by D. N. Hoxa
“I never checked, no,” I admitted. But he had no right to make me feel like a naive little fool. I’d never had to fight others before. Why the hell would I have bothered to measure how far I could smell something? Pissed off, I stood up to take the empty plate to the sink.
“Wow. It really is a wonder you’re still alive,” Red whispered behind me. It took all of my strength not to throw the plate at his face, but first, I knew he’d move long before the plate made contact, and second, there was no point to losing my shit so soon.
“It’s a wonder to me how nobody’s busted your teeth in yet,” I spit instead and continued to wash the plate.
“Not for lack of trying, I assure you,” he said with a laugh. “But my teeth are very strong.” I could hear the grin in his voice.
“Are you always such a nosy asshole, or do I just bring that side of you out in the open?” There was no dish towel I could see, so I just put the plate on the sink and turned around.
Red was much closer than I thought he’d be. He’d stood up and was standing not two feet away from me. I tried to play it cool, but he could probably see my skin caught up in goose bumps. Of course I’d shiver when he looked at me like that, half in wonder, half pissed off.
“I don’t like to be called names, Victoria.” It was a warning if I’d ever heard one, and not just because of the words. It was the way he said it, his voice low and vibrating, reaching my ears in a caress that promised endless pain as well as pleasure. I flushed before I could help it, but to make up for it, I made myself smile.
“You really shouldn’t have told me that,” I said and turned around to go back to the room. “Douchebag.” I couldn’t help myself. And I figured, what was the worst that could happen? He’d start crying?
Well, he didn’t. Instead, he was in front of the door to the room before I got there. It scared me shitless, but I tried to keep myself from jumping back. He was smiling a sick smile, a cross between a psychopath and a hungry animal, looking down at me like he’d let my face decide which side of him he wanted to let out first.
“What makes you think I won’t kill you right here and now?” he said in a whisper, barely moving his lips. My breath caught in my throat. “It would be so, so easy.”
“You’re not going to kill me. You need me, remember?” I said, more for my benefit than for his. Just the way he said those words…so, so easy. I believed him with all my heart. I doubted I’d even know what was happening before I died, if that’s what he wanted to do. And for the first time, in his eyes of green and brown, I saw something different. Something that hadn’t been there before. A glimpse of the monster within, maybe? I don’t know, but whatever it was, it made me want to forbid myself from name-calling anyone ever again.
“Oh, I don’t need you, Victoria,” Red said, leaning closer to me until our noses almost touched. I tried to move away, but I found I was backed against the wall. When the hell had that happened? God, it had gotten so hot down there. “It’s true, you’d make finding what I’m looking for easier, but—”
“So you do need me,” I concluded, just because I needed to believe it. Otherwise I’d lose my mind staying in one place with him ever again.
Seemingly surprised, the light drained from his eyes. “But I can live without it,” Red finished, his voice a little less…dreamy.
“But you don’t want to. So you need me.” I stepped to the side, my back one with the wall behind me so that I didn’t need to touch him, until I was in the clear. Now, if I could get him away from the door…
Then he laughed, the low sound reaching all the way to my core. “Has your mother not taught you not to piss off a vampire?”
I swallowed hard. “She did. She also told me to never be alone with one under any circumstances, yet here I am,” I said with a bitter smile. “Now, if you could just move away, shithead, I’d like to get some more rest.”
His left eye twitched, and I thought he was going to come at me again, I tried to tell myself that I was ready. Not that I had any weapons, or that I’d know what to do with them if I did, but I had a wolf inside me, didn’t I? And I could smell my way out of there pretty fast.
So I sniffed the air, and…Red’s beautiful, scary face no longer mattered.
I froze in place and inhaled deeply. Yes, there it was again. Barely there, but it was her smell. It was Izzy.
Was Red playing tricks on me?
“Do you smell that?” I asked, catching him by surprise. Confused, he drew in air through his nostrils and waited.
“No.”
I turned around and went to the door that led to the stairs. A small wind blew from underneath it, bringing in more of Izzy’s scent. I wasn’t mistaken. It was her, all right. But when I tried the door, it didn’t budge.
“What are you doing?” Red asked, coming after me.
“I need to get out. There’s air coming in from the cabin above,” I said in a rush.
“Of course there is. You need to breathe, and I need to know if there are threats nearby,” he said.
“Someone’s out there. Open the door.” I stepped aside to let him unlock it. He just stared at me instead.
“Nobody’s out there,” he said. “I can’t smell anything except the usual.”
I could smell the usual, too. Old wood, dried leaves, damp soil—and Izzy.
“Just open the damn door!” I shouted, my nerves getting the best of me. “Someone’s out there, waiting for me. I need to go out, right now!”
I could hardly believe my own senses, but with every new breath I took, I felt her drawing closer and closer. She was here. She’d followed me, and now she was going to get us both far away from this place. Finally. I thought this nightmare was never going to end.
“Victoria, listen to me. There’s no—” Red started to say but cut himself off. He froze, as still as the walls on our sides, which was scary all by itself. I’d never seen a live being so perfectly still, and that’s what reminded me that, though Red could walk and talk, he wasn’t alive.
“Just open the damn door!” I shouted when he refused to move for thirty seconds, just staring at the door with his eyes dull and vacant.
To my surprise, he didn’t turn to shout at me. He fished for the key in his back pocket and unlocked the door. My heart galloped in my chest, pushing me forward faster, but before I made it out the door, a steel grip around my arm stopped me.
“Whoever’s coming, they’re alone, but that doesn’t mean others are after them,” Red said, his voice a warning.
“If somebody comes, I’ll smell them,” I said and tried to jerk away, but he wouldn’t let me.
“It’s daylight outside. I can’t come to help you.”
Yay me! I thought. “Don’t worry, I won’t need your help. I know her.”
He raised a brow. “Her?”
“Let go of me, Red.” I could warn him, too. And if he didn’t, I’d kick him between his legs and see how he liked it. I bet he wouldn’t.
“Be careful, Victoria. If you run away from me, I will find you.”
Well, that sounded very…believable. I swallowed hard but said nothing.
“And if you sense danger, come back here right away. I can protect you.”
Protect me by killing people, he meant. Just like my wolf. Neither of them would even ask for my permission.
When I jerked my arm this time, he let me go. I didn’t bother to meet his eyes. I was way too happy to never, ever see him again.
8
A thousand scenarios played before my eyes by the time I made it up the stairs and out into the forest. The people who’d kidnapped me once could be baiting me. They could have found out about Izzy and me, and they were using her scent to lure me out.
But I would have smelled them.
I would have smelled them if they were there with her, too, intending to kidnap me again. No, she was all alone, and I might have had no idea how far I could smell something, but I apparently could smell farther than Red.
Th
e beams of sunlight penetrated the canopy every few feet, making everything look more green than it had when we first came into the forest. It smelled of oaks and of animals but not too heavy. Izzy’s scent was all over the place, too. It was like she’d circled the forest a few times, and now her smell lingered on every tree. I searched for her with my eyes, but when I saw nothing, I turned to my nose. The excitement seemed to make me smell her even clearer, and I turned east, deeper into the forest, until I saw a shadow hiding behind a large tree trunk. It was her.
“Izzy,” I breathed, hoping that this wasn’t a dream. Hoping that she’d step out from behind that tree and smile at me.
And she did come out. But she didn’t smile.
As soon as I saw her face, I ran the few steps it took to get to her, and I wrapped my arms around her neck. God, to touch her, to feel her breathing against me was a fucking miracle. I’d had no idea just how much I’d missed her until now that my tears showed me. Only a couple slipped and I made sure to wipe them before I let go of her and stepped back, needing to get a good look at her face again.
She looked fine. Her face was paler than it had been, and she’d lost a lot of weight, but she looked perfect. To me.
“Look who it is,” Izzy said, and her voice had changed, too, I realized. Almost nothing of its fierceness had remained. Now, she sounded dull. As dull as I did.
“How did you find me?” I asked, breathing heavily through my nose, because I wanted to make sure I’d smell others coming.
“Your blood,” she said. “You left some in the garage and I did a spell, but it wouldn’t tell me where you were exactly. It just pointed me to this area. I’ve been looking for you for hours. Where the hell were you hiding?”
Red. It must have been Red’s spells in the basement under the cabin.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We have to go, right now.”
The left corner of Izzy’s lips turned upward, but it wasn’t a smile. And the way she looked at me…she didn’t seem all that happy to see me.
“Did you know?” she asked me.
“Know what?” Though I had a feeling I already knew what she meant.
“Your wolf,” she said through gritted teeth.
Instinctively, I took a step back. “I did.” Of course I did. That creature was a part of me since the very beginning.
“And you didn’t tell me?” I could have been mistaken, but she sounded hurt.
“How could I?” I asked halfheartedly. “I’d have only put you in danger. It’s why I ran away.”
A million times I’d imagined what it would be like to see my sister again. Not that it couldn’t happen because I lived in Manhattan, after all, but I never imagined it to be like this. I never thought I’d forget who I was and who she was so absolutely and care about nothing but that we were safe. I thought it would be the other way around. I thought I wouldn’t be able to look her in the eyes because I’d know she wasn’t my real sister. But now that she was in front of me, I was shocked by my own self all over again.
“You ran away because you turn into a wolf,” she said, her brows raised.
“Because my wolf killed three people,” I said reluctantly. “They blamed it on bears, but it was me. Her.”
This time, Izzy was shocked, too. “Oh, Vicky…”
“Look, let’s just get out of here, okay? Those people who kidnapped me are probably coming for me right now, and we need to disappear.”
“They are,” she said with a nod. “It’s why I came to find you.”
A laugh-like scream left my lips and my eyes teared up again. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that I was leaving, Izzy, but I’m glad I found you. Or that you found me. But there’s a vampire not too far from here, and there are people who can manipulate real wolves into killing people, so we really need to get the hell out of here as soon as possible!” I couldn’t stress that enough.
But Izzy didn’t seem fazed.
“So you’re with the vamp,” she said instead.
“I was, yes. Can we go now?”
“I came to warn you, Vick,” she said, as coolly as if she were speaking to a stranger. Then it dawned on me. Did she know, too? Had Mom and Dad told her about me? Is that why she ran away from home? “The people that are after you, they’re no joke. They’re not going to leave a stone unturned until they find you. That’s why you need to leave the country right now.”
“But you’re coming with me,” I said because she said you instead of we.
“Oh, no. I’m not going anywhere, but you are, if you want to stay alive.” She looked so cold, her eyes once vibrant blue, now turned almost metallic.
“What the hell are you talking about? Of course you’re coming with me! Those people are dangerous, you said it yourself.”
“They are,” she said with a nod. “More so than you can imagine.”
“So? What the hell are you doing with them, Izzy?” I might have raised my voice a little, but I could no longer control my body. She was freaking me out. I was more panicked than I’d ever been before because she sounded serious when she said she wasn’t going anywhere.
“You’re judging me?” she said with a cold laugh. “That’s rich.”
I put my hands on her shoulders. “I’m not judging you, you fool! I’m telling you what you told me all our lives: you stay away from dangerous people no matter what!”
Pushing my hands away, Izzy stepped back. It was like she’d punched me in the throat. But what the hell did I expect? I ran away from home and didn’t contact her for five years, and now that we were together again, she wasn’t just going to accept everything and play sisters with me like when we were little.
“You’re wasting both our times,” Izzy said, shaking her head. “You’re my sister and that’s why I bothered to come here. To warn you. If you don’t leave the country, they’re going to find you.”
“Consider me warned, then, but what about you? How can you…how can…” I couldn’t say it. It was too much.
She smiled bitterly. “I’m with them. I can’t leave. Trust me, I tried, but the only way they’ll let me go is if I die first. But you can get the fuck out of here still. So be smart and do it. Don’t ask questions, just run.”
“And leave you here all by yourself?” Did she really think I’d do that?
Feigning surprise, she shrugged. “You did it once. It shouldn’t be that hard.”
Right to the heart. “That was different.” She wasn’t running with a kidnapping and murdering crowd then. She was at home with Mom and Dad. Her mom and dad.
“Whatever floats your boat, sis,” she said and stepped back, making my heart skip a beat.
“Wait, Izzy,” I said, letting out a sigh. “Who are these people? Why are you with them? Why did you run away from home? Dad said he did something, but he didn’t—”
“Dad?” she asked in half a whisper.
Oh, right. I hadn’t told her about that part yet. “Yes. He came to me to help him find you.”
Then, Izzy laughed. It was an Ice Queen laugh if there had ever been one. “The balls on that fucking guy!”
“What did he do to you, Izzy? Did he…did he hit you?”
Her laugh cut off abruptly as she turned to me. “What? No! No, of course not.”
I’d thought so.
“So what then? Why did you run away?”
“Because he…” Squeezing her eyes shut, she inhaled deeply. “He sold others for me.”
“Sold? How the hell did that happen?” She’d completely lost me.
“Back when Erick Adams was in charge of the ECU, they took me in for being a Storm and did their experiments on me,” she said in a breath.
An alarm went on in my head. Experiments? How was that possible? Izzy was the daughter of Oscar Hogan and Sylvia Brigham, first cousin of Andrew Brigham—one of the elected ECU leaders. I thought for sure that that would keep Izzy from the ECU’s clutches. If I’d known she was being held there against her will, I’d have…what? Saved her?
“Hey, don’t look so shocked. It wasn’t that bad,” Izzy said when she saw the look on my face. “Dad just couldn’t leave well enough alone, so he brought five other Storms to Adams, in return for my freedom.”
“And?” My voice was scratchy, my mind on a ride, picturing Erick Adams’s face when he ran experiments on people like they were animals. Oh, thank God he was dead. Because my wolf wouldn’t have rested until she killed him herself.
“And they let me go.”
“That’s why you’re mad at him?” Maybe Dad fucked up by bringing other Storms to Adams, but he did what he had to do to save his daughter.
“Of course I’m mad! Because of him, I can’t have a coven. I’m a Storm witch, Vicky. I don’t belong with werewolves!”
“But there’s a Storm coven now. Have you watched the news? They can protect you.”
“Oh, they’re not going to protect me when they realize my father took five of them to Adams because of me,” Izzy said, her own eyes filled with tears. She was hurt. Really hurt by all of this.
“Of course they will. You’re one of them. They’ll under—”
“Stop it!” she cut me off. “They won’t understand.”
“They will!” I shouted. I’d say it as many times as I needed to, until she believed me.
With a sigh, she closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “One of the five Storms he turned in was Scarlet Jones,” she said.
My jaw touched the ground. “The dragon girl?”
Izzy nodded slowly.
Holy crap. This was bad. The dragon girl was the one who killed Erick Adams. And she did it with a dragon. A real dragon. I kid you not. She went and got one in the fairy realm, brought it here, torched Erick Adams, and changed paranormal history forever. Not to mention that she was like a god among Storms. Maybe Izzy wasn’t so far off.
“But you don’t know that they wouldn’t understand. This wasn’t your fault. It was Dad’s.”
“And if I say that to them, what do you think they’ll do? Let it go?” She shrugged. “They’re going to want his head for treason. As much of an asshole as he is, I couldn’t do that to him. Or to Mom.”