by Elisha Bugg
“But you're like me. We should be sticking together, helping one another like we used to. If the hunters find out what you are, they'll kill you.”
“That's where you're wrong, chick. Richard already knows what I am. He's the one who spared me when he came across me in the midst of turning.”
“That doesn't make sense.”
“Doesn't it? Richard isn't human himself. I guess he pitied me. And now,” Keri paused, pressing something sharp into Anya's leg, making her cry out in pain, “I'll bring you in as an offering of my loyalty. He's been searching for you, ‘the long lost daughter’ for years. How he'll praise me when he realizes I was the one to find you. So very clever hiding it from me all this time.”
Anya's heart raced, the pain in her thigh spreading down her leg.
How could Keri be so cold and heartless? She was supposed to be her friend, and all she could think about was getting in Richard's good books.
“Do you realise how hard it’s been trying to catch you? You’d already be his if that stupid wolf hadn’t interrupted me. And that damn hottie taking you home after I spiked your drink. What a waste...”
Her body trembled at the thought of being at Richard's mercy, just waiting for him to kill or torture her.
All this time it was Keri’s presence she was feeling.
Suddenly she caught a faint scent on the breeze. A mild aftershave tickling her nose as she heard a twig snap to her left.
Keri must have heard it too as she turned her head in the same direction, scowling into the shadows of the trees.
Please let it be Thane, Anya thought to herself, praying that somehow he knew where Hugh had taken her.
All this time she'd been scared of Richard and Hugh, fearful how much they knew, when the person she should've been afraid of was Keri. The one person who seemed to know exactly who and what she was.
“Show yourself. I know there's someone there,” Keri called, pointing a small dagger out in front of her.
No sooner had the words left her mouth, when a tall and slender man emerged from the trees, his eyes like liquid mercury as he circled around them.
“You really think you'll hit me with that, Keri,” he snickered, his voice seeming to bounce off the trees, coming from all directions as he disappeared from sight once more.
“Y-you can't kill me,” Keri stuttered, the unsteady rhythm of her heart echoing in Anya's ears as she searched around nervously. “You sired me.”
“You're such a disappointment, Keri. Killing you would be a mercy.”
“The council would be furious.”
“When they find out you've been working for the hunters, they'll reward me for disposing of my own mistake.”
Anya didn't know what to do.
Here she was, covered in cuts, with a vampire on either side of her. But as she looked at the male, she couldn't help but wonder who he was, and why she thought she recognised him.
“D-don't come any closer,” Keri stuttered, pulling Anya in front of her and holding the stained dagger to her throat, “or I'll kill her before you reach me. I know you're here for her.”
“Actually, I'm here for you,” he replied, his voice a whisper on the breeze, “she's just an added bonus.”
Keri squeezed Anya's shoulder tighter, pressing the knife deeper into her neck, making her choke.
“You think lover boy will reward you knowing you're responsible for killing his prize? The one person he's been searching for these past twenty years?”
“Shut up,” Keri screeched, searching around her once everything was silent.
Did this other vampire mean to save her, or was he planning on finishing what Keri had started? Anya's heart pounded loudly in her chest, causing her ribs to ache and her legs to wobble.
If only she hadn't been so stubborn to ask for help. She might have been able to control her abilities better and fight her way free, running from them whilst they fought.
Keri lowered her knife a fraction, peering around the tree behind them, searching for the man.
No sooner had her head turned, was the man upon them, lifting Keri off her feet by her throat, his eyes now tinged red.
“W-who are you?” Anya asked, her hands and voice shaking as she scrambled away from them.
“I'm here to help you, Anya, but you need to keep back. Your blood is hard to resist.”
Anya looked down at her arms and frowned. The blood was already beginning to dry and heal where the cuts were shallow. Then she remembered the stinging sensation in her leg from where Keri had stabbed her with something sharp.
A strong burning sensation travelled down the length of her thigh, causing her chest to tighten and her body to sway.
Looking down slowly, she noticed blood soaking through her jeans. Could feel it rushing down her leg beneath the fabric, making her head woozy and her ears ring.
“I-I-”
“Your body blocked out the pain because of your need to run. You’re bleeding quite badly.”
Anya leaned back against a tree, unsure what to do. How was she supposed to get away now?
“Do you have your phone, Anya?” the man asked, tightening his grip around Keri’s throat as his eyes seemed to glow brighter and more deadly.
She shook her head, remembering that she'd felt for it earlier and found it missing.
The man growled loudly in Keri’s face as she struggled to free herself, drawing Anya’s attention, her fangs protruding from her mouth once again.
“In my back pocket, you’ll find my phone. Use it to contact someone to come and help you,” he instructed, breaking her concentration.
“But-”
“I won’t hurt you, Anya. I’m in control right now, but you need to be quick.”
Hesitantly, she pushed herself away from the tree, feeling the throb in her leg as it protested under her weight. There was no chance she would ever find her way out of this wood, let alone find her way home, or somewhere safe. She had no choice, she needed that phone.
Slowly Anya reached her hand toward him, brushing her fingers across his thigh. He tensed, his eyes flashing silvery red. So beautiful and mesmerising.
He squeezed his eyes shut and told her to hurry, breaking her free from the trance his eyes had put her under.
The moment she took a step back and unlocked the phone, the man vanished with Keri still in his grasp.
Was he going to kill her?
Anya stared off into the distance where they’d disappeared and sighed, swiping away a tear that rolled down her cheek.
Keri had wanted to take her to Richard, a man Anya feared more than anybody else. She’d even threatened to kill her in order to save herself. Those weren’t the actions of a friend. Anya needed to remember that. She couldn't afford to feel sorry for her. Right now she needed to find a way of stopping the bleeding she could still feel trickling across her frozen skin.
Anya pulled the belt out from her jeans and used it to tourniquet her leg, helping to stop the flow of blood still staining her jeans, turning them a strange colour.
She looked down at the unlocked phone she’d taken from the vampire and swore.
No signal.
“Great,” she groaned, hobbling toward another tree to lean against, “now what?”
Chapter Thirty
Thane paced back and forth in front of Edwin's desk, waiting for some direction.
“You’re going to wear a hole in my carpet soon, boy.”
Thane turned his head to glare at Edwin as he continued to pace and clench his hands shut.
It had been hours since Hugh had taken Anya, and he was still no closer to finding her.
He’d exhausted all of his ideas searching and decided to come to Edwin to see if he had any clues on where to go next. Standing here waiting for him to search and contact some of his spies was grating on Thane’s nerves.
He needed to find her. He could feel her distress as though it were his own.
“I’m going as fast as I can Thane. I’m sorry.�
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“If he hurts her-”
“I know. But you won’t be the only one who wishes to seek vengeance should that happen,” Edwin snapped, pushing to his feet, leaning his palms on his desk as he stared at Thane.
“She’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a daughter and I won’t let anybody hurt her.”
Anya and Edwin had hardly spoken since she’d found out about Lucas. Thane could see how much it pained him to see her so distant, but he remained silent, allowing her to come to him when she was ready.
Thane felt a pang of guilt for losing his patience with possibly the one man who understood how he felt.
Twenty-seven years ago, Edwin’s only son had disappeared, supposedly taken by the hunters. A year after that, his mate was killed, and with it his chance of a family. Anya was the closest thing he had to a family, and now she was missing. It had to been eating him up alive.
Tynan was right, he was a fool. A coward even for pushing her away, when all he wanted to do was pull her close and lose himself in her touch.
If he'd just given into his feelings, let himself close to her, the bond between them would have grown.
He could feel her now. Knew she was afraid and in pain, but he couldn’t locate her. It was as though there were a wall between them. A wall he no doubt built.
Thane growled loudly, plonking down in a chair beside him, holding his head between his hands.
“I don’t understand how the boy found out,” he grumbled into his hands.
“You said yourself that Richard was already suspicious of her. We all suspected that’s why the hunters were growing in numbers. I guess we were right.”
“Yes, but as far as I could see, Hugh and Richard didn’t get along. Richard also seemed clueless that Hugh had taken her.”
“Are you sure he wasn’t lying?”
“Yes.”
Thane had watched him carefully when they spoke. He could tell by his steady pulse and eyes that Richard had been telling the truth. In fact, Richard looked just as pissed off with Hugh as he was.
“Someone else must have known.”
“Maybe,” Edwin replied, scratching his bare chin, “but I’m sure the boy won’t hurt her. It’s clear he has feelings for her and wouldn’t want to cause her harm, even if he now knows what she is,”
“That just makes him more dangerous,” Thane argued, leaning forward, placing his hands on his knees, “you said before that he finds it difficult to control himself. If he’s touched her-” Thane clenched his fists tight, blanching them of all colour. His bones popping loudly with the pressure.
“You called for me, Edwin?” a strident voice called, infuriating Thane further.
He wasn't in the mood to deal with Duncan now, baring his teeth as he walked past, causing him to flinch and move away.
“Yes. You’ve been watching Hugh for sometime. I want a list of places he usually visits to help narrow down our search,” Edwin demanded, his tone commanding like the leader he was.
“Let him have her. Maybe then Richard might back off for a while and-”
Thane cut off the rest of his sentence, lunging at him and pinning him to the floor by his shoulders, his teeth itching to bite him.
“We don’t leave our own, Duncan. You know that,” Edwin replied, stepping around his desk.
“Maybe we should give you up in her place. I’m sure Richard would love to see you after the chaos you’ve caused him,” Thane snapped, pressing his elbow down into his throat.
“I’ll list all the places I remember, mark them on the map.”
“Wise decision, Duncan. There’s a map on that table over there. You can start straight away.”
Thane stepped back, pulling him to his feet and pushing him toward the table Edwin had pointed out.
Soon Duncan would learn who was in charge and stop challenging those above him. As an adolescent, new alpha of his pack, he was volatile and constantly testing his limits. But all he’d achieved so far was to piss off a lot of the wrong people.
Thane could see him becoming a strong leader, but he needed a firm teacher to knock him down a notch or two.
As soon as Duncan had finished with the map, Thane snatched it from under his nose and shoved it toward Edwin.
He was unaccustomed to this area now and would need Edwin to tell him where to start.
“Here are the places you’ve already tried Thane,” Edwin commented, placing a different colour marker on the map, several of those overlapping with the ones Duncan had placed.
Thane leaned against the desk, studying the map closely, watching and waiting for his next location, unaware that Duncan had joined him, standing close to his side, one hand resting palm down on the table, the other on his hip.
“It’s true then. She really is your mate, isn’t she?" he asked with a sigh.
Unable to take his eyes off of the map and Edwin's hand, Thane nodded.
"I think I know how Hugh found out about her," Duncan informed him, moving in closer to whisper in his ear, "Keri."
Thane stood up straight, turning to face him. He furrowed his brow and cocked his head to one side.
"How would she have found out?"
"They've been friends for years. Seems logical that she'd notice before anyone else."
No. There had to be more to it than that. Edwin had known Anya since she was four, a long time before she ever met Keri, and he still refused to believe she would be able to transform like the rest of them. Someone had to have told her, or she was one of those watching Anya.
"Be careful around her. There's something not right about her. Besides her being a vampire.”
“She's a vampire?”
Thane had only seen Keri a couple of times. Once at the party, again at the pub, and those few times he'd passed her in the hall. But every time he'd seen her, Hugh was there.He'd been busy focusing on him, he'd barely even noticed the girl who Anya used to call her friend. Was this girl the one she kept sensing around her? Or was it Richard like Thane had first thought?
“Yeah. One of Oleander's if I'm not mistaken.”
Suddenly the mobile phone on Edwin's desk chimed to life, buzzing and vibrating across the table, Oleander’s name printing up brightly on the screen.
Thane didn't hesitate to answer when Edwin seemed preoccupied by his work.
"Oleander?" he asked in a clipped tone.
The vampire had disappeared on him with no notice, leaving him surrounded by hunters. He’d better have found something important to be ringing them now. He had a lot to answer for if Keri was indeed his.
"T-Thane?" a faint voice called, bringing him to his knees.
"Anya?" he choked, his heart leaping into his throat. She was ok.
"Where are you? Where's Oleander?"
"I-I don't know," she replied, her voice sounding faint and strained. "I'm in a woods I don't recognize."
"Stay where you are. I'll come find you as soon as I locate the signal from his phone."
Thane passed the phone to Edwin, turning on loudspeaker as he jumped onto the computer, still listening to her speak, telling himself over and over that she was ok, that he would find her soon.
"Anya are you alright?" Edwin asked, his voice quivering as he finally let a tear fall in his relief.
“I don’t know.”
"Did Hugh hurt you?"
"No. He didn't seem to know what to do with me."
"He's been brought up by a powerful hunter. It's no surprise that he doesn't understand what's going on and his feelings. You're supposed to be the enemy after all, yet to him you're just an innocent girl that's done nothing wrong," Edwin continued to waffle on, but Thane was growing worried. He hadn't heard Anya reply for a while now.
"Got a signal," Thane shouted as he exited the door.
He had to be quick. He could feel her energy fading, which could only mean one thing.
"No," he growled, pushing himself as hard as he could, transforming with no hesitation as he sprinted to where the signal
pointed him. He might need to carry her home, but he knew he'd be quicker at tracking her as the wolf.
She was all that mattered right now.
He would just have to fight off anybody he came across.
#
Edwin's voice was lulling Anya to sleep as he spoke in a monotone voice.
She knew she had to stay awake, but the wound was becoming increasingly painful and her body was beginning to lose the battle.
She'd pushed herself too hard in order to find a spot with signal so she could get help.
The bleeding hadn't stopped. In fact, she'd made it worse.
A simple stab wound shouldn’t be bleeding this much, unless she’d hit something vital, or Keri’s blade had been tipped with something poisonous.
“Anya?" Edwin shouted down the phone, his voice ringing in her ears.
"Are you still there?"
"Anya?" he shouted louder.
"I-I'm still here," she rasped, her breathing becoming increasingly difficult. Her head throbbing.
"Don't lie to me this time. What's wrong?" Edwin asked, his voice shaky and rough like he was holding back tears.
"Bleeding-" she replied, feeling a pang of guilt at not having gone to him sooner.
The tranquillity Hugh had given her must have worn off as she started to walk around. Now she could feel every stab of pain and the burning sensation with every step she took back in the direction she'd come from.
She needed to find the dagger Keri had dropped, see if it had been poisoned like she feared. Thane would need to know how to treat her wound when he found her. The dagger would help.
Anya fell to her hands and knees, the phone forgotten on the floor by her side. The sounds of Edwin's shouts becoming distant and faint as she drifted in and out of consciousness.
Her hand began to sting as it collided with something cold and metallic, blood oozing from the new cut across her palm. She looked down at it with a frown, her eyes blurring when she tried to focus on the shining metal.
Her vision turned black as she fell to the ground, her hand just millimetres from the sharp object.