Once I began to calm down a little, he said, “I’m glad you called. I’ve had a vision that I’m afraid might concern you.”
He described seeing a drawer with a small golden padlock. The moment he described it I knew where I had seen it before. In Alfred’s bedroom, underneath the bay window, there was a small drawer with a lock just as he had described.
“After all that has happened, don’t you think you should take a look?” he asked.
My heart was in my throat as I walked into Alfred’s room. Before that day I would never have thought to invade his privacy. But after the way he had spoken to me, what else was he hiding? I hadn’t known he was capable of being so cruel, not to me. The phone was still in my hand as I knelt down and reached for the lock. I broke it loose without even bothering to look for a key. I was suddenly desperate to see what was inside.
A stack of ordinary papers sat inside the drawer. But my heart would not slow down. My pulse quickened to the point that I felt dizzy as I scanned the papers.
“These are his orders,” I said breathlessly to Alek. “It’s from when he was first assigned to be my partner. Wait.”
I turned the page and found to my horror, the rest of Alfred’s orders. I dropped the papers and threw up. I could hear Alek calling my name, but I’d dropped the phone. Right there in plain black and white, Alfred had been told that should my condition ever worsen, should I ever exhibit any signs of becoming a werewolf, he was supposed to kill me. HE HAD SIGHNED THE PAPER.
My hands shook so hard I could barely lift the phone as I told Alek between sobs what I had discovered. Before he could respond, I dropped the phone and ran into Alfred’s bathroom to be sick again. The world spun before my eyes. This wasn’t happening to me. I trusted him. I loved him. He would never hurt me, not Alfred. Not my Alfred. I couldn’t breathe.
*****
Something cold touched my face and I was startled awake. I was still on the floor of Alfred’s bathroom, and someone was holding a cool wet cloth to my face. I looked up into the most beautiful emerald eyes I had ever seen.
“You must have fainted,” Dracula said.
I remembered then what had happened and it felt like I’d been hit in the stomach. I practically vaulted for the toilet where I found I could no longer throw up.
“What is wrong?” he asked softly.
“You didn’t see the papers in the other room?” I asked between dry heaves.
“No. I came looking for you,” he replied as he continued to wipe my face.
“How did you get out?”
“You must have forgotten to lock the dungeon door.”
I told him what the orders I found had said and about how Alfred reacted to the newspapers.
“So, Dr. Alfred Moody is your lover and partner.”
“You know him?” I asked before gagging again.
“I have heard of Vengeance.”
Vengeance is what the lycans called Alfred, just as they called me Death.
“It makes sense, of course, that Death and Vengeance should be together. However, Death can show compassion, and Vengeance is blind,” he said softly.
I kept thinking that this wasn’t really happening. Alfred would never hurt me, he loved me. Alfred would be back any minute and he would love me, he would wake me from this nightmare.
“Your father would never give such orders.” It was a statement, not a question.
“No, they were given by the former commander. He still had an advisory position for the first three years my father was in office, and because my dad is such a nice guy, he let the bastard keep the authority to issue orders.” I stood up and staggered toward the sink. “What time is it?”
“It is four o’clock.”
“Aren’t you up early? There’s still sunlight.”
“Not today,” he said as he placed his hands on my shoulders while I splashed water on my face. “Have you not noticed the storm?”
“No,” I gasped. “Can you go outside? I need some air.”
Dracula followed me onto the porch. The cold February wind hit us hard and I realized I didn’t have on any shoes. The sky was so dark, it might as well have been dusk. He walked to one end of the porch to observe the lightning, and I propped against one of the columns near the steps. My heartbeat had just started to slow down when the door opened behind me. It was Alfred, and he was early.
I hadn’t expected to hurt so much just looking at him. My knees buckled and he ran to me.
“Lilith, I’m sorry. I had no right to speak to you that way.”
He hadn’t noticed Dracula standing on the far end of the porch, and I dared not glance at him for fear of what might happen.
“Don’t touch me,” I whispered.
“What?”
“Don’t touch me,” I said louder as tears froze against my cheeks in the icy wind. “I found your orders!”
For the first time Alfred looked afraid. “Lilith, I never meant for you to see those.”
“No, shit! You wouldn’t want me to know I’d been sleeping with my murder!” I stood up and nearly fell down the steps. “Oh, my God. I’ve been sleeping with my murderer,” I mumbled as I staggered into the rain. “I’ve been sleeping with my murderer!” I screamed as I fell to my knees in the mud.
“No, Lilith! I would never have hurt you.” He ran down the steps, but Alfred didn’t touch me. “I took the assignment so I could protect you. If I hadn’t someone else would have, and they might have killed you!”
“You wouldn’t hurt me, huh? Like you didn’t hurt me today? Like you didn’t think of me as human a few days ago? Alfred, I love you,” I cried. “I trusted you.”
“I never intended to follow through with those orders.”
“I’m sorry, Alfred, but I can no longer believe what you say.”
Suddenly there were hands underneath my arms, lifting me from the ground, but they were not Alfred’s. Dracula stood behind me, looking every bit as deadly as I was afraid he could be.
“Get out,” Alfred hissed.
I looked at Alfred and was unsure whom I should fear more.
“I am sorry,” Dracula’s voice carried on the wind like thunder, “but it is not your house, and I will not leave her to her murderer.”
“You’re taking sides with this animal, this … MONSTER?!” he asked me.
“Alfred, I’m not taking any sides—”
“There are things about him you don’t know!” Alfred insisted.
“And would you tell her?” Dracula interrupted. “Would you tell her what a monster I am when you could sleep with the woman you intended to kill should the need arise?”
“It’s not like that, and I don’t need to explain myself to the likes of you!”
“Why, am I not human enough to converse with?”
“You bastard!”
Alfred lunged toward Dracula and I ducked. However, it seemed as if the air itself picked Alfred up and flung him backward. He hit the ground just in front of the steps and we both stared at Dracula. The dark robe billowed out around him and like his hair it seemed to blend with the growing darkness. Lightning flashed over our heads and his emerald eyes began to glow.
“Don’t you touch her,” Alfred growled.
“You are far more dangerous to her than I could ever be,” Dracula replied as another blast of wind knocked Alfred back.
“Don’t hurt him,” I cried.
Dracula’s eyes never left Alfred as he answered me, “I have no intention of harming him. I am simply keeping him away from you.”
“How dare you?” Alfred snarled.
“Go back to Jacob,” Dracula said, and his voice too began to blend with the storm, as if the wind were speaking to us. “Go back and tell him his daughter has found the first Hunter, and you simply cannot abide by what she does. Tell him you want to be his partner again, and that Lilith is capable of working on her own. Do not come back here with vengeance in your heart, or you will never be able to get through the door, do you understand
?”
“Yes.” Alfred sounded defeated. He looked to me then. “I’m sorry, Lilith. Don’t tell Jacob about the orders,” he pleaded. “He would kill me.”
I nodded. “I won’t. It would kill him to know you signed them, and I love my father too much to subject him to that.”
Alfred turned his back on us and walked back through the house to the transporter. As I watched him leave I began to scream. I screamed as if someone were tearing my insides out and fell back down into the mud. I ripped my clothes and pieces of my skin along with them and for the first time ever, I threw back my head and howled. It was the most chilling and mournful sound I had ever heard.
I was losing my mind. My chest hurt and I tore my shirt as if to rip my heart from my breast. Dracula hovered above me, his emerald eyes burned into mine. “You must stop this,” he said, “or you will destroy yourself.”
“Kill me,” I begged as I fought him in order to continue tearing my own flesh. “Kill me and save him the trouble.”
“You do not mean that.”
“Kill me! Kill me now! Save me from this slow death of disappointment,” I cried.
He cradled me in his arms and the storm seemed to calm. The wind was not as harsh, and the rain didn’t seem so cold. His grip on me tightened, and I welcomed it. I welcomed the press of his body against mine, and the comfort that I felt with his nearness.
“You told me last night that there is always something worth living for,” he said softly.
“And you said that hope is a naivety of youth. You were right.”
“No, I am just bitter. Do not let yourself become what I have been. It is somewhere you do not want to go.”
He withdrew from me slightly and I panicked. I screamed and fought him as he held me down in the mud to prevent me from making another attempt at tearing out my own heart. Suddenly there were lights in my face and I heard Luther yelling.
“She is trying to tear her heart out,” Dracula said in response to whatever Luther had been saying.
“Shit, Lilith. What’s happened?” Luther asked.
But I couldn’t answer, I fought them both with everything I had and I almost won. My weakness was, I couldn’t cause grievous bodily harm to innocent people.
“Hold her feet,” Dracula yelled as he sat on my waist and pinned my arms above my head. “Look into my eyes,” he commanded.
“No, you’re not going to hold me down and mind fuck me!”
“You leave me no choice. I cannot let you kill yourself.”
“Then do it for me,” I pleaded. “You made Alfred leave.” It was not an accusation, but a statement of fact. I recognized hypnotism when I heard it.
“Yes. It was the only way. He would never have left willingly and I had no desire to kill him, or watch you kill each other.”
Dracula squeezed my ribs tighter between his thighs as he commanded once more, “Look at me.”
This time I looked. I jumped in response to the pain in my ribs and before I knew it, he had captured me. The world stood still. “Relax,” he purred, and his voice seemed to float through my mind. “Relax. No one will harm you. Sleep, Lilith. Sleep, and know peace again.”
With my own powers weakened so severely by grief and disappointment, I had little choice except to obey. I slept.
*****
Dracula’s hypnosis could not hold me forever, for I was an unwilling captive. I knew what I wanted and I had to wake up or it could never be mine.
“Wake up,” I screamed to my body, “Wake up!”
I sat up on my bed, gasping for breath and for a moment it had all been a bad dream. But then I saw Alfred was gone, and I opened the clean pajamas I was wearing to find claw marks on my chest. I hadn’t managed to finish the job, but neither had Dracula, because I was awake.
All throughout my unwilling slumber I had called to him, and unless I had grossly underestimated my powers of persuasion, the wolf king should be well on his way. I walked out onto the balcony in the midst of the storm that still raged, and leapt over the railing. I hit the ground with the grace of a cat and began to run through the woods. I knew Marco was close, I could feel him. I could see him ahead of me as if he were a dream, running full out to my rescue. But, Marco couldn’t save me from myself.
I crashed into him, taking his body to the ground.
“Lilith, what’s wrong?” Marco never called me by my first name. I paused and he sat up. “What’s happened? I saw Luther when he came back to get some clothes. He told me how Alfred reacted to the newspaper. Is there something else? For God’s sake, Red, pack members could be dead right now and I came running to your rescue. What’s wrong?”
“Pack members could be dead?” I was stunned.
“I’ll explain it later. Did he hurt you?” Marco asked.
“He killed me.” Unbidden tears started to fall down my cheeks and Marco reached for me.
“I found Alfred’s original orders, the ones issued to him by the former commander of the Hunters. Apparently, the old commander knew more about my attack than I thought. The orders said that if I ever showed signs of becoming a werewolf, he was supposed to kill me.” I couldn’t look at Marco as I added, “Alfred signed them.”
I spoke as if I was talking about someone else’s life. It still didn’t seem real that Alfred had signed what amounted to my death warrant.
Marco listened in silence until I asked, “What’s happening to me? I think I’m cracking up.”
“You’re in shock,” he explained. “Severe trauma of any kind has a tendency to bring out the beast.”
“Are you saying I’m a beast?”
“No. I’m saying you are so upset that you’re not thinking clearly. You’re reacting now purely on instinct, like an animal. This could last a few hours, or it could last a few days.”
“What calms the beast?” I asked.
“Food, sex, or violence normally,” he said softly. “Go home, Red. Get something to eat, preferably a rare steak, and we’ll discuss this later. You’re in no condition to make any decisions right now.”
“Kiss me,” I whispered and I felt Marco shiver as my voice flowed over him. “Comfort me, Marco. I need to be held, to be touched. Let me draw strength from your desire.” His lips were a warm promise in the midst of the cold rain. I tore his shirt open, sending buttons flying into the dark. “I’ve wanted you since the first moment I saw you,” I breathed against his throat while my hands roamed hungrily over his chest. “Take me, Marco. Give me what I’ve been missing.” I snatched his belt off and threw it on the wet ground.
“No,” he panted as he tried desperately to restrain my hands.
“Why not?”
“I can’t let you use me, Red. Like you once told me, I can’t do this without it meaning something … and I need it to mean something.” I slumped against him as he continued. “You’re saying all the right things, honey, but you’re not in your right mind.”
“Go save your pack,” I whispered as I rose from his lap.
“Go home, Red. You’ll be safe there. I’m sorry to have to leave you like this, but some people have been attacked, and I’m not sure how bad the situation is yet. I’ll check on you as soon as I’m able, but I’ll sleep better if I know you’re with Luther.”
Chapter Twelve
If I had been in my right mind I would have been grateful for Marco’s concern and just gone home where I was safe. But, like he said, I wasn’t in my right mind. My emotions were raw, and my mind was in shock. The beast inside me demanded some sort of satisfaction, and I knew just where to find it. Marco watched as I started back home, but he had been wrong about one thing. Home was the worst place I could have gone.
I climbed the tree that Marco had often sat in and leapt onto the balcony where the doors remained open. Just as I closed the doors Dracula entered the room.
“Where have you been?” he asked, taking in my wet clothes and hair.
“Out.”
“You should not be awake yet. Your state of min
d could be dangerous.”
“I know,” I whispered this as I flipped the switch in my mind that unleashed the power of The Seducer. “In the past few hours everything I thought would never happen, has happened. First, I found you. Then, Alfred turned on me. Next, it turned out he had actually been sent to kill me if I ever became more of a monster. And just now, Marco turned me down.”
“What would you have of me?” he asked softly.
“I want the man I’ve been dreaming about. Not the magic, just the man. Don’t play games with me.” And as I walked toward him I relented my own hypnotic power. “I’ll do the same,” I promised. “I want to know the man, not the monster.”
“No one has asked for that in a very long time.”
“What do you ask of me?”
“I do not expect you to love me in the morning,” he said softly, “but pretend you do tonight.”
He closed the distance between us and I opened his robe. “How is it you’re not covered in mud and rain?”
“Have you never read my fiction?” He smiled. “Power over the storm and the beasts of the field,” he quoted. “I never got wet.”
“Well,” I replied as I licked my lips, “we’ll have to correct that.”
I caressed his chest, barely resisting the urge to lick his smooth skin. I ran my hands up over his shoulders, pulling the robe down. He seemed shocked by my desire, but not intimidated. I snatched the robe down his arms, tearing a gasp from his perfect lips. I moved closer to him and traced those lips with my fingertip. I marveled at the feel of his skin beneath my hand as if I were in a trance.
“I’ve waited a long time to see this face,” I whispered as I caressed his left cheek.
Everyone who had known this face as I would know it was dead. Of all who had once loved him, none remained.
“How long has it been?” I asked.
“Since I first dreamed of you,” he whispered.
“Too long,” I said as I stood on tiptoe and pulled his lips down to mine. Kissing him was beyond anything I had ever felt. Fire ran through my veins and I nearly fell to my knees. “You said you wouldn’t use magic,” I panted.
Lilith Mercury, Werewolf Hunter Series (Boxed Set, Books 1-3) Page 60
