I was thankful to be alive, but I was scared shitless.
The werewolf jerked its head toward me, the white streak now painted red from the corpse of its victim beneath them, and its mouth hung open in a snarl like it was ready to fight me. I cautiously put my hand out and shushed it. “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you,” I said. Truth was, I was hoping it wouldn’t hurt me.
Its amber eyes locked onto mine, and all of a sudden, I felt peace. Not just inside myself, but from the werewolf as well. Its mouth slowly closed, and then it sat down on its butt in the snow as a tiny whimper vibrated from their throat. For whatever reason, I approached the werewolf, taking short, careful steps toward it with my hand out in front of me. I reached out and touched the end of its snout and drug my fingers across the short hairs of its long face, and up to the white stripe between its eyes. The werewolf relaxed, closing both eyes. It was enjoying my touch.
I trembled. “Dana?”
The werewolf opened its eyes and gazed lovingly at me, and that’s when I knew. It was her.
She saved me.
Molly appeared behind her with a large brick in her hands and bashed it against the side of Dana’s head, so hard it knocked her to the ground. Dana went completely limp.
“No!” I screamed as I flew at Molly, pushing my hands into her shoulders and shoving her into the snow. I landed on top of her with my knees bent right against her chest, as I punched and clawed at her over and over again, so fast and so crazy, I wasn’t sure if any of it was even connecting. Her skin and blood built up beneath my fingernails, so I knew I was doing some damage. Molly hurt Dana, and for that, I was going to fucking kill her.
When I went for another punch, Molly caught my hand and then sank her teeth into my wrist. The sound of my skin breaking was so loud it was as if she were biting into an apple. The heel of her shoe nailed me in the back of the head, and once I was momentarily ruffled by it, she grabbed the front of my coat and pulled me into a headbutt. I fell off of her, and she quickly got to her feet and prepared to finish me off.
But panic set in her eyes, and in a flash she was gone. I turned around and saw Max, who was completely out of his werewolf form…and completely naked. I tried not to look down south, but my curiosity, even in the worst of times, got the best of me.
I cocked my head as I inspected. Hmm, good for Cora.
“Where’d she go?!” Max yelled as he limped his way to me. His bare chest glistened with sweat.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “She went somewhere that way,” I added as I pointed to the distance. Molly used her vampire speed, so she could be anywhere.
“After Cora,” he finished. “I have to go after Molly. Are you guys gonna be okay without me?”
I looked up to the sky and realized Master was no longer there. It was eerie, because I couldn’t find him anywhere.
“I can still hear Dana’s heart,” I replied. “We’ll be okay. I’ll stay with her. Just stop that crazy bitch before she kills my cousin.”
“You know I will,” he replied and then ran toward the hedge maze.
When I looked back down at Dana, she was no longer a werewolf. Her tiny, pale frame shivered in the snow, and I immediately pulled my coat off and draped it over her. “Dana?” I brushed her brown hair away from her face and trailed my knuckles across her cheeks. My touch was cold and I didn’t want to make her feel worse, but I had to feel that she was alive.
Dana’s eyes peeled open slowly, and she moaned. “Are you okay?” she whispered.
I let out a laugh. “Am I okay?” It was an absurd thing to ask when she was the one on the ground in pain. “Are you okay?”
“I am if you are.” Dana’s eyes suddenly widened. “Your neck,” she said as she pressed her fingers near where Master had bitten me. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’ll heal.”
“I should have gotten here sooner.”
“You’re here now,” I said. I smiled and cupped the sides of her face with my hands. She was so tiny and frail I could kiss her. “Come on, let’s warm you up.”
Chapter Forty-Two
DAGGETT
“Son of a bitch,” I groaned as I got to my feet. My jeans were soaking wet from being dragged through the snow, and I had to wipe away the debris of dirt and twigs from the fabric. I was chilled to the bone, but I was alive, and a few minutes ago I didn’t think that would be the case. Why that werewolf snatched me up and dropped me off, I couldn’t figure out, but anything that results in me still breathing is good in my book. I wouldn’t question it.
It was quiet.
Almost too quiet. Especially since a werewolf had taken me away from the girls only seconds ago and had to be nearby.
The wind whispered through the branches and leaves of the hedges, and as I took a few steps forward I heard a constant, steady trickle of water. Tap, tap, tap. I spotted a large opening in the hedge maze where a concrete fountain sat. It reached five feet high with three layers of stone that the water trickled off and deposited into one circular, deep basin. The water had a dark hue to it, though. It had to be from all the filth of the hedge maze.
Once I was closer, I dry-heaved. That wasn’t water at all, it was a steady flow of thick, sour smelling blood. Oh, sweet Jesus.
“Daggett…” a female voice whispered. There was something melodic about the way she said my name.
I whipped around. Oh, god, not again.
Around me were four different paths in the maze, and down one I saw a figure in a black dress with long, blond hair. “Daggett,” she hissed again, her hands trailing down the sides of her body, slowing when she hit the curves of her hips, and then working her way up to the sides of her face.
Veronica stepped out of the shadows and into the moonlight and, with a mouth full of fangs, smiled. “It’s just you and me,” she said. “Again.”
She slinked her way toward me with her fingertips dragging across the hedge walls. Little flakes of green leaves and snow broke off and showered down onto her and the ground. Yeah, it was winter, but I’m fairly positive her touch killed those plants more than the cold ever could.
Everything about Veronica reeked of death, and it grossed me out that I was still sucked in by the magnetism of her sex appeal. She must have been a knockout when she was alive.
“Your friends left you all by yourself?” she sang.
I backed away. “Leave me alone, lady.”
Veronica threw her head back in laughter. “Lady? Now, that’s something I haven’t been called…ever. That’s so sweet of you, Daggett.” She did a sudden jerk forward, and I leapt back. Veronica burst into laughter. “You afraid of me, Daggett?”
“Considering you tried to murder me the last time we were alone, yes.”
“I just wanted to play.”
“That’s not exactly my idea of playing,” I trembled as I stepped back, my legs bumping into the bleeding fountain.
“Don’t be such a prude. You know you enjoyed it…our own little foreplay.”
“You’ve got a real messed up idea of what counts as foreplay, lady.” I swung around to the other side of the fountain as she trailed behind me, always keeping a few feet between us.
“This doesn’t have to be messy,” she said softly. “Give yourself to me and I can make it pleasurable. You’ll experience more ecstasy in your final moments than most men do in their entire life. That’s not such a bad way to go, is it?”
“Maybe. But not today.”
I jerked my body forward, ready to unleash the beast from within and kill her, but nothing happened. I didn’t feel the crack of my bones shifting beneath my skin, or the hairs pricking out of my pores. I was still human, and there were no signs at all of me changing.
“Shit,” I said under my breath. Veronica cocked her head to the side, confused.
This happens from time to time. I hadn’t mastered the art of shifting with ease like so many others had, and sometimes it was like trying to rev up a stalling car. It took a few attempts.
/> “Come on,” I grumbled to myself and hit my chest, hoping I could make magic if I yelled at my body long enough. This was like prom night all over again… Who am I kidding, I was playing video games on prom night. This was more like the night from hell during college, and the older, husky woman who called me Loco because it was the only spanish word she knew.
I’d gladly face her again over Veronica.
I expected Veronica to stand there and wait for me to shift like we were in a comic book movie or an episode of The Power Rangers, but she clearly hadn’t watched any of those and came running at me right away. She hopped on top of me like a monkey, wrapping her legs around my waist and digging her fingers into my chest, and then guided me down to the floor. I laid on my back in the snow as she sat on top of me, her mouth open in a crazy, inhuman smile. She looked excited and very, very hungry.
“I’ve never had werewolf before,” she moaned, and her fingers slid deeper into my chest. I growled. Veronica lowered her mouth to my ear and breathed. “I bet you taste so, so, so yummy. Can you feel me quaking? I can’t wait for a bite.”
Veronica arched her body back and let her hands run up her stomach and across her breasts. Her body stretched beneath the tight, black dress that barely contained her. The anticipation of murdering me was seemingly turning her on. Of course my death would be the only time a good-looking woman would react this way to me.
She looked down through a veil of blond hair and then let out one hiss. She was about to kill me.
Her body suddenly jerked and she let out a bloodcurdling scream. Veronica fell forward and onto me as her body went limp. I quickly shoved her off and let her tumble to the ground. Deep in her back was a long, wooden-handled forest axe, and standing over her was Priscilla.
Priscilla had whacked her with an axe and saved my life. I crawled off the ground and approached her. Panting, Priscilla looked at me and proclaimed, “I found the shed,” and then proceeded to throw up all over the ground and my shoes. It wasn’t just a little vomit, it was an entire dinner. Killing your first person will do that to you.
Cora jogged up to us and immediately covered her mouth. “Oh, dear God. What did you eat?”
Priscilla wiped the vomit from her lips. “Diner food.”
Cora scoffed. “Carnivores.”
Dryly, Priscilla responded, “Shut up, Cora.”
Veronica suddenly jumped up from the ground with the axe still hanging from her back. She grabbed Priscilla by the collar of her coat, opened her mouth so wide I could see down her throat, and began puking blood all over Priscilla’s face. Priscilla screamed as a fountain poured onto her. It was buckets and buckets of blood. No person, alive or dead, should be able to spit this much out.
When the crimson stopped trickling from between Veronica’s lips, I picked up a fallen branch and cracked it against the side of Veronica’s head. It shook Priscilla loose from her gasp, and Priscilla fell to the ground. “Hey!” I yelled. “Fight me!”
“Please tell me you know what you’re doing!” Cora yelped.
“Uh, sure,” I answered. Cora side-eyed me, probably with the same thing on her mind as mine. How did the two biggest geeks end up fighting a vampire alone?
Veronica lunged forward and I knocked her in the face with the branch, sending her flying into the fountain. On the edge of the concrete fountain, she crouched like a chimp, with her arms hanging between her legs, and cackled. Her voice had an eerie echo, as if there were more than one person laughing beside her.
Priscilla gagged and screamed in the corner as she furiously wiped the blood out of her eyes. “I have STDs all over me!”
Veronica jumped onto the walls of the hedge maze, clinging to the branches with her hands, and crawled across them as if gravity were no longer an issue. All the while she laughed like a witch. The axe still hung from her back.
“Should we make a run for it?” Cora calmly asked.
“And leave her up there?” I responded.
Cora shrugged. “It’s what I do with the spiders in my shower.”
“Those spiders aren’t trying to kill you.”
“You never lived in my old apartment.”
Cora did have a gift for making light of a serious moment. I don’t think she even does it on purpose.
Veronica jumped down and landed a couple of feet in front of Cora. I heard Cora yell, “Oh, shit!” and then dance her way toward me to keep safe. We backed away until we were beside Priscilla, and I reached a hand down to help her get to her feet. Priscilla was soaked with blood, still. We stood motionless as Veronica crept toward us, her white fangs hanging far below her bottom lip as she hissed. She looked like a rabid, hungry animal.
“On second thought,” I said to Cora, and she immediately knew what I meant. The three of us made a run for it, going right past Veronica as she swiped her claws in our direction and bounced against the walls as she chased us. I gripped onto Priscilla’s arm, but my fingers slid across her skin from the slimy blood that engulfed her. “Come on!” I shouted to her as she struggled to move at the same speed as me.
We were running fast, but I could sense Veronica close behind us. The leaves rustled and thin layers of snow clouded the air as she scaled the hedge walls around us, bouncing from one side to the next as we ran.
Veronica took a giant leap and landed in front of us, grabbing Priscilla by the throat and tossing her. Priscilla slid across the ice as she screamed. I immediately saw red, and threw a punch right into Veronica’s nose. The bones shattered beneath my knuckles as a flow of red poured from her nostrils. Veronica covered her face with both hands and took several steps back. With a river of blood flowing onto her palms, she cried, “You hit a woman!”
Her nose was practically on the other side of her face. I stared down at my trembling hands and was reminded just how much I underestimate my strength. Even like this. I didn’t have to be a werewolf to save the girl. I could do it as the real me.
Defiant, I stared at Veronica. “You’re not playing mind games with me anymore.”
Veronica’s tongue slipped out of her mouth and trailed across the stream of blood beneath her nose. “I never said hitting me was a bad thing. Maybe I like it.” She rubbed her hands along the outline of her body and then to the front of her legs. “It’s so cold between my thighs. Warm me up, daddy.” She could see the repulsion painted all over my face, and her lips stretched out into a smile. Veronica wanted me as uncomfortable as possible.
It wasn’t gonna work.
“Fuck off,” I told her.
Her smile faded, and she lunged at me. Before she could get close, I gave her one good shove and sent her into the stone wall at the edge of the maze. She immediately gasped, and her entire body froze. Her mouth dropped open, and a clot of blood rolled off her tongue.
Between her breasts, I saw the silver tip of the axe peeking through her flesh. The impact pushed it further inside of her back and it was coming through the front of her body, severing her chest in half.
Veronica coughed, gurgled up blood, and then dropped. Blood oozed everywhere.
I breathed a sigh of relief. That could have ended so many ways, and thankfully, it went the way that kept Priscilla alive.
I found Priscilla lying on her back in the snow, and she was so still I thought she had been severely hurt. I knelt beside her and lifted her upper body, resting it against my knee. “Hey,” I whispered.
Her eyes slowly opened. “Ouch.”
Against the snow, the blood all over her looked even darker and grislier.
“You okay?” I asked.
A peculiar expression came over her. “I guess you saved my life. Again.”
“I have good timing like that.” I wiped a sticky layer of blood from over Priscilla’s eyes, leaving the rest of her face drenched in Veronica’s red vomit. Priscilla looked comical with these white circles around her eyes. “You’ve got something on your face,” I joked.
Priscilla took a deep breath. “Yeah? Well, you’ve got somethi
ng on your mouth.” She reached to the back of my head with her right hand, clutched a fist full of my hair, and then pulled me down to her lips, kissing me.
I felt a thousand sparks fly through my belly and down to my toes. This was better than I ever imagined.
When our lips broke, she stared at me. It was a new expression, though. I felt seen with a new pair of eyes. This kiss wasn’t a one time thing, and we both knew it. Priscilla actually liked me.
I wanted to soak in the moment, but something suddenly occurred to me.
“Wait a minute. Where’d Cora go?”
Priscilla leaned her head back and groaned. “Not this shit again.”
Chapter Forty-Three
CORA
“Guys?” I called out. “Guys?”
Crap.
Somewhere in the middle of our run, my shoe tangled in a vine and I tripped and landed on my butt, and Priscilla and Daggett kept running and left me behind. There were so many directions to go in this maze that I immediately lost track of them.
I’ll remember this when I’m sending out Christmas cards. They’re not getting jack from me this year.
I got off the ground and untangled a piece of the vine from around my shoelaces and then discarded it. As soon as I lifted my head, I saw a body running toward me. All brown, crazy hair and electric eyes. I immediately knew who it was, and my stomach sunk. No one ever looked as angry or eager to hurt me as Molly did.
She rushed into me, pinning me to the hedge wall. “Are you ready to stop breathing, you stupid bitch?” I’d never seen her as hyped as I did in this moment. Molly grabbed the tips of my hair from behind my back and yanked down, forcing my neck to arch back and my throat to be exposed. She was going to tear through my trachea.
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