Shimmer (Wicked Woods #2)

by Kailin Gow

“So how did you come to be a werewolf when your brother is a vampire?” The question was out before Briony could help herself. It was obviously the wrong thing to ask, because Kevin tensed. Briony moved closer to him, slipping her arms around him. Her hands slid under his jacket to the small of his back. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

  Kevin shook his head. “It’s okay. It was the night when… well, you know which night it was.”

  Briony knew. The same night her family had gone missing. The night Fallon had been transformed into one of the undead. The night all of this had started for her. “Yes, I know.”

  “That… it wasn’t just vampires. We had wandered into the middle of this huge fight. Vampires and werewolves hunting each other, killing each other. It was awful, Briony. There was so much noise. So much chaos.”

  “It’s all right, Kevin.”

  The werewolf shook his head. “No, it’s not. We were split up somehow. In all that, how could we stay together? Then, before I knew what was happening, one of them was coming out of the trees at me. It knocked me down, bit me…” Kevin sighed. “What I don’t get is how I survived. I can only guess that maybe the werewolf wanted this to happen to me, because if even an ordinary wolf had wanted me dead, I would have been. Against a werewolf? I had no chance.”

  “Just be thankful that you did make it out.” Briony decided to push things, just a little. “You and your brother.”

  “Fallon didn’t make it out. He is one of them now. A vampire.”

  “And you hate him? Just like that?”

  Kevin shook his head. “I don’t want to, Briony. But when I woke up after the fight, I felt so different. More alive, hungrier, awake for the first time with senses that could really let me know the world.”

  “And the hatred was there then?”

  Kevin nodded. “It hasn’t left me since. It was ingrained in me from the beginning, this natural instinct to hate vampires.”

  Briony winced at that. What could she do to convince him? Vampires and werewolves were natural enemies. Like cats and dogs. Could she even hope to overcome that kind of instinctive response? “Kevin, your brother has just drawn away a whole horde of vampires. He has risked his life to save us.”

  “To save you,” Kevin corrected. “And I’m not too sure about ‘life’. He is one of the walking dead, Briony. You need to remember that.”

  Briony pulled back from him then. “I’ll remember what I like, Kevin. Fallon has never done anything to hurt me.”

  “Really? There is a bite mark on your arm that says otherwise. He will kill you, Briony! Can’t you see that? He was my brother, but now he is just a creature that lives to feed. That kills to feed. I thought when I stayed around that maybe I might find him. That he might be alright.”

  Briony reached out to put a hand on his arm. “You did find him, Kevin.”

  “I found a vampire!”

  “And he found a werewolf!” Briony could not stop herself from shouting. It seemed like the only way to get through to him. “How do you think he felt?”

  Kevin was silent for what seemed like a long time, not looking at her, not looking at anything in particular. “You don’t understand, Briony. When I found him… I wished that they had killed him. Even death would have been better than him becoming one of those creatures.”

  Briony winced at that, turning away from him.

  “Briony, what is it?”

  Briony swallowed back a sharp comment. She knew Kevin wasn’t trying to hurt her. “The master vampire, Pietre, he said that my family had been turned. How do you think I feel, hearing you say how evil they must be?”

  Kevin put his hands gently on her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Briony. Do you think he meant it?”

  Briony nodded. Pietre had not only meant it. He had enjoyed telling her such a horrible truth. “The question is what I do now. I mean, everything Aunt Sophie has taught me, everything you’re saying now, says that I should hate them, that I should want them dead.”

  “And you don’t?”

  Briony shook her head. “If they were here now, I would just be glad I could touch them again, talk to them again. I don’t think that I could ever hurt them.”

  That got a moment of silence from the werewolf. “Never? Not even if they were hungry? Not even if they were going to kill you to feed?”

  Briony did not answer. Partly, it was because she did not think a question that crass deserved an answer. Partly, it was because she did not believe that any of her family would ever do something like that, no matter what they were turned into. Mostly though, it was because she did not know the answer.

  She simply did not know.

  Chapter 4

  After a while, it seemed that Kevin had his breath back, and even Briony was eager to get moving. After all, their rush through the woods might have given them a substantial lead on any following vampires, but that did not mean they were even close to being completely safe yet.

  “How far are we from town, do you think?” Briony asked.

  Kevin looked around, as though the trees offered clues that Briony could not see. Maybe they did. After all, she wasn’t exactly the world’s greatest expert on the natural environment, while Kevin... well, presumably you picked up a lot as a wolf. “Maybe another mile or two that way.” He nodded in a direction that looked the same as all the others.

  “So let’s go. The sooner we get back, the sooner Aunt Sophie can get on my case for getting caught.”

  Kevin bit his lip then, and Briony knew that things were not going to be that simple.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “The vampires want you, Briony, so they will be making an effort to watch for you. They will have spies out, servants. Going back to your great aunt’s inn would just make things easy for them.”

  “So you’re saying that I should stay away? How long for? A week? A year? Forever?”

  “Not forever. Just until they stop searching quite so hard.”

  Briony was not sure how long that would be. After all, Pietre had managed to carry a grudge against Aunt Sophie for years without any sign of his anger ebbing. Briony was sure that he could keep up the hunt for her longer than a day or two. Still, it made sense that she should keep clear of anywhere the vampires might think to snatch her from, at least for now. Being taken would cause Aunt Sophie too much pain. Briony nodded.

  “Where did you have in mind?”

  “My place isn’t far from here. You can stay there until it’s safe to go back.”

  Briony tried not to think about what Aunt Sophie would say to that. Briony going to stay at the home of a boy Kevin’s age without so much as asking her? It did not sound like the kind of thing her great aunt would have approved of. Particularly not if she happened to notice the way Briony’s eyes kept being drawn back to the flashes of muscled chest showing through Kevin’s torn shirt.

  On the other hand, Aunt Sophie was one of the few people whom Briony knew would take “I was hiding from vampires” as a good excuse, and Kevin did have a valid point about the dangers of going back home.

  “Okay,” Briony said. “Is your place going to be safe though? Won’t they think to look for you?”

  Kevin shrugged. Briony struggled to tear her eyes away from the way it made his shoulders move. “If the vampires around here knew where I lived, I would probably be dead already. It’s not that easy to find.”

  As they set off again through the trees, that proved to be an understatement. The walk there was not too bad, but there was no sign of the trees thinning. If anything, they thickened as Kevin led Briony on a route that would have seemed to be almost random if Kevin had not been treading along it so surely.

  Briony did not see the cabin until they were almost on top of it. It nestled at the top of a slope, just yards from the trees. A rough track to one side was the only suggestion that it was connected to the outside world at all. The cabin itself was roughly built, but solid looking, with the appearance of somewhere t
hat could survive almost anything the elements threw at it. A scarred pick-up, more rust than anything, stood to one side of the building.

  “Home sweet home,” Kevin said with a smile. “I hope you like it. I’m renting it for the summer, so there shouldn’t be any problems with people coming around.”

  “You got it for the location, then?” Briony joked.

  “Well, it’s easier to hide the part where I’m a werewolf when there’s no one nearby to hide it from. I’m still just about close enough to town that I can get there when I need to spend some time around people. Come on in. There’s a spare room towards the back, and I can probably find enough extra blankets somewhere.”

  Briony couldn’t help but smile at the excited note there. Kevin was obviously enjoying the prospect of playing host. Or at least of playing host to her. That thought made Briony glad that there was a spare room. Things could quickly have become… awkward without it.

  As it was, the spare room was not exactly the kind of thing Briony would have chosen. It was, in fact, almost spartan in its rough-hewn furniture and lack of comforts. It was not the kind of place Briony was used to, and it certainly did not live up to the pleasantness of the Edge Inn, but Briony supposed that beggars, or at least people hiding from vampires, could not be choosers.

  Kevin was as good as his word, and quickly found enough spare sheets and blankets to make the little room’s bed seem at least vaguely palatable, though Briony wished that he had made the effort to find a new shirt first, given how distracting he was in his current state.

  He did at least deal with that afterwards, heading off to shower and grabbing a spare white shirt from a pile of completed laundry on his way. Since there was no one else around who might have done it, Briony guessed that werewolves were obviously more domesticated than they seemed, although Kevin radiated heat and wildness. Briony gulped. He was the sexiest guy she had ever kissed. Yes, she cared for Fallon – sweet, sensitive, kind and polite Fallon; but every time she was with Kevin, her body temperature seemed to go up whether from their angry repartee or from just knowing he was around.

  Briony’s gaze followed Kevin most of the way to the bathroom, but she had the sense to shut her imagination down after that, heading over to one of the windows and looking out over a landscape that was mostly a carpet of treetops when seen from above. It was an impressive view of Wicked Woods.

  Was Fallon out there somewhere? Was he still running from the vampires who would surely have followed, trying to hunt Briony down? Briony felt a tiny knot of guilt in her stomach at the fact that Fallon had put himself in so much danger for her. If the other vampires caught him, they would almost certainly kill Fallon after everything he had done. Briony could only hope that Fallon had been able to run fast enough to get away.

  To distract herself from that thought, and because it was hard to tell how long it had been since she last ate, Briony wandered towards the cabin’s tiny kitchen. Unfortunately, the level of domestication that had Kevin neatly ironing shirts didn’t seem to run to stocking much food in the refrigerator.

  “Hungry?” Kevin asked, moving up behind her and slipping his arms around Briony’s waist. He smelled wonderful…clean, warm, with a hint of spicy musk. Briony leaned back against Kevin, grateful for the sense of safety that his presence provided.

  “Not for anything in there.”

  “Now you know why werewolves eat people,” Kevin joked. “It’s that or the milk.”

  “Is this the real reason you spent so much time in George’s Diner, then?”

  “Not the only one,” Kevin said, so close to her ear that Briony could feel his breath on it. “Believe me.”

  Briony carefully disentangled herself from him, turning to face Kevin. “Well, you’ve got another reason to go there now. Two more reasons, in fact. I’m starving, and we should probably let Aunt Sophie know that I’m okay.”

  Kevin shook his head, taking a step back. “I’m not sure if that’s a good idea, Briony. I mean, if the vampires are going to be watching your home, then won’t they be watching the place where you work as well?”

  “So we can’t go out?” Briony wondered how George would react to her not showing up to her next shift at the diner. Probably by firing her, if she knew him. The ex-soldier was a good man, and a vital part of the society that hunted supernatural creatures around Wicked, but he liked order. He would not be happy at Briony running off with no explanation. “Come on, Kevin, I need to tell someone where I am.”

  “Then we will just have to tell someone else. Someone who can get a message to your great aunt. Unless you just want to phone her?”

  Briony shook her head. Some things required the personal touch. “I suppose…”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, they can’t be watching all my friends, can they? They probably don’t even know about most of them. My friend Maisy knows about all of this, but she is still kind of on the edge of it. I suppose she could give Aunt Sophie a message without making anyone suspicious.”

  Kevin nodded. “That could work. In the meantime, go take a shower, and I will try to think of somewhere to eat out that won’t have vampires staring at it.”

  Briony raised a teasing eyebrow. “Are you saying I smell bad?”

  “You’ve just run through a forest. Besides,” Kevin wrinkled his nose theatrically, “werewolves have very sensitive noses.”

  The shower was good, even if Briony had to get straight back into her old clothes afterwards. It wasn’t like she could borrow from Kevin. The werewolf was so much bigger than her that it would have looked ludicrous, and anyway, Briony was not sure what kind of message that would have given him.

  She got a pretty good idea of the message he had already received from his choice of restaurant. It was nice; nice enough that Briony felt a little self-conscious walking in wearing clothes she had been running through a forest in. Nice enough that, with the candles at the table and the low lighting, it practically screamed “date” at her.

  Kevin seemed to spot the nervousness that came with that, because he reached out and took Briony’s hand. “Just relax and enjoy the evening, Briony. No pressure.”

  That turned out to be surprisingly easy to do. Kevin was very fun to be around, and the restaurant was wonderful, not to mention far enough away from anywhere Briony might normally have eaten that there wasn’t any chance of being interrupted by vampires. Soon, Briony found herself laughing and joking with Kevin, and flirting more than a little, making sure that her hand brushed his whenever she could manage it. It felt a little strange being so self-conscious around Kevin now, after having kissed him so passionately before.

  The meal passed in what seemed like a blink, and Briony didn’t feel like heading back to the cabin, or even like rushing over to Maisy’s house to enlist her help. Not just yet. She needed just a little longer away from thoughts of vampires and death. Instead, she suggested that they walk down to the lake where Kevin had shown Briony the mated swans once before. And if it also happened to be the spot where he had first kissed her… well, Briony didn’t mind that too much either.

  They stood looking out over the water for a while, Briony’s hand in Kevin’s. He turned to her, looking like he might be about to say something, and Briony cut it off with a kiss. Kevin had been so in charge last time they had kissed, so in control, that Briony wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine. Pulling his head down to hers, she kissed him for what felt like hours, but couldn’t have been more than a few minutes in reality. When she finally pulled back from his lips, she left her arms around his neck. Kevin’s were around her waist, pulling her to him.

  “That was…” he began, and Briony giggled at the thought she could leave the big, tough werewolf short of words. But words or not, there was no denying the animal attraction they felt for each other.

  “It was, wasn’t it? Should we stay here all night, just kissing until someone moves us on?”

  She meant it as a joke, but only just. Kevin shook his head rueful
ly. “I wish. We have a message to give to this friend of yours, remember?”

  Chapter 5

  Maisy’s house was a small, detached place in a suburb of Wicked where not only were most of the houses identical to one another, but so were the majority of the cars in the driveways. The lawn out front was as neatly tended as those of its neighbors, while the whitewashed fences practically shone in the darkness as Briony and Kevin crept closer.

  They were on foot, having left Kevin’s truck at the end of the street so that they could get a clear view of everything around the house as they walked up to it. In a move that seemed like something out of a spy movie to Briony, Kevin actually insisted on walking past the house once without stopping so that they could check for any potential watchers. Briony went along with it, but when Kevin suggested that they could sneak in around the back to avoid prying eyes, she vetoed the idea.

  “Kevin, the only people likely to be watching us are the neighbors, and what are they going to do if they see strange kids sneaking around? They will call the police. What would we do then? Besides, if any vampires were spying on Maisy, we would have spotted them by now.”

  Without waiting for an answer, Briony strode up to Maisy’s front door and rang the doorbell. The lights were on in the house, so Briony was fairly confident that someone would come to the door. She hoped it would be Maisy, if only because it might be difficult to explain to one of the other girl’s parents why she needed to see her urgently at such a late hour without mentioning vampires.

  As it was, Briony was in luck. Maisy opened the door, dressed in jeans, a t-shirt and socks that were such a lurid shade of pink they pretty much overwhelmed everything else. Maisy peered up through her glasses at Briony, and then over at the spot where Kevin stood.

  “Briony? What are you doing here?”

  “It’s a long story. Can we come in? It’s important.”

  Maisy nodded and stepped aside. “My parents are out of town for a day or two, so I’ve got the house to myself. Steve is in the living room.” She nodded to Kevin “Who’s this?”