by Lisa Daniels
Isabelle drank more water, letting it trickle down her throat, and wiped her mouth. “Say what?”
“It should be okay, though. We have an ally in a Canadian clan who will come for this place. I was actually on the phone to him when these bastards decided to take over and attempt their subjugation of North Dakota.”
“Look, I don't care about that. You're saying a werewolf has gone to kill their uncle? With a human? What?”
Milev shrugged. “He's a nasty piece of work. The whole Spirova clan is trying to find him and kill him, because he's a flesh-eater. They're the alpha clan in Bulgaria. Alpha clan rules go – and they say no flesh-eaters under their jurisdiction.”
Isabelle gaped. She had never heard of anything like this. Ruling clans? Rules? “You... are hunting someone for being a flesh-eater?” Her mind struggled for clarification. “You kill your own kind?”
“Well, of course. Humans tend to notice if too many people go missing, and we prefer staying secret, you know. So we punish the flesh-eaters. Don't you know the arrangement between the North American clans? It's illegal to hunt humans. Any werewolf you catch doing that is breaking the law, and subject to the wrath of the free clans.”
Milev clicked his fingers then, a beatific smile overriding his oddly attractive face. Attractive? Isabelle shook her head, trying to dismiss the wayward thought.
She shouldn't find werewolves attractive. That was wrong. And yet...
“These guys are your basic kidnapper rabid human people. Except they happen to be werewolves. That's all. Crazy kidnappers.” Milev glanced at the ceiling, rolling his eyes. “Though I hear you gunned down about a third of their number. Not bad. I'd give you a medal, but my hands are tied.”
“Can you stop with the jokes?” Isabelle pleaded, half exasperated, half bemused at his attitude. “This is a serious situation we're in. We're prisoners, and I don't see them being friendly to us for long. Try and look for an escape.”
“That's what I've been doing for the past two weeks,” Milev said. “Whilst languishing away in this luxurious basement. These chains are quite weak now. I'll help you break out of yours if you want afterwards. As long as you don't shoot.” He grinned wolfishly. “I've been here a while.”
“Oh.”
“For the record, by the way, I'm glad they didn't kill you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, I have a pretty woman to keep me company. And to remind me I have something to fight for, other than myself.”
Utterly bewildered at his compliment, Isabelle watched as he morphed and continued his gnawing of the chain. She felt completely misplaced and in shock, as if someone had just plunged her into cold water. The hatred inside drained away from the onslaught of his exuberance. It was hard to hate someone who insisted on smiling and making light banter. It was hard to hate someone who seemed fundamentally likeable.
And some of the things, well... they made sense. Somewhere. It didn't help with the developing headache, because she really wanted to hate the werewolf in front of her, but somehow, her rage felt impotent. Channeling such volatile emotions towards Milev was worse than useless. He would likely just smile at her with that irritating grin, golden eyes twinkling, and tell her to lighten up.
She sighed, resigning herself to the presence of her cellmate, and the encroaching threat above.
An enemy of my enemy is an ally.
This time, she believed the words. A flash of irritation coursed through her when she thought about her hunter allies, who had abandoned her to her fate.
She had chosen, of course, to stay behind and help. She could have left him behind, like he did to her. Or he might have provided covering fire, along with Kevin. However, the both of them had simply slammed on the gas and motored out of there.
Betrayed. Not a nice feeling. And now this werewolf, a representative of the race she hated, gave her talks about cannibals and insisted that not all his kind followed the same path as the ones who had brought Isabelle to the allure of the hunters.
He likely had a finely curved face under that growth of beard, and probably nice, fine hair. At the moment it clung to his head, unwashed and greasy. Of course, now he was in feral form, with a fine golden coat of fur over his snouted face, and he chewed and scratched and twisted the chain, eyes narrowed in concentration.
“You know, I'm surprised your teeth are still sharp, if you've been doing that for two weeks,” Isabelle said, pacing through her cereal, grimacing at the texture.
“It's because I'm magic,” Milev said, spitting out a fleck of something onto the wooden floorboards. “And everyone knows werewolves are magic.”
The remark amused her for about a millisecond, before her humor dried out into the grave seriousness she accustomed herself to. One of the comments from earlier wormed into Isabelle's head. “That guy called you an illegal alien. What did he mean?”
“I'm Bulgarian. Had a Dutch mother, which is why I have the light hair. He's a little upset that a Bulgarian werewolf has overtaken North Dakota as alpha. Never mind what the Americans did to the natives a fair few years back. Damn immigrants!”
He laughed, and gave a helpless shrug. “I try to not worry about it.”
“Do you worry about anything?” Stupid question, really, Isabelle thought. Stupid, but he did act as if all this wasn't a big deal.
“Sure I do,” Milev said. “But worry doesn't solve anything, does it? Would you prefer me to sit here, grinding my teeth in despair and complaining about the situation, or grinding my teeth on an escape, and actually doing something?” He chewed with renewed vigor at the chain.
Isabelle digested his words, considering their message. Honestly, she didn't understand. She didn't understand how someone could smile so much. Not with the position he dwelled in. She caught dark stains around the werewolf's chaining area, like droplets of blood, and wondered what had happened to him in the time he was trapped here.
Then, after a focused session of gnawing, the chain snapped off. Milev spat out more rust, then growled, “Well, only took half a month. Now I should have more traction...” He stood up, no longer restricted and near immobilized, braced his foot against the wall, and yanked on the second chain.
It tumbled off after a few minutes of solid tugging.
“Perfect,” he said. “Now, I assume you want to be freed, too? Or are you still terrified of me?”
“Just free me. I'll decide what to feel about you later,” Isabelle said.
The werewolf bared his sharp teeth in a vicious smile. “Sounds good to me.”
He advanced over to her, golden eyes bright, and Isabelle followed him, still shrinking back in spite of herself. He was one of the biggest werewolves she'd ever seen – his human clothes stretched to near bursting point under the full feral transformation.
Those massive, bulging arms reached over to her chains, and he began the same arduous process, but with all his limbs unrestrained. A few minutes later, both of them were free. Isabelle wrapped the chains around her arms to stop herself getting caught in them, and Milev did the same.
“Now, getting out might be the awkward part.” He rubbed his wrists, his lips wrinkling around his jagged teeth. “S’pose you should hop onto my back when we're out, I can run like the wind.”
“Can't we just kill them?”
Milev turned to face her, one eyebrow raised. It appeared slightly comical on his wolfish features. “You know, the answer to everything isn't always 'kill.' Doesn't your God say that's bad or something?”
“If they usurped your alpha, don't you have a duty to him?” Isabelle countered. She didn't know, honestly, but she really wanted to find a reason to kill the werewolves above. Especially the one called George, before he got to her.
You killed my brother and father. You murderer. The words bounced in her mind.
They affected her more than anticipated. She had done the same thing to this werewolf's family as one did to hers.
She'd also attacked first.
She didn't know what to feel about that.
“I suppose I could make an exception... if there weren’t about eight werewolves to deal with. I'm good... I'm not that good.” Milev let out a theatrical sigh. “Our best bet is to try and make a break for it – I'll listen in for their positions, and then we'll just sneak outside and be off.”
“That's a terrible idea.”
“You have any better?”
Isabelle shrugged. If there were eight werewolves crawling in the building, she couldn't think of anything else. Not without finding wherever they had stored her gun.
“Were you thinking of smashing down the door?”
Milev shrugged. “Yup. Unless you have a better idea.”
Isabelle smiled at him, before plucking out the hairpin wedged on her scalp. “I might know a thing or two.”
Milev grinned. “Nice one! You'll have about three hours before they come and check. In case you're slow with lock-picking.”
“Depends on the lock.”
Milev prowled up the stairs, and listened against the door. Isabelle examined the lock, before bending the hairpin and inserting it into the hole, also leaning her ear against the door to listen for the clicks.
The werewolf's massive form towered above her, yet she didn't feel afraid.
Somehow, though she couldn't explain why, she trusted Milev.
She had to hope that trust wasn't sorely misplaced.
Chapter Three
Milev tapped her on the shoulder, making her flinch in surprise. “Sounds like they're watching T.V. Probably five in the house.”
She calmed down, and scowled up at him. “You can hear the T.V? Because I can't hear shit.” Isabelle placed pressure on the lock, gently teasing one of the pins up.
“Like I said, I'm magical.”
Isabelle snorted, but kept working on the lock. In the meanwhile, she had the scent of the werewolf to contend with, slowly undulating into her nostrils and triggering her brain with pheromones. She gritted her teeth, irritated. Those pheromones were seriously messing up her concentration, making her mind digress to unexpected places, such as imagining those huge, bulky arms of his wrapped around her protectively, his lips pressing against her temple. Her cheeks flushed, and she knew full well that the werewolf could scent any form of arousal on her skin.
“Can you, like, turn that off?”
“What?” he asked, amused.
“Your... sex scent. It's hard to focus.”
“Um, I hate to break this to you, but it's just my natural smell. I can't really turn it off. Unless I bleach my skin, which I hear is painful.”
“Fuck you, then,” Isabelle replied, sticking her tongue out in concentration.
“Will you be heading back to your hunter friends after this?”
Isabelle stopped her infiltration to look up into his eyes, dark yellow in the lack of light. “Why do you ask?”
Milev shrugged. “Well. If you're not busy. Maybe we can go on a date sometime.”
She boggled at him, at an utter loss for words for the second time in as many hours.
“Okay, possibly a bit soon. Let's just get out first, shall we?”
Isabelle opened her mouth, then closed it. Part of her wanted to tell him to fuck off, for the audacity of a werewolf asking a hunter on a date. And also because they were both currently in the process of trying to escape imprisonment. The other part, fueled by intrigue, and possibly by some of those pheromones she'd been complaining about, found the notion more appealing than expected.
Bad fucking timing, though. She placed her attention back on the lock. Milev hummed to himself, still far too cheerful and unflappable for someone who had apparently been chained up for two weeks.
“They did let me out so I could go to the bathroom. Usually surrounded by, like, ten werewolves. No dignity at all, of course.” Milev scowled suddenly, and became stiff. “Hang on, there's new sounds.”
“What?” Isabelle stared at the man, who had a demon lurking inside. Who acted, well, normal, given the circumstances they shared.
Maybe another time, without knowing his true identity, she would have gone for him without hesitation.
Or maybe, given enough time, when they were not stuck in a cell, and if he genuinely lived up to his word on the status of werewolves, she might change certain priorities in her brain as well. Could she trust him? Not all of them were murderers? There were laws against flesh-eaters?
Imagine if she presented that idea to her hunter friends. Would she be ostracised, or accepted? Accused of being a werewolf sympathizer, or listened to?
She didn't know. It was all pretty confusing right now. One thing she did know, however, was that she didn't hate Milev. Not until he gave her a reason for loathing.
“I'm not sure. People are coming in. I think –”
Whatever he thought, Isabelle jumped when she heard a loud bang from beyond the basement, and abandoned her attempt at the door – two pins away from being unlocked – to gape at Milev. Consternation smeared his face. He stopped breathing, and Isabelle realized she'd forgotten how to breathe for a second as well. She let it out in a hiss.
“What's happening?”
Shouts, shrieks, gunshots.
Milev puckered his lips, which looked comical under his blond beard. “I think either we have help, or things are about to get a lot worse for us. Uh... I don't know about you, but I think maybe we should just... go back into the basement.”
More gunshots spat out. Isabelle renewed her efforts on the door. “I don't know what's happening, but if the new people lose, we don't want to be sticking around.”
Milev's face contorted in slight anxiety. “I'm not a great fan of being shot at.”
“Neither am I. Strangely, I'm okay with holding the gun, though,” Isabelle said, a smirk tugging on her lips. He rolled his eyes, but smiled back.
People shrieked in a language Isabelle didn't understand, followed by a clipped accent that yelled, “No more resistance! Is bad. We are mad at you!”
Someone screamed at the speaker to go to hell, which was followed by a gunshot.
“Danniven,” someone grunted. “This isn't all of them. We're missing, like, twelve.”
“The clan is seventeen, eighteen strong, yes?”
“Yes, sir. There's only six here.”
Another gunshot. “I think you mean two.”
“Oh, wow,” Isabelle said.
“This is werewolf upon werewolf violence we're listening to right now,” Milev said. Then, winking, he yelled, “Danniven Lubanov! It's Milev Spirova! I'm stuck in the basement with a human!”
A brief silence followed his statement. “Milev! Is you and human okay?”
“No, it's terrible. The human is so mean.”
A low chuckle. “Humans are mean, yes.”
Their footsteps approached the basement, at the same time that Isabelle sprung the lock, and swung the door open to see four men with gleaming, supernatural eyes, wielding guns. Danniven Lubanov sported amber eyes, and clearly headed the group.
“Hello, Milev,” he said. “Not too late?”
“Could be worse,” Milev replied. He placed a friendly arm on Isabelle's shoulders. “This badass human killed about seven of them by herself. So you're actually missing around five.”
Danniven nodded admiringly at Isabelle. “Excellent. We tell Markus what is happening. And I text girlfriend to say I am alive, not dead.”
“He has a human girlfriend,” Milev added helpfully. Isabelle suspected an ulterior motive for him saying this, and scrunched her lips in a disapproving frown.
“Is it just me,” one of the werewolves said, with a distinctive Toronto-Canadian accent, “or were you two in the process of rescuing yourselves?” He indicated Isabelle's hairpin and the open door.
“We were. She's good with locks. We were going to be all stealthy and sneak out whilst they were watching television.”
“I don't understand,” Isabelle said, halting the banter, “what these w
erewolves hoped to gain from taking over your... alpha's property? There must be more than something like that to usurp him.”
“Yes,” Danniven said. “But they intended to kill alpha himself. Alpha of course is not here. He is in Bulgaria.”
“Don't you have, like, a second or third in command when this shit happens?”
“Yes,” Milev said. “But Markus's clan here is still new. He hasn't established a full chain of order yet. It will likely be his next job when he gets back. Promote loyal clans and start his own “noble” family thing.”
The sounds of a scuffle interrupted their statement, along with the revving of a car engine outside.
Danniven made a tsk noise, pinching the spot between his eyebrows. “Markus will be in my debt for once.” He examined Isabelle. “Are you cop?”
“Hunter,” Milev said for her. Isabelle watched the keen interest in Danniven's expression dim.
“Oh.”
“Need help!” Someone barked from the other room, and Danniven, with his three Canadian allies, bounded off, obviously to deal with the remaining invaders on the property. Isabelle's heart thumped faster. She desperately wanted her weapons located, to have them snug in her hand, so she would feel powerful amongst a group of supernatural beings.
Then again, if she happened to be Milev or Danniven, she wouldn't exactly trust a hunter with a weapon. Not when they could turn it upon a temporary ally.
Again, the betrayal of her so-called friends stuck in her head.
“Come on,” Milev urged, pressing his palm into her back. It left a burn mark there, where his warmth contacted, and it wasn't entirely unpleasant. She allowed herself to be pushed on, heard two more gunshots, and saw a collection of werewolf bodies on the living room of the farmhouse, surrounded by Danniven's four Canadian werewolves, and two Bulgarian ones. Blood dribbled onto the green carpet of a living room littered with trash, empty cans and tins, and Isabelle barely had time to fully register the sight of the deceased before Milev tried ushering her upstairs.
“Wait.” Isabelle held up a hand, and reached for one of the dead's sidearms. “These will be vanadium-enhanced, right?”