Chapter Three
CASIMIR
“Well, this doesn’t look good,” Shandy says as she walks into the alley where I’d just killed the vampires I’d been looking for.
The issue is that it didn’t happen until after they’d taken down the wolf.
“Fucking hell,” I growl.
“It’s just a wolf,” Shandy says as I kneel down to compress the wound on his side.
“This is Terrance’s son,” I announce.
“Oh fuck is right,” she agrees.
I can still hear his heart beating, but it’s strained, and as I lean in and get a whiff of his blood, I see why.
He’s been poisoned with silver. There’s no fucking way he’s going to live through this.
If Terrance learns his son was killed by vampires, he’s going to wage war against us, and while I have no doubt we will win, the death toll will be substantial.
The guy won’t live, there’s no way he’ll live through this… do I hide the body? Do I try to reason with Terrance that I tried to save him? I should have known this kid would be trouble the moment he thought he could con me .
“Someone’s coming,” Shandy says as she turns to peek out beyond the alley before she goes “FUCK” and leaves. Just straight up runs off.
My day literally couldn’t get worse, could it? No… no… watching Terrance race around the corner tells me that it very much could.
It could get so much worse.
Terrance freezes when he sees his son on the ground, death right around the corner as his blood oozes out between my fingers.
“What the fuck did you do?” he yells.
“Four unpermitted vampires attacked him. I killed them.”
Terrance reaches for his son but I shove him back. “What the fuck are you doing?” he growls.
“He’s been shot with silver. His blood is coated in it. You don’t want to touch him.”
Terrance is shaking as he holds his hands out, like he will deal with the consequences just to get to touch his son. I never thought I’d feel anything but dislike for him, but at the moment, I feel a twinge of pity. He asks, “Did you call for a doctor?”
“No… Terrance, it’s not…” I pause because the best way to keep Terrance from flinging the blame onto me is to go along with what he has to say. “I didn’t have time. Call them now.”
He hesitates before grabbing on to my arm, his fingers digging into my flesh. “Can you drain the silver out of his blood?”
I glance down at the dying wolf. “He’s… he’s already bleeding so quickly that if I drain any more blood out of him… he’ll just die faster. Terrance?—”
“Give him your blood,” he says, eyes boring into mine.
Every time I’ve faced Terrance, he’s threatened to tear out my throat, and yet here he is pleading… begging for me to help him.
“W-What? Terrance, he’s a wolf, my blood wouldn’t do shit to him,” I protest. The only way my blood would save someone is if I turned them into a vampire, but werewolves are unaffected by vampire blood.
“Please try. Please,” he says.
I know it’s useless and I have to assume he knows it is too, but if it keeps him from placing all blame on me, which in turn would collapse the pact between the vampires and wolves, then I’ll play along.
“Of course,” I say. “I will have to drain some of his blood to do it… it might result in him dying faster.” And I’m not sure how much faster he can die. Honestly, I’m surprised he’s hung on this long. How did the silver alone not kill him already?
Terrance hesitates as he realizes what I’m saying.
“Terrance, he doesn’t have long. I need to know what you want.”
“Do it! Please,” he begs.
“You can’t blame me if it kills him.”
He nods and I don’t know if he’s telling the truth or not, but I feel like I’m going to get blamed either way.
I gather the werewolf’s limp body into my arms, pulling him up as he hangs like a deadweight.
Avoiding the area the vampire ripped into his throat, I bite down and draw out the poisoned blood.
It’s so thick that I’m shocked it hasn’t already killed him.
The silver doesn’t affect me in any way, so I drain as much of the tainted blood out of him as I can.
Pulling my fangs from his neck, I bite my wrist until there’s a steady stream of blood which I let drip into the wolf’s mouth.
In all of my years, I’ve never turned a human, but I’m also well aware this won’t do anything because it’s impossible to turn a wolf, but maybe it’ll appease Terrance… hell, hopefully it will.
When the blood has stopped flowing from my wrist, I draw my arm back as Terrance hovers over him. His hands shake as he reaches out and touches his son’s face.
“Julian? Julian, please?” he begs, sounding so desperate.
I had absolutely no idea that Terrance could act like this.
He’s generally such an annoying brute that whenever I see him, I’m filled with horrible disgust. Any time I have a meeting with this man, I have to prepare myself for a full twenty-four hours to keep myself from killing him on the spot, so I assumed he only knew how to be a jackass.
But that man is nothing like the one before me right now. The one whose hands are being burned by the silver just so he can touch his dying son. I guess I’m rather unfamiliar with this level of… affection toward someone.
My eyes shift back to his son as I feel surprise that the wolf is still alive.
I mean… I have to give the kid some credit for fighting so hard, but for what reason?
The end is going to be the same no matter what when he has so much silver in his veins.
The beat of his heart is so slow that I can barely hear it.
He’s dying, and then I’m going to have to convince Terrance that the vampires of this city had nothing to do with it.
As I’m reaching out to touch him, I hesitate before pressing my fingers against the wolf’s neck.
How… fascinating.