by Kailin Gow
Kevin was a wolf again then, stalking forward in a slow circuit around his home, then transforming again by the door to wave her over. Briony went to him willingly. It was easy to do it when he was standing there looking so good. Good, but tired. Right then, Kevin looked like he could barely stay standing much longer. Perhaps Briony wasn’t the only one who needed a pause in all the running and fighting.
They made their way inside. Briony put the duffle bag down on a table in the cabin’s tiny main room, while Kevin headed over to his bedroom, pretty much just collapsing onto the bed. Briony sat on the edge of it for a second, looking down at the broad expanse of Kevin’s back.
“I’ll be back in a minute or two,” she said, and went into the kitchen to make coffee. It was just a little thing, but making it was just so normal, and it reminded Briony that she was, for the moment at least, home. She took her time with the coffee, half expecting to find Kevin asleep when she got back. Instead, she found him sitting up on top of the covers, looking as refreshed as if he had just slept for hours.
“How can you be awake?” she asked.
“It’s the same part of me that heals quickly,” Kevin explained. “You know werewolves recover from exertion quickly.”
“Not that quickly.”
Kevin shrugged. “Well, maybe there are a few hangovers from spending time in Palisor after all.” He looked at Briony for a second or two, then seemed almost to force himself to look away, looking down at the cup Briony was holding instead. “Is that for me?”
Kevin’s voice was different as he said it. Thicker. Richer somehow.
“Yes,” Briony said, reaching out to hand him the cup. Kevin took it, setting it aside with a level of care that was almost delicate, as though he were convinced that he would crush it if he didn’t exercise control right then. Briony leaned a little closer to him.
“Kevin, are you okay?”
Kevin grabbed her so fast that Briony actually let out a small shriek of surprise, but that shriek quickly turned to other sounds as Kevin kissed her with so much passion that Briony couldn’t help kissing him back. She felt the same way about him. His arms pressed her against the broad, muscular planes of his chest, and Kevin just kept kissing her, exploring Briony’s mouth with his in a way that made it clear that he didn’t plan to stop anytime soon.
The pheromones, Briony thought. It has to be the pheromones. It’s affecting me as much as Kevin.
Did it? Couldn’t what Kevin felt for her be natural? After all, they’d come so close the last time they’d spent time together here, and Briony… well, she’d wanted him almost from the moment she saw him. Yet this was stronger. Right here, right now, it wasn’t just that they loved one another. There was an immediate, almost animal need between them that could only be from the kind of thing Josh had warned her about.
That was enough for Briony to break the kiss, but she didn’t pull back from Kevin completely. She wasn’t sure if she could right then. Instead, she lay there and turned so that her head was on his chest, her hand tracing the contours of his stomach. Part of her wanted to stay like that forever, just forgetting everything around them. Part of her wanted to go so much further than that. What would it be like to give herself to Kevin that way?
Kevin chose that moment to kiss her again, and this time they rolled over so that Kevin was above her. He paused, Briony’s face held gently between his hands. Briony stared up at him.
“I have never wanted you more than I want you now,” she whispered.
“I feel the same,” Kevin replied. “It’s like all I can feel is desire for you.”
“I want you so much it scares me a little,” Briony said.
Kevin looked like he might kiss her again then, and Briony knew that if he did, they would not stop. They would not be patient, or hold back any longer. That thought was almost, almost enough to make her close the distance to his lips.
Then Kevin pulled back slightly. “I’ve told you before that I’ll wait for you to be ready,” he said, “and I meant it, Briony. I mean it. I want you. I want you with every inch of my body, but I’m only going to go there with you when I’m sure that it’s me you want. Me and only me.”
Briony almost said yes without thinking. She almost swore to Kevin that she only wanted him, and that she would do whatever he wanted if only he would give in and take things further with her. Yet in that moment, Fallon’s face swam into her mind’s eye and she knew that she couldn’t.
Fallon. Always Fallon. He was cool where Kevin was all heat, almost beautiful where his brother was ruggedly handsome. Choosing Kevin would mean not choosing Fallon, and Briony still didn’t know if she could do that. She loved Kevin, she was certain of that, but she loved Fallon just as much. Choosing, there and then, once and for all, simply didn’t feel right. Despite everything that she’d been through, despite everything they’d been through, Briony knew that she wasn’t ready to make that level of commitment to one of them. Not yet.
Maybe not ever? That thought flashed across Briony’s mind like a comet and was gone. Would she ever be ready to choose one of them over the other, or were the three of them destined to forever play out this waiting game? Briony thought of how long the hugtandalfer could live then. Forever meant a lot longer for her today than it had just a week or two ago. Yet that was exactly why Briony couldn’t make a decision based on just her immediate desire for Kevin, however much her body ached as it urged her to.
She slid from under him, standing with a shake of her head. “Not yet, Kevin. Not like this.”
For a moment Briony saw the hurt that flashed across his features before the spill of his hair hid them from view. She wanted to comfort him in that moment, but there was no touch of reassurance Briony could give Kevin that wouldn’t make things worse. So much worse.
The moment didn’t last though. Kevin stood too, and he had a casual smile in place. Briony wondered briefly how hard it was for him to hold it there.
“Why don’t we have a look at what’s in that bag we dug up?” Kevin suggested. It was obviously an attempt to distract them both from the attraction still running through the room, but right then, Briony was more than willing to go along with it. Besides, if her feelings about the bag were right, it might represent everything they had worked so hard to achieve in Palisor.
“I guess after everything we went through to get it,” Briony said, “we should at least look at the contents.”
There was still the padlock on the duffle bag to contend with, of course, but that was a simple thing designed to keep out prying human hands. It didn’t last more than a second or two under the pressure of Kevin’s grip, falling away broken to allow Briony to tip the contents of the bag out onto the table on which it had sat.
Those contents consisted of a simple box covered in dark velvet, a few inches on each side. Briony recognized it instantly as the box in which her mother had kept her jewelry. It was at the same time both exciting and slightly disappointing. On the one hand, Briony was excited by the prospect of any connection to her mother she could get. That part of her wanted to open up the box and run the contents through her fingers in a way she had never been allowed to as a child. Yet at the same time, the box clearly wasn’t big enough to hold a full scepter. Meaning that Briony had been wrong.
Yet her feelings had drawn her to this box. They had led her out from the Edge Inn to the correct spot to dig, and they had pulsed with a steady connection to the contents of the bag ever since. How could the scepter not be there after all that? There was only one way to find out.
Briony opened the box as carefully as she could. Items shone within, and each one brought back memories of her mother that made tears spring to Briony’s eyes. There were the earrings her father had bought for her mother as an anniversary present. There was the cheap costume jewelry ring Briony had bought her mother when she was very little, and hadn’t known the difference, insisting that it had diamonds in it. There were necklaces and brooches, rings and earrings, each with a brief m
oment of joy and pain attached.
And there, at the center, was a pendant. It was what looked like silver at first glance, but now that Briony was able to look at it properly, she could see that it was white gold. There were stones around the outside that seemed to shift depending on the angle of the light, looking first like sapphires, then like rubies, and finally like clear diamonds. A much larger stone sat at the center, and this swirled with color, so that for Briony it was like looking into the shifting depths of a storm.
She had always admired this pendant when her mother had worn it, but now she could feel the connection to it, urging Briony to protect it and hold it. Briony tried imagining it with a shaft of some kind attached, and she found the image of it at the end of a long silver rod springing into her mind. In that moment, Briony knew that for all that it was the wrong shape, this was what she had been searching for.
This was the part of the scepter that mattered.
Chapter 18
As Briony stared at the pendant in her hand, letting the chain leading to it spill onto the table, feeling it pulse there in a way that almost felt alive when she lifted it, a piece of paper fell from the back of its casing. Briony barely noticed the paper, as she stared mesmerized by the pendant, while Kevin bent down to pick it up. Kevin was about to hand her the paper when Briony began glowing along with the pendant. It was the kind of glow that emanated from her when she threw energy-looking balls at the vampires earlier, but brighter, stronger. A bridge had formed between Briony and the pendant, as though Briony was absorbing what was in the pendant.
The pendant held the essences of hugtandalfer rulers stretching back for millennia. Even without its body, Briony knew instinctively that the scepter’s head held enough power to allow her to control all the gates in Palisor if she wanted. Enough power, potentially, to stop Marcus and his kind. Enough to do other things? Briony could remember the rumor, the one Marcus’ brother had told her, that the scepter could cure a vampire’s condition without killing them. Was that true?
Briony didn’t know, but she could feel something pass between her and the pendant. She could feel the power beneath her fingertips, but yet, it was not enough for her to know how to use it.
Yet as Briony concentrated on the scepter, she thought she saw something: a shifting arch of white mist in a clearing. The gate.
“I think we have to go back to the gate,” she said to Kevin.
“You’re sure?”
“I can see it. I think I’m meant to go to it.”
“But the gates move around,” Kevin pointed out. “It could be anywhere.”
Briony shook her head. “It’s still where it was. I can see it. I can feel it. I know how strange that has to sound, but I can.”
Kevin shrugged. “It’s no stranger than being able to feel out the spot where the scepter was hidden.”
That was true, but it also meant that their pause in Kevin’s home was at an end. Briony didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. She was plunging back into danger, but it seemed to her that there was another kind of danger in being alone in the cabin with Kevin too long. They set out, heading for the gate. As much as possible, Briony didn’t ride on Kevin’s back, walking alongside him instead in order to allow the werewolf to conserve his strength. It was likely that, whatever they found at the gate, they would need it. Yet they also needed to hurry, and that meant clinging to Kevin while trying to keep a grip on both the pendant and her sword as he ran.
They stopped to rest briefly, stopping at a stream for water. As Briony was drinking water from Kevin’s cupped hands, he said, “Briony, back at the cabin when you held up the pendant, something fell out from it.”
Briony’s eyes widen. There was a manual for how to use the scepter?
Briony stopped drinking water from Kevin’s hands, and he wiped his hands on his jeans before pulling out the paper from his pocket. “Here it is.”
Briony took one look at it, and smiled. It was a paper that her mother had always used to write Aunt Sophie. Briony unfolded it and read the content. When she was done, she folded it back up and placed it in her pocket. There were tears in her eyes as she smiled back at Kevin, and a look of love that melted his heart.
Kevin cleared his throat. “So, was that a manual of some kind?” he joked.
“In a way,” Briony said. “It was a note from my mother. She said that she was sorry she never told me about my father and about Palisor, and by the time I would find this note, it would mean King Waltham was dead and Palisor would be facing strife. She had tried to shield me from the responsibilities that I would inherit, but since I was of Waltham’s blood, my destiny would find me.” Briony paused for a second and then she said, “Mom also predicted what would happen when I become Queen. I can’t tell you now, since I don’t understand what she meant, too.”
Kevin reached over and pulled her into his arms. He kissed her forehead and said, “No matter what your destiny is or isn’t, I bet your mother was and always will be proud of you.”
Briony stood on tiptoes and kissed Kevin softly, luxuriating in this moment where she could be alone with him. She felt her love for him grow at that moment, and from what was written in her mother’s note to her, she felt as though she should cherish every moment like this, as much as she could.
Kevin broke off the kiss this time and said, “We have to get going or we’ll miss the gate.” He shifted back into a wolf, and they took off again.
After fifteen minutes or so, they reached the trail that could take them deeper into the forest, and Briony got off Kevin’s back to walk again. Kevin transformed back into his human shape to walk alongside her, though even then he padded along with the dangerous grace of a wolf. Briony watched him as she walked, part of her desperately wishing that she could have said yes to him back at the cabin, part of her grateful that she hadn’t.
She was thinking so hard about that she barely noticed the figure who stumbled out of the trees onto the path. He was dressed in modern clothing, and looked like a good looking young man in his early twenties, but Briony knew the signs by now.
“Vampire!” she called out to Kevin, as the man lunged forward at them. Briony twisted aside, and her newfound speed and strength meant that she could trip the vampire easily, twisting his arm behind him. This wasn’t one of Marcus’ vampires. This was one of Pietre’s, and one of his weaker ones at that. Briony knew that if she wanted to, she could stake him as easily as Aunt Sophie had staked vampires once she came into her power.
Yet for the moment at least, she didn’t. Instead, she gestured for Kevin to hold the vampire tightly, while she moved around to face him.
“What are you doing here?” Briony demanded.
“I won’t tell you anything.”
“Then I’ll kill you. Or you could talk, and live a little longer.”
The vampire barely even hesitated. “I’m heading to the gate. Marcus’ vampires were there, but then they moved away from it. I was with Pietre when his vampires tried to ambush them.”
“But you’re not dead,” Briony pointed out. She knew what Marcus’ vampires could do.
“I ran away.” The vampire didn’t seem particularly ashamed of that. “Once I saw Pietre and Marcus fighting, I ran. I figured that if I waited by the gate, I might be able to sneak through.”
Briony looked at the vampire carefully, trying to tell if he was lying. “Pietre and Marcus were fighting?”
“Until Pietre ran. Though he stopped at the edge of the battle and let Marcus see him.” The vampire looked confused. “I don’t know why he did that.”
Briony could only think of one reason. “He wanted him to follow, but why? Where was he headed?”
“I don’t know,” the vampire insisted. “Before the fight, they were talking about the diner, but…” The vampire didn’t finish and twisted free of Briony’s grip, running for the trees. Almost without thinking, Briony incinerated the vampire with a ball of fire.
“We need to get to the diner,” Briony
said.
“Even though he could be lying?” Kevin pointed out. “This could just be a ploy to keep you away from the gate, and you know the scepter is drawing you there.”
Briony shook her head. “We can’t take that risk. It’s obvious Pietre is planning to use Marcus to kill the Preservation Society by leading him to the diner. That would be carnage.”
Kevin nodded. “Manipulating him that way sounds like the kind of thing Pietre would do.”
“So we have to get there and stop it,” Briony said. By the time she’d finished saying it, Kevin was already in his wolf form. Briony didn’t know what it would look like, riding through town on the back of a wolf, but right then she didn’t care. Not with her friends’ lives at stake. She fastened the chain of the scepter/pendant around her neck and then climbed onto his back.
By the time they got to the diner though, Briony needn’t have worried about the way things looked. The space around it looked like a war zone. A couple of cars parked by the curb in front of the place were wrecked, while there actually seemed to be some kind of moat running around the building. Water was spraying through the air from hidden sprinklers, and there were men and women laying on the ground who looked like they’d been caught in some kind of bomb blast, so badly were they burned.
No, Briony realized as she got closer, not men and women. Vampires. Pietre’s vampires. He’d obviously found some on his way into town and they’d been part of whatever attack was going on, but they’d been sprayed with what had to be holy water. Briony was in such a hurry to get inside that she didn’t even pause to finish them with her sword. She just ran straight for the diner’s door. A vampire got in her way and Briony cut it down. Another stepped up…
…and died as a stake flew across the room from some kind of gun George was holding. Jill was there too, swinging around a silver chain that kept vampires dancing back away from it. There weren’t many in the diner, but there were enough to make it chaos in there. Briony spotted Fallon towards the back, fighting alongside Percy, Pete’s nephew. Of Pete himself there was no sign.