity hadn’t actually left their house yet. He was a bit surprised after two attacks that the creatures hadn’t retreated to a new location. They were obviously more territorial than he thought.

  As the day passed, Nick would check on the laptop. Late morning, the werewolves started moving back and forth between the two houses he knew about already. One of them broke from the pattern once before getting back to the pattern. He wondered if Lena would be moved there right away or if someone else would take her somewhere he didn’t know of just yet.

  He wrote a note for Nicola to let her know he would be back before darkness fell. The voran needed to check on Lena. He couldn’t afford to lose her so close to the full moon. If she disappeared now, Nick wasn’t sure his suspicion of their monthly hunt was actually correct. If he was wrong, then they wouldn’t take her to the forest with them or maybe they would find somewhere else to run. Since he hadn’t been able to free her from their house, Nick needed them to go to the forest preserve. It was his last shot to save her.

  The first house had too much activity, even in the afternoon. Police presence in their cars drove the street so often he was surprised they didn’t just park a vehicle there. Then there were the people that had to come visit the place because it had been in the news twice already. The curious seemed to have all the time in the world to sate their need for information, even if it was just to walk by the house.

  They were unlikely to know of the second house, unless the werewolves had been sloppy and let themselves be followed. The paths had varied by a matter of blocks apparently to avoid bringing police or snoops to their back up den. Nick let his sixth sense play out like a hook attached to a reel trying to pull in Lena’s aura. The second house was the pay off as he had guessed.

  Feeling for her presence, he found it and breathed a sigh of relief. Strangely, Nick thought he could even feel her emotions change slightly as if she had waited for him and now breathed her own sigh. Did the girl have a sixth sense that let her know he was near even from half a block away? If so, then she definitely was a voran. She had to be.

  Sitting in his SUV down the block, Nick could feel the girl’s presence like a bright star calling to him in the night sky. Even the werewolves weren’t as clear and strong to his mind. Now he just needed to try and think up a plan to save her.

  Lena felt the familiar presence nearby. She could have told the werewolves exactly where the man was who worked with vampires. The girl glanced to the others in the front room. Since she was one of them more or less, she was allowed to roam the house freely. There was even a room with a bed set aside for her to sleep.

  Why she didn’t tell them she didn’t know. There was just something about the feeling she got from him that Lena couldn’t explain and there was no fear of him in her. Why warn them and risk starting another fight?

  The TV was tuned to some kid’s show. The males were the main ones watching the program while the females were moving about being distracted by books, dishes and the like. Charlotte watched Lena pretending that she wasn’t and was getting away with it most of the time. The girl still knew that the werewolves were keeping an eye on her, whether it was because she could change prematurely or they didn’t trust her, Lena didn’t know and tried to ignore it really.

  Moving to a window facing the street, a surreptitious glance outside brought a couple looks from the werewolves besides her keeper. Lena tried to look casual as she tried to see her shadow. A black SUV drew her eyes, but she didn’t want the others to know of her secret admirer so after a moment’s pause the girl turned back into the room.

  Charlotte smiled and asked, “Getting stir crazy? I know the short trip between the houses wasn’t much of a break, but at least you’re in a different house and not in the basement.”

  Nodding, Lena replied, “That and it’s sunny. I know it’s still cold outside, but it looks inviting.”

  With a nod, the werewolf looked her up and down adding, “I’m surprised you wore that dress, even with my long black boots. I would’ve thought you’d be too cold.”

  “She looks good in
it though,” Miguel said looking away from the TV. The other males in the room looked her over like a piece of meat making Lena feel uncomfortable. Being wolves made them even more aggressive as men, she thought. The girls were a bit wild aside from Charlotte who seemed to be a rarity among the pack.

  There were new faces here. The second half of Eric’s pack had been living in the second house. With the attacks on their home, there was a slight reshuffling of the personnel. Since the second house had been left alone, two of their males had switched to help Eric while the remainder now had to deal with Charlotte and Lena.

  “Blue is definitely a good color on her,” another male named Jose agreed. He tried to whisper to Miguel an additional, “Though I wouldn’t mind seeing it off her.” The other man grinned as they bumped hands.

  Charlotte and the Lee twins frowned in annoyance. The pack was archaic in its treatment of women which was common in societies that lived a more primal existence it seemed. The twins, Min and her sister Sally, were petite little things, but as werewolves Lena was sure they were more dangerous than they looked. Jose had forgotten the hearing of the other werewolves and Lena heard him also.

  “Idiot,” one of the other males, Logan, Charlotte’s brother as he had been introduced, stated of the other man.

  “What did you say?” Jose demanded angrily.

  “You heard me, just like everyone heard you. You know I don’t like you talking like that near my sister. It’s rude.”

  A growl that resonated deep came from the werewolf’s throat. Logan eyed the smaller man over his can of beer as he took a drink. Like Charlotte, he was tall and looked strong to Lena. In contrast to his sister’s dark hair and eyes, Logan was blond and blue eyed. He was good looking like his sister and the least wild of the men in appearance, but he felt more dangerous than the two Hispanic males put together. He raised an eyebrow as if to ask Jose if he really dared to start something.