by R K Close
I fought the urge to recoil. He slipped an arm around my back and moved my hair away from my neck as he’d done before. My heart raced, and a feeling of panic rushed through me.
He’s going to bite me.
My mind fumbled with what to do, as his lips grazed my collarbone and traveled up my neck. I tensed, ready to spend whatever strength I had left to fight him—even knowing it was a futile effort.
And then I heard it.
A wolf howled in the distance, and I thought of my dreams. Another wolf answered the call, but it was faint and hard to hear. How I wish I was with them now.
Lorenzo also heard the wolves. He paused with his lips on my neck and stiffened. His head turned from me, and he listened intently. It seemed almost humorous that he was concerned by some wolves or coyotes howling in the forest.
But he was concerned. I could see it in his mannerisms. He got up from the cot to peer out the windows, one by one. Lorenzo was...frightened. This made no sense, but it diverted his attention from me, and that was a good thing.
A wolf howled again, and this time the sound was much closer. It even gave me chills. There was something familiar in the cry. It made me think of my recent dream. That was an excellent thought to have if this were to be my last moments. I’d hold on to the image.
When Lorenzo heard the wolf again, he cursed and went to the door. He opened it and peered outside. I used this moment to try to stand, using the help of the chair and the wall.
Lorenzo stepped outside, and I held onto the wall for stability, trying to make it to the fireplace. Next to the hearth was a metal poker for the fire. It was the only weapon I could think of. I just had to reach it, but it meant passing the door that Lorenzo went through.
I heard growling from outside and hesitated. It was so loud, it must have been right outside the cabin. The poker was another fifteen feet away and the amount of energy I’d used just to get halfway across the small room was overwhelming.
Something was happening outside, but I dared not stop to find out. Reaching the fireplace and the poker was all I could focus on. Sounds of a struggle were coming from beyond the door.
I imagined two wild animals locked in a ferocious battle. I had my own struggle—drag myself to the fireplace. With the poker, at least I could go down fighting.
An animal yelped in pain, and I stumbled. My heart ached for the beast, and I hoped Lorenzo hadn’t hurt it. I crawled the rest of the way until I reached the hearth and wrapped my fingers around the poker. I looked over my shoulder, but nobody had come through the open door.
Lorenzo cursed as sounds of a violent struggle continued. I used the poker to help me rise to my feet. I could see only darkness beyond the opened door.
I slowly made my way over to the door and peered outside. If I’d had more strength, I’d already have escaped through the back door. No, it was stand and fight or lay down and die. I wouldn’t survive another long run in the woods.
Nervously, I peered out the door and tried to focus my eyes on the moving shadows. It was difficult, but as my vision adjusted, I saw an enormous wolf. I gasped and my heart skipped a beat as I clung to the doorway. The wolf and Lorenzo were circling one another. Both looked tired and wary.
There was something dark on the wolf’s light coat, and I feared it was blood. I’d never seen a wolf this large. And where was its pack?
Lorenzo didn’t look much better. His silk shirt hung in tatters on his shoulders, and long bloody scratches marked his arms, chest, and back. And that perfectly slicked-back hair was a mess, hanging in his eyes.
The more clearly I could see the wolf, the more convinced I was that this was the one from my dream. I felt an affinity to the wolf—bound to it, but I didn’t know how or why. It was just a feeling.
In a vicious move, Lorenzo feigned to his left but attacked on the right. The wolf was caught off guard just long enough for Lorenzo to grab the great beast around its chest.
I could see Lorenzo’s muscles straining as he squeezed. He was crushing the animal’s chest. I couldn’t let that happen. Stumbling out the door, I drew close to him. Lorenzo was so intent on killing the wolf that he didn’t notice me until it was too late.
I pulled the poker back like I used to hold a bat during softball. The wolf was fading, but our eyes met briefly. It seemed to me that the wolf’s eyes held sadness when it looked at me. My resolve doubled, as I swung the poker at Lorenzo’s head with every ounce of my fading strength.
My attack wasn’t anything to write home about. It didn’t even seem to hurt Lorenzo, but it did catch him off guard for an instant. His grip loosened, just enough.
I fell to the ground with my effort and scrambled backward as quickly as I could. The moment Lorenzo cried out in frustration, the wolf jerked its body and broke free of the vampire’s grasp.
As it did, the wolf sank its powerful jaws into Lorenzo’s arm. The vampire reacted with a blood-curdling screech as he backhanded the wolf, sending the great beast hurtling through the air and into the trunk of a big tree. The wolf yelped as it hit the tree and I screamed.
At the base of the tree, the wolf’s body laid still. Lorenzo was staring at his arm in horror as dark smoke started pouring from the wounds, as if he’d sprung a leak. He screeched an inhuman sound and vanished so fast into the forest that I would have sworn he’d disappeared if not for the branches that were still moving from his departure.
The wolf still hadn’t moved. I realized I was crying. Cautiously, I eased closer to the wolf. My heart was racing. I’d almost reached the animal when another wolf, came out of the trees. This wolf was almost as large as the first one, but jet black.
I froze. The wolf looked at me, then at the lifeless wolf a few feet away. It threw its head back, howling loud and long. I still hadn’t moved a muscle. I was too afraid. Then the wolf looked at me again and whimpered. It was such a sad sound my heart hurt.
The black wolf began walking closer to me, and I found that I couldn’t move. I was frozen to the spot. It stood directly in front of me and whined again. It looked over to the other wolf, and I cautiously pulled my gaze away to see the other wolf.
I gasped. A man was lying still as death, right where the wolf had been. And he was completely naked. “What the—”
I looked from the man, back to the black wolf, but it was gone. Scared out of my mind, I moved closer to the man and cautiously bent down to see his face. Shocked beyond reason, I stumbling back, falling on my butt and then crab-walked back further still.
The man was Liam.
After the initial shock subsided enough that I could breathe again, I moved close enough to touch him. I felt for a pulse in his throat and found one. I sighed in relief. There were no apparent injuries and no blood. I prayed that he would be all right.
I made my way into the cabin on wobbly legs, but managed to pull down one of the Indian blankets covering the windows and returned to place it over Liam. The sun was just beginning to brighten the sky but hadn’t risen over the mountain yet.
It was freezing cold, but I hadn’t noticed until now. Adrenaline was a beautiful thing. I sat next to him and watched him breathe. Leaving him was out of the question, and he was too heavy for me to get him into the cabin. So, I sat there staring at him in wonder.
I don’t know how much time passed before a truck, that I recognized as Liam’s, pulled up. It came to a stop in front of the cabin and Seth got out. He didn’t seem surprised to see me or overly concerned that his brother was unconscious, and obviously naked under the flimsy blanket —facts that made me suspicious of his timely arrival.
My head was still foggy from blood loss, but I know something extraordinary happened here in the early morning hours, and it wasn’t merely the vampire.
Seth looked at Liam, and then at me. He looked concerned, but I had the feeling it had nothing to do with the obvious. “Are you okay?” he asked, taking his coat off and putting it around me. Then he sat down next to me on the ground.
“I don’t
know, but I’m worried about Liam,” I said, studying his face. “Why don’t you look worried, Seth?” I asked.
He searched my face. “Liam will be fine. But you need to get to a hospital. You’re pale as a ghost, and I think you’re going into shock,” he said.
“Is that how you’ll explain the things I’ve seen?” I asked, holding his gaze.
Quietly, he said, “We won’t be here to hear your explanation. Much less give our own.”
At first, I didn’t understand what he meant, but then I read the meaning on his face. They were leaving. I knew Liam’s secret and that was enough for them to flee. “Why? Why leave? This is your home.”
“Because some secrets are too dangerous to make the evening news, Jessica,” Seth said. He looked away and ran his hand through his dark hair that was so different from Liam, and Cole’s lighter coloring. He looked sad, and maybe tired.
“What if I don’t tell anyone?” I asked, my heart aching at the thought of never seeing Liam again.
“You’re a reporter, it’s your job. What journalist would pass up a story like that? I don’t blame you. None of us do. Liam knew it was a risk to get involved with you, but some things can’t be ignored,” Seth said, his typical good humor returning as he smiled at me. “And Liam couldn’t ignore you, if he tried. And he did,” he laughed.
I couldn’t return his smile. Too many troubling thoughts crowded my mind. That’s when I knew I was going to pass out. The blood loss, the adrenaline surges, the cold. My body couldn’t take any more as my head swayed and my vision blurred, then...lights out.
26
Liam
I’d been packing up essentials all day. Everything else would be left behind. We’d be leaving with everything we arrived with eight years ago. I’d have new memories and a few more regrets than when I came, but that was the way it had to be.
Cole and Seth had left earlier to do the same. It made me feel like a failure, and I tried to look back on the last week and figure out what I could have done differently, but it all kept turning out the same in my mind.
Any scenario with her could only end badly. Jessica was the worst person I could fall for, and the only person I could fall for. Conceding that fact didn’t make it any easier to walk away from her. This was infinitely harder than the last time.
We hadn’t decided where to go, but we figured we’d try Colorado or Oregon first. I’d already contacted the attorney who handled our finances and secured documentation for us the first time we disappeared. He was a handy man to have on speed-dial, though I’d hoped to not need his services for something like this ever again.
It felt strange to learn that Jessica knew my secret. When I came to, I was here in my bed, and Cole and Seth were drinking coffee out front. They told me what had happened, and we all knew what that meant.
The vampire almost killed me. It had never taken that long to regenerate from an injury. Seth said that Cole brought me home, while he took Jessica to the hospital. She was stable and would most likely be released in the morning.
It was all I could do not to go to her. Even though I suspected she wouldn’t want to see me. Seth said she was calm about what had happened, but he also thought her reaction may have been because of shock.
If what Zoey told me about our bite being fatal for vampires was true, Lorenzo wouldn’t be a threat to Jessica or anyone else ever again. And that was worth it. Thoughts of Jessica filled my head the entire day. I figured that we only had a couple of days before word would get out and we’d be facing questions we couldn’t answer.
That would have to be enough time to settle our affairs while leaving others hanging. I’d write letters of resignation for all of us and leave them at the station for the chief to discover.
I was in the middle of pounding a For Sale sign in the ground when I recognized Daisy’s car coming down my gravel drive. I walked over warily, and she stepped out of the car.
“Hey, Liam. You doing okay?” she asked. Daisy shouldn’t have been concerned about me.
“I’m good. How’s Jessica?” I asked, genuinely wanting to know.
“She’s doing great, thanks to you,” she said, beaming at me.
“Did you drive all the way out here to ask how I was?”
Daisy looked unsure as she fidgeted about, by first tucking her hands in her pockets and then taking them out and crossing them over her chest, and finally deciding to let them hang by her sides.
“No. I came for Jess,” she said.
I waited, feeling anxious at the mention of her name.
“I mean, she asked me to talk to you.” She still looked uncomfortable.
“About what?”
She pushed her glasses higher onto her nose. “She wants you to stay. At least until she can talk to you,” Daisy said.
My gut tightened, and anger colored my words. “I’m not doing an interview, Daisy, so forget it.”
“No, no! That’s not what she wants. It’s not about that. She has something she wants to tell you, but if you run away, Jessica won’t be able to tell you,” she pleaded.
“I’m not running away,” I growled.
Daisy tipped her head to the side and looked at me. “Then what do you call it?” she asked.
I thought about that for a moment. Maybe she was right. Perhaps I was running away. Cole had accused me of that when I left Harmony. In a softer tone, I said, “It’s the only way. What do you know about it, anyway?”
She smiled then. “I know that you, and maybe Cole and Seth, are different, and that’s okay. I know that in a world of broken hearts, lonely people, and missed opportunities, that you and Jess have some sort of chemistry that’s worth exploring.” She paused for a moment.
“And, I know that there are things in this world that I don’t understand, and maybe I don’t need to understand. But what I know for certain is this town needs heroes like Cole, Seth, and you.”
She seemed sincere when she walked over to me and stood on her toes to kiss my cheek. I smiled in spite of myself. She walked back to her car. When she opened the door, she looked back at me. “Don’t leave without talking to her. You may be safer, but nobody ever conquered anything by staying safe.” Daisy winked at me, got into the car and drove away.
I THOUGHT ABOUT DAISY’S suggestion most of the day. There was nothing I wanted more than to believe there was a chance that I could stay close to Jessica, even if it was at a distance.
But my head wouldn’t allow my heart to make the hard decision. The weather called for rain the next few days, so I was securing a waterproof tarp over the items I’d packed in the bed of the truck.
I couldn’t have timed it better, because the rain had just begun to hit when I went inside and opened a beer. I turned on the news, thinking of Jessica, but dreading the thought of seeing our pictures flash across a breaking news story.
So far, there’d been no mention of anything except the fire at the university. It still hadn’t been ruled an act of arson, but those things took time—just like ruling a death as a homicide.
Thankfully, the two victims we pulled from the fire were expected to make a full recovery. They were still being treated for smoke inhalation.
The rain pounded the fiberglass walls of the fifth wheel trailer that I called home. Cole, Seth, and I would call it home until we figured things out.
An urgent knock sounded on the door, startling me out of my daydream. I moved the curtain aside to see Jessica was holding her coat over her head, and it did nothing to keep the rain off her. I opened the door and pulled her in out of the storm.
Jessica was breathing hard, her breasts straining against her wet blouse as she pushed her damp hair away from her face. Her complexion was pale, and her eyes looked tired. She should have been in the hospital. But she was still breathtakingly beautiful. A large bandage on her neck looked out of place.
Seeing it made me glad I’d bitten the vampire who dared to touch her. When she noticed me looking at her neck, she nervously moved her hand
to cover it.
“What are you doing out of the hospital? ” I asked, not meaning to sound angry, but it may have come out that way. I was worried for her, but it didn't translate in my voice.
She didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she smiled, and extended her hand. I looked at her hand, and then back up to her eyes, confused.
“I want to start over. We met under terrible circumstances, and some awful things have happened since that day.” She blushed under my gaze. It only made me want her more. “What I’m trying to say, is can we start over, like normal people meeting for the first time?” she asked.
“What if one of us isn’t normal?” I asked, nervous to hear her reply.
“Normal is overrated,” she whispered. That made me smile.
I reached for her hand. “I’m Liam McKenzie, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said, holding her hand.
She smiled. “I’m Jessica Parker. So, Liam McKenzie, I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner with me next week,” she said, then bit her lower lip.
It was her unspoken question that hung in the air—would I still be here next week. “I don’t know if that’s possible.”
As if reading my thoughts, she said, “I know you’re planning to leave. If the For Sale sign outside didn’t clue me in, Seth told me...while you were unconscious.” Her pale cheeks turned red, and she looked away. “I know that I’m the reason. I thought that maybe if you got to know me better, you’d decide that I was someone you could trust...rather than someone who’d do anything for a story.” She turned her gaze on me now.
“I want to trust you. You don’t know how badly I want that,” I said. She moved closer to me.
“Then say yes,” she said softly. I closed the distance between us. We were so close her head tipped back to stare up at me.
As if a magnet were pulling us together, I lowered my head, and kissed her. This kiss was filled with so many things I think we both wanted to say but hadn’t had the opportunity. Daisy’s words came to mind—missed opportunities.