by Sara Snow
“I know,” I heard my father respond, but my body had long since gone numb.
Did Darian just say what I think he did? Did my father arrange for me to fail the examination?
I reached up and pressed my thumb to my temple. No, that couldn’t be. Meeka getting bitten and infected had to have been an accident.
I closed my eyes as a throbbing began in my head, and my thoughts started ricocheting off the walls of my mind.
I barged into my father’s office, slamming the door against the wall with a bang. “What did you just say?”
They both looked around in shock. It was late, so I’m sure they thought everyone else was asleep. My heart was pounding so loudly in my chest I was sure they could hear it. For the first time in days, the sight of Meeka’s lifeless body flashed through my mind.
I closed my eyes and began shaking my head. “You . . . how?”
I looked up as my father pushed his chair back, scraping it loudly against the floor as he stood. Regret was clear in his gaze.
“How did you do it? How did you kill Meeka?! You did this!”
“No, Elinor. I didn’t know Levi would use Meeka as a means to fail you.” He walked towards me, but I stepped back, unable to believe I was looking at my father. This man . . . this man couldn’t be my father.
“I . . .” he sighed. “I asked him to fail you, but I never told him how to do it. The method was up to him.”
“Goddess, you’re a tyrant,” I said, shaking my head in utter disbelief.
His shoulders slumped.
“A girl . . . a woman died! Died! You-you listened to me talk about her, you . . .” My face fell as the realization hit me, and I was reminded of his words and the way he had hugged me. It must have been because of the guilt he felt. “I’ll never forgive you for this.”
“Elinor,” Darian began to say.
I growled at him, my eyes changing to black, and he bowed his head.
“Darian, excuse us for a moment. I need to talk . . .”
I held my hand up to stop my father’s words. I didn’t want to hear anything he had to say. Not right now… not ever. He had lied to me, tricked me. He had watched me train, day in and day out, with Connor. He had given me his blessing before I left, all while knowing it was for naught. He knew he would get what he wanted in the end.
I turned and ran from the room, attempting to shift while running down the stairs. I choked as the throbbing in my head worsened. I tripped and fell as one of the stairs broke, and I rolled down the rest to the first floor. I’d forgotten that there was a full moon, and I was unable to shift.
My claws and fangs were the only things that changed, but I groaned at my foggy thoughts. I couldn’t think. All I was feeling was betrayal and rage.
“Elinor!” I heard my father call out as I got to my feet. “Don’t!”
I bared my teeth at him, something that would have been seen as a challenge if it had been done by another wolf, but I didn’t care. I growled.
Suddenly, Darian and my sleepy-eyed mother appeared on the stairs as well.
“What is going on in this house?” Her eyes fell on me. She saw the rage in my eyes before looking at my father and seeing the regret in his. “Goddess, Grayson, what did you do?”
He ignored her as his eyes turned black. Beside him, Darian and my mother lowered their heads in submission. “Do not go through that door, Elinor. There is a full moon tonight.”
As the Alpha, the amount of dominance my father could emit was staggering, but at this moment, as I strained against it, his power was no match for my rage. I whimpered and growled as I fought against his will, but it felt as if a weight was being pushed onto my body.
I shook my head wildly before lifting my right arm and biting down on it. The shock of the pain gave me a second of relief from the weight of his dominance, and I took that second, running towards the door and kicking it open. As the cool night air hit my face, I took off into the forest.
“Elinor!”
I closed my eyes for a moment as I ran, pushing out all thoughts. I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to feel. I just wanted to run. My tears flew behind me as I tore through the forest, and my father’s howl followed me.
He was probably going to come after me himself or send Guards, but I’d be damned if they’d catch me.
I wasn’t going home again . . . ever.
He was not my father, not after this, not after what he'd done. I thought we were making progress, but it was all a game to him. I was just a pawn, being pushed in the direction he wanted for his own gain.
Never had I felt so used, so foolish . . . so heartbroken.
I tripped and fell, wincing as a twig scratched the side of my leg. I remained there on my hand and knees in the dark as I cried.
12
Elinor
I eventually stopped sobbing, my body too drained to continue. I felt lost, both physically and emotionally.
I had taken a wrong turn at some point and ended up in a part of the forest I wasn't familiar with. I wandered, still barefoot, feeling numb.
Thanks to the full moon, the forest was bathed in a soft glow of light. The world around me looked beautiful, but I couldn't admire it, not when my heart was breaking. I knew my father hadn’t planned for me to have to kill someone, but it happened because of his actions, his deception. He had played me, making me believe I was on the road to achieving my dream.
I stopped walking and rubbed at my temples. Meeka would have died anyway, but the choice I was forced to make was to kill her or fail? That was because of my father. And it was unforgivable.
I stepped on a twig and yelped as something pierced my foot. “Damn it.”
I had lifted my leg to examine it when a scent I had hoped to never encounter again made me freeze. My eyes changed to black, and my nails began to elongate as I looked around me slowly, my ears twitching as I tried to listen for the vampire I knew must be lurking in the forest with me.
Unbidden, the words from young Ione’s vision that day in the clinic echoed in my head, “Be still on the full moon, or blood will rain onto our land. Be still on the full moon, and death won’t follow.”
I shuddered, suddenly on high alert. With it being a full moon, I was at a big disadvantage. For a second, I regretted leaving home. I hadn't been thinking. I’d been so consumed with fury I hadn’t cared that I was wandering into the woods being unable to shift.
I twig snapped behind me. As I spun around, the creature that snuck up behind me. Its pale skin was even grayer in the moon's light and it lunged forward. I dove to the side. It slipped past me but moved quickly to grab me once more. Its loud hiss echoed in my ear as we collided, and I screamed as its claws sank into my side.
Its eyes widened as I pushed it away from me, causing it to slam into a tree. It didn't seem to care, as it licked its nails, now coated in my blood. Pressing my hand to my side, I tried to stop the bleeding. My healing process was much slower in the full moon.
I started backing away as it licked its fingers feverishly. I recalled the thin, hideous faces of the vampires that had attacked Meeka. In rapid succession, the short moments we’d shared flashed through my mind, and my rage returned with a vengeance.
I growled and bared my teeth. When the vampire looked my way, its wide, hungry eyes made my stomach turn. It was as if it had been so caught up in cleaning my blood from its fingers, it had forgotten I was there.
My hands fell to my side as I went still, and it took one step forward, its head up as it sniffed the air. I clenched and unclenched my hands as I forced my nails to grow as long as they could. Then I waited for it to make a move.
I didn’t have to wait very long. Driven by an insatiable appetite, it charged at me, and that was when I acted. I twisted my feet into the earth. Then with a burst forward, I held my clawed fingers together and up to my chest, as if I was holding a sword.
My nails sliced through the side of the Bleeder's neck, causing its head to lull to the side. I acted q
uickly, severing the head from the body and throwing it into the forest. However, my victory was short-lived. No sooner had I killed one Bleeder, then another one came running out of the bushes.
This one was bigger than the one I had just finished off. It backhanded me across the face and sent me flying. I grimaced at the taste of my blood as I bit down on my tongue when my back collided with the trunk of a tree.
I crawled onto my hands and knees quickly as it walked around the dead vampire. Suddenly, I realized that the one I had killed was a female. This one was male, his lower half naked, while the dead Bleeder had breasts—small, but breasts nonetheless.
Long, angry hissing met my ears, and when I looked up, the new one had its red eyes set on me. I tried to stand, but my leg wouldn’t hold me. When I looked down, I saw that a broken branch had impaled my calf. I turned toward the Bleeder that was walking toward me, its head shaking wildly as it hissed.
“Can we talk about this?” I jested.
In answer, it bared its pointy, discolored fangs at me and rushed towards me.
I gritted my teeth as I pulled myself onto my feet, ignoring the pain that shot up my leg. As I held my hands up in defense, a black blur tackled the vampire. They both vanished into the forest as I stood there, looking around in confusion.
The night became quiet, and I stepped back against the tree. Taking my weight off my wounded leg, I bent down slowly, my eyes still scanning the forest as I reached down, grabbed the branch in my calf, and pulled.
I bit down on my lip as my eyes watered, and I fell forward onto my knees. I sank my claws into the earth, my chest rising and falling rapidly as I pushed myself back against the tree in a sitting position.
It looks like I’ll die here tonight. Whatever attacked that Bleeder will surely be back for me.
There was nothing I could do but sit there and wait for my leg to heal enough for me to run. Trying to move now would attract more Bleeders, not to mention whatever else was lurking around in this forest. All I could do was sit here and gather my strength in case I was attacked again. Pushing myself would only slow down the healing process.
My head snapped to the side when I heard the noise of someone approaching. I pressed myself against the tree as someone in a black cloak walked out from behind some bushes. The person stopped walking and stood there for a moment. I bared my teeth and growled.
I might be beaten, but I wasn’t dead yet.
My eyes widened, however, as a chuckle came from under the cloak’s hood. “Brave little wolf.”
My eyes widened at the familiar voice, and that was when I noticed it—a scent totally unlike that of the vampire I left on the forest floor. This was a familiar scent, a safe scent.
“You,” I growled.
“It’s nice to see you again, little one.” The man held his head up, and I finally came face-to-face with the vampire I had met recently. His scent, his voice . . . it was him.
Why does he smell different from the others?
He took a step forward.
I growled again.
“Relax. I have no intention of harming you.”
He reached up and removed his hood, and my mouth slowly closed as his red eyes turned as blue as the sky. I blinked rapidly, confused, but was unable to say anything as he walked forward and bent down to look at my leg.
As he moved towards me, strands of black hair came free from his low ponytail to shield his face. He was pale like every other vampire, but how was there warmth in his eyes? How were they blue and not red?
He reached a finger out and touched my wounded leg as he inspected it, and a chill ran along my skin. I hissed, and he pulled his hand away quickly.
Who was he?
“You shouldn’t be this deep in the forest,” he cautioned, looking up at the sky. “Especially during a full moon.”
“I can take care of myself,” I snapped back, but it was out of habit. I hated it when a man addressed me as if I was weak and in need of their advice or direction.
He had just saved my life. I knew that. I bit down on my lip as he slowly looked my way once more and a smile curved his lips.
“You can, indeed.” His brows pulled together softly, a singular wrinkle appearing on his smooth skin. “But should I have left that Bleeder for you to finish up? You looked like you had it handled.”
His face became emotionless, his eyes unreadable as he looked at me. I blinked rapidly, not knowing what to do, not understanding why butterflies were doing backflips in my stomach.
Finally, I looked away. “Why are your eyes blue?” I narrowed my eyes. “They changed from red to blue. I didn’t know vampires could do that. Don’t you all have red eyes?”
He titled his head to the side. A minute went by without him saying anything.
“So?” I probed.
He sighed. “You might say it’s a gift.”
“So, you’re a special vampire?” I smirked. “That’s interesting.”
“I trust you’ll keep it between us.” He gently pushed my leg to the side once more with his finger and I looked down to see that my wound was almost closed. Then he stood up. “You need to go home now. Can you stand?"
His voice was like a low rumble, yet it was soothing. The longer I was around this man, the more I started to question my sanity. Because the longer I looked at him, the more beautiful he was to me.
It was clear he was not like the rest of his kind, or maybe I was not a good judge of that, since I’d never met another Skin. Still, I couldn’t imagine all vampires, Skins to be exact, would be as kind as him. He’d just saved my life, a not-so-small thing in itself when he could have easily allowed me to die.
I pulled myself up and put some weight on my leg, testing it. It still hurt—the wound wasn’t fully healed yet—but it would have to do. It wasn’t like I wanted to hang around here all night, especially when I still wasn’t sure of his intentions towards me. I wanted to avoid any more interactions with his red-eyed, blood-crazed buddies if I could help it.
“Good, now go. My kind is hunting tonight, and I’d rather not kill any more of them to save you.”
I wasn’t sure how to feel about that statement.
Don’t think too deeply about it.
But . . . why spare me? Why not let that Bleeder kill me if he was out hunting with them? Or why not kill me himself?
“Why did you save me?” The words were out my mouth before I could stop them.
Just like before, he stared at me with an odd expression, but his eyes were so inviting, so . . . normal, I couldn’t look away. He took a step forward, his eyes drifting down to my lips and then my neck. My stomach clenched as his lips parted.
Then, suddenly, he vanished. I blinked once, then three more times, in shock. It was as if he hadn’t been there at all. I looked around me for a moment, listening to a night bird calling out in the distance before I slowly and quietly made my way back through the forest.
I could feel his eyes on me the whole time. The chill that ran down my arms and had goosebumps sprouting on my flesh wasn’t one of fear, but of curiosity. I hadn’t even asked him his name, but then again, I had a strong feeling he wouldn’t have told me anyway.
After what felt like hours of walking, I finally entered my pack’s territory. I stopped for a moment and turned around, searching the forest for red or blue eyes, but I saw nothing.
I sighed as howls met my ears, and I turned around to meet seven werewolves heading my way.
Elinor
“Are you sure you don’t want me to sleep in here with you tonight? You never get sick, Elinor. I know this has to do with you running off the other night during a full moon." My mother picked up the half-eaten bowl of soup she had taken to my room. "Never do that again. Do you hear me?"
I looked away from the window to stare at her, shocked at the way she was yelling. My mother never raised her voice. I had obviously truly upset her.
I couldn't blame her. If our positions had been reversed, I’d have been livid. I cou
ld have been killed the other night . . . but I wasn’t.
The memory of blue eyes flashed through my mind, and I clenched my fists under my covers.
I had partially told the truth, telling them that I had killed the vampire that had attacked me. That was the truth. Of course, I’d neglected to mention the second Bleeder and the strange vampire with blue eyes.
“I’m sorry, okay? But truly, I’m just feeling a little drained, that’s all.” I pulled my sheet up to my chin. “I just need to rest. I’ll be good as new tomorrow. Don’t worry.”
She hissed with annoyance as she turned away. "All I do is worry. Your recklessness will be the death of me one day." She paused at the door, then glanced over her shoulder. “I hope you know I knew nothing about what your father did. He was wrong.”
She left then, and I sat up in bed, my eyes glued to the door. For a moment, I thought of going after her but decided not to. I knew she was unaware of my father’s twisted plans, but I needed to do something about it.
I pulled my covers back up to my chin and rolled onto my side. I stared out the window, watching as the sunset gave way to night. I laid there and waited, waited until the wee hours when the house and forest were silent.
And that was when I acted.
I threw a dress out my window and shifted into my final form from inside my room. There was no hesitation as I jumped through the window, picked up my dress, and made a dash for the forest. I ran until my legs grew tired and then ran some more, following the path I remembered from the other night, avoiding all the areas I knew a Guard would be.
Vampires hunting so close to the pack was a cause for concern. My father had doubled the number of Guards during the night, just to be safe.
Finally, I returned to the spot of my near-death encounter. I shook my head—I had to be crazy, returning to this place after I was almost killed here. At least tonight I was capable of fully shifting, so if anything jumped out of the bushes, I could deal with it.
I leaned against the tree and waited, waited to get a whiff of his scent, waited for him to appear in his black cloak . . . but he didn’t.