Eventually they came to an underground lake. Its waters were always quiet and clear. You could see through but never to the bottom. Lavario didn’t know if it had one. He often came here when he needed to escape. The idea of a lake that continued onward to eternity appealed to him at those times.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“It is Wraith Loch. There is a romantic tale that the dead speak here.”
Her voice was a hopeful whisper, “Is that true?”
“Doubtful but possible.” Lavario told her. “I have never heard their voices. But it’s a quiet place to read and would be a peaceful place to die.”
She didn’t take his meaning at first. Her mind was caught on the idea of the dead speaking. Hopeful, she sunk down on her knees at the edge of the shore. Water instantly accommodated the shape of her knees, bending around the imprint of her body. Amber called out the names of her family members in her head. She said them over and over again when she heard nothing.
Lavario tried to reach out to her with his own thoughts, knowing full well it didn’t work that way. Cruel as it was, he’d have to spell it out for her. “I will leave the door to the passage open to you,” he said. “Should I die, you can come here and slip away or you can stay and try to fight. Your choice.”
Sudden jolts of fear notified Lavario she’d received his message. Outwardly, she continued to stare at the lake, begging it to give her a sentence or two of comfort in a familiar voice. She’d settle for a word. A sign. Her thoughts hiccupped as though interrupted by weeping.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: OH YEAH, REVENGE
Mazgan came into his apartment without invitation. Lavario and Amber smelled of the lake, like earth and magic. Lavario didn’t think anything of it until Mazgan said, “You took a human to the Loch?”
The fact the Alpha Guardian cared about the lake was news to Lavario. In all his years visiting the area, he’d only ever seen Mazgan on its shore during binding ceremonies, unions similar to human weddings. To say the alpha’s anger felt situationally advantageous was an understatement. Unimpressed, Lavario waved him off. “Yes. Yes. I took her there.”
“Sacrilege!”
Lavario chuckled at the pretension. “Who are you here to impress? Certainly not me.” When Mazgan showed his teeth but remained silent, Lavario tiredly asked, “Why are you here?”
Mazgan corrected him, “Alpha Guardian. You keep forgetting, Lavario.”
Sensing he was in for a protracted ordeal, Lavario slipped on his comfortable house shoes and coat and sat down in one of his plushest armchairs. After he felt Boo Haggish enough, he repeated, “Why are you here?”
Chest puffed out, head elevated as though looming over an entire crowd of enraptured servants, Mazgan grandstanded. “I am here to tell you I won. Kijo is mine. Your days are over. I look forward to watching you die.”
“There. I have been told.” Lavario swept his hand in the direction of the door. “Off you go, then.”
Mazgan struggled for mastery of his emotions. Feeling smug, Lavario watched him get tangled in the leash of his own temper. More than anything, the alpha wanted to use violence. Lavario could see it in his posture, the way he fought off transformation. Would he be fool enough to make it physical between them? Lavario certainly hoped so. Such an altercation wouldn’t change Lavario’s situation, but it would prove satisfying.
Using one claw, and one only, Lavario tapped on the wooden arm of his chair and pushed again. “Anything else?”
Mazgan swallowed hard. Rage was as unfriendly going down as it was coming up from the looks of it. “Mercy is not below me, Lavario. I offer you death at my hand. It would save our darling Kijo the heartbreak of killing her maker.”
“How very un-Varcolac of you. And for her.”
“It would be public. You would submit—”
“Oh yes. You want it to be your big moment. Proud Boo Hag Lavario brought low by the rightful Alpha Guardian of the Varcolac.”
“It is for Kijo’s sake.”
“Kijo is fine.”
Mazgan lashed out at the nearest wall. Unsatisfied, he scanned the room for something better, something to make Lavario regret his disobedience and his haughtiness. His gaze settled on Amber the same way it settled on Tovin back at the Isangelous dinner hall.
Apprehensive, Amber had watched the exchange very sure Mazgan was the stronger of them. Anger and hair-trigger violence were familiar tools in her world, and they worked well enough in her estimation. Sensing his advantage over her the way a base animal might, Mazgan approached, claws and teeth on display.
“What you did earlier today was sacrilege, human. You have no place at Wraith Loch.”
Terrified, she cringed away. But she refused to be totally cowed. Stubbornness or insanity took hold as she said, “It was a lake. Not like I peed in it.”
Amber felt pleased with her own bravado until Mazgan yanked on her arm, forcing her to face him so he could slap her across her mouth. Lavario felt as much as she did—the pain of the indignity and the throb of the nerve he’d struck.
A blow to her stomach coerced Amber to her knees. She grabbed herself in a tight embrace and vomited. The smell of it and the taste of acid made her vomit again. Blood wasn’t pouring out of her, to both their relief. Most of it got caught up in viscous snot and trailed out in a dull red ribbon from her mouth. She tried to spit as much of it as she could outward, toward Mazgan. Fuck him, she thought.
Lavario agreed. Fuck him.
Warnings were mandatory in these types of situations. Fighting back his rage, he kept to the rules. Lavario clucked his tongue. “She’s mine. I intend to keep her,” he cautioned Mazgan. Rules regarding property in the Varcolac were clear. Taking it meant you had to fight for it. This applied to Alpha Guardians. Hopefully Mazgan was too wrapped up in his display of power to take heed.
He continued to posture, herding Amber around the room, flaunting his superior strength.
Calmly, Lavario stripped out of his clothes. He’d lost enough good suits in the last few days and wasn’t eager to rip any others. Transforming felt good. Even better when he saw Mazgan stumble backward, finally realizing his error. Ears back, teeth showing, Lavario took the alpha on a nice tour of the apartment, forcing him wall to wall.
But before he had a chance to raise his paw, Mazgan surrendered. “Enough of this,” he ordered with as much authority as he could manage while he cowered, “I am not taking your precious pet.”
Amber laughed at him, clenching herself tight from the pain of it.
The alpha’s liquid gold eyes fixated on her.
Hilarious as it was, Lavario felt himself cringe for Amber’s sake. Should he fall during his battle with Kijo, she’d need a quick path to the lake. Her death would otherwise be the worst Mazgan could make it.
* * *
Lavario leaned over Amber, tending to her injuries. “Hold still.”
“I don’t want your help,” she sniped at him, swatting at his hands.
“Could you be more of a ridiculous child?”
“Yes,” she assured him.
He didn’t doubt it.
She tried to sit up. Pssshhh, was the sound the air made as it hissed through her clenched teeth. Pain might force her cooperation after all. Slightly mocking, Lavario inquired, “Would you like me to heal you now?”
“Yessss.” She surrendered and lay back down.
“Splendid.” Using gentle hands, Lavario navigated the bends and curves of her body the best he could while also considering Amber’s modesty. Usually, by now, he and his bloodservant were up all night pleasuring each other. Amber certainly thought about it, especially when his long fingers touched the tender line of her neck, but she hated herself afterward.
Self-loathing was front and center now. Her racing thoughts, always laden with fear along with guilt, distracted him. Inconvenient. Reaching out with magic taxed his energy. Stress, not to mention sexual frustration, made him terse. “I should leave you some scars to remind you
.”
Amber’s nostrils flared. “Of what? That you own me? That I’m yours?”
“No, to not be so foolish.”
“But also that you own me.”
“If you feel so powerless, you can put me on a leash and walk me around. Would you like this? It would certainly be much closer to the time I envisioned for myself. You can call me bad. Insult me.” He put his mouth next to her ear and whispered, “Spank me.”
She flushed. “You’re…” she sputtered. “You’re an old horndog.”
He chuckled. She stewed. Scandalized outrage bought him a lasting silence he enjoyed thoroughly until a word popped into her head. Revenge. She was going to get so much revenge. Against him. Against Mazgan. Every last werewolf in the world would feel her wrath. And fucking vampires, too. If they existed.
She also went back to being afraid.
“One day you might be a werewolf,” he told her. “The Varcolac change their bloodservants at the end, allowing them a chance at immorality. And vampires are already dead.”
She sprung upward, pulling a blanket protectively around her as though he were a Peeping Tom rather than an empath. “You can read my thoughts?”
“Yes,” he confessed. “Sadly so. For both of us, I think.”
Indignant, Amber sputtered a few times. “Fine. Fine. I’m not ashamed, not afraid. No, no, no. After I turn into a werewolf, I’m going to kill you. I’m going to kill your insane daughter. I’m going to kill that alpha whatever. You know, the guy who is pretty much one giant bad comb-over. You’ll all die the way you killed my family. I’ll kill you by…”
She’d been pointing at random objects around his house while giving her Hamletesque soliloquy on who she was going to kill and how. By the time she was done, Lavario knew all the details of her unrealistic plots. Stuck wagging, Amber’s finger shook a few more times in his face before she finally brought it back down to her side.
“There are quite a few errors in your thinking.”
“Such as?” She did her best to keep her face confident, her chin up.
“The most obvious is pretty simple. I am the one who would turn you.”
“Your point?”
“You promised to murder me. I do not feel incentivized.”
She shifted her weight. Uncertain. “Another will turn me. I’ll find one.”
“Where? Craigslist?”
Her nostrils flared. Her eyes shone with unshed tears. He was about ready to comfort her when she hit him with an ash tray he forgot he had. He hadn’t smoked for at least seven centuries. “Hoarder,” she shouted as though she could read his mind.
And thus began a new phase of their relationship.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: SOME TYPE OF TRICK
The day before the fight.
Kijo had her rituals. Lavario had his. He could almost picture her nose scrunched, hands clenching and unclenching, eyes intense while she restlessly fidgeted around the room, trying in vain to find her happy place. Young, impatient for the fight—Kijo never much cared for the wait and was especially unsettled the night before. Lavario simply went to his happy place. Bad TV.
“Really?” Amber asked. She sat on his bed—an audacity he was sure she wanted him to rebuke—and pointed to the teenage supernatural drama on the television. “You know your insane fanged spawn is getting pumped up for the fight right now while you sit here and watch this crap?”
He gave her a quick “Yes” and went back to his show.
The more she spoke, the more Lavario became nostalgic for the days when she was all hostile glares and angry silence. Time had worn down those avenues of defiance. She had moved on to destroying his possessions, constant backtalk, and—for a more modernized nuisance—she deleted unwatched shows from his DVR. He regretted his efforts to make her feel more comfortable. He should have let her stay afraid of him, at least until the fight was over.
Attempts to stop her behavior or bring her comfort were met with hostility. Don’t frenzy, he told her. Amber simply responded by telling him to shut up and called him a psycho douchewaffle. He did not understand what a waffle made of douche contents would look like or how to take it as an insult. Google only helped him so much.
Amber tossed herself back on his bed, displacing some of the decorative pillows in the process. A gesture that apparently didn’t go far enough for her. She picked one up, considered it, tossed it to the ground. “Then what’s with the chill attitude? Shouldn’t you be hitting a punching bag or something?”
“I do not see that helping.”
“This is?” She tossed a pillow at the television.
“About as much as hitting a punching bag.”
He didn’t look in her direction, but he could sense her anger and could see the corresponding expression in his mind. Beyond that, he could feel the fear underlining it all, the constant burden of knowing if he fell, then she fell with him. Over and over she wondered where she’d be after tomorrow.
“You’re the worst werewolf,” Amber told him yet again. “Why don’t you go abduct some more dumb people?” His entire bed was a mess now. She was starting to eye his bookcase.
“I abducted you.”
“Kijo abducted me.”
Details. Details. “I suppose that’s mostly true.”
“You suppose.” She was standing beside him now, dressing him down with her hands curled up into fists placed on her hips. “Don’t you want to win this thing?”
A feeling of ridiculousness settled over Lavario as she glared down over him. Maybe he should at least hit her. No. Lavario could not bring himself to simply strike the girl. Ruling through intimidation and fear was the course of a lesser wolf. He would not devolve into a bully. Still, Garvey was the only one who had ever talked to Lavario the way she did. At least they fucked afterward. There were no such perks to Amber’s chivying—just the noise and mess.
“Do something!” she commanded him again.
Lavario snorted. He paused the show, though he wasn’t sure why he bothered. He already knew how it ended since Amber had kindly told him. “There is nothing more to be done. The fight will be what it will.”
Once again, Amber shifted herself. Left foot, right foot. Left to right again. Moments of silence to be enjoyed. Her throat constricted as she swallowed. Before he could see the distress in her facial features, she turned from him and retreated to his bed. This time when she tossed herself down to his bed, he could feel her anxiety building, which took some of the bite out of the defiant gesture. It felt good. Then it felt ridiculous that it felt so good. “Where do you want to go from here, Amber?”
“What do you mean?” Pouting. Not very wolf.
“How do you wish to proceed? Continue down this path or make peace with things as they are? We will be together until one of us dies. There is no need to make the time unpleasant.”
“I will never forgive you for what you did.”
It was as resolute as anything he’d ever heard mumbled into his sheets. Lavario was never quite sure how to take his young companion. Confident, brave, intelligent, Amber had many of the marks of a fine wolf. Though often unwisely, she confronted him with as much force, with as much determination as any of his brothers and sisters. Other times she was a pouting, insecure, impulsive child wrapped up protectively in the college sweater she was wearing the night they took her. She’d refused to change out of the ragged thing.
Lavario turned to her and smiled a somewhat tight smile. “Yes, but I can always simply tie you to a chair or to a bed and leave you there until I feed. You can live bound down, only moving when I allow it. Is that the type of life you want for yourself?”
It was as though he did strike her. Her head jerked back, her teeth snapped together, and she winced. Panic and determination teetered along her senses, which was expected. Only her surprise confused Lavario. She should have thought about that as an outcome. She was not stupid. Lavario allowed his expression to soften before he spoke to her again. “It doesn’t have to be like that, Am
ber. I don’t require forgiveness. Just that you stop with your nettling and that you cooperate.”
“In exchange for what?”
Never had Lavario considered himself to be even slightly impulsive or prone to fits of violence. Kijo and Garvey both gave in to their immediate whims—though in different ways—despite his attempts to teach them otherwise. It was not a trait he understood until now. The girl was a fool to think she was in any position to bargain with him. Urges to shout at her and call her an idiot were fought down although Lavario could feel the claws and fangs of the half transformation from his ire. I am not Kijo. I am not Garvey. This is not my stupid thing. I will get what I want and let fools be fools. So Lavario told himself and tried to smile. “I would train you for your test.”
Her mood perked up, and she sat up on his bed with a jolt. “You’re going to train me…” Her expression fell immediately. “…so I can kill you… This is some sort of stupid trick.”
Yes, absolutely it was. But if he could Mr. Miyagi his way out of this mess, he’d wax on until her mouth shut off. It’s not like he had anything else to do. Worst case was she somehow managed to become a werewolf and would be yet another of his kind who wanted him dead.
“No trick. I’m simply buying myself some peace. And I would train you for your test, which very few prospects pass. You, in your current state, would not pass.” He tried not to sound too skeptical of her ability overall. The young woman was obviously proud, expressing any form of disbelief might tip her back over the edge to show-deleting-bed-destroying territory, forcing Lavario to eventually make good on his threats.
Her face was scrunched up into its skeptic lines. “What about the whole fight with Kij? Thought you said you might get your ass stomped tomorrow. And, no offense but…” she started to trail off, looking for the right words to say. It was a start.
“But I’m the worst werewolf ever? A bitch? A psycho? A waffle made of douche?”
The Worst Werewolf Page 12