Wild (16 page)

“Some fucking gift!” She kept advancing on him; he kept backing up. Eventually he’d fall into the lake and then she’d hold him under until he fucking drowned. “You as good as killed Hannah!”

“No!” he cried again. “Hannah was a mistake, an accident, Lizzie.”

“But making me into a monster, that was deliberate?”

He spread his hands, a conciliatory gesture that did nothing to calm her down. “Lizzie, listen! Don’t you get it? Look at the past couple of days – look at how amazing they’ve been. Before I turned you, you wouldn’t have been able to manage that many pills, right? Now you can take as many as you like, and you’ll just burn through them. You’re free of that twat, Harris, he’ll never hurt you again. You never have to be scared of overdosing like your mate…”

“I wanted to quit, you wanker!” she screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I wanted to dump Harris, quit drugs, and sort myself out! And now look what you’ve done! Harris is dead and I’m more fucked up than ever!”

Anguish on his face, Nick reached for her, but she batted him away viciously. “Don’t touch me. Don’t you ever touch me. Don’t even come near me again, you hear me?” She turned her back on him, blind with anger. If she stayed, if he touched her, she would kill him. No thinking, no regret, just Nick, dead in the grass. Dead as Harris. Dead as Hannah.

He called after her, but made no attempt to follow. Lizzie stormed towards the gates of the park, adrenaline and rage keeping her warm while a bitter wind whipped at her naked body. She stopped to grab her clothes and then she just walked, letting all the torment and betrayal boil away inside her until she was sure it had burned away her insides and just left her hollow.

sixteen

T
HE NEXT EVENING
Lizzie sat in the middle of the living room floor, chewing her lip anxiously while a film played behind her. The score of the old John Wayne flick was comforting – she’d lost count of the number of times she’d watched this film. It reminded her of her first year at uni, curled up with her roommates watching low-budget films and drinking cheap, vinegary wine from Bargain Booze.

She’d spent the whole day like this, watching crappy TV, crying, and eating take away pizza. It had taken all her courage and strength to answer the door to the delivery boy. She was terrified people would know, somehow, that her sins and mistakes were painted on her face. Coming back had taken all the will power she possessed.

The sun was going down, streaming hot orange light through the thin curtains and the revelations of last night seemed a world away. If she tried, she could pretend the whole thing was just a massive, freaky trip. That she and Nick hadn’t chased a ghoul up and down Bold Street for kicks two nights ago, that she hadn’t wrecked havoc in a bloody pig pen last night. That Nick hadn’t turned her into a werewolf.

She shuddered, anger clawing her up. No, okay, she couldn’t pretend. Everything was going to hell and she couldn’t pretend. Couldn’t control it. Couldn’t deal with it alone, but what choice did she have? She was alone, wasn’t she? Her family was at the other end of the country, her boyfriend was dead, and she had nobody else. No friends, nobody to turn to. Couldn’t even take drugs to cope with it now.

God, she missed her family. Piers, with his dry humour and ready hugs for his silly sister. Her mum, with her silk scarves and perfect make-up. She hadn’t spoken to her mum for so long, and now all she wanted was a hug and a kiss. Someone to tell her it would be okay.

She had nothing here anymore. No friends, no reason to stay in Liverpool. She could go home, throw herself into her mum’s arms and beg for help, forgiveness, redemption. Whatever. If she promised to go to rehab, Piers might even let her see the baby when it was born…

…Except it wasn’t that simple, was it? Because with or without drugs, she was still a werewolf.

She scrubbed her moist eyes with the back of her hand and forced herself to stand. The Other was impatient within her, refusing to be denied any longer. She had to get out of the house, had to find somewhere safe to run off her tension and anxiety.

She went to Smithdown Park and wandered through the unkempt rows of trees. Tried not to think about the shitty mess her life had become so quickly. Tried to focus just on the soft susurrus of the leaves in the wind, the twittering of birds and the snap of twigs beneath her feet. She inhaled deeply, smelling wet moss and dead flowers. Somewhere, just on the edge of her senses, she was aware of something that smelt tender and mild, a scent she could almost touch. Something that whetted the Other’s appetite and sent Lizzie’s mind spinning with desire.

Prey.

Her skin itched with the need to shed her human shape. Every atom of her body wanted to reform, cast off Lizzie and become the Other. She rubbed her arms, raking her nails over her biceps as she glanced around to make sure she was alone. Distantly she could hear traffic moving, horns blaring, but nothing threatened the solitude of the park. She was the only human here. Everything else was wilderness.

She caught that tang again and it pushed her over the edge. She threw herself on the Other’s mercy, letting wilder instincts rule her. Cast off her clothes, human entrapments that restricted and chafed at the Other. She fell to the earth, curling her fingers into the dirt and watching with a dark satisfaction as black fur flowed over her hands. Her vision shifted to sepia, the world becoming clearer and sharper. A thousand new sounds and smells rushed her, overwhelming her while her wolf nose tried to sort through them all.

She shook herself from nose to tail, a ripple of pleasure flowing through her as the change finished. Suddenly Nick was a million miles away and all that existed was her and the trees. Her world, her kingdom now. She inhaled and caught again the tantalizing scent of prey, a rabbit a mile away, unaware of the predator on its trail.

The Other licked her chops and sent off towards the rabbit with a snarl of satisfaction.

****

Lizzie awoke human and naked in the park as dusk was falling. Beside her lay the remains of a rabbit, snapped bones and tufts of red-stained fur. She wiped her mouth and found dried blood on her lips, in her hair. It was gorily reminiscent of killing Harris, and for a second she wanted to throw up, revolted by herself.

But the feeling passed as she remembered the sheer joy the Other had felt chasing down the rabbit. The pleasure of the hunt, the gush of hot blood in her throat, the taste of fresh meat on her tongue… She couldn’t find any revulsion for that. If anything she felt the way she used to feel when she was high. Content. Replete.

Maybe I’m becoming a psychopath, she mused as she rose. Trying to scrub the blood from her lips, she grimaced. Why couldn’t she ever think anything cheerful?

Twilight air brushed her bare skin, sending shivers through her, and she longed for the warmth of her wolf fur. Instead she was resigned to backtracking and finding her discarded clothes. A delicious sense of lassitude filled her as she headed home. The hunt had worked off plenty of emotion; she thought she could probably deal with the house now. Clean it up, then settle down and relax. Maybe a hot bath and an early night. Tomorrow… Well, tomorrow didn’t matter. Maybe if she kept her head down and stayed away from Nick, she’d be fine. Maybe life would go back to normal. Well, some kind of normal, anyway.

She smirked at her own naivety, knowing it wasn’t that simple. Nothing was that simple anymore.

Her clothes under the bench she’d sat at earlier, and she pulled them on quickly, shivering with cold now. A rustle in the thicket caught her attention as she tugged on her shoes, as her still-sensitive nose picked up a familiar scent. Wolf, musky and strong. She glanced towards the sound, a growl in her throat. Her heart skipped as the wolf growled back.

He emerged from a clump of bushes, slinking low and close to the ground, cautious. Lizzie stared at him, watching him approach her. It was the same wolf she’d seen the other night. She would have known him anywhere. He stopped a few feet away, unmoving, and they stood like that for a few minutes, wolf and woman facing each other across a stretch of dead grass.

Lizzie shivered, feeling exposed and edgy. Part of her wanted to drive him away, out of her territory. Part of her just wanted to run. If she was still in wolf-shape, she probably wouldn’t hesitate to fight him, but the Other had retreated and was in no rush to reappear.

The wolf whined and broke the spell holding them both in place. Lizzie stepped back, away from him, and he backed off too. He was trying to appear safe, unthreatening, she realised. “What do you want?” she whispered.

He stretched and his wolf-shape fell away slowly. It looked like hard work, nothing like how she felt when she shifted. Long minutes passed while he changed, ending up human and naked. It was him, the lad from the group Nick had marked as Kurtadam, hazel eyes and the hoodie. Fear flicked through her, but she found herself giving him a appreciative once over despite that. He was tall and lean, like a swimmer, with messy brown hair and hazel eyes. Sort of rugged, with strong features and a touch of stubble. Pretty fit, actually. A little shiver ran through her.

He kept the same non-threatening body language, kneeling down, palms out in a placating gesture. “Don’t freak out. I just want to talk to you,” he said.

She didn’t believe that for a second. “Are you…are you after me?”

“I’m not after you. Nobody’s after you.” He sat back, hugging his knees to shield his bare chest. Maybe he’d noticed Lizzie staring. “My name’s Seth. What’s yours?”

“Are you Kurtadam?” Her heart fluttered. If Nick was right, this man might tear her apart just for existing. Or carry her off to perform arcane, mysterious experiments on her. Granted, he didn’t look dangerous, just delicious, with his dark hair sweeping across his eyes like that… But you never knew, did you?

He nodded. “I’m Kurtadam. You know what that means?”

She shrugged. “You’re the werewolf royalty,” she said, recalling Nick’s words. “The ones born into it, the ones with all the privilege, lording it over us poor scummy accidental werewolves.”

He snorted. “You make it sound like some kind of feudal system. I’m not interested in
lording
it over anyone. You still haven’t told me your name, by the way.”

He had a nice smile. Warm, reassuring. Very different to Nick’s slow, feral grin. Almost against her will, she found herself relaxing. “I’m Lizzie.”

“I saw you in Liverpool the other night, with Nick Doyle. Chasing ghouls and running riot.” He raised an eyebrow at her, and Lizzie flushed. “Is that what you want out of life, Lizzie?”

She should have been embarrassed, she realised, him sat there naked like that. She should have at least been worried. He was Kurtadam, one of the wolves Nick wanted nothing to do with, wanted to avoid because they hated Vargulf so much. But Seth hadn’t done anything threatening yet, had he?

“No, it’s not what I want. Not at all.” She stared down at the earth, the dead brown leaves and churned mud at her feet. “I want a normal life. I was supposed to have a normal life, none of this werewolf shit, no drugs, just a nice normal life with a nice normal job…” She bit her lip, feeling angry tears sting her eyes. Why was she ranting like this to him? He was probably going to have her executed at dawn or something.

“Well, it doesn’t have to be like this,” Seth said carefully, as if he wasn’t sure of her reaction. “The Kurtadam have … guidelines. Just because you’re not human doesn’t mean you can’t be civilised.”

A little sliver of hope wormed its way into her heart. Was he offering her a way out? A chance to escape the mess and start again? It was too good to be true, surely?

“You don’t have to be like Doyle,” he continued. “If you want it to be different, it can be. You don’t have to slum it, you know?”

She nodded. Yes. That’s what her mother would say. She’d been slumming it with Harris, and then with Nick. But that could change, couldn’t it? “So what do I have to do?” she asked, gathering up her courage. “What’s the deal?”

Seth grinned, looking genuinely delighted and creating a matching sense of warmth in Lizzie. “Come with me,” he said, jumping up, unabashed by his nudity. “I’ll introduce you to some of the others and we’ll talk.”

Was it that simple? Really? After everything Nick had told her about the Kurtadam, this seemed too easy. What if was some kind of trap? She wavered, torn between trusting Seth and running from him. He waited patiently, watching her fret and worry without saying a word.

In the end, she decided to trust him. She could always run later if it came to it. “Alright,” she said. “Let’s go. Are you putting some clothes on or what?”

He grinned. “Sorry,” he said, totally unrepentant. “Am I embarrassing you?”

“You’ve got nothing I haven’t seen before,” she told him, matching his grin. “I just don’t want you to embarrass yourself.” Damn. Couldn’t she have thought of anything clever to say?

“I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.” He nodded towards the park gates. “My car’s over there. I’ll throw some clothes on and spare your blushes.” They set off, Lizzie trailing behind him in case her nerves got the better of him and she decided to run after all. Seth’s car was a sleek blue BMW. Werewolf royalty indeed. She allowed herself a pang of misery for her battered little Mazda as Seth pulled jeans and a shirt out of the boot and hurriedly dressed.