by Ian Thomas
“Jason’s still out cold,” she said. “I’m sure he’d love a friendly face when he comes to.”
“I-I sh-should’ve protected him,” he said. Yes, the thought immediate and unwelcome, you should have. But could Eddie have protected Jason from this? While she’d told Eddie that he needed to be more engaged with his staff, Hayley was coming around to the idea that evil was gonna happen regardless what of good men did.
“Not sure anyone saw this coming,” she replied, wondering for the first time if that was the truth.
“And you’re here,” he said, seeing her finally, his face softening. “Through all of this.”
“Long, kinda dumb story.”
“But you’re here.” He cupped her face and leaned in to kiss her.
“No.” She drew back. “Our first kiss isn’t gonna be marked by death.”
He sat back on his hunches, hands falling to his knees. “You get that could be a long wait.”
“I gotta hope it isn’t.”
Eddie stood, offering his hand to her. She accepted and let him pull her to her feet. They stood close for a second before he looked to the house, dread shadowing his face.
“And here I was hoping to make peace with Matteo.”
“Yeah, sorry, gonna have to sort out your daddy issues another day.”
“Gives me time to get that stripper pole installed,” he said, starting toward the house. When she didn’t move, he looked back at her concerned. “You coming?”
“In a bit,” she replied. “This is your…it’s wolf business. I’ll be in soon.”
“You okay?”
“What do you think,” she replied, less of a question than a mild rebuke. “Oh, can you grab Jason a blanket and some pillows please? Seems dignity and comfort’re a little beyond them right now.”
He seemed to understand her meaning. No doubt it had been that way for him. Waking naked, disoriented, and cold with Ben and Matteo nearby. She was all for rites of passage but Jason hadn’t asked for this. And to hear the wolves tell it, they’d agreed to their siring.
“Will do,” he said, walking away slowly.
Just before he got to the house, Eddie stopped and looked at her. He wanted to run. It was a fight or flight moment and she could see which he wanted to do. God knows she’d had the same impulse multiple times already.
The difference here was the look on his face. Between the intensity of his eyes and the openness of his expression, he did want to run. But he wanted to run with her. With Hayley. Out the gate, out of the city, hell it could be out of the country, she wouldn’t care.
Instead family called. Running would’ve felt right, but him walking into the house was right. Was necessary. There was good in their lives, and sure, it came with a hefty slice of bad, but that only made the good that much better.
_ _ _
Alone in the morning, Hayley drew in a deep breath.
So far she’d thrown two people’s lives into turmoil and it wasn’t even eight o’clock. If Rebecca’s mother was to be believed, things happened in threes. Good thing she’d had some practice, Hayley thought, not seeing the woman step into the garden behind her.
“Was that true?” the woman asked. Hayley turned to see a regal-looking black woman, long hair swept back into a mane.
“Excuse me?” Startled, Hayley realized the woman was a vampire. She had very little to go on other than her recent encounter, but the paleness of woman’s ebony skin seemed unnatural. Well…supernatural. The hard line of sword ruining the soft curves of her coat. Whoever she was, Hayley felt at once in awe and afraid.
“The dead wolf and the pup? Was that true?”
Manners weren’t a thing with vampires apparently.
“Yes,” Hayley replied stiffly.
The woman paused. “Forgive me,” the words were difficult in her mouth. “I feel your loss. But there’s more to this–”
“There always is,” Hayley threw back, arms folded. “Maybe that’s the thing I don’t get. How it just keeps mounting up. More pain. More death.”
“Oh,” the woman said, a sad smile doing little to warm her features. “There’s always more pain and more death. Only on a much larger scale.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“What you felt before. With the wolf. That is the point. That’s what gets us through the pain and death.”
She regarded the vampire coolly, her words sinking in. “I’m Hayley.”
“Call me Waseme,” the black woman said, this time actual warmth in her smile. “Do you understand what this means?”
“You mean besides my friend’s a werewolf, and another one is dead?”
It wasn’t the response the woman wanted.
Taking a phone from inside her coat, she tapped the screen and held it to her ear. “It’s as you feared,” she said after a moment. “The accords are broken.”
“Not really sure we want this hitting Gawker or Huff Post at all,” Hayley said, her instincts kicking in. “We’re containing this for the moment and I’ll have a statement soon.” The words were a reflex. While a dead werewolf and broken peace accords were new territory for her, messaging a crisis wasn’t. “This is a very personal tragedy for the family and we’d appreciate time to grieve before–”
“You can stop,” Waseme said, starting toward the house. “I know this tragedy all too well.”
“Then you’ll appreciate,” Hayley said, darting in front of the woman, “there’s a lot of pain in there.”
Silently, she regarded Hayley. “You’re brave to try and stop me.”
“Oh I’m not stopping you. The lack of invitation will do that. I’m just looking out for my friends.”
“We share the same friends,” Waseme said, striding past Hayley. “Besides I already have an invitation.”
Helpless, Hayley watched as the woman continued into the house barely pausing at the threshold.
Once more alone in the garden, Hayley felt every one of her thirty-two years.
_ _ _
Inside, the imbalance between men and…well, rational people, threatened to tip the house over.
No one was listening to anyone else, so convinced of their own supreme righteousness that Hayley feared the amount of testosterone in the air had reached critical mass. Between the hostile posturing, swagger, and peacocking she half-expected David Attenborough to appear from behind a potted plant to offer his assessment.
That or she was exhausted.
“Can we just chill?” Eddie was saying with little to no effect on those present.
The downstairs area was full of wolves. Thankfully in their human form, she thought, her one and only experience with actual werewolves still fresh in her mind. Blackthorne was there with one of his lackeys. A few of the War Wolves waited nearby, their demeanor always reserved and brooding.
Which left Mills, Rebecca, herself, and Mouth. And Waseme, an addition to the room that few seemed to welcome, let alone expect.
“Relaxing at a time such as this is ignorant,” Blackthorne barked.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Waseme said.
“I don’t need your support.”
“You’re gonna need someone’s,” Eddie replied, finding his footing better. “This isn’t the first time we’ve stood over a dead wolf. Sadly, it won’t be the last. But we’ve never stood here with the accords so threatened. Now is not the time to lose perspective and lash out.”
“Nor is it the time to do nothing!” Blackthorne retorted loudly. “Nothing saw Ben turn traitor. Nothing got Michael killed. Nothing undermines us!”
“Are you done?” Matteo said, from the basement door. Without question, he commanded the room. At once, the four War Wolves hung off his word, ready to act. Blackthorne looked at best rebuffed, at worst humiliated. “Rhys, I appreciate your concerns but they are mistimed. What you see as inertia was a chance to heal. Regardless of which side you fought on, the Pack War devastated our kind in number, honor, and fraternity. Where we should be brothers, we
are not.”
“Our kind doesn’t work like that.”
“What? Wolves or men?” The words were out of Hayley’s mouth before she knew it. Everyone looked at her. Matteo smiling, Blackthorne scowling, and Hale somewhere in between.
“The fact that a human asked that only furthers my point,” he sneered, looking down his nose at Mouth and Hayley.
“As a racist,” Mouth spat.
“The fact that you don’t consider yourself human only weakens your position,” Matteo said, his tone preventing anyone turning on Mouth. “I’m human more than I’m not. I allow that guide to me.”
“Human?” Blackthorne scoffed. “How’s that half millennia treating you?”
“You won’t see yours,” Waseme said, starting to unsheathe her sword. Staying her hand, Matteo stood beside her. A sight intended to infuriate Blackthorne that much more.
“Perhaps,” Hale said, clearing his throat, “we should continue this conversation with less–”
“Spectators,” Blackthorne interrupted arrogantly.
“Humans?” Rebecca asked, correcting his word choice.
“For the time being,” Matteo said sadly, his hands tied.
With no further support offered, the room fell into an awkward silence as the supernaturals waited for the civilians to leave. Touching Eddie’s arm as she went to leave, Hayley felt him shaking with rage. He didn’t want them to leave. Clenching his jaw muscles, he was biting back words in their defense.
“Blankets. Pillows. Got it?”
“Got it,” he replied stoically.
“What about Jason?” Mouth protested as they were about to leave.
“I’ll call you when he wakes,” Matteo said firmly. “You have my word.”
“For what that’s worth,” Mouth muttered, storming out the door.
“Mind if I come with?” Mills asked the women.
“Didn’t think you had much of a choice,” Rebecca replied, her anger in check.
Hayley grabbed her coat, casting one last look back at Eddie. He was struggling but it was for the right reasons and that made leaving a little easier.
_ _ _
“What just happened?” Mouth asked as the four walked away from Matteo’s. He was still seething, his movements erratic.
“Seems we got booted back to the kids table,” Rebecca replied, deep in thought.
“And I get that,” he fumed. “Well kinda but still.”
“Makes sense,” Hayley replied. “This is kind of a big deal for them.”
“I’m sorry, when did you drink the Kool-Aid?” Mouth didn’t see the smirk Mills and Rebecca shared at his question.
“People died and yet you’re making this about you?” Hayley demanded incredulous.
“One word. Jason.”
“Michael.”
“Dead is different to werewolf.”
“Yet ‘asshole’ always looks the same,” Hayley said, tilting her head slightly.
“So does ‘bitch’.”
“Me?”
“Both of you actually,” Rebecca replied bristling. “And them.”
“Doesn’t mean we should turn on each other,” Mills said, unsettled to be the cool-headed one in the situation.
“Who are you?!” Mouth demanded, sizing the man up.
“Possibly the last person on your side,” he replied, caution in his voice.
“The Clan guy. Right. And you couldn’t have said anything back there?” Mouth challenged.
“What pisses you off more?” Hayley asked before Mills could answer. “Their arrogance or that for the first time in your life you’ve been excluded from a situation because of what you are?”
Mouth was speechless. In fact, both Rebecca and Mills looked at her stunned. While one of them understood her point immediately, the other soon caught on.
Indignant, Mouth backed away. He then jogged across the street and disappeared around a corner.
“Guess I could’ve handled that better,” Hayley said quietly after a minute.
“Ya think?” Rebecca asked. “Just gotta hope Matteo holds to his word when Jason wakes up.”
“He will.”
“Then the kid needs a little space to get his head straight,” Mills said. “Probably do him good to hear some truths.”
“Says the white guy,” Rebecca laughed.
“True,” Mills said embarrassed. “Did me some good.”
“Two woke men in as many minutes,” Hayley replied. “Personal best for us.”
“I was plenty woke before this,” Mills said guardedly.
“Way I heard it you were just plenty messed up.”
“You getting a bonus for alienating people today?” Rebecca’s voice had the ‘we-may-be-best-friends-but-I-will knock-you-the-hell-out’ tone reserved for special occasions. Like this. Hayley heard her own words play back in her head and blushed.
“Sorry. I’m really sorry. Processing, coping, failing miserably. And here I was thinking they were monsters.”
“Only Blackthorne. That guy’s a dick.”
“And oddly without his little entourage,” Rebecca observed.
“Probably a good thing,” Mills said, looking at Hayley. “Think you’d’ve made short work of those twats.”
“No! Wrong word,” Rebecca said.
“I meant prat.”
“Different meaning entirely.”
While Mills tried to defend himself, and Rebecca educated him on the nuances of British slang, Hayley glanced back at the house. Even though it was morning, their hellish night wasn’t over. Bleakly, she knew worse - much worse - was still to come.
V
There is a point where the body became numb to torture.
For Ben, that had been about four hours ago. Knives, needles, high voltage, fists, baseball bat. About the time his body had finally expelled the twelve bullets shot into him, he’d become immune to whatever else the young wolf had to offer.
Not that he was about to give pointers, but he had been tortured by better.
Strange to make that kind of mental admission, Ben thought, when he saw James pick up the corkscrew.
“Let me guess,” Ben said through broken teeth and bleeding lips. “The old corkscrew through the eyeball trick. Classic torture technique.”
When James faltered, losing his nerve, Ben felt a pang of remorse. After all, the young wolf was only trying to prove himself in front of his pack mate, Will.
“Maybe a claw instead?” Ben suggested. “One of yours of course. Really get your hands wet.”
Not that James needed to worry about that. His forearms were caked in Ben’s blood, already dried from earlier and now layered with a fresh coat. The only thing missing was a butcher’s apron and James could almost have been scary.
“Ya think I won’t?” the Irishman roared. “I’m still just warming up, I am.”
“So this is foreplay?” Ben asked. Claws tore through his face, opening three deep gashes.
“Give it a bleedin’ rest, will ya,” the Londoner said, folding his paper and putting it away. “You are a fucking traitor, my son. You turned on the Pack Lord. You sold him out to some bollicksing cult. Then randomly attacked someone on our home turf. That, me ole china, is not quite cricket.”
“Wow, I am so gonna need subtitles.”
Will smashed Ben across his torn face. Searing pain did little to unsettle him, physical trauma was nothing compared to his mental state. Which was very much outside the dingy confines of this basement workshop.
“Or maybe I just stopped listening after traitor,” he said. Will wound up for another hit. “Uh, tooth.” Ben dislodged the molar with his tongue and spat it to the floor. “As you were.” The punch sent a splatter of blood after the tooth. Likely pulling a bicuspid loose this time.
“See that’s what you’re missing, Jamie. Can I call you Jamie? Anger. Really tapping into it. Gotta commit if you want this to be effective.”
“I’ll show ya anger!” Fists swinging, James laid into Ben wit
h a ferocity he hadn’t shown as yet. “Ya hurt me best mate. Ya came after Dylan. All cos of dat hoor. Fook you!”
“Better.”
“Ya betrayed de Pack Lord, ya pox!” Another hit from James. Ben actually felt that one.
“Well, this got awkward, didn’t it?” Ben spat more blood to the floor, then looked up at Will. “See traitor’s all about perspective. Isn’t that right, Will?”
“Oh, Jaysus is dis about dat bleeding pack war again?” James groaned. Fists balled, Will struck the younger wolf knocking him to the floor.
_ _ _
His head still ringing, James waited for the kick.
Once, then again. Will only ever gut-kicked a person twice. He knew they expected a third and left them in fear, unsure when it would come.
He’d hate to think he’d become predictable but in the nearly six years James had been a werewolf, Will’s cruelty had become just that.
“Wanna say that again?” Will demanded, standing over him.
“S-sorry.”
James hated his pack.
They were a broken, spiteful bunch of men and he’d long worried he would become like them. While it was easy to fall into a long debate on nurture versus nature, he figured Galton had never considered werewolves in his discussion. Being sired was a tabula rasa moment. The wolf a second nature shaped by the environment the man was sired into.
Afraid of becoming like his twisted pack as much as he was of his wolf nature, James measured himself against the man he had been. Before he was sired. The happy-go-lucky Irishman with a big heart and bigger ambitions. He didn't want to lose that. He didn't want Blackthorne’s arrogance, Liam’s coldness, or Will’s cruelty. Yet here he was, Ben’s blood covering his arms, hours spent inflicting torture after torture, and he felt nothing.
Not even when Will’s third kick came.
“Now get your sorry ass up and finish the job,” Will said, grabbing his hair and dragging him to his feet.
“We’re no’ ta kill ‘im,” James said. “Blackth–”
“I know what he said, ya fink I’m stupid. I will gut you, ya know. I’ve done it once. I’ll enjoy doing it again.”