by Michele Hauf
She lifted herself to him, opened herself, and when he plunged inside her, she gripped his shoulder with her teeth and held on, let herself fall, forgot about hiding her wolf, forgot everything except being, living, experiencing this moment.
With the holds on her wolf loosened, the creature crept forward, snarled and tried to retreat, but CeCe didn’t let it. She pushed that half of herself forward, until she could no longer separate the two parts. She was no longer wolf and human. No longer wild and contained.
She just was.
Then she wrapped her arms around Marc and lost herself in being with him, lost herself in the taste of strength he gave her, and she stayed with him, moving her body to meet his every thrust, nibbling him, encouraging him until they both lay exhausted and fulfilled on the cold rock.
* * *
Marc traced CeCe’s face with two fingers. They should be moving now, looking for the vampires, but he couldn’t get himself to stand up, couldn’t get himself to vacate this moment.
He kissed the corners of her eyes. Even in human form there was a hint of the wolf in her eyes, almond-shaped and golden hazel. No human he’d met had eyes such a color, and few such a shape.
“How does it feel?” he whispered.
“What?”
“Shifting.”
Her lips parted, and he could see her surprise. “Exhilarating, at least for me. I’ve heard the other wolves say it hurts, watched them scream and grimace the first few shifts. But for me―” she lifted one bare shoulder “―it’s like running through the woods, chasing a rabbit. It’s...what makes me feel free.”
“And you don’t feel that way human?”
She shook her head. “No...I haven’t.”
“Then why...?” Why be human? Why not stay wolf? He couldn’t voice the question; even after what they had done, it felt too personal.
“Why not stay wolf? That would be giving up, wouldn’t it? Be like killing half of myself. How could that be the answer?”
She sounded sad. He didn’t want her to be sad, and he didn’t want her to shift and never shift back.
“It isn’t.” He pressed a kiss against her lips, soft and gentle. He wanted her to feel free whichever shape she was in, wanted her to be free, and he swore right then to himself that no matter what it took, no matter how this all ended, he would somehow make sure he gave her that.
* * *
CeCe and Marc had left the safety of the place where they had fallen and made love twenty minutes earlier. Marc had talked of sending her back up the sides of the chute, out of the cave, but the channel walls were too steep and the hole they had fallen into too deep. Even the vampire had been unable to gain a foothold.
Besides, CeCe had no intention of leaving him.
“What now? Do you think it’s dawn?” The dark was too all-encompassing, the depth they were at too deep. CeCe had lost her normal feel for the moon. She had no concept if it was still visible in the night sky or had been outshone by the first bits of sun.
“It’s close enough that the vampires will have taken refuge.”
She ran her thumb over the flashlight’s switch, but resisted the urge to flip it on. She was with Marc and safe. She didn’t need light now to assure her of that, but she didn’t know what might come later. She needed to conserve whatever battery power was left.
“That’s good though, right?” She knew the best situation would have been to arrive in the cave before the vampires so she and Marc could have looked for entrances, exits and a place to watch unseen, but if the vampires were already asleep...that would have to be the next-best situation.
“Only if all the vampires are new.” He stopped.
Wanting to see his face and be able to read what he was thinking, she flipped on the light.
They had redressed earlier, but he’d given CeCe his shirt. He walked through the fifty-degree tunnels naked from the waist up as if they were still above ground in the hot Kentucky heat. She, on the other hand, even with the extra layer of his shirt over her own clothing, fought not to shiver.
As the light played over his back, he turned. She lowered the beam to keep from blinding him. His hand rose to the spot where Karl’s stake had struck and massaged at the spot, as if it were stiff and painful.
The wound was healed now, but the skin was discolored and puckered. She pulled his shirt tighter around her body and tried not to stare, tried not to show her concern.
Seeing her expression, he smiled. “We don’t heal as quickly as some stories would have humans believe, but we do heal. By tomorrow, this will be almost normal.”
She nodded and lowered the light’s beam even farther, and hoping what he said was true, waited for him to explain his comment about the vampires.
He lowered his hand as if realizing his touching the wound was keeping her from forgetting what had happened.
“All I saw were young vampires. That doesn’t mean no older ones are around.”
She twisted her lips to the side. “But they wouldn’t need the caves.”
“Not for safety from the sun,” he agreed. “But if the invasion was organized, an older vampire might have come along, might be standing guard. Werewolves may think we don’t work together, but they are wrong. We may not have a pack, we may not like one another, but we were each created by another vampire. We take that seriously. We don’t just leave the young to die.”
“But you’ll kill another vampire.” He’d attacked the one who had attacked her. She had certainly thought he meant to kill the other male.
“If we have to.” He turned away then, abruptly.
Afraid she had gone too far, she fell into silence.
His face strained, he looked back. “From this point on we need to keep the light off and move as silently as possible.”
“Do you sense them?”
He shook his head. “But I can smell fresh air. There’s another entrance and this is the cave I spotted the other night. They will be in here somewhere.”
Now that he had mentioned it, she could smell the world beyond the cave too. It was hard to discern through the scent of damp rock and earth, but it was there—grass and sunshine. She longed to be walking there, away from the underground world of this cave.
Marc’s lips parted; he stared the direction he had pointed, down the channel that he said led to the cave’s main entrance. “I can walk you there. You can find the highway from there.”
“No.” She shook her head. She wasn’t leaving. She clicked off the flashlight. He’d said no light. She could do that.
They stood in complete darkness, the kind of dark you couldn’t experience aboveground, not even during the darkest night alone in the woods. CeCe began to shake. After a few moments, she felt Marc’s hand reach for hers.
She wove her fingers through his and held on. In the distance she heard water dripping. When she’d been in the well, left there by her father, there had been water. The underground creek that had fed it had all but dried up, but there had still been water at the bottom. She’d stood in it up to her knees for days. Her feet had turned soft and sore, been numb from the cold. She’d tried to climb the walls—made of brick, built by slaves a hundred years earlier—but she had slid back down, landed in that damn stagnant pool.
Her father had told her how her mother had died in such a pit, how the vampire had tortured her. He’d told her experiencing it now would make her stronger—ensure she didn’t repeat her mother’s mistakes.
And for a while she had believed him. But then she had met Marc. And now she realized her father was wrong—worse. He was insane, so focused on his hatred of vampires and his desire to make her strong, that he’d twisted her view of things too, could have destroyed her.
As memories washed over her, she shook. She closed her eyes. Her jaw clenched and her hold on Marc’s hand
tightened. His fingers squeezed back. She held on, focused on Marc. His touch kept her from dissolving.
She wasn’t alone. She could leave when she liked.
“Let’s go,” she whispered.
She could feel Marc’s hesitation. She placed her hand on his back and kept it there, let him know she was okay and more importantly, she wasn’t leaving.
After a second, he started walking.
Eyes open and heart pounding, CeCe followed.
She would welcome finding the vampires. Would welcome anything that brought this torturous trip through the dark to an end.
Chapter 22
They had walked another twenty feet before Marc found where the path intersected with the one that led to the cave’s main entrance. The scent of vampire was strong here. Vampire and something else.
He pulled CeCe against him and whispered as softly as he could into her ear. “Do you smell that?”
She nodded and mouthed “Human.”
“What does it mean?” CeCe moved her lips without uttering the words.
He shook his head, then realized she couldn’t see him as he could see her. He pulled her closer and shook his head again, this time with his chin pressed against her head. It could mean nothing. Humans came to this region to explore caves. He just hoped none were inside now.
She sighed. He could feel the tension running through her frame. She’d been tense since they’d started walking, grown more so when they’d turned off the light. He didn’t know what had happened to her, why she feared the cave, but the fact that she did, and still refused to leave when he asked her to, meant something, made him hope that he’d found a tiny bit of what the wolves had...pack, loyalty, belonging.
They kept walking. Another five yards and the channel widened. They were in a room with three passages leading off it. He held out his hand and felt the air currents. One passage dead-ended; the others went deeper.
The vampires would be deeper. Which meant that is where he would have to go, but he didn’t have to take CeCe with him. While he loved that she refused to go back to the surface without him, he couldn’t take her any farther. Taking her into a room full of vampires, sleeping or not, would be foolhardy. Both for her and his safety.
He grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around, pressed her back up against the wall. “Do you trust me, CeCe?” he whispered in her ear.
Her nails dug into his chest. Her heart pounded and his body reacted, hardened. His vampire senses reacted too. His fangs lengthened. He could hear her blood leaving her heart and returning, feel her body flush as the blood flowed faster through her veins. He brushed his face against her hair, inhaled her scent. “I need you to stay here. Wait for me. Don’t leave.”
She shook her head.
His hands cupping her buttocks, he pulled her closer. “If there is a vampire awake, he’ll sense you. Let me go first.”
She hesitated this time. He rested his cheek on the top of her head. He knew she was afraid of the dark, but fear and threat were two different things. The vampires were threat, a real threat to a werewolf who sneaked in while they were sleeping.
“You have your flashlight. This tunnel dead-ends. Go to the end and turn it on. Wait for me there.”
Still she didn’t reply.
He squeezed her. “I need you to do this. If we want to succeed it’s the only way.”
Finally, he felt her nod.
He waited a moment longer, as reluctant to let her go as he sensed she was to be left behind. Finally, he unwrapped his arms and nudged her toward the dead end.
Her hands on the wall, her feet walking sideways, she crept along. When she turned the corner and was out of sight, he heard the flashlight click on. A spot of gray showed from the turn in the tunnel, but it was okay―where he was headed that spot would soon disappear.
The vampires would have no idea he was coming and no idea CeCe had been left alone only a few yards away.
Guilt lanced through him. Alone and afraid of the dark. Was he no better than her alpha? He moved to go after her, but stopped himself.
She had a light and she was strong, stronger than she realized. As long as she stayed where she was and waited for him to come back, she’d be fine.
Now he had to do his job...steal the stake and come back.
If he didn’t, if he messed up, got caught or killed, CeCe would be on her own, in a cave filled with angry vampires.
* * *
The hard rock wall behind CeCe was damp. Cold leaked through Marc’s shirt and hers onto her skin. Her flashlight shone on the blank rock face across from her. This tunnel was narrower than the others. Two people could walk abreast, but no more.
She held the flashlight in both hands, so tightly her knuckles ached. Every instinct she had said to go with Marc, and not just because she didn’t want to be alone, didn’t want to risk her light burning out. No, she realized, it was more than that...it was her pack instinct telling her to go with him, fight with him.
Wolves didn’t let their pack members face a threat alone. They attacked as one.
Marc had no pack. He was walking into the vampire nest by himself. She should be there with him, helping him, but he had asked her to stay behind, had told her it would be safest for her and him.
Afraid she’d weaken and race after him, she crouched in the dirt and closed her eyes, tried to think of all the reasons what he’d said was true, all the reasons she should listen to him.
None came to mind.
She stood. Her feet crunched on gravel as she turned. Realizing she hadn’t heard the sound before, that the rest of the cave had smooth floors, she paused and flashed the light around.
The ground here was softer, a combination of sand and fine gravel. She ran the beam over the walls and realized the rock here wasn’t like what she’d seen of the rest of the cave. This tunnel wasn’t natural; it appeared to have been formed by man—mining of some sort was her guess.
She stepped into the middle of the path and looked down. Footprints, a number of them, pointed deeper into the cavern and headed back out.
How long would footprints last in a cave? Forever, she guessed, if they weren’t disturbed by water or some animal. So, these easily could have been made by miners one hundred or more years earlier.
But somehow she didn’t think so.
Somehow she thought this dead-end tunnel had been visited recently, was related to the vampires, the werewolves and the stake.
Stepping to one side, where the ground was harder and her own footprints wouldn’t be as visible, she started walking. At the next curve she paused and listened.
Nothing. No sound of life...or death. A vampire sleeping would make no noise.
She glanced at the light. She couldn’t stand the idea of walking around the corner blind, and if a vampire was there, the light might be her best protection. She’d seen Marc avoid direct glare.
But the light might also wake a sleeping vampire, create a problem for her rather than fix one.
After a second of indecision, she pulled off Marc’s shirt and pulled it tight over the flashlight’s bulb. The light dimmed. She could see, but it was unobtrusive. And best, if she needed to, she could easily drop the shirt.
Feeling as prepared as she could be, she stepped around the corner.
Silver, jewels and gold glinted in the flashlight beam. The treasure. She’d found it.
Excitement lanced through her. She took a step forward. Something hard rolled under her foot. She flashed the light down and froze.
Mixed in with the coins and jewels were weapons—stakes, guns, bullets and silver vampire fang caps.
She stood frozen, her mind whirring. What kind of treasure had she bent sent to find?
* * *
The remainder of Marc’s journey was qui
et. No sound except the slow, steady drip of water somewhere deep in the cavern. The tunnel he’d chosen narrowed and widened, went from no more than two feet wide to fifty and back in again. It twisted around columns formed over the years from stalactites and stalagmites joining together.
He placed his hand on one, wishing the vampires and werewolves could blend as easily.
Paused, he heard movement. The whisper of wings...bats settling in like the vampires. He inched forward a bit more. Past a second column, the path widened again. This time, though, he knew he had reached his destination.
The room, a shelf actually, extended for fifty yards before jutting out over what from Marc’s position appeared to be a giant abyss. Closer in, stalagmites dotted the floor like spears shooting up from the ground. Scattered around them, passed out, was an army of vampires. All young and all dead to the world still alive around them.
Finding and taking the stake would be no problem at all.
“Hello, Marc.” Van Bom stepped from behind a column, a revolver in his hand.
* * *
CeCe ran the flashlight beam over the treasure as she inched deeper into the space. Coins slipped under her feet and her fingers tightened around the flashlight’s base. She placed a hand on the cold wall beside her to keep from falling.
She’d found the treasure. It was real. She had begun to doubt that the treasure she had been sent to find truly existed. But this...these weapons mixed in with jewels and coins...she didn’t know what to make of it.
Taking a step forward, she ran the flashlight’s beam over the floor and the treasure scattered across it. There were perhaps a thousand coins. None were familiar, and although most at least looked human, some bore the same sideways-eight snake as Marc’s arm.
So, his story was true too. The vampires did have a claim on the stash. She knelt to study a coin more closely, even reached out a finger to trace over the upraised design...but as she did, a chill crept over her. She glanced around, halfway expecting someone to be peering out at her, but there was no sign of life, no scent or sound.
