by Dalia Wright
“Where is that fucker?” The captor spat, pressing his bulk into her back. “That’s the older one. Disgusting bastard.”
He was talking to himself, but Tia started making stronger connections in her brain. The confusion of her purpose here evaporated, as she linked the amber eyed Danny with the result of her current situation. Somehow, impossibly, the four men were hunting for Danny. That could be the only thing that could even begin to remotely explain why she was trapped in the arms of a man who could snap every bone in her like a twig. It didn’t really explain the whole werewolf thing, but it was a start.
Why are they hunting him? She flinched as the tussling werewolves rolled closer. If they’re the same?
“Fuck it.” Her captor, apparently bored of standing there holding her like a puppet, whammed her on the side of the head again. The first hit dazed her, made her consciousness swim. The second sent her collapsing onto the ground.
Chapter Four
Exhausted, breath huffing through red smeared lips, Danny stumbled out the alley across a narrow backstreet, heading towards the site of a dilapidated warehouse tucked somewhere in the rotten heart of the city, where only those who didn’t mind squalor or the loss of dignity went. He and his father had cleared out the ones who lived there over a week ago, but the unwashed scent seeped through the furniture and carpets, spoke of the legacy of self-destruction humans had invited upon themselves.
In his arms, he cradled the unconscious woman, leaving the remains of his former life behind. His father, that twisted, miserable, prideful soul, had breathed his last, defending that misguided sense of honor. His father may had been many things – a despicable individual with a black and corrupted heart – but his first thought had still been to protect the pack. To make sure Danny escaped the situation alive, to fight another day.
He didn’t know whether to collapse in devastation or sigh in relief. A weight had unpeeled from his shoulders, along with the guilt from the lack of grief he should be feeling. The man who had dominated his life for twenty-five years was reduced to the same kind of meat he liked to consume, along with four American werewolves, forever leaving the stamp of death on Danny.
No werewolf company or community would accept him now. Not back in Bulgaria, in the mountains of the wolves and the bears, as the Lubanov killings had grown too noticeable, inviting questions from the state organized societies of humans.
The whole Lubanov clan had been wiped out in one raid from several different wolf families at once, with Danny only surviving by being dragged behind his father, as they morphed into their feral forms and fled.
His father never wanted to let go of the thing that got the family killed in the first place. Even the others of the mountain, they hunted human flesh. They just didn’t want to have their secular existence revealed.
I’m marked. I’m cursed. And she is, as well. Her life can never be normal. I should have never gone into that club.
Inside the building at last, Danny turned on the small, battery powered lamplights and placed the injured Tia onto a crumpled bed, and got to work rinsing off the blood from her and himself, before he changed his clothes, and found some new ones for her. Some of the squatters had left their clothes in the broken down drawers. Dust and the moth-ball odor followed the clothing. His boots stomped along creaking floorboard and stirred dust from the carpets. He ripped off Tia’s clothing, nostrils flaring as he examined her near naked form. He couldn’t help the arousal, but he controlled it so that he could dab at any more blood stains on her body, resting the cold cloth against her bruising head as he helped her into new, less flattering clothes. Now dressed in a baggy hoodie and patched jeans a little too large, he moved her onto a tattered sofa, with brown and black circles printed over it, and daubed at her forehead.
He needed to think right now of what to do, where he should go, what he needed to do with her, but all he wanted to do was curl up and sleep. Stop running, stop fighting.
Everything was over, anyway. Death did have the habit of running a lot faster than he could ever sprint, no matter which form he used.
Presently, the unconscious woman in his arms stirred. Blue eyes cracked open, the pupils adjusting to the dim light, and then to the face of Danny above her. Fully focused, she blinked at him, her breathing hitching faster, and the smell of fear radiating off her skin.
Danny didn’t know what to say. So, instead, he just considered her eyes, as if they held answers beyond the limited workings of his imagination.
“You’re a werewolf.” Her first three words floated in the musky air. The warmth of her head pressed against the tops of his knees became more noticeable.
“Yes.” Danny’s nose twitched. “You are correct.”
There was another pause. Her eyebrows scrunched up, tracing through events in her head. “The others – they’re dead. Aren’t they?”
An uneasy lump formed in Danny’s throat. “Yes,” he said again.
He waited for her to start screaming, to buck and punch and kick and weep. For something to remind him of the monster he was. For all the blood spilled. If she chose this moment, right now, to grab a knife and stab at him, he would accept it without the slightest murmur of resistance.
He no longer saw the point of living. There was nothing. He had nothing. A hollow emptiness replaced whatever had been in his chest cavity before.
“Why do you look so sad?” Tia said, the words coming out with difficulty, rasping through a bruised windpipe. At these words, Danny examined the growing lump on her head thoroughly, wondering if she was concussed. She seemed too calm, and the fact she wasn’t cursing or shrieking at him left him bereft of what he expected.
“One of the people who died there was my father.” At this point, Danny expected some sort of tears to tumble from his eye ducts, but the whole of his face felt as frozen as his heart.
“I’m sorry. Was he a good… man?” Tia struggled with the definition, and frowned apologetically. “Do I even call you a man?”
“You may. And no. He was not.” Why was it so hard to remember the good memories? Were there even any? “He did love me. In his own way.”
Tia coughed, adjusting the wet rag by her swollen head. Her breasts rose up and down, and Danny’s eyes shifted to them. One part of him punched through the fog. She’s beautiful. And she smells so good. Fresh and youthful.
The bigger part tried wading through his limited options. There was no one left he could call friend. He was alone. The hole in his heart would only get bigger from here. He closed his eyes. Maybe if he fell asleep now, he would never wake up.
He wanted that.
“Do you have anyone else?” Tia’s voice grew stronger, the low, almost seductive rasp changing in pitch. Her hand shook as she held the rag by her ear, and Danny absently brushed her hand aside to keep it there. He dragged his brain out of the hollow place where his family had lived, to tend to the human who had been an inch from losing her warmth. Her breath stuttered, and her teeth chatted, prompting him to lean over to pull a multi-colored blanket over them.
Danny shook his head, letting the memories of her near naked body leak from out. There was a time and place for everything. The last thing this damaged human needed was more reminders of evil. He could keep it at bay. “He was the last.”
After another long pause, as Tia carefully sifted through her questions, Danny scented the fear lessening in her sweat, felt her visibly relax into his knees. “What will you do?”
“That doesn’t matter. I’m sorry you got pulled into this. I didn’t intend for this to happen. Though the second I walked into that club, something would have. Those men must have had eyes on me for a while.” If he told her that her original fate meant being fed to his father, he doubted she would be quite so placid.
“Did you really get summoned?”
“No. I just…” Danny inhaled deeply. “It doesn’t matter. What matters now is you get better, then I drop you home. And that will be the last you see of me. Easier that w
ay. Less trouble for you.”
Tia reached up to touch soft, fluttering fingers to Danny’s face. He closed his eyes for a moment. Though his mind and heart weighed as heavy as ever, the touch soothed something deep inside.
“Thank you.”
“For what?” Now the prick of tears welled behind his face, scratching to break through the empty mask. A thread of resolve held them back.
“For not leaving me there.”
He grunted. Truthfully, the whole thing had been chaos. The other werewolves didn’t fight with the same savagery he and his father wielded. They fought as their instincts told them to – quickly go for the throat, harry their prey. Nikolai fought like a cornered mad-beast, always aiming to inflict maximum damage, not caring about anything around him. Though he went into the fight weakened, he still managed to slaughter two werewolves before the third brought him down. Danny had seen, even as he bit and chomped at his engaged werewolf, the man thump and drop Tia to the ground, before shifting, roaring into the bone-cracking form of a seven-foot monster, before pouncing on his father and breaking the elder’s spine.
The howl of despair from his father’s failed attempt to save his pack still echoed in Danny’s brain now. He tore through his opponent, and turned on the last one, making short work of his distracted state. He then moved over to the inert Tia, and it took a lot of self-control to not finish her off as well. The scent of a human always differed from those of his species. The sharp, hot stink of a werewolf contrasted deep with the subtle, less entrenched aura of a human. Humans were less wrought with violent anger, though that was not to say humans were better as a race.
The bloodlust shining in his cells dimmed as he released the power, let it evaporate into the dim moonlight and cold air. The red haze obscuring his brain lifted, and the overpowering stab of hunger subsided. He did not need meat to live. He did not need human flesh to swim through his days.
That was a choice.
“I don’t think you need a hospital,” Danny continued. “But if you start suffering from any... reaction, you need to inform me. The reaction means you have been bitten or scratched when we are in feral form. And, no. Is not like the movies. Reaction is bad for humans. Death sentence.” He swallowed nervously. “I am sorry, beautiful one. Is a lot to take in.”
“What happens to me when you leave?”
Danny chewed at his bottom lip, regarding her. “Hopefully, nothing. You go through life as normal. But you know of the monsters in the dark. Worse case… other werewolves know that you know. They do not like humans running around with secrets. The human dies or they… assimilate.” He brushed away a strand of wayward hair from her smooth forehead. “Is not good, either option. I am sorry.”
His heart pulsed painfully. Those blue eyes of hers seemed to draw him in, inviting him to forget about his emptiness, inviting him to just drown in their color, to exist without the knowledge of who he was and what he had done for a moment.
But he knew it was his fault that she was now cradled in his arms, bruised, almost killed. And if it hadn’t been her, then another girl would have suffered the same fate, or worse. He might have lured one out for his father to consume. His father would have urged him to eat, perhaps waving the choicest bits of morsel in front of his sensitive nostrils.
He did not need to do that, anymore. He did not need to kill, ever again. Overwhelmed by emotion, he leaned to kiss her on the forehead with warm lips. “I am truly sorry. I will return you home. I am sorry you had to see… those things.” His words came out feverish, as if he expected her to interrupt and nullify the remorse. His heart beat faster, but for a different reason.
She wrapped her arms around him. Instead of pushing him away and wailing in terror, she just pulled him close, now trembling from delayed shock, or from his kindness. He did not know. But it made him cry as well.
Chapter Five
When he escorted Tia back home later, almost two hours away from the abandoned warehouse, she asked him to stay. She texted Anna to say she was alright – a flurry of messages left on her cellphone displayed Anna’s panic for the unresponsive absence. After the assurance, Anna confessed to Tia that she was seriously considering trying out the lesbian side of things for a while, along with an attached picture of the short-haired woman she had been laughing with earlier on in the club.
The news came delivered in such an ordinary way, so grounded compared to the insane events of just a few hours ago, that Tia just stared at the message for a moment. She wanted to tell her friend what had happened, but she barely believed the words that formed out of her mouth. Who else could accept something like that? Maybe if she got Danny to shift in front of Anna, but somehow, she didn’t see that ending well. The way the werewolves acted indicated a basic, predatory aggression. Not something you could keep on a leash and whip out to show others on a whim.
He has killed. Those were men in skin. When the police find them, it will be all over the news. And only I’ll know. Danny explicitly warned her that other werewolves would recognize the signs of a scuffle amongst their kind. He could not stay – but Tia didn’t want the man with the amber eyes to go. It was hard to explain, but she had received a glimpse into a terrifying new world. She didn’t want to be unceremoniously dumped on the side, just when the reality had come and slapped her in the face for the first time.
Danny Lubanov was danger. He disclosed his full name as he watched her go through her door, before reluctantly coming in at the offer of food. He had told her he belonged to large family of werewolves in Bulgaria, but they were wild and vicious, and cruel towards humans. Danny confessed he often wandered away from his family settlements into human farmsteads or even towns, and he had never seen anything of them to suggest they were the inferior beasts his kind assumed. He had even had friends amongst them, though those friends were long since dead, eradicated from the earth simply because of his influence on them.
He hinted with those words of the reasons for his departing, even as he sat at her dining table, chewing on a ham and cheese sandwich, staring off to her peeling walls with the blank, numb shock of his father dying.
If his father had been the one with the bright yellow eyes, since none of the other men who had forced her along emitted the same colors, then she knew for a fact that behind those eyes lay a mind of loathing and misanthropy. These werewolves were not nice people.
Her life had been a million times better before discovering the existence of a supernatural creature – and with that, the suggestion that the other myths might be landed in fact. If there were werewolves, then there certainly could be vampires, fairies, and other monsters that hid under the bed, fuelling the nightmares of a child.
“I will stay. But one night. One night, and then I go. I can tell you… do not want to be alone.” Danny appeared deeply unhappy with the statement. He obviously wanted to be gone as soon as possible, but something about her kept him near, made him stay.
She was glad.
“I don’t think you want to be alone either,” she said simply. “Or you would have gone.”
This made him stop eating his sandwich. He had turned his blank stare from the wall to finally contact her eyes – and a stab of arousal coursed through her.
Ridiculous, Tia thought. I’ve been used as bait and almost killed, and knocked out twice. I’ve discovered the absolutely astounding and terrifying existence of werewolves. And I’m horny. What in actual fuck is wrong with me?
The werewolf’s eyes fully dilated, going from amber to black. On seconds thought, it’s not just me. But… I’m not exactly sure if he’s the best choice to jump, right now.
She was concussed. That was it. No other explanation. “I’m uh, gonna shower. You can shower after me. But please. Don’t go. Not yet.”
“I will not.” Danny’s eyes followed her all the way to the bedroom, where she gathered up clean nightclothes, and then the bathroom door. She imagined she could still feel those eyes staring through the wood, as she dumped the clothes on
the floor and turned on the shower nozzle, waiting for it to heat up. She took off the musty, decrepit clothing Danny had dressed her in, making her realize in vague shock that he had seen her without. Tia used the time in the shower, washing off the grime and fear, taking time to process the events of the night.
Met a good-looking man, check. Discovered he was a werewolf, check. Got kidnapped by four other werewolves, check. Watched one’s throat get ripped out, check. Got knocked out twice, double check. Overall, things could have been worse. She unleashed a hysterical giggle, struggling to process events. When she stepped out of the steaming heat of the shower, she towelled herself down and placed on her flimsy pajamas, noting how her nipples conspicuously stuck out through the fabric.
She wasn’t sure what she wanted from Danny. There was a kind of magnetism about him that stirred the hormones in her system, which got offset by the knowledge of the danger, of the reality she had been exposed to. She couldn’t look into his amber eyes without also imagining the wolf inside.
Stepping out into the minimalistic apartment, where all she had to her name were the basics, and nothing of personal, sentimental possessions on display, she breathed a small sigh of relief to see Danny still hunched up in the chair, having picked apart his food.
He sidled past her into the shower after she handed him a stack of her baggiest clothes, which had belonged to the last boyfriend, who had walked out on her some two years previously. A twinge of arousal slammed her gut. She breathed quickly, reining it under control, but once again saw the flare of his nostrils, the muscles around his high cheekbones quiver.
He smells it. Oh God. He fucking smells it, doesn’t he?
This revelation did nothing to still her nerves, or quell the arousal into nothing. What is wrong with me?
When he came out of the shower five minutes later, she had wriggled into a hoodie as well.