Entwined (Vukodlak Brew Book 1)

by Christine M. Butler

  “Liz says, and I quote, ‘tell that dirty fucker that if and when I decide to meet with anyone from his pack it will be at Vukodlak, in extremely small numbers – like two at a time – and at my convenience. If he doesn’t like it, he can go fuck himself.’”

  The roar of displeasure that bubbled up from Morris had all the wolves standing on alert again, both his and mine. He turned, and snatched his partially shifted hand through the air behind him. It wasn’t until I heard the sharp intake of breath that I realized what he’d just done. “Noooo!” The word came out of my mouth in a primal scream as I launched myself at Morris. I was mid-shift when my mouth snapped closed on his neck, ripped through with sharpening canines, and pulled. His eyes bulged in surprise moments before it was over for him. Morris’s limp body fell to the ground at my feet, as I continued with my forward momentum, leaping right over his body to land nude, and back in human form right in front of my mate. She had a three distinct claw marks ripping through her shirt from shoulder to breast.

  I could hear the sounds of a scuffle going on behind me as I pulled Iz into my arms, stood, and ran with her to the office. The warm drip of her blood onto my hand as I did so gutted me. As soon as the door closed behind me, cutting off the sounds of the remaining men from Morris’s pack being driven out, the sound of a female screaming became my world.

  “No! Oh my God! Izzy!” Liz was screeching while I shoved everything off the desk, laptop, receipts, papers, whatever all scattered to the floor so I could lay her down on a flat surface.

  “We need Marcus in here, now!” Granger didn’t need me to yell the order to him, he was already one foot out the door as I spoke them. No doubt, going to do exactly what I said.

  “What the hell happened, Dre?” Liz’s accusing tone did not sit well with me.

  “What the fuck do you think happened? You sent her out there with some sarcastic comment, telling the leader of a wolf pack who hates women to go fuck himself. What the fuck do you think happened?” Great, I was repeating myself now too. Liz blanched, and stumbled into the wall, sliding down it just as surely as the tears were sliding down her face. I ignored her though, and continued on with removing Izzy’s shirt as gently as I could from the mangled parts of her body. There were a few spots were the shirt had embedded itself into her wound too. My gut clenched tight as I dealt with those areas as best I could by cutting them free from the other material. I wanted Marcus in here before I started digging into her wound to clear them.

  While it felt like an eternity, only the briefest of moments went by before Granger returned with Marcus hot on his heels. Marcus was our resident doctor. While we didn’t really have illness among us, we did have the occasional wound. A hunter had once shot Granger’s dad, and Marcus had to extract the bullet that didn’t pass all the way through his body. Marcus was a vet in town, so he wasn’t even a human kind of doctor, but we definitely couldn’t explain Izzy’s wounds to one either. It wasn’t exactly a normal wolf swipe.

  “Good, you cleared away the shirt,” he mumbled as he got to work without and pretense.

  “There are pieces of it still stuck inside. I didn’t want to…” There was a knot in my throat that I was having trouble speaking around now.

  “You did good just cutting them free, Dre.” Marcus looked up at Granger then. “You might want to escort him out, for my safety.”

  Granger’s eyes bulged at the idea of having to escort me away from my mate. “What the fuck?” I yelled.

  Marcus pulled no punches then. “I’m going to make her hurt in a minute, in order to fix her, and if you’re in here you’re liable to hurt me for doing it, and then there won’t be anyone to stitch her back together. I need you to leave.”

  “Why do you have to make her hurt? Just give her something to numb it.”

  “I can’t do that, Dre.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  She’s your mate, her metabolism is off right now with the slight transition her body was already undergoing since you claimed her. I may not be able to dose her properly. Besides that, it’s a wolf wound. We don’t know if…” He cut himself off for a minute, swearing, before continuing. “The stories of old about venom released from our bites and claw marks aren’t just stories. I don’t know that Morris even knew how to do it, but if he purposely tried to infect her…”

  Now my eyes were twice their normal size as I tried to wrap my head around what he meant. “You’re talking about the Legends of Turning?”

  He only nodded. We were a civilized bunch in comparison to wolves of old. We didn’t go around biting or scratching people unless it was self-defense, and then it always ended in a human death. There were stories of when a bite or a deep enough claw wound could turn a human into a perversion of what we were. They were the true monsters that the old werewolf horror stories were about. We are shifters, mostly peaceful, just trying to exist on the fringes. The Turned were something else entirely.

  “She’s not really human though. Izzy is Kindred, and she’s my mate.”

  Marcus gave another nod. “Pray that everything lines up and she turns out just fine, aside from the scars she’ll no doubt carry once healed.” He glanced back to Granger then. “Get him out of here, now. I need to hurry up and clean the wounds out.”

  Granger grabbed my arm and started hauling me out, and I let him without a second glance. Liz stayed behind with Marcus and her sister. I wanted to be in there with them too, but I honestly wasn’t sure I could handle it after the bomb he’d just dropped in my lap. What if she turned into a monster. What if in that one swipe of his claws Morris had taken my mate from me?

  Chapter Sixteen

  ~*~ IZZY ~*~

  My head throbbed, throat was like the Sahara, and pain screamed through my left shoulder all the way down to my breast. It might have gone lower, but honestly, I couldn’t focus past the worst of it. An itchy bandage seemed to be wrapped around most of my upper torso. None of that really mattered to me though as my entire body started convulsing in extreme shivers. I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering, gooseflesh from erupting, and worst of all my eyeballs were on fire at the same time, which told me I had one hell of fever brewing., I tried to borrow down into the blankets before they pulled from my body again.

  “Sorry babe, can’t let you do that. You’ll only make it worse.” I knew that voice, but I still couldn’t bring myself to open my enflamed, sandpaper eyes.

  “D-d-dri-n-n-nk.” It was the best I could do to get the word past the dryness in my throat and the chattering teeth. A straw made it’s way to my cracked lips, and I was able to pull in a little water. He allowed me a little more before it was taken away abruptly.

  “You have a hell of a fever, babe. I can’t let you take too much at once. You might get sick again.” Again? Had I been sick already? I didn’t even remember. Instead of arguing I just put my head back down on the pillows beneath me and shivered myself back into oblivion again.

  ~*~ DRE ~*~

  Her health had vastly improved over the course of the week as the deep claw marks began to knit themselves back together. The fever broke on day three, which was good, because I had been tempted to cart her off to a real human doctor at that point. Anything to save my mate, even exposure of our kind, would have been acceptable. Her scars left behind weren’t just the physical manifestation of the attack either. She had been having regular night sweats, dreams that were so vividly real that her whole body seemed to react to whatever stimuli she was sensing in them, and she had an uncanny ability to know someone was approaching our house long before I even sensed their presence. I was worried beyond reason, but so far she hadn’t shifted, or turned into the terrible monster we had all heard stories about.

  “Another rough night?” Garrett asked as I wandered into the kitchen still half asleep.

  “Yeah, man. Her dreams are unreal now, or I guess the problem is that they’re too real.”

  “Have you talked to her about them? Does she remember what she’s dreaming?
Before you guys bonded, she had been having the occasional crazy realistic dream about being a wolf. Maybe it’s just more of that, and would have happened even without the attack, simply because of you guys coming together as mates.”

  “Fuck, man! Where have you been with that advice the past few days. I’ve been going out of mind waiting for her to shift into some notorious creature of werewolf nightmares.” Garrett laughed at my description, but really it was nothing to laugh about, because I meant every word of it.

  “Why would you think I was turning into a monster?” Izzy asked from somewhere behind me. Shit! I had not meant for her to hear that. I sat her down on one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter, poured her a drink, and then stood leaning on the other side of the counter. I explained the old stories of the Turned.

  “So, there was a chance I could turn into a monster, and you kept me here where I could have possibly killed other people?”

  “We were taking precautions, babe. That’s why your sister hasn’t been here. Jackson explained things to her, and she’s been staying with Garrett and Granger.

  She only nodded. “What about the Morris Pack? Are they still a problem for her?”

  Garrett chuckled at that. “Those assholes are probably still licking their wounds and picking up the pieces after Dre killed Dreklin.”

  “You did kill him, then?”

  “Yeah, babe, I killed him.”

  “What happens to the pack then?”

  “Someone else takes over.” I shrugged, not really caring about what happens to the Morris Pack in the moment. “Probably Dreklin’s brother, Devon.”

  “Will they want retribution?”

  “No. They are unable to come after us for retribution by order of the council. When the council was made aware that we had Kindred women here, and that Morris trampled over territory and pack law to try to steal you guys out from under us, they were placed under sanctions.”

  Izzy rubbed at her temples again, and stopped staring at me long enough to drink the hot tea I’d placed before her. “I had another weird dream, that’s what woke me.”

  I waited for her to tell me about it, and instead of looking to me she glanced over at Garrett. “The same as before?” His asking her that bothered me somewhat, because she still hadn’t shared about her dreams with me directly. She’d confided in Garrett when he was the only one she thought she could trust.

  She nodded her head, and then looked at me and started to tell me about the first two dreams she had about being a wolf. They’re a little different now though. I’m not fully wolf anymore in the dreams now.” A tingling sensation crept up my arms, standing the hairs there on end, and then the sensation continued sweeping through my entire body.

  “What do you mean you’re not fully wolf anymore?”

  She hummed under her breath for a moment, obviously searching for the right words to express whatever phenomena she’d been experiencing. “It’s like I’m a ghost wolf, a spirit wolf, if you will. I’m there. I’m in wolf form, and you can still sense me, but I’m not fully solid.” She shakes her head as if trying to make sense of what she’s trying to tell us, but can’t. I’m there, but I’m not there. In the dream, I’m aware that my human body is somewhere else, but my spirit wolf is out running with the pack. It’s really odd, because I’m sort of aware of both bodies, but my awareness of my human self when I’m in the spirit wolf is somewhat limited.”

  “Son, I think I can help with this one,” my father’s voice called out from the front door. I heard him approaching, and wondered about the timing of my father’s visit. I hadn’t seen my dad in about six months, since he and my mom had taken off to go see the world. “Your mom refused to stay gone when she found out you not only met your Kindred, but that she had just been injured so soon after bonding with you.”

  “Well, we damn sure aren’t going to turn down any help understanding this shit.”

  “Hi, sweetheart, I’m William, this one’s dad.” My father hitched his thumb over his shoulder at me. Izzy just grinned at him. “He has no manners, or he would have introduced us himself, I’m sure. I know his mother taught him better, anyway.” My dad gave me a pointed look while Izzy just seemed somewhat amused with his words.

  “I’m Izzy, Isabelle Anderson,” she answered him. My father gave her the biggest, brightest damn smile I’ve seen on his face since he turned over pack leadership to me four years ago.

  “I know you don’t know me well, or at all really,” he offered on a chuckle. “But I’m hoping you will trust me enough to test a theory of mine.” He gave her a pointed look and she tipped her head in acknowledgment. “Great, here’s what we’re going to do. I need you to come lie down on the couch and get really comfortable for me. The only hesitation she had shown so far was when she turned to look at me, and I just shrugged my shoulders, not knowing what my father had planned.

  “Okay,” she finally said before moving to a comfortable position where he had asked her to go. “What now?”

  “Now, I want you to think about those dreams you’ve been having. Close your eyes, relax, and picture your wolf standing here before us, watching over your own human form. Think of your wolf as a guard dog for your body if it helps. She’s there to protect you.” I had no clue where my dad was going with this, but Garrett and I just stood there staring in awe as Izzy seemed to follow his directions. Nothing happened for a long time. We all stood there, waiting, silent. Five minutes went by. Ten. Then I saw it. There was a shimmer of something not two feet from Izzy’s body.

  “What is that?” I asked, awed by the shimmer I saw in the air there. Garrett didn’t appear to see anything as he simply shrugged his shoulders, with a confused look in his eyes.

  “Son, you need to shift, now.”

  I didn’t hesitate. I shifted to my wolf form, and there before me was the most gorgeous tawny colored wolf staring back at me with bright blue eyes. She sat in front of my mate’s human body, guarding her. The wolf was somewhat translucent, and ethereal looking. She still held a shimmering form, only now, while in my own wolf form I was able to see the shimmer for what it was. This was my mate’s spirit wolf. The one she claimed to have been dreaming about.

  “Son, come back to me, while I wake her, and I’ll explain everything.”

  ~*~ IZZY ~*~

  “Come on Isabelle, we need to be able to talk to your human self in order to explain things. Come back to us, now.” I could hear William just fine. I knew I needed to listen to him, and so I turned to look at my human form lying there on the couch. Once I focused on my own body for a moment there was a strange tug from my navel that pulled at me. It was similar to the tug I had felt for Dre before we bonded, but it had a tingling quality that couldn’t be denied as my two selves merged back together. My eyes slipped open, and I was still lying prone on the sofa with a very awed Dre staring down into at me.

  “I just saw your wolf, babe.” Something akin to love was shining in his eyes then. “She is absolutely gorgeous.” The reverence in his words struck me then. He loved my wolf. Wait. My wolf?

  “It’s not just a dream then?” William was shaking his head in tandem with his son.

  “You are the owner of a brand spanking new astral wolf, Izzy.”

  “Astral wolf?” Garrett asked from the other side of the living room.

  “You guys might want to sit down. I’m about to clue you in on some history that the council doesn’t want people knowing about. It doesn’t exactly paint them in a glowing light as it’s a history from a darker period for our kind.” We all got comfortable, and that included me picking Izzy up and depositing her back into my lap. I needed to be touching her for this. I don’t know why, but it just felt like a necessity.

  “It’s forbidden to speak of the dark times, but my father thought it was important for me to keep the knowledge, and pass it along too. I figured I had time to pass it all on to you, and tried to allow you time to settle into your position first. Hell, everyone always thinks they have more t
ime, right?” He managed to toss a guilty smile my way before he continued on. “After our kind stopped producing female wolves, a sort of panic set in among our kind. Some tried to compensate by making the Turned out of women. Obviously that didn’t work.”

  “The Turned?” Izzy asked.

  “They are werewolves too, in a sense, but different from us. We are shifters. We only hold one body at a time, or for brief periods our stronger Alphas can shift portions of their bodies.”

  Izzy nodded then. “That’s what Morris did,” she whispered as she hunched in on herself a little bit with the memory of her attack.

  “I have been made aware. The Turned are created in much the same way your attack happened. A shifter wolf either bites or critically maims a human or Kindred in an attack, and if they survive the initial wounds they start a transformation much like the ones we undergo when shifting from human to wolf form. The problem is that the shift sticks leaving them in a monstrous in-between form that they can’t escape. The duality of being both human and wolf at once leads to madness. The Turned are truly blood thirsty monsters. It starts out with a need for vengeance against the one who turned them, but then the true blood thirst sets in, and they kill indiscriminately.”

  “I’m not a monster,” Izzy hissed out.

  “No, you are something else, and I will get to that, I promise.” My father patted Izzy’s leg in a reassuring manner before getting back on track with his original tale. “The answer to the prayers of our people, about female wolf shifters becoming extinct, came in the form of the Kindred. They also enabled us to find out what would happen if someone tried to turn Kindred. As luck would have it, a man found his Kindred, but a jealous rival pack leader who had coveted her before the other wolf found her decided to kill off his rival’s mate. The attack didn’t kill her, but it did change her.