Howl (Witches & Warlocks Book 4) (6 page)

“I can relate. I’ve been there.” I want to smile to take away some of the sting of all that I’m leaving unsaid, but I’m not sure she’s earned my compassion quite yet.

“I bet you can.” She blinks again and I realize it’s the first time she’s moved since the last time she blinked. Her stillness is just one more thing in this whole eerie adventure. “Look,” she begins, “I’m really sorry.”

“It is what it is,” I say and shrug, wondering just how much I believe that. It’s like touching a bruise, talking to Becca. Checking how much things still hurt. Judging how bad the injury actually is. Discerning how close it is to being healed.

“Why are you here?” Becca takes a deep breath in through her nose, nostrils flaring, and I very decidedly do not like the look that comes into her eyes.

“I want to know about my parents.”

“Have you asked Daya about them?”

“Yes, and all she told me was their first names. Tara and Malichi.”

Becca flinches. “I don’t know much more than that. Tara was a light witch, a member of the Archer family. She was the most powerful of the whole bloodline. An anomaly. They weren’t prepared to have someone like her. Malichi was a Dalton. A prominent and nasty line of dark magic users.” Becca leans in a little closer and I watch her gaze slide down to the vein in my neck. “It’s the whole Romeo and Juliet deal, Zo. Forbidden love that ends up with everyone you care about dying.” Her voice has gone all dreamy and I’m quite sure she’s unaware how close she’s gotten to me.

“Hey!” I snap my fingers. “My eyes are up here.”

Becca looks surprised and then laughs. Steps back a little. Shrugs in the most graceful off-hand apology I’ve ever seen. “I always did feel bad for keeping you so locked up inside yourself. Figured you were a bit of a firecracker underneath all that blushing.”

“Ya, well, you and me both I guess.”

How do I tell her how miserable I used to be? How do I make her understand how much I hated having thoughts and feelings and desires that wanted out and no matter what I did, no matter how many pep talks I gave myself, they just stayed locked up inside? Or maybe I don’t have to tell her. Maybe she doesn’t deserve to know. Maybe it’s time to stop regretting all that happened to me, suck it up, and deal with who I am now.

“Hey,” she says after a few seconds of extended silence. “Will you keep me company for a little bit?”

“Really?” And while I mean to ask if she really wants my company, it comes out sounding like I’m asking if she really has the audacity to ask such a thing of me. Which, I realize, is probably the better of the two questions.

“I know I have no right, none at all. I’m just so alone. Just so…” She shrugs, but her eyes finish the sentence for her. Just so scared. Becca — the turncoat best friend, the peppy little disco ball turned double agent, the brand new supernatural being who requires entire buildings being empty as a safety precaution — is scared.

I reach out to touch her arm and regret the decision as her eyes dilate and her head whips towards my hand. Slowly, I pull back, showing her my hand as if she were an unfamiliar dog. “Sure,” I say ignoring the whole crazed predator thing. “But how about we go somewhere that’s not the hallway.”

Becca laughs, a tight sound. Tension rolling off her body. Suggests we sit in one of the lounges. “There’s a fire in the fireplace back there. Feels good on my skin.”

“Lead the way, OJ,” I say and gesture down the hallway, needing her in front of me because I don’t think I could stand having my back to her. Instead, I get to watch her new serpentine way of moving that’s just setting every fight or flight instinct I have on fire. And I hate to admit it, but I’m not feeling much like fighting.

The fire does feel good, though, and Becca seems to relax in the somewhat darkened lounge. I comment on it and she tells me the sun makes her irritable and weak. I remember how many times she forced us outside simply because it was a sunny day and “humans need sun on our skin.” Her new existence seems more and more like a prison sentence.

“So,” I say after it starts to feel like I’m talking to my lifelong friend again. “Not to get all up in your business, but what do you eat?”

Becca puts her hands to her face and shakes her head. “Oh Zoe,” she mutters and her voice is thick with tears. “It’s so terrible. I can’t eat food at all.” She lifts her face from her hands and I gasp in horror. Her tears are blood. She swipes at them, smearing garish crimson streaks across her pale skin. “Ya, I know,” she says rubbing her face, “it’s awful. I’m disgusting.”

I feel like I should go to her. Wrap an arm around her, tell her it’s gonna be OK. But I don’t. I can’t. It’s all I can do not to run screaming from the room. And, if I’m being totally honest, there’s a tiny little part of me that feels like she’s getting what she deserves.

But in the very instant I recognize that I’m feeling that way, I feel terrible and the thought dissipates. Two wrongs don’t make a right and there’s nothing that warrants misery like this. Not even the memory my own misery.

Steeling myself. Forcing myself. Working against every instinct I have, I stand up and I cross the room to her. I sit next to her. Make eye contact and open my arms. Try not to shiver as she dives into my embrace, her cold skin raising goosebumps on my own, her blood staining my shirt.

I hold her as she cries. Rock her as she apologizes. And when she grows terrifyingly still, I look down and realize that I’m holding a hungry vampire in my arms.

Chapter Seven

Becca feels me tense and looks up, her pupils fully dilated, her eyes just big empty pools of black hunger. Her mouth is open and her sharp teeth are exposed and there’s this moment of everything hanging in the balance and then, somehow, she’s across the room. Panting. Crying. Apologizing.

“Just go, Zoe,” she says, chest heaving. “Just go.” And I’m ashamed to admit that I do. I run from the room, wiping her bloody tears on my pants, trying not to gag on the mess that is my shirt. I zip up my coat as I head towards the front door, do my best to hide the blood. Forget what I saw and felt in that room. Poor Becca. Whatever she did, however hard she made my life … I don’t think there are many people who deserve what she’s going through.

I burst through the front doors out into the sunlight and don’t stop running until I’m down the stairs and there’s not a shadow on me. The valet’s nowhere to be seen and I’m cursing his need to have bathroom breaks when someone grabs my arm. I whirl, expecting Becca, and send an electrical charge over my skin, all dark magic and strong enough to knock back a hungry vampire.

Whoever it was that touched me goes flying back as my magic strikes them, the grunt decidedly male as the guy’s shoulder slams into the bottom step.

“Oh no!” I cry, running to check on him. That surge of magic was strong enough to do some serious damage to a human. “I’m so sorry!”

The guy is panting and in pain, but he’s doing way better than I expected. He snarls as I get close and the sound is decidedly inhuman. When he finally looks at me, his eyes are yellowed and canine and I realize that I’m looking at a werewolf. Of course, not just any werewolf, but the guy who stopped me the other day. The one who wanted me to go vampire hunting for him.

My gaze flips to the front door and I swear I see Becca watching through the window. Or maybe it’s just a trick of the light. I give my focus back to the annoying wolf at my feet. Straighten. Wipe my hands.

“What do you want?” I ask. Maybe that’s a little cold, considering I just knocked the guy into a set of stone steps, but my patience has been stretched to its max.

“You could ask me my name, you know.” The wolf is getting to his feet, his eyes fading from yellow to brown. His voice changing from snarly to oily.

“Not interested.” I turn and inwardly beg the valet to return right this instant. I’m so over awkward confrontations.

“Well, gonna tell ya anyway. Name’s Ty.”

I shrug and do my best to let my face tell him that I really don’t care. He’s either dense or narcissistic enough not to care that I’m annoyed.

“Have you done anymore thinking about my little offer?”

“Not sure you offered me anything.”

“Of course I did. I offered you the chance to help me out. The chance to keep the vampires from knowing who you really are.”

What the hell does he know about who I really am? “That’s great, Ty. Not interested. Hell, I’m not even really sure what you’re talking about.”

“Nice try, sweetlips. Not buying it.” Ty stands beside me, pretending to look for the valet. “Now, what’s it gonna take to get you to open up and be straight with me? What’s it gonna take to get you on board with solving my little problem?”

“Ty. Buddy.” I do my best to look as powerful as I am. As capable of killing as I am. “I’m gonna be real straight with you right now. You need to leave me alone. Or you’re gonna have a whole new little problem to deal with.” I lift my eyebrows and try not to dissolve into a big ball of scared little girl as anger darkens his face.

He lifts a lip, the snarl seeming even more threatening on his very human face. “You do realize what I am, don’t you, witch?”

I appreciate how intimidating he’s trying to be, but I’m not going to let him get to me. “You do realize what
I
am, don’t you, wolf?”

Ty smiles and shrugs. “If I didn’t know what you could do, I wouldn’t be here.” The valet finally makes his appearance, jogging across the lot, stopping to get my keys from his little station, and takes off towards where he keeps the cars. Ty steps back.

“I suggest you stop being here,” I say and pride myself on how strong I sound.

“I could do that,” he says. “I could also let a few of the stories I’ve heard about you leak out to a few people who might tell a few people who might, you know, tell a few more people. Before you know it, everyone who’s anyone in the Supernatural Union will know just exactly what you can do.” Ty smiles. “And you know how rumors go, by the time the story gets to some of the more important ears, you could be capable of just about anything.”

My shiny new car rolls up and stops in front of me. The valet hops out and holds the door open, declines the tip I offer him because he made me wait. I slam the door, put the car in gear, and pull away from the curb, determined not to look at Ty.

But just before I turn onto the main road, I look back through the rearview mirror and the look on his face sends chills up my spine. Of course, that’s probably just me being paranoid. Like usual. Being scared of everything in this strange new world. I probably should have hit Ty with one last spell, just give him a little taste of what I’m capable of, you know, in case he decides he wants to keep trying to convince me to help him.

Or, maybe I should have hit him with one last spell in case he decides to go ahead and start spreading nasty rumors about me. Ha. Rumors. Can it be a rumor if it’s true? I can’t even begin to think what might happen to me if enough vampires start to think about what I’m capable of. If enough of them start to believe that I’m capable of turning them human again.

And you know what? I’m not gonna think about it. ‘Cause what’s worrying about it going to change? Absolutely nothing. So, my life might be in danger. It’s not like that’s a huge change from the last couple months. Feels like my life’s been in danger ever since I found out I was a witch.

All bravado aside, I sit inside my locked car in the driveway while I do a little magical sensing of my home and the yard surrounding it. Check for anyone or anything that might mean danger. The sun’s out, which means the vamps are all sleeping for sure. But it also means that the snow’s almost totally melted and I’m not going to be able to use it to check for tracks around my property anymore.

Damn.

Do I really need to be this paranoid?

Actually, yes. I think I do.

Twinks is curled up in the window, enjoying the sun. As I open the door, he opens one lazy eye to watch me come in and then closes it again. “Hey, Furrball,” I say as I hang up my coat and look down at my bloodstained clothing. They’re going to have to go straight to the trash because I can’t imagine that they’re salvageable. I head upstairs and cringe at the shredded toilet paper I’ve yet to clean up. Grab a trash bag and scoop it all up, strip out of my clothes and toss them right on in, and then climb into the shower.

I can’t get Becca out of my mind and have come to the conclusion that I most definitely feel sorry for her. Whatever she was, whatever she did to me, she doesn’t deserve to be locked up and lonely. Shunned by both witches and vampires alike and crying nasty-ass bloody tears over it all. By the time I’m clean and dressed, I’m feeling bad for running away from her like that, even if she did tell me to go.

But thinking about running away makes me think about Ty again. Was he just sitting out there, waiting for me to show up? Is he just hanging out around Windsor, waiting for signs of me? Or, and this thought really sends a chill down my spine, did he know I was there?

I don’t even want to think about that, a psycho stalker werewolf keeping track of all my movements. Thing is, I’m most definitely aware that I’d be a moron
not
to think about it. Guess I’m just going to have to keep my eyes peeled. Suddenly, the cozy night I had planned — watching movies with Twinks curled up in my lap, shooting texts back and forth with Noah — doesn’t sound at all appealing. I want bright lights and lots of people. I want safety in numbers. I want Noah beside me.

I shoot him a text, ask him what he’s got going on. My heart flutters like a broken bird at his response:

Just texting with this super-hot girl I can’t resist.

A girl? I knew it was all too good to be true. I knew I wasn’t going to be enough to keep his attention. I knew I couldn’t trust him. Then comes a second text.

How ya doing hot stuff? ;)

It takes me a minute, but I get it. He wasn’t talking about a different girl, he was talking about me. Trying to be cute and funny. Hell, he probably
was
totally cute and funny, except I have these crazy trust issues. All I can say is thank goodness that little exchange didn’t happen face to face.