Like a window shopper on a Sunday afternoon, Luna perused the different fabrics, finally settling on one that caught her eye and she pinned it in place. He crept into the store as she began tying it tightly around her waist with a sash.
Luna picked up a hand mirror to admire herself. “Can’t a lady shop in peace?”
“You are no lady.” Van Helsing raised his sword. “Tell me what I want to know and I promise to make your death quick and clean.”
“Such a flattering offer.” She laughed. “I’ll give you one question before I rip your ugly head off.”
He slowly circled the table between them. “How can a Vârcolac take human form?”
She tied her hair back slowly. “What on earth is wrong with your eye?”
“Answer my question!”
“So serious.” Luna rolled her eyes. “Fortunately for you, I have made some study of these things.”
He reached the edge of the table. “Go on.”
She tapped her lip. “I will answer your question if you answer mine.”
Van Helsing fought down an eruption of rage. “My eye became infected from contact with some bad blood.”
“Well, it’s disgusting,” she said.
“And for your part?” he asked impatiently.
She sighed. “A Vârcolac, as you call it, is always in its most powerful form.” She picked up a pair of stockings, and sat on a chair behind. Lifting her legs high into the air, she revealed everything beneath her makeshift dress as she slowly slid them on.
He dared not look away.
She stood, smiling at his embarrassment. “But a person who is bitten and isn’t killed by the creature is something else entirely. They receive the same gifts of vitality, healing, and strength—” she picked up the chair and ripped it apart to illustrate the point, “—but they can only take the form of the werewolf during the full moon.”
Van Helsing lowered his sword slightly. “Can it be reversed?”
Luna bared her teeth at him. “Sorry, you’ll only live long enough for one question.” She pounced, hurtling the table in an attempt to drag him to the ground.
He braced his feet, raising his sword like a pike leveled at her heart. But Luna was prepared for this. She took the blade in her extended left forearm, wrenching the sword to the side as she bore down on him. Van Helsing dropped the sword immediately. He drew his two knives and began stabbing her repeatedly on both sides as the two fell to the ground.
A vicious punch from Luna’s right hand left him reeling. She broke the fingers of his left hand, causing him to drop one of the knives. Pulling her body close, Van Helsing head-butted her—nearly cracking his skull and doing little more than stunning Luna. That was all he needed to slide the knife in his right hand through her ear and into her brain. She fell off him, her head hitting the floor with a wet smack. Her body began twitching in a spreading puddle of blood.
Van Helsing knew that wasn’t enough to kill her. That wasn’t what he wanted—yet. Shuddering in pain from his broken fingers, he unstrapped his remaining spool of rope dipped in metal. Lifting Luna into the remaining chair in the room, he used a series of interlinking Clove Hitch knots to tie her. He wrapped the cord around the slender neck, through her limbs, and the legs and back of the chair. He skillfully linked all the knots together with a Constrictor Knot. As his captive struggled, she would only tighten her bonds further. Satisfied with his handiwork, he pulled the knife out of Luna’s head and stood back to wait.
Luna returned to lucidity with a shudder. “You bootlicking, pickled dog!” Her muscles strained against the unyielding cord. “I’ll rip your arms out and shove them up your arse!”
He struck her across the face hard enough to draw blood. She screamed and tried to break free—only to have the rope tighten to the point where she began to gasp, choking as she nearly strangled herself.
He flipped a knife in his hand menacingly. “Answer my questions, bitch, and I will make your end quick and clean.”
“This again?” Her eyes darted from one side of the room to the other searching for an escape.
“Can the Vârcolac’s curse be reversed?”
She narrowed her eyes. “There is no way to remove the gift other than death.”
Using the power of the demon eye, he sensed the sincerity of her words—or rather, he could detect no lie.
Van Helsing walked behind her. “Tell me the human identity of the male Vârcolac?”
“What male—” she shrieked as he plunged his knife into her shoulder blade, dragging the metal down and across her spine.
Panting for air, Luna let out a ragged laugh. “That was one of the more painful things I’ve ever felt—do it again.”
“I have studied anatomy extensively.” He removed the bloody knife and cleaned it carefully. “I assure you, that is just the low level of the pain you will feel,” he held the tip of the blade above her forehead, “if you do not tell me about the male’s human form.”
“I don’t know.”
He sliced downward, slicing the skin away from the front of her skull. She endured for an admirable amount of time before finally uttering one word: “Gray.”
Van Helsing raised his sword high in a two-handed executioners grip. These creatures were stubbornly resilient, but decapitation seemed to work.
“Fuck ye dain?” A tall Scotsman strode into the shop.
Van Helsing paused to imagine how he must look; sword raised against a half-naked woman he had tied to a chair and tortured.
“It’s not what it seems. This creature—" He flew back into the wall as the buckshot from a double-barreled flintlock shotgun took him full in the chest.
“Lucious! I knew you would come.” She tried to shake the blood from her eyes. “Get me out of here.”
Lucious drew a sharpened black dirk and sawed at the metallic rope until she was free.
“Take me home.” She clutched at the man as he turned his knife towards the unmoving body. “I want him alive, not knowing when my retribution is coming.”
Lucious tightened his grip on the dirk. “It isnae wise. See whit he did tae ye. We shuid murdurr him 'n' be dane wi' it.”
Luna placed her hand on his cheek. “Together, no one can touch us. I’m hurt bad. Find me some untainted blood to help me heal. There is something wrong with his—I can smell it.”
Lucious paused, seeming ready to defy her.
“Please?”
He picked her up in his powerful arms and carried her out, “Aint over,” he paused, spitting a large glob of phlegm on the black cape as they walked by.
Nearly an hour later, Majaris found Van Helsing. He was unconscious with fever. She removed his vest to find a thick leather harness beneath it that had surely saved his life. Most of the buckshot had been stopped from entering his heart, but some had passed through and was still inside him. “Sage, I need you!” She summoned her friend telepathically.
Two days later, Van Helsing awoke in a small hotel room with Majaris by his bedside. She had dressed and cleaned his wounds. Sage thought it prudent to hide her involvement by merely drawing the buckshot out and healing the damage to his internal organs. Majaris had done the rest with Romani herbs and medicine. Still, he looked awful.
“What are you doing here?” he asked in a rasping voice.
“I lost my family too.” She went over to stand by the window. “My parents died long ago, but these evil creatures killed a woman who was just as much a mother to me.”
Van Helsing sat up slowly, still taking stock of his injuries. “I thought you were with Sage.”
“No.” Majaris shook her head sadly. “She is important to me, but she is different than the Shuvani I know. She would have seen the danger in keeping a werewolf alive, despite her feelings.”
“Is that it then?” He eased his feet off the side of the bed. “The one called Dorian was once someone she cared for?”
Her silence answered the question.
“She will learn a hard lesson then.�
�
Majaris turned to him with an imploring look. “Promise me you won’t hurt her.”
“She won’t be hurt if she stays out of my way.” He stood on shaking legs and she rushed to his side.
After steadying him, she gazed into his left eye. “Promise me.”
“For your sake, you have my word.”
“Thank you.” Majaris smiled.
His hands toyed with the wisps of hair already growing back in the spots where chemicals had burned her scalp. “Your hair is coming back faster than it should.” It was thinner and greyer than the rest of her jet-black hair.
Their scarred faces came closer. Despite her scars—maybe because of them—he thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Their lips pressed together tightly. Majaris opened hers slightly apart to let her tongue dart out.
“Just because I don’t have the same gift as Sage,” she pushed him suddenly and he fell back onto the bed, “doesn’t mean I don’t have other skills.”
They tore each other’s clothes off. Majaris made to remove his eye patch as well, but he caught her hand. “Not that.” His expression seemed so pained that she moved on at once. Majaris kissed every scar on his body. He looked so deeply into her eyes. She knew he couldn’t even see the scars on her face.
They made love long into the night. She rode on top of him slowly, pleased to see that not every part of him was covered in bruises. Still, Majaris had to be gentle and pull back every time Van Helsing winced in pain. Soon enough though, his pride and passion overcame the tenderness of his wounds and he rolled her roughly onto her back.
Pushing her legs into the air, he grasped a firm breast with one hand as he thrust deeply inside her. After a few more moments of ecstasy, they were finally spent and held each other tightly—as if they were both afraid of what might happen when they let the other go.
CHAPTER 22.
T
HE PACK
Luna and Lucious rutted nearly a dozen times before the next full moon. It was mostly a rough and mechanical thing, turning passionate only when Lucious tried to dominate her. Their coupling was more like a battle of wills, with Luna achieving orgasm only in the few times when she lost the contest. She longed to see him transformed into his wolf form. He would become a fierce Alpha then, much stronger than her, dominating her very existence and finally becoming the true leader that she deserved. Together, the two werewolves would bring a terrible vengeance down upon all who had dared to wrong them.
They destroyed the small flat they had rented as the change came at last upon them. As Luna’s claws and fur filled in, she thrust her head back and howled. She eagerly turned to see her powerful mate in his true form. Her mating call died in her throat.
“What’s wrong?” asked Lucious with a thought.
He was terrifying, covered in sinuous muscle, with a thick red coat of fur. “Nothing—you’re just a little different than I imagined.” He was terrifying alright, just…smaller than she had pictured in her mind.
Lucious rushed across the room and grabbed her by the throat with his jaws. “Ah kin hear yer thoughts, ye know.” She struggled at first, but he bore her down to the ground easily.
“So, still stronger than me.” That was good enough. They mated as animals, human thoughts intermingled between clawing and biting. When it was done, the urge to hunt crashed upon them like an unavoidable wave. They left through the balcony, running together as fast as they could, heading into the center of London. They stopped to kill any people they came across, ripping unfortunate pedestrians apart and feasting on their innards. The bloodlust inside them raged like an unquenchable inferno as they stalked and killed together; an uncontested pair of apex predators roaming their territory.
They passed into Somerset, murdering and gorging themselves until their fur glistened with sweat and their muscles bulged with power. The local constables came against them in force with cudgels and guns. They were met in turn with an orgy of death. So careless were they of the carnage, that a cowering woman and a portly old constable rose again—healed from their wounds and undergoing the change more quickly than Lucious had; perhaps triggered by the musk of hormones and smell of destruction that hung heavy on the air.
The new arrivals were timid at first, smelling the air and tucking their tails between their legs. They submitted in turn to Lucious and Luna. They exposed their vulnerable throats to the fangs of the alpha male and female. The pack grew to four, as the new arrivals further demonstrated their acquiescence by making kills of their own and offering them as a tribute.
The pale-brown female gave her name as Annette. She was smaller, but proved even faster at bringing down prey than Luna. The squat, silver male took the new name of Fenris. His back was broad and his shoulders meaty. Luna eyed him appraisingly, but he showed his soft underbelly to Lucious at once and she soon lost interest.
Together the freshly formed pack moved brazenly through the city. They stalked the streets and ran across the rooftops, finally halting at Red Lion Square.
“Why are we stopping here?” whined Annette.
“This is as good a place as any.” Luna sat and used her rough pink tongue to begin cleaning the blood from her fur. “Now do something about that grizzled hide of yours, you look a mess.”
Annette followed her example and began to clean herself with gusto. Lucious and Fenris were content to wrestle, Lucious pinning the other male consistently, with his tongue drooping casually from the side of his mouth.
After a while, Fenris tired of the game. “What are we doing here? I smell fresh meat further to the south.”
Lucious silenced him with a snarl. “We are waiting for an enemy. The ones who dared to strike at my mate.”
“We will feast on their loins!” Annette growled with enthusiasm.
A sudden howl shattered the calm, quickening their blood with a rush of adrenaline. Dorian bounded into the opposite side of the square.
The two newest pack members were unsure how to treat this new arrival for he was the largest among all of them.
Lucious saw Annette and Fenris look to Luna instead of him. He growled in challenge. Dorian surged up on his hind legs, baring his fangs and snarling in rage. Lucious hesitated, his red tail sagging.
Luna rolled her eyes as she took command. “Kill the intruder!”
Annette and Fenris charged the grey wolf as one. Dorian clawed the pale-brown female across the snout and she fell back on four legs, instantly switching to the defensive, her nose wrinkling in a rictus of pain. He turned and locked jaws with the silver male, who was nearly as strong as him. For several moments they struggled in a tooth and claw-rending deadlock, trying to gain the advantage over one another. Then Dorian rolled his head underneath the maw of the red werewolf, bulling forward to knock Fenris back upon his hind legs.
Then Lucious tore into his back, mauling the flesh as he sought to clamp down on the back of Dorian’s neck. Dorian rolled to the side, clamping down on Lucious’ forepaw. This allowed Lucious to strike at his exposed back, yet opened the red werewolf’s underbelly to an attack with his claws. Dorian sliced into the flesh, nearly disemboweling his opponent. Lucious stumbled and gave ground.
Annette and Fenris rejoined the fight, forcing Dorian to retreat. Quick as lightning, Luna went on the attack. She was nearly as strong as Lucious, and almost as fast as Annette. Together the three drove Dorian back, rending his flesh with their claws as they sought to knock Dorian to the ground. Fenris sank his jaws into Dorian’s haunches and bit down hard. Annette found her way behind him and nearly severed the tendons on his back leg. She leapt onto his back and he writhed from side to side, seeking to dislodge her. Dorian would soon be overpowered. From the corner of his eye, he saw Lucious rise to two legs and charge him, fully healed.
Prin sânge, fier și voință,
Lasati lumina sa umple acest loc,
Lăsați soarele să strălucească noaptea,
Lăsați tot ce este ascuns să fie
văzut.
By blood and iron and will,
Let light fill this place,
Let the sun shine at night,
Let all that is hidden be seen.
An explosion of light sent the werewolves reeling. Their night vision contracted as their pupils burned. Sage cast a minor healing spell on Dorian’s eyes and he recovered first, crashing into the other werewolves and sending them sprawling as if they were helpless infants. He grabbed Luna with his claws and bit out a chunk of her larynx. With a mighty toss of his head, he sent her crashing into a statue of the philosopher Bertrand Russel that had been erected in the center of the square.
The pack regrouped as Sage’s spell faded and their irises repaired themselves. Lucious and Fenris came forward to grapple with Dorian as Luna sent the statue’s detached head hurtling at Sage. She managed to plunge into a nearby fountain, only clearing the water from her eyes just in time to see the pale-brown werewolf lunging towards her.
With a swish, a hollow-point crossbow bolt took Annette in the head. It exploded, felling her to the ground. She struggled to rise, but two more slammed into the back of her skull. Her head burst with a slushy smack.
“The Hunter!” Luna felt her beta’s death with a physical absence in her mind. With a look, Lucious abandoned Fenris and loped towards the trees where the bolts had originated from. One of Van Helsing’s bolts struck Lucious in the thigh, shedding the muscle and forcing him to the ground as he waited to heal.
Dorian and Fenris were still up on two legs, their claws locked together in a contest of force. With a ferocious roar, Dorian broke the silver werewolf’s forepaw and chomped into his neck. Fenris tried to break free, but Dorian smashed him against a statue of activist Fenner Brockway. He held the silver werewolf down as he crushed the creature’s windpipe and ripped off his entire lower jaw. As his adversary’s lifeblood gurgled onto the ground, Dorian howled in triumph. He ended Fenris’ life, smashing his brain against a stone and consuming what remained of his head.
Box Set: The Wolf of Dorian Gray Series: Books 1-3 Page 42
