Chapter 2 #2
“Nightmare it is,” Lucan snorts, and hoists me over his shoulder until I’m hanging down the length of his back, the necklace swinging beneath me, his hands clamped around the back of my upper thighs.
His fingers so close to the spot that pulses for him that I swear he probably feels that wetness he gloated about.
I shriek and scrabble at his back, but he just lets out a low chuckle that rumbles through each point of contact and lengthens his stride.
And that’s how the Monster carries me away from Xantera, into whatever lies beyond.
By the time Lucan bursts through a clearing some ten minutes later, I’m panting so hard from the continuous effort of trying to break free that I almost tip over when he flips me forward and sets me on my feet.
“Easy,” he murmurs into my ear, planting his hands on my hips to steady me. A retort bubbles on my lips… until I look up and realize where we are.
A dirt road stretches out before me, forking off in different directions and bordered by derelict wooden housing units.
Only, these housing units don’t look anything like what we have in the complexes, smashed together like perfect blocks.
These have individual pointed roofs with lopsided shingles like crooked teeth and strange, narrow brick structures climbing out of them.
And the windows—all in different places, giving each house something like a… personality.
My gaze skates across the nearest one, which has a window shattered in and a door that hangs off its hinges. But the house beyond it has light flickering in the window and smoke curling from the opening in the brick structure at the top.
Up and down the road, curtains flutter in the lit windows, and I swear I sense the weight of eyes pressing in on us from between the gaps.
“This is where you live?”
For some reason, despite Lucan telling me he lived in an abandoned town, my mind could really only conjure lairs and caves. But something about this place bites me with a nostalgia I didn’t even realize I had, a kind of yearning for cozy comfort ingrained in my bones.
“This is where we live,” Lucan says, his tone tightening as three figures exit one of the houses at the end of the dirt road and streak toward us.
I tense at the sight of them, glad that Lucan let me have the dignity of standing on my own two feet for the moment I meet the others of his kind.
“Lucan, we heard a scream, but we weren’t sure… oh.”
The middle of the trio, a female with short, dark brown hair and a heart-shaped face, cuts herself off as she finally comes to a halt before me.
Her eyes, amber like Lucan’s, widen as they land on me.
Even though she’s technically smaller than me, her lean muscle and willowy, ethereal grace make me feel like she could hold her own.
“Hello,” she tells me nervously, confusion warring with excitement on her face.
“Vivian, this is Saskia,” Lucan says curtly. “Saskia, this is my pack. Or at least, some of them. Vivian, Merrick, and Soren.”
His pack? The word sounds strange, but it fits, somehow. The way all four of them react to each other’s body movements, like they’re connected through their very blood, even without the use of a necklace. A pang of longing, of wishing I could be one of them, flashes through me unexpectedly.
The male to Vivian’s right—Merrick—gives me a friendly nod that is the complete opposite of how a Monster should greet you.
He has a rich, dark skin tone, his black hair braided back in several rows, and broad shoulders like Lucan.
Meanwhile, the male to Vivian’s left—Soren—has a slightly narrower build, with olive skin and light brown hair cropped close to his head.
When he notices me staring at him, Soren flashes his canines in a smug smile. “Glad to finally meet you in person, Saskia. This asshole—” He nods at Lucan. “—has been insufferable ever since he fell i—”
“Saskia’s going to need some more clothes,” Lucan cuts him off, directing that statement to Vivian, who nods with an eager bounce on the balls of her feet.
“Gather a variety of them, please. And I’m going to need you to go get Taika.
” He turns his glare onto Soren, who shoots him a conspiratorial grin.
But before he can obey, an older, gruffer voice permeates the night behind us.
“No need. I’m here.”
I whip around to find a gold-badged man limping toward us, leaning heavily on a gnarled cane topped with a carved wolf head. Of course, he doesn’t actually wear a badge pinned to his chest, but the silver of his hair reflects the first moonbeams that peek through the clouds up above.
“Taika,” Lucan says, and I can feel some of his tension loosen on an exhale. “She fell from the Wall. I need you to look her over, make sure there’s no internal bleeding.”
Soren cocks an eyebrow, and the others visibly glance at each other in question. Up until this point, the surprise of seeing a human in their midst has kept their confusion at bay, I’m sure, but now I can practically see the questions brewing in their eyes.
How did I even get to the top of the Wall? Why did I jump? How did I survive the fall?
I can answer all of them but that last one. Because the truth is, survival should have been impossible. I shouldn’t be breathing, glancing uncertainly between Lucan and the old man with the cane in a ghost town where dozens of curtains still flutter from lit windows.
Taika is obviously thinking the same thing, what with the way his eyes—again, amber like Lucan’s—squint at me with inquisitive assessment. But after a long-bated breath, he nods.
“Right this way, then. Follow me.”
The others disperse, making way for us as we turn around and follow Taika back to one of the first houses at the end of a short, rocky lane.
This one looks noticeably different from the others, with a wider roof, double door, and ramp leading up to a wooden deck.
The ramp creaks as we walk up, Lucan’s arm a steady anchor around my waist, and I glance at some faded lettering barely visible on the front windows: F M LY MED CAL C NT R.
My spine ripples with even more foreign nostalgia as an old bell dings above our heads when we shuffle in, entering a waiting area with moth-eaten sofas, frayed carpet, and peeling wallpaper. The silence in here breathes down my neck, but I know what it is.
A miniature Healing Center. An ancient one, judging by the musty smell, but a Healing Center all the same. Did there used to be more than one back before the vampires took over and trapped us all within the Wall? How long has it been since this one was used?
As if he can sense all the questions stirring within me, Taika shrugs off his coat and drapes it over the nearest armchair.
“Before we were exiled from our kingdom, I was the king’s physician, so I found this an…
appropriate home for me after the war,” he explains.
“I’ve kept all the medical equipment as sharp and clean as I can, and I try to keep our medicine cabinets well-stocked with herbs and oils I can find in the forest.” He chuckles.
“No more antibiotics, not that we need them that often, but I do have plenty of garlic, ginger, and honey.”
I cock my head, all the adrenaline and fight within me giving way to excitement, curiosity, and maybe even awe.
Back during my healing apprenticeships, our instructors touched lightly on the science behind medications, but I was never chosen to be one of those who actually invented or created them.
I could learn so much from Taika, if he’d teach me.
Lucan clears his throat. “Less talking, please. More examination.”
“This way, then,” Taika sighs, but shoots me a small smile.
He leads us out of the waiting room, down a hall, past a patient-room-turned-bedroom, from the looks of it, and into an office lined with cabinets and a counter cluttered with supplies.
He gestures for me to sit on the ripped padded recliner, while he lowers himself carefully into a metal swivel chair with squeaky wheels.
Lucan himself just crosses his arms over his chest in the corner, his attention drilling holes into the room with its intensity. It takes everything in me to look away from him and focus on the medic in front of me.
“Arm, please,” Taika says gently, grabbing a handheld blood pressure monitor from the counter.
This one isn’t hooked up to a machine like I’m used to but made of a leather strap and strange rubber bulb.
When I stick out my arm, he wraps the cuff around me and pumps the bulb several times until it tightens just like the ones at the Healing Center do.
“Interesting,” he muses, squinting at the needle on the attached dial.
“What?” Lucan asks sharply. It’s so strange to hear his voice, not in my head, but out loud. In person. A physical sound that grazes against my skin.
“Lower blood pressure than I’d expect.”
My heart drops, and I can practically feel Lucan’s fury sizzle outward, washing the room with white-hot energy.
The venom is already at work, then, slowly fossilizing my insides.
Will my transformation to stone take longer than the other Chosen Ones, now that there aren’t any vampires around to continue biting me?
Will I have more than ten years left? Or will I still find myself bedridden before I know it, even though I don’t feel lightheaded or dizzy like Odette did?
“Nothing to be too concerned about though,” Taika says, sitting back.
A rumble stirs in Lucan’s chest. “Check it again.”
His tone leaves no room for debate, and Taika takes one glance at him seething in the corner before he nods.
The silence stretches as the cuff tightens around my biceps and Taika listens and times my pulse again. “Still the same,” he says, talking to Lucan with his eyes trained softly on me.
“What about her heart—” Lucan says impatiently, but Taika’s already reaching for a stethoscope, shaking his head and clearly trying to hide his amusement.