by L. C. Davis
Ulric rolled his eyes. “It's talk like that that makes me afraid to send you out on missions. Even Sebastian knows when to take things seriously.”
“Nah, I'm just screwing around, old man. I'm a one-guy kinda wolf,” he said proudly. “Mav's sweet, so I wanna help.”
“His master won't give him over willingly,” I said, looking hopefully at Ulric. “And I don't think we want to explain hunters to a human.”
“No,” he growled. “I know what you're getting at and the answer is no.”
“But Maverick trusts us both,” I said. “I can use my ability to convince his master to let him come with us.”
“I said no, Remus.”
“If I can't use at least one vampire trait to help someone I love, then what the fuck makes me worth protecting while you kill the rest of them?” I demanded, raising my voice more than I would have liked.
Ulric's eyes narrowed as he peered at me over his folded hands. I didn't regret my words, but I did regret losing my temper when the room fell silent.
“What's going on?” Victor's voice broke the silence but not the tension as he entered the room carrying what looked like a small cooler.
“I think your mate is about to get grounded,” Hunter whispered.
The scent coming from the box was starting to draw my attention, but not enough to distract me from Ulric's impending wrath. “Your mate has gotten it into his head that he's going out on a rescue mission to bring Maverick here.” I was “your mate” now, not Remus or “my son.” His tone was eerily calm. I think I would have preferred anger.
“What? No,” Victor said, glancing down at me. His voice turned stern. “You're crazy if you think you're stepping foot out of this Lodge,” he said, echoing Ulric much too closely for my liking.
Ulric raised his hands in mock surrender. “You're the one who chose him, Remus.”
“We're going after Maverick?” Victor asked Ulric, as if the matter had been settled between us by a simple no. As much as I hated to admit it, it probably had.
“Yes, Brendan has volunteered. I'll find his friend Arthur myself. He's at the college, it'll be an easy enough trip,” he said. “His concern about Maverick's master is relevant, though, after the incident earlier in the week.”
“I'll go,” said Victor. “I can make sure Steven complies easily enough.”
“Sebastian is already MIA,” said Brendan. Word traveled faster than I thought. “We can't afford to have our alpha and his second-in-command missing, too. I'm not into all the mind games, but I deal with egotistical assholes like him all the time. Let me handle it.”
“And if talking doesn't work?” asked Victor.
“Then I'll knock him the fuck out. What's he gonna do, report an adult stolen?”
Ulric sighed. “You can go, but if you see any signs of a hunter, you are not to engage unless absolutely necessary, understood?”
“Roger that, boss dog,” Brendan said, saluting as he moved towards the door. “Be right back.”
“Be careful,” Victor called after him.
My heart clenched painfully. “Please let me go with him, Victor,” I begged. So many people I loved were in danger now because of me and now Brendan was added to the list.
“Absolutely not.”
Ulric stood from his desk and pulled on his jacket. “Where can I find this boy, Remus?”
“He's in the dormitory that's the closest building to the Lodge. It backs up to the forest, and it's room 337 on the third floor,” I said, feeling the slightest twinge of guilt that wasn't at all related to Victor. I had just railed at Ulric like a disrespectful child and here he was, prepared to go out and save a friend of mine he'd never even met. I fumbled through my wallet and breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn't thrown my ID card away. “Here, you'll need this to get in.” My phone still had a selfie Arthur had taken of us when I was still living on campus, so I showed it to him. “This is what he looks like.
He took the card and examined the photo for a moment before nodding to us all on his way out the door. “I won't be long,” he promised.
“Ulric, wait!” He stopped and looked at me in confusion as I ran over to his side. I leaned up and wrapped my arms tightly around his neck. He tensed up at first, but gradually returned the hug as best as he knew how. “I'm sorry,” I spoke quietly into his ear. “Thank you for doing this for me, but please be careful. I'm not ready to lose you after I just found you.”
As I pulled away, I couldn't help but notice the slightest bit of moisture in his eyes. “Don't be silly,” he said, patting my cheek as he stepped out of the room. “Hit the age of forty and everyone acts like you're going crumble like a statue every time you make a trip across the damn town,” he grumbled as he strode down the hallway.
I turned away from the door, only to find Hunter watching me with a sad, almost wistful smile and Victor hunched over the strange box, rummaging through it. “You're lucky,” said Hunter. “I'd give anything to have a father like that.”
“Yeah,” I murmured. “I really am.”
“Remus, come here,” said Victor. It was a command, not an invitation.
“What's that?” I asked, eying the box warily.
“It's a supply of blood since human donors aren't practical right now,” he said, lifting the top of the cooler to reveal six one-pint bags filled with dark red liquid. Now I understood what the confusing mixture of scents had been. Blood behaved a lot like food to vampires. When it was hot and fresh, coursing through the vein, its scent was easy to distinguish. When it was chilled or frozen, the scent lingered but wasn't overpowering.
“Where did you get this?” I asked warily. “From the hospital?”
“Does it matter?” he asked.
“Doesn't that stuff save lives?”
“Oh my God,” Hunter laughed. “A vampire who's morally conflicted about drinking from a blood bag. Now I've seen everything.”
“This was the excess blood they were going to throw out because they had too much of the same type,” said Victor, a bit too quickly for my liking. I was doubtful of his explanation, but too thirsty to question him any further.
Sitting down, I picked up one of the bags and ripped off the top with my teeth, drinking from the neck of it like a bottle.
“You tear off the little --” Victor trailed off. “Or that works, too.”
My face grew warm, but the taste of human blood was too good to dwell on my embarrassment or the fact that Hunter and Victor were watching me. The chilled temperature kept it from tasting stale and while it was certainly nothing compared to blood fresh from the vein, it didn't conjure up the unsettling urge to rip someone's throat out, either.
The bag was drained in less than a minute and I only realized I had stopped breathing when I started panting once I was done. Embarrassment set in once the thirst was under control and I discretely tried to wipe a droplet of blood off the corner of my mouth.
“I guess that answers that question,” said Victor.
“What question?”
“Whether you could survive off of bagged blood, at least temporarily,” he replied.
“He could potentially survive off of no blood,” said Hunter, falling into one of the chairs. “The problem is, he'd snap and kill a bunch of people before we got to find out for how long.”
Victor winced. “Thank you, Hunter. Did you need something?”
“No, but you do,” he replied. “I was telling Remus I had a plan to keep your Lodge safe, but I think he was a little distracted by your brother's disappearance.”
“A plan?” he asked doubtfully.
“Yeah, a lot of the books in your library are grimoires or spell books, back from the days when supernaturals used to actually believe in the supernatural,” he said. “I found one that we might be able to use to keep the hunters out.”
“A spell?” Victor's doubt increased tenfold. “There's a reason we traded that garbage in for medical science and engineering.”
“Yeah, well, when yo
u can engineer a way to keep the hunters out, let me know.”
“Let's hear him out, Victor,” I said, turning to face him. “Sarah put enough stock in a ritual that she was willing to kidnap me to do it. She might be evil and manipulative, but she isn't crazy. If there's even a chance at keeping everyone safe, it's worth a shot.”
“Don't get ahead of yourself until you hear what the ritual involves,” Hunter warned me. “You've heard the old wives' tail about vampires not being able to cross thresholds without being invited in?”
“Of course,” I said, glancing around. “Doesn't seem to be very true in my case.”
“That's because the one who cursed the vampires was killed, breaking the spell. Ask any wolf over the age of sixty and he'll tell you it used to be the case.”
“I don't get it,” I said, my hope in the plan fading. “If the person who placed the curse is dead, how are we supposed to get them to place one on the hunters?”
“We're not. The witch is dead, but she left her grimoire behind,” he said, smirking. “It's not just for vampires. There are banishing spells for all sorts of different creatures you might want to keep away, even wolves.”
“So we wouldn't have to curse all the hunters?” I asked hopefully.
“Nope. We'd be cursing the Lodge, technically speaking. The threshold, specifically. I'm nowhere near powerful enough to curse an entire species, but I can handle what looks like a pretty straightforward banishing spell.”
“You speak as though you have experience in the matter, Hunter,” Victor said suspiciously.
Hunter shrugged. “Let's just say I spent a lot of time as a kid trying out gender switching spells. Obviously that didn't work, but I figured out a lot of stuff that did in the process. I've been hooked ever since.”
“So you're a warlock-wolf?” I asked.
He laughed. “I prefer to think of myself as an open-minded occultist, but that works.”
“If what you're saying is true, you'd be able to keep the hunters from attacking anyone within these walls, is that right?” asked Victor.
“That's the idea. There's no spell in the book specifically for banishing hunters,” he admitted. “But there was one for the undead in general and hunters are about as undead as it gets.”
I shuddered at the thought that I had been lusting after the blood of something that wasn't even alive.
“Wait, won't that keep Remus out?” Victor asked, frowning. For someone who didn't believe in this “garbage,” he seemed concerned.
“Nope. Vampires aren't truly dead,” he explained. “Their hearts still beat, which is why we can stake them. A hybrid is even more alive, if possible. Hunters, on the other hand, don't even have a heartbeat.”
“But what about their blood?” I asked. “I smelled it so strongly.”
“It's a trick. Hunters aren't really born until they die and go through this super creepy ritual. Once the human host is dead, legend has it that the original “Patriarch” of the hunter line puts a little bit of his soul into each dead initiate to reanimate them. They're physically dead, but his spirit lets them continue on as if they were living without their bodies rotting or decaying. They secrete a pheromone that makes vampires hallucinate the irresistible aroma of sunlight and even hear a heartbeat, but it's a lie.”
A fresh wave o nausea came over me. “I don't understand. Why would their Patriarch give bits of his soul away?”
“So he can control them,” Hunter said simply. “It's like sticking your fingers into a puppet and manipulating the different pieces. It might look like the puppet is moving on its own, but really, you're the one who's always in control.”
“They allow that?” asked Victor.
“I'm not sure they have much of a choice,” said Hunter. “Their family units are super close. They're made up of only five interconnected families in the entire world, as far as I can tell. Your old prof was raised and indoctrinated in their whacked-out Stepford cult from birth. If there's anything left of the person he was before he died and came back, he's probably so brainwashed he's honored to be a new host for his parasitic ancestor.”
The blood turned in my stomach. “What do you need to do the ritual?”
“Yeah, this is the hard part. I need blood from a werewolf, so, check,” he said, pointing to himself. “Then I need blood from a vampire.”
“Of course,” I said immediately. Victor was clearly displeased, but his curiosity outweighed his disbelief for the moment.
“That's not the hard part.” He leaned forward, looking intently at us. “We also need the blood of a human and then we have to combine all three, dip a wooden stake into it, and stake a vampire over the threshold on the first night of the full moon.”
“What?” Victor rose out of his seat. “That's absurd. There's no way that's in the grimoire.”
“Victor, I've staked myself before and I'm still here,” I said, following him. “This could keep us all safe, me included.”
“Prentice's letter admitted a stake isn't enough to kill him,” said Hunter. “If he's already been staked, he'd definitely be fine. Or we could always find another vampire.”
“No! No one else is getting dragged into this because of me. Getting staked would kill any other vampire.”
“It's not like it there's a shortage of them who deserve to die!” Victor yelled.
I winced. His anger faded into guilt almost immediately and he took my face in his hands. “I'm sorry, but it's the truth. You aren't like the others. You have no idea what they're like, you've been completely sheltered from this world.”
“I'd say getting being turned into a pawn for Sarah's ritual was a pretty good crash course,” I muttered.
“Yes, but Sarah is just the tip of the iceberg. You know I of all people don't have a black-and-white perspective on vampires, but we have to be realistic,” he said gently. “If we can find a deserving vampire to execute and protect the pack, there's no way I'm going to risk you unnecessarily.”
“That's not an execution, Victor, it's a sacrifice and you know it,” I hissed, jerking away from his touch. “If you do this, the blood is on my hands, not yours. I'm fighting so hard to resist those instincts, to fight the bloodlust, but how am I supposed to remember what it's like to be human if I can't even act like one?”
Victor fell silent, but his burning gaze told me I hadn't come close to changing his mind.
“I should let you guys talk this out,” said Hunter, taking the pin out of the silence. “Relay the info to Ulric and remember, you have until the full moon to decide. I'll go ahead and start preparing for the ritual.”
“Thank you,” muttered Victor. “I'll be sure to discuss the matter with Ulric once he returns.” His emphasis on Ulric's name didn't escape me. In other words, the decision was to be made between my father and mate, not me.
Victor had always been the one I could count on to respect my decisions, in or out of the dungeon. I wasn't sure if I liked this new side of him. For the first time since Jeff, I didn't feel like I was being dominated, just controlled.
10
Victor and I sat in uninterrupted silence while we waited for the others in Ulric's study. My anger over the vampire situation was beginning to take a backseat to concern for Ulric and Brendan. They had both been gone less than an hour, but even a minute outside the artificial safety of the Lodge walls seemed like too much of a risk.
“I'm going to wait downstairs,” I said, running to the door before he could forbid me from that, too. His footsteps followed close behind me, but no command was issued.
I took up my post leaning against the front desk, waiting for the front door to open and hoping desperately for it to be one or both of them. Everyone else should have been inside after Ulric's mandatory curfew. Victor sat in one of the big leather armchairs by the fire and already appeared deep in thought. I watched the door for a while longer, and the next time I looked in his general direction, he was staring at me. Gazing, really. The wistful look seemed so out of plac
e in the context of our argument only moments before.
“What?” I asked warily.
“I was just thinking, this is exactly where we both were when I saw you for the first time,” he said. “At least, when I first saw you for the first time in person.”
“Oh.” I crossed my arms and leaned back against the desk. I wasn't emotionally adept enough anymore to switch between anger and nostalgia so quickly, but I also didn't want to deny his olive branch. “I bet if you'd known how much trouble I'd bring into your life, things would have been different.”
“Damn right.” He snorted. “I never would have entered you in that competition, for one thing. I would have taken you off somewhere until you agreed to hear me out.”
“I'm glad you didn't,” I said, watching him closely.
“And why is that?”
“Because that's the reason I'm hear with you now and not Sebastian,” I admitted. “The competition aside, you've always treated me like a person, not just a mate or a wolf or a vampire. Sebastian tried to stake his claim immediately, but you waited until I was ready. You've always just accepted me for who I am, wherever I'm at, and respected my own choices.”
“And I still do,” he said earnestly. “But this is different from letting you choose your own mate. This is your life we're talking about.”
“Not just mine,” I reminded him. “All of their lives, everyone in the Lodge.”
“This isn't up for discussion,” he said sternly, standing from his chair. “Besides, I hear someone coming.”
I turned to the door, hoping he wasn't just trying to distract me. The handle turned and Brendan walked in wearing different clothes from the ones he had left in—the new ones obviously didn't fit him—and carrying Maverick in his arms. I ran to them and realized that Maverick was unconscious with drops of blood spattered on his troubled face and his soft yellow sweater. His lip was split and swollen and there was an unmistakable shadow over his left eye as well as a small bruise forming on his forehead.
“What happened? Are you alright?” The blood definitely wasn't Maverick's. As long as I had tasted blood once, I could identify it later. It wasn't Brendan's, either.