by Lucy Lyons
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Vampire’s Spell
Book 7: The Vampire’s Soul
Lucy Lyons
© 2017
© Copyright 2017 by Persia Publishing - All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter One
My arms felt like rubber as I lifted what felt like my fiftieth heavy cedar beam into place, but I refused to ask Bernie for help, even though he grinned as he leaned against the wall watching me. Dirk pounded the steel spike into the joint and his wife, Rae, did the same on the opposite end. I dropped my arms and rolled my shoulders, stifling a groan.
“What’s the matter, old man? You getting stiff already?” Bernie wheezed his familiar laugh, and I had to smile, despite the ache across my back.
“Well, maybe if I were smart like you and left the hard work to guys half my age while I supervised, I wouldn’t be so sore,” I shot back, and the wheezing intensified from the gray-haired werewolf.
He stood and clapped me on the back, hard enough to make me wince. “I’ll buy you a beer, son. Just because you can’t get drunk, doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy an ice-cold brew after a hard day’s work.”
I nodded and stretched one more time before leaning back to survey what we’d accomplished. Life as a werewolf was still new enough to me, and I still could be surprised by the things that I and the pack accomplished that normal humans couldn’t—like the longhouse we’d nearly completed in a matter of weeks. Members of the pack had scouted out the best trees and prepared the logs by stripping and splitting them, then Dirk, Rae, Bernie, and I had framed it and built the outer walls. The others would finish sealing the building and adding necessities like shingling and chimneys, but it was a solid structure and would meet the needs of the preternatural animals we became, as well as the needs of our human bodies.
“I think a beer or two is in order, as long as it comes with a thick, rare burger and onion rings,” I agreed. Rae seconded my motion for dinner, and we all piled into her Jeep Cherokee to head back to the current campground the wolves were using as a gathering place. Bernie, Dirk, and Rae all had day jobs. I was between careers, ousted from the society of vampire hunters who had raised me because I went furry once a month.
In truth, I was powerful enough to change whenever I wanted, as much or as little of my body as I wanted. It was a neat trick but wasn’t exactly the kind of thing I could put on a resume. Instead, I was working on licking the right boots and winning the right fights to keep me alive in a pack of creatures I once would have hunted and killed.
“You look upset again. What’s on your mind?” Rae patted my arm as I got out of the car.
I shrugged, not sure how to put into words my inner turmoil. Rae had asked to be turned so she could be with her husband after he was. They’d struggled for acceptance for a whole different reason than I did, and neither of them seemed the least bit conflicted about the monstrous beasts they became. Not only did they both embrace life as a mated pair of preternatural wolves, but they were trying to have kids, and Dirk was blood-bonded to the local master vampire.
Nicholas D’Elbrecht wasn’t a bad guy. In fact, the only work I’d been able to find was working security with some of the other wolves at his burlesque-style nightclub, Pulse. It was quickly becoming a premier night spot, and I appreciated the money it put in my pocket, but it was a hard pill to swallow, going from hunting vampires to working for one.
“My life still seems surreal sometimes, Rae. I’m fine, just wrapping my head around stuff.” I’d recently interviewed with a local dojo, the Red Dagger, for a position as an instructor. Thanks to training sessions with my best friend Nick’s girlfriend, Caroline, I’d been able to hold back just enough to win every sparring match without harming any of my human opponents. Now I just had to wait to hear back from the owner, a tiny black lady who had been genuinely surprised when I pinned her. It was a first in decades, I’d later been told, but I hadn’t realized that I was supposed to lose to her. As Caroline was fond of reminding me, losing wasn’t part of the extensive training we received under the watchful eye of the Venatores lamiae and the Catholic church.
I shook off my worry as best I could. There were advantages to having a pack, but getting whiffs of fear or lust or anger from the others on occasion could make it feel like we were too close for comfort. With Rae being the first wolf to be able to maintain a pregnancy in, well, a dog’s age, there was extra fear, trepidation, and hope clogging the senses every time she joined the pack in the social circle.
But the burgers were grilled to bloody, juicy perfection, the beer was as cold and refreshing as promised, and thankfully, no one asked any more questions about work, life, or why I was even more taciturn than usual.
I thanked Bernie for the beer and headed into the woods for some time alone before retiring to the cabin I was renting from the pack for a pittance. Somehow, the pack had secured ownership of the private land that bordered the state park. The cabins were available to any member of the pack at any time if you understood you might be asked to share your space come the full moon each month. I’d been “wolfing out” for less than a year, and that meant I shared my cabin every month, usually with a few single females. There was fun to be had, but I hadn’t connected with any of them enough to want to pair off indefinitely.
I’d left my last girlfriend behind with the Venatores after she’d bitten me and turned me into the wolf that I was. I
’d known she was a shifter, a were-rat to be specific, but not that the Venatores had coerced her into helping them create so-called “super hunters.” The venerable society of hunters had tinkered with the idea of giving Venatores the strength and speed of shifters but without the shifting. Due to the experiments they’d done on Alyssa, I didn’t become a were-rat when she bit me, just as they’d planned. But what I had become was far more dangerous and unpredictable.
The snap of twigs in the undergrowth caused me to drop the Samuel Adams in my hand and pivot toward the sound. I fell back into a judo stance, sniffed the air, and then relaxed.
“I thought you could move silently, Ashlynn. You having an off day?” I picked up the bottle, but the contents had poured into the earth. I sighed and slipped the bottle into the back pocket of my board shorts and clasped my hands in front of me, still ready to fight if that’s what she was here for.
“You mean breaking this twig?” she countered, showing me the thin, dry branch in her hand before dropping it and brushing the bits of bark and dirt from her fingers. “It pains me that you needed a warning that I was coming, but I didn’t want to have to pin you to get you to listen to me.”
“You’re the alpha. I have to listen.” The truth was bitter in my mouth, and I spat it out at her then inhaled sharply as she flinched.
“Are you aware that I’m not the one who did this to you?” She paced the clearing, rubbing her hands on her skirt and avoiding my eyes. It gave me a chance to really look at her, something I usually avoided. Ashlynn was the pack alpha, the boss, the queen, whatever her people wanted to call her. That said, her search for a mate encompassed every single male in the pack, whether we wanted to be involved in her hunt or not.
But she was beautiful, if you were into thick natural curls the color of flame, emerald eyes, and freckles. God, the freckles were the worst. They softened the angular rigidness of her (usually unhappy) face and made her human. They were bloody cute as hell, and I hated her more for the tiny things that made her a real person than I did for her anger and imperiousness.
“I don’t want to be a part of the fangs-and-claws edition of The Bachelorette, Ashlynn. It’s not about you. I’d say the same if my Jewish great-grandmother tried to send me to a matchmaker.”
She sniffed and spun to face me, her face a cold mask of rage. “Except it is about me, isn’t it, Clayton?” She shook her head and went back to pacing. “You’ve drawn a line in the sand just beyond what you’re willing to invest in this pack and you’ll go no farther. My authority means nothing to you.” Her voice shook a little, and I removed the bottle from my pocket and gently tossed it to one side.
“I’m willing to bleed. I have bled for this pack. I’ve bedded the women you demanded I sleep with, and I’ve done every task, from the menial to the herculean, that you’ve commanded. But the commitment of mating is…is more than marriage. There’s no divorce, no separation, and sure as hell no cheating, not if you want to live.” I ran my fingers through my scruffy hair and silently wondered why she wanted me in the pool in the first place.
“It’s not about my dating pool, Clay,” she sighed heavily. The anger drained from her face, making her appear more vulnerable than I’d ever seen her before. Suddenly, her six-foot frame seemed small, and she hugged herself tight enough to make her arms white where her fingertips pressed into her skin.
“Then why does it matter?”
“Because I can’t let you pick and choose which orders to obey. You’re undermining me, Clay. The worst part is, you aren’t the only one. But you’re the best man in the pack. You’re the hunter, the hero, the saver of innocents…” she fumed, “the goddamned Boy Scout. You might be the newest kid on the block, but you’re the example others follow.” She chewed on her lip, and I had a brief mental image of pulling it into my mouth to taste.
“I’m not trying to be anybody’s example or hero,” I protested.
“Doesn’t matter,” she countered. “If you won’t obey, I’ll have to force you into submission in front of everyone. I won’t let you risk my life and set me up for a never-ending line of challengers because you make me look weak.”
I started to argue then closed my mouth with a snap. She took a tentative step toward me, and my nostrils filled with her fear and frustration and something else. My body responded to her lust despite myself, and I coughed and backed up until I felt the scratch of bark against my shoulder.
“I obey you in all else, Ashlynn. No other pack member has given you that. You’re pissed because you’re the only single female in the pack I won’t touch. Rest assured, you’re correct. I won’t lay a finger on you. This is all too new to me to be forced to be responsible for the safety of the pack as an alpha. Your challengers are already preemptively coming after me, did you know that? Refusing to take a dip in your dating pool is the only way I get any peace.” I dipped at the waist and picked up the empty bottle. It wouldn’t do any good to litter in my own backyard, after all.
When I straightened, she was gone, and I leaned against a tree and did my best to ignore the hot, angry power she’d left behind. Ashlynn was a lot harder to say “no” to than she’d been a few months before. She was the alpha, and eventually, even if her long legs and perfect breasts didn’t force my hand, I’d still be in her bed, forced there by sheer power.
Not that she needed it. I was drawn to her as surely as I assumed every other hot-blooded werewolf was. But her fear was infecting the pack. We needed strength to survive the vampires trying to make us their servants and the hunters’ usually murderous discretion when it came to anything they didn’t understand. The only other option was to challenge her. Even if I survived and managed to win, what good would it do me to be stuck leading the pack by myself when I was working so hard to avoid doing it as a mated couple?
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Chapter Two
Music filtered through the trees as a couple of members of the pack got out their guitars and started jamming. Aside from the iron rule of the alpha, pack life was generally laid back. We didn’t make ourselves known to humans and in return, we had the freedom to have our own little “burning man” out in the woods, like a new-age hippie commune of artists, musicians, and thinkers.
It bugged the hell out of me. The Catholic church had raised me as a soldier, with a heavily structured routine and training to maximize my deadliness. As a werewolf, I only needed to be able to beat my next challenger, as members constantly jostled for a more favorable position in the hierarchy. I hadn’t lost a fight yet, and it had made me my fair share of enemies among the other males. It had won me some friends, too, in wolves like Dirk, who after he lost his challenge for dominance to me, came back and asked me to train him, which I did.
We needed the structure that the vampires had under all their constant rushing about; the discipline and combat training of the hunters. We were outnumbered by those who wanted to use us or harm us. Every wolf who let me train him better was welcome in my cabin.
The smell of the communal fire at the center of our camp reached me before its warmth, and I inhaled the smell of burning pine sap and Douglas fir needles as they popped in the intense heat. Then I saw the soft, dancing glow from between the tree trunks as singing and laughter floated on the same breeze that carried the scent of fire and my packmates to me.
“It’s pretty when you
forget to hate what you’ve become, isn’t it?” I glanced down at Henny, who leaned companionably against another tree.
“I don’t hate what I am, Henny. I just miss what I lost.”
She snorted and my eyebrows shot up, even though I knew her human eyes couldn’t see my facial expression in the deep shadows.
“And what did you lose, exactly, other than your sense of superiority?” I huffed but didn’t answer, so she continued. “You lost the freedom of responsibility for your choices and what kind of a man you should be, Clay. Trust me—taking responsibility for yourself will open up your world to amazing self-discovery.”
“I don’t feel superior to the pack, Henny. You were a Venatores once, and you’re married to another hunter. How did you resolve a life with the monsters after being taught to fight them, to fear and hate everything that I’m capable of?”
She took my hand, and I felt the calming power of her magic flow into me. Our human bruja was the one part of pack life that had felt normal to me. She wasn’t the first witch I’d been associated with, and my experience had taught me to listen to what she taught. Her power reminded me of Caroline and Lady Di Borgia, who were both powerful sorceresses in their own right, even though she was far more grounded in living nature than either of my friends.
“The Venatores didn’t raise me,” she reminded me, “so I guess it was easier for me to leave when they wanted to exploit my power.”
“Don’t mistake my question for loyalty to the Venatores lamiae. I guess I’m just having trouble relearning who the enemy is.”
“You’re a wolf, Clay—not a monster. I think that would be a good place to start.” Henny slipped away toward the fire and left me to think about what she’d said. It wasn’t the first time a human, or at least someone more human than me, had tried to tell me to let go of the Venatores and take control of my life. Caroline was mistress of her domain after literally years of struggle to be freed from the Venatores, and I had watched her through year after excruciating year as she struggled against our oppressive masters.