Becoming the Enigma (The Loup-Garou Series Book 2)

by Sheritta Bitikofer

  “Have you seen the werewolves in the basement?”

  A chord had been struck in the little girl and Katey heard Helga swallow hard. “I caught a glimpse of them when they were being brought in, miss, but nothing more. I’m not allowed in the basement.”

  Katey’s heartbeat quickened and gripped Helga’s hands tightly in hers. “Did you see someone specific? He was a younger man, dark hair with blonde streaks and a bit of facial hair around his jaw? What about an older man with a bit of a greying beard? How about one that’s young, but with reddish hair?”

  Her questions came at Helga too rapidly. All the girl could do was shake her head.

  “I’m sorry, miss, I’m afraid I didn’t get a good look at them like that.”

  Katey let out a heavy sigh and her shoulders slumped so far that the shawl slid down a bit. She wouldn’t know if Logan and the others were safe until later, but patience was never something she possessed.

  Helga pronounced her ready and began to escort her downstairs. The halls were carpeted with more red and the grandeur she had admired in the bed chamber seemed to carry into the décor for the rest of the castle. Ancient tapestries and sconces lined the walls. They passed door after door that led into unknown chambers and Katey heard whispered conversations behind each one. The stench of vampire was everywhere and she likened herself to a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

  They hadn’t passed by a single vampire until they were descending the grand marble stairs down to the main foyer. They were pale, just as ashes as Martel, and held their heads high as if they were the true royalty in the world. Some dressed in formal gowns and suits, while others were clothed more humbly in slacks and polos.

  What struck her as odd was that some didn’t exude the same haughtiness like Martel. Others actually met her stare and nodded their greeting before walking past. But there were plenty of sneers to outweigh the kind smiles she was graced with.

  The women were stunningly beautiful and the men were handsome, but more sophisticatedly handsome like Martel.

  It was different from the roguish good looks of the loups-garous. The vamps had a gentleman-like quality to their appearances, while the loups-garous featured more of the dashing essence of adventurers and warriors. These guys looked like they had never worked a day in their lives.

  The foyer boasted high raftered ceilings with extravagant golden carvings of cherubs in the corners of the hall that trailed down along the walls in intricate scrollwork. The floor was also paved in marble tiles and glinted in the golden light from the torches throughout the foyer. She saw only three sets of doors leading out of the room. One led to a dining hall packed with vampire guests, while the other opened up into a ballroom where she could hear humans bustling around and talking among themselves about decorations. The third massive door led outside, etched with old world designs and straight across the long foyer floor from the grand staircase.

  As they approached Martel, Helga took her leave with a little curtsey and walked off. Martel eyed Katey as she waved her a little goodbye to the maid that had touched her heart so inexplicably.

  “You look exquisite,” he said.

  Katey looked to him and her lips parted a bit at the oddness of the remark. Logan had told her the very same thing once, but it didn’t sound the same coming from Martel. He seemed to add flair to the word that sent her mind reeling. It was as if Martel said it because he felt he had to in order to achieve something with her, rather than letting the truth pour from his heart. It was a fake, but polite cordiality that Katey wasn’t used to.

  He offered his arm, but Katey kindly refused it. “Let’s just get this over with,” she muttered.

  A dark expression passed over Martel that made her take a cautious step back. “I wouldn’t be so hasty to have this night end, if I were you.”

  Katey didn’t want to honor his subtle threat with the question that seared in her mind as to what he meant and looked away as he led them toward the front doors. She could feel all eyes still fixed upon her.

  It was then that she realized she couldn’t read their emotions in the same way that she could for humans or loups-garous. It was as if they blocked her out, her mind hitting a brick wall in an effort to figure them out. Either that, or there was nothing there for her to find but a soulless shell of a creature so different from herself and her pack. It troubled her to know that she wouldn’t be able to gauge their reactions and motives so easily. At least she could tell which were friendly and which to avoid.

  He led the way through the massive oak doors that towered twelve feet high. Outside, snow flurries greeted them with a cold gust of wind. Katey could feel the chill climb up her legs from under her dress hem and squeezed them together in hopes to keep herself warm. The fur shawl was just adequate enough to block the wind from penetrating to her bare shoulders underneath.

  “It’ll be warmer down in the valley,” he told her as he ushered Katey to a slick black sports car that was parked not too far from the high stone steps that led down from the front doors. A valet was present who, despite the cold, was not dressed warmly in his bright red attendant uniform. He held open the car door to let Katey slide into the passenger seat. She flashed him a weak smile, hoping to acknowledge his plight and communicate her deepest sympathies.

  Martel was given the keys and got into the driver’s seat. He started up the car and launched off at a dangerous speed down the snowy mountainside. Katey braced herself and even with her seat belt securely fastened, she was still jostled on her side of the car due to the bumpy road and hairpin turns. Martel had death metal music blaring over the radio and thought Katey sometimes enjoyed the screaming and growling lyrics, this was not her idea of a good date. And if Martel thought she felt blessed to be going to town with him, the vampire was vastly mistaken.

  At the bottom of the mountain, once they were driving on smooth blacktop, Martel dialed down the radio and turned to Katey, probably noticing her vacant and angry stare out the window.

  “Is something troubling you?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Katey replied coldly. The less they talked, the better. It would keep her from saying things that would either incriminate her or offend the vampire to such an extent that he decided to end the date early and she’d never get to see Logan.

  Martel gave a little chuckle. “It doesn’t bother you that you’re about to go out on a date with a vampire?”

  Katey turned to him with daggers in her eyes. “This is a date?”

  “Why, of course!” he said, oblivious to her sour mood. “What did you think it was? A garden party?”

  Katey sighed and looked out her window again. The old Martel was never this conceited. “I don’t know. And no, the fact that you’re a vampire doesn’t bother me.”

  “Why not?” There was a hint of puzzlement in his words.

  She shrugged, “Because I know you won’t do anything to me.”

  “How can you be so sure?” His voice dropped deeper and Katey looked back to him with a cool expression.

  “I know you better than that. The Martel I knew in school wasn’t cruel.”

  He turned his icy stare out the windshield. “I’m a different man now. The Martel you knew is long dead.”

  Katey shook her head. “You may be a vampire now, but people don’t change that easily. You must still have a heart and you wouldn’t hurt me.”

  The two fell silent and Martel turned the radio back up to block out any chance of continuing their conversation. Katey watched him for a moment, examining his hard, bitter countenance.

  24

  They soon arrived to the town that Helga had spoken of earlier. It wasn’t like Crestucky, or even the town in Alaska. This town was bigger and more rural in its choice of architecture. The streets were fairly empty with few cars and nearly no pedestrians out. Perhaps they all knew a coven of vampires lived not too far away and knew better than to walk out alone at night.

  During the entire trip through the town, Katey couldn’t stop thinkin
g about Logan, her pack, and the other loups-garous that were trapped. She wondered what was going to happen to them, and if any had been injured during the ambush. They were alive, that much she could tell, but if they were harmed and miserable, that was another thing. If she played her cards right and buttered up Martel, she could milk him for answers. The idea of kissing up to him made her blood run cold, but it was for her pack. For them, she would endure anything. They deserved that much.

  Martel pulled up in front of a quaint French restaurant that was just about ready to close for the evening. Like the town in Alaska, their storefronts were decked out in Christmas lights and garland to inspire a festive mood among its citizens.

  As Martel assisted Katey out of the car, she noticed that his hand was colder than the air that swirled around them, and she quickly withdrew from the shock of it. She remembered when his touch used to be so warm when they had danced in the auditorium at school during club meetings. It was another reminder that he wasn’t quite the man that he once was, but Katey wasn’t going to give up so easily. There had to be something left of the human she knew.

  He noted her surprise, but didn’t seem to react to it. Or, if he did, Katey couldn’t sense it in him. Secretly, she wanted him to be ashamed or embarrassed for what he was somehow. Martel should have understood what he had become, but he played it off as if his inhumanity were the best thing in the world. He had shown so much arrogance before that Katey wanted there to still be a shred of humanity left in him.

  It was then she realized they weren’t so much unalike. Katey strived to be a better loup-garou with every passing day. Martel had spent the last three or so years feasting on blood and letting himself be tutored by other vampires. He was proud of what he was, just like she was proud of what she had become. In that, she could try to understand him.

  They walked up to the front door where an employee had pinched the edge of the closed sign to flip it. But, as soon as he saw Martel, his eyes went wide and ran away from the door, screaming for his manager.

  “Popular one, aren’t you?” Katey retorted with a cocked eyebrow.

  Martel held the door open for her and offered to take her shawl, but she refused.

  It didn’t take long for a timorous manager to appear. He greeted Martel with a feigned friendliness that he might have given naturally to any other customer. The place was empty besides the staff that had already begun wrapping up for the night when their two new guests walked in.

  “Good evening, sir. What can I do for you and your lady?” he asked.

  Katey didn’t quite like the idea of being called his lady and wanted to correct him, but Martel was too quick to answer.

  “I need nothing, but give her whatever she wants,” Martel replied with a smug smile and guided Katey forward into a booth of his own choosing.

  The inside of the restaurant was decadent for such a small establishment and Katey imagined that it must have been a high scale restaurant, judging from all of the white table cloths, candles on every table, leather covered seat cushions and intricate place settings, complete with wine glasses and cloth napkins. Soft Parisian music played over the speakers, which coupled with the painted murals on the walls of Paris monuments, made one feel as if they were a little closer to France.

  She was almost afraid to sit down and eat here because it was so beautiful and high class. Her dress may have made her look the part of a well-to-do lady, but Katey herself was incongruous to such surroundings. She was better suited in a small town café or fast food place. Better yet, she belonged by Logan’s side, no matter where she was.

  “Here’s a menu, miss. Do you know what you would like to start with?” the manager asked as he placed a menu in front of her.

  “You just handed her the menu.” Martel sneered at the man. “Do you think she would have enough time to decide what she wants already?”

  Katey looked up and saw the uncensored terror in the manager’s eyes.

  “I’m so sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to offend – “

  “No, no, don’t worry about it,” Katey interjected hastily to settle the dispute. “I can’t read this anyway, it’s all in French. Just get me a glass of water and the meatiest thing you have on the menu,” Katey said as sweetly as she could to ease the man’s fear, handing the menu back to him. “And don’t worry about how long it takes. I can wait,” she added, knowing it must take some time to wrangle the cooking staff back together and fire up the stove.

  The manager nodded and hurried away. The rush of gratitude that the manager felt for Katey’s benevolence did not go unnoticed. The poor man must have been scared for his life in the presence of a vampire, no matter how young said vampire may be.

  It made her wonder what kind of fear the occupants of the castle had inspired on the town to make them so submissive. Did one of the vampire lords make an example of an unruly subject sometime in the past to make the rest behave like frightened mice before a cantankerous cat?

  Katey turned a hard, stern look to Martel, who didn’t seem phased at all by his rude outburst.

  “Meat, huh? I like a girl with a good appetite,” Martel said as he pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket and lit it up right in front of her.

  “I don’t think you should be smoking here,” Katey said, her glare unwavering. When she knew him, he didn’t smoke. Which vampire had taught him that habit?

  “It doesn’t matter. If they don’t like it, I’ll just kill them.”

  The contempt was beginning to annoy her. “Well, then I ask that you put it out for my sake. The smoke bothers me.” Even though it would be an improvement to the sulfur smell for Katey.

  Martel eyed her curiously, then put out the cigarette in his own hand and tossed the butt of it onto the floor. He didn’t even flinch as the burn wound healed up quickly.

  “Is that supposed to impress me?” Katey said starchily.

  He shrugged. “No. They didn’t have an ashtray out.”

  The manager came back shortly with a glass of water for Katey. She drank it earnestly in an attempt to curb the aching hunger that began to mount. She was half glad that she was going to eat soon and that the hunger pains had returned again. It meant that her loup-garou blood was still strong, even after being unconscious for a full day. Her wolf continued to seethe inside, wishing to escape the company of the vampire. It was better than feeling nothing from her spiritual partner.

  Thinking about her other half reminded her about her failure to change the night before. Katey stared down at the table, deep in thought, going over and over the situation again to find where she might have gone wrong.

  She could have changed. If the howling hadn’t distracted her, she felt that she really could have changed. Katey wondered if she could try again and break the pack out that way. The vampires wouldn’t be expecting her to change, so the element of surprise might give her an advantage.

  But, then again, what can one uncontrollable loup-garou do? If Logan couldn’t have full control over his actions and thoughts when changed, then who was to say that Katey could? She wouldn’t be able to try again unless she had support from an alpha. Only all the support she needed happened to be locked away where she couldn’t get to it. Then she wondered if any of them could change in their cages. Perhaps they were trying to escape at that very moment. They would be looking for Katey and she was miles away on a date with the enemy.

  “You seem very far away... Something on your mind?” Martel asked, crossing his legs and leaning back into his chair in a suave manner, as if he were completely confident in his ability to woo her by the end of the night.

  Katey looked up to him, realizing that now was the perfect time to probe for answers. “I’m thinking of the werewolves and what you intend to do with them.”

  He almost seemed confused by her question. “Why should you care?”

  “Because I do... I don’t like animals being caged without good reason.”

  He snickered. “Well, I’ll tell you. We’re going
to make some sport of them. The night after tomorrow, the last day of the winter solstice, we’ll be letting them loose on the mountain, but each of them will be fitted with a collar that will give off an electric shock if they try to leave the mountain perimeter. Forty-thousand volts to be exact. And since they will be contained nicely, we’ll be packing our guns with some liquid silver bullets and killing them off one by one.”

  Katey’s empty stomach threatened to double-in on itself as Martel laughed in amusement. “I can’t wait to mount one of their heads over the fireplace in my room,” he said.

  “You’re a monster.”

  “Now that’s not fair,” he said, pointing a finger at her. “They are, too.”

  “At least they don’t hunt you down and murder you as if you were some animal.” Her words were laced with venom, vicious and cold.

  Martel peered at her with his hypnotic eyes and shook his head. “You have no idea, do you?”

  “About what?”

  Martel rolled his eyes. “They must have brain-washed you or something, because they are not the innocent ones here.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Martel leaned over the table. “We have just as much right to kill them as they have killed us. They are the beasts to be exterminated. Their kind are like mangy rabid dogs. They’re uncontrollable, volatile. They need to be taken out before they infect the world with their violence.”

  “I could say the same for you and your kind. At least the werewolves don’t need to kill people to survive. They have options. It doesn’t seem like you do.”

  Martel’s lips broke into an unexpected smile. “You can’t win this argument, Katey. I remember you from school, always arguing and making your opinions heard. You can’t convince me to see this your way.”