She’d heard how self-sufficient the lycans were, but this was the proof. It was certainly true when it came to managing their condition – their response to the lunar cycle an allergic reaction managed only by a remedy of herbs that their ancestors had discovered, which counteracted their condition.
They’d been allowed to continue growing them even after the regulations, but the meds devised by the Global Council were always on standby. From what she’d heard, their intention had always been met with scepticism by the lycans. Especially as the meds were born out of research by the geneticists who had first explored lycanthropy – through experimenting on “volunteers” to devise their own version of managing the condition. The research allegedly funded by the Global Council who had once wanted to create their own breed of lycans to send into locale cores to manage vampires.
‘You smell funny.’
Sophia stared down at the source of the voice.
Large, grey lycan eyes stared back up at her.
‘Is that right?’ Sophia remarked, turning to face the child.
The child that had giggled furiously as Jask had lifted her over his head nodded, oblivious to the potential offence of the statement.
‘Maybe it’s because I’m human,’ Sophia added.
‘What’s your name?’
‘What’s yours?’
‘You first.’
‘Phia.’
The little girl’s eyes widened.
‘P-H-I-A,’ Sophia explained. ‘You can spell, right?’
The little girl nodded. ‘I spell every day.’
‘So what’s your name?’
‘Tuly.’
‘Nice name.’ She looked over her head. ‘Where’s your mother?’
‘Watching the game.’
Sophia took her opportunity to be sure. ‘And your father?’
‘Playing.’
‘Is that Jask?’
The little girl put her hands to her mouth to mask her giggle. She shook her head.
‘Jask isn’t your father?’
‘Uh-uh,’ she said, shaking her head again.
‘Is Corbin?’
The little girl smiled, flashing Phia a hint of the protruding canines indicative of their kind, and nodded.
And Sophia smiled back – for more than one reason.
‘Tuly, come here!’
Tuly looked over her shoulder as the blonde female closed the gap between them, her hand held out for Tuly to take – the female Sophia instantly recognised from the dining hall, and from the quadrant with Jask and Corbin.
‘I’m talking to Phia,’ Tuly declared. ‘She’s human.’
‘I know what she is,’ the female declared, her hand stiffening as she kept it held out in summons.
‘I’m not going to do anything to her,’ Sophia declared, unable not to feel affronted by the concern in the female’s eyes.
‘Tuly!’ the female said again, her eyes flitting anxiously from Sophia to her daughter.
With a sigh, Tuly pulled away.
The female instantly swept her up to rest on her hip.
‘I told her she smells funny,’ the child whispered in her mother’s ear.
‘She smells different, that’s all,’ the female said. She looked back at Sophia, apology for her daughter’s blatancy clear in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’
Sophia shrugged. ‘I’ve been told worse. Believe me.’
The lycan eyed her swiftly. ‘You found the clothes then,’ she said, a little more appeased by having her child in her arms. ‘Jask asked me to get you a few things.’
Sophia clutched the hem and splayed it by way of acknowledgement. ‘Thanks.’
‘I’m Solstice,’ she said. ‘And you’re obviously Phia.’
‘P-H-I-A,’ Tuly spelt out.
‘Go and play on the green,’ Solstice instructed the child before putting her back down on the floor.
Tuly flashed Sophia another smile before waving and skipping away.
‘She’s a sweet kid,’ Sophia declared. ‘Direct but sweet.’
‘All the same, I’d rather you not talk to her.’
Clearly not
that
appeased.
Sophia rested her hip against the nearest worktop. ‘I’m guessing you know what I am then.’
Solstice warily held her gaze before nodding.
‘I thought it was vampires who were supposed to be nervous of serryns,’ Phia remarked, ‘not lycans.’
‘I know enough of your kind to know you’re not safe near anyone. Jask has his reasons for letting you wander around, but I just ask that you stay away from our young.’
Sophia exhaled, surprised at how offended she still felt, not least by how Solstice still looked at her like she was some kind of monster. But even she knew there was no greater monster out there than a fully fledged serryn. ‘
She
approached
me
.’
‘We’re not used to strangers here. She’s going to be intrigued. Let alone a human stranger. But this is a safe environment and we would like to keep it that way.’
‘Then talk to your pack leader; he’s the one keeping me prisoner.’
‘Not without good reason.’
‘A reason you know?’
Solstice frowned warily. ‘I know when to not ask questions.’
Sophia folded her arms. ‘Wow, you lycan girls really are under the thumb, aren’t you?’
It was Solstice’s turn to look affronted. ‘Not under the thumb. It’s called trust.’
‘You can call it what you like. I’ll call it a dictatorship. Jask still has the final say on everything, right?’
‘He’s a great leader. A strong leader.’
‘Not one who can protect you all of the time though. What happened with the TSCD only proves that.’
Solstice took a brave step towards her. ‘What happened with our pack was a set-up. Jask did the right thing to protect us, but don’t mistake it for weakness. I saw the way you looked at him at breakfast. You need to treat him with more respect.’
‘He hasn’t exactly earned it.’
‘Take some friendly advice – tread carefully, Phia. Those eyes of his might be pretty but what lies behind them isn’t.’
She turned away, making her way back through the plants.
Sophia knew she should have left it there, that she shouldn’t have pursued. But she couldn’t help it. ‘You’re with Corbin, right?’
Solstice glanced over her shoulder but kept walking.
‘So who’s Jask with?’
Solstice didn’t look back as she made her way back through the sliding doors into the next room.
‘Your alpha has got a mate, right? I’ve seen her clothes in his room.’ Sophia followed her over to the front door. ‘Don’t tell me she’s left him. Run off with a vampire, maybe?’ she added, hoping her light retort would get the lycan to respond.
‘She’s dead,’ Solstice said, turning to face her. ‘Ellen’s dead.’
Chapter Ten
S
ophia stood outside the outhouse, uncertain whether the chill that crept over her skin was from the comparative rapid drop in temperature compared to the humidity of indoors, or a chill of a different kind.
It wasn’t just what Solstice had said before walking away – it was the sadness that had leaked from her eyes as she’d uttered it.
Whoever Ellen was, she had mattered to her too.
And no matter how she had intended the remark, Sophia felt the painful stab of shame.
She wanted to ask when, how. Maybe even just to apologise instead of standing there in gawping silence. Not that any of it mattered. Not that she had any place caring at all.
But to her detriment, she did.
She curled her toes against the cold, rough stone before strolling back down to the gate. Not sure where to go, what to do in light of the revelation, she looked left at the outhouse she’d tried to explore earlier. She resolved to make another attempt – needing the distraction if nothing else.
Careful to avoid tripping over the tree roots, she reached the door. She turned the handle, only this time it gave and creaked open. She glanced warily over her shoulder at the courtyard behind, checking she was alone before stepping inside.
There was a further temperature drop inside as she closed the door behind her. What was left of the late afternoon light leaked through the small, deep-set windows left and right, igniting the glittering dust motes. But even that fragment of light was fading with the encroaching twilight.
Her pulse raced to an uncomfortable throb, her ears attuned to any sound – any indication that someone else was in there. But only silence echoed back.
She peered into the open room directly ahead, at the table and vacant chairs she’d seen earlier, before heading down the corridor to the right.
She dragged her hand along the uneven stone wall as she descended the broad wooden steps. Even less light filtered through the four high-set oblong windows – the thick branches outside blocking the diminishing light as if darkness consumed that part of the building early.
She turned the handle on the first door on the left and warily pushed it open. Half-empty wine racks dominated the periphery of the dark room within, storage boxes piled up in the centre. She found similar in the next room along only this time it was stacked not only with bottle racks, but crates and barrels too.
She turned the handle on the third door.
Her heart leapt at what looked liked upright coffins lining the walls ahead as well as to her left and right. But each lay open and empty, exposing straps within as well as what looked like the equivalent of a moulding to fit a human form.
She tentatively crossed the threshold, checking behind the door before stepping further inside.
She passed the central stone table, not failing to notice the straps that hung limply from that too.
Stopping in front of one of the coffins, she examined the soft, brown strips of leather – seemingly positioned to bind the neck, forearms, wrists, waist, hips, thighs and calves. She reached out to touch one.
‘They’re for punishment.’
Sophia’s heart leapt a fraction before the rest of her did. She spun around, her startled gaze snapping to the doorway to where Jask stood in the opaque light. He was still in the same clothing he’d worn out on the pitch but his hair glistened as if he’d showered.
‘Lycans hate to be contained,’ he said. ‘We’re extremely claustrophobic. Once you’ve been in there, you don’t usually commit a misdemeanour again.’
‘You put your
own
in these?’
‘They’re as much a deterrent as in active use.’
There was something different about him – almost as if he’d been struck with a new vigour with the pending nightfall. If it was possible, he seemed sharper, more relaxed – almost more alert to her.
She withdrew from the coffin. ‘That’s a somewhat tyrannical approach for someone who’s supposed to care about his pack,’ she said, folding her arms.
‘That’s a somewhat condemnatory tone coming from a serryn.’
‘We do what we have to.’
He leaned back against the wall just inside of the door. ‘What you
choose
to do.’
She strolled towards the table, sending a wary glance in his direction.
She wondered how long he’d been without Ellen. What had happened to her. If they’d been together long. Why he’d not found another. All questions far too personal for her to dare ask. And questions she had no place pondering.
Facing him, she perched against the end of the table nearest him and cocked her head towards it. ‘A bit kinky, isn’t it?’
‘You want to try it for size?’
‘Is that your thing, Jask? Strapping people down?’
‘Does that worry you, Phia?’
Hearing her name slip from his lips for the first time sent a shiver through her.
‘That is your name, right?’ he said, a glimmer of amusement lacing his eyes. ‘P-H-I-A, Tuly tells me.’
He seemed further amused by her silence as she struggled for a retort.
‘Do you want to see inside one of the containment rooms?’ he asked. ‘As you’re clearly curious as to how things run around here.’
‘You have morphers?’
Now this
was
a useful piece of insider information. A very illegal and subsequently risky piece of information that he shouldn’t have been disclosing to her.
He took a step back into the corridor, hand held out to his right.
There was something behind his eyes that spoke of a challenge – a challenge that she had the feeling was a test. He glanced down at her chest then back in her eyes, clearly having sensed the escalated pulse rate – clearly wanting her to know as such.
He expected her to say no.
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Why not?’
She followed him out of the room, feigning as much nonchalance as she could as he led her to the final door in the corridor. He descended the worn, wooden slatted steps into the darkness below, Sophia close behind.
There were no windows in the subterranean level. And it was cold, much colder. The silence was unearthly, the scent of damp rife.
He switched on three wall-mounted lights as he led the way, the cord still swinging as she passed, the white light only adding to the chill of the narrow stone corridor.
They passed metal door after metal door both left and right, until Jask stopped at the one in the far left-hand corner.
He pushed it open, indicating for Sophia to enter first.
As she stepped over the threshold into the darkness, she heard another click. More soft white light entered the room, but not enough to reach the corners.
What resembled a prison cell dominated the top right-hand corner of the room – maybe twenty-by-twenty-foot square. The two inner walls were stone, the two outer ones bars that were drilled into the floor and ceiling. A single door entered the side directly ahead. It was best described as a cage and she guessed that, technically, that’s exactly what it was – only the entrants were voluntary.
‘How many of these are there?’ she asked, looking down at the double mattress on the floor within.
‘Ten along this stretch. More than enough.’ He indicated towards the open door. ‘Try it.’
She looked across her shoulder at him as he drew level, the wariness in her eyes undoubtedly visible.
He headed over and stepped inside ahead of her.
After a moment’s more hesitation, knowing only too well that he could have dragged her in there if he’d wanted to, she followed behind him.
Though only separated from the rest of the room by the bars, it felt more confined in there, even with the door open. The feeling was oppressive – as if decades of negative energy had been stored up in one tiny place.
She tried to ignore the sudden sense of claustrophobia as she stepped deeper into the cage, deeper into the darkness.
‘How long do they spend in here?’
‘Two days before the full moon – that’s the really tetchy time – the day during and then the recuperation days after.’
‘And then?’
‘They sleep it off. Eat. Relax. Then spend the rest of the month like anyone else.’
‘Are they the ones that refuse to take the herbs?’
‘Only one. The rest are the unfortunate ones who are immune to the remedy.’
‘So it’s true. There are some it doesn’t work for. But they won’t take the meds?’
Jask leaned back beside the exit. He coiled his hands around the bars above his head, the motion emphasising the curves of his bare arms, his solid shoulders, the toned chest beneath his black vest.
She wasn’t sure if the relaxed stance was supposed to create the same effect in her. From her flush of arousal, it had failed.
‘If the Global Council offered you pills, but they refused to tell you anything about what they contained – would you take them?’ he asked.
‘Those who refuse should be declared. Those meds are obligatory for the immune ones. The LCU would rip this place apart if they knew. What you’re doing is dangerous. You’re putting this community at risk. What if one got out?’
‘Have you ever heard of a morphed lycan on the loose in Blackthorn?’
‘The two that killed Kane Malloy’s sister,’ she reminded him. She stepped up to the threshold of the dark recess in the top right-hand corner and peered into the tiny space that housed a metal sink directly ahead, a toilet around the corner before the room ended in a shower.
‘That was different, as you well know. They
did
opt into the meds and were starved of them.’
She turned to face him. ‘But you let them take them. Doesn’t that go against your lycan code?’
‘As opposed to forcing them to face morphing?’
‘Is it really that painful?’
‘For the first twenty or so times, if the body doesn’t give in before then. Females of our species say it’s ten times worse than childbirth.’
She raised her eyebrows slightly as her imagination filled in the gaps as it so often did, having never experienced the latter, and now never having the prospect of experiencing it. ‘So what about the one you mentioned that refuses both the meds and your herbs? Why do they opt for it?’
‘Because there are still some who think it is intended. I have to respect their viewpoint.’
‘No, what you have to do is keep your pack in check. What you’re doing here is irresponsible.’
‘I’ll try not to lose any sleep over your concerns.’
Now that she had seen it all, she should have left. Or at least attempted to. But she didn’t want to. Instead, she leaned against the wall opposite him, her hands at the small of her back. She glanced around the cell, trying to envision spending four days down there. ‘So what about you? Do the herbs work on you, or do you spend each full moon down here?’
He wandered over to the mattress against the wall and picked up what looked like a small tennis ball. He flipped it in his hand before bouncing it against the floor on his way over to her. ‘The herbs work on me.’
He bounced the ball against the wall she leaned against, it rebounding back for him to catch easily in one hand.
‘Have
you ever morphed?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ he said, throwing the ball against the wall, this time right next to her. ‘When I was younger. Before the regulations changed our freedom to do so. Before I had the responsibility of this pack.’
‘How old are you?’
He raked her swiftly with his gaze as if debating whether to answer. ‘A century and a half, plus some.’
‘You lycans get about five years to every one of ours, right? But you stay at your peak for most of it – like the vampires do.’
‘Something like that.’
The repeat bounce and rebound of ball becoming rhythmic, a thud not unlike her own pulse rate, as if he was tuning into it and showing her so.
‘That was an impressive performance earlier. The game,’ she said, trying to ignore what she guessed was now a clever taunt – rebounding and catching, rebounding and catching, the rhythm becoming hypnotic.
‘It’s good for teamwork. Good for focus. It helps the young ones to channel and develop their responses. It gets them to be aware of each other and their pack. It was a game that we used to use to train for hunting.’
His rhythm picked up pace, her pulse rate ironically doing the same in the otherwise dominating silence.
‘You used to hunt?’ she asked, trying to stay focused.
‘When I needed to.’
‘Humans?’
He glanced at her. ‘When I needed to.’
She felt herself prickle at the subtle intimidation. ‘And why would you need to? For food?’
‘Trust me, you don’t taste that nice.’
‘But tell me, is it true there was talk of the Global Council trying to get you on side when they first brought the regulations into being? That they wanted to develop you into being the perfect fighting machines for their cause? Faster, even better responses and the animalistic lack of conscience to rip your enemies apart – they wanted you to help keep order amongst the vampires and back up the Third Species Control Division. Like police dogs, only more expendable. But that you all refused despite the extra privileges like they offered the vampires’ Higher Order?’ She looked around. ‘Admirable to your own maybe that you declined. But many would say stupid. Still, you secured a nice kennel here. Very cosy.’
She expected him to bite at that one. But he didn’t. His calmness only added to her unease – like the steady gaze of viper just before it strikes.
‘It’ll do for now,’ he said.
‘For now? Don’t tell me you’re one of the optimists who believe this system is temporary? Do you believe these vampire prophecies?’
‘I know it won’t always be like this.’
‘But surely if the vampires come into power, it’ll be all over for you.’
‘Sounds like more speculation to me.’
‘I’m just stating the obvious.’
‘We may be in the minority in this locale, but don’t mistake us for the underdog.’
She couldn’t help but smirk. ‘Your words, not mine.’
He picked up pace with the ball, almost as if he knew the personal jibe had escalated her heartbeat a fraction more – the act in itself provoking a further increase.