by Lisa Daniels
Danny felt the world collapsing around him. The death he had tried so hard to avoid decided instead to follow him, as if hungry for it, mocking his attempt of goodness.
I deserve this, he thought, despair seeping. I deserve this.
Chapter Three
Horror wedged into Tia’s soul. One moment, the world had been perfectly sane, or as near to sane as you could get in a world that routinely indulged in war, suffering and strife, and where people still abused one another on a daily basis. The next moment, after following Danny out of the club, things had taken a drastic shift into madness. She saw him cut into a corner of town notorious for drug dealers and sexual assault, and decided right there and then that she wouldn’t be stupid enough to go there alone, and she wondered what on earth had possessed her to even contemplate following the man outside. If he had grabbed a cab, that would be the last she would see of him. If he turned out to be as dangerous as her instincts screamed at her, then that would maybe become the last of her.
Nope. Insanity averted, she began to venture back into the club, texting her friend again to say she wasn’t going to stalk the guy – except a hard, rough hand clamped down on her shoulder.
In shock, she whirled around to face four men, all with eye colors varying from deep brown to sickly yellow. Her bowels turned to water when the tall, chestnut haired one grasping her shoulder then spun and shoved her forward.
“She can be bait,” he said. “The target was interested in her, enough to actively leave her alone instead of use her for happy fun snack time.”
Target? Bait? Snack? “What the hell is happening?” Tia said, trying to break out of the man’s steel grasp. “Why are you doing this? Let me go!”
“Nuh uh, sweetheart,” the man growled. “You’ll be taking a little trip with us downtown. No harm, well, very little harm should come to you… in theory.”
The other three strode ahead, grinning, leaving Tia with the far stronger, amber glare of the man, who now clamped a hand over her mouth and bustled her along the street. She bit his palm viciously, but all it brought her was a sharp thud to the side of her head, and temporary unconsciousness. When she recovered from the inky blackness, the man was ready for her. “You can scream all you want now, sweetheart. No one here will hear, or care. If you do scream, though, I can’t guarantee your safety. Just saying.” He gleefully squeezed her throat, making her choke and gasp, making a mockery of the notion of safety.
Confusion and fear flooded Tia. She struggled to think, to understand what was happening. Sweaty, rough hands grasped at her flailing limbs. The stench of sweat and rotten food made her want to gag. “Why are you doing this?” She managed to force through her throat. Every time she raised her voice, the man’s grip became harder. He could quite easily snap her neck without a second thought. Tia sensed the strength under his skin, knew that there was absolutely nothing she could do, even though her body involuntarily kept fighting, thrashing like a fish trapped in a net.
“Never you mind why. But if you keep asking stupid questions – well, if you keep talking, really, I’ll kill you.”
Tia immediately bit her tongue. Fear and rage burned, along with disgust when she felt a distinctive boner pressing against the back of her thighs. Even if the man wasn’t planning to rape her here and there or kill her, he obviously enjoyed her struggling, the sheer power he had over her. He made audible sniffing sounds next to her ear, and laughed quietly.
“I can smell your fear…”
Of course you fucking can, fucker, Tia thought savagely. Who wouldn’t be afraid? She swallowed her mind-numbing panic and tried to manage the shaking in her limbs, even as he moved her closer to what sounded like the stirrings of a fight. Shrieks, yelps and howls ripped the atmosphere.
Fear intensified. It sounded like a pack of dogs fighting. Is he going to feed me to dogs? She frowned at the thought. The man has me in a vice grip and that’s the first thing I think of? Her thoughts shot in all directions, fuelled by terror and the vain attempts to calm down her racing heart, to remind herself that panic was what got stupid people killed.
Why the hell was this man so strong? Why was this even happening, whatever it was? Bait? Target? Snack?
A gurgling scream penetrated the air, and out of the shadows stumbled a… something. At first glance, Tia couldn’t make heads or tails of it. She saw fur, an elongated snout, glinting brown eyes dumped on a bulging body of fur and claws. Second glance made her mouth drop open in astonished horror, as another shape bounded from the darkness into the sliver of light offered, and tore into the brown eyed something. Tooth, fur and nail collided – the jaws of the second one clamped around the throat of the first and bit hard, yanked harder. An explosion of blood and bone erupted where the throat of the first one once lay, safely tucked inside. The gore and spray of arterial blood caused Tia to retch weakly, and she felt the alcohol of that evening well up from her stomach into her mouth. With a disgusted snort, her captor tilted her over the side, away from the fight and from him as she heaved, and vomited out acid and alcohol. She dimly registered the boner digging into her thigh shrinking, and allowed the thought that maybe if anyone wanted to rape her in the future, maybe she should puke on them. This came accompanied by hysterical internal laughter, as she felt her mind breaking apart, piece by piece.
This was not turning out to be a fun evening. Werewolves, Tia contemplated weakly, letting the idea worm into her consciousness as she stared at the ground where her vomit congealed. She wanted to black out again. Fucking werewolves. And not the Twilight kind. I’m officially mad. Or I’m still unconscious, and my body’s lying in a ditch somewhere. That notion comforted her more than the prospect of werewolves tearing each other’s throats out in front of her. Or of considering that the nice, insane world she lived in was a lot more fucked up than people gave it credit for.
“I have your girlfriend here!” The man holding her barked, grabbing her painfully by the hair mere seconds after she had wiped her mouth. Roots gradually began twanging off her scalp. “You come near and I’ll break her bones without a second thought! Surrender!”
All that greeted her captor’s words was ominous snarling. Tia glanced up again, groggy and weak, the side of her skull throbbing, and watched as one of the werewolves, with his snout area wet and leaking, fixated yellow eyes on her. The monster took a step forward, the lips crinkling, that dreadful rumbling sound reverberating throughout the alleyway. How could no one hear this? Surely there had to be people nearby.
Frantic howling behind the yellow eyes one caused their focus to snap back, as a new mountain of fur and flesh lunged into him. They bit, scratched and rolled in the grime of the alley, smashing against red brick wall, against dumpsters. The horrible thing about this, Tia realized, muzzily, was that this would sound like nothing else but a drunken brawl. And everyone knew better than to come down into somewhere like this to investigate the sounds of violence. That would be plain suicide.
“Where is that fucker?” The captor spat, pressing his bulk into her back. “That’s the older one. Disgusting bastard.”
He was talking to himself, but Tia started making stronger connections in her brain. The confusion of her purpose here evaporated, as she linked the amber eyed Danny with the result of her current situation. Somehow, impossibly, the four men were hunting for Danny. That could be the only thing that could even begin to remotely explain why she was trapped in the arms of a man who could snap every bone in her like a twig. It didn’t really explain the whole werewolf thing, but it was a start.
Why are they hunting him? She flinched as the tussling werewolves rolled closer. If they’re the same?
“Fuck it.” Her captor, apparently bored of standing there holding her like a puppet, whammed her on the side of the head again. The first hit dazed her, made her consciousness swim. The second sent her collapsing onto the ground.
Chapter Four
Exhausted, breath huffing through red smeared lips, Danny stumbled out the alley acr
oss a narrow backstreet, heading towards the site of a dilapidated warehouse tucked somewhere in the rotten heart of the city, where only those who didn’t mind squalor or the loss of dignity went. He and his father had cleared out the ones who lived there over a week ago, but the unwashed scent seeped through the furniture and carpets, spoke of the legacy of self-destruction humans had invited upon themselves.
In his arms, he cradled the unconscious woman, leaving the remains of his former life behind. His father, that twisted, miserable, prideful soul, had breathed his last, defending that misguided sense of honor. His father may had been many things – a despicable individual with a black and corrupted heart – but his first thought had still been to protect the pack. To make sure Danny escaped the situation alive, to fight another day.
He didn’t know whether to collapse in devastation or sigh in relief. A weight had unpeeled from his shoulders, along with the guilt from the lack of grief he should be feeling. The man who had dominated his life for twenty-five years was reduced to the same kind of meat he liked to consume, along with four American werewolves, forever leaving the stamp of death on Danny.
No werewolf company or community would accept him now. Not back in Bulgaria, in the mountains of the wolves and the bears, as the Lubanov killings had grown too noticeable, inviting questions from the state organized societies of humans.
The whole Lubanov clan had been wiped out in one raid from several different wolf families at once, with Danny only surviving by being dragged behind his father, as they morphed into their feral forms and fled.
His father never wanted to let go of the thing that got the family killed in the first place. Even the others of the mountain, they hunted human flesh. They just didn’t want to have their secular existence revealed.
I’m marked. I’m cursed. And she is, as well. Her life can never be normal. I should have never gone into that club.
Inside the building at last, Danny turned on the small, battery powered lamplights and placed the injured Tia onto a crumpled bed, and got to work rinsing off the blood from her and himself, before he changed his clothes, and found some new ones for her. Some of the squatters had left their clothes in the broken down drawers. Dust and the moth-ball odor followed the clothing. His boots stomped along creaking floorboard and stirred dust from the carpets. He ripped off Tia’s clothing, nostrils flaring as he examined her near naked form. He couldn’t help the arousal, but he controlled it so that he could dab at any more blood stains on her body, resting the cold cloth against her bruising head as he helped her into new, less flattering clothes. Now dressed in a baggy hoodie and patched jeans a little too large, he moved her onto a tattered sofa, with brown and black circles printed over it, and daubed at her forehead.
He needed to think right now of what to do, where he should go, what he needed to do with her, but all he wanted to do was curl up and sleep. Stop running, stop fighting.
Everything was over, anyway. Death did have the habit of running a lot faster than he could ever sprint, no matter which form he used.
Presently, the unconscious woman in his arms stirred. Blue eyes cracked open, the pupils adjusting to the dim light, and then to the face of Danny above her. Fully focused, she blinked at him, her breathing hitching faster, and the smell of fear radiating off her skin.
Danny didn’t know what to say. So, instead, he just considered her eyes, as if they held answers beyond the limited workings of his imagination.
“You’re a werewolf.” Her first three words floated in the musky air. The warmth of her head pressed against the tops of his knees became more noticeable.
“Yes.” Danny’s nose twitched. “You are correct.”
There was another pause. Her eyebrows scrunched up, tracing through events in her head. “The others – they’re dead. Aren’t they?”
An uneasy lump formed in Danny’s throat. “Yes,” he said again.
He waited for her to start screaming, to buck and punch and kick and weep. For something to remind him of the monster he was. For all the blood spilled. If she chose this moment, right now, to grab a knife and stab at him, he would accept it without the slightest murmur of resistance.
He no longer saw the point of living. There was nothing. He had nothing. A hollow emptiness replaced whatever had been in his chest cavity before.
“Why do you look so sad?” Tia said, the words coming out with difficulty, rasping through a bruised windpipe. At these words, Danny examined the growing lump on her head thoroughly, wondering if she was concussed. She seemed too calm, and the fact she wasn’t cursing or shrieking at him left him bereft of what he expected.
“One of the people who died there was my father.” At this point, Danny expected some sort of tears to tumble from his eye ducts, but the whole of his face felt as frozen as his heart.
“I’m sorry. Was he a good… man?” Tia struggled with the definition, and frowned apologetically. “Do I even call you a man?”
“You may. And no. He was not.” Why was it so hard to remember the good memories? Were there even any? “He did love me. In his own way.”
Tia coughed, adjusting the wet rag by her swollen head. Her breasts rose up and down, and Danny’s eyes shifted to them. One part of him punched through the fog. She’s beautiful. And she smells so good. Fresh and youthful.
The bigger part tried wading through his limited options. There was no one left he could call friend. He was alone. The hole in his heart would only get bigger from here. He closed his eyes. Maybe if he fell asleep now, he would never wake up.
He wanted that.
“Do you have anyone else?” Tia’s voice grew stronger, the low, almost seductive rasp changing in pitch. Her hand shook as she held the rag by her ear, and Danny absently brushed her hand aside to keep it there. He dragged his brain out of the hollow place where his family had lived, to tend to the human who had been an inch from losing her warmth. Her breath stuttered, and her teeth chatted, prompting him to lean over to pull a multi-colored blanket over them.
Danny shook his head, letting the memories of her near naked body leak from out. There was a time and place for everything. The last thing this damaged human needed was more reminders of evil. He could keep it at bay. “He was the last.”
After another long pause, as Tia carefully sifted through her questions, Danny scented the fear lessening in her sweat, felt her visibly relax into his knees. “What will you do?”
“That doesn’t matter. I’m sorry you got pulled into this. I didn’t intend for this to happen. Though the second I walked into that club, something would have. Those men must have had eyes on me for a while.” If he told her that her original fate meant being fed to his father, he doubted she would be quite so placid.
“Did you really get summoned?”
“No. I just…” Danny inhaled deeply. “It doesn’t matter. What matters now is you get better, then I drop you home. And that will be the last you see of me. Easier that way. Less trouble for you.”
Tia reached up to touch soft, fluttering fingers to Danny’s face. He closed his eyes for a moment. Though his mind and heart weighed as heavy as ever, the touch soothed something deep inside.
“Thank you.”
“For what?” Now the prick of tears welled behind his face, scratching to break through the empty mask. A thread of resolve held them back.
“For not leaving me there.”
He grunted. Truthfully, the whole thing had been chaos. The other werewolves didn’t fight with the same savagery he and his father wielded. They fought as their instincts told them to – quickly go for the throat, harry their prey. Nikolai fought like a cornered mad-beast, always aiming to inflict maximum damage, not caring about anything around him. Though he went into the fight weakened, he still managed to slaughter two werewolves before the third brought him down. Danny had seen, even as he bit and chomped at his engaged werewolf, the man thump and drop Tia to the ground, before shifting, roaring into the bone-cracking form of a seven-foot monster, b
efore pouncing on his father and breaking the elder’s spine.
The howl of despair from his father’s failed attempt to save his pack still echoed in Danny’s brain now. He tore through his opponent, and turned on the last one, making short work of his distracted state. He then moved over to the inert Tia, and it took a lot of self-control to not finish her off as well. The scent of a human always differed from those of his species. The sharp, hot stink of a werewolf contrasted deep with the subtle, less entrenched aura of a human. Humans were less wrought with violent anger, though that was not to say humans were better as a race.
The bloodlust shining in his cells dimmed as he released the power, let it evaporate into the dim moonlight and cold air. The red haze obscuring his brain lifted, and the overpowering stab of hunger subsided. He did not need meat to live. He did not need human flesh to swim through his days.
That was a choice.
“I don’t think you need a hospital,” Danny continued. “But if you start suffering from any... reaction, you need to inform me. The reaction means you have been bitten or scratched when we are in feral form. And, no. Is not like the movies. Reaction is bad for humans. Death sentence.” He swallowed nervously. “I am sorry, beautiful one. Is a lot to take in.”
“What happens to me when you leave?”
Danny chewed at his bottom lip, regarding her. “Hopefully, nothing. You go through life as normal. But you know of the monsters in the dark. Worse case… other werewolves know that you know. They do not like humans running around with secrets. The human dies or they… assimilate.” He brushed away a strand of wayward hair from her smooth forehead. “Is not good, either option. I am sorry.”
His heart pulsed painfully. Those blue eyes of hers seemed to draw him in, inviting him to forget about his emptiness, inviting him to just drown in their color, to exist without the knowledge of who he was and what he had done for a moment.
But he knew it was his fault that she was now cradled in his arms, bruised, almost killed. And if it hadn’t been her, then another girl would have suffered the same fate, or worse. He might have lured one out for his father to consume. His father would have urged him to eat, perhaps waving the choicest bits of morsel in front of his sensitive nostrils.