17. Isolde
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ISOLDE
I solde had her feet crammed into her boots and her cloak slung around her shoulders in the span of a few breaths.
Selene was at the window, peering out into the darkness. When she turned and saw Isolde racing for the door, she barked, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going to see if I can stop the beast.”
Isolde had just yanked open the door, a blast of cold air numbing her cheeks, when Selene caught up to her. Her Sire seized her by the cloak and yanked her back, slamming the door before Isolde could get one foot over the threshold.
“You are not ,” she hissed. “Not after last night. You could have died .”
“I’m already dead,” Isolde snapped back. “And from the sound of it, the villagers are dying, and I’m not going to sit in here and just listen to it happen.”
Outside, the screaming was getting louder. It wasn’t just one person this time, but many. Dozens, perhaps.
“Isolde—” Selene started, in the sort of voice that would have cowed Isolde into submission before.
But she wasn’t having it. Not tonight, with the sounds of terrified humans reaching the cabin through the trees. “If you’re concerned, Selene, then come with me. But I’m going.”
This time, when Isolde went for the door, Selene didn’t try to stop her. As Isolde sprinted through the snow, Selene fell into step beside her, clad in her own boots and cloak.
The screaming grew louder as Isolde ran—women’s voices, and the angry shouts of men. One voice stood out among the others. It was higher in pitch, wordless. A scream of agony amidst the cries of panic.
“The beast,” Isolde called to Selene, quickening her pace. “It might run. We have to stop it.”
“You don’t know its the same beast,” Selene argued. “It could be a Wolf.”
It could have been a Wolf this whole time, Isolde wanted to say, but she kept her mouth shut.
They burst through the trees, then bolted through the dooryard of a village house.
In the street on the other side, Isolde nearly crashed into a crowd of village women clad in dressing gowns.
They clung to one another, shrieking at something happening in the street before them.
“What is it?” Isolde demanded, shoving her way into the crowd.
“It drug Hanna Duncan out of bed by her leg,” said a woman with yellow curls. “Then it took a chunk out of her husband when he tried to save her. Some of the men have it cornered now, but Hanna…”
Isolde didn’t listen to the rest of her sentence. She elbowed past her, not caring that she was knocking the other women out of her way as she made it to the front of the group.
In the street before her, a group of the village men surrounded the beast, blocking it from Isolde’s view.
Their swords glinted in the silvery light of the full moon, brandished at whatever stood between them.
Another, smaller group was clustered in the snow to one side, with a pool of crimson spreading around them.
Selene appeared at Isolde’s shoulder. “See if you can help the human,” she said. “I’ll help the men.”
As she spoke, the beast snarled, low and guttural, and the men cried out as it snapped at someone. Isolde caught a glimpse of a big, white paw with claws as long as her own fingers.
“Go!” Selene ordered, and took off running toward the beast.
Isolde darted toward the cluster of women. She didn’t know what she could possibly do to help the human, besides maybe turn her into a Vampire. But that was only allowed in the direst of circumstances, and Isolde knew that if she turned one villager, all the rest would demand the same.
“Can I help?” Isolde asked, crouching in the snow amongst the other women.
One of them turned to look at her, eyes wide and face tear-streaked. “She’s bleeding,” the woman announced. “Bad.”
Isolde could smell it, of course, and see the crimson staining the snow. Normally the scent of fresh blood would have set Isolde’s mouth to watering, her canines extending to their sharpened points, but… the scent didn’t entice her. Not now.
“Let me see,” Isolde said, nudging a different woman aside.
Oh, God. The woman lay in the snow, unconscious but breathing, her dark hair splayed around her. Someone had covered her top half with their cloak, but her legs…
One of them was missing.
That was where the blood was coming from—the ragged stump where her knee should have been. Someone had cinched a belt around her thigh to slow the bleeding.
Isolde didn’t know what else she could possibly do to help. She wasn’t well-versed in healing. She’d studied literature in university, for hell’s sake, and since she’d become a Vampire, there’d been no need to tend to mortal wounds.
Bastian would know what to do. He’d tended to her wound with such surety—had all the right supplies in that glass cabinet beside his bed to help her.
Even without those supplies, Isolde knew he’d be able to help this woman, and he’d be steady and level-headed and somehow manage to calm every panicked human in the vicinity as he did it.
“Did someone alert the village doctor?” Isolde asked no one in particular. The words felt flat and useless, especially as she stared down at the woman’s pallid features.
One of the other women nodded. “Her son ran for him,” she sniffled.
“Good.” Isolde started to rise, turning back toward the place where the men were shouting, the beast snarling between them.
A hand shot out and seized her arm, halting her in place. “Don’t leave us,” begged a woman with a spill of chestnut hair. “You’re stronger than we are. Please don’t let it hurt us.”
Isolde stared at the woman. She’d known how helpless the humans were in the face of the beast, how frightened they must be. That had been the thing driving her to catch the killer all this time. But after the last few nights…
Even as a Vampire, Isolde was afraid now, too. And if she was afraid, she couldn’t begin to imagine how the humans felt.
“Alright,” she told the woman. “I’m not going anywhere. I just want to get a better look.”
The woman released Isolde’s arm. She turned her back to the group of women, but planted her feet in the snow, standing between them and the place where the men still had the beast surrounded.
Selene had joined them, a dagger of her own gripped in her slender fingers to match the swords and knives of the men. Isolde cursed herself for leaving the cabin unarmed, again. She should have asked Bastian for a pair of knives after all.
As she watched, one of the men lunged. He slashed out with his sword at the beast…
And fell back into the snow. Blood sprayed, but it was clearly not the beast’s. It was human blood, the bland scent of it drifting to Isolde on the wind. She could see the slashing wounds across the man’s face, straight through his brow and one of his eyes.
The women behind Isolde screamed at the sight. From the corner of her eye, Isolde saw one of them dart forward, rushing toward the fallen man. Her husband, no doubt. Someone caught her, held her back.
Selene barked orders Isolde couldn’t hear over the din. The men obeyed instantly, falling into line alongside her.
“Selene Lascar,” murmured one of the women at Isolde’s back, her voice full of awe. “Wolf Slayer.”
Selene and the men fanned out, their weapons brandished, herding the beast back toward the wall of a building. Isolde still couldn’t see it through the crowd, beyond the occasional flash of white fur and clawed paw.
They had the beast cornered now, trapped against the back wall of a house. Selene was still shouting—something about advancing on her count. Isolde could see her eyes glittering with cold calculation, the version of herself who had fought the Wolves two hundred years ago shining through.
Isolde saw the moment the men readied themselves to attack. Their swords all lifted, their shoulders bunching with tension in the instant before they lunged.
She blinked, and blood was spraying once more.
The beast leapt over the men who cornered it, its claws catching the moonlight as it slashed at the closest ones. Selene dove toward it, her arms outstretched—and missed. She collided with one of the men and the two of them toppled into the snow.
In the next instant, the beast’s paws struck the ground. It let out a howl so loud, Isolde’s ears rang in its wake.
For an instant, time seemed to stand still. The men behind the beast were a mess of bloodied limbs and useless swords. Selene struggled to her feet, her cloak covered in human blood and snow. All around, villagers screamed and scrambled away.
Isolde stood frozen, her gaze locked with the green eyes of a snarling Wolf.
After that, the Wolf ran.
Its path clear, the beast darted away, bounding between the trees to the east of the village and disappearing into the shadows.
Selene gave chase, her dagger still drawn and the horde of village men on her heels.
Isolde stayed behind, helping the villagers round up the wounded and get them back to their homes.
The woman with the missing leg, Hanna Duncan, would live.
The village doctor arrived minutes after the Wolf fled to tend to her wound.
Hanna’s husband was missing a sizable chunk of skin from his left arm, and several other villagers had claw marks that would leave nasty scars, if the wounds didn’t fester.
Fortunately, it seemed no one was going to die.
Part of Isolde railed that she wasn’t chasing down the beast with Selene and the men, but…
another part of her still trembled at the memory of those horrible moments in the forest before Bastian showed up.
She went back to the cabin as soon as the villagers all retreated to their own houses to wait for Selene to return.
It was nearly dawn by the time she finally came back.
“Did you catch it?” Isolde demanded, the moment Selene walked through the door.
“No,” Selene spat, casting off her cloak. “It escaped into Wolf territory. After that, there was nothing I could do. The humans kept after it, but they’re too slow. They won’t catch it.”
“And you didn’t see anyone else? Anyone who might be helping it?” Isolde had told Selene her theory that it had to be a human—or someone with a human form—who’d stopped her from catching the beast the previous night.
“No.” The word came out clipped, irritated. “I’ve never had a Wolf evade me like that,” she explained, in response to Isolde’s frown. “Not once. Every Wolf I hunted two hundred years ago, I caught.”
Isolde’s frown only deepened. She’d caught up to the Wolf the night before with relative ease, and the beast had had a fairly considerable head start. She didn’t dare mention that, though.
“It’s odd,” she said instead. “I’m sure that’s the same beast I saw last night, but the other attacks… it’s been going for people who were out already, gathering firewood or getting water, presumably. But one of the villagers said it went into someone’s house tonight and drug?—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Selene snapped. “It can’t have been the Wolf that killed the other villagers.”
“But—”
“Wolves only turn on the full moon, Isolde. And you said yourself that you didn’t get a good look at the creature before.”
For the second time that night, Isolde wanted to argue.
No, she hadn’t gotten a clear look at the beast the night before, but she knew what she’d seen.
It was the same size, the same color. It moved with the same swiftness.
Not to mention the fact that in all the years she’d lived in Bloodhaven, a Wolf had never attacked the village.
She’d rarely ever seen a Wolf at all—or a common wolf, for that matter—and now she was supposed to believe that there were two creatures terrorizing the village at once? It made no sense.
But for the second time that night, Isolde kept her mouth shut.
“You’re right,” she lied. “I’m sorry you didn’t catch the beast.”
Selene waved a dismissive hand, but Isolde knew her well enough to tell that she was in a bitter mood about it. She disappeared into her bedroom shortly after, that scowl still on her face.
Isolde waited until it was silent on the other side of Selene’s closed door to slip out of the cabin and hurry to Bastian’s.