by Hannah Pole
And there was only one man he would trust to look at her wounds and do a good job. That was Doc.
‘You should really let me take you to our clinic, to get your wounds checked by our doctor. I take it you don’t want him here?’
Chapter Six
Tamriel wasn’t entirely sure what to do. She had seen so much proof, so many unexplainable facts that all added up to one conclusion. This man might actually be telling the truth; he might actually be a wolf. And, holy crap, if that wasn’t the story of the century, she didn’t know what was.
The worst part? Try as she might, she couldn’t dislike him. She wanted to hate him, wanted to fear him, fear this situation. But the more time that passed, the more she found herself actually kind of, sort of, maybe liking him? Which was absurd.
Frankly, she figured if he was going to kill her, or be of any real threat to her, he would have done it already. The only thing he had done, is try to help her in her wounded state. Try and tell her what she had thought were lies, yet why would he bother lying about that? And why did his words ring true to her very core?
‘You should really let me take you to our clinic, to get your wounds checked by Doc. I take it you don’t want him here?’ Leyth looked her up and down. He was right, her wounds were pretty bad and she should be seen by a professional. And he was right again; she didn’t want any more strange men in her home. But did she really want to go to this man’s house? To be in a strange place with two strange men all on her own?
If he was going to kill you, he would have done it by now, her inner voice pointed out, but honestly? She needed answers, she needed to know who he was, who this alleged ‘pack’ was.
Her wound was a nasty one, but she could feel it healing even now, much faster than any normal person should be able to. What if she went to a normal hospital and they took her in for testing like a lab rat? At least this doctor would know what to expect.
And at least, if she felt threatened, she could launch herself out of the car; surely they were going to drive through the town, so she would have people around her.
‘OK, you can take me. I need clothes first though.’ She had to admit, as strange and scary as this situation was, she was actually a little excited about getting out of the apartment. Being held hostage would do that to a girl.
After a few minutes of awkwardly trying to dress herself with the clothes Leyth had brought in, she tied her hair into a scruffy ponytail and was basically ready to go. Putting the top and jumper on hadn’t been too bad, the jeans were a pain in the arse, but she point blank refused to ask Leyth for help. She could damn well dress herself. Socks and shoes were difficult though. Try as she might, the wound on her stomach screamed in agony every time she moved forward, forcing her to sit straight again.
‘Here, let me,’ he grunted, sinking to his knees before her and sliding a trainer onto her good foot. He then carefully loosened the second trainer and slid that onto the foot with the swollen ankle, that actually didn’t hurt that badly any more. She flexed her ankle and grinned. Although it hurt like nothing she’d ever felt before, she could actually move it! Leyth smiled up at her as she flexed her foot, his icy-grey eyes meeting hers, shining with amusement and what she could have sworn was something a little more. In that second her heart stopped beating. Her breath caught in her throat. For just a moment, she got lost in the depths of his eyes. No. She was not getting all crushed out on this man, her captor. She sternly told herself to get with the programme and told her gut, which was currently doing a little happy jig, to cut the crap. Not happening.
‘Let’s go,’ she said, perhaps a little more sternly than was really necessary. Leyth grunted, pulled open her broken door, then came back and scooped her into his arms. Lord almighty he was strong; his masculine arms cradled her with ease. Some strange, girlish part of her swooned as his strength surrounded her, as his musky, chesnutty scent filled her nostrils. But she forced that part of her down; he was a dangerous man who had kidnapped her and held her captive in her own home; there was no way on earth she was going to like him.
In reality though, what had he really done? Potentially told her the truth about her heritage? Well, she would have to wait and see on that one.
But, in all honesty, he’d helped her back to health after she’d fallen and injured herself, and he’d brought her home and tried to look after her. He’d not once said she couldn’t leave; she was just unable to.
Sliding her into the front seat of his beaten-up old Range Rover, which was actually parked just around the corner from her house, he slid into the driver’s side and shut the door.
‘Why is your car here?’ she demanded, strapping herself in awkwardly.
‘I, er, drove you home after your fever was over,’ he responded, studiously looking anywhere but at her.
‘Right.’ She huffed inwardly. Goddamn, she was well and truly struggling with her emotions right now. She trusted him implicitly, but lord only knew why.
She scanned their surroundings. Christ, Leyth was driving fast; they were well on their way out of Folkestone, heading in the direction of the woodland on the outskirts of Canterbury. She watched her urban concrete world disappear as it gave way to nature in all its beauty. The trees rushed past them as they made their way further into the countryside, making her want to get out and run through the woods, to be free and away from all this madness.
‘Tell me everything.’
‘Your father was sent on a mission for the Council,’ Leyth said into the silence. ‘When he came back, he realised he didn’t want you or your mother involved.’ He paused, he’d obviously been considering his words carefully. ‘They are cold, harsh people who wouldn’t treat you well. He decided to leave, to let you draw your own conclusions. So you wouldn’t keep looking for him. He thought it best if you grew up in the real world, and hoped like hell you wouldn’t go through the change, wouldn’t take after his heritage.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘I’m not. Look—’ He tugged his wallet out of his jacket with his free hand and pulled a picture out. Tears filled her eyes as she glanced at the image.
The picture was of Leyth and her father, hell, it really was him; he looked exactly as he did when he’d been with her all those years ago, though his hair and beard were longer. It was definitely him, the two of them were grinning, a beer in their hands, their arms around each other’s shoulders, grinning at the camera.
‘Tamriel.’
‘He should have let us decide for ourselves.’ She pocketed the picture and he let her. As she locked eyes with him, she saw the sympathy written across his features; it irritated her more than anything else. So he really was telling the truth; he truly was a wolf, though some part of her kept screaming at her that this was crazy, it couldn’t be real. But she had watched it happen, she had seen his body transform into a wolf right before her eyes, and there really was no other explanation for it. What’s more, part of her truly wanted to believe it; she had always been different and a large part of her absolutely revelled in having an answer as to why that was.
And, finally, that picture… Good lord, that picture truly was her father, she had absolutely no doubt about it. He might have left she and her mother, but she didn’t doubt that when he was around he only wanted the best for the two of them; he had been so loving and protective.
And he had trusted Leyth. He and Leyth had clearly been close.
If nothing else, that told her she could potentially trust him, it told her that this strange fondness she felt towards him wasn’t misplaced. Even if this situation was truly weird.
‘Tell me about the Council,’ she whispered. ‘I need to understand why.’
‘The Council. Right.’ He reached into his jacket and pulled out a box of cigs. Sparking up a Marlboro, he inhaled and released a long trail of smoke. She leant in and grabbed the packet, pulling one free.
‘I think of all the times to start smoking, now is a good one.’ She awkwardly lit the tip, inhaled sharp
ly and almost coughed her lungs up.
‘OK, so maybe I’m not cut out to be a smoker,’ she groaned after a long few minutes of coughing. He grinned over at her, a deep, throaty chuckle reverberating from his chest.
‘Probably for the best, it’s not the nicest of my habits.’
Tam shuffled awkwardly in the car seat. Leyth’s knives were digging into her stomach, but she would be damned if she was letting her best form of defence go.
Her knife was safely clipped onto her bra once more, which made her feel much more relaxed.
‘Tell me about the Council. Who are they?’
‘The Council are a group of nine of the most powerful supernaturals in England. Mainly fay and magis.’
‘Fay? Fairies?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re kidding me?’ She had to laugh; it honestly sounded like something out of a story.
‘Yes, the fay and the magi. Magi are like witches and wizards, but they aren’t too fond of the stereotype. They run the supernatural community in each country. There is a Council for every country.’
‘A bit like government?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Are there any wolves on the Council?’
‘No, but not because we’re not strong enough.’ Leyth sounded a little defensive about that. ‘We just don’t care for power; we run in packs and the pack is everything to us. We live by the rules of the Council because we have to. We work for the Council because we have to, to survive.’
She snorted and rolled her eyes, ‘OK, Wolfie!’
‘Very funny.’ He grinned at her; the tension between them had eased somewhat over the last few hours. Tam wasn’t entirely sure she was OK with that, but she was thankful she could almost calm down in his presence. Being scared and on edge was tiring. Besides, she just couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was something about this man that soothed her to her very core.
‘Do vampires exist?’ She gave him a cheeky grin.
‘Yeah, they’re part of the Council’s structure too. Why?’
‘There’s this guy at work, he’s a night-cleaner. And he’s really creepy.’
‘Let me guess,’ he laughed, ‘built like a brick shit-house, but keeps to the shadows and creeps around like an assassin?’
‘Yup that’s about right.’
‘Yeah, sounds like it. They tend to give out a creepy vibe just to keep people away from them. They like their privacy.’
‘Ah, I always knew there was something off about him.’ She chuckled, watching the world pass by the car window. She should really just jump out of the car door and make a run for it. Logically that really was the best plan, and the safest. But, for whatever reason, she stayed, sat in a car with a stranger. Discussing fairy tales.
‘So what do the Council do?’ She absently fingered a stray strand of hair.
‘Right, the Council are like a government, we got that far. They basically lay down the laws and we have to follow them. The Kingdom is made up in sort of tiers—’
‘Kingdom?’
‘Well, we call it the Kingdom; there’s an entire supernatural world hidden from the human race. You’ve heard of phenomenona like the “Bermuda Triangle”?’
‘Yeah.’
‘It’s hard to explain, but phenomenona like that are usually portals to the Kingdom, which is a separate world for people like us; fay, nymphs, elves. The works.’
Tam rubbed her eyes, this was a lot of information to digest.
‘Look,’ he continued quickly, ‘wolves and vampires are on the frontline; we live in this world, the Kingdom is home to other races. I’ve seen it maybe four times in my entire life, so it’s not something you need to worry about too much.’
‘Right. So that’s a conversation for another day then. What do you mean by “you’re on the frontline”?’
‘Each race is assigned to something. Elves handle human relations, which is a bit like “public relations”.’
‘So they control the media?’
‘In a way; they keep rumours to a minimum and find plausible reasons for supernatural sightings so humans don’t actually realise we exist.’
‘Will you ever let the public know?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘So tell me more about these tiers; where do wolves fit in?’
‘Well, we’re basically the muscle. We fight the tuhrned—’
‘The what?’ Crap, that sparked a memory, one she couldn’t quite grasp.
‘Tuhrned. They’re like zombies that—’
‘So a zombie really did break my phone?’ The memory came flooding back to her in a wave, a huge man with dark eyes attacking her from behind, smashing her phone.
‘What?’
‘I can’t find my phone; for some reason the idea that some sort of zombie broke it keeps coming back to me, I just can’t remember where or how?’
‘I’d forgotten about that.’
‘About what?’
‘You got into a fight with a tuhrned behind the Marlowe flats, just before your fever hit.’
‘Yeah. He was huge, with black eyes?’ She glanced at him for confirmation. ‘I blacked out. The girl? The blonde girl, is she OK?’
‘Yeah we got her, don’t worry. She’s in the clinic.’
Leyth fell silent for a long while as they drove; the further they went, the more isolated they became. Trees whooshed past them as they drove into the thick of some woodland and fear prickled her spine. Was she crazy for doing this? Letting a stranger drive her out into the middle of the woods whilst she was injured and alone? Probably. No, definitely.
But the need to find answers to this, her situation, her father – herself – was so strong she just couldn’t deny the opportunity to meet more people like Leyth who had these strange abilities, who possibly knew her father. Who might know what she was. Sometimes the need for knowledge overrode all logic.
The drive took a long while, during which Leyth tried to tell Tamriel everything he could, though he could see her struggling to digest it all.
His mind kept veering back to the blonde he’d left in the alley. He was sure she must be in the clinic or, at least, he hoped she was. He’d been so wrapped up in making sure Tamriel was OK and that she got through her fever that he hadn’t even bothered to check on the girl.
God, he felt like an arse now he thought about it!
And Carl had been trying to get hold of him; he just didn’t have the time or energy for it right now.
‘I remember…’ She trailed off, clutching her forehead. ‘Argh, it’s giving me a headache. Tell me more about the Council and these tiers while I try to remember stuff.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yeah, it just hurts a little.’ Leyth gave her a sideways glance. It was strange how naturally comfortable they were around each other; he was beginning to realise he knew his way around her emotions pretty well, it was almost as if they were connected in some strange way.
He shook the thought off as he reached over and patted her on the leg, he really was no good at this whole comforting deal. His hand briefly brushed hers and he could have sworn his heart skipped a beat or two. Her green eyes met his, and for the briefest of moments the scent of lust filled the air.
It took all the strength he had to pull his hand away and look anywhere but those beautiful green eyes.
Tam rapidly cleared her throat.
‘So, the Council?’ she prompted.
‘OK, the Council delegates to groups of supernaturals. As I said before, vamps and wolves are on the frontline. We fight the tuhrned and make sure, firstly, that they don’t expose us, and, secondly, that they can’t get to the Council. It’s the Circle who create tombs; in a nutshell, they’re rebels who have turned against the Council because they don’t like the rules put in place.’
‘And the Council have put these rules in place to stop humans finding out about the supernatural community?’
‘Yes.’
‘So who is in charge of the Cir
cle?’
‘The Circle is run by magis, as powerful as the ones who run the Council, but they use dark magic. Supernaturals who join the Circle go through a ritual that binds their soul; apparently they know what’s happening, but allow themselves to be controlled by the Circle, who can use their bodies as a vessel to fight.’
‘Christ, that’s horrible! Why would anyone do that?’
‘Beats me. We actually don’t know all that much about them to be honest; we’ve never really had a chance to “study” them, as it were.’
‘How do you kill them?’ He was beginning to like this female more and more; she just got straight to the point and got the job done, didn’t mess about. She would do well in the field.
‘You have to cut their head off.’
Finally they began to speed through the country road leading up to the mansion, his pack home. He didn’t want to bombard her with people, Maker only knew if he went through the front entrance, the whole pack would be hanging around somewhere and would want to find out who she was. He headed around the rear entrance, turning right off the main road and onto the bumpy back track. Abruptly the scent of fear washed through the car, filling his nostrils.
He turned his gaze to Tam, who was staring around them with wide eyes.
‘It’s OK, we live out in the middle of the woods; it’s pack-land.’
‘OK.’ He could see her gaze was filled with a mixture of fear and awe. Carefully he bumped the car through the woodland, stopping briefly at the large, rusty gates at the back; he watched the camera do a sweep of his car, and the little light turned green before the gates swung open allowing him entry. Security was everything here. Finally he pulled up to the small car park at the back of the clinic. The mansion was nowhere in sight from here, only the boxy warehouse extension that made up the clinic. Even so, Tamriel was taking it all in, her eyes scanning the area.
Climbing out, he walked around to the other side of his Range Rover and swung open the passenger side door. Carefully he shifted around, ready to pick Tamriel up and carry her inside.
‘Ready?’ Leyth nodded at her.