Wolves in the Shadows (The Wolf Clan Chronicles)

by Sharon McLaughlin

  “So, we are enemies,” Chase said.

  “We shall be enemies, if you wish it,” Lord Reginald replied. “But you did help us save Elizabeth, and I swore to her that you would be not be harmed. So long as you continue to protect her, we shall be allies.”

  “I understand, sir,” Chase said, feeling chastised. “I apologize for my rudeness, Sir Marcus.”

  Marcus grunted and left the room without another word.

  “I don’t need to tell you what will happen if any harm comes to Elizabeth,” Lord Reginald said. For the first time, his voice became ever so slightly threatening.

  “I’ll take care of her,” Chase said. “Any bitterness I have towards your clan, is directed at you son and Demetrius. And Demetrius is dead.”

  “You hate my son for something he did centuries ago, Chase,” Lord Reginald said. “It has no doubt been taught to you since childhood, but you should remember, that the only reason you are alive today is because of him.”

  Chase glanced at Elizabeth sleeping peacefully on the bed. “I think it’s more thanks to her,” he mumbled to himself.

  Lord Reginald must have heard because before leaving the room, he turned and said, “It’s a good thing then that Marcus has such a respect for his family.” He opened the door and was gone before, Chase could reply.

  Chase sighed and looked back at Elizabeth.

  Romulus lifted his head and gave him a piercing stare.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Chase said.

  The wolf gave a quiet growl of warning.

  Chase chuckled and shook his head. “It’s been a long day,” he told Romulus. “Wake me up if anything else happens.” He stretched himself out on the second bed in the room and was asleep by the time his head hit the pillow.

  Monday

  Chapter 1

  Elizabeth woke with a start to see sunlight streaming through the window. She was lying on a large bed with a lumpy mattress and stiff white sheets. As she looked around at the dingy walls with cheap looking watercolor painting of sailboats and an identical bed beside the one that she was in, she realized that she was in a motel room.

  She closed her eyes and tried to piece together the events of last night. She remembered falling asleep in Lord Reginald’s arms, but then how had she gotten here?

  The door opened and then closed with a quiet click, and something big and furry jumped up on the bed beside her and started to lick her face.

  “Hey, Romulus,” she said as she ran her fingers through his rough fur. She opened her eyes and blinked in surprise at the sight of the wolf. It definitely was Romulus, but he looked and smelled all wrong. His fur gleamed as if it had just been brushed and he was wearing a big red collar. She scratched him affectionately behind the ears and asked him, “Who gave you a bath?”

  She laughed as a vision of a very wet Chase with a soap covered wolf in a tiny hotel bathtub filled her mind.

  “It took plenty of convincing on my part.”

  Elizabeth looked up from Romulus to see Chase standing at the foot of her bed with a wry smile.

  “I’m glad to see he’s okay,” she said, smiling back. “And you too, Chase.”

  “I’m pretty happy about that myself,” Chase said. He held up the box of donuts with two cups of coffee perched precariously on top. “And I hope you’re hungry.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “You are my new best friend,” she said.

  Romulus whined and nuzzled her cheek.

  “Sorry, Romy,” Elizabeth said with a smile. “But he does have food. She sat up and took a sip of the coffee that Chase had handed her.

  “I didn’t know what you like, so I just got a bunch of different ones,” Chase said as he set the box on the nightstand between the two beds.

  “Fine by me,” Elizabeth said through big bite of a maple bar. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this hungry in my life.”

  “That’s saying something,” Chase said as he sat down on the second bed and helped himself to a cinnamon roll. “I’ve seen how much you can eat.”

  Elizabeth finished the maple bar and picked up another donut. “I like Romulus’ collar by the way,” she said. “Red’s my favorite color.”

  “I figured that it would work better than a pink and sparkly one.”

  Romulus grunted in agreement.

  “Though you can be the one to give him a bath next time,” Chase said. “I figured he’d be more convincing as a dog if he had a collar and wasn’t covered in blood. Plus, I told him that you’d like him better if he smelled better.”

  “There’s no way anyone would think he’s a dog,” Elizabeth said with a chuckle. “But it’s worth a try.” She finished her second donut and picked up her third. “His cuts are healing nicely,” she said before taking a bite.

  “They might leave some scars, but other than that he’ll be fine,” Chase said.

  “And you’re definitely okay, right?” Elizabeth asked.

  “I’ll be fine too,” Chase said with a wink. “As long as you don’t eat all the donuts.”

  Elizabeth selected her forth donut from the box and grinned mischievously. “You just need to eat faster.”

  #

  In the end, Elizabeth did eat almost the entire box of donuts by herself, but Chase insisted that he’d had enough.

  “You’d better not say anything about feeling fat now,” he warned as her as she rubbed her stomach contently.

  She stuck her tongue out at him and rolled her eyes.

  He chuckled and shook his head. As she had eaten, he had told her about how Lord Reginald had asked him to watch over her during the day and then meet up after sundown. He had not mentioned the fact that Elaine was his mother, and he did not feel even remotely inclined to do so.

  “I can hardly remember last night after Demetrius’ died,” Elizabeth said. “I know it’s there; it’s just really jumbled.”

  “You just need more rest,” Chase said.

  “I remember being worried that Sir Marcus wanted to kill you.”

  “Most vampires tend to want,” Chase said with a snort. “But then again, I usually kill any vampire I come across.”

  “You’d better not try to kill my uncle,” Elizabeth said. She found it hard to sound as serious as she felt. “That might put a damper on our relationship.”

  Chase grinned and said, “Our relationship?”

  “Our friendship.” She tried to stress the word.

  “I like ‘relationship’ better,” Chase said. He raised his eyebrows.

  Elizabeth threw a wadded napkin at him. “I’m trying to be serious,” she said.

  “Your choice of weapon tells me otherwise.” Chase replied. He had dodged the napkin that Elizabeth had thrown and was crumpling up his own arsenal.

  “It honestly worries me,” Elizabeth said with a sigh, growing more serious with each passing moment. “I like you, Chase, I really do, and it genuinely scares me.” A slight line appeared on her forehead as she scrunched her eyebrows together.

  Chase cocked his head to the side and asked, “why?”

  “You’re a hunter,” Elizabeth said. She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to organize her thoughts. “And some part of me will always be afraid that you’ll-” She found that she could not finish her thought.

  “I’m actually a Slayer, remember?” Chase gave her a roguish wink.

  Romulus growled a warning.

  Elizabeth gave up trying not to smile. There really was no point. Chase always seemed to be able to disarm her completely with his charm. She could feel Romulus’ mind press against hers. She could tell that he didn’t like or trust Chase very much.

  Chase gnawed his lower lip. “The truth is if it was anyone else, I wouldn’t be here,” he confessed. “I’d be hunting for Lord Reginald and Sir Marcus’ current daytime resting places, and then if I couldn’t find them, I’d take you somewhere and rig up every sort of anti-vampire charm and trap that I could think of.”

  “But they’re different?
” Elizabeth asked hopefully.

  “No, Lizzy,” Chase said. “You’re different.”

  Elizabeth’s smile drooped into a frown. “I’m getting a little tired of hearing that,” she said.

  “It’s true,” Chase said with an unapologetic shrug. “You are a rare individual. Whether you want to accept it or not. I have more reason to be scared of you. You could easily rip through my mind.”

  Elizabeth yawned, suddenly feeling ready for a nap after all that food. “Well,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about me for a bit.” She settled comfortably against her pillows and smiled as she looked up at Chase. “Thanks for breakfast.”

  Chapter 2

  Elizabeth’s eyes snapped open; she sat up and looked around wildly.

  “What is it?” Chase asked.

  “I killed her,” Elizabeth said. The jumbled memories from last night had suddenly coalesced as she had been napping. She ran her fingers through her hair and shook her head. “How could I have done it? I didn’t-”

  Chase hurried to her side and shushed her. “It’s okay, Lizzy,” he said taking her hand.

  Romulus lifted his head from between his paws and watched him warily.

  “It was self-defense,” Chase said. “I know you didn’t want to do it.”

  Elizabeth relaxed a bit and frowned as she looked up at Chase. “Who was she?” she asked. Her gaze bored into Chase’s skull.

  Chase looked away and said nothing.

  “She was you mother, wasn’t she?” Elizabeth asked.

  Chase’s entire body went rigid with shock.

  Elizabeth pulled her hand away from his and clapped it against her mouth.

  “How did you know?” Chase said at last, his expression wooden.

  “I just know,” Elizabeth said. “I think Romulus told me.”

  Chase frowned and glanced at the big wolf who had put his head back down between his paws and had closed his eyes.

  “You weren’t going to tell me were you?” There was a hint of accusation in Elizabeth’s voice.

  “Did Romulus tell you that too?” Chase asked. His eyes narrowed into slits as he looked at her.

  “He didn’t have to.”

  Chase rubbed his temples. His head was beginning to pound. “You’re messing around in my head,” he said.

  Elizabeth wrenched her thoughts away from his mind. She felt sick to her stomach at what she had found there.

  “She would have killed you; you know that right?” Chase said.

  Elizabeth nodded, but did not reply.

  “You know I don’t blame you.”

  “It’s not that,” Elizabeth said. “She was your mother, but you feel nothing.”

  “You heard her say that she never wanted me,” Chase felt a twinge of shame as he spoke. What sort of monster was he? It was true that he had never considered Elaine to be his mother, but she had been. Had he become completely desensitized to death?

  “She was lying, Chase,” Elizabeth said. “I could see it. She was proud of you.”

  “She probably wouldn’t be proud if she could see me now,” he said with a self-deprecating smile. He sat down and shook his head. “Sir Marcus offered me a chance to fight him to avenge her, but I turned him down, and here I am protecting the one who killed her.”

  Elizabeth frowned. “My whole life is about to change, isn’t it?”

  Hasn’t it already?” Chase asked, raising his eyebrows. “And is that really such a bad thing?”

  Chapter 3

  Elizabeth let out a contented sigh. There was nothing like a long hot shower to make the world a little brighter. She wrapped a towel around her and poked her head out of the bathroom.

  “At ease, Romy,” Elizabeth said with a chuckle at the sight of Romulus sitting stiffly by the door.

  The big wolf looked up at her and whined.

  Elizabeth stepped out of the bathroom and patted him reassuringly on the head. She was actually relieved that Chase hadn’t returned. He had been a perfect gentleman when he had suggested that she relax and shower while he got her some fresh clothes, but there had been an undeniable tension between them. She felt like she needed to talk about Elaine’s death, but it was clear that Chase had no interest in discussing it. His lack of remorse worried her, but far worse than that was the fact that there was a part of her that had enjoyed digging around in his mind. She was slowly coming to realize that she really could rip apart his mind if she wanted to. It was both terrifying and exhilarating.

  “What’s the matter with me?” she said out loud. She instinctively threw up barriers around her mind.

  Romulus cocked his head to the side as he looked at her.

  “I don’t really want to know, Romy,” Elizabeth said with a shrug. She could feel his thoughts pressing against hers. She tapped her forehead with her index finger. “There’s too much going on in here for there to be room for you right now.”

  The wolf kept looking at her silently.

  Elizabeth ran her fingers through her hair. “Things are happening so quickly, I hardly know what to think,” she said more to herself than to Romulus. “Sometimes I wish you could just speak plain English and tell me what’s going on.”

  Romulus whined sympathetically.

  “Just having you around, is comforting. I can’t imagine what it’s like having so many souls in you. I feel lost and confused, and it’s just me in here.” She drew the towel around her more tightly and sat in the chair by the window. It was frustrating how quickly the delightful feeling of being clean and safe had slipped through her fingers.

  “I hate how one minute, Chase and I are acting like old friends, and then the next it’s super weird and awkward.”

  Romulus trotted across the room and laid his head on her knee. Elizabeth smiled fondly down at him and started to scratch behind his ears.

  “I know you don’t like Chase, but I really do,” she said. “But it’s so confusing and complicated, especially now.”

  Romulus grunted in assent.

  They sat quietly, each deep in their own thoughts. After a few minutes, Elizabeth stood and walked to the phone by the nightstand between the beds.

  Chapter 4

  Chase drummed the steering wheel impatiently as he drove away from the hotel. He was conflicted. Should he just drive away and not come back? Surely Elizabeth would be fine without him. Maybe even safer. He shook his head and gnawed on his lower lip. He had made a promise to protect her, but at what cost to himself?

  He remembered his father looking down at him after his first kill. She had been young, still in her early teens, maybe a year or two younger than he had been. A freckled red haired girl with eyes to big for her face. She had been too small for the shotgun that she had pointed at him as he tried to defend her master. He hadn’t even hesitated. He had killed her before she could kill him. He could still remember the acrid smell of gun smoke and the vision of her tiny body crumpling to the ground.

  He had watched in fascination as the blood had spread across the girl’s chest, staining her pale blue dress. One minute she had been alive and vibrant and the next she had been dead. Because of him.

  He had felt a strange sort of emptiness as he looked at her. The same emptiness he felt at the sight of Elaine’s death. He shuddered. How had he come to be so heartless?

  His father told him more times that he could count that anyone who allies themselves with a vampire should be hunted down without mercy. He would have said without a doubt that Elaine deserved to die. But so did Elizabeth. And so did he.

  Chase almost laughed aloud at the bitter irony. Who would have imagined that the famous William Brennan’s widow and only son would both end up serving master vampires? It was almost too dreadful to think about.

  He sighed and shook his head; he needed a good strong drink.

  Chapter 5

  Elizabeth picked up the phone and dialed with trembling fingers.

  “’Ello!” a cheery voice answered after one ring.

  “Michi
e, it’s Lizzy.” She winced as her roommate started a loud gush.

  “Oh my god! Lizzy! Where the hell have you been? I’ve been totally worried! Are you okay? Shit! I sound like you now. That Chase guy was looking for you yesterday and today there were these other random guys that came over and were asking for you. It was really weird! What’s going on? Where are you? And whose phone are you calling from? When I told you that you need to get out more, I didn’t mean-”

  “Calm down, Michelle,” Elizabeth cut her off. The speech that she had planned out only minutes before vanished from her memory. “Listen Michie, I’m going to be going away for awhile.”

  “Lizzy, what’s happened?” Michelle’s voice was filled with concern.

  Elizabeth could picture her slouching at her desk. She sighed and frowned into the phone.

  “Are you in some sort of trouble?”

  “No,” Elizabeth said as reassuringly as she could manage. “I’m fine. I can’t explain it right now. I just need some time to figure things out.”

  “What things?” Michelle’s voice bordered on hysteria. “Please tell me what’s going on! Those guys were saying some pretty weird things. Please come home. You can’t just leave like this! I need you here.”

  Elizabeth realized for the first time in two years how much her roommate had come to depend on her. Memories of the many hours that they had spent together came flooding into her mind. At the same time, her head was spinning at the thought that some random strangers were looking for her. She wondered what they had said to Michelle, but at the same time, she could not bring herself to ask. Were there more hunters around? Or maybe the police?

  “I’m sorry, Michelle,” she said at last, pulling herself out of her thoughts. All this time, she had thought that she had been the one who needed Michelle. Hadn’t she always defined herself to a certain extent as Michelle’s friend and roommate rather than as her own person? Her voice began to shake as she continued. “Remember how I used to say that I felt like I didn’t belong at this school?”