Chapter 3
THREE
Kit
It was chasing him. Footsteps thudded through the forest, the sounds of branches breaking and dry leaves crunching getting alarmingly closer.
Whatever it was, it had gained on him. Kit pushed himself to go faster, but he’d reached his limit, his body sore and legs like jelly.
The creature had howled. That much was clear in Kit’s frantic brain.
He pushed on, the edge of the tree line his destination. Before he could reach it, however, something in his peripheral vision had him whipping around, claws out and at the ready. He froze when he caught sight of what had been stalking him.
The creature was massive and muscled, and nowhere near as furry as he might have presumed. It looked like a bodybuilder and a wolf had gone through the Telepod from The Fly. Fresh blood dotted its muzzle, a little detail not to be ignored.
“Shit,” Kit said.
The werewolf—for that’s what it had to be—also stopped in its tracks. It cocked its head in a dog-like manner, then edged forward on its too-long legs.
Kit took an exaggerated step backwards, hands out in front of him. They trembled—with exhaustion, he told himself.
“Stay back!” he shouted, unsure if the werewolf would understand him. He studied its eyes; blue, intense, and focused on Kit. Intelligence lurked in their depths, but he couldn’t be certain.
The wolf hadn’t moved a muscle since Kit’s warning, except to breathe. It took deep, visible inhales through its parted jaw, tongue lolling out, and Kit saw enough of its teeth that he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of its bite.
Kit risked a glance at the sky. It wouldn’t be dark for much longer. The moon might unite both vampires and werewolves, but Kit was the only one who would burn in the sun. He couldn’t stand here forever.
When he next looked at the werewolf, it had moved closer. The shock of its sudden nearness had him stumbling backwards, letting out an undignified squeak as he tripped over his own feet, tumbling to the ground.
The werewolf took its chance. It darted forward before Kit could right himself, positioning itself on all fours over him.
Kit readied himself for an attack. But the werewolf, blood staining its elongated maw, leaned down and huffed over Kit’s face.
When nothing else happened, Kit held his claws at bay.
Sticking them into the werewolf’s thickly furred neck wouldn’t do him much good, anyway.
Kit turned his head to avoid the werewolf’s next exhale, but frowned when the breath that fanned across his face carried the scent of mint along with the more worrying stench of fresh meat. He cracked one eye open, looking up at the werewolf. It stared down at him, unmoving.
“Hi?” Kit asked. He figured if it hadn’t ripped him to pieces yet, chances were that the werewolf did not, in fact, want to eat him.
The werewolf chuffed. Its version of a greeting, perhaps. Or Kit was anthropomorphising an actual animal.
Even though part of him still doubted his assessment of the creature, his panic abated. Close up, it didn’t seem so threatening—its body not poised for violence.
Kit attempted to inch out from under the werewolf, but it moved in tandem, staying in position over him. “What do you want?” Kit demanded, done with being tentative.
The werewolf leaned down and licked a stripe up Kit’s face.
“What the fuck?” Kit said, hand moving to his soaked cheek. “Ugh. Werewolf slobber.”
The werewolf whined.
Kit rolled his eyes. “Oh, really? You’re the one complaining? I stink like wolf, now.”
Instead of looking chagrined, the werewolf almost seemed to smile at that. Maybe Kit should have considered the bared teeth a sign of aggression, but he was pretty sure the werewolf was just being friendly.
In its own way.
“Are you going to let me get up?”
This time, Kit stopped the werewolf before it licked him again, hand pushing its face away.
“No,” he warned. “No more licking. It’s disgusting.”
Now the werewolf looked abashed. At least, as far as Kit could tell. He was probably projecting.
Kit edged out from underneath the werewolf, keeping a hand on its snout to stop it from following.
It didn’t move, which made Kit’s task a lot easier.
Kit had supernatural strength, but he hadn’t come across a werewolf before.
If it came down to a head-to-head fight, he wasn’t convinced he’d be the one walking away.
Free of the werewolf, he stood, brushing off debris from the forest floor. Now that they both stood at their full heights, Kit found that the werewolf reached almost to his head. It was far wider than him, shoulders and back thick with muscle.
Kit tried (and failed) to ignore the other part of the werewolf’s anatomy that insistently demanded his attention. He coughed delicately to cover up his shock. “Well. I bloody hope that’s not for me.”
The werewolf didn’t reply. Of course, it—he—didn’t.
“I’ve lost the plot,” Kit said. Because here he was, standing in a forest, attempting to converse with a werewolf.
Whilst said werewolf rocked the biggest boner Kit had ever seen.
“You should put that thing away. You could take someone’s eye out with it.” He now hoped the werewolf couldn’t understand him, because the alternative was mortifying. Best to move on, just in case.
“I don’t suppose you can point me in the right direction of Anstruther? Would only be fair, considering you stalked me through the forest.” Kit flicked a piece of dirt off his shoulder to punctuate his point.
The werewolf yipped, pawing at the ground. Kit sighed. This was nuts. The werewolf wasn’t some spirit of the forest, ready to shepherd him home.
If it even was a werewolf. Not that Kit had seen one in person before.
He’d spotted—from a distance—some mer in the North Sea when he’d been island-hopping around a decade ago, but the only supernatural beings he’d encountered were other vampires.
Every species was insular. Keeping their existence a secret was a priority, their numbers too low to risk dealing with other creatures, let alone the threat that humanity posed.
The werewolf started moving, taking a few steps before looking back at Kit.
“Do you want me to follow you?”
The werewolf jerked his head in what Kit considered a nod. Kit followed as the werewolf trotted ahead of him. Now and then, he would turn his head around, as if to check that Kit was still there. It was quite nice, in a way. It was almost as if the werewolf cared.
Kit gnawed on a fingernail, unable to believe that his night had turned out this way. And all because he’d run off to have a tantrum over Shaun sending him a friendly email asking him to visit.
Kit scrubbed a hand over his face. He needed to get over himself.
The werewolf chuffed, grabbing Kit’s attention.
“Yes, yes,” he said. “I’m still following you. Don’t worry.”
He watched the werewolf’s form as it loped along, muscles powerful in motion.
The furred parts of the werewolf looked like they’d be soft to touch, but the fur didn’t appear to match that of a normal wolf.
On closer inspection, the fur was present all over his body; thinner in places and more of a decoration in others.
Thick black fur concentrated around the neck like a ruff, and the fur on his legs made it look like he wore fuzzy leg warmers.
Which brought Kit’s gaze to the werewolf’s tail, which swished behind him with sass. Kit snickered to himself, and the werewolf paused in its tracks.
“Your tail is far fluffier than I’d imagined one might be,” Kit explained.
Said tail flicked happily, like it was thanking him for the sort-of-compliment.
“Oh, shit. You can understand me, can’t you?” Kit should have realised when the werewolf started leading him out of the woods, but nobody had ever accused him of being too smart.
The werewolf stopped and gave Kit a slow, meaningful blink. They were out in the middle of a field now, nearer the coast. Kit smelled the faintest hint of salt carrying on the wind, blown in from the sea.
“I suppose this is where you leave me?” Kit asked.
The werewolf whined, inching closer to him.
Oddly, Kit’s hunger eddied close to the surface. He reined it in. “What is it now?”
The werewolf lowered its head in a half bow. Kit raised his hand and placed it on the werewolf’s head, right between the ears. The fur felt soft as he scritched over the scalp with his nails.
The werewolf rumbled from deep in its throat. Kit smiled. “You enjoy that, don’t you?”
Emboldened, Kit dug his fingers in harder, moving them all around. He flinched when the wolf twisted, but it was only offering Kit a better angle to get in behind his ears. Kit obliged, getting stuck in. The werewolf’s tail began thumping, sending earthquake-like tremors along the ground.
“Oh, you definitely like this,” Kit said. He restrained the instinct to call the wolf a good boy like he would a dog. Although with the wagging tail, docile nature, and contented look on his face, the werewolf acted more like a domesticated animal than a supernatural creature.
Kit flicked his gaze to the sky. “Shit. I need to get moving. Don’t wanna get caught out in the sun.”
The werewolf shook his head when Kit dropped his hand. Enough time had passed that he planned to sprint back, his muscles no longer protesting so loudly when he moved.
“I suggest you don’t go around chasing any other vampires, by the way. You’re just lucky that I didn’t fancy ripping your throat out.” Kit gave the werewolf a friendly smile, then turned and sped away.
No matter how much he was tempted, he didn’t look back once.
Kit’s lungs burned for air. A faraway fragment of himself asserted that the urge to breathe shouldn’t even exist, but another long-dormant part of him begged for it anyway. His chest ached, his nostrils flared impotently, and he gasped at nothing.
Discordant thoughts ran through his mind. He didn’t know where he lay, and he had no idea what had happened to him. He couldn’t tell whether this was a dream or a memory.
Or worse: if it was real.
“Look at me, darling.”
The voice broke through Kit’s haze, and he opened his eyes to the dark. There was nobody there. His throat wasn’t filled. He didn’t need air.
And, most importantly, his creator was dead. Kit couldn’t have heard his voice. Lawrence had been reduced to nothing more than ash.
Kit sat up in bed, running his fingers over his throat. The metallic tang of blood filled his nostrils.
He crept to the mirror, intent on getting a look at the damage. In his sleep, he’d clawed his neck to ribbons. If he’d still been human, he would have bled out by now. Tilting his head up, he looked more closely at the damage. Some of it had healed, but other cuts had barely closed.
It wasn’t until he stood in the shower that he relaxed enough for his thoughts to stray to the werewolf. Kit had made it back to his flat in plenty of time and almost regretted not staying out for longer. He wondered if he would ever come across the werewolf again.
It would be best if he didn’t. Kit knew little about the different supernatural creatures, but he knew they didn’t mix well. The werewolf might have been alone the previous night, but he would be part of a pack, and the prospect of being outnumbered didn’t appeal in the slightest.
Stepping out of the shower, Kit wiped the steamed-up mirror clean.
The cuts on his neck had stopped bleeding, but he’d need to hunt again if he wanted them to heal.
It exhausted him. His nightmares had never been this bad, and he now needed to feed twice as much as before.
Waking up every night covered in his own blood was a relic of days past, and Kit was loath to go back to it.
If only the memories of Lawrence would leave him alone.
They’d plagued Kit ever since the last time he’d seen Shaun, the sounds and images of their creator playing in his head on a loop.
Sleep offered no refuge—Kit’s unconscious mind unable to stop the onslaught.
Most nights he woke up more tired than he’d been when going to sleep.
His hunger felt more pronounced, his eyes shadowed. Voices of the dead spoke to him. Shapes lingered in the corners of his vision.
Madness might be the only explanation.
He fed that night on a younger man than usual, his scent attracting Kit.
Only when he latched onto the man’s wrist did he look up at his victim and see something of himself in his face.
The man displayed the type of youth Lawrence would have favoured.
It was such a sobering thought that Kit left without taking more than a few drops of blood.
Kit returned to the flat, starving, and went straight back to his bed. He curled up in the darkness. It being night, sleep eluded him, but he lay there all the same.
He used to spend his time reading or gaming or watching television.
Nowadays, he hardly had the energy to feed, let alone do anything else.
Nothing held his interest. The most exciting thing to happen to him in forever was getting chased by a werewolf, and petting it when it chose not to bite his head off.
Kit put his hand to his face where the werewolf had licked him. Maybe the werewolf was out there now, howling at the moon. Part of him wanted to run outside and check, but he didn’t do it. Best to remain inside—keep the meeting to a one-off.
If he stayed alone, then nobody could ever hurt him again.