by Lisa Daniels
The End
Isabelle’s Mate
Shifters of the Bulgarian Bloodline
(Book 6)
Prologue
She knew where he lived. Down by the house at the end of the lane, surrounded by rose bushes, rhododendrons, and an old, creaking sign that had been swinging on rusty hinges for perhaps centuries. He had no idea, of course, who she was.
She knew exactly what he was, however. Her family hunted things like him as a profession. Survivors of werewolf attacks, people who grew up with burning hatred in their hearts, and a thirst for vengeance that didn't stop once the perpetrator died. Vengeance went on forever.
Rumors floated around in the wilds of North Dakota. People reported noise and strange occurrences. Isabelle scouted the area, along with her two hunting buddies, asking the locals if anything stood out to them. They didn't notice much, aside from the people who had moved into the old farm at the end of Witchden Lane, who mostly kept to themselves, occasionally seen driving into the local town to pick up food supplies.
Isabelle Oswell knew better.
She, Ben and Kevin approached the farm under the new moon, knowing that they took longest to shift at the polar opposite of a full moon – and that their powers were significantly weaker. They'd packed vanadium-loaded sub-machine guns, and wore dark clothes with catnip sprayed onto them; for some reason, the scent of this plant helped obscure their normal body odors well, though obviously a werewolf might get suspicious of a moving catnip cloud approaching their property.
“Good luck,” Ben whispered, as they clasped hands together, ready to take on the werewolves. If they were unsure of whom they faced, werewolf or human, they clipped them with the bullet. The vanadium invoked survival instincts, forcing the werewolf to begin transition.
There should be two werewolves here, according to the intel gathered.
Isabelle crouched out here now with her gun, for all the humans who might die when the craving took the monsters. For her mother who had died, and for her father, who dedicated the rest of his life to learning about werewolves and hunting them down.
Safe in the bushes, Isabelle scratched at her nose, watching intently for activity from the farmhouse. They would wait patiently, like the predators they came to hunt.
Kevin placed an arm on her shoulder, underneath her dark blonde hair. He took nervous, swallowing breaths, trying to control his automatic fear whenever he came close to the same species that killed his wife.
Someone stepped out of the door. A stout-faced, short man with glinting red eyes – making it easy to identify the werewolf inside.
He took out a pack of cigarettes, ready to start smoking, when he caught the heady scent of catnip on their clothes.
Curious, the werewolf, eyes gleaming in puzzlement from the congregation of scent, approached the concealed fence-line where the three hunters clustered together.
Isabelle silently switched her weapon for her Glock, attached with a silencer.
Ben took out a piece of raw, bloody meat, and placed it near him. The distinctive scent wafted free in the wind.
The werewolf's nostrils twitched violently, and his eyes shimmered from the smell of blood. His fingers lengthened slightly. His eyes sparkled like rubies.
She needed him closer. Close enough so that if anyone else lingered in the house, they wouldn't see him drop. They waited, Kevin shaking as if caught in a strong breeze, Ben with adrenaline and hatred contorting his features.
Just a little more...
The werewolf halted, a few meters from the hedge. His eyes narrowed suspiciously.
Realizing he might have caught something, such as the oil of a gun, or perhaps the combination of catnip scent and sudden raw meat odor struck some sense into his blood-lust infused brain, he turned and barked at the house, “I think we have intruders! I'm checking it out right now!”
So much for silence and subtlety. Isabelle instantly stood up and aimed directly at the werewolf's head as he turned back to face her. Before he could register what was happening, she popped three vanadium bullets into his skull.
He dropped like lead, the red eyes wide in horror and surprise. Brown liquid mixed with blood oozed out of his skull, and the eyes dulled, becoming glassy and lifeless.
There were barks and screams of rage.
“Retreat?” Ben said. “Sounds like more than two. Might be risky now.”
“Head to the car,” Isabelle confirmed. “We need a big start to outrun them. And they might call the police.”
“Police. As if,” Ben scoffed. “When they dig up the mass graves in their backyard, there'll be some questions asked, don't you think?”
All three hunters immediately dashed off from their position, with Ben leaving false trails of butcher meat, tossing it around to confuse the olfactory senses of the werewolves.
Their car lay at a little bend, four hundred meters from the farm at the end of the lane.
The werewolves, though, rocketed out the house. Their previous estimate of two had been terribly, terribly wrong – now bounded far too many monsters for simple human hunters to handle.
“I thought the report said there were only two!” Kevin's breath hissed in panic as they sprinted flat out for the car. The werewolves, shifted into their feral forms, bounded after them, eating up the distance with great loping strides. Far faster than any human.
Isabelle realized she should have listened to the hunter's circle, when they chastised the hotheads of the group, the ones who desperately wanted to add to their collection of slain werewolves.
After all, a hunter was merely a serial killer of werewolves. Just like a werewolf was a murderer of humans.
She thought of the base back in Wisconsin, with the small collection of cabins they had built for themselves in the wild. They'd even registered as a private religious cult, turning the area into acclaimed hallowed ground, just so they had the right to keep the land private, for the “freedom” to practise their beliefs.
Beliefs of the supernatural.
A scream choked out behind Isabelle, and she whipped her head around to see Ben, collapsing under the weight of a savage black werewolf. Without thinking, she aimed and shot point blank into its ugly, contorted face, causing it to halt and spasm, before falling still in a mess of blood and a last, rattling sigh.
“Come on, Isabelle! Ben!” Kevin beckoned furiously to them, around twenty meters away from the car. Isabelle fired randomly with her sub, spraying the bullets, intending to cover Ben so he could get up and run.
Ben, mindless with terror, scrambled out from under the body of the werewolf, which dissolved into human form upon death, and he dashed past Isabelle's fire. Six more werewolves dropped down, but she couldn't manage anything else before the last two werewolves assaulted her.
She briefly turned to see Kevin starting the car and Ben slamming the door shut as it began to speed off, without her.
Of course, her moment of kindness, her determination to save her ally had gotten her into this mess.
She was dead. She was dead.
Pain lanced through her, even as she tried pumping the last of her sub into them, and reaching for her Glock once more. Not enough time. Not enough.
“Do not kill! Do not kill! Take the human!”
Blackness and agony crashed into her, and she collapsed, limp as a fish, as the werewolves pinned her down at last.
Chapter One
Isabelle woke up with a stabbing headache. Surprise coursed through her, along with a dose of fear. Matted red hair clung to her face. Chains held her arms against the wall. A faint light illuminated a decrepit, filthy room smeared with dust, an assortment of boxes and old, unused items – and another person, also chained in the room.
He stared directly at Isabelle, nostrils flaring. A bolt of terror made Isabelle shrink back, her breathing becoming faster, her heart stuttering. Golden eyes blinked languidly at her reaction.
A werewolf. I'm chained in here with a werewolf. Fuck!
T
his led her thoughts to the events that brought her here. Terror laced her brain, and she frantically scoured over her body. They'd been on her. If she'd been bitten, she was as good as dead. Humans started raving within an hour of infection, as it corrupted their cells. Dark red crusts of dried blood raked along her arms. Her shoulder throbbed, her calves ached, and a lancing pain animated her lower back, where the collection of nerves resided.
“You've not been bitten,” the werewolf offered, absently clanking against the chains that held him tight. Isabelle shrank away from him, even though a substantial distance lay between them, and she began to hyperventilate. He looked at her then in utter bewilderment, and a little disdain. “Oh, please. What do you think I'm going to do like this, hunter? I'm as much a prisoner as you are.” His voice held a clipped accent to it, and resonated through the dimly lit basement. Sharp, angular features, with a noble nose, a refined jawline concealed by an ungainly spurt of yellowed facial hair and sunken cheekbones, suggesting a lack of food, contrasted with his lank hair.
He looked European, possibly Scandinavian in origin. Not that this particularly mattered to Isabelle at this point in time, given that she didn't want to associate with werewolves in the slightest.
“How do you know I'm a hunter?” she asked, after a pregnant pause between them. She had utilized the time to access her surroundings, realizing the futility of her current position.
The werewolf appeared offended at the question. “Aside from the fact that you're a human and you killed about seven werewolves up above – awesome job, by the way – you're packing a lot of vanadium and weaponry for a normal human who isn't supposed to know about werewolves. Plus, there's the raving and muttering of 'Werewolves! They should all die!' happening in your sleep. You talk really loud.”
Isabelle gaped at the chatty werewolf, baffled by his attitude. The golden eyes crinkled. Now that she'd had time to process her predicament, a question popped to mind. “Why are you here? Why has your kind chained you up?”
The werewolf snorted. “Glad you asked. And in answer to that – let's just say me and the wolfies up above aren't on best buddy terms.” The werewolf clearly relished having someone to talk to, and insisted on yammering her ear off.
“My alpha's in another country at the moment. With his human girlfriend, trying to find the werewolf that killed her family. Nice of him, really. Definitely someone I can get behind, cause-wise. Except of course, didn't really expect the rival invasion of the werewolves who are less than happy with this region's alpha. They were most disappointed to not find him here to kill. Found me, though.” He paused a moment, eyebrows popping up.
“How rude of me. I almost forgot my manners. I'm Milev Spirova. The alpha's my uncle's mother's, uh... nephew. I'm not sure where in the spectrum we're related. Cousin twice removed? Grand half-nephew? I can never get it right.”
Isabelle groaned, trying to stretch her muscles, to wake herself up better. Her throat scraped as she talked, reminding her how parched she was. “Don't talk like you're some kind of normal creature, scum. I know exactly what you are. A murderer. A monster.”
“Rude,” Milev said. “I'm no monster. I'm just a simple werewolf trying to make his way in the world. Without chomping on anyone. So far, so good. Well, until I ended up here.”
Isabelle blocked her ears to his inane talk, irritated beyond reason, which did have the positive effect of burning away her fear. Her guts crawled in resentment of the creature daring to talk to her like that, as if she was a friend he hadn't met yet, rather than his next meal.
Not that she wanted to be talked to like a piece of meat, but it fit in with her world view of werewolves better. Her head ached, struggling to process his manner.
“Liar. You and your kind are all the same. I've never met one who hasn't turned out to be seriously twisted on the inside.”
“You must live in a fishbowl,” Milev said. “If that's the conclusion you've reached. What happened to you, then? Your parents get chewed on when you were a kid? You joined a group of people who talk shit about werewolves all day long and you decide that it's a good idea to kill them all?”
Incandescent loathing dominated Isabelle's mind. She bared her teeth at him. “Shut up.”
“You know who else did that shit? Nazis. You know who does that shit a lot? Racist people. You're a racist.”
The hatred toppled down in place of mild panic from his contradicting views. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Nope,” Milev said, grinning impishly. “You're stuck here with me. And I've been very, very bored.”
Isabelle screamed at him, shaking her chains and kicking her legs. It did nothing than to make her throat sore, and to make her feel childish and foolish when the werewolf merely blinked at her.
“Wow. Tantrum. Okay.” Milev shook his head, the amiable expression on his face fading.
There was blessed silence for a few moments, where Isabelle could happily tune out the presence of the werewolf opposite her, to focus on her pain, her memories, and decide upon what she needed to do next.
“Everyone's a monster on the inside, human,” Milev said then, cutting through the bleakness of her thoughts. She snapped her eyes open.
He wants a discussion? I'll give him one. “Perhaps. But your kind are actual monsters. You feed upon humans.”
“Do you know what a cannibal is?”
Isabelle blinked, taken off guard by the deflective question. “What's that got to do with anything?”
“Just answer. Do you know what a cannibal is?”
“I don't see how –”
“It's a human that eats other humans. That's what a cannibal is. No gold star for you, you failed to answer.” Milev yawned, scratching at his armpit. “Now, would you say that a cannibal is a monster? Yes? No?”
Isabelle's head began to pile on additional pain, internal conflict warring with her instant need to rebuke. “If I answer, will you shut up?”
“Perhaps after a few more questions. So. Is a cannibal a monster?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he is eating another human being. That's wrong.” Isabelle felt her logic to be strangely threadbare, softening in the blanket of silence between them, and it infuriated her.
“Okay. So. Are all human beings monsters?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Isabelle glared at him. “Really?”
“Humor me.” His eyes shone earnestly. If he wasn't a damn werewolf, he'd be quite a good-looking man. It irritated her further to see him sporting the looks of a friendly, affable human, when she knew the demon that lurked inside.
“No. Not all humans are monsters.”
“Am I a monster?”
“Obviously.”
“But I don't eat human flesh. I eat beef. Chicken. Pork. So by your definition of monster and not monster, I'm not one.”
Now her mind insisted on spinning in vertigo. At a loss for words, Isabelle glared at him, not bothering to add anything to the statement. She attempted to process it, before muttering a curse under her breath. She hated his type, beyond the obvious werewolf affliction. The kind that knew better, thought better, and looked down their noses at you as if you were stupid and naïve, some kind of fool blundering around the world.
He was a monster.
That was the basis of her whole existence right now.
“You shouldn't put everyone into one group because it suits you,” Milev said, his voice soft. “Everyone's different. And, for the record, I do agree with you. A lot of werewolves are bad. Nasty. But some are not. Do not mistake one for the other.”
How was she supposed to mistake them for anything else? Werewolves were werewolves. They didn't change their spots.
What was the point of what she did, if there were good werewolves?
Isabelle closed her eyes, the headache continuing to assault her skull. She just wanted to shut her eyes right now. Never mind she hadn't been bitten, she was still captured by were
wolves, and stuck with one.
An annoying one.
What was even worse was that despite herself, she knew she might grow to like him, given the time and space. That, or be driven insane by his constant banter, his mocking of her views.
Presently, she heard a scratching sound. She opened her eyes to see that Milev had transformed into his feral form, and was using his teeth to gnaw at the chains at the edge, all without a growl or snarl in earshot.
The familiar zip of terror faded at the knowledge he couldn't reach her. Instead, in a kind of morbid fascination, Isabelle watched the feral Milev as he chewed away.
“This is harder than it looks,” he said, voice harsh and grating. “I've been at it for a while. I think they're wearing thin. Or I'm filing my teeth.”
“You can speak?” The surprise made Isabelle forget her enmity. She'd never seen someone in feral form have so much control over their personality. Usually she expected growling, a little bit of gnashing, some biting.
“I still have a tongue.” He did appear to chew on his words, with the way his jaw moved to form them. “It's just... more of an effort.”
“I thought you didn't have any control in that form.”
Milev stopped gnawing. “Of course we do. We choose to turn into it. The same way we choose to bite, and attack, and kill. We choose to give into our anger. Or we choose not to.”
Running through lessons in her head, along with past interactions with werewolves, Isabelle felt fairly certain that what Milev had just described was impossible. Once a werewolf had shifted, the control on their instincts lessened to near nothing. They became primal savages.
And then here was Milev, happily chewing away at his chains, without any apparent change in his personality.
What the actual fuck.
“I'm serious,” he said, finding clear amusement in her flabbergasted expression. “It's all mind over matter. So, rest assured, when I do break out of this, I'm not going to have an uncontrollable urge to consume you.”
She took a deep breath, focusing on his peculiar golden eyes, which gleamed brighter under the transformation. “Why are you even here, anyway? Why did they lock you up?”