Chapter 36
THE EXCRUCIATING, SEARING pain finally stopped and a wave of power and energy ran through William from head to toe. Even though his eyes were closed, he was aware of everything around him. Sounds and smells assaulted him from all sides. He was certain he could hear conversation from the check-in desk, which was all the way at the other end of the hotel.
He could smell every flower from the bouquet, and unless Clara had moved it, it was clear across the room. He could even smell Clara. Not her perfume, but actually her. The soft, gentle scent that he always smelled when he kissed her.
A new scent caught his attention. What was that? It was unlike anything he had ever smelled. It was a sweet smell, reminding him of sitting in a kitchen when hungry. His mouth watered. Whatever it was, he wanted some.
He felt movement near his gum line. He brought his tongue around and felt extra teeth. Sharp teeth. He remembered seeing Clara's fangs several times since she had told him of her true nature. He felt the new teeth again. Those had to be his fangs.
Did that mean the delicious smell teasing his nose was human blood? Focusing, he noticed that he could hear a multitude of hearts beating. How did Clara live like this? The only reason he didn't jump up to find the source was because he couldn't move.
Clara had warned him that he would be aware and in pain during the transition, which he had been. He was stuck, lying on the hotel bed, in his own world of horrific pain on so many levels.
He was now in the recovery stage: still aware of everything, but unable to move while his body recovered from the process.
Something ruffled his hair. Clara. She had promised to stay near and take care of him. She kissed his forehead and ran her fingers along his face. It tickled…and her touch didn't feel so cool anymore.
William tried to reach his hand up and grab hers, but his arm felt like a lead weight. He couldn't move anything except his tongue, so he moved it around his teeth, just so he could feel like he had control over something.
"Not much longer," she whispered in his ear. "I'm so glad the pain stage is finally over." She kissed his ear, causing a tingle to run through his body.
She rested her head on his chest and ran her fingers along his torso. It was torture that he couldn't respond in any way. What he wouldn't give to roll over and kiss her back, running his fingers through her hair.
Maybe he could fall asleep. The pain was gone and he couldn't do anything else. Perhaps he could wake up, able to move around again. He pushed aside all thoughts, as he always had before when he couldn't sleep.
Unfortunately, it didn't work. His mind was buzzing, and even if it weren't, he couldn't focus with all the new sounds and smells teasing him. He could hear a conversation five doors down. How did he know it was five doors? He had no idea, but he knew it was.
A family checked out, someone tripping over a dropped doll on the floor. Again, he had no idea how he knew, but he was certain that he was right. A couple argued in the parking lot. Birds flew around over the falls. Forest critters chased each other.
Hearts beat all around him.
William sat up without warning, gasping for air. He caught sight of himself in a mirror. His eyes were dark red. He stared at his reflection, remembering Clara explaining how wrong most human myths were about vampires.
As he stared at himself, he noticed that his eyes weren't as red as he had first thought. His skin was pale, making them appear darker than they actually were. After he got his thirst under control, he would have to join Clara in getting spray tans. He would have a hard time explaining his skin change to his friends and family.
He turned to Clara. She was watching him with a curious look on her face. "How do you feel?"
"Hungry. Strong." He looked deep in to her eyes, swearing he could see into her soul. "In love." He grabbed her shoulders, pulling her close. He took a deep breath, taking in her sweet succulence. He kissed her, and his mouth felt as though it was dancing. He could taste her love for him in the kiss. He breathed in, smelling her adoration.
She smiled. "I like this new William."
"Good. Because I'm here to stay."
* * *
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JUMP TO...
A DOSE OF BRIMSTONE by NOREE COSPER
END OF DREAMS by KIM FAULKS
HAUNT by HEATHER HAMBEL CURLEY
DARK CROSSINGS by ANN SIMKO
HEADSPACE by CALINDA B
THE OTHER F WORD by SUSAN STEC
UNLEASHED by RACHEL MCCLELLAN
HIDDEN INTENTIONS by STACY CLAFLIN
THE COMPLETE BLOODLING SERIAL by AIMEE EASTERLING
SHE WHO FIGHTS MONSTERS by KYOKO M
ST. CHARLES AT DUSK by SARAH M. CRADIT
WICKED BY NATURE by MADISON SEVIER
UNDERLIFE by MARISSA FARRAR
DRAGON’S REDEMPTION by EDEN ASHE
MILAN’S RETURN by GRAE LILY
THE BREAKERS CODE by CONNER KRESSLEY
THE MEDIUM by MR GRAHAM
WICCAN WARS by HEATHER MARIE ADKINS
CARPE NOCTEM by KATIE SALIDAS
A QUESTION OF FAITH by NICOLE ZOLTACK
THE COMPLETE BLOODLING SERIAL
Includes:
Bloodling Wolf
In Deep Shift
Two Scents’ Worth
Feint of Heart
Hair Apparent
BY AIMEE EASTERLING
Copyright © 2014 through 2016 by Aimee Easterling.
A price, a princess, and a promise.
Wolfie Young is a bloodling, a rare shifter born in wolf rather than in human form. Although he has trouble handling simple human interactions, the alpha soon finds his niche as the benevolent dictator of a pack of outcasts and misfits.
But while struggling to grow into his responsibilities, Wolfie falls into Crazy Wilder's trap. The grizzled old shifter's dominance ranks him above all other werewolves in the region, and Wilder shores up that position by tricking up-and-coming young alphas into promising undesignated future favors.
Wolfie flounders as he attempts to wriggle out from beneath Crazy Wilder's thumb without harming his pack. But he's soon left wondering –– does he really want to sever all ties after meeting a pack princess who turns out to be his opponent's enticing daughter?
The Complete Bloodling Serial
by Aimee Easterling
Copyright © 2014 through 2016 by Aimee Easterling.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
>
Read more about upcoming books at http://aimeeeasterling.com
Bloodling Wolf
Episode 1
Fifteen years ago...
"A BLOODLING!" MY father's voice is filled with disgust and his large hands are quick to drop me back into the midwife's arms. "Why did you even bring it out for me to see?"
The room, which was full of jovial laughter and the scent of cigars only moments earlier, is now silent. My eyes are still closed, but I can scent the dominant male werewolf in front of me, along with several other alpha-leaning shifters. Anger from my father nearly drowns out the other aromas, but I pick up sorrow and repulsion in equal measure. The former seems to emanate most strongly from a male who I later learn is my mother's younger brother Oscar, but my uncle soon slips out the door, taking his tear-laden scent along with him.
"He's a boy, and healthy," the midwife speaks up after a moment, her voice quavering with fear. Even with my eyes glued shut, I'm able to understand that no one stands up to my father, so I'm impressed by the woman's spine. "The heir and a spare...." the midwife continues, but my father has turned away, dismissing the woman from his thoughts.
As a pup, I'm less interested in adult voices than in the smell of blood wafting from the room I was recently carried out of. Childbirth...and death. No wonder my father seems less than pleased by my presence. I changed to wolf in the womb—fourteen years earlier than most werewolves—and tore my mother apart during my unwitting struggles to escape the wet dark. Later, I'll learn that it wasn't my murderous act that turned my surviving parent against me. Bloodlings are forced to spend their entire childhood as wolf pups, unlike most werewolves who enjoy human form until their first change. Those of us who start off four-footed are never quite the same even after shifting, our brains having ossified into wolf form. To me, that's a good thing. Dear old Dad sees it differently.
On the day of my birth, though, these deep thoughts all lie in the future. Cradled in the midwife's arms, I mewl a complaint at the cold, at my hunger, and at the confused emotions swirling around me. The sound is enough to turn my father's eye back onto his unwanted child. "Toss it out to freeze," he orders.
I'm plucked from the midwife's embrace by one of the male wolves, who now smells of annoyance and distaste. The unknown shifter dangles me by the scruff of my neck, opens the door to the even colder outdoors, and I tumble head over heels as I fly through the air and then land in a pile of soft, yet frigid, snow. I struggle at first, but my minuscule weight just drags me down deeper into the frozen powder, and soon my nose is all that remains above the snow's surface. At last, I succumb to the chill and settle down to die.
To my young brain, I seem to lie there forever, but my exile must last mere moments. The sorrowful uncle who fled my father's house had set a simple yet effective plan in motion, cracking open the neighboring residence's door and counting on a toddler's curiosity to draw that young werewolf outside into the snow. When Chase finds me, an interesting ball of fluff nearly on his doorstep, he isn't gentle, but the toddler's warmth awakens the spark of life that has nearly fled from my damp form. My playmate-to-be drags me into his home by one paw, my sodden body thumping up the stairs behind him, and my lack of struggles attest to our newfound understanding—I'll be Chase's pet, and he'll be my lifeline.
"What is that?" Chase's mother exclaims as her intrepid son wrestles a nearly dead wolf pup into her kitchen. I can sense the adult's distress when she realizes who and what I am, but Chase's mother possesses the softest heart in our village. When her son jabbers his baby-talk request, she can't resist—Tia braves my sharp teeth and takes me into her arms to nurse.
Soft-hearted mother or no, I would have been tossed back out into the snow if I'd found my way into any other household. But Chase's father died not long before, and his mother now answers to no dominant male. So she takes me in, and by the time my father realizes what was happening, there's no going back. Chase and I are milk brothers, and Tia is willing to protect us both with her life.
The present...
"HALFIE! HALFIE!" THE taunts ringing out across the playground would've made you think I was surrounded by a pack of wolves. Oh, wait, yep—a pack of wolves.
My age-mates and I were now old enough to shift, but since we studied under adult shifters in a werewolf-only schoolhouse, we generally took whatever form felt the most comfortable. For everyone else, that was human. Me? I stayed wolf.
The girl being taunted was two-footed, although fear would have made her transform to wolf shape if she'd been of age. Her face was flushed and her eyes frantically scanned the grounds in search of an adult to stop the bullying, but older shifters tended to let these matters run their course. Halfies weren't as disdained as bloodlings, but those werewolves with some human blood often gave birth to pure-human sons, and their halfie daughters did the same. In a pack obsessed with the male lineage, halfies were considered bad blood—allowed in the village, but definitely not good enough for a dominant wolf to mate with.
Or to talk kindly to, apparently. At the moment, the most dominant youngster of all was hurling insults toward the halfie girl. He wouldn't admit to our relationship, but this was Justin, my biological brother and a scaled-down version of our shared father. Justin was slated to become our village's next alpha wolf, and he already acted the part in the schoolyard. As a result of his dominance, everyone with any sense was afraid to take him on, which was why even the better wolves around me were looking the other way rather than helping the taunted halfie. The worse wolves were joining Justin in his sadistic game.
Luckily for the halfie girl, I didn't count myself among those who possessed sense, and I was quite willing to take advantage of my wolf form's ability to act now and think later. Pure protective rage led my charge through the throng of Justin's cronies and up to the halfie in the center. As I faced my bullying brother and bared my fangs, I could feel the girl's hand close onto the fur along my raised ruff, testifying to her relief at my presence. Unlike most members of our community, she was happy to see my bloodling face.
Turning my attention back to my brother, I hoped a show of teeth would be enough to deescalate the situation. While he would never admit it, Justin was scared shitless of his little brother since I wasn't really his little anything, except in age. One of the benefits of being a bloodling was that I'd grown up on a wolf's schedule, not a human's. Justin was two years older than me, but I had a man's body while my brother still looked like a teenage boy. In wolf form, the difference was even more pronounced since Justin's scrawny ribs stuck out through his fur and his paws looked huge on the ends of his feet. On the other hand, no alpha male could back down from a challenge if he wanted to maintain his position within the pack, so despite being outclassed, Justin ripped off his shirt, kicked off his pants, and started to change.
The girls all averted their eyes, and I couldn't blame them. There was nothing sexy about my brother's naked form, either as a man or as a wolf. Definitely not during this in-between stage when his bones were shifting into new arrangements and hair was sprouting out of his ears. It made a difference, too, that my brother was still learning to control his wolf limbs. Something I'd learned...oh, around about when our shared father tossed me out into the snow.
So I wasn't worried when I growled at the wolf in front of me and Justin bared his teeth in reply. The kids around us probably couldn't tell with their untrained human noses, but I could smell the reek of fear on Justin's breath. I knew I'd won before we even started.
I could almost hear Chase telling me to do the smart thing, to use Justin's anxiety against him, giving me time to back the girl out of the bully's way and defuse the situation. But my wolf brain just wanted to tear Justin apart and usurp his position within the pack. I did, however, reserve enough of my human self to nudge the halfie into flight before I let my wolf have his head. The girl scurried between the ranks of Justin's lackeys, her face trained onto the ground and relief evident in her scent.
Justin took advant
age of my distraction by charging, his shoulder knocking into mine, but even the element of surprise couldn't gain the smaller wolf an advantage. It was as if my brother had hit a brick wall, and I barely swayed on my feet at the contact. Too bad I wasn't two-legged, or I could have laughed in his face and watched my blood brother's face turn red with anger. But the chagrin now coating his scent was satisfying enough to feed my wolf's appetite for submission, and I opened my mouth in a doggie grin.
If my brother had taken a step back then, I might have let the altercation go, but Justin's fangs remained bared, so I prepared to retaliate. Before I could tear into the smaller wolf, though, a raised adult voice rolled across the playground and stopped me in my tracks. I couldn't focus my human brain enough to catch the words, but I did understand the rough hands that pulled me and my brother apart. Our fight was over before it really had time to start.
As adults converged on us, Justin was yanked away and then set loose, and my brother shook his fur angrily at being manhandled before stalking away. In contrast, I was rolled over onto my back, belly exposed to the air, and the rebuke was strong in the voice of the teacher above me. I didn't protest, even though anyone could have told the adults that Justin had been the bully in this situation, not me. It was par for the course—our teachers wouldn't protect a halfie, but they would protect an alpha's son.
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