Chapter Five
CASIMIR
“We’ve managed to ID the man as a vampire named Karl Jones,” the doctor says as I look down at the body of the vampire whose head I’d cut off.
Since vampires don’t need doctors, I’d asked the werewolves’ doctor to examine the bodies and see if I could get an ID on any of them to figure out why they’d ended up here.
The doctor is not thrilled to be dealing with me, and the amount of looks I’ve gotten from the weres has just been a nuisance.
“And the women?”
Dr. Hernz seems irritated by my questions, like the two whole things I’ve said since arriving have brought him much pain and suffering.
“No IDs on them.”
“Hmm…”
A nurse rushes in and the moment her eyes touch mine, she scowls before remembering that she’s here for a much more important reason. “Doctor, we need you again.”
“Coming,” he says. “Excuse me.”
And with that, he’s off. I’m not sure if he plans to come back when he’s done or if he’s finished with me, so I find myself wandering between the bodies, trying to think if I’ve ever come across any of them at any point in my life.
I doubt they were too old or they surely would have heard me before I killed them.
Did they honestly not realize this territory is mine? And why shoot the wolf with a silver bullet first? To make it look like a Hunter got to him, and when he didn’t immediately go down, they decided to drag it out?
Who knows.
I shut the door behind me as I leave the room and head down the hallway where I catch the scent of the wolf who nearly died.
The better question is, why didn’t he die?
Outside the room is a human woman who is pacing, her face drawn, looking shaky. She doesn’t even see me as she paces, too fixated on what’s happening within.
But if the wolf made it—what? Four days? What could be the issue now ?
When the doctor comes out, he glances at me before turning his attention to the woman and guiding her a bit down the hallway and through a door.
Pure curiosity leads me to walk into the room where two nurses are hovering near the wolf.
“What are you doing in here? Get out,” the woman who’d glowered when she’d seen me earlier says.
The other woman decides to just drop what she’s doing and leave. And now that it’s just me and the nurse, we’re caught in a stare-off that she is not going to win. I will stand here until she dies of old age if she so chooses.
She must have some level of intelligence because she ducks her head and scampers out of the room, leaving me alone with the wolf. I walk over to his bed and peer down at him as I realize they’d been giving him blood.
Interesting.
“You like me or something?” the wolf mutters before opening his eyes.
“Honestly, just curious why you’re not dead yet.”
He gives me a halfhearted nod. “So am I… I think I’m dying right now, though.”
“You look it. You look rather ghastly.”
“Thank you, thank you.”
I walk over to him and pull the blanket off, pushing his gown to the side so I can look at the wound on his stomach. It’s healing, so what exactly could be the issue?
I grab his arm that’s limp in my hand and bite it. I don’t suck on the blood, I just taste it… or more accurately, taste the blood coated in silver.
The type of bullet the vampires used is one that Hunters had spent hundreds of years perfecting—one that would release silver straight into the bloodstream and kill the wolf the moment the blood reached the heart.
None of them lived to see what happened after…
though in this case, it seems like it’s still coursing through his veins, but why ? And better yet… how is he still alive?
“Do you mind?” the wolf says as he glances at the arm I’m still holding. “I mean… people generally ask before they start eating me.”
“Have you been like this all along?”
“No, no, I was discharged earlier. They don’t know what happened… I guess the silver really is taking its sweet time to kill me.”
“Interesting.”
“Is it? I kind of feel like it’s a bit more… you know… shitty or something. There are things I wanted to do, like con more vampires into buying candy bars.”
“You didn’t con me. I chose to buy them.”
“I totally conned you. Let me die feeling like I conned the big bad vampire. Actually? Can you put it on my tombstone? I think it’ll look sick.”
I step up so I’m staring down right into his eyes. The blue irises are dull and I notice they’re bloodshot and discolored. Another sign of the silver poisoning.
Leaning forward, I sniff his neck, but he doesn’t smell any different. He still stinks like a wolf.
“Wow, I even got sniffed by the great Lord Casimir. I can finally die peacefully,” he mutters. “Please, put that on my tombstone too. I don’t know what the allotted word count is, but make it fit.”
Clearly, he’s still alive enough to crack jokes, so I’ll be on my way before he dies in front of me and it somehow becomes my fault.
I turn just as he jerks toward me. I shift my attention to him, though he wasn’t reaching for me, like I thought, but his water, when his entire body tenses up and he falls into the tray.
I grab him just as he starts crashing toward the ground and haul him up as he desperately claws at my arm.
I don’t think he’s even aware he’s doing it; he’s caught up in some kind of seizure or something that quickly passes before I push him back onto the bed.
His entire body shudders as he heaves out a deep breath.
“Don’t die while I’m in this room or they’ll point fingers at me,” I order.
“I wouldn’t dare cause you more pain than making you buy a hundred…”
I realize he’s fixated on something and look down at my arm that he’d clawed open with his nails. The wound has already healed but there’s some blood smudged from his fingertips.
Without thinking too hard about it, I grab the bag of blood that’s currently being fed into him and tear it open before squeezing some into his mouth.
He reels back, spitting and coughing as he looks at me in horror. “What the fuck was that for?”
“What’s it taste like?” I ask curiously.
“Blood? What the absolute hell did you do that for? Was it payback for the chocolates?”
Why the hell did I think that would work? He’s a wolf and wolves can’t be turned into vampires. Hell, if I had turned him into a vampire, he would have died the moment the sunlight touched him. I knew what I did wouldn’t work, but I’d done it just to appease his father.
But his… fixation on my wrist…
I bite my wrist and shove it against his lips. He immediately tries pulling back before I feel the tension leave his body and he desperately grabs on to my arm like it’s the only thing keeping him alive.
A moan escapes him while he clutches at me, like he wants to devour every last drop of me.
When I try to pull my arm free, he growls at me like a feral animal, and I’m forced to shove him off.
Then I grab his face in my hand and look down at his eyes that are now a clear and vibrant blue staring up at me.
How interesting.
Yes, Terrance, how fucking interesting this is.
The door opens and the woman from the hallway steps in before seeing her son coated in blood from the bag. She gives me a look of horror before rushing over to him, but I walk past because Terrance owes me a fucking explanation, and I’m going to get it one way or another.
“What did you do?” the female nurse growls as she tries to stop me.
I simply stare down at her and she ducks her head and runs.
But she’s right… what the fuck did I do?
When I reach Terrance’s pack’s location, the wolves are immediately out to welcome me with bared fangs and snarls.
Ignoring their irritating display, I walk right into the bar Terrance owns and calls his pack’s home.
The bar doesn’t seem to be open, but I find Terrance pacing the floor, wolves in both human and animal form strewn about.
“Terrance, a word,” I growl.
He’s already pissed but I don’t give a shit. “You are not permitted on this land,” he says.
“EVERYONE OUT,” I order. “Unless you don’t want to talk alone?”
Terrance hesitates before he gives his pack a nod. At first, none of them move until he barks, “Out!” and they scowl at me as they leave.
“What?” he asks, back to being the dick I love to hate.
“What the fuck is your son?”
Terrance hesitates. “He’s a werewolf. I can’t fathom that you aren’t aware of that.”
“Werewolves aren’t affected by vampire blood, but do you want to take a guess who was just lapping blood off my arm like a starving man?”
He pauses then shakes his head. “No… if he was turned, the sun would have?—”
“That’s right. But werewolves can’t be turned. Now tell me, for someone who knows that, why did you beg me to try? You knew I was willing to do what I could to keep the peace between us.”
Terrance is looking a bit uncertain, refusing to meet my eyes. “I was desperate to save my son.”
“Yes, but why did you even have me try ?”
Terrance grits his teeth. “He’s not a full werewolf.”
“What does that mean? How can someone not be a full werewolf?”
“He was born with the curse,” he says. “I didn’t turn him like people believe. He was born with the affliction. So… I thought that maybe it’d be different for him.”
“Werewolves can’t be born .”
“Well, he was.”
“Was your wife bitten while he was in the womb?”
“No, she’s human.”
That’s right… I met her and she was fully human… but there’s no way a child was born with it. That doesn’t happen. That isn’t possible.
What the hell is he?