A Short Trip To Hell: Hellcat Series Origins Volume 1

by Sharon Hannaford

  Julius hadn’t been able to face spending another night with his ‘Sire’, as he know knew Simone to be, instead he holed up in rarely used wine cellar for the daylight hours.

  When he returned the following evening to the apartment with the dark basement that Simone had rented for them, she’d known that he was leaving. As he packed his clothes and his meagre store of possessions she threw herself at him, using every feminine charm she possessed to try and lure him back to her bed. When that failed to move him she tried the tearful, abandoned girl and finally the raging Harpy, screeching that he’d wind up shrivelled in the sun or staked by an angry mob if he left her side.

  He soon grew bored of the tirade and thrust her from him, ordering her to stop and leave him be. She froze and it took him several seconds to realise that she hadn’t stopped because she’d chosen to. She stopped because she had no choice. He’d been so angry with her, so close to physical violence, that he’d unconsciously thrust out his power. The kind of power he would’ve used to make a human obey his commands without question, and somehow his mind control had affected Simone. He didn’t hang around to puzzle through the confusing new development. He released her from his mental hold and left the suite without another word. She didn’t follow him.

  The following day, many miles from the town he’d left Simone in, and secure in the basement of a long abandoned inn, he dreamed for the first time since his Turning. He dreamed of eyes the colour of emeralds, hair the colour of Cherry wood and a sword with a distinctly curved blade.

  ONE HELL OF A DAY

  Alexander

  (Early 18th Century, England)

  The worst day of Alexander Sullivan’s life began in deceptive pleasantness. He was in a warm bed, entangled in the limbs of a lovely young wench with the bouncy, blonde curls of a cherub, clear blue eyes of an angel and a mouth sent to tempt the most pious of saints.

  She was watching him wake as the first rays of sunshine streaked through a tiny gap in the heavy brocade curtains, her eyes glinting with anticipation and her sinful tongue darting out to moisten rose pink lips. She was a little older than Alexander had initially thought; more woman than girl, but still a couple of years shy of his own twenty-four.

  Alexander felt himself harden despite an immense, ale-induced headache and the weariness of a night spent entertaining the entirely unvirginal woman.

  He had several vices, not least of which was sex. Life as a soldier often left him without the company of the fairer sex for months on end. On his leave days he made a point of making up for lost time.

  This particular minx had brazenly felt him up in the alehouse as he went to pay for his third jug of ale and invited him back to her place of residence. Her dress and jewellery hinted at wealth, and Alexander guessed she was thumbing her nose at her father by mixing with the rabble. He prided himself on not discriminating against noble blood and hesitated only long enough to down his jug of ale before accepting her invitation.

  Being hit on by women wasn’t anything unusual for Alexander; he’d been gifted with the looks of an Archangel. The sort of looks that had been getting him any girl he wanted since he was twelve years old. His only physical flaw was his build; he had a lean, some might say, delicate physique. Add to that the ethereal sort of beauty that boys were not supposed to have, not unless they were drawn to other men, which he wasn’t, and he was the inevitable target of many forms of abuse. On the plus side he’d learned how to fight early in life and how to run fast. Very fast. Fighting bigger built, bully boys as well as fending off the advances of certain older men had simply been a part of everyday life.

  By the time he was eighteen, despite his lack of size, he was so proficient with a sword that he’d had no trouble enlisting in King George’s army. Once the other men in his regiment had gotten over his looks they’d settled into a routine of unoffensive, ribald teasing which Alexander bore with good humour, because he knew they secretly envied his ability to charm women without even trying.

  He squinted at his timepiece on the table beside the bed and grinned; he had just enough time for one more round of fun before he needed to make his way back to the garrison and report for duty. He rolled over and pinned the squirming, giggling woman beneath his body and bent his head to capture her fiendish mouth.

  Just before their lips met there was an imperious knock on the door.

  “Belinda,” a woman’s high-pitched voice called. “Belinda, you need to rise early today, we have an appointment this morning with the Earl of Sussex and his oldest son.”

  A small squeak, quickly muffled, issued from the young woman’s mouth, and her eyes went round with sudden alarm.

  “Belinda?” the woman’s voice rose an octave and the door handle jiggled ominously.

  “Yes, yes, Mother,” the woman choked out, pushing Alexander away from her and pointing urgently towards the heavy curtains. “I’m… I’m awake. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  “Why is your door locked, Belinda?” her mother asked, sounding as though she already knew the answer.

  Alexander didn’t hesitate, he had no desire to be caught in the middle of a noble blood squabble. He sprang from the bed, gathered an armful of clothing off the floor and dashed towards the curtains.

  “I…I must have locked it by mistake,” Belinda called back loudly, as she raced to pull on a nightdress which had been neatly laid ready on a chair next to the bed. She gave Alexander one last wicked grin over her shoulder before shooing him again and heading towards her rattling bedroom door. “I’m coming, Mother.”

  Alexander thrust aside the curtains, relieved to find a patio door behind them. He quietly opened it and scooted out onto the tiny balcony, pausing only long enough to pull on his trousers before peering over the railing. He grimaced as he realised he was three stories up, but stern-sounding footsteps resounded across floorboards in his direction. With little other choice Alexander balled up his shoes and the rest of his clothing and tossed the bundle to the ground, before swinging over the balcony and beginning the perilous climb down the brick and stone wall of the stately manor house.

  He heard the distinct swish of the curtains being thrust aside and the patio door opening again.

  “Charles!” The older woman’s strident voice rang out across the grounds, and Alexander glanced upwards to see her glaring down at him, her lips drawn into a furious line. “Charles,” she bellowed again. Alexander didn’t think he wanted to hang around and meet ‘Charles’, so scuttled over to a convenient window sash and then let himself drop the last ten feet to the ground. He landed hard on the neatly trimmed grass and pain shot up his right leg and into his knee.

  Before he could regain his feet, two large black dogs came trotting from the far left of the manor house. They were eerily silent as they stalked him and were followed closely by a large bear of a man carrying both a sword and stout walking stick.

  “Holy mother of…” Alexander abandoned all thoughts of grabbing the rest of his clothing, and began hobbling away as fast as his injured knee would allow. It was right about then that he remembered he’d come back to the Belinda’s place in her carriage, and he’d left his horse back in town. And that the carriage ride had been a fairly long one.

  It was midday before Alexander finally made it back to his garrison, clad in nothing but a torn pair of pants, and sporting an impressive array of lumps and bruises, as well as a nasty dog bite to his thigh, and a knee swollen to twice its normal size.

  His commander had had little sympathy; Alexander supposed it didn’t help that this was the fourth time he’d been late back to duty in the past year. He had his little vices you see; good ale, good women, a few good rounds with the dice, and they tended to overcome his good judgement. Regularly.

  With his day going from bad to worse, he’d been summarily discharged from His Majesty’s Royal Service for repeated tardiness, given his outstanding pay, his personal effects, which amounted to little more than some clothing, shoes and his horse, and sent on his wa
y.

  He was exceedingly grateful that he knew another young wench in town who happened to be a nurse.

  Not being naive enough to swallow his story of how he’d come by the injuries, she’d slapped him before treating his dog bite and sprained knee, none too gently he might add. Realising that not even his charm was going to get him a night in her bed he thanked her and left, finding solace in the first alehouse he hobbled past. They had fine ale and a steady stream of patrons ready to play a few games of dice, and he had a pocket full of coin.

  Following the theme of the day he had an appalling time with the dice, and by evening had lost almost every cent of his severance pay. Too drunk and too depressed to know when to quit he bet his last shilling against a large, bearded man of unknown origins.

  He won.

  The turn of luck was so unexpected that the shock actually sobered him up. He realised that he’d need to find somewhere to stay for the night and, looking at the paltry number of coins in his hand, the cheaper the better. It was too late, and he was in too poor of a state, to find a warm female body who’d be willing to share her bed with him. So he pocketed his meagre winnings, found his horse, and, unable to mount the chestnut due to his stitched thigh and bandaged knee, set off at a moderately-paced hobble to find somewhere to spend the night. He seemed to remember a disused armoury a little way out of town, and figured it’d be safe enough for a night.

  A large and unusually bright full moon hung above him in the clear night sky, rendering the flickering gas street lanterns unnecessary. He glanced up, wondering sourly if he could attribute his run of disastrous luck to the extraordinary lunar appearance. While he wasn’t a particularly superstitious person, he’d heard too many tales of how the moon could affect one’s life to discount it entirely. A low rumble in his belly reminded him that he hadn’t even bought himself an evening meal, just another thing to add to his discomfort. At least it kept him from considering about his future. He tried to not worry about stuff like that. In his experience things somehow worked out. Despite being born out of wedlock to a girl barely seventeen, who’d died of the coughing sickness when he was just eight years old, he’d made it up to this point without starving or landing himself in gaol. Something would come up.

  He’d just passed the last of the gas lanterns on Church Street and unsteadily led his horse onto the tree-lined lane that wound towards the abandoned armoury when the crowd of footpads besieged him.

  Perhaps, on a good day; sober, uninjured, armed and well fed, he would’ve been able to take down a few of the brigands, enough to make the rest scatter, but today had not been a good day.

  Not a good day at all.

  In fact, some detached part of his mind mused, as his body was kicked, punched, stripped and then dragged further down the lane, this had to be one of the worst days in the history of bad days.

  Curled in a foetal ball in the middle of the cold, damp footpath, blood pouring from a knife-wound to his abdomen, he begged God to save him. He vowed to give up drink, dice and women in return for another chance at life. When no saviour appeared he began to rage at God instead. He used every descriptive word he knew, none of which were fit for the ears of a lady, but they seemed appropriate to the setting. Several images suddenly flooded his mind; his mother, beautiful despite her ragged, mismatched clothing and the aura of sadness that almost always clung to her, Elsbeth; his mother’s friend who’d taken him in despite her own large brood of children and a drunkard for a husband, his friend and commanding officer, Will, who’d saved his ass more times than he could count, and vice versa. He’d never before thought about finding that one woman meant to be yours forever or having children of his own, and for the first time in his life, he knew true regret. With God not bothering to reply to his begging or his raging, he fell silent, breathing through the pain, and calmly awaiting the welcoming arms of death.

  And then, just as the warm, white light arrived to soothe his dying agony, he was trod on. By a fucking horse.

  BLOOD AND THUNDER

  Razor

  (Several years before the events of A Cat’s Chance in Hell (Hellcat Series Book One)

  His world was a place mostly dark, and sometimes still a little blurry around the edges. Life was scrabbling with his two siblings for a place to feed in the soft fur of his mother’s warm belly, taking in the scents around him and sleeping in a comfortable, purring pile of family. Scents were the most interesting; often unpleasant to his sensitive nose, they told stories of places and things he had yet to experience. Some soon became familiar; his mother and litter-mates, his mother’s milk, the crisp scent of early mornings and the strange but distinct odour embedded in the shredded material lining the nest his mother had made for them.

  Sounds also piqued his curiosity, but unusual ones were few and far between. The only sounds he knew intimately were his mother’s purr, her occasional soft meow in response to the tiny calls of one of his siblings and the chirping and rustle of some small creatures outside.

  But before any of those senses had become clear he’d been aware of his mother; he knew her as thoroughly as he knew himself. Perhaps more so, as she had far more emotions running through her. He knew that she was constantly on the alert, he could feel the occasional pounding of her heart, the tense stillness in her body as she listened to something he couldn’t hear or reacted to something he couldn’t smell. And he knew she was hungry. She’d been hungry for a long time, and it was only getting worse. Her fear of leaving her tiny, helpless babies had over-ridden the hunger up until now, but her body was screaming for nourishment. She knew, as did he, that she had to leave and find food soon. Her anxiety upset him, as did her hunger. He pushed his way up towards her head, using his slightly uncoordinated paws to bring himself close to her face, nuzzling her nose and eyelids, hoping to calm her and so too calm himself.

  Abruptly she stood, his body tumbled off to one side, leaving him on his back, squirming to right himself. She nudged him upright with her nose, pushing him closer to his sleeping siblings. She gave him a final lick, leaving a damp streak over his head and down his back, and then she was gone. He felt alone, abandoned, bereft. Instinct told him to cry, mew, call her back, but something else told him to be quiet, calm and await her return. She will be back, that other sense whispered to him, reassuring him. He would wait for her. He tried very hard to stay awake, but the warm, sleepy pile of brother and sister called too strongly, and finally he allowed himself to curl up between them and drift into the world of dream.

  “The order has been changed from Capture to Elimination,” a medium built man with greying hair said. There was an obvious note of regret in his tone. “They’ve taken this too far, we can’t afford to allow this situation to worsen,” he continued, pacing in front of two younger people, an auburn-haired woman and a tall, dark blonde man. “The City’s Werewolf Alphas are already threatening to get involved, and that could lead to a war between the existing Packs.”

  The younger man nodded emphatically. “These rogues have made it clear they won’t go down without a fight, or leave peacefully. Capturing a rogue Pack of six always was going to be a problem, but these guys are real whack-jobs, it’s like they have a death wish.”

  “Maybe they do,” the woman said, she was standing with her arms folded, her body tense as she faced the men. “Werewolves are rarely the most sane of people, present company excluded,” mischief briefly crinkled the corners of her gem-green eyes as she shot the young man a ghost of a smile, gone almost as soon as it appeared, “but there’s something seriously wrong with this Pack, something more than simply the effects of Lycanthropy.”

  “What do you mean Gabi?” the older man asked, halting his pacing to study her with concerned eyes.

  The woman exchanged a loaded glance with the blonde man, who nodded and widened his eyes expressively. She drew in an audible breath.

  “I think this comes down to their self-proclaimed Alpha.” There was a momentary silence as she glanced towards the ceili
ng, gathering her thoughts. The men gave her time without interrupting. “I got close to the one that we did manage to capture,” she said finally. “I…” she sighed, “It’s going to sound crazy, but I felt as though I could understand him even though he wasn’t talking. Well, not so much him as his Wolf really; I could sense his Wolf, what it was feeling and thinking. Clearly. Almost like it was speaking to me.” She folded herself lithely into an overstuffed leather chair, her arms wrapped around her stomach in an unconsciously defensive position, as though awaiting ridicule.

  “So what did his Wolf tell you Gabi?” the older man asked, his voice devoid of judgment. She glanced up, if she was surprised by the man’s casual acceptance of her announcement, it didn’t show on her face.

  “That his human side is a psychopath. That the Wolf doesn’t like it but he’s not strong enough to bring the man under control. That he just wants to be…Wolf, I guess, like other Werewolves. He wants to run with a Pack, take down small game, fight on occasion, fuck on occasion, but not kill for pleasure. He doesn’t want to be a part of unnecessary savagery, pain and torture.”

  “And do you think the others are the same? That the human side is in conflict with the Wolf?” the older man asked.

  She nodded. “I think, though I can’t be sure, that the Alpha is gathering others like him, other human psychopaths, and Changing them, teaching them how to manipulate their Wolf side.”

  “It’s possible the Alpha’s Wolf has already come to think like him,” the younger man put in, “My Wolf responds badly to him, he’s in agreement with Gabi that something isn’t right.”