The woman stepped closer into view, and my skin turned cold. Potter sat on the hay, then reaching out, he asked Elizabeth Clarke to sit down next to him. I looked up at Seth.
“What’s he doing with that school teacher?” I gasped. “She’s a friend of yours isn’t she? A wolf.”
“And don’t we now know that Potter likes himself a piece of wolf,” he smiled back at me.
“But why would he...” I started.
“Shhh,” Jack hushed. “Let’s see if I’m right about Potter.”
I looked back at the iPod.
“I love you,”
I heard Potter tell Elizabeth, her golden hair hanging wetly about her shoulders.
“Do you?”
she asked him.
“Yes,”
Potter said, and I thought I was going to be sick again as I heard him say that to her. Is that what he had said to all of us? Eloisa, Sophie, and me?
“You have a funny way of showing it. I
know you used to love
her
,”
Elizabeth said.
Was she talking about me? I wondered.
“I thought I did once, but after meeting
you, I knew that the feelings I had for her were
nothing compared to how I feel about you. It’s
you I want,”
I heard Potter tell her.
However much it crushed me inside, I knew he was talking about me. God, he was good.
“Turn it off,” I snapped at Seth.
“Watch,” he insisted.
With tears beginning to blur my vision I looked back at the screen.
“How do I know you are telling the
truth?”
I heard Elizabeth ask him, her lips covered in bright red lipstick.
“Look, I’m not very good with words,”
Potter told her. Then I watched with tears streaming down my face as he reached out and took Elizabeth’s hand. He kissed it, and then pressed it against his cheek.
“I love you so
much,”
Potter told Elizabeth.
“Please turn it off,” I cried, turning my head away. I couldn’t bear to watch any more.
Then gripping my face in his bony hands, Seth roughly snapped my head around and forced me to look at the iPod. “Look,” he barked. “Look and see that I am telling the truth.”
I watched as Elizabeth cupped Potter’s face in her hands, then slowly lent forward and kissed him on the lips with her perfectly formed mouth. Potter kissed her right back. He ran his fingers through her long white-blond hair, laying her down in the hay. I wept silently as he positioned himself on top of her, his hands slowly pulling free her wet clothes. Elizabeth responded, by pulling at his coat.
“Turn it off!” I screamed. I couldn’t bear to watch anymore. I couldn’t bear to watch the man I loved make love to another woman.
“Watch!” Seth screeched, waving the iPod in front of my face.
I glanced at the iPod long enough to see Potter was now naked to the waist, as was Elizabeth. Potter had one of her ample breasts cupped in his hand.
“Turn it off,” I sobbed, pulling my face free of Seth’s grasp and looking away. “I believe you.
I believe you
. I don’t need to see any more.”
Seth switched off the iPod and threw it to the floor.
“Why did you have to show me that?” I wept, knowing I would never be able to rid myself of those images. Each time they appeared in my mind, they would only reinforce the hatred I now felt for Potter.
“You would only be able to make your choice if you fully understood the truth,” Seth said.
“What choice!”
I screamed at him, dribble and snot swinging from my chin.
“Who are you going to choose?” Seth smiled back at me. “Because only one of them can live.”
“Who are you talking about?” I cried, just wishing this torture would come to an end already.
“Are you going to choose Potter, the man you now know is a cheat and a liar and has no real love for anyone other than himself, or...” Seth trailed off.
“Or who?” I breathed.
“Your father,” Seth beamed, pulling back the blanket which covered the figure sitting in the chair on the opposite side of the room.
Potter
I pulled Kiera’s wet coat free as she yanked mine from over my shoulders and down my back. She kissed my face and I kissed back, covering her cheeks and forehead. With her nails, she pulled my shirt open down the front and kissed my chest. Her lips felt soft against me and my flesh tightened, covered with gooseflesh. It wasn’t the cold that made me shiver, but the excited feelings I felt at being with her again. My shirt fluttered to the ground, and with my claws I pulled open the front of her shirt and covered her breasts in kisses. She groaned beneath me and arched her back so I could pull her shirt free from beneath her.
“I love you, Kiera.” I whispered, sliding my knee between her legs and pushing them apart.
“I love you, too,” she whispered back, her fingers fumbling with my belt buckle.
I looked down at her beautiful face as she stared up into my eyes, and in the gloom of the barn, they shone yellow, not hazel. I cupped one of her breasts in my hand, and kissed her neck. Her skin smelt sweet, like perfume, and my phantom heart raced. My fangs nipped the flesh just behind her ear and she moaned softly. I didn’t want to feed yet, I didn’t want our lovemaking to be over – not just yet. Slowly, I covered her breasts with soft kisses, working my mouth down over the flat of her stomach. With my free hand, I popped open the top button of her trousers. She lifted her butt off the mattress of hay so I could free them. Lying on the hay in just her panties, I looked down at her beautiful body. Her skin was a cream white and soft. I slowly moved my fingertips around the curve of her hips, and she shuddered.
“I’m glad you’ve given me another chance,” I whispered, lowering myself over her. “I have Kayla to thank.”
“Kayla?” she groaned.
“I told her how much I loved you, and she said I should be telling you, and not her,” I said, stroking the hair from her brow so I could see into her eyes.
“Good,” she smiled up at me, her eyes shining.
“It almost broke my heart to hear her say, ‘see you later alligator’; it just wasn’t the same,” I whispered, kissing her neck.
“Why was that?” she murmured, running her hands through my hair, then down across my back.
“Because you weren’t there to say the other part,” I told her, making circular motions with my fingers around the nipple of her left breast.
“The last part?” she sighed, looking at me through half-opened eyes.
“Yeah you know...In a while...” I started.
Kiera slowly opened her eyes and looked at me, and there was a blankness in them, as if she didn’t know what I was talking about.
“Say the last part,” I said, looking down at her, my hand now hovering just over her breast.
“Stop playing these games, Potter, and make love to me,” she said, squirming seductively beneath me and gripping my arse with both hands.
“You don’t know the last part, do you?” I said.
Kiera snapped open her eyes and looked up at me.
“In a while crocodile,” I whispered plunging my fist into her chest.
Her eyes bulged in their sockets and her mouth snapped open as I ripped her heart from her chest. As it beat in my blood-soaked claw, Kiera’s face began to change beneath me. It twisted and stretched like putty, taking on a whole new shape. Her black hair lightened before my eyes, turning from black to blonde.
“You fucking wolves just don’t learn, do you?” I roared, looking down into Elizabeth’s dead face.
“Fuck!”
I screamed, jumping up and throwing her still-beating heart at the barn wall where it stuck momentarily, then slid to the floor. I watched it travel down the wall like some vast black coloured slug, a trail of sticky hot blood behind it.
“Fuck!” I roared again, kicking out at her corpse, knowing that I had been tricked again. Just when I thought I’d gone and got things straightened out, I go and find that I’ve been humping a freaking wolf! How the fuck was I going to explain this little episode away, I did not know.
What the fuck is Kiera going to think if she ever found out? I screamed inside, kicking the wolf’s dead body again. It skidded across the hay-covered floor, then rolled over.
I thought of how Eloisa had tricked me into believing I had been with Sophie at the Wolf House, by blinding me with her eyes. Elizabeth Clarke had just done the same thing to me.
“Why do I keep falling for this shit?”
I roared out loud, snatching up my shirt. I’d wasted enough time already. The fact that I had been tricked like this, and by one of Seth’s accomplices, told me I had been right after all. A trap had been set for Kiera, and Jack Seth was the one who had set it.
Kiera
I looked across the room at my father. He sat just like I was, bound to a wooden chair.
Unlike me, he had been stripped, wearing just a pair of boxer shorts. A leather gag had been secured in his mouth. His eyes bulged in their sockets with fear.
“Aaaarrrgghh!” he said, trying to speak from the other side of the gag. He shook his head from side to side and looked at me.
“Let him go!” I shouted at Seth.
“Only you have the power to do that,”
Seth smiled at me, revealing his broken stumps for teeth.
“Aaaarrrgghh!” my father groaned again, his eyes now streaming tears onto his cheeks as he stared across the room at me.
“What are you trying to say?” Seth smiled into his face.
“Aaaarrrgghh!” my father came again, shaking his head frantically from side to side.
“Perhaps I should remove this?” he said, untying the gag at the back of my father’s head.
“Kiera!” he spluttered as soon as the gag was free. “Kiera I’m so sorry. I didn’t get a chance to warn you. They arrived just before you got back from your study leave.”
I looked across the room at him, wondering if I were truly dead in this world or not? Potter and Murphy had said that I was.
“I’m dead, aren’t I?” I said looking back at him, his half-naked body tied to the chair.
Before my father had a chance to say anything back, Seth came across the room towards me, and placed his sunken cheek against mine.
“Shhh!” he hushed into my ear. “You are dead here. Your body lies in the graveyard at the foot of the hill. You were shot in the line of duty – very sad it was too.” Then, leaning back from me, he looked at me with his crazy yellow eyes and said, “Of course he doesn’t remember that now. I stared at him and he sees something different now – he
sees
that you are very much alive, the memory of your death erased from his mind.”
“You bastard,” I whispered, looking back at Seth.
“No – not a bastard. How I wish I was, but that is another story,” he smiled back at me.
“I’m not your daughter,” I shouted over Seth’s shoulder at my father. “I’m not really your Kiera. He is tricking you.”
“Kiera, what are you saying?” my father said from across the room, his pale face full of fear. “I don’t think pretending you aren’t my daughter is going to help us.”
“I’m
not
your daughter,” I tried to convince him. “Your daughter – your Kiera - is
dead!
”
“Oh this is going to be so much fun,” Seth chuckled, clapping his hands together.
“What have you done to my daughter?”
my father shouted at Seth. “Why have you got her to say these things?”
“Oh please stop,” Seth cried with laughter. “You’re killing me.”
“You’ve got to listen to me,” I shouted at my father over the sound of Seth’s laughter. “He wants you to believe I’m your daughter, because whatever this twisted fuck has planned, only works if you believe I’m your daughter.”
“Kiera,” my father gasped. “I’ve never heard you use such language before.”
“Please stop,” Seth shrieked with enjoyment, wiping tears from his eyes. “Please, I can’t take anymore. He is actually telling you off for swearing like any decent father would. Oh Christ, this is amazing. I love it. Love it!”
I pulled again at my restraints, just wanting to be free so I could tear his face off.
“Just let us go!” I roared at him.
Wiping the last of his tears away, Seth looked at me, and still trying to contain his laughter, he said, “That’s a choice only you can make, Kiera Hudson.”
“What choice?” I yelled at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Okay, okay,” Seth said, finally getting to grips with his fit of hysterics. Then kneeling before me, his back to my father, he lowered his voice and said, “We both know that isn’t really your father, right?”
“Right,” I whispered looking over his shoulder at my father, and in my heart knowing it really was, but just in a different time – a different
when
. He was the same man, and the sight of him tied petrified looking to that chair crushed me.
“We both know that the man you love – Potter – will make his way here. He won’t be able to resist. When he does, he will die. Simple. The only way you will stop that from happening, is if you warn him in some way, or you stand shoulder to shoulder when he arrives and defend him. It’s still very unlikely that he will survive, but the odds will be better stacked in his favour with you beside him. But the thing is, and this is the real trick, you won’t be able to warn or help Potter if you are a statue.”
“What are you talking about?” I snapped, pretending I had no idea what he was going on about.
“Kiera, you know what I’m talking about,”
he smiled at me, his voice still just a whisper. “I can see the faint lines – cracks – forming around your eyes and mouth. Before very much more time has passed, your flesh, your body will start to crack and peel, just like a statue. How will you help your beloved Potter then?”
“You don’t really think you will...” I started, but Seth just smiled back at me like a crazy.
“But does Potter really deserve your help – your undying love?” he teased. “After all, we know he would fuck anything with a pulse.” Then looking me up and down, he added, “Or not.”