Rogue Wolf

by J. C. Diem

  “Mark has a plan to keep her out,” he said with a grin.

  “Always the boy scout,” I joked. “I need to take a shower. I have Zeus drool all over my clothes.”

  “Good thinking.” Leaning in close, he whispered in my ear so quietly that only I could hear him. “The only scent I want on you is mine.”

  My heart was thundering inside my chest as I took a change of clothes into the bathroom and took a rapid shower. It had slowed down by the time I’d dried myself off, but it increased again when I stepped into the bedroom and saw Reece in my bed.

  Get used to it, he said directly inside my head. I plan on sharing your bed as often as possible from now on.

  You’ll get no argument from me, I responded and climbed in next to him. His arms came around me and pulled me in close until we were chest to chest. Keeping in mind that we had an audience in the rooms below, our kiss was almost chaste. I fell asleep feeling more content than I ever had in my life before.

  ₪₪₪

  Chapter Eight

  Lips nuzzling my neck woke me the next morning. Aware that we’d have to get up soon, I enjoyed having Reece’s hard chest pressed up against my back. We’d never had a chance to simply enjoy each other before and we both wanted it to last. His hand trailed from my shoulder down to my fingertips. I was quickly warming up inside. My desire would quickly escalate out of control if he continued to touch me.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs and Edward called out. “Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes!”

  Reece groaned in disappointment. “That man has terrible timing,” he complained.

  “We’ll be down soon!” I called back loudly, remembering that his hearing wasn’t all that great.

  “How long will it take you to get ready?” Reece asked and resumed nuzzling my neck. His lips brushed against me and I knew we wouldn’t be leaving the bed until we were dragged out by Mark if we didn’t get up straight away.

  “Ten minutes,” I said and rolled out of his arms.

  Blowing out a sigh, he conceded defeat. “It must be a pain being a girl sometimes.”

  I pointed at his obvious sign of arousal with a grin. “At least we don’t have to walk around in that state.”

  Looking down, he smiled ruefully. “I can’t argue with that.” After a quick kiss, he headed to his room to get dressed. We met in the hall a few minutes later and walked downstairs hand in hand.

  Kala smirked when we entered the dining room. “It’s nice of you two love birds to finally join us.”

  “Did you leave us any food?” I asked. Her plate was heaped high with a selection of food.

  “Nope,” she said smugly. “Margaret had to cook more.”

  “I’ve never seen a young lady eat so much before,” the object of our conversation said as she wheeled in the trolley filled with more food. “I don’t know where you put it,” she said. Her tone was exasperated, yet held a certain fondness.

  Kala actually had the manners to swallow before speaking. “I have a very fast metabolism.” Her grin was winsome and could have melted the hardest of hearts, not that Margaret had one.

  “Sit down and eat before it gets cold,” our hostess ordered.

  We obeyed her and she dished me a meal that would have been far too large for an ordinary girl. My metabolism was just as quick as Kala’s now. I had no trouble consuming everything on my plate.

  Mark didn’t want to waste any time and declined a second cup of coffee when it was offered. We’d eaten quickly and were ready to leave. “Thank you for your hospitality, Margaret. We’ve very much enjoyed our stay here.”

  Blushing prettily, she waved his thanks away. “You and your team are welcome back here anytime. I imagine Bradbury will be a much nicer place to live now that certain members of the town are deceased.”

  A momentary silence descended when the rest of the squad realized that Margaret knew we were responsible for the coven’s deaths.

  I could see Mark trying to decide whether to call in the Mind Sweepers or not. “Margaret’s family has been the caretakers of Dawson’s Retreat for a very long time,” I said. “They’ve been aware of what the coven has been doing all along. Margaret’s mother tried to blow the whistle on them, but she wasn’t successful.”

  Nodding thoughtfully, Mark accepted the fact that there was no point trying to make her and Edward forget about a secret that they’d lived with for their entire lives. “We’d best be on our way. We have a long trip ahead.”

  We headed upstairs to retrieve our luggage. I’d left my suitcase near the door. The backpack that held my sniper rifle was hidden beneath my bed. I knelt to grab it then picked up my suitcase and headed downstairs again.

  Adding my key to the pile already sitting on the reception desk, I was the last one to the SUV. Zeus trotted over to me and I realized I’d forgotten to feed him. He sent me a mental picture of Margaret giving him his morning meal.

  “In you go, big guy,” I said and opened the door for him. He squeezed into the small space that was left when I shoved my bags inside. He shifted his bulk into a comfortable position. He leaned forward and rested his head on the back of the seat beside me when I climbed inside.

  Kala settled in beside me and closed her door. “Does he have to do that?” she complained. She had to lean forward so she could see past him.

  I nodded, smiling widely. “He knows how much it annoys you.”

  Crossing her arms in a huff, she scrunched herself as far away from him as she could get. “Stuck in a car for four hours with a mangy mutt. Make that three mangy mutts,” she said and spitefully kicked the back of Reece’s seat. Clearly, she wasn’t in a very good mood today.

  Mark turned and gave her a flat stare that had her subsiding into a sulky silence. I can see that this is going to be a fun trip, Reece said to me. We shared a smile in the rearview mirror.

  “Just don’t let Zeus anywhere near your food,” Flynn advised her. “He’ll snatch it out of your hands before you can blink.”

  “Is that what happened to your nuts?” she smirked.

  “Yes,” he said primly and elbowed me in the side when I sniggered.

  I’d never been on a road trip with siblings before. I could now see the camaraderie that I’d been missing all these years. I was sure the novelty would wear off quickly enough. I bet it had worn off long ago for Mark.

  ₪₪₪

  Chapter Nine

  Four hours was a very long time to be sitting still. Flynn and Kala grew bored enough to listen to music. They used earphones, but I was still bombarded on both sides.

  In the mood to read, I unbuckled my seatbelt and turned to rummage around in my suitcase. Reece had an excellent view of my butt in the rearview mirror and sent me a mental wolf whistle. I slanted him a glance over my shoulder and rolled my eyes. Finding my laptop, I pulled it out and sat back down.

  The battery was fully charged and it would last for the entire trip. I scrolled through the files that I’d downloaded before we’d left New Orleans, trying to choose from the selection. Now that everyone was aware of what my mother had become, there was no need to hide my research about vampires.

  Stopping on a file that looked interesting, I was soon engrossed. It was fascinating to read a mission that had been written by someone nearly a hundred years ago. The PIA had another name back then, but the job description was the same. They hunted down monsters and did their best to kill them.

  This mission had originally been started by a woman called Charity Jones. The record keepers in the PIA had scanned her notes and included them in the file. Her handwriting was neat and easy to read, but they’d been typed up as well.

  Examining the scanned original pages, I saw that it was a diary rather than mission notes. She hadn’t been an agent at all. She’d been a victim. Intrigued, everything else faded to the background as I began to read.

  Charity woke in the deep of night with the sense that something was terribly wrong. Her husband was sitting on top of her. He was pin
ning her down with his hands on her shoulders. He leaned down and ran his tongue across her throat. It was something he’d never done before and she shuddered in instinctive disgust rather than in pleasure.

  Whoever this man was, it wasn’t her husband. No warmth emanated from him. His tongue had been cold and so were the hands and legs that were holding her down. Her eyes adjusted to the small amount of light that came through a gap in the curtains as he sat up. His face was angular and pale. His lips parted to reveal bloody fangs when he grinned down at her. Until this moment, she hadn’t believed that vampires were real, but she couldn’t deny what her eyes were showing her.

  She turned to her husband to scream for help, but the plea died before it left her lips. He was far beyond being able to come to her rescue. His unblinking eyes were staring upwards and his throat was a bloodied ruin.

  “There will be no salvation for you.” The creature chuckled then tore her nightgown open. He’d fed deeply on her husband and he wanted more than just blood from her. Fear flashed in his eyes when he saw the cross that lay between her breasts. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he warded the holy symbol off with the other. “Take it off,” he ordered in a strangled voice.

  Ignoring his command, she lifted the cross, thankful for the long silver chain. She pressed the shiny metal against the hand that was futilely trying to shield the undead monster. Smoke immediately billowed from his palm and he shrieked so loudly that she was afraid her eardrums would burst. Face contorting in pain, he leaped off her. Casting an evil look at her over his shoulder, he crashed headfirst through the window. He fled into the darkness, wailing in agony with a trail of smoke following in his wake.

  Dreading what she’d find, she stumbled across the hall into the second bedroom. Just as she’d feared, her two children were dead. They’d been snatched from their beds and had been drained dry. Their lifeless bodies had been dropped to the floor. They were still warm when she gathered them into her arms. Too grief stricken to cry, she hummed a lullaby as she waited for the creature to return.

  Dawn came and still the vampire didn’t appear. Charity’s heart was filled with black rage. She knew it was wrong to want to seek revenge, but she couldn’t turn the other cheek against a vampire. Surely God would want her to seek vengeance against the abomination who had murdered her family.

  Her father had been a hunter and he’d taught her and her sister how to track, kill and butcher animals. It had been years since she’d utilized those old skills, but she hadn’t forgotten them. Dressing in an old pair of her husband’s pants, she tracked the monster. As he’d fled, he’d left scuffed footprints and broken twigs that even a child could have followed.

  His lair was a farmhouse nearly ten miles away. The rotting bodies of cows, horses and chickens littered the property. The animals had been slaughtered days ago. There was no doubt in her mind that her neighbors were also dead.

  Steeling herself, Charity mounted the stairs and entered the house. Dried blood caked the floor of the hallway, but the bodies were missing. She didn’t have to venture far inside before she found the vampire. He was lying on the floor of the living room. The windows were covered in boards, shutting out all of the light. He lay on his back, unmoving and dead to the world.

  Charity had come prepared to deal with the fiend. She’d heard enough stories about his kind to know what would kill him. Taking a wooden stake and hammer out of the bag that she’d carried, she straddled the slumbering creature, just as he’d done to her. His wounded hand lay palm up on the floor, revealing the cross mark that had been branded into his flesh. He didn’t stir at all when she pressed the sharp tip against his chest over where his heart lay. She pounded it into him and thick, dead blood sluggishly oozed from the wound.

  When the stake emerged through his back and stuck in the floorboard, she still wasn’t satisfied. She wasn’t willing to run the risk that the legends might be wrong. The next weapon she drew from her bag was an axe. Rusty and pitted, it wasn’t the most efficient tool, but it did the job.

  Grunting with effort, she chopped the vampire’s head off then carried it outside. She tossed it out into the sun and stumbled back in surprise when it burst into silver flames. Too weary and full of sorrow to see if his body had suffered a similar fate, she returned home to bury the bodies of her husband and children.

  Charity’s diary ended there, but the story didn’t. Someone else had continued the mission that she hadn’t realized wasn’t over. After reading through a few paragraphs, I realized her sister, Prudence, had taken up the mantle of vampire hunter.

  When Charity and her children didn’t come to visit her in town at the appointed time, Prudence grew worried. She drove out to their farm the next morning in a horse and buggy. Even before she entered the house, she knew that something was wrong. The children were far too quiet and a pall seemed to hang over the entire property.

  Pushing the front door open, she entered the house and saw signs of a struggle in the dining room. The table and two chairs had been overturned. Searching the house quickly, she found it to be empty of life. A terrible feeling of doom drove her to check the backyard. Three graves had been dug recently, probably only a few days ago. Her brother-in-law and her niece and nephew’s names had been carved into the hastily made crosses. While she mourned their loss, she was grateful that Charity’s name wasn’t on one of them.

  Desperate to find her missing sister, Prudence searched the house again. This time, she noticed a book lying on the floor near the overturned dining table. The handwriting belonged to her sister. She read the diary and didn’t doubt that it was the truth. Charity had always been the calm and sensible daughter. She didn’t have the imagination to make a story like this up.

  Prudence had married a man much older than herself. The town doctor, he’d been wealthy compared to most people in the small community. She’d been unable to conceive and he’d died a year ago, leaving her alone. Loneliness and boredom were slowly driving her towards a deep depression. She relied on her sister and her two children to keep the madness at bay.

  She was teetering on the edge of insanity when she finished reading the journal. Charity had killed the monster responsible for murdering her family, but there must have been more than one. The others had tracked her down and had carried her off, no doubt to do something unspeakable to her.

  While Prudence had put aside her tomboyish ways years ago, she hadn’t forgotten how to hunt. Unlike her sister, she had no intention of going after the vampires alone. A respected member of the community, she took the diary to town and called a meeting.

  Shock was the main reaction when she told the townsfolk why she needed their help. She read the final few passages of Charity’s diary out loud, hoping they would believe the words that her sister had recorded.

  Recognition showed on a few of the older faces, but most people looked at her as if she was mad. One man believed her without question and voiced his opinion.

  “We need to find these bloodsuckers and burn them before they come for the rest of us,” William said loudly enough to be heard by all who had gathered in the town hall. No one knew his exact age, but he was shrunken, wrinkled and almost blind. “If Charity is still alive, she won’t be your sister anymore,” he warned her.

  “You don’t really believe that vampires are real,” someone protested.

  “Maybe they are, or maybe they aren’t,” the town mayor said. “Someone killed Mr. Jones and his children. I mean to find out who is responsible and to punish them accordingly.” Hank was more bluster than anything, but his words inspired the men to form a posse.

  Prudence refused to stay behind with the rest of the womenfolk and joined the men on the hunt. Armed with shotguns, knives and an assortment of weapons, they rode out to the farmhouse that Charity had mentioned in her diary.

  The vampires were arrogant in their belief that they were superior to humans. They’d returned to their lair after taking Charity rather than choosing another location to hide in. Bearin
g flaming torches, the hunting party searched the house and found lifeless corpses in every room. Their flesh was cold, but they didn’t smell like death.

  “Vampires,” Hank declared grimly. “You know what to do to them.” The posse nodded in wordless agreement.

  Prudence found her sister in the largest bedroom. Naked, she was in the bed, lying between two of the creatures that had stolen her life. Her sorrow changed to resolve when she saw blood on Charity’s mouth. As William had said, her sister was gone. Only a shell full of evil remained. Her last act of love for her sibling would be to put her to rest.

  Dragging the two male vampires out of the bed, she left them on the floor for the posse to take care of. Tenderly covering Charity’s nakedness with a blanket, Prudence placed her stake against her sister’s chest and hammered it home. Tears blinded her, mercifully blurring the gruesome sight.

  When the stake was deep inside Charity, Prudence collapsed on the bed beside her and succumbed to sobs. Hank and one of the other men found her and carried her outside while the posse finished their grim task.

  They were methodical in their eradication of the vampire nest. They found eleven monsters in total. They used the same method that Charity had to destroy them. Staking and then beheading them, they burned the entire house down for good measure.

  Grief stricken, Prudence couldn’t continue living in the town where she’d lost her only relatives. She sold her house and went in search of a new life. A few months later, now living in Boston, she met a man from a secret organization that sought out and eradicated monsters. After hearing her sad tale, he talked her into joining his team of hunters.

  Prudence expected to spend the rest of her life miserable and alone. Instead, she fell in love with the man who had recruited her. He was several years younger than her, but he fell for her as well. Ignoring convention and the gossip that they’d never last due to their age difference, they’d eloped six months later.