Chapter 7 Kit
SEVEN
Kit
Every night, Kit woke up with a new mark on his body. Two nights ago, it was five scratches in horizontal lines down his chest. Yesterday, it had been bruising along his hip bones, bright red and throbbing. This evening, he’d woken up to mottled handprints around his throat.
He was getting sick of the self-inflicted wounds. There was only so much he could take before he’d need to sit himself down and have a serious conversation…with himself. He thudded his forehead against the mirror, exhaling a deep sigh.
That most of the marks would be almost impossible to inflict on oneself was something Kit ignored.
The biggest downside of the marks was that the urge to feed hit him more often. Because he spent so much of his energy on healing, he didn’t feel nourished even when he ate. Which these days wasn’t often enough.
Ever since he’d lost himself and fed on the teenager, he’d found it difficult to approach people. He’d gone out the night before and followed a group of middle-aged women until one peeled off to head home. He’d compelled her, but after feeding for a mere ten seconds, he let her go.
Kit wasn’t healing fast enough, not even at human speed anymore.
The lines on his chest had faded to pink, but he swore when he ran his fingers along each one, they stuck out from his skin like a growth, getting bigger and more obtrusive every time.
The bruises on his hips were like stains from memories he wanted to bleach from his mind.
He’d worn a fingerprint collar around his throat many times before.
He couldn’t help but trace the marks with a talon.
Kit had always been pale, but now his skin appeared grey. He pinched some redness into his cheeks, hating how he still cared so much about his looks. Not that anyone ever saw him anyway.
Yet, he thought just that bit harder about what he wore that night, going to his wardrobe and standing in front of it, considering.
He ran a hand through the neat rows of colour-coordinated shirts and jumpers.
Maybe he should go for something bright to distract from the mess on his throat.
His eyes caught on a thick woollen turtleneck in a rich mustard. It would work well with his dark jeans.
When he worked himself up to it, he ran down to the coast. He had a patch of beach in mind that he hadn’t been to recently, so it was due for a visit. That was the only reason he was going there, of course. It had nothing to do with the fact that he’d figured out it lay close to Quin’s house.
Kit set about combing for sea glass, finding the usual abundance of green and white.
Time went on, and he found a pale blue piece—a shade he coveted.
He lifted the glass up to peer at in the light of the waning moon.
It was small, barely bigger than his thumbnail, but it held undeniable beauty.
An aqua that matched the colour of the sea on the sunniest of days.
A colour Kit would never see in person ever again.
Kit got the greys and the blacks. The murk of the uninviting water, not the bright waves of the daylight, flickering with reflections of the sun.
He’d not visited the beach often as a human, only a few times on away days to Largs or Troon with Nicola and her friends.
He wished he’d done it more. Abroad maybe, too.
Menorca or Majorca or another of the common Spanish locations people holidayed in.
Or perhaps somewhere closer to home. His visit to Brighton hadn’t given him enough time or opportunity to explore before they’d been told to leave, but he would have liked to have seen what the southern English coast offered.
Footsteps up on the street caught his attention. Kit smelled dog in the air.
Quin.
Or, rather, Mabel. He could hear claws scraping on the street. But if Mabel was around, then so was Quin. After checking nobody else was around, Kit ran up the beach and jumped, catching hold of the wall and boosting himself over it in a flash.
“Jesus Christ,” Quin yelped when Kit appeared in front of him.
Kit simply smiled at Quin, as if he hadn’t just given him the fright of his life. Quin deserved it for the almost-stalking, even if he had apologised and given him a bunch of flowers. Mabel wagged her tail and strained on the lead towards Kit, so he reached down to give her a good pat on the head.
Quin had one hand pressed to his chest as he puffed for air. “You can’t do that!”
“Do what?” Kit asked, putting on a show of innocence.
“Just”—Quin flapped a hand in Kit’s direction—“appear out of nowhere like that.”
“I would have thought your heightened werewolf senses would have alerted you to my presence.”
“Not when I’m not trying to sense you.”
“Oh. Oops,” Kit said, smirking to himself.
Mabel began snuffling at Kit’s jeans. Quin murmured a few words of warning to her, but she wasn’t only getting a good sniff of Kit’s crotch.
For a reason Kit wasn’t ready to interrogate, he’d gone online and ordered several types of dog treats after meeting Mabel the other night.
It had cost a ridiculous amount of money, not only because he’d chosen the high-quality eco-friendly options, but also because he’d paid extra for next-day delivery, something he normally refused to do on principle.
Mabel, he reasoned, deserved only the best.
“Sorry,” Quin said, grimacing. “She’s not usually so insistent.”
Kit pulled out the little packet of treats he’d brought. “I think she smells these.”
Quin’s eyes lit up. “You bought those for her?”
“They were on offer,” Kit lied. They had very much not been on offer.
“That’s lovely of you, Kit.”
Kit didn’t meet Quin’s gaze. The last thing he needed was to have to deal with sappy sentiment like that.
Instead, he opened the packet and held a treat in his hand for Mabel.
She snapped it up, and Kit couldn’t help but let a smile spread over his face at her obvious delight.
Even if it was solely because he was feeding her, it was still nice to be wanted.
“So, how’ve you been?” Quin asked. He would come across to most people as casual, but Kit heard how his heartbeat sped up.
“You should get your cardiovascular fitness checked out,” Kit said, in lieu of an answer.
“My…what?”
“Your heartbeat speeds up at random intervals. Might be something a doctor should look at. If that’s the sort of thing a werewolf can do.
” Kit busied himself with feeding Mabel another treat, as opposed to watching Quin’s reaction.
He didn’t need to see it. Quin’s sharp inhale and his ever-increasing heartbeat thudded in Kit’s ears, confirming that his comment had landed.
“Oh,” Quin said, flummoxed. “I suppose I’ll have to get the pack doctor to take a look the next time I’m in Wales. Bit easier werewolf to werewolf, y’know?”
Kit nodded like he understood, though he knew nothing of werewolf physiology, and what might set them apart from humans when not wearing their animal skin. “Why did you move so far from home?” he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.
“Fancied a change of scenery,” Quin said.
Kit sensed something more to the story. He, of all people, was aware when someone dodged the truth. “Is it much different?” he asked. He couldn’t quite tell why he wanted to know, or why he wanted to keep Quin talking. He supposed it was better to be on the front foot than the back, however.
“Well, the pack lands are across a massive forested area in North Wales. We own a lot of farmland, too. Raise livestock, that sort of thing.” Quin sounded fond when he spoke of his home.
“Are there any other werewolves around here?”
Quin shook his head. “Just me in the area. We congregate in one place and stick there. What about vampires?”
“There’s the St Andrews vampire nest,” Kit said, not hiding his disdain. “They’re the closest.”
“But you don’t want to live with them?”
“Absolutely not. They have orgies every bloody night. I’m no prude, but that’s a few too many orgies.”
Quin nodded, a wry smile forming on his lips. “One a week at most, I’d say.”
“Oh, don’t pretend that wolf packs aren’t like that,” Kit accused. “I bet you’re all a bunch of horndogs.”
“For the last time, I’m not a dog. I’m barely even a wolf.”
“Can you shift into one now?” Kit asked.
“Only throughout the fullest phase of the moon. Three days where we change into our beasts at night and can’t choose otherwise.”
Kit hummed. He was more of an animal than Quin, if you took everything into account. “That’s a bit of a useless power then, isn’t it?” he said, then winced at his lack of tact.
“It’s not a power. It’s a curse,” Quin stated. He didn’t sound annoyed, even though he would have every right to.
“Like an actual curse curse?”
“I think so. Same as vampires, if I recall correctly. All down to the bloody witches.”
“You ever met any of them?”
“Just one. She helped with something in the pack a while back, when I was a kid. She came along, said a bunch of incomprehensible words, and the issue got sorted.” Quin had a pensive look on his face.
“Interesting,” Kit said. “Conroy—the St Andrews territory leader—has a couple on retainer, but I’ve not met them. They’re even rarer than the rest of us.”
“That would be down to your lot,” Quin said.
“How so?”
“Rumour has it, the vampires took revenge on the witches centuries ago. Engineered the witch-trials and all that malarkey. It all but wiped them out.”
Kit raised his eyebrows. Lawrence had always kept him in the dark about much of their people’s history and traditions, but it was embarrassing to be schooled by a werewolf.
“I suppose,” Kit said, wrestling back control of the conversation, “that given the witches cursed us to be unable to walk in the sun, and for you to be slaves to the moon, they were asking for it.”
“Who hasn’t cursed a person or two in their lifetime?” Quin asked with a wry smile. “Hardly warrants you vampires taking revenge like that.”
“I genuinely can’t tell if you’re kidding,” Kit said.