Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Charlie
Nigel doesn’t know it, of course, but when my cousins and I were cubs, we used to play in this very cabin. Sometimes I would be a runaway prince in need of rescue. Other times I would be a wicked villain, plotting the lovebirds’ demise. Or, you know, a frog. Because children are silly.
As old memories flit through my mind, I inhale a deep chest full of my favorite new scent. The tiny interior thrums with Nigel’s presence. He must have been here a while. A few nights at least.
Otherwise, the one-room cabin is mostly unchanged from my memory. A small round table with two chairs to the left, hearth straight ahead, and the bed frame with its tattered straw mattress to the right.
Only now a tangled heap of blankets and an old leather sack lie atop fresh straw. I’m tempted to snoop, curious as ever to know what’s in Nigel’s bag. What things does a werewolf-turned-vampire take with him on the run?
But no. I’d never encroach on his privacy like that.
Instead, I choose the only blanket that doesn’t look scratchy, a green linen throw, and wrap it toga-style around my body.
It smells of him but also of sunshine, honeysuckles wafting in a warm spring breeze, and…
humans. I scrunch my nose. Stolen from a clothesline, perhaps?
With no belt to secure it, I tuck the tail into the tight band around my waist, call that sufficient, then hurry to join him outside.
“I’m decent!” Hopefully, Nigel will look up and flash those caramel beauties in my direction.
But his gaze remains steadfastly on his dirty black boots.
His posture is a thing defeated, shoulders sunken inward, back curved.
I soften my voice. “It’s okay now.” I’ll do anything to make him feel better. “We can talk.”
He stands. A sigh shudders its escape from ruby lips. “I’ll answer your questions. Then you’ll understand why you have to stay away from me.”
Anything but that.
“Come inside. I’ll light a fire.”
That sounds good. It’s chilly out. In my wolf’s thick fur coat, I didn’t notice, but in a bedsheet, it’s unfortunately quite apparent. Gooseflesh crawls across my nape.
I follow Nigel back inside the cabin and hover as he builds a fire.
He’s quick, and soon the little spark snaps and pops its way into crackling flames.
He drags one of the wooden chairs close and gestures for me to sit.
He takes the second one, in the corner on the other side of the table, as far from me as possible.
“Ask again.” He steeples his fingers in front of him.
My question had been, “What happened to you?” And I still want to know that, very much so, but it doesn’t feel right to ask while Nigel’s obviously uncomfortable. So as the fire warms my hands, I let my thoughts tumble. We need something to lighten the mood.
“What would you do if I challenged you to dance under the moonlight?”
Nigel raises his brows and stares. “That’s what you want to know?”
“Mm-hmm.” I grin. “I bet you’re a great dancer.”
His lips quirk. Not a smile, exactly, but the frown fades. “You’d lose that bet, Charlie. I’ve never danced.”
“Never? What a shame.”
“So the answer is no. I wouldn’t accept your challenge for fear of further embarrassing myself.”
Further embarrassing? He’s done nothing of the sort. The hiss of burning wood fills the space between us. “Well then, I have another.”
“Challenge or question?”
“Question.”
Nigel visibly braces himself, jaw stiffening. “Go on.”
I fixate on his lips and let my gaze linger. “Have you ever stolen a kiss?”
He lets out a hint of a chuckle. “Afraid I haven’t done that either.”
“What if I stole a kiss from you?”
“That’s a bad idea.”
“I disagree, but you’re off the hook for now, seeing as you’ve sat yourself with a table between us.”
“You’re stalling, and it’s not that I don’t appreciate the effort, but you can ask what you really want to know. I’m ready to tell it.”
Pride swells. My mate is brave. “What happened to you, Nigel?”
He sucks in a breath, blows it out slowly, then flattens his hands on the table. “It began when our alpha’s second, Josie, needed my help. One of her duties is trading between packs. But her partner was ill, and she didn’t want to leave his side.”
The simple start makes me want to relax, but I know better. This story won’t have a happy ending.
Nigel continues, “I’d accompanied Josie on her route before to help out and be an extra set of hands.
So I volunteered to go in her place so she could stay home.
It should have been an easy run, just some letters and dried goods there, and letters plus a load of salt back.
Nothing one person couldn’t handle alone. ”
He twitches in his chair. I’m holding my breath, waiting for the sky to fall.
“I made it there fine. Stayed with an aunt on my mother’s side. Had a nice visit with younger cousins. Before leaving, my uncle patted my shoulder and told me to be careful. He said a rogue group of vampires had been causing trouble two valleys over.”
It isn’t often I think of other supernaturals, particularly vampires. Werewolves and vampires tend to coexist peacefully, mostly by avoiding one another.
We wolves are a tight-knit group living in forests as far from towns as possible, and vampires are primarily city dwellers. There’s not much overlap.
I’ve never heard of them causing us any trouble. Vampires have to be careful just like we do, lest their secrets be revealed to humans—a group that outnumbers both of ours by thousands to one.
Nigel drums his fingers on the table absently. “I appreciated my uncle’s concern, but I was headed in the opposite direction. I wasn’t worried, though I should have been.” He shudders.
The urge to go to my mate’s side, to comfort him, is hard to ignore.
Our little fire burns on as though nothing’s wrong. As though we’re having a pleasant chat over tea. As though Nigel isn’t struggling to finish his tale.
“Turns out, the rogues were young vamps, a group of individuals all rebelling against their makers for one reason or another. Lawless and on the run, already wanted by their own kind for breaking their rules.” He huffs a sigh. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Oh, Nigel.”
“They had to have known they’d be caught. Maybe they were curious about what would happen or how much chaos they could cause before a more powerful vampire put a stop to their crimes. I don’t know.”
He plucks the flower from behind his ear and worries it between restless fingers. I want to lay my hands over his, warm him, calm him, but I doubt he’d welcome the gesture. He’s wound so tight. “You don’t have to tell me the rest. If it’s too much, I’ll understand.”
“No. I should finish. Holding it all in has done me no favors.”
“Take your time.”
“Thank you.” He takes another deep breath. “I shifted and ran, but it didn’t matter. I was outnumbered, and they were impossibly fast. They taunted me as they hunted me down and cornered me. ‘Smelly dog. Bet he can lick his own cock. Here, puppy, puppy. puppy.’”
Anger heats my face more than our fire ever could. Curse those bastard vampires to hell and back! They deserve no less for attacking my Nigel.
“I panicked and howled. They laughed. I fought as hard as I could, but it was over in minutes. They pinned me to the ground, then took turns feeding.” He trembles.
My heart hurts.
“I thought they were going to kill me, but as I was near to passing out and struggling to keep my eyes open, the big one said, ‘Ah, ah, ah,’ in a sickening singsong voice and slapped me awake. ‘Can’t have you dying on us, can we? It’s forbidden to kill one of your kind, smelly cur that you are.
Something about a pact between species. Punishment is death.
A true death. And I’m not about to risk that for your scrawny hide. ’”
The pact rings a bell. Not that it’s ever come up in our quiet hollow. But my mother insists we’re all taught proper conduct between species as cubs. Just in case. “I wish I could kill them right now.”
Nigel shakes his head. “No. If you ever see them, you run. Run and hide. Promise.”
I can’t promise that. “What happened next?”
“The big one drew a knife from inside his boot, then grabbed his buddy’s arm. ‘So drink up, little wolfy,’ he said as he slashed the other’s wrist. ‘Go on, down the hatch.’
“The bleeding vampire shrieked, but the big one was stronger. Blood spilled from the wound and dirtied my muzzle. I yanked my head away, only to find my scruff fisted in a pair of iron hands, forcing me to stay in place.”
It sounds awful. I squirm in my seat.
“I was dying. Blackness beckoned from behind my eyelids, but death was just out of reach. Another metallic twang of blood hit like a punch to the gut, overwhelming me and stealing the air from my lungs. I had to drink. My body made me, tongue straining for a taste against my will.
“It was over then. I stopped fighting. I drank the vampire’s blood. My heart shuttered to a halt, but I lived on. The world was lost to shadow.” A breath shudders out of him. He closes his eyes.
“When I awoke, they were gone, and the forest was a mewling cacophony of noise the likes of which I’d never heard.
Bugs rustling in the undergrowth, ants climbing tree trunks like stampeding elephants, leaves shaking in the breeze, but to me, the breeze was a blustery wind that sounded more like a tornado than a calm summer’s night.
” His lids flutter open, and our gazes meet.
He continues, “But worse than the noise. Worse than the smells. Worse than the array of colors I’d never perceived before and assaulted my eyes. Worse than all that was the hunger.”
Nigel’s eyes flash golden as the word hangs in the air. He darts his tongue out and wets his lips. He stares not at me but somewhere past me, off my right shoulder, perhaps into the flames. I see the hunger in the intensity of his gaze, in his hollow cheeks and glistening lips.
“I can’t even imagine what that was like for you.”
“I’m glad you can’t. I wouldn’t wish this curse on anyone, but especially not you, Charlie. Anyway, as I laid there, my belly twisted and churned on itself, empty of the new elixir of life it would go on to crave like a drug. I was ravenous and driven mad by its demands.”
I’m stiff in my seat, muscles clenched. “You must have been so scared.”
He huffs a sad chuckle. “There wasn’t room for fear. Only thirst.”
“What did you do?”
“Ran home. Attacked my pack. Not on purpose. I was out of my mind. Luckily, I was stopped before causing any real harm. A few sloppy bites, screaming, and wolves rushing in en masse to stop me. I’ll be grateful to those wolves until the end of my days.
Er, nights now, I suppose. I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d killed anyone. ”
The horror is painted in his pained expression. My heart aches for him.
“Perhaps the silver lining is I barely remember that fight. It’s all a blur.
I can share this part of the tale because they told me afterward.
They contained me. Our alpha forced my shift, and though I was in no condition to explain myself, the transformation in my body was evident.
I smell as I do now. Dead. My teeth are fangs, even in human form.
My neck and wrists were covered in half-healed bite marks.
They knew what fate had befallen me without me having to say it.
“Someone was sent to fetch me a goat, of which I have only choppy memories. But its blood brought me round enough to struggle again. To try to free myself, but in vain.” He wrings his hands.
I think of him bound and shiver at the awful image it conjures.
“For the first month, it went that way. Half-crazed, jailed, and fed a steady diet of animal blood. But it wasn’t enough.
Never enough. Night by night, their surveillance grew lax, and I managed to escape.
I had just enough sense to realize I was a danger to everyone and everything I’d ever loved, so I ran as far away as my paws would carry me.
I ran blisters into my pads that night.”
I clench my feet in sympathy. “Ouch.”
“The pain didn’t matter. I heal even faster now. During the day, I slept in the earth and woke up with no wounds at all. As if the night before had never happened.
“Since then, I’ve gorged on the blood of animals. Slaughtered so many deer I lost count. A few bears. An elk or two. Wild boar. Anything to satisfy the demands of this greedy curse. I’ve become a menace to wildlife near and far.
“After a while drinking my fill each night, I came back to myself. And when I could think properly again, I mourned. I sobbed. I felt sorry for myself. And I walked. I’ve been walking ever since.
Sometimes on two legs, sometimes on four.
Endless walking.” He glances up, and our eyes lock. “Until I caught your scent.”
A warm tingle races up my spine. I affect him. Maybe not in the same way he affects me, but I matter to him. And more than anything in the world, he matters to me. We can work with that. We have to. “Thank the moon you stopped long enough for us to meet.”
“To meet, yes. But no more.”
“Nigel—”
“Charlie. I will leave after this. You’ll be much safer without me.”
My heart sinks. “I’ll be lost without you.”