Sanctuary

by Tanith Frost

  Joseph tilts his chin up, and his gaze sharpens. “What are you talking about?”

  Paul ignores him. “Tell me that’s all you did with him, Aviva.”

  I feel my mouth moving, but there’s no sound coming out. My brain has frozen. All I can think about is that first night with Silas, thinking that this was my mistake to make, that no one would ever find out. And maybe we covered our tracks there well enough, but this…

  My silence seems to be answer enough for Paul. “How far did this go?” he asks, then shakes his head. “Don’t answer that. It won’t change what I tell the elders when they arrive. We’ve got clear evidence here of your involvement with him, and with the guilty pack.” He nods his head toward Irene and Violet without looking away from me. “I read about your rogue tendencies in your file, but I didn’t think they ran this deep. Didn’t think any true vampire could fall that far.”

  Joseph is leaning sideways in his chair, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever it is that so disgusted Paul. I want to tell Silas to leave before his grandfather sees, before Paul can hurt him, but it’s no good. He won’t go. Not without me, the pack member he thinks is the only hope of freedom for what’s left of his species.

  I clench my jaw muscles so hard my teeth grind together, and the lightning bolts of pain that shoot through my temples are enough to wake me up.

  “You’re involved with them, too,” I say. My voice is a bare rasp, but it’s enough for Paul.

  “I just want to see this shit hole shut down,” he says. “I was pushed to this. You chose…” he trails off. He can’t even say it. “Joseph approached me about giving things a nudge, stirring shit up a little. He knew I wasn’t any happier here than he was, and that nothing was ever going to change unless there was a crisis that forced a decision.”

  “Only way things ever change. Isn’t that right, Silas?” Joseph adds.

  Silas doesn’t answer. He’s watching his grandfather warily.

  Paul nods slowly. “Joseph thought a few human lives would be an acceptable price to pay to get rid of an upstart pack and to prove himself worthy of leading all of the males. Once the criminal, female element were dealt with, of course.”

  Violet snarls.

  “Oh, fuck off,” Paul says. “He’s not wrong. There’s something unnatural about your sort, the way you popped up suddenly and put everything off-balance. You’re freaks.” He looks to Irene, but the gun never leaves me. “Joseph saw that as soon as he laid eyes on you. Isn’t that so?”

  Joseph nods, and for a moment his attention leaves Silas. “An issue that I wished to deal with more decisively than I could with vampires watching over my shoulder, judging every decision, looking for proof that we were too savage to be allowed to live.” He glares at the females. “One more reason for me to loathe vampires and their interference. It’s gone on too long.”

  “At least we’re all in agreement there,” Paul adds, though he doesn’t exactly sound pleased about it. He obviously considers Joseph a tool, not an ally. A rung on the ladder to freedom.

  Joseph turns his gaze and his gun on Silas. “You’d have understood all of this if you were half the werewolf or a quarter of the alpha you think you are.” His hand trembles. “What did she do to you?”

  Silas watches Joseph calmly. “My disagreements with you have nothing to do with Aviva.”

  At the sound of my name, Joseph’s glare darts back to me. His eyes are wide, wild. Silas takes a protective step closer to me, stopping only when Joseph lets out an animal snarl.

  “How could you?” he says.

  “You didn’t really think Joseph’s plan would work, did you?” I ask Paul, ignoring Joseph. I need to keep Paul talking. Isn’t that what they do in old movies? Keep the bad guy talking until backup arrives? I doubt very much that the vampires who are coming will be any kind of heroic cavalry sweeping in to rescue me, but at least they might be interested in the truth, in knowing Paul’s sins as well as mine. That’s all I can hope for right now.

  Paul adjusts his grip on the gun. He’s out of shape, and it must be getting heavy. Still, he keeps it trained on me, even lifts it again to point at my head.

  “I did,” he says. “I thought there was a chance Maelstrom would decide that the clan was tired of dealing with the wolves and give them a chance at freedom under Joseph’s leadership, assuming he solved the murders and proved himself interested in keeping our secrets. And I’d be free. I thought maybe I’d see the world, or maybe spend a few weeks in the club gorging myself before I started my next assignment. And if Joseph was wrong, if it all came crashing down and he was caught in the act, or if the vampires decided in the end that the answer wasn’t freedom for the wolves, but death…” He shrugs. “It was all the same to me. The only unacceptable outcome was things staying as they were.”

  Joseph looks back and forth between me and Paul. The vampires. The enemies. Then he looks back to Silas, to the wounds on his neck. The marks of betrayal.

  Paul looks at Silas, too, then back to me. “I don’t care whether they all die,” he tells me. “Can you say the same?”

  Once again, I have no answer. I thought I was a true vampire at last, that I was getting my priorities right. But I’m not. I’m still vulnerable, still open to something different. Maybe that’s what Silas saw in me, what Irene and Violet saw when they decided to take a chance on letting me into their cabin. I still believe in right and wrong, still care that innocent people are being hurt even if they’re supposed to be my enemies.

  “Silas,” Joseph growls. He sounds like he’s in pain. He lifts the gun again to point at his grandson. “Is it true?”

  Silas reaches up to touch the wounds on his neck. “It is. And I don’t regret it. There’s still time to change things if you just—”

  Joseph lets out a guttural roar that rings through the cabin and wraps his finger tight around the trigger.

  There’s no time to react, no calm space in my mind where I can draw on my power and increase my perceptions. Everything comes to me in a blur.

  The strength of my muscles as I race toward Joseph to stop him, the awareness of Silas moving as he yells my name.

  The shift of the gun toward me, and the malice in Joseph’s eyes as he aims at my head. Silas’ instant reaction, as though he knew what Joseph would do before the old wolf had even formed his plan.

  Though I scream at him, he pushes me aside, changing my direction, forcing me out of the path of the bullet that flashes from the gun.

  The instinctive reaction of an alpha protecting a pack member.

  He doesn’t cry out, but slams to the floor as the echo of the gun’s blast leaves the cabin.

  Irene is on him, rolling him onto his back and tearing open the front of his shirt before I slide to a stop, crouching like I’m ready to start a race. My mind races. I want to go to Silas, but someone has to take care of Joseph. Violet is already occupied with Paul, jaws clamped around his wrist, forcing him to drop the gun.

  A deep, physical ache spreads through my chest as the scent of Silas’ blood fills the cabin, growing sharper as seconds pass. His pain now resonates like his voice did, reflected in me.

  At least he’s feeling something. He’s alive. For now.

  Joseph’s hand trembles, and he lowers the gun. He may have hated Silas, but this wasn’t what he intended. He wanted me dead, not his grandson.

  The old man turns slowly toward me, and a transformation comes over his face. Not man to wolf, but to true monster. His eyes fill with rage, as though Silas’ injury is my fault and not his. But he can’t possibly be as angry as I am. I’m not even thinking. It’s not like the hunt for food, though some of the same feeling fills me, the strength and determination, the disappearance of everything in the world besides my prey. I don’t want to feed on Joseph.

  I just want him to feel pain, to fear death and then have no choice but to welcome it under my hands.

  For Silas, I will become what his kind fear more than anything—a true vampire.
>
  I ignore the pain spreading outward from my chest as I launch myself at Joseph, darting sideways as he raises the gun again to release a second bullet at me, then a third.

  Silas’ strength blazes in me, his light colliding with my own cold darkness, and I open myself to it, willing the void to accept this strange power. There’s no time to analyze it, no chance I’ll let myself be distracted by it. Something awakens in me, threatening to tear me apart even as I reach new heights of power.

  Joseph drops the gun, but I don’t give him time to change. He chose his bullets over his teeth, leaving his human form vulnerable, and I see no reason to let this become a fair fight. Something like lust washes over me as I envision that strong neck snapping under the pressure of my fingers. I want it as much as I’ve ever wanted anything.

  I hit him hard, pushing him back, and the armchair flips as we fly over the back toward the fire. Heat and light sear my exposed skin, bringing pain brighter and sharper than the heavy pressure that’s still building in my chest.

  My hands wrap around Joseph’s throat as we fall, and I push his head toward the fire. His skull meets the edge of the stone hearth with a crack.

  He pushes back, wrestling against me, but I have the strength of a younger werewolf filling me. We tumble, crashing into the toppled chair. He claws at my face, and I smash his hand against the hearth his head hit seconds ago.

  “Bitch,” he croaks.

  “Fucking right,” I answer, squeezing his throat tighter. “And proud of it.”

  A flash of pain explodes in my chest, more intense than anything I’ve experienced since before I died. When I died by gunshot, my death was too fast for me to really feel it or understand what was happening. But this is not my pain, and with no actual injury to shock my body into ignorance, I feel every shredded nerve ending in Silas’ body.

  I scream.

  Joseph doesn’t miss his advantage. In a moment I’m on my back, fighting through the haze of pain to hold on to him so he can’t grab the gun again. He pushes me closer to the fire, and it feels as though my already damaged skin ignites.

  I glance back at Silas. His back arches, then he slumps to the floor, perfectly still.

  His strength surges through me in a sudden, renewed rush. If my power is the cold light of the stars, his is fire, and for a moment, so am I. The pain in my chest intensifies, but there’s something purifying about it, refining and focusing me even as my own dark power struggles against Silas’.

  I gasp as another wave washes over me. I want to cry out at the unfamiliar, overwhelming feeling.

  It’s not pleasure.

  It’s his power. And his life.

  “Silas,” I moan as white light engulfs me.

  And my heart beats. Just once, forced into motion by the overpowering flood of pure life force that’s the antithesis of everything I am now. My back arches, and I resist the urge to claw my heart out. I’ve thought for so long that I wanted this, but it’s too much. Too far from what I am now.

  A moment ago I was drawing on the strength of his blood, only tasting his supernatural essence. Now it’s flowing through me, flooding my body, and it’s unbearable. I feel ill. Overwhelmed. Nearly insane.

  I want to fight it off, but I can’t. I still need his strength if I want to finish this.

  I don’t stop to think about where this flood of Silas’ power is coming from, why he’s suddenly burning so strongly in me.

  Or why the pain suddenly leaves me.

  I push back, channelling the energy I took from Silas earlier and every bit of it that’s coursing through me now, and pin Joseph to the floor. My fingers wrap tight around his neck. Everything in me is focused on him, on the veins that throb in his temples and forehead, the reddening of his face, the bulge of his eyes as he fights back against me. I am death, filled with the power of life. He doesn’t stand a chance.

  I don’t snap his neck. I don’t want it to be that quick.

  His eyes roll to the side, toward Silas and Irene. He draws a sharp breath, closes his eyes, and stops fighting.

  I relax my grip as he collapses. He’s not dead. I still want him to be, but I’m slipping back into my right mind as Silas’ bright power drains from me like the light fleeing the day after sunset.

  Like the heat leaving my body after I died.

  My chest tightens, and I abandon Joseph. He’s unconscious. Maybe all of us will be better off if my elders and betters can torture a confession out of him. I don’t care right now.

  All I care about is the still, ashen-faced form lying with his head cradled in Irene’s lap as she raises her mournful face toward the window and the moonlight outside.

  “No,” I whisper. It seems wrong. A clerical error on a cosmic scale, maybe, and one that can be reversed. He can’t be gone. It’s simply impossible.

  “I’m sorry, Silas,” Irene whispers as the rumble of engines fills the room. She looks to Violet, who has Paul pinned. He’s given up the fight. Whether it’s because he expects the incoming vampires to save him or because he knows the game is over, I don’t know. Irene stands and whistles, high and long, and Violet’s ears prick forward. She snaps at Paul’s face, kicks the gun across the floor, and leaves him as headlights flood the room. She positions herself between the door and her pack leader.

  A wave of nausea passes over me, and I can’t tell whether it’s from grief or from the power that still lingers in me, washing through me like a river of light. I will the void to rise in me, to suppress this fire-like energy, to bring me back to myself.

  Doors slam outside. I brush Silas’ sweaty hair away from his face. He looks peaceful. Like he could be sleeping, except for the hole in his chest and the cooling pool of blood on the floor, or the emptiness that spreads through me. I still have his strength, and though the void has risen like the tide to drown his power, I still feel it in me.

  But Silas is gone.

  His voice is gone. His easy laugh. His fierce loyalty to his pack, his belief that things could get better.

  Tears slip from my eyes as I lean down to kiss his forehead.

  A low growl fills the air. I look up to find Violet pacing closer to me, stiff-legged, the fur on her shoulders raised, teeth bared.

  I bare my own fangs at her. I have as much a right to mourn him as they have.

  “Aviva,” Irene says, voice even and stern, but edged with regret. “They can’t find you like this.”

  Pain pounds behind my eyes, and my chest aches as though with the echoes of his injury.

  She’s right. If they open the door and find me crying over this alpha wolf, everything I tell them about what happened tonight will be suspect. I will lose any shred of dignity or credibility I might still salvage among vampires.

  My clan. My people. The ones I belong with.

  I move away from him and lie chest-down on the floor, hands behind my back, as the door bursts open. Vampires in dark clothing, at least a half-dozen of them, flood the room. Violet sinks to the floor, head down, next to Silas’ body, and Irene kneels with her hands behind her neck. Paul climbs to his feet, brushing himself off, and seems ready to speak until a redheaded vampire with her hair pulled into a high ponytail trains her gun on him. His face goes blank, and he puts his hands in the air.

  A pale form appears at the door, her long white dress incongruent against the black combat gear of the others. Miranda’s power fills the room like a cloud of perfume. The fire dims as though in awe of the darkness she carries with her like a weapon, and she surveys the scene before her.

  Maelstrom’s high elder. Here. My stomach sinks, but I don’t have the energy to feel afraid.

  I’ve definitely fucked up badly. For now, though, there’s only room for the pain that’s slowly replacing my numb disbelief.

  Silas is dead. He died defending me, believing I could still save his pack and his species.

  As Miranda’s impossibly dark blue eyes fix on me and her gentle mouth curves into an ancient frown, I wish I believed the same.
>
  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I’m aware of everything else that’s happening, yet I’m not. Miranda overwhelms all of it. Her slow steps toward me are like the approach of a great predator.

  Did I think myself powerful just a few minutes ago? I haven’t begun to understand what power is.

  She crouches, white skirt pooling on the floor, and rests her chin on her clasped fists as she studies me. I feel it this time. She’s probing my thoughts. It’s gentle, but I have no doubt that this could change on her slightest whim if I resist.

  “Please. I need to explain,” I croak. My mouth has gone dry. “It was Joseph. Maybe members of his pack, I don’t know, but he and Paul had a plan to free them both from this place. The other packs are innocent.” I swallow hard as I catch Erica’s sharp glare. “I know you have no reason to believe me, especially if you’ve already heard other sides of the story. But I ask that you listen. Please.”

  I push the evidence to the front of my mind—Joseph and Paul’s confessions, the bullet that killed Silas, the fire at the compound, the wolf I chased through the woods, Erica shooting at the wolves, the caribou carcass out back. Anything that she might pick up from me that will prove my case without revealing all of my mistakes.

  “We caught the culprits, Miranda,” Paul says. He holds up his damaged hand. “That wolf attacked me. Joseph can back me up if he’s not dead. We can explain—”

  “Enough,” Miranda says evenly. She rises and moves toward him, and even at this distance I can see him trembling. She locks gazes with him, eyes narrowed. Paul is older than me, and likely far harder than I am to read. I think for a second that she’ll break him here and now, but she turns her back on him and motions for Erica to come closer.

  Erica lowers her gun and hurries over.

  “Arrest all of them,” Miranda says. “Wolves and vampires alike. They’ll all need to be questioned.” She gives Violet a calm once-over. “In human form, of course. And see if we can make them reasonably comfortable in the meantime.”