3. Isolde
CHAPTER THREE
ISOLDE
“ Y ou, ” Isolde hissed. “That was you in the forest last night, watching me.”
The sound of a twig snapping in the trees, the weight of eyes on the back of her neck… he’d been hiding in the shadows, stalking her. How had she missed him? Humans were clumsy, noisy, and Isolde made it a habit to always know when one came near her.
Bastian’s hips pinned her to the workbench, his cock still hard between her thighs, but it was the long, wicked knife against her throat that really held her in place.
Steel wouldn’t kill her, not like a hawthorn stake to the heart, but decapitation would.
So would having her heart carved from her chest.
And the knife Bastian held was certainly big enough to get the job done.
“I said,” Bastian growled back, “what were you doing at the southern wood pile last night?”
“I heard you the first time.” Isolde snapped. She shifted beneath him, desperately ignoring the arousal still pulsing between her thighs, as well as the sizable evidence of his. “Obviously you saw exactly what I was doing there, so why the hell are you asking? Are you daft?”
Bastian pinned Isolde more firmly beneath himself, stalling the attempts she’d been making to get one foot beneath her. “You were poking around just hours after Sam Hallin was murdered there.”
Isolde narrowed her eyes. She knew Sam Hallin—she’d fed from him before. He was young and handsome, one of the huntsmen who brought in game to feed the village. She hadn’t yet heard it was his blood she’d scented on the woodpile—she’d planned to seek out the village gossip after she fed.
“How do you know he was murdered there?” Isolde asked, glaring up at Bastian. “I wouldn’t have known to poke around the wood pile at all if I hadn’t smelled the blood. Did you see Sam get killed?”
Bastian scoffed at the suggestion. “Of course not. He’d still be alive if I had.”
That was a bold assumption. Two humans were no better than one against a beast who devoured people whole. Human men always believed they were invincible.
Isolde tried again to find some leverage. If she could get the knife away from her neck, she should have no trouble escaping.
“So then what were you still doing at the wood pile, hours after the murder took place?” Isolde demanded.
“Watching.” Bastian’s gaze still held that scorching intensity, but Isolde could see the truth of it now—hatred, not lust, even if the hardness between her legs suggested otherwise. “Waiting to see if the killer came back.”
“So, what?” Isolde scoffed. “You think it was me ? That I killed Sam Hallin?”
“Seems like a perfectly plausible theory to me.”
Isolde ground her teeth, choking back a string of expletives. A low hum of panic, previously kept at bay by her clinging arousal and the need to feed, took root in her chest, spurred on by the press of Bastian’s blade at her throat.
You’re a Vampire, she reminded herself. You’re stronger than him. This is nothing like before.
She shifted her hips, testing the limits of his weight. Bastian moved with her, keeping her pinned with far more efficiency than she’d expected from a human.
“Let me up, will you?” Isolde said.
Bastian’s mouth curled into a humorless grin. “Not a chance.”
Isolde forced herself to take a deep breath, to squash down the fear and the old memories that threatened to surface. All she had to do was get the knife away from her neck. Her heart thumped to life in her chest, her mounting panic rousing it from its dormancy.
“Fine, then,” Isolde said. She kept her tone light, only vaguely irritated.
She wouldn’t let her fear show. All she had to do was keep him talking long enough for him to let his guard down, and then she could make her move.
“First of all, if I killed him, where might I have put the body? As a Vampire, I’d never go south into Wolf territory to hide it.
The snow is too deep in the north for me to drag a corpse through, and there aren’t many great hiding places in the village. ”
Bastian lifted a thick brow, unconvinced. “Just because no one’s found a body yet doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”
“Recent occurrences would suggest otherwise, no? The last two bodies were no more than severed limbs, which brings me to my second point. Vampires aren’t really in the business of tearing their victims to shreds.”
“Vampires also aren’t supposed to be in the business of killing the people they feed on, but that doesn’t make such a thing impossible.”
“No, but the second I murder someone, the villagers stop being willing to let me feed, and that would be rather detrimental to my way of life,” Isolde pointed out.
“Besides, have you considered that as a Vampire, the last thing I would do is waste that much blood? If I was going to kill someone, I’d drink them dry, and I wouldn’t spill a single drop. ”
That seemed to be something Bastian hadn’t considered before. As Isolde’s words registered, his arm went slack—just for a second, but it was enough for Isolde to make her move.
She bucked her hips upward in the same instant she slammed her hand into Bastian’s elbow with all the force she could muster.
He grunted at the impact, and the blade slid away from Isolde’s throat—not without skimming her flesh, sending a trickle of blood to dampen the collar of her cloak.
Isolde heard the knife clatter to the floor as she sucked in a breath of relief?—
Which broke off on a cry of pain as Bastian slammed her back against the workbench.
As he pinned her back down with far too much ease for a mere human.
“You’re not human,” Isolde gasped. A fresh surge of panic blackened the edges of her vision.
Her head, cracking against the wall of the carriage. Rough hands dragging her out into the snow. The sound of tearing silk ? —
No. No. This was not that. She was a Vampire now. She was not helpless.
“Astute observation,” Bastian growled.
How had she not seen it? The strength of those shoulders she’d been panting over, the way he’d held his ground when she approached, the steady, self-assured gaze he’d leveled at her, as if she weren’t a predator who could bleed him dry…
Foolish, foolish, foolish . Last night at the wood pile, and now this? She knew better than to let her guard down, had promised herself ten years ago that she’d never, ever let a man hold her life in his hands again.
Human men were no match for Isolde anymore. She’d been safe from them the moment she woke up a Vampire.
But now, here she was, at the mercy of the one creature that could still hurt her.
“You’re a Wolf .”
Isolde’s heart sped up, thumping hard against her ribs. Not quite as fast as a human heart, but racing for a Vampire.
“Yes.” Bastian said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world—like she’d asked him whether it was raining after the clouds had already opened up overhead. “Did you kill Sam Hallin, or not?”
“No. I didn’t kill him,” Isolde spat. She didn’t miss the narrowing of his eyes as she said it, like he still didn’t believe her. Stay calm, Isolde. Don’t provoke him. Don’t give him any more reason to hunt you. “Now, are you going to let me go, or do you plan on violating the Pact?”
For a long moment, Bastian didn’t move. His gaze stayed locked on hers, simmering with anger in the dim light of the forge.
Isolde fought to keep her chest from heaving with her pounding heart, to keep the panic from stealing her composure.
She was acutely aware of the way her body was pressed to his from her breasts to her thighs, and she forced herself to focus on that, rather than her fear.
He was a Wolf. A Wolf, whose very nature dictated that to him, she was prey .
His kind had slaughtered humans during the Bleeding War, used them as pawns to draw out the Vampires they fought against. His kind had starved and hunted hers nearly to extinction two hundred years ago, and she had no doubt they’d finish what they started if the Pact didn’t forbid it.
It had been such a grave mistake, following him in here. It would have been so, so easy for him to kill her when he had that knife pressed to her throat. With his Wolf strength, he wouldn’t even need the knife to get the job done.
In the next instant, Bastian’s weight was gone. Isolde shot to her feet, yanking her dress and her cloak back into place as she darted toward the far wall.
“What the hell is your problem?” she spat.
She was free now, her way to the door clear. Any motivation she’d had to be halfway civil vanished, and Isolde’s anger surged, mixing with the old fear that still gripped her thumping heart.
“My problem?” Bastian repeated. He stood on the far side of the forge, looking equally disheveled with his hair rumpled and the ties at the collar of his shirt undone.
“ My problem is that people are dying, and it seems pretty damn likely to me that the creature who eats people is the thing that’s killing them. ”
“Vampires aren’t the species with a history of killing humans in Bloodhaven,” Isolde retorted. “ Wolves are.”
“We wouldn’t have had to resort to killing people if you hadn’t been hunting us in the first place.”
“I don’t see how that justifies slaughtering innocents.”
Bastian’s jaw clenched, and Isolde knew she’d won on that particular point. The Vampires of two centuries past had committed atrocities, too—hunting Wolves, feeding on them without consent—but the Wolves had taken things too far, using the humans as pawns in a fight they wanted no part in.
Isolde glanced around the forge, peering at the mess of tools on the benches and shelves occupying every wall. The whole place looked to be in a state of utter disarray—the hearth unswept, the tools unorganized, a pile of half-finished swords dumped into one corner.
“You’re the new blacksmith in Bloodhaven?” Isolde asked.
Bastian’s reply was brusque. “Yes.”
“Hmm.” Isolde plucked a dagger off the nearest workbench and twirled it between her fingers. “That’s mighty convenient, since our old blacksmith was killed just a few weeks ago. Now, here you are. Taking over his shop.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Do I really have to spell it out for you?”
Bastian only arched a brow, unimpressed.
Isolde narrowed her eyes. “The one creature I can think of that would tear its prey to pieces and eat every last scrap, down to the bone… is a Werewolf.”
Bastian’s expression melted into one of pure shock. “You think I’m the beast of Bloodhaven?”
“Do you deny it?” Isolde demanded, prowling a step closer to him, gripping that dagger in her hand. “No Werewolf has set foot in Bloodhaven for two hundred years, and now, at the same time that humans are dying brutal, gruesome deaths, you appear? It’s too much of a coincidence.”
“Of course I deny it,” Bastian snapped. “I have no reason to kill humans.”
“Then what are you doing in Bloodhaven? Taking over the shop of one of the victims?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
Isolde stared at him, incredulous. “Except it is my concern, isn’t it?
You come into my village, stalk me in the night, hold a knife to my throat, and accuse me of an act that violates the Blood Pact.
And all the while, every piece of evidence points to it being one of your kind that’s killing people. ”
A low, animalistic snarl tore from Bastian’s throat. In the span of a blink, he closed the distance between him and Isolde. She whipped the knife upward, resting the tip against the fleshy spot just below his sternum as he towered over her, his teeth bared.
Every instinct she had screamed at her to run , to get far away from this predator, this Wolf, who’d kill her in an instant if he could get away with it.
But she held her ground. She refused to back away—to show him her fear.
“My kind doesn’t touch humans anymore,” he growled. “ Yours does.”
“I’ve already told you, no Vampire would?—”
Bastian didn’t let her finish. “And in case you weren’t aware, last night wasn’t a full moon. That puts a few holes in your little theory that the killer is a Werewolf, doesn’t it?”
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t do it.”
Bastian’s mouth tightened with anger. He stared at her for a long moment, a muscle feathering in his jaw. This close, Isolde could see that there was a ring of some lighter color around his pupils, but since her darksight rendered everything in black and white, she couldn’t tell what it was.
Finally, Bastian took a step back. Isolde nearly stumbled with the abruptness of it, the tip of the knife slicing down the front of his shirt as he moved away.
Bastian glanced down at his now-ruined shirt—at the razor thin cut that marred the smooth skin beneath, welling tiny drops of blood.
Isolde’s canines slid free as that scent reached her nose. Sweet. Rich. Musky.
Bastian’s eyes shot to her mouth. Narrowed. They glowed with rage in the darkness.
“Get out,” he barked.
“Your manners are atrocious.” Her voice came out a bit breathless, that intoxicating scent addling her brain.
“I said, Get. Out.”
Jolting back to her senses, Isolde hurled the knife at his feet. It struck a hairsbreadth from the tip of his boot, bouncing off the stone with a clang. She curled her lip, baring her fangs as she matched his snarl with one of her own.
“It was a real pleasure to meet you, Bastian Thessarian,” she spat, and stalked out into the cold.