Flutter mba-3

by Аманда Хокинг

  That just happened to be when Jack walked in, and he set off an entirely different chain of events than Peter had in mind. Maybe Peter wouldn’t have kept fighting him, though. Maybe if Jack hadn’t turned me, hadn’t broken the bond, Peter would’ve just left anyway. I can’t say for sure, but part of me believes he would have.

  Peter came back for me, of that I’m sure. He had tried to fight everything, but eventually, he gave into them. But when he saw that I was happier, that I had moved on with Jack, he was going to let me go and leave, once and for all. That was the direct opposite of what he was supposed to do, of what his blood told him to do, but he was going to do it for me. Underneath all of his chemicals and reservations, there had to be genuine feeling for me, otherwise he never would’ve let me be with Jack.

  That’s what kept me coming back out in the woods, even with the full understanding of what we were up against. I thought that Peter might really listen to me, and even if he didn’t, I had to try.

  It’s hard to walk away when someone needed me. I hadn’t been able to leave Milo, and I wouldn’t give up on Peter, not when he had been willing to sacrifice so much for me.

  Ezra had talked very little of Peter, even though we were here for him. He wasn’t thrilled about Peter’s recent behaviors regarding me, but what little he did say about tended to be good or apologizing for his mistakes. Ezra had been alone for a very long time before he turned Peter, and that had been the first real companionship he’d had in over a century. There were times that he had considered giving to his impulses and living like the lycan, but Peter had pulled him away from that. Until Ezra met Mae just over fifty years ago, Peter had been his only reason to go on and live a civilized life.

  There was nothing that Ezra wouldn’t do for Peter, but I suspected that was the same for all of us.

  Their bond might have had more sentimentality with him, but all of us, even me and Milo, were of equal importance to him. Family meant a lot to him, even though he didn’t make a show of it the way Mae did. She was always constantly hugging and fawning over everyone, and still kept tabs on her human family. Ezra didn’t say quite as much, but he hadn’t hesitated to come out here and get Peter, even knowing it would put himself in danger.

  We walked through the woods in almost total silence, but I knew when we started getting closer to the lycan homeland. He walked a little faster but made sure that his steps matched mine. He looked around more, scanning for the imperceptible movement of the pack, and kept incredibly close to me, so sometimes I was almost tripping over him to get by. He was willing to risk anything for Peter, but he wasn’t didn’t feel quite the same way about me risking everything.

  In the hotel today before we left, he’d asked if I wanted to stay behind. I had immediately said no, but he continued recommending until I finally refused to talk about it with him anymore. We were going back to the exact area where the lycans had told us to stay away from, but that had to be where Peter was, assuming that Peter was still alive.

  “Shouldn’t we be calling his name or something?” I asked when the silence and the search became too much for me.

  Ezra shook his head, and I ducked underneath a low-hanging branch. The one thing I could say for all these treks was that I was starting to get a lot more nimble and agile. After days of slipping in the snow and tripping over my branches, I had finally started to get my footing. I wasn’t getting as tired out as I used to, either, and I hadn’t been quite as hungry. If nothing else, this would do a good job of getting me through vampire boot camp.

  “I just don’t think we’re doing that much,” I insisted, keeping my words hushed. If I was too loud, he would silence me completely, but I figured that being quiet would at least give me a chance at some conversation. “We’re just wandering around the trees. How are we supposed to find Peter?

  You have this carefully calculated plan of where to look, but when we get here, we don’t even do anything.”

  “They can’t know we’re looking.” Ezra was barely loud enough to be heard over the crunch of our boots in the snow.

  “I get that, but Peter has to know. Or how else will we find him?” I pressed.

  “Smell him. Hear him. See him.” He shrugged, but then slowed, almost pausing to look at me hopefully. “Can you still… feel him?”

  Whenever ever I had been around Peter before, my body automatically pulled towards him.

  I’d walk to him without even trying. My natural inclination had been to be with him, and that would be really helpful in a search party. If we got close to him at all, then my body would just direct us to him. Since my transformation and my bond had broken with him, it didn’t seem likely that I still felt the same way.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, although I tended to think that I wouldn’t be able to.

  If I thought about Peter or talked about him, I didn’t get all fluttery and intense anymore.

  That could just be because of all the changes I’ve gone through, and that my reaction is now that of a vampire’s and not a human’s, but I don’t think so. I have a bond with Jack, and I can still feel things like that for him, which means that I probably can’t for Peter anymore.

  “Oh well,” Ezra shrugged again and tried not to look dejected. His pace picked up again, andI scampered behind him to catch up. “We’ll find him anyway.”

  We continued on in silence, Ezra scouring the area around us. We passed over the river where we had met the lycan, and that made my heart skip a bit. He glanced back at me, and I hated that he could hear my heart. It gave him a read on emotions that I’d rather keep private. I could tell that he was about to ask me if I wanted to turn back, but I just shook my head and insisted we plow ahead.

  Hopefully, he was better at tracking than I was, because I couldn’t even smell the lycan anymore. They smelled of sheep or horses or dogs that were never let in the house. It was the scent of animals that lived outside, which made sense, because essentially, that’s what they were. When we had come across reindeer earlier in the night, it wasn’t quite the smell as that. There was something edgier about the way lycan smelled, like livestock and… road kill. I don’t know if that’s right, but that’s the best way I can describe it.

  There was a crack of a branch loud enough that even a human could hear, and I whirled towards it.

  Ezra had moved in front of me, his posture defensive and tense. It had been about an hour since we passed the river, so we were well into their territory, and we had yet to see any animals. I inhaled deeply, hoping to get a read on what was around us, but all I could only smell the cold. Snow. Trees. Dirt.

  Maybe an owl…

  A flap of wings followed by the rustle of branches, and I saw a large owl take flight in front of the moon. Relief washed over me, but Ezra didn’t relax at all. If anything he tensed up more, but he’d obviously been able to see the same owl I had. I wanted to ask him what his deal was, but then I heard something else too.

  The soft crunch of footsteps in the snow, softer than hooves, softer than shoes. Barefoot.

  That meant it was either a bear, which didn’t really concern me, or the lycan, which did really concern me.

  Even in the moonlight, I could make out anything through the trees, but they were experts on being ghosts. But then I saw him, several yards ahead of us, walking towards us with his hands held up open towards us, the sign of surrender.

  It was the kind one, Leif, with the big brown puppy dog eyes. He was wearing the same clothes as he had been the other day, although they appeared to be even dirtier. Ezra, on the other hand, looked rather dapper for a midnight hike. He was wearing a black cashmere sweater with a thick, poloesque collar, but in most ways, Ezra appeared to be an entirely different species than Leif.

  “I’m alone!” Leif announced as he got closer to us.

  I half-expected Ezra to tell him to stop where he was, but Ezra probably knew that he was in no position to make orders. Leif stopped a few feet in front of us anyway, but that was still much closer
than either of us would like. Ezra kept his body partially blocking mine, but he stood slightly less defensively.

  “I am alone. I know you don’t trust me, but it’s the truth.” Leif repeated, his voice soft and gentle.

  I would guess that he was American or maybe Canadian. He pushed a strand of his thick, dark hair off his forward and chewed his lip nervously. His eyes roamed around us, unsure of where to let them settle, and he glanced up at that moon.

  “They’re in Sweden, hunting,” Leif continued, as if we had asked. “Dodge was convinced that we’d scared you away, so they left.”

  “But you weren’t?” Ezra asked cautiously, and his stance grew more rigid again. Leif shrugged in response and lowered his eyes to the ground. “Is that why you stayed behind? To see if we came back?”

  “Maybe,” Leif confessed, then quickly added, “But not like you think.”

  “You don’t know what I think,” Ezra countered evenly.

  Leif shifted uneasily and looked back up at the moon again. He rubbed his arm anxiously, and I could tell there was something that he wanted to say but couldn’t seem to find the words. He almost seemed desperate, and his eyes looked pained when he looked back at us.

  “You’re after Peter, aren’t you?” Leif asked simply, and Ezra and I stiffened. “Look, I’m not out to get him. He killed my brother… but it was self-defense. Krist had a temper and…” Leif looked around again, growing more agitated. “Peter had no business being here. He was trying to ‘try out’ for the pack, but that’s not how it works. So Gunnar was putting him through all these stupid tests, and Krist was one of them. But Peter started winning…” He looked apologetic, his eyes wide and sincere. “It wasn’t fair what they did to him.

  What they’re still doing to him.”

  “Still?” The fear in Ezra’s voice made me wince.

  Ezra took a step forward and his heart tightened at the thought of them still doing anything to Peter.

  My head swam with images of torture, and Ezra had seen far worse than I had. He knew what true torture could be for a vampire, and I didn’t even want to know what he was thinking of. Everything Leif had been saying only made feel sick and scared, but if they were still doing something to him, that meant that he still had to be alive.

  “Yeah, he’s alive. He’s okay,” Leif’s voice cracked on the last word, and I had a feeling that okay was rather subjective in this case.

  “What are they doing? Where is he?” Ezra demanded in a low growl, and Leif shrunk lower, taking a step back. Any pretense that Ezra had of submitting to the lycans was completely shattered.

  He was a pack leader in his own right, and Leif bowed down to that.

  “I don’t know exactly,” Leif confessed.

  He was clearly afraid, and I didn’t think that worked in our benefit, so I put a hand on Ezra’s arm.

  Reluctantly, he responded and took a step back. Leif nodded his appreciation at me and stood up straighter.

  He wasn’t going to mess with us, but he wouldn’t have whether Ezra had freaked him out or not. After all, he had sought us out, not the other way around.

  “They’re hunting him,” Leif said.

  “He’s in Sweden?” I raised an eyebrow. That wasn’t what Ezra had been hearing.

  “No, no, he’s still here,” Leif shook his head. “Its just the pack in Sweden.”

  “I don’t understand. Why is he still here? If they’re gone, why didn’t he just come home?” I asked, confused.

  Leif gave Ezra a plaintive look, and Ezra nodded knowingly. He understood what was going on, and I didn’t appreciate being left out of the loop. Maybe I didn’t full understand hunting properly, but once the hunter was gone, I didn’t see the point in the prey hanging out for them to return. Even with Leif being left behind, he wasn’t a guard of any kind. Peter could easily overpower him.

  “What? Why won’t Peter leave?” I demanded, looking up at Ezra since Leif didn’t answer me.

  “Us,” Ezra replied thickly. “The pack will track him if he leaves, and follow him back to our house.”

  “If they’re so good at tracking, then why haven’t they killed him yet?” I pressed.

  It didn’t make sense. If they could follow us across the Atlantic, then they could certainly find one vampire in their own territory. While I didn’t want Peter to be dead, it didn’t really make sense to me why they would leave him alive. Especially not after all this time. We’d been in Finland for a week, and the trouble had to have started some time before that.

  “They like to play with their food,” Ezra said, and Leif looked sheepishly at the ground.

  “They want him to wait in fear, wondering when they’re going to pounce, jumping at every noise. And eventually, he’ll either go mad, or come home, which is a prize in and of itself.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, but an intense nausea was welling up inside me.

  “Why don’t you explain it to her?” Ezra growled at Leif. “Since this is your plan!”

  “It’s not my idea!” Leif insisted, looking hurt and ashamed. “I’m here, telling you this! At risk to myself! So don’t tell me that this is my idea!”

  “You didn’t do anything to stop it, did you?” Ezra roared and took several steps toward him.

  This time, Leif didn’t back down. He just stared indignantly at Ezra. “You wouldn’t have said anything us to if you hadn’t seen us!”

  “I couldn’t stop it! I can’t go up against them!” Leif shook his head, then lowered his eyes.

  “This is my pack. Peter’s just a stupid, arrogant…”

  Leif rubbed his neck, and Ezra sighed. Part of him really wanted to deck Leif about now, but he knew that would only make things worse. Regardless of what Leif had or hadn’t done prior to this, he was the only trying to help us now. If we were going to find Peter, he’d be our best bet at doing that.

  “I still don’t understand what you want with keeping Peter alive.” I spoke mainly to break the tension between them, but also, I didn’t get it.

  “Peter obviously has a bit of a death wish, otherwise he wouldn’t be here,” Leif explained quietly.

  “Killing him would probably be a kind of satisfaction to him. They’re waiting for him to leave, so they can follow. And make him watch as they kill everything he cares about. That’s his real punishment. Gunnar probably won’t even kill him in the end, because sometimes, living forever is worse.”

  My first thought wasn’t of myself, but Jack, Milo, and Mae sitting home at the house. They were alone, unguarded. Ezra and Peter were the real muscle of the family, and they were here, thousands of miles away from them. A cold shudder ran through me as panic hit.

  “Are sure they’re in Sweden?” I demanded, hearing my voice tremble. “They didn’t go anywhere else?” Ezra caught onto what I was saying and narrowed his eyes at Leif.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” Leif looked bewildered, but then it dawned him. “No! Look, they didn’t think you had anything to do with it! If they did, they would’ve killed you then, and left your bodies lying around for Peter to find. Okay? They have no idea! They didn’t follow your scent home! I’m positive!”

  “We need to get out of here,” I insisted.

  I trusted Leif, but I tended to have faulty judgment. Besides, even if he was telling the truth, the thought had been put in my head, and I was more desperate to see Jack than I had been before. The yearning and fear were mixing together, and Leif gave me an odd look, so I suspected my heart had started beating in that tricky way that tended to drive vampires nuts.

  “Where is Peter?” Ezra asked severely.

  “I can tell you the area he’s in, but I can’t take you there,” Leif answered apologetically.

  “They’ll smell my scent mixed with yours, leading you to him, and then I’ll be as good as dead.”

  “Fine. Where is he?” Ezra repeated.

  “Not that far, actually. He’s about a kilometer and a half east, past a small lake. There’s a l
ittle cave in the ground. That’s where he’s been hiding.” Leif pointed in the direction he’d told us, the direction he’d been walking from.

  “Thanks,” Ezra nodded at him.

  Without even waiting for me, Ezra started racing towards Peter. I knew I’d have to rush to keep up with him, but I paused to talk to Leif. He just looked so apologetic and kind, I couldn’t help but feel drawn to him. It wasn’t until that moment, when I looked directly at him, that I realized what it was that I liked so much about him. He had eyes just like my brother’s.

  “Thank you,” I told him earnestly.

  “Don’t thank me,” he sounded embarrassed by it. “Just go. Get him. Get out of here.”

  Ezra was already in a blur in the trees ahead of me, and he had a far better sense of direction than I did, so I was screwed if I lost him. While I had been making great strides in grace lately, at the speed I was running, it became impossible to maintain. I slipped and stumbled over everything and hit my head on several low hanging branches. By the time I came to the small lake, I was covered in snow and pine needles.

  Ezra had stopped sharply, and I didn’t notice him until it was too late. I tried to catch myself, but I slid on the ice and slammed right into him, which is was much like running into a brick wall.

  I bounced off his back, then tumbled down onto the ground. I had gotten myself into the crouching position, preparing to stand up, but then I got a glimpse of something through Ezra’s legs, and I froze in my tracks.

  His eyes were unmistakable, but they were even greener than I remembered them being.

  Peter stood a few feet in front of Ezra, looking mangier than I had ever seen him before. His chestnut hair was down to his shoulders, growing several inches in the last few weeks, but for some reason, vampire hair grew incredibly fast. Like the other lycans, he had a thick stubble growing on his face but not quite a beard.