Author: Tara Brown
Date: 2000-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Paranormal; Vampires; Paranormal Romance; Young Adult; Romance; Shapeshifters; Fantasy; Witches; Magic; Wolves
Description: Every town has its secrets. Secrets that hold it, and the people who live there, together. When Liv Daniels moves to Wolfville, Maine with her father, she discovers the small town has more than its fair share. But the quaint, coastal townsfolk aren't the only ones with secrets. Liv has one too. Hers is buried deep inside of her, where even she doesn't know it exists. But someone does, and he's not going to give up until he breaks it free from her. But how do you free someone from a secret they don't know they have?

Sunder

A Novel by Tara Brown

Copyright 2014 Tara Brown
http://TaraBrown22.blogspot.com

Amazon Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. No alteration of content is permitted. This book is a work of fiction, any similarities are coincidental. All characters in this fictional story are based entirely on the crazed mind of the author and are not based on any human. Any similarities are by chance and not intentional.

This book is dedicated to my fans—thank you so much. The interest and support has been amazing. I also must thank my husband and children. You supported me, even when I was in my writer’s frenzy.

Cover Art by Once Upon a Time Covers

Edited by Andrea Burns

Thank you Nick (sexiest proofreader ever).

A special thanks to Mani, Katy, and my friends The Nators. Thank you all.

To the girls in the chat that changes daily, I love you ladies.

Other Books by Tara Brown

The Devil’s Roses

Cursed

Bane

Witch

Hyde

Death

The Born Trilogy

Born

Born to Fight

Reborn

The Light Series

The Light of the World

The Four Horsemen

Imaginations

Imaginations

The Blood Trail Chronicles

Vengeance

Blackwater Witches

Blackwater

The Single Lady Spy Series

The End of Me

The End of Games

My Side

The Long Way Home

The Lonely

LOST BOY

First Kiss

Sunder

White Girl Problems

Under Sophie Starr

Lost and Bound

Cinder Ella

Co-Authored with Erin Leigh

Second Chances

Prologue

Nicolai

Wolfville, 1852

A man walked towards him. He could hear him long before he saw him, limping slightly and making a scuffing sound with his shoe in the smoke that had crawled through the town. When he got closer, he cleared his throat before speaking. “Son, we have to go.”

Nicolai paused, waiting for the man to finish the sentence. “The fire is out of control and the hunters have it surrounded. We don’t stand a chance.”

Nicolai shook his head. “NO! WE GO BACK! FIRE CAN KILL THEM! THEY’RE IN THERE!”

The man got close enough to grab Nicolai’s trembling hand firmly. “You must come with me. Your father has told me to take you from town. He asked me this afternoon—he knew your brother had gotten the town in trouble. He was able to help the Michaels clan escape and round everyone up and get them to the safety of the guards. But if you linger, I am afraid someone will out you for what has happened. Your family is being blamed. The witches—they know it was your brother who killed those people.”

Nicolai could feel the shroud of helplessness overshadowing his arguments. “GOD DAMNED HIM!” Tears dripped from his eyes. He slammed his hand down on the barrel he stood next to, denting it severely. The old man’s eyes shot to the dent. “Contain yourself, we are leaving now. These are your father’s orders.” He dragged the defeated young Nicolai into the carriage, shoving him inside.

As the door closed so did Nicolai’s eyes. He forced himself to let the pain of the loss of each of them take a separate place in his heart. Each face, each laugh, each embrace. They each claimed a part of him.

One day he would get his revenge.

He looked out through the curtains as they drove off, seeing the smoke hovering over the far-off farm where his family was fighting for their lives as he fled.

The man gave him a smile from the driver’s seat. “We will come back, lad. Have no fears.”

Nicolai didn’t believe it. Mostly he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to face his cowardly act.

The man sighed loudly over the sound of the horse’s feet. “My name is Miles. I am a friend of your father’s.”

Nicolai stared at the last of the flames and smoke as they rounded the corner, out of sight from the burning farm. “I know who you are.”

“I think it safest if you choose to use your second name from here on. What is it?”

Nicolai’s lip trembled as he recalled hating the name his mother had given him. She had loved the name, he had been so bright when born. She had named him Nicolai Briton, bright one. He would never hate the name again.

“Briton. My mom’s version of the words bright one.”

“That’s an odd name.”

He ignored the comment, and instead, closed his eyes and relived every moment he remembered.

Chapter One

Liv

Wolfville.

Who would name a town Wolfville?

I hadn’t even seen any wolves.

I watched my new stepmother, so to speak, with a slant in my eyes that I hoped spoke great lengths of the exact amount of dislike I harbored for her. She looked like she was at my house for a sleepover, and not with my dad.

Thirty-eight—my ass. She looked twenty, tops. The only thing saving her from being the type of girl who went for older guys was the tomboy apparel that seemed to be her thing. I grimaced at that, wanting to pluck the plaid with my finger and mock her.

I didn’t.

For him I didn’t.

My father wouldn’t understand my hatred towards her. He was under her spell.

I wasn’t.

I loved my dad, and I hated that he was a single dad, and worst of all, I knew the thing all kids like me knew—I knew my father needed to move on. No one wants his or her parent to need love again when the other parent has died, but it was inevitable. How could I ask him to stay single and just be my dad?

I couldn’t. He was a man in his own right, and he was a good one. He deserved love, but why her? Well, to look at her, I knew why. I just never knew he was that shallow that he would choose someone like her.

I thought better of him.

I imagined, when he finally moved on many years later, he would be with a sweet schoolteacher who wore cardigans that I could borrow to match my hipster outfits. Someone who would bake me things and be the grandmother to my children one day.

But no.

He had to move us to the bizarrely named small town of Wolfville, to be with someone I could never respect him for.

He didn’t see it, but I did. She was lying about her age, there was no doubt in my mind. Judith was too young. But why lie about her age to be older? What woman did that? Not a sane one. She didn’t need the money or the safety of a rich man. She was wealthy in her own right and had a great huge family who all lived—surprise, surprise—one block from us.

No, nothing about them made sense.

A voice whispered inside of me that it might actually be love.

I scoffed at the notion and then hated myself for being such a bitch about it.

I wanted to be a better person about it all.

Her age and her looks shouldn’t matter, technically, but I did have to live with her. What if they lasted and he was still married to her when I did eventually have kids? She would be their grandma?

I tried not to make her age and looks be the things that bothered me the most. But I couldn’t. Even though I knew what would bother my mother, and it wasn’t age and it wasn’t looks. It was the fact that Judith liked red meat and hunting, and to top the list off, she was a Republican.

Who under forty was a Republican? Was that even possible?

I looked up at the ceiling, shaking my damned head.

I shivered, imagining what my vegan Democratic mother would have thought about the huge steak being served for dinner. I looked at my father, rolled my eyes and walked out of the room, regardless of how good it all smelled. Bitch could cook, that was for sure.

I was against it all, but how could I say anything without being a complete brat? The house was her idea, the town was hers, and somehow my father’s heart was hers. So snubbing the dinner and the NRA Barbie Doll making it, was all I had the power to do.

Defeated, I climbed the old, wide stairs in the dark, not bothering with a light. If I was going to be cruel to someone who had never actually wronged me, I wanted to do it in the dark.

I liked being ashamed of myself where I couldn’t actually see it.

Did it bother me that she was actually the sweetest person I had ever met? Yes. Yes, it did. I hated that about her and how it made me feel about myself.

I was the evil stepdaughter to her good, kind, sweet, friggin’-singing-in-the-damned-rain stepmother.

But I just couldn’t help it. I was stunned when Judith had openly admitted belonging to the National Rifle Association and owning three rifles herself. Since moving to Wolfville, I had discovered that camouflage clothing wasn’t just something inner-city kids wore to look cool. It came in pink and people put it on their children—their babies.

I scowled and sauntered down the dark hallway of the gigantic, old house my father and Judith had just bought, and no doubt christened by smearing animal blood around the rooms.

I walked into the princess room I had always dreamt of, but now felt as if the price for getting it had been a bit too steep, and slumped onto my bed. I felt like I had betrayed my mother and sold my soul to have it. Even if it was the most wonderful room I had ever been in. It was like a dream come true.

I wanted so badly to be able to compare myself to Cinderella or Snow White but there was no justification. Judith had never been anything but incredibly nice to me.

The wicked part of my brain rationalized that it was always the nice ones you had to watch out for. The overly nice ones who snuck in your room at night to drip the juice of cursed hebenon in your ear.

Okay, that might have been offside, if not a little dramatic.

There just was no denying the fact I was surrounded by the beautiful things given to me by my father and Judith. The room was huge—the master suite of the huge mansion. I sort of imagined they had given it to me in an attempt to buy my approval. I didn’t approve but I did take the room.

I was going to hell for sure, especially after the poison in the ear thought. That was mean. And I had taken the room without even batting an eyelash.

My brain whispered that, yes maybe I had sold my soul to the devil to get it, no biggie. I was young, and I could always win my soul back with good deeds later. Do some volunteer work and shit.

I had one year of Judith and I was free. I could last a year to have a room like this and all the sucking up she and my father could muster.

Maybe I could just stay in the room.

It had a cherrywood four-poster bed, slanted ceilings, and a skylight in my bathroom, which was renovated to the point of ridiculous. It still had the old-fashioned look with a massive claw-foot soaker tub but there were glass tiles for windows, a walk-in steam shower, and a bidet. I would never own up to having used the friggin’ thing but, Oh. My. God. It was heaven, like a spa for my ass.

My walk-in closet was outlandish. It was the size of my bedroom back in Chicago, where I’d lived with my dad, and once upon a time, my mom. My parents had been rich together, making hoards of money, but my mom refused to let it be the thing we were known for. We lived in the same crappy apartment she and Dad had rented when they were young. Mom had been against flaunting wealth. Clearly NRA Barbie had no problem with it. I hated that I loved it.

I sat thinking about what my mother would have thought of the extravagance of the room and unnecessary amount of space wasted. Especially, since people around the world lived in tent cities. I wanted so badly to be an idealist like her, but it seemed I was more like my father. Pretty things won me over easily. At least I was conflicted about it, whereas he was joyous, to the point I almost wondered if he loved Judith more than my mother. The thought of it made me uneasy. He seemed like he did. Love was such a lie. I knew then and there I would never fall in love. I would never let a man make me feel more special than a single thing in the world and then move on after I was gone.

No. I would never be like my mother and Judith, replaced so easily in the heart of a man.

I looked up at the ceiling where my father had put the new stars, so I would feel like I was at home in the new house. But I didn’t. I felt like I was being pampered at a fancy hotel.

And I did miss the comfy feeling of our place in Chicago. It was homey and small. I had thought my father had too, but when we moved to Wolfville, he threw himself into the remodel of the house and the new marriage. He seemed altered here, funny and inspired maybe. He was a man I had never seen with my mother, like his life with us had been a lie or an act.

Granted it was a new love, and every person on earth felt that way when they were in the honeymoon stage of love. But it didn’t change the fact he was different. He had hardly paid me any attention while NRA Barbie had paid me too much. It was awkward as ass.

In the midst of my daydreams and mental griping, there was a knock at the door, “Liv, honey.”

I cringed every time I heard my father’s voice. I hated the way he sounded like nothing should be different. It was. There was no denying that. He was different.

“Liv!” he called from the other side of the big wooden door and then just opened it. “Are you decent?”

I smiled sarcastically. “Is that a moral question?”

“No. I don’t want that answer.” He laughed and closed the door behind him, “Sweetie, Judith didn’t mean to offend you with the steak. She has a blood disorder and has to eat a lot of red meat. She is very anemic.” He came and sat on the bed next to me.

I looked at him and forced something resembling an attempted smile across my lips. “Sorry, Dad.” For all my talk, I was a pushover and I HATED conflict. Not just that, but I really wasn’t in the mood for another talk. We’d been having them a lot. I had been starting to feel like I was a member of the cast of Girl Interrupted. The kid gloves were getting annoying. The sucking up with fineries was more fun.

Dad smiled back and put a hand on my knee. “We need to have the talk I’ve been skirting." He paused and ran his hands through his hair. He made faces like we were already having the conversation and then shook his head, like he was pushing away the words. He sighed and bit his lip.

Finally he spoke, but his voice was a whisper. "Your mom will understand if you give Judith a chance, babe. She doesn’t want to replace her, but she wants to make me happy, and I think it’s time for me to start feeling happy again.” His dark eyes grew soulful. “I need to feel joy again, Liv. I’ve spent a lot of years living alone, dying inside from a broken heart. I know she was your mother, but she was my wife. She was my partner in everything, and I have never felt pain like I did when she died. I am not trying to belittle your loss, she was your mother. We both know how it was. But I think it's finally over for me. I feel like the weight of watching the person I loved the most, die slowly, is gone. I don’t wish for death anymore. I want to be the dad your mom expected of me. I wasn’t doing that in Chicago. I made her promises and I’ve not kept them. I was sad and you suffered from it. And I’m happy and I . . ." He paused and looked at me. "I need you to see that. This isn’t some plot against you. It’s me trying to heal us both with love.” His voice broke and his lips trembled and I died inside.

Images of my father crying in his bed, or in the car or at my mother’s grave, filled my mind. Guilt ravaged my insides and deflated my hate of the NRA Barbie doll. How could I hate her when she brought the spark to his eyes, something I had not been able to do? I swallowed hard and sat up to hug my father. “I know, Dad.” I choked back my teen angst and nodded, “I want you to be happy too. It’s just, couldn’t you be happy with someone who was . . . ?”

“Someone my own age?”

I looked down. “No, just maybe a Democrat? You know how Mom felt about it all.”

He laughed. “She—the person she is—makes me happy. I feel joy and I want you to feel it too. I feel like I did when I was twenty and I met your mom. Before you start on your list of complaints, just know, Judith does make me happy and, yes, it has to be her that makes me happy. I don’t care that she’s seven years younger or about her job or her taste in meals or her blood type or who she votes for or that she burns wood for heat or that she lives in this small town or that she wears plaid.”

I scowled. “I wasn’t going to list all those bad things.” My scowl turned into a mischievous grin. “Okay, but not exactly like that.”

He rubbed my back. “Give her a chance. You’re only here for another year and then you leave for university, Liv.” He looked worried. “Then it’s me, all by myself. Is that what you want? Or do you want me to have a marriage and a life and love? I could die next year in a freak car accident. I could die tomorrow of a stroke. We don’t have forever, Liv. If anyone knows that it’s you and me. We have to use the time we have. I’m tired of mourning and being alone. I’m tired of the last image I have of your mom. Her eyes were closed and she was in her coma. She never woke but she squeezed my hand. I knew she was saying goodbye. I can’t let that be the only thing that runs through my mind. I have to let myself be reborn, or I am not going to make it. I’m in love. Do you know how happy your mother would be? Her last words to me were to celebrate the love we once had and have enough respect for it to continue with someone else. I never thought that possible before I met Judith.”

Tears flooded my eyes. “I think her words were that she had worked awfully hard on perfecting you as a husband, and she didn’t want to see it wasted.”

He nudged me. “My way is nicer.”

I shook my head. “No, I know. I’m glad you found someone.” I sighed and decided to show him the real problem I was having. We had always been an honest family. He deserved to know my real apprehension towards it all. I took a breath and nodded. “My main issue is her being so, uhm, well . . . so different from Mom.”

He laughed. “I loved your mother and I always will. I didn’t love that she was a vegan or that I was forced to eat Tofurkey or that we had to live in that dumpy apartment or that she opposed everything in the world because she hated capitalists. She would drive ten extra blocks to get organic farm-raised chickens for me, not realizing that all the extra gas was still going to the man. She drove me insane, but I loved her dedication and strength and compassion for those weaker or less fortunate than her.” He sighed and ran his fingers through his dark, slightly wavy hair. “With Judith, I love her strength but in a different way, and I love her compassion in a different way. I think if you gave her a chance, you would see she really is exactly like your mom but in a totally opposite way.”

I didn’t see it, but I had to let him think I did. I smiled, even if it was a fake ass attempt and my brain was chanting ‘I hate your NRA Barbie wife.’ I gave my very best attempt. “Okay, I think I see what you mean—I mean, she is obviously strong. Did you see how much firewood she chopped yesterday? She looked like a lumberjack. And she can cook. She seems sweet. Her family is wicked nice.” The point was that I loved my dad.

He laughed. “I will never comprehend what you mean when you talk. I’ve come to that understanding, but I am taking this as you will accept my life, my choices, and love me through it all.”

I nodded.

He slapped my leg. “The harvest ball starts in half an hour. Get dressed.” He stood and left the room, chuckling about lumberjacks and teenagers.

I sat there, wondering if I would ever see it, and if I did, would I be betraying my mother? Then his words hit my mind. I forgot all about the ball. I had said I didn’t want to go, but clearly they hadn’t listened. What kind of town still had an annual harvest ball?

I knew Chicago had them but they were crazy fancy and cost a fortune. They were fundraisers, not celebrating shit growing. My mom had been against them, but I imagined she would like the idea of celebrating harvests. She was crazy like that.

But honestly, what the hell was with this place? Who still celebrated harvests, beyond the Amish?

I looked at the hanger I could see poking out the top of the door of my walk-in closet. It was the ball gown my father and Judith had picked out for me as a surprise, for the ball I had declined their invitation to. The last surprise they had picked out for me had been this town . . . I didn’t even want to imagine the dress, speaking of Amish. I knew what was awaiting me. It would be something from the country-bumpkin, Gone-With-the-Wind variety of dress. Every building in the whole town looked like the friggin’ gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel. I didn’t imagine the stores had much going on.

It had been delivered earlier, and I had done my very best at my personal protest to not look at the dress.

Now that my dad had come in and said all of that, I knew my war would have to be a silent one, and like this magnificent bedroom, I could just say I was taking one for the team. I was avoiding conflict. Actually, looking at the dress was a step towards peace, so I was being proactive really.

Not to mention the sad fact, my war was out of ammo. Even the evil side of my brain couldn’t negotiate its way out of the chat my father and I had just had. So I got off the bed and sauntered slowly to the door. I kept my head high in false self-respect. Looking as dignified as I could, I pulled the door back.

I gasped.

Instead of Gone With the Wind, a stunning Christian Dior gown hung from the closet door. It looked like something Carrie would wear on Sex in The City. It was pale-blue silk tulle, embroidered with sequins that were iridescent blues, rusts and greens, over a creamy-gray strapless dress. The amazing skirt of petals looked exactly like peacock feathers without their colorful eyes. The strapless creamy-grey dress had a tight-fitting bodice with a flowing A-line skirt. There was even a pair of blue, strappy, four-inch-heel sandals to go with it. They were dark-blue and matched the peacock-look perfectly.

My mouth hung open.

I didn’t even know what to say or do. Instead of grabbing it, I dropped to my knees and felt a small amount of moisture starting to build up in the corners of my eyes. I was speechless.

I was a bitch. There really was no other way to put it.

NRA Barbie had gone out of her way to make certain I would be the belle of the ball, but still a city girl. And there was absolutely no way my father had anything to do with the dress or shoes. Hell, my father would have had me looking like Little House on the Prairie, not a stunning goddess in a vintage Dior with Yves Saint Laurent sandals.

I had died and gone to wardrobe heaven.

Judith got me. She really saw me.

There was even a Dior clutch, sequined to match the dress. I picked it up delicately and dragged my fingers across the sequins.

How could she have been so kind to me and so thoughtful?

She had been paying attention to the fact, I too was nothing like my mother. I never cared for Tofurkey, I hated government politics, and I secretly loved the feel of fox fur. I had always hidden the fact I loved to draw gowns in class and imagined myself as a modern-day Audrey Hepburn.

No one else had ever noticed my secret love. My father assumed I was a regular teenaged girl. He didn’t know I watched Fashion TV constantly and always slowed down the show for Blair and Serena in Gossip Girl. I had to secretly watch it on my iPad that I hid under my bed. I had even gotten a Netflix account, secretly. I used pay-as-you-go credit cards to pay for it. I would stare at Chuck—his fashion sense was over stimulating, but his gentle cruelty and misconstrued love was unbearable. I wanted so badly to be Blair. My parents were old money. I could have been an Upper East Sider. I could have been dramatic and conflicted and cursed in love. But I held true to the person my mother was. It was my way of clinging to her. She just never knew it.

But Judith knew.

She knew I was a scam, a fraud, a betrayer of my mother’s passions, and although my mother had missed it, she had not. I had let my mother die, never seeing the real me, and yet, somehow Judith had caught it.

I could either be pissed that she had seen through the façade, or I could embrace who I was and just go to the damned ball and rock the dress. I ran a finger down the material, shivering from the feel of it and the excitement inside of me.

I closed my eyes and just whispered the things I wanted to say but never did. “Mom, I love you but I need you to know I love meat. I love fashion, and I don’t even know what the president’s wife’s name is or his kids’. I don’t know what a Republican is, and I think deep down I may not vote when I turn eighteen, because I don’t understand any of it. But I love you. Please don’t hate me.”

I sat there for a moment, just letting it all be out there in the air.

Suddenly, with a scary burst of energy, I jumped up from the floor and ripped my clothes off and ran for my steamy shower. I needed to be very clean for that dress and I needed something beyond my laundry-day jogging pants and Hanes Her Way undies. I needed Victoria’s Secret, matching, and a push up. That dress deserved nothing less.

The work of making myself resemble the girl who had come from a city took an hour. I put my cell phone on vibrate and placed it and my lip gloss in the clutch. Spinning slowly, I took one last look at myself in the mirror. I was breathtaking. I could imagine myself in Chuck’s arms. It was a pivotal moment in my life, and as odd as it was, I had Judith to thank for it.

Maybe she wasn’t so bad. She had done the room for me and now the dress. Maybe she and I had some things in common. I remembered the plaid she was wearing when I left the kitchen and shook my head. No, we definitely didn’t. Maybe all we had was loving my father, maybe it could be enough.

I walked from the room, letting my feet and ankles get used to the four-inch heels. It had been months of sneakers and flip-flops. My secret stash of heels at my friend Jodie’s house was still there. She sent me pictures sometimes. I missed them and her but Snapchats with my shoes did make me feel better.

I navigated the stairs with no problems and made my way into the kitchen, where my father was laughing in a way I hadn’t heard in a long time.

He looked handsome in his tux and his tall, slim body had a James Bond look to it, forties and lean. His face seemed younger and so much less pinched, since he and Judith had met that fateful weekend at the spelunkers meet. His dark hair and blue eyes seemed to be even more shiny and sparkly than ever. I had to stop and force myself to see it. It was all a person could want for their family. And I needed to want it for him.

I promised myself, from that moment on, I would try. I would try reallllllllllly hard, and not just because she had bribed me with vintage designer clothes. Okay, that had a small part in my decision, but at least I was ashamed of it.

I knew then, in that moment, that my mother was looking down and she was happy for him—for us. There was no conflict. She was with the person who made him happy. He was having an amazing moment because of Judith, and so was I. She had improved our lives. Eww—that felt wrong in my mind, but it was the truth.

I smiled at her, making myself see it too. She looked elegant in her simple pale-pink strapless gown that had an empire waist and simple pleats. Her cream-colored shoes were also very simple and elegant. Her dark hair was pulled up into a French twist and her face, as always, was perfect, with her Barbie-like features. She always looked amazing, no matter the occasion.

When they saw me, their faces dropped. “Oh my God, Liv, you look incredible,” my father whispered. “You are so grown up.”

I smiled at them, fighting the tears as I looked at Judith. “Thank you so much for this. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

“I think I do.” Judith beamed, but the best part of the moment was the proud look that crossed my father’s face as he looked at Judith. He was proud of his wife; he loved her and the effect she had had on our family. She was family. Again, I almost cried, mostly because I was a hateful bitch.

“Well, I will be the most sought-out man at the ball, two stunning ladies on my arm.” He put his arms out for us two ladies. Judith reached out and hugged me tightly as she whispered in my ear, “You deserve that dress and to have fun.”

We each took one of his arms and walked out for the night.

Chapter Two

Briton

Normally, he could have driven for days and not even flinched at it. But something was different about that drive. He hadn’t felt anything in so long, that he forgot how it felt to have dread lay its great weight upon his chest.

But it wasn’t just dread. There was something else in there, mixing him up.

On some level, deep inside of himself, Briton seemed to be able to feel the end of his journey nearing. It was as if he was exhausted in his soul. He had felt that way from the moment he had decided to go back to the US—the last home he had shared with his family.

Home.

What a strange sensation to have a home suddenly. Especially after so long on the open road.

He smiled at his thought, maybe not open road.

More like villas, chalets, and condos in cities he never let himself get attached to. They had been on the run for over a hundred and fifty years.

It was almost exciting to go home, in a way. It brought back feelings—feelings he hadn’t felt in so long. But being there on the road that he last traveled as a broken-hearted man brought back everything. The feelings he had pushed away and closed off felt like they were doubled. But he realized he was no longer broken hearted, just broken.

The feeling of excitement was replaced with nerves as they crossed over the Maine border, bringing him one more step closer than he had been in over a century.

He glanced at Miles in the rearview mirror; it was the first time Briton had driven while Miles slept in the back. Normally if Briton drove, Miles drove him insane with backseat driving. But now the older man’s breathing had grown more distressed and laborious when he slept, and he wasn’t in control or trying to hide it. It revealed how bad he really was. That made Briton’s stomach twinge. The old man was it, the last of his family.

Anger replaced the heavy feeling of fear as he thought about his family.

He hoped one day to get the revenge they so desperately sought. Revenge for himself and for Miles, who lost his wife in the town’s troubles. He considered her to be part of the family they had lost.

Briton had rarely allowed himself attachments and certainly none of his father’s crusty old friends. But Miles had always been different. After Briton’s father’s death, the old man had grown on him and eventually stepped up to the task of being his mentor in a lot of things. But regular humans had such short lives that they seemed to grow wise at a rate far faster than any other creature he had ever seen. Miles was his superior in everything, regardless of being only two centuries old. Not that he was a regular human.

Briton hadn’t needed a mentor, but the company had become something he enjoyed. It was more like having a father again and the losses they had shared tied them together. He knew Miles had made him a better man, just by being there.

He heard a slight noise and looked into the back seat again, seeing the old man grimace slightly in his sleep. It was as if he was momentarily pained, and then he fell back into a motionless state. He had gotten worse progressively, so much so that even his magical elixirs weren’t helping him for very long once he’d taken them. He was an odd old man, with his elixirs and strange ways. He suited Briton’s company perfectly, though Briton didn’t age a day from his eighteenth birthday onward, and Miles has slowly aged into the man he was now.

But nothing about either of them was what you expected when you saw them.

Briton, distracted by the feelings he had been certain he had blocked off, nearly missed the large sign beside a huge apple orchard. When he caught ‘Welcome to Wolfville, Maine’ in his peripheral, he took a deep breath.

A lump grew in his throat, the kind he wished he could blame on hunger, but he knew better than that. He was home. There was no denying the feelings that were there, particularly not the merciless feelings for bloodthirsty revenge. He was owed a debt; he just didn’t know who was collecting the bill.

Who was left of the Michaels clan?

Would they remember they owed him?

If not, he could take the town from them by force. Something he preferred not to do now that so many humans lived there. He missed the haven it had once been. He wished to peacefully restore it, but he needed help with that task.

He smiled, recalling the number he had seen fleetingly on the sign, ‘Population 6,411, est. 1634’. The town had grown significantly since his last visit. Or rather, the last time he was there, fleeing for his life. The smile faded as quickly as it came as he was flooded by memories of the events that had transpired there in that small town all of those years before.

He hoped silently that the hunters and the pain would be avoided this time, knowing full well this was the last place on earth he should be. Unfortunately, it was the only place he could turn to. He slowed the SUV, allowing the scenery to warm him, even if it was only a minuscule amount.

The view from the highway was full of orchards bright with apples and small farmhouses. All of it was set back from the highway. He loved the tiny old houses with huge yards, and leaves just about to turn or already there. The air in the car filled with the sweet smell of the apples riding on the breeze.

“Nicolai, I need something to drink, son.” Miles coughed a few times and continued in his rough voice, “I think we have gone far enough for one day, my boy. Unlike yours, my back aches.” Miles laughed weakly, making a slight wheezing noise.

“Briton, not Nicolai. It’s been over a hundred and sixty years. You must remember to call me that. Especially here. And yes, we have gone far enough. We’re here, Miles.” Briton looked in the mirror at the old man’s worried face and spoke, “We’re in Wolfville.”

Miles sat up and looked out the window. “What? Why would we come here? Where will we stay, Briton? Your father’s estate sold the house here. No one will let us stay, not the way you are. People here have memories as old as Methuselah’s goat. And all it takes is one person to remember you. The Michaels will no doubt remember you.”

“I’m counting on them remembering me. They owe me.” Briton frowned. “You don’t sound like you want to be back. This is home for us. You were born here, old man.”

Miles laughed when he spoke, “Yes, and as I recall, we fled in the night, barely escaping the hunters. I don’t want to be back. This is not our home anymore. I was born here a very long time ago, and I have not missed it all these years we have been gone. Now answer my question, young man, and allow an old man his reservations. We’ll have nowhere safe to stay. Have you thought of that? These tiny towns don’t have regular hotels.” He coughed and shifted in his seat, looking pained. “I recall your father’s estate selling the property. Besides, I have never liked small towns, particularly this one. You stand out in a place like this one. And we probably won’t be able to get any of those spicy drinks we get at those franchise places. You know, the kai drink that I like so much. You know I have to have one a day. It keeps me young.”

Briton scoffed. “That’s chai, Miles. And yes, Father’s estate sold the house, but it was only to me. I own it. I have it taken care of by a lady from that family that Father was so fond of. She has run it as a bed and breakfast all these years, passing the deed down to my sons—who, coincidentally, were also me. We WILL have somewhere to stay, and I am sure we can learn how to make a chai. I have slain kings with my bare hands, by the gods I will make you a spicy tea.” He laughed and drummed his fingers along the steering wheel. “And it’s not so small here anymore. The town has developed a lot.”

Miles sighed. “This is a terrible idea. Did you knock me out on purpose so you might slip past the border of this dreadful state?”

“No. You don’t need knocking out these days. At any rate, I’ve informed the housekeeper we are staying on for a while and she is not to take any reservations. We will be safe. We were safe here once a very long time ago, and we will be again.”

“You never told me you bought the old place.”

Briton’s eyes lit up. “You would have talked me out of it.”

“I wish you had given me the chance to. We should have cut our ties from here. This is the place it started, and I fear this is the place it will end.” Miles shook his head. “You’re asking for trouble coming back here. It’s too soon. The scars here are older than anywhere else.” His dark-brown eyes glassed over for a second with severity. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Briton nodded hesitantly. In truth, he didn’t know what he was doing, but he had always been a fan of the ‘fake it till you make it’ sort of attitude.

He turned the huge black SUV onto Willow Street, the road home. He felt less confident the farther into town he got, but he knew the Michaels were an honorable family who would remember the debt they owed him. He just wished things could be the way they had been, if only his brother had been able to control his urges. He shook his head, trying not to think about it.

No good came from memories. Remembering and feeling, weaknesses he couldn’t afford, and yet struggled to fight.

His stomach gave a twinge as he saw the huge white mansion at the end of the road. It was as pristine as the day his father had built it. He parked in the driveway and turned the SUV off, but instead of climbing out, he sat and reminisced. No matter how hard he tried not to let them, the memories flooded his mind. Even if no good came from them, it was wonderful to remember his family.

He recalled so many things at once. He was barely hanging on as they came with all the feelings he didn’t want. Big things, like his father teaching them to be regular men and his mother teaching them to be gentle whilst doing it. Little things, such as the huge white gate at the corner of the house that they had all built together, his brothers and father. His mother coming out to bring drinks with the maid, and of course, one of the neighbor girls she felt was suitable for his eldest brother. He laughed softly, remembering the cloud that passed over his brother’s face when he realized he was being matched with a girl he neither liked nor wanted. Their mother insisted it was a way to blend into society with the others.

Everyone in the family had laughed at his brother all night at the Harvest Ball as he had been forced to dance with his newly betrothed.

Suddenly, coming back to reality, he looked sharply at Miles. “What day is it?”

Miles shook his head. “Perhaps the twenty-first.”

Briton felt his eyes light up. “Of October?”

Miles nodded, opening the door. He looked tired of sitting in the car when a comfortable bed was calling his name inside. Briton smiled, certain the old man would be in a tub in no time.

When he looked up at the front door that his mother had answered so many times, he frowned to see an older woman in her place. He barely recognized her, but if he looked hard enough, he could see the family traits. He remembered her family well. Their families had always been close.

His father had told him to always get someone from her family to watch over the family home. She was the last of her line in the family, no children. But her sister had a daughter, if he recalled correctly.

He missed his family for one more second and then climbed out of the car to see the sun setting off in the distance. The air smelled the same and held the same crisp feeling.

“Why, young man, you look a spitting image of your great-grandfather at this age. I have seen pictures and you are identical. It’s a very odd resemblance.” Her voice was soft, “Uncanny.”

“Ms. Whitburn, how are you?” Briton smiled at her as she held her arms open for a hug.

He hugged her, desperate to absorb the sweet smell of homemade bread and jam that she had no doubt just finished making.

“Your father, Nicolai, was my grandmother’s favorite of all of the boys. She always told us about your family, when I was a girl. You were named for him, if I’m not mistaken. You are also Nicolai. I saw your name on the deed to the house when I had to renew the insurance.” She let him go and put her hands on her hips and looked him over.

Briton nodded. “I am told I resemble my great-grandfather a fair amount. But people generally call me Briton though, not Nicolai. Briton is my second name. Nicolai is very old country.”

She nodded, giving Miles a look. “Yes, yes of course. You youngsters need to have your independence.” Miles rolled his eyes.

Briton spoke with a laugh, “Indeed. Ms. Whitburn, may I introduce my friend, Miles Xavier.”

She nodded slightly. “Lovely to meet you, Mr. Xavier.”

Miles’ old face turned into the sweetest of smiles and he bowed slightly, taking her hand in his and kissing it once. “The pleasure is all mine, my dear Ms. Whitburn. You will forgive my being so forward, but it has been a long trip on my old body, and I would just about die for a hot bath.”

She blushed and made a sound similar to a giggle, “Call me Betsy. I will draw you a bath right away.” She turned and walked down the hall with Miles.

Briton let them leave him there at the front door. He was stopped in the entrance, seeing it all around him. He could see his family moving about in the house, like ghosts. He wished they were there to haunt the old place, but his kind didn’t haunt. You needed a soul for that.

His family’s things were still there, in their very spots. The old table in the hall his mother put the post on, and the old chair he had sat in millions of times tying on his skates or readying to go hunting with the family. He looked back at the street; no other houses sat on the street and the lamps seemed spaced more than they would have been on any other street. His father’s doing. The land was all owned by his family—by him now. The last of his family.

He closed the door and looked up at the mark above the door. It made a chill crawl up his spine. He knew the charm still protected the old house, and he knew if he were smart, he would find the sister who would inherit from Betsy’s sister and make sure everything was up to snuff.

He walked into the kitchen to see the fresh bread and jam and homemade pickles, just as he had remembered. Betsy’s mother had been the very same with the comfort food. Briton smiled, thinking about how happy Miles would be here. He hoped deep down that it would be for a very long time, hoped being the operative word. Of course that all depended on the Michaels clan.

Betsy walked into the kitchen and smiled warmly. “It’s amazing how much you look like him. Please forgive me if I stare, it’s uncanny though. I only saw his photos, but I remember his face so clearly. If I’m not mistaken, he left town after the great fire. His family died in the fire.”

Briton nodded, forcing himself to not rage at the memory of the dreaded night. “I’ve heard the story from my mother. Sad tale.”

“Was a sad night for certain. The whole town still mourns it. So many died. We lost family too, my great-grandmother and my great-great-aunt.” She frowned and walked to the fridge. “Can I get you a snack or some leftovers? I had lamb for dinner.”

He shook his head. The flames of the fire were still licking at the windows of the carriage as he watched them burn to death. Her great-great-aunt and great-grandmother had died trying to save his family. The hunters had taken so much that night.

“Briton, son. You okay?”

He snapped out of it. “Sorry, what?”

“Tea? I was offering you some tea.”

“No, thank you. But I was wondering if the town still has a Harvest Ball on October 21st, like it used to?”

Her face lit up, making her old blue eyes sparkle again. “Yes, of course. Your father must have told you about that. Your great-great-great-grandfather actually started the Harvest Ball. It’s tonight, if I am not mistaken. I’m too old now for such frivolities. I don’t go anymore.”

“Nonsense. You must come.” He smiled.

Her face blanked. “You speak so formally for one so young. The other young people in town don’t talk like you. They spend all day walking about like mindless zombies, playing on those hand-held devices and wearing their pants to their knees.”

Briton blushed, looking down at his hands. “I am with Miles at all times. He frowns on cell phone use and baggy jeans. I speak the way he speaks, I suppose. Not to mention, he forced me to attend Oxford. I’m lucky I escaped without an accent.” That was a true story. Miles had Briton finish his gentlemanly training at Oxford. It had given them years of staying in the same place while he had been a student.

She giggled and nodded. “Indeed, although I would swear you have a slight one.”

If only she knew how right she was. His Icelandic accent was one that had stayed his whole life. Briton looked up at her, giving her an intense stare. “You must come to the Harvest Ball tonight.” He didn’t want to talk about the things that made him sad anymore.

Again she nodded, but it was less animated than before. “I must, you are very correct. Will you accompany me?”

Briton felt a slow smile cross his lips. “Excellent idea. I seemed to have arrived in town just in time for it.”

She pointed to the hallway, seeming still somewhat frozen in her mind “Shall I show you to your room?”

He shook his head. “No, that’s fine. I know the way.” He walked out of the kitchen, seeing her puzzled face but was preoccupied by the life-and-death situation he would be faced with, in a few short hours. But would one of them be willing to die just to kill him?

He looked around the room as he changed. It was so similar to before, it was frightening. The whole house was like going back in time.

He showered and lay on his bed for some time, staring up at the ceiling. He had no plan, just a request. He needed them to allow him sanctuary. From there he hoped they would be willing to reinstate the haven it had once been.

Finally seeing the sun go down, he got up and dressed in the suit he had brought. He would be overdressed a little in his new Pal Zileri grey suit. He looked at himself in the mirror and sighed, wishing it was like the last time he had gone to the ball. His brothers and his parents had been with him. Now, completely alone, he would grace the town with his presence, whether they wanted it or not. He normally didn’t bother with worry or fear. There wasn’t much point to it, but he couldn't help but feel apprehensive. He was about to feel something he hadn’t since the night of the fire—vulnerability.

At least he would look incredible while doing it. His dark hair was longer than he preferred and styled messily, to fit the trends. His thick eyebrows suited it, but he looked like he should be cutting down trees as opposed to wearing a designer suit. All he needed was to grow out his beard and he would be a mountain man with that bushy hair.

His dark-blue eyes twinkled as he recalled his mother always commenting on his thick hair and how unruly it was. Had she been alive to see 2013, she would have told him his hair’s era had finally arrived.

He suited the town of Wolfville, more so than his brothers or father had. Their Viking looks had been more from a dark blond or red-haired descent. He was the only one with dark-brown hair, like his mother. He had gotten her olive skin too. She had been a slave his father had stolen from an Italian friend’s villa. They had fallen in love while Briton’s father visited. She was like Helen of Troy, only no wars ensued.

They snuck off in the night and he brought her to Finland, where he was living at the time. He lied about her rank in society and married her. She had been strong enough to survive the things she bared for him. When his mother gave birth to the last of the six sons, his father turned her. After that she was never able to walk in the light of day without shade or a parasol. The bitten never were able. But that hadn’t dampened her spirits. She had been a wonderful mother and a loving wife.

The rest was history.

The romance of the story always made it a favorite of Briton’s. Had he been a regular man, he imagined he might have been a great romantic.

But he knew what he was didn’t mix well with the world of romance. Not that it mattered anymore. It seemed like romance had died off a bit. Like Betsy had said, the kids were caught up in electronics and baggy pants. They didn’t know the desperate feeling of a pair of eyes watching you from across the room, undressing you and seducing you. The roaring twenties were the best time for that.

The young didn’t know what they were missing. At least it would be easier for him to blend in, if they didn’t lift their faces above the screens on the things in front of them.

He walked to Miles’ room, opening the door. He stopped in the doorway when he saw the older man dressed and ready for the ball instead of sleeping.

“Sorry for barging in, Miles. I honestly thought you would be sleeping. I was going to leave you this note.” He held the paper in his hand.

Miles waved a hand in the air, brushing it off. “Bah, my room is always open to you. You know that.” He turned and faced him. “Now, how do I look?”

Briton smiled. “You look fantastic. Years younger than seventy, no doubt.”

“Well, I will be having a small pick-me-up before I go, and then we are off.” His grin turned sly. “I’ve asked Betsy to accompany me to the ball. She is readying as we speak.”

Briton shook his head and turned from the room. “You old dog.” He walked down the stairs to wait for them both, then they would make their way to the SUV. Moments later, Miles walked down the stairs with much more of a pep in his step. His skin even seemed to be less wrinkled. Him and his elixirs.

Briton felt a worried look cross his brow, before he could stop himself from making it. Miles shook his head. “I don’t want to hear it. I save them for the important nights.”

Briton whispered, raising an eyebrow. “Betsy is important enough for that? You’ve known her a total of two hours.”

Miles smirked. “She is a happy bonus. The important thing is you and the Michaels family. I won’t let you down by being a crippled old man, unable to help you.”

Briton reached his right hand out to the frail old man who now seemed to glow with health, “You’re the best friend my father ever could have asked for and the best mentor I could have ever asked for. I could help you, if you like.”

Miles took his hand. “No, as much as I want to be here for you, I do not want an eternity of this life.”

“I do not blame you. Had I been able to choose, I would not have chosen it either.” Briton shook his head. “Perhaps, if my entire family hadn’t been slaughtered things would be different.”

“I have loved and lost and lived. Those are the things that make all of this somewhat short journey worth while.” Miles sighed. “I know you have done those things too in your many lives, and if I could break your curse, I would. You’re the son I never had. As you well know, my own son never got past eleven, so I have always seen you as mine too.”

Briton nodded. “I believe your son would have been a better man than I, Miles.”

Before Miles could come back with a retort, Betsy made her descent. She was dressed in an old ball gown, no doubt from years earlier, when she was much younger. It was out of date by about twenty years at least. Briton had to give it to her though, she still looked fit enough to wear the dress. The gown was a dark-blue with three-quarter sleeves and a pale-blue skirt trimmed with black lace along the bottom. It looked very ‘Marie Antoinette’ and gothic. The round neckline was respectable for an aging woman. She had a dark-blue sapphire necklace hanging just above the bodice. Her white hair was up in a bun, and in his mind, he compared her to the fairy godmother in Cinderella, the Disney cartoon.

“Betsy, you look amazing,” Miles spoke softly.

She blushed and spoke equally as quietly, “Oh Miles, stop. Now you two look handsome. I feel like the belle of the ball coming with two dates.”

Miles offered her his arm. “Hmph, let him get his own date.” His eyes sparkled as he led Betsy out the front door, leaving Briton laughing.

The ball, as always, was held in the town hall, which had been built, renovated, and added onto until it was grander than a town as small as Wolfville required. The huge white hall was located downtown and dwarfed everything but the high school.

“Do you know your way, Briton?” Betsy asked as they neared the huge building.

He nodded. “Yes, uhm . . . I have been here once a long time ago, when I was very young. Not much has changed though.”

“Oh, I don’t recall that visit.” She sounded confused.

He cleared his throat. “Yes, we never stopped at the house, it was a quick trip to go to a safe-deposit box my father had. My mother wanted something from it.”

She whistled. “You have a very good memory.” She looked at Miles and laughed. “Guess that’s what happens when you get older.”

Miles laughed along. “Indeed, I don’t even remember where we are half the time.”

In the rearview mirror, Briton could see them chatting. He smiled, enjoying the way they flirted, regardless of both appearing to be about mid-seventies.

He parked the SUV next to an old station wagon, and the three walked up to the hall together. He tried not to notice anyone, as he entered and followed Betsy to a table. The hall was done up beautifully with lights and autumn-themed decorations. The lighting wasn’t great, but it created a pleasant atmosphere. The room was filled with round tables with white linens and harvest themes and had a large dance floor with a band. The white lights everywhere made it look homey, and the brightness of the décor gave it a dressed-up appeal. It was grandeur for such a small town.

“Would you like a drink?” Briton asked the older couple as they got situated.

Betsy nodded sweetly. “Oh thank you, sweetie. I’d love a glass of punch.”

“I’ll take a scotch, son.”

Briton nodded, laughing at Miles. He walked across the room to the bar and leered at the female bartender.

She smiled back. “I might need some ID there, love.” Her Maine accent was very strong, almost like a Newfoundlander in Canada. He looked into her eyes and spoke softly, “I’m old enough.” He felt his powers of persuasion wash over her as her face relaxed and he gave his order silently. He still hadn’t reached the drinking age of the United States. He hadn’t aged from his eighteenth birthday on.

She spoke like she was in a trance, “Yes, of course you are. Two scotch rocks and a punch, coming right up.”

He gave her the sexiest smile he owned. She was blushing and nearly coming across the counter at him. Her heartbeat was louder than the soft music being played. His eyes were stuck on her nearly bared chest in the tee shirt she wore. He licked his lips, staring at her pulse blatantly. The fashion for the young ladies had drastically changed over the years, improving on the acceptable amount of flesh that was shown. Tight V-neck tee shirts were amongst his favorite things. He could almost taste her creamy skin from where he stood.

The music started to pick up. He put money on the counter and took the drinks from her, deciding he might need a little taste later. The scotch would hopefully dull his appetite for the sexy young woman, just a bit. He didn’t need any distractions, regardless of wanting them.

He brought the drinks to Betsy and Miles, who were getting on like a house on fire. He gazed back at the young bartender as he sat back down; she still watched him like she was hunting him.

He drummed his fingers on the tablecloth as he looked around the room, waiting for the Michaels clan to arrive so he could accomplish what he needed to and then whisk the bartender away.

The front door opened, bringing with it a cold wind and a small party of people who caught his eye. He followed a scent on the breeze to where they walked in, and he forgot why he was there.

The young woman in the group took his breath away. She was like him, out of place, and maybe, time. Her dress was retro, like one he had seen in France ages ago. Her face was delicate and stunning. She still looked young but not too young—seventeen, maybe older.

It wasn’t her age or her face that caught him, it was something else. Something he couldn’t put into words. Hers was a scent a man caught on the wind and chased down desperately, always to be disappointed when it got away. The problem with a girl like that was you got addicted. He knew to stay away.

One taste was never going to be enough.

He hadn’t seen a girl like that in a long time. Hundreds of years, if he was honest with himself. She made his mouth water and his chest feel as though there was a heart beating inside of it.

Briton watched her and fought the changes happening in his body. He barely had control of himself—not something that happened to him, ever. Well, not since he had been a lad.

She appeared unsure of herself, maybe a visitor or a relative from another town. She seemed out of place. She didn’t seek out friends, but kept her head down. Maybe no one would notice if she went missing. A girl like that ran away and no one was close enough to her to know why. There was a definite conflict on her face.

He could lure her out the back, convincing her to come away with him. The cellar in the old house—he could make her believe it was something lavish. He could taste her virtue on his lips, his breath picked up. He could see the plan forming. He had to shut that off before he acted without thinking. It had never been his way, regardless of blood lust.

Her dress only made matters worse for him. She wore a vintage Dior knockoff, if he wasn’t mistaken. Not something one would wear in a place like this. Its peacock colors and stunning cut made her slight curves stand out. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the swell of her chest at the top of the dress. Her skin had a healthy glow to it, regardless of being incredibly pale, contrasting perfectly with her bright-blue eyes and blonde hair. She easily had one of the most beautiful faces he had seen. It was the electric-blue eyes. They were innocent, and yet devious at the same time. He wanted to know what she was thinking, was she laughing at something secretly?

Her blonde locks were swept up in a half-ponytail leaving the remaining tendrils brushing along her bare shoulders.

Briton didn’t take his eyes off of her but spoke, “Betsy, who is that?”

“Oh, that’s Olive, I believe that’s her name. She’s the new doctor’s daughter. She’s either just graduated or just starting grade twelve. I don’t remember. Close to your age though. Her father is Doctor Daniels and he’s recently married to one of the Michaels’ girls. Oh, what’s her name? You’re really testing me tonight. Uhhh . . . Judith. She’s a veterinarian. They bought the old mansion on Orchard Crescent. It’s been completely redone inside. Rumor has it, he’s a city doctor from Chicago. He and Judith fell in love and eloped, and he has just moved here. His poor wife died of cancer a few years ago. It’s a sin really.”

Briton nodded. “You know a lot.”

She blushed. “Well, it is a small town.”

Miles chuckled and Betsy swatted at him like they were old friends. It was odd, the way they acted.

The music got soft and slow as Olive and her family found a table. Briton turned his gaze toward the girl’s new stepmother and noticed she was staring at him. She broke her gaze and went to the bar with the good doctor, leaving Olive all alone at the table. A young man smelling of testosterone jumped at his chance to be the first to ask her to dance.

Her face glassed over as she greeted the boy with such warmth and kindness that even though she declined the dance, he sat down at her table and they proceeded to talk. Briton felt his breathing grow ragged and his instincts start to kick in. He felt a firm hand touch him on the shoulder as a voice softly whispered, “You’re looking like a hostile psycho killer. Mellow out for a second and listen to me.” He turned his head to Miles, who was looking at the front door. Miles tilted his head in that direction. “The party you were looking for has just entered the room, son. Perhaps you want to focus your energies there instead of the pretty young girl. She is far too young for you anyway.”

Briton looked up to see the Michaels clan enter. The few he knew looked exactly the same as they always had.

“Great.”

Chapter Three

Liv

I couldn’t believe the guy sitting at the table yammering on. I tried to be nice when I told him no about the dance, but he took it as his chance to sit. Judith and my dad kept giving me funny smiles, like I was so lucky to have this idiot sitting there with me. I nodded my head and sipped the drink Dad had brought me, praying the guy would get the hint and leave.

Apparently not.

He did give me the opportunity to glance over at the killer hottie sitting in the corner who was staring at me like he wanted to take my dress off. I felt myself blushing in ways I was pretty sure I hadn’t ever blushed before. He was ‘Chuck’ gorgeous. The guy was actually perfect with his messy, dark-brown hair and dimples when he smiled. And damn, it would have been a sexy smile without the dimples.

The minute the moron in front of me sat down, the smiling from the hottie had ended. I glanced over at the mouth breather next to me, praying for him to leave.

Nope. Not a chance. Instead, he started telling me about the harvest or some crap.

Hottie frowned harder and I slumped in my chair more.

I knew the ball would suck. From the corner of my eye I watched the hottie. The curve of his lips made my fingers twitch, like I wanted to trace his mouth. His suit must have been custom made—it was flawless. No American company was making a suit like that. It had to be English or Italian. The dark-gray fabric looked like it might be Italian. His shoes were plum-colored crocodile leather, if I wasn’t mistaken.

God, he was hot.

How was he possible in this shit-hole town? Broad shoulders, beautiful face, stunning clothing choices, a chiseled jaw. I couldn’t see his eye color from the distance I was, but I could tell he had dark eyes and thick lashes. How I loved thick lashes.

I wanted to bite him. It was the strangest urge I had ever had. I also wanted him to bite me back. He was maybe my age, seventeen, and sitting with his grandparents. His grandpa was getting mad at him about something while his grandma was chatting the lady next to her up. The grandpa looked at me once, and from then on hottie wouldn’t look at me anymore. Instead, he was focusing his eyes on the people coming in the front door.

That bothered me. I wanted him to look at me again. I glanced around the room for anything I could do to just go and see him. He wasn’t near the bathroom or the bar. I gave up on a plan and decided to just do it. I looked at the guy beside me and spoke impatiently, “I’m really sorry, but I see a friend of mine.” I got up from the table and walked directly to the hottie’s table.

His grandpa looked up at me and sighed. I couldn’t understand what the old guy had against me, but I walked up to them anyway and tapped the hottie on the shoulder. “Hi.” I didn’t know what it was, but there was a driving force, pushing me onward. I wanted to talk to him. I had never been forward about anything with a guy before. I liked being chased. I hadn’t actually ever asked anyone to dance.

He turned and I got lost for a second. His eyes pulled me in, just as they had from across the room. But up close he was so much better looking and his dark eyes were actually blue, very dark blue. His lashes were so thick and black, I was envious of them.

He smiled at me, but it wasn’t the smile he had given me before. It was a polite, friendly smile, not the ‘I want you for dinner’ smile he had been giving me from across the room. I started to sweat, I wasn’t even sure why. I nodded at the dance floor. “Do you want to dance?” I pleaded with God for a millisecond that he would say yes, but he didn’t.

His eyes scanned my face for a moment before he spoke softly, “Dance? Oh, uhm. Normally, I would love to, but I cannot. I’m sorry, perhaps another time.”

Something happened. A strange something. I blurted out a sentence as if I had ignored his turning me down. “My name is Liv Daniels. What’s yours?”

He smiled wider, nearly sending my heart into overload. “Liv. That’s a nice name. Is it short for something?” He stood and I craned my neck. He was quite tall. His tailored suit had made him look far slighter than he was up close. He offered me a hand, again very politely. I looked at his hand for a moment, before taking it. It was huge, and for some reason, I had the strangest feeling like I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t touch his hand. I should back away and go back to the idiot at my table.

Somehow his hand became a fork in a road, and I knew myself—I knew I would take the wrong road.

“Olive, but I like Liv.” I reached forward and squeezed his hand, trying desperately not to let go. There was no spark or great event, like I had imagined there might be. It was a simple handshake but my heart was beating a mile a minute.

I looked back up to him, overwhelmed by the height difference between us. Maybe he wasn’t my age. He was very tall and very broad. I had to be at least five foot six in my four-inch heels, but still I craned my neck to look up into his eyes. They were midnight-blue pools that I wanted to swim in.

“I’m Briton, Briton Thorlackson.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Briton. I’m Liv Daniels.”

He smiled, cocking his head to the side. “Yes, I believe we’ve covered that.”

I laughed, but it was a strange laugh I didn’t recall ever laughing before. I nodded, feeling my face flush red. “Yes, I believe you’re correct.”

I didn’t let go of his hand, but he didn’t let go of my hand either. He looked me directly in the eyes and spoke with regret in his voice, “It was very nice meeting you, Miss Daniels.”

I bit my lip harder, trying desperately to hold it together and ignore the awkwardness of meeting him and the embarrassment I knew would take an hour to settle in and really make me hate myself.

He dropped my hand, and I realized he was waiting for me to leave. I felt free suddenly, as his gaze went beyond me to the group of people who had come into the hall.

I almost wanted to run and hide when I felt the spell of his stare break off. I didn’t know what had come over me. I didn’t understand why I was being such a ho with him. He wasn’t the first hot guy in my life. Loads of guys were hot in Chicago, and I never offered them my first born like I had nearly done with him.

I was losing my sanity in this small town.

I decided to try to be more like my mom. I gave him a ballsy look and turned on my heel and walked away from him. I didn’t look back. My mom wouldn’t have. I walked back to my table and tried to fight off the feelings of let down, but I couldn’t. I also couldn’t describe the peculiarity of meeting him. It was intense and yet stupid. Who sees someone and instantly wants them?

No one who is sane. I clearly wasn’t. The isolation of the dumpy little crap hole was getting to me. No Starbucks. No drive thru. No malls. No fashion whatsoever. And one hot guy who was actually kind of a dick.

Frig.

I tried to force myself to suck up my destroyed pride, but it felt like my windpipes were crushed. I sat back down with my dad and Judith and looked out at the dance floor. The only good thing that had come of humiliating myself was that at least the idiot had gotten the picture and left my table.

Judith leaned over and asked, “Who is that boy?”

“Briton Thorlackson.”

“He’s a Thorlackson? That’s what he said—Thorlackson?” Judith’s tone changed slightly.

I looked at Judith frowning. “Yeah, who is he?”

She smiled, looking at the same group Briton had been looking at. “Oh, his family comes and goes. They are one of the founding families that started Wolfville, back in the day.”

I shrugged. “He must have been gone for a long time. That suit is tailored and his shoes are croc. Who wears that here? Let’s be real. Not to mention, he seemed to be missing your small-town manners. He’s a jerk!”

Judith reached over and took one of my hands and squeezed it. “His family is known for being rude and snooty. Thank God he doesn’t like you. You won’t have to talk to him and be polite. This way you can avoid him, you should anyway.”

I sighed. “Small-town boys aren’t really my thing.”

My father laughed. “She’s a city girl through and through, she doesn’t do polite.”

I stuck my tongue out, making them both laugh. I stole one last glance at Briton. I would have liked to watch him like a hawk, even if he suddenly seemed to be ignoring me, but I had to regain some semblance of self-respect. I needed to avoid him altogether.

A voice interrupted my avoiding stalking him with my stare. “Would you like to dance?”

I looked up to see someone who looked like a guy I knew back home—a hot one. Yay, dumpy town had two hot guys. It was a miracle. And this one seemed polite—also a miracle. He was dressed nicely, wearing dress pants and a blue shirt with a navy-colored tie. I smiled. “Sure, why not?” I took one of his hands and let him lead me onto the dance floor.

“I’m Josh Michaels.” His voice was uneven, like he was nervous. I suspected he was. His hands stayed stiff like a board against my back, afraid to move. I liked that he was more like me, less confident, not asshole-ish like Mr. King of the World over there. “Judith is actually my distant cousin.”

“Liv Daniels.”

He grinned, revealing a very handsome smile. “Nice to meet you, Liv. I actually heard all about you. We knew you were coming. I had heard you’d be here by the first week of September when school started. I didn’t know you’d be so pretty though.” His cheeks reddened, like he didn’t mean to say it. Against his dark hair and dark-green eyes, the blush of his cheeks gave him an adorable look. He really was handsome but in a normal guy sort of way.

I laughed nervously. It felt like an eighth-grade dance, but it made me completely comfortable. Regardless of the fact I was still fighting the urge to stare at Briton.

The whole night was starting to feel like an eighth-grade dance.

I’d already been asked to dance by the mouth breather and turned him down. Then I’d asked the hot, popular guy to dance and was of course shot down. Can you say karma? Finally, I ended up dancing with the guy who’s probably friends with all the girls but was cute enough to still make me blush and nervous in an innocent way.

I looked down, enjoying the waltz amongst all the other people. It felt amazing to dance in my beautiful dress and, thankfully, dancing seemed to be equally as awkward to Josh as it was to me. The way he reminded me of my friend back home was eerie almost.

“What grade are you in?” I asked, hoping he was in twelfth so at least I would have one friend when I started on Monday.

He smiled when he spoke, “Twelfth. Same as you, right?”

I smiled back excitedly. “Yay, yeah the same.” It was weird he knew about me, small towns were so crazy.

“Awesome. But you must be kinda bummed about starting at a new school for senior year?”

I nodded. “I’m getting less bummed. I was pissed at first. My dad and Judith actually married last year and bought the house and renovated it, while my dad and I lived in Chicago. He stayed for me so I wouldn’t have to move in the middle of the year. I would have been here by the start of the year, but our school’s senior trip was scheduled for the end of September. We were going to Greece. So I stayed and started the school year there and went with all my friends to Greece. I tried to weasel out as much time as possible there, but Dad laid down the law and I had to come here before Halloween.”

Josh winced. “Yikes.”

“Yikes is right.”

His eyes shone. I liked that about him. “Well, I think you’ll like it here. We have a great senior class. Everyone’s cool.”

“Cool.”

I wasn’t certain yet that I was going to like it, but knowing him made it better. It didn’t take away the urge to go home and curl up with my phone and Facetime my friends. In fact, talking to him made me miss home even more.

Chapter Four

Briton

Briton had been hesitant to just walk over and start the conversation, but he knew it had to be done. He swallowed the last of his drink and stood up with Miles following him. They made their way to the table as boldly as they could, without being offensive. Wolfville wasn’t his territory anymore, he had to be cautious.

As he neared the table, he came upon Liv dancing and talking with a boy. He tried not to focus on it as he walked up to the men and gave a slight nod. From the distance he did it, it wouldn’t have been seen by anyone normal. But up close and with sharp eyes, it was a subtle bow.

“Jamie, Phillip, Samuel, Anthony, Jane, nice to see you all again.” They eyed him up, trying not to make their annoyance at his being there obvious to anyone.

“Please have a seat, Nicolai. Miles, how are you, my dear old friend?” Jamie greeted Miles by standing and shaking his hand and pointing to the chairs. No hand was offered to Briton. Jane gave him a filthy grin though, not that it wasn’t expected. She gave it to everyone, always had. She had been with at least two of his brothers, an image that still disgusted him.

Briton sat and took a deep breath before speaking, “I go by Briton now. There are those who recall Nicolai in the world.”

Jamie shrugged. “Why are you here?”

“I need to ask for what you owe my family.” The words seemed to flow from Briton’s mouth with ease, but the reactions in the men’s eyes didn’t seem to be anything close to ease.

Jamie spoke firmly, “Are you kidding me?” He looked at Miles, as though he were asking him.

“I need your help, just as you once needed mine and my family’s.” His voice never broke, and he never looked away from Jamie’s eyes. That would have given the pack leader the impression he was weak.

Jamie sat back in his chair. “Has something happened?”

Briton nodded. “The hunters are stronger than ever.”

“Tell us what has happened.”

Briton took another deep breath. “I’m not kidding, I think they’ve killed them all. I know I do not have a single living relation left. The fight and fire here claimed my immediate family, but as far as I have seen, the rest are gone too.”

Jamie grimaced. “The men from your father’s family?” Family was a loose term.

Briton nodded. “I’ve heard rumors that they came for them in numbers we couldn’t imagine.”

Phillip spoke for the first time, “Well now, I think we can imagine that, lad.”

Briton smiled bitterly and spoke through his teeth, “Yes, we can.”

Jamie ran his hands through his light-brown hair. “Lord Briton, why come tonight of all nights?”

“I didn’t want a fight. I knew the festivities would keep us all in check like it used to.”

That made Jamie laugh. “Yeah, any other night and ya might have gotten something you didn’t want.”

Briton smiled softly. “I need permission to be back here; I don’t have the numbers to just waltz into town, and besides, it’s not a fair thing to do. I would want the same courtesy.”

“Of course,” Jamie offered his hand. “But I don’t understand what you want from us.”

“I need protection, like the old days. I have not rested, not truly rested, for a long time. I need to find out where the hunters are and if they’re coming here. I need the witches to see for me.” He looked at Miles and smiled. “And he needs regular doctor appointments too.”

Miles rolled his eyes. “Bahh, I’ll outlive you all.”

The Michaels clan laughed loudly.

Jamie leaned forward and spoke softly, “Fine, but we don’t want your handiwork affecting the town, same rules as always. Have you tried to find others like us?”

Briton nodded. “There are none who are born or cursed that I have seen, we are a dying breed. I’ve looked in Rome, London, Shanghai. I have checked all the usual spots and I’ve seen nothing. All that is left are the ones who are made by one of us. The dirty blood still live on.”

Jamie frowned, looking worried. “Is it possible we are really the last?” Again he seemed to be speaking to Miles.

“I don’t know.” Briton shook his head. “I don’t think so. There should be wanderers who won’t come around cities. They travel and spend their lives almost wild. I highly doubt we are the very last, but I am very worried about where the attention is going to be focused if they have killed the others. The hunters are relentless and we have not seen activity like this from them in a hundred years. They may come back here.”

Jamie nodded as his brothers looked at each other fearfully. He looked around the table before he muttered, “Well, we all have the luxury to add to our population quickly. Is that something you have considered?”

Briton thought for a moment and nodded hesitantly. “If I am the last of my kind, I don’t have to be. But I have never made one of the dirty bloods before, let alone a real one like me. You know what it takes . . . there are risks.”

Miles grabbed his arm, interrupting. “Let’s take this slowly, lads. Let’s get Nicolai settled before we start negotiating and breeding.”

Briton nodded. “Yes, I need to settle into the house.”

Jamie’s face turned very serious. “Helena Whitburn has passed.”

“Really?” Briton nodded slowly, taking it in. “How?”

Jamie shrugged. “We’re looking into it. Was made to look like she passed in her sleep, but I think we all know that’s not possible.”

Briton’s gaze matched Jamie’s hardened stare. “Who’s running the shop?”

“Her daughter just got here from San Fran—guess she is.”

Briton thought for a second. “Does she know?”

“I would imagine she does. Does Betsy know everything? Helena was her sister, after all.”

Briton sighed. “Betsy knows nothing. She has just always been one of the familiars for the guards. Helena was the one who held the spell. This may change some things for us if the daughter isn’t up to speed.”

“Like I said, we’re looking into it. Maybe you could go see the daughter?”

Briton nodded. “I will.”

Jamie looked around at his siblings. “Well, welcome home, Briton. We will honor the original agreement made between our families back in the day.” He winked. “Hope you didn’t bring any trouble with ya.”

“No one knows I am alive. They never have. Not since the fire. It was rumored the last of my bloodline was killed in the fire,” Briton grinned back at him, “but, I’m sure a bunch of brawny boys such as you, can take care of yourselves, if I have brought any danger.”

Grins filled the air around him as he got up from his chair and walked out onto the dance floor to do the thing he had wanted to from the moment he saw her. He tapped the shoulder of the surfer-looking boy dancing with his Liv. “May I cut in?”

The boy glanced at Liv, but she just stood there staring up at Briton with a scornful look. He didn’t wait for the young man to say yes or no. He slid into place, leading her around the dance floor like a master but trying not to gain too much attention. He looked down at her and grinned. “So, Liv Daniels, are you having a good evening?”

She frowned. “I guess.” She didn’t seem as smitten as she had the first time she spoke to him. In fact, she seemed angry. Her head spun around as she looked at the boy standing in the middle of the dance floor.

Briton gave her a softened look, struggling to keep his eyes above her neckline. “You guess?”

She pulled back a bit. “Why did you say no, if you wanted to dance?”

He shrugged. “Well, I wasn’t ready to dance then.” He looked down into her eyes, mesmerized by the azure flecks surrounding the black pupils. “I am now though.”

“Whatever.” She looked at him as if studying him, “You sound funny, like the old people from here. Did you grow up here? Those shoes scream New York or Milan, maybe London.”

He didn’t want to answer any questions. He smiled as he looked intensely into her eyes. “You just want to dance. You don’t want to talk.”

Her eyes narrowed and she drew back a bit. “Are you kidding me right now? I don’t think I want to do either, dick.” She pulled from his arms and walked over to her family. He heard her mutter, “Psycho.”

It hadn’t worked? It always worked.

She walked to her seat, giving him a sour look. The boy she had been dancing with was back instantly. Briton ignored the millions of questions flying through his mind as he walked over to Miles and Betsy. “I’m not sure about you two, but I’m ready for bed.” He was ready to murder things, so leaving was a safer option. He had a plan forming, a plan he couldn’t exactly fight. He needed to leave before that young lady was over his shoulders and being dragged out. He had the oddest sensation. He would die fighting for her.

Miles looked at him. “End of a long day, I guess.”

Briton nodded. “One heck of a long day.” Or decade. He turned and took one last look at Liv who was still giving him a deadly glare. Her face seemed like a dream he’d had once, but he knew his last dream had been so long ago he didn’t recall it in any detail. Likely it would have been about sheep herding or picking grains.

Miles stood next to him and whispered, “I have a bad feeling about that one. She isn’t what you think she is. She isn’t what she thinks she is.”

Briton shook his head, whispering back. “I want her, it’s the oddest thing. My compulsion didn’t work on her though.”

Miles nudged him. “She might be a Whitburn. Doesn’t work so well on witches. You need to give that one up.” He turned and walked back to Betsy.

“I just have the strangest feeling about her.” Briton sighed and bowed softly not taking his eyes off her. She flipped him her middle finger, making a broad smile cross his lips. “Such an interesting town, this has become.”

He turned and walked from the hall, with Betsy and Miles trailing slowly, chatting each other up.

The drive didn’t seem to improve the fog the girl had placed in his mind, covering his brain and its functioning capabilities.

How had the compulsion not worked? He was thousands of years old, his compulsion always worked. He stopped the SUV at the driveway and smiled at Miles. “You guys go on in, I need a drink.”

Miles gave him a worried look. “Just one and then home to bed.”

“Of course, old man. I don’t know about you, but I need a good sleep.”

“Don’t drink locally, you know the old adage. “Don’t shit where you eat.”

Briton scoffed. “Lovely advice, eloquent as always.”

Miles smiled. “Come Betsy, let’s get inside. Who knows what manner of creatures lurk about at this time of night?”

Betsy waved and called back, “Goodnight, Briton.”

“Sleep well, Betsy.” He waved and drove off. “Why didn’t it work?” he murmured and drove back the way he had come from. At least it had worked on one person.

He parked in the same parking space he had just left and waited for that girl. He sat back and smiled as he heard the door to the aging building open and close softly. He heard her footsteps closing on the parked vehicle.

She opened the passenger door with an expectant look on her face. “Took you long enough.”

He laughed softly, watching as she climbed into the truck, lifting the skirt of her dress and closing the door.

He leaned forward and kissed her softly on the lips. She ran her hand through his hair pulling him into her. He pulled back and smiled feverishly. “Let’s take a drive, shall we?”

She nodded, breathing heavily. She looked like she was unable to fully sit back in her seat, like she fought the urge to jump on him and finish what they had started.

Chapter Five

Liv

I walked into my room, ready to strip down to my jogging pants and sleep for a year. The dance had been fun, but the whole Briton thing was messing with me. Who was so bossy and rude to a stranger? He was so friggin’ weird. Dudes like that made girls cry while listening to wrist-cutter music. Screw that. I liked my wrist-cutter music because it relaxed me. I didn’t need depression to add to the moment.

I had a full plate of things that could make me sad, I didn’t need to add Briton to it.

I looked at myself in the mirror. My cheeks were still blushing from thinking about him. I shook my head. “What an ass.”

My father appeared in the doorway. “Honey, where did you disappear to tonight?” His face looked like he was trying to be casual but was worried all the same.

“I’m seventeen and living my own personal hell. It’s like some kind of Little-House-on-the-Prairie experience being here. Who cares what I do? This isn’t Chicago, Dad. It’s some podunk-ass town no one has ever even heard of. I Googled it and nada. It doesn’t even come up on Wikipedia or Google maps. The image is just green with a few fields. You know it’s bad when the Google maps car doesn’t even come here.”

His face didn’t change. He was waiting for his answer.

I shrugged, remembering my evening and hoped the dim lighting in the room hid my blush. “I was just walking home with a friend I made.” Josh had walked me home. He had been sweet and funny and casual. That was the word for him—casual. Easygoing to a fault probably, but it was better than wrist-cutter music and mascara to my chin.

“Which friend?”

I rolled my eyes and moaned, “Josh. Why are you being so weird?”

“Look, you know I want you to like it here, but one thing I need you do is stay away from that Thorlackson kid. Okay?”

“What? Why?” Panic hit my stomach, then chest, before I could get another word out. Regardless of how I felt about Briton currently, the sentence was a terrible one.

“Just trust me.”

I could see he was serious. I didn’t want him to know my interest was instantly piqued so I feigned a yawn. “Whatever. He didn’t seem that into me anyway.”

He looked back into the hall like he was looking for Judith. “Judith says his family is trouble, honey. Please just do me this one favor and stay away from him.”

I wanted to know why he cared, but if I had learned anything in seventeen years, it was that pretending to go along with him made things easier. I shrugged again. “Whatever, fine.” I didn’t even know why I wanted to see the damned guy again anyway, but I did. I just didn’t realize it until my dad said not to.

He looked serious for a second. “I mean it, Olive. He isn’t as nice a kid as you think.”

My blood boiled, it was the weirdest reaction. “I didn’t think he was that nice anyway. Now drop it. I don’t want to talk about it, for Christ’s sake.” It came out spicier than I wanted it to.

He cocked an eyebrow. “Check your tone, young lady. This is for your safety. You know I love you.” He looked me in the eyes as if to check that I knew he loved me. I gave him my best smile to make him leave.

“Night, Dad.” I closed my bedroom door.

“Night, sweetie.”

I clicked the lock and walked into my closet to hang the dress and bag it. My feet tingled as the blood rushed back into them when I stepped out of the heels. The walk home with Josh had been a long one, even in such a small town. The shoes were one-block heels, not five.

I slipped my pajamas on and walked over to the door to my balcony, opening it and letting the cold fall air shoot into the room around me. My chest felt tight as I stood there, trying to get my breath back with the cool wind rippling my pajama bottoms around my legs. My tank top didn’t feel quite thick enough for the bustling cold air I was subjecting myself to, but I needed it. I had the strangest sensation. It was like my body was fuzzy and thick, and I couldn’t get away from it. It was like losing the control I had over myself.

I walked out into the cold night and leaned against the cold siding. I tried to calm myself, taking deep breaths and pulling the cold air into my lungs. I shivered from the siding against my back and, instead, walked to the old metal railing, watching the dark world around me. I couldn’t help but wonder how many women had stood on the balcony of this old house and looked down on the street. It could have been like a Romeo and Juliet movie set. The balcony was perfect for it. How many people had lived in this place? It wasn’t creepy, just old. Old in the way you were curious about the stories it held.

The night was silent and peaceful. The town was silent. It was so alien for me, coming from Chicago. The wind seemed to be the only noise, and no matter how cold the breeze felt, my skin was on fire from his touch.

Josh had walked me home. Josh was sweet and easy to be with. He was a gentleman.

But the rude and somewhat odd behavior of Briton was what I was stuck on. I couldn’t push him from my mind or shake the touch of his hands. The way he held me was commanding and controlling, and somehow that was attractive. That weirdly bossy attitude was attractive.

I sighed at the small town and the fact that the simple ways of the people there were getting to me. Never before had I found rudeness or a firm grip attractive.

Not to mention, the size thing. For whatever reason, I loved how tall he was, he towered over me. He took up all the room in my eyes and made me feel safe. I didn’t even need to close them to see every inch of his face in my mind; I had memorized it. In those few seconds he had been a complete dick to me, I had memorized every feature and every inch of him.

I was going insane, that was the only explanation.

I looked around the street at the other houses which all seemed like they belonged to peasants, compared to my house. A slow smile slipped across my lips as I thought about my mom, and how she would have made one of the smaller houses charming and sweet. But as much as she was different from Judith, she would also have hated Briton Thorlackson just as much as Judith and my father did. I couldn’t fault them on it. He seemed like an elitist snob who was rich, dark, and mysterious. He got what he wanted, when he wanted. I could tell that.

And because I was an idiotic teenaged girl, that’s what was hot about him for me. He was like an evil lord from the romance novels I had read at my grandma’s. It was ingrained in us to want that in a man and I had fallen for it. As intelligent as I knew I was and as savvy as I had hoped I was, I had fallen for the evil dark lord.

Le sigh.

Well, not anymore. The small dose of manly brutishness had been enough.

I muttered to myself, “Telling me not to talk and just dance—asshole!”

My mother would have liked Josh though, safe and sweet. I looked up at the sky and whispered, “Goodnight, Mom. I like Josh. I think you would have too.”

Suddenly, the wind got colder for a moment. Colder and fiercer. I had to hold my hair down as it tossed it around my face. I held down the blonde locks, thick with mousse and hairspray, just as they were whipping around my face. Just then something caught my eye.

Out in the dark yard, behind the very large maple tree, I saw movement—a dark figure shifting as if to hide behind the tree. A peeping tom? Creepy. And you always think in the city you’ll see the weirdos, and there I was in a small town, blatantly staring at a man watching me. Maybe it was Josh. But wouldn’t he just say hi and be my Romeo to his Juliet?

I held my hair to my face as I tried to focus my eyes. But with so little light behind the shape, it was hard to see clearly. I lost it completely when it stopped moving. I squinted in disbelief as I looked at two red slits I could see glowing mid-trunk on the tree. I would have thought they were cat’s eyes, catching the light but they seemed much too large and far too high up the trunk of the tree. Not to mention, they were red.

If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought they belonged to the dark figure hiding amongst the tree trunk, but that had clearly been a man behind the tree spying on me. What man had red eyes?

I blinked several times, assuming it was a hallucination.

When the red eyes never left and the figure never moved from the tree, my stomach sank and my heart raced, but I didn’t move. I was frozen in fear, no—terror.

I blinked one more time and the red eyes were gone, but the unmoving figure remained. I forced myself to be like my mom, and I did the thing she always told me to do. I smiled and waved, shouting across the yard, “Goodnight.” I acted crazy, ‘cause no one messed with crazy people. My soft voice carried across the night air, “Have sweet dreams.”

I walked backwards, not taking my eyes from the trunk of the tree in case the dark figure ran at me and jumped onto the balcony. I turned quickly at the last second and burst into my room. I slammed the door and closed all of the curtains tightly.

I was hyperventilating and barely able to see straight as I climbed into my bed. I pushed away the thoughts of the red eyes and the dark figure. Instead, I forced myself to think about Josh but instantly my mind went for Briton.

Why couldn’t I just get him out of my mind? The guy was an ass.

Maybe I could just stop women from voting and encourage them to start making sandwiches again, to match my thinking about Briton all night long.

Chapter Six

Briton

She walked into the room, looking tired and annoyed. Through the window he caught the same scent as before. Briton closed his eyes, just taking it in for a moment. The bartender hadn’t been enough, she hadn’t fulfilled his need. The entire time he had fed from her, he had pictured Liv.

He leaned against the doorway, listening as her father told her not to see Briton again.

He frowned. Judith was a Michaels, of course she knew what he was. He couldn’t blame her for the worry, but he planned on defying the rules when it came to Liv. There was nothing on the earth that would keep them apart.

He couldn’t even imagine another day without her in it. If only the compulsion had worked on her. He would have to limit the amount of time, a week maybe. A week to get enough and then stop. But could he? Could he stop? He feared that once he got her alone he would kill her with love. That was a possibility for certain.

He could change her, but what a cruel fate. Could he hurt her that way?

He knew the answer and it scared him. He would do anything to be with her. Her father saying he couldn’t see her was only more tantalizing.

She closed the door, looking pained and exhausted. He wanted to soothe her, kiss away her worries. He could imagine the soft feel of her skin against his lips and in his hands. He ached to touch her.

It was a new sensation for him.

After millenniums of the same, new was always welcomed, unless it was something like her. She was an unbearable want. He couldn’t understand his feelings. Had he blocked them off for so long that they were extra strong—extra sensitive to desire?

She changed and he watched, not even daring to tear his gaze from her milky skin when she was naked. For whatever reason, Liv was a whole other species in his heart and mind. She was his and he would watch her as boldly as he dared.

She turned and walked to the balcony where he sat. He jumped down and ran for the tree in the yard. Once upon a time, the Mayor of Wolfville had lived in that very house. Briton smiled from the tree, thinking about the way he had spied on the mayor’s daughter. The memories of the young girl, what was her name . . . Sarah. The memories of Sarah, though not his favorite by far, were delicious in his mind. He felt his blood boil as he recalled the way she had tasted. She had given herself to him completely.

Something he feared Liv would never do—could never do. She would remember him in the morning. She would remember the way his fangs bit down on her throat. She would recall him as a monster and tell everyone what he had done to her.

Not that he could fight it, nor would he want to.

He could never have her.

That was the problem. She was a challenge. He had never met one like her.

His heart screamed that she was his, and yet his brain knew it would never be, not unless he changed her. The idea roamed his thoughts like the monster in him had taken over. He pushed it back, shaking his head. He never would have chosen to be what he was, never. How could he make her that—doom her to that fate? Being bitten was a curse all in itself. He would curse her to a lifetime of darkness. He couldn’t do that, not to her.

There was one answer to the predicament.

He could not have her.

From the tree he heard her whisper, “Telling me not to talk and just dance. Asshole.”

It made a smile cover his face. She was thinking about him. She was his. Even if theirs would always be a silent attraction, she was his.

She whispered again. “Night, Mom. I like Josh. I think you would have too.”

His fangs popped from his teeth and his heart ached. It was a lie, and yet she whispered it into the dark night, like it was her wish.

The wind answered her, whipping and tossing her hair about. The scent of her wafted across the grass. He felt the lust take over.

She turned, as if she saw him. He tilted his head, fighting the urge to just take her.

She leaned forward, like she was searching the tree.

Did she see him?

That was impossible.

Unless . . .

His eyes. Of course. He closed them quickly, praying she didn’t see him that way. Not yet. Not before he had the chance to win her heart.

He scolded himself, knowing he had to let this one go. He would have to suffer in silence.

He heard her shout good night and then the door to the balcony slam. He took his chance to flee for his house before she had the determination to see him for herself up close.

When he got home, Miles was outside of the house smoking his pipe, looking around himself cautiously. Briton watched him worriedly, knowing the elixir would wear off soon and the old man would again be on his deathbed. Briton snarled at the thought and hurried to his room. He closed his blinds, feeling the dawn approaching. He knew he would need a lot of sleep to help regain his strength before facing his first whole day in Wolfville.

He would need a lot of strength to stay away from Liv.

Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure of his choice to come back home. He had always loved the old East Coast village, the cool breeze that came off the ocean, and the feel of every season. The storms always seemed so violent, and yet, the small town survived. The best part though was the change of color in the trees. The crisp leaves scattered across the ground made everything appear to be fall colored.

But Liv and the dead witch made things a little bit different.

He climbed into bed, anxious about how it would all play out. He hadn’t been around a family like the Michaels in a long time; old wounds were always hardest to heal. But it wasn’t the Michaels he thought about as he lay in bed. It was her. His heart had already claimed her as his Liv. Seeing her dancing with the boy was almost painful but listening to her whisper the boy’s name had been ungodly.

Liv.

Images of her ran through his mind. Her perfect lips, pale skin, blond hair, and fierce scowl.

He had a terrible feeling the lust he felt for her was the same story his father had once told him. The romantic in him wanted the story to be his version of his parents’ love story, but he knew of their consuming love.

Love so instant and powerful, his father couldn’t fight it and didn’t want to. He would have slain an entire city for Briton’s mother.

There was a connection between him and Liv, what it was didn’t matter. He would never allow himself to fall for that kind of love. The kind that made you make mistakes that got your whole family killed. The kind that forced you to change the woman you loved into what you were.

Only Liv wasn’t a woman, she was a girl. She was seventeen. She deserved to live and have a life. She didn’t deserve to become what he was so that he could be with her.

Regardless of his feelings towards her.

As well as adding to his lust, the fact his mind tricks didn’t work on her was noteworthy. He would have to watch everything he said and did around her. There was no erasing mistakes.

His brain told him not to even think about her, but he couldn’t stop it.

He fell instantly into his usual sleep. It was filled with a black hole where no dreams ever existed.

If he could have dreamt, it would have been of her.

He woke when he felt the light on him through the curtains. He was awake, even though it felt like he had slept for only a few seconds.

He got dressed, feeling the dissatisfaction of the Liv situation, or rather infatuation, pulling him down. She plagued him.

He looked around the room, wishing his mother had been there to offer him advice or at least a hug. The old house made the longing for his family much worse.

Wolfville made everything worse.

He walked to the kitchen, smelling the delightful scent of fresh scones in the air.

Betsy greeted him with a smile, “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

He nodded, it was a lie. He never slept well or unwell. He just slept.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I have to run out this afternoon. My sister passed away a few weeks ago. I will have to go over to the store today and help her daughter take over a few things.” Her eyes flashed like he knew what she was talking about. It took him a moment before he nodded. “Of course. Yes. Do you need assistance?” He needed to meet that niece of Betsy’s. He needed to know what help he would have.

She shook her head. “No, dear. Simple things really. Just making sure she understands the inventory and ordering correctly. My sister ran it for so long that no one but she has seen the books for seventy years, at least.”

Briton offered her a look filled with remorse. “I am sorry for your loss.”

She shook her head and muttered, “No, no. She was an old woman. It was her time. She was tired.”

It wasn’t how the Michaels clan had spoken of it. He sat at the table and took a fresh scone, some lemon curd, and crème fresh. “Is Miles around?”

She nodded, busying about the kitchen again. “Sleeping still. Last night sure tired him out.”

“The long drive probably didn’t help. I know I slept longer than I have in ages.” Briton chuckled to himself. He finished the light, buttery scone with a smile. “Delicious.”

She blushed. “My mother’s recipe. Came with my great-great-great-grandmother’s family from the old country.”

“I see. I meant to ask you about the girl I danced with. Olive. Do you know if she is in school?” What was he doing? Why did he have to open his mouth?

She pointed at him. “I forgot to tell you. I asked Jane Michaels about her last night. She is in school. Twelfth grade.”

He shook his head but looked deeply into her eyes and spoke with conviction, “Ignore my question. Forget I asked you.”

“Oh, uhm okay. What were we talking about?”

He sighed. “School has started, has it not?”

Dear God, stop. He was pleading with himself, but it wasn’t working.

She nodded. “Oh indeed. Fifth of September this year, I believe.”

He drummed his fingers against the table. Betsy looked confused. “You can’t be in school anymore?”

He tried to stop himself but the lie fell from his lips. “I am done my degree in education.” It was true, even if the degree was nearly a hundred years old. “I teach literature and history.” That was the lie.

“I don’t think there is a need for a teacher here. It’s too bad you hadn’t arrived earlier. Certainly a man such as yourself doesn’t work in something so menial as teaching anyway.”

He said with a laugh, “I love teaching.” He hated it. Jesus. The lies were dripping from him. He never worked. He had gotten the damned degree because there had been a girl. With him, there had always been a girl. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been a girl like the one plaguing his mind.

Liv would be the death of him just like his mother had been the death of his father.

He got up and walked to the door. “I will just pop into the school and let them know if they need a substitute or anything, I am here.”

He would then stop by the market and see if they had any spare hearts for sale, because apparently his was taken by a schoolgirl. He hated himself and the way the school called to him.

“All right then.”

He muttered as he got outside, “I am doomed.”

Chapter Seven

Liv

I looked myself over nervously. I had never been the new kid before, and I wanted at least one friend before the day was done. One besides Josh. Girlfriends were a necessity. I had seen plenty eyeing me up at the ball but none had been brave enough to talk to me. Not even when I had danced with Josh.

I smiled subconsciously, thinking about Josh. Perhaps he would be my only friend. I could live with that, couldn’t I?

No. Girlfriends were a necessity. Who would I toil over Josh with? And who would I talk about Briton with?

No, I needed fiends.

I looked at my grey skinny jeans, black and white striped, three-quarter-sleeve shirt, and beige dress boots that came to my knees, and smiled. I looked like a city kid. Great. No one would want to hang with me.

My long hair looked silky and fine, not thick and unruly like it truly was and I had on too much makeup.

Yikes.

I grabbed my bag and left feeling like it would be a bit of a hike to get back up on top of the world. I needed friends, besides the ones blowing my phone up from home. I had answered forty-five texts before bed and was already back to thirty. It was only breakfast.

Chatty bitches. Although I was grateful they hadn’t just forgotten about me.

I never wanted to move senior year, but at least I was going to try to have as much fun as I could, even in a shit hole like this. I’d always had a dream about senior year, and I was damn well not giving that up. Dad may have fallen in love, but I would have fun senior year. It had to rock. And if anyone could make it rock, besides maybe Kurt from Glee, it was me. I was going to do it. NRA Barbie and a crappy town meant I would have to work harder, but I could do that.

I mentally scolded myself on the NRA Barbie comment. I was trying to like her. Actually trying.

Downstairs she smiled at me, looking the beautiful tomboy as ever. “Good morning, Liv. Did you sleep well?”

I nodded. ”Yeah, I did.”

It was a lie.

The red eyes were still haunting me. I looked around. “Where is my dad?”

“He left already, he had some important stuff to do today.”

I nodded slowly, trying not to freak on Judith for something that was clearly not her fault. “Better than wishing me luck on my first day of school?” I smiled. “Awesome.”

I sighed and shook my head, rearranging my thoughts. I needed to stay focused on my mission. The year would rock, even if my dad were a fail at the really important moments.

I turned and walked from the kitchen, pissed off but not letting it ruin first day of senior year at my new school.

Granted, I couldn’t believe he would let me go to school on my first day without saying goodbye or good luck or screw you. Anything was better than gone from the house already, like he didn’t even care. I didn’t even know where the friggin’ school was.

But ‘Honey Badger didn’t care’ and neither did I!

I stormed to my car, a small dark-blue 2008 Honda Civic, and drove around looking for my new school. I was missing my mother more than ever.

I parked at the only high school in the wee little town. It was right downtown. Weird.

The leaves crackled under foot as I made my way to the steps of my new school. I stood there for a second as the warning bell rang. Kids scurried, leaving me alone on the emptying front walkway of the ancient white and red brick school. I looked at the flag whipping around on the pole. There was a huge grass lawn on either side of the wide paved walkway. Maple trees starting to change color dotting the schoolyard and lined the streets I could see.

Everything was small and old and either white, blue, yellow, or red brick. These fossils of buildings made up the downtown core. I counted yesterday when we had gone for groceries, and thirty-four buildings were all that made up downtown in Wolfville, Maine. The population sign alone, as we had been driving into town, was enough to terrify me—6,411. There were schools back home with more kids than that.

The narrowing front steps were daunting until I saw his face in the crowd of kids going inside. He smiled at me and waved. I hurried up the stairs, hugging my bag to my shoulder. “Hey, Josh.”

He offered his arm when he got to me. “How’s it going? You look nervous, you okay?”

Taking his arm, I fought the blushing of my cheeks and looked down at the ground. “Good. Nervous—yes, but it’s first day. That’s going to suck no matter what. I have to get into my routine and I’ll be fine. I’m pretty determined to make this a good year.”

He nudged me slightly. “It’s going to be fine. There’s a party tonight. You have to come. It’s senior year, we have to have fun. I think there is a law about that.”

“On a Monday?”

He laughed. “Yeah. The cops and parents are less suspicious on Mondays.”

I shrugged and looked up into his emerald-colored eyes and nodded. “That’s weird.”

“Will you come?” He still sounded nervous. I liked that.

“Sure, that might be fun and it’s a great way to start my mission of having a badass year.”

He laughed harder. “Don’t sound so excited. It’ll be good. You can meet whoever we don’t see today.”

He walked me to the office where I got my locker and paperwork, and he showed me where my locker was. He seemed eager to show me off, which was perfect for me.

He introduced me to so many people I forgot almost all of them instantly. He talked my ear off and waved to everyone. He was like a gift from God. Cute, popular, funny, and not pervy. He was sweet and easygoing and every time I caught him staring at me, his cheeks flushed.

“So what was your old school like?”

“A few thousand kids and it was a private school.”

He looked astonished. “Wow. We barely have a few thousand people in town. The kids come from the neighboring towns though. They have elementary schools but not high school. So the older kids are bused in and out.”

I winced. “Yikes. How many small towns are there?”

He pointed at the classroom where we both had history. “Seven or eight. It totals about two hundred kids. So our small school of six hundred is bigger. That’s how come our school is so large.”

I glanced around, trying desperately not to laugh at it all. The school was the size of a few classrooms or the gym in my old school. “Yeah? I guess, huh?”

He walked into the classroom and sat down. Everyone was looking at me as I took my seat. I hoped that would wear off soon. No one liked to be the new kid.

The teacher droned on, I ignored him and watched a girl in the schoolyard. She was walking and not paying attention to anything. Just doing her own thing, crunching the dry leaves on the sidewalk maybe.

I smiled when she pulled her ear buds out of her pocket, placed them in her ears, and continued to stroll around the outside of the building instead of going in. She looked to be skipping class.

Mr. Barnes, the teacher, snapped, “Ellen, go and get the new girl. She seems to think we take lessons in the yard.”

He said yard like a pirate. I kind of liked that. I had noticed it subtly when Josh talked. Everyone here had a little of the pirate talk.

A girl, I assumed was named Ellen, jumped up. “Yes, sir.”

We all watched as she ran down the stairs to where the new girl was. They started talking and then walked inside below. When they got into the class, I got a little bit excited. The girl was pretty. She too looked like a city kid. I got a glimmer of hope inside of myself—I might not be alone here.

New girl might be my new friend. We could be long lost new girl sisters. That might be fun. She might actually have a cell and drink lattes and have no idea what a barn dance was. Apparently there was one on Halloween.

Our teacher looked less excited about her coming. Mr. Barnes was middle-aged and balding, with big brown glasses and an ugly beige sweater and brown cords. He really looked the part of high school teacher. He was a little out of shape and his face had a roundness to it that made his scowl seem so much more severe and creepy. He scowled at the new girl. “Well, Miss Whitburn, seems you got lost on the way to class.” He looked at Ellen and smiled which didn’t seem to improve his looks. “Thanks, Miss Blackmore. Have a seat anywhere, Miss Whitburn, so we can get back on track.”

The Whitburn girl kept her eyes down and walked to the only empty seat in the class, which was next to me.

She looked like the last little piece of joy inside of her died off when Mr. Barnes started his lecture on adjectives. I couldn’t help but stare at her. She was so pretty with her dark hair and silver eyes. She caught me stalker staring. “Uhm, hi.”

“Hi. I’m new today too.”

“I’m Elizabeth. Or Liz.”

I laughed silently. “Liv.”

She laughed too. “Wow. It’s like our moms planned this out.” She looked modern and pretty and wore normal clothes and hair product. She returned the smile I had stuck on my face and leaned in to whisper, “Two new girls in such a small town must be like lightening striking twice in the same spot.”

“True story.”

Chapter Eight

Liv

Liz walked up to me in the cafeteria, smiling and holding her school lunch. “Hey, other new girl!”

I smiled back, holding a tray of food and pointed to a table with a bunch of guys. “Hey back. I’m sitting with some people I just met. Want to join me?”

Liz blushed. “Oh uhm, that’s okay. I’m going to sit over there. I figured you might be alone too. I don’t need to tag along. That’s cool.”

I shook my head and grabbed her arm, balancing my tray better. “No, they’re really nice, come on. I really want you to come sit with us.”

Liz gave me a hesitant look. “Okay, I guess.”

“They’re just country kids. Really nice, trust me.” I winked. “You know that saying, we aren’t in Kansas anymore?”

She gave me another weird look. “Yeah.”

“Well Kansas looks awesome compared to this place.”

It made her laugh. “Yeah, I got that just by the weird clothes and the whole downtown consisting of thirty-four buildings.”

“Oh my God, you counted too? Have you seen the shopping?”

“Yeah.”

I sighed. “There are no words for a place like this. At least we can shop online still.”

“I guess.”

I put my tray down when we got to the table and held my hand out. “This is Elizabeth, she’s new too. She goes by Liz.”

Josh nodded, looking at Liz with a great amount of respect neither she nor I missed or understood. I could see the weird look on her face.

His look bugged me a little bit. Josh winked at me. “Yeah, we know who she is. Her family has been here longer than mine.”

I frowned and looked at her. “I thought you were from San Fran?”

“My mom escaped when—er, I mean she moved away when she was eighteen. She went to the University of California. I’ve never been here before.”

I beamed again. “Yeah, me either. My dad married Josh’s distant cousin.” I sat at the table almost slumping dramatically. “At least we have each other.”

Josh folded his arms across his broad chest and cocked an eyebrow. “You two sound like hostages.”

“Pretty close. Chicago’s suburbs aren’t even this small.”

Liz nodded. “It’s like the smallest place I’ve ever been, except this crappy little place I went to once with my mom for a wine tour.” She blushed. “I never even got any wine.”

Everyone at the table laughed, but she seemed to hate the attention. She gave me a look. “You ever go to small places?”

“Yeah. Once when my mom was sick, before she died, she asked if my dad could take us to some bed and breakfast on a beach. She wanted a quiet week away from the meds and the doctors. It was brutal. They made me go find crabs under the rocks. Worst weekend ever.” I looked down, feeling the quiet at the table. I looked up. “Oh sorry. It was like four years ago; she was dying for five years. I barely remember my mother healthy.” Again, no one talked and suddenly words started to fall out awkwardly, “If I think hard enough, I can remember her coming into the kitchen after a run or leaving me with a sitter and she was dressed up, but I was really small.”

Josh put his hand over mine. “That sucks, Liv.”

I shook my head, praying someone would just friggin’ talk. I was never going to be a cool kid here. I was a hot mess.

Liz looked at me and nodded. She had a story, but she wasn’t going to share it at a table of strangers like I just did. I felt like a moron.

Josh cleared his throat and spoke, “So do either of you do any sports or anything?”

Liz laughed. “No, no thank you. I was in an art school.”

Josh laughed and nodded, looking confused. In fact, they all did. I didn’t know why they were smiling like that.

The boy next to Josh, with blond hair and freckles laughed and asked, “Like all you did all day was art? That’s sweet. Man, we should see if we can convince them to let us do art all day.”

“Oh my God, you have never heard of an arts and science school? The focus is arts, whether it’s performing or painting or sculpting, but she learned regular stuff too.” I looked at Liz and nodded. “You must be good at what you did—those schools are super hard to get into.”

Liz blushed so bright red I actually felt bad for her. “I paint. I got a scholarship.” She seemed to shake when she spoke about it, as if she was emotional and nervous. I felt bad for her. She must have been pissed to get brought here in the last year of school.

I knew that pain all too well. “Wow, that’s impressive. I would love to see your stuff. I know my dad is looking for some art for the house.” I could see she didn’t want to talk about herself so I looked at Josh. “I played soccer and volleyball back home but that’s it.”

He nodded. “The girls cheer and play soccer. You should try out for the team. We play football.” He looked at the boys at the table and smirked. “A lot of football.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Are you any good?”

A blond, freckled, slightly-attractive boy frowned. “We would be—we would beat everyone, but our school doesn’t allow us to enter the state championships, even if we qualify.” He looked bitterly at Josh who shrugged and said, “We play ‘cause we like it.”

“That sounds dumb.”

Josh looked at the blond kid making an odd face. I was starting to feel a little off about the whole lunch. They were acting weird and Liz and I were acting like idiots. Josh’s words were heavy, like they were final, “We have enough to keep busy, we don’t need to go to championships.”

I looked at Liz and she shrugged. “Cool.”

What else could we say? Small towns suck butt? Yeah, we could have said that but we felt sorry for them. At least I did.

Chapter Nine

Briton

She was laughing with her new friends and the boy she had danced with. The one who had walked her home. The one whose name she had said aloud to her mother. He couldn’t tear his gaze from their table.

The vice principal showed him around the grounds, nattering on, “Your family actually built the original school. You must know that though?”

He nodded, absentmindedly. “I do.”

She sighed. He could hear the vice principal swooning over him. “You must know, we are so grateful someone like you would be interested in working here. Maybe next year something will open up for you!”

He looked at her, leaning in a bit and whispering, “You will fire the literature teacher.”

She paused and blurted out, “I am the literature teacher.”

“Then you will step down and let me do the job. Just be the vice principal.”

“You will teach the class?”

His eyes found their way back to his Liv. He spoke softly, “Yes. Ensure Liv Daniels is in my class.” He walked away from her, standing on the edge of the football field, and watched Liv. Her blonde hair was tossed about in the wind. Suddenly, his eyes caught something else. A silver stare from the girl next to his Liv.

The cold shiver he received from her look was all too telltale. He nodded at her and walked away.

She would know him soon enough.

He walked back to the school and entered the office. “Which room should I set up in and which subject am I discussing?”

The vice principal looked like she misunderstood him. “The Canterbury Tales in Room 214. The texts are there.”

“Excellent. Thank you.”

She scowled, looking lost in the words leaving her lips. “The secretary said she can’t seem to find any financial information for your pay, or your police and credit checks.”

He leaned in, looking into her eyes. “You do not need to pay me, but you won’t remember that. You will just think I am already on salary. My credit and police checks were fine. I am a very nice man and completely trustworthy. If anyone asks, I am twenty-four and this is my second year of teaching. I only want the job for a week or so, a substitute for you while you are so busy with vice principal tasks.”

“You are so young looking for twenty-four.”

“I use my anti-aging cream every night.”

She giggled and he strolled down the hall to the stairs. The school was so altered from when he had gone there. Back then it was a house where forty-five kids from ages six to fifteen attended. Now it was a school where hundreds of kids went, but only the older ones.

He almost smiled, remembering the way he and his brothers had been; the teacher had cried nearly once a week for the year they attended, lying about their ages. The image of her trembling lip and shimmering eyes still warmed his heart. He had been forced to attend school, constantly learning about the new world they lived in. Wherever they went, he and his brothers did a year of education. They would stay a few years and then move on to the next spot.

But not there. Wolfville had become their brilliant creation, a place no one had to move from. No creature had to fear living there. The people didn’t ask questions and they forgot what they saw. The spell on the town kept everyone safe, for a time.

But that was then.

He wasn’t sure what to expect there now. He hadn’t seen one of his kind and the wolves lived in secret.

He glanced at the door 214 when he got to it. His brain was screaming that he was making a mistake. A huge mistake.

His eyes roamed the seats of the class. If he’d had a heartbeat it would have been racing then and there. Scared of the choice he was making. It felt like a choice, but he wasn’t sure he had one.

He wanted to avoid her. He wanted to pretend he didn’t feel something for no damned reason. He wanted the teaching position to be a mistake he could walk away from.

But none of it was his heart’s want.

She had created a pull and a drive and a hunger that couldn’t be sated by any other person. She was quickly becoming an obsession.

He’d seen it before.

It was what brought down the town of Wolfville.

It was what brought the hunters.

It was what destroyed his entire family.

He fought everything inside of himself and turned away from the classroom, finally seeing the truth of the damage she would cause if he let her.

But she was there in the hall, staring at him. She was like the frost queen, everything about her was sharp and bright. Icy-blue eyes, silky blonde hair, pale skin that looked to be frozen in perfection. But it was her lips that caught his eyes. They were glossed, drawing his stare to the shine. Making his mind paint pretty pictures of them pressed against his, or even smiling for him.

Instead she scowled, making him smile. Even her scowl was something perfect. Her nose wrinkled at the bridge and her lips puffed out in a sneer. “Why are you here? Don’t tell me you go here. Please. For the love of God and all things holy, don’t tell me you go here!”

His feet may have wanted to walk away and his body may have been sending out mayday signals to his heart, begging it to walk away. But the shitty look on her face forced his hand. He wanted nothing like he did for her to suffer through the next hour with him. He turned back into the classroom, grinning as if he were laughing at a joke no one else got.

“Seriously, why are you here?”

He smiled, still with his back to her. He closed his eyes, taking in the sweet scent she gave off. When he felt strong enough, he turned around, seeing other kids filing in after her. They ruined his chance at saying something witty. “Take your seat.”

Her words turned to a whisper, “You’re the teacher?” Her jaw dropped and the most delectable pink filled her cheeks. It added color where there had only been stark, icy beauty. She looked like she might say something else, but he stood at the teacher’s desk and opened The Canterbury Tales.

The faces of the young women filling the desks were all the same, apart from one. To say they were smitten with him would not have covered the truth of it. Each face donned a desperately pained look as they tried to make eye contact with him, fixed their hair or puckered their lips. He cocked an eyebrow at one girl as she quickly pulled her shirt down, adjusting her breasts so a maximum amount of cleavage was showing.

Another girl licked her glossy lips, slowly and purposefully. She winked as she finished.

He sighed as the bell rang. “My name is Mr. Thorlackson. You can call me Briton if you want to. I’m not a formal teacher, just a fill in. Just here for a few days.”

A guy in the back row smiled like the girls did. He had stars in his eyes as he leaned forward, lost in Briton’s words.

A smile crept across Briton’s face. He could feel his own cheeks blushing as he glanced down at the floor. The room filled with sighs and soft moans. He pointed behind himself, “Who has read The Canterbury Tales?”

When he glanced up through his thick lashes, he could see one girl’s hand. The girl with the silver stare. She mustn’t have known what she was. The look on her face proved it. No witch could love what he was, and yet there she was, making a face at him like she was really trying to restrain herself, like the other girls.

“What’s your name?”

She shook her head like she was twitching. “Uhm, Liz.” She looked like she was panicking at answering.

He grinned, making the sighs fill the room again. “Well Liz, what is your impression of the stories inside of The Canterbury Tales?”

She swallowed hard, running her hands down her throat. “Ohhh, uhm. Well. They are sarcastic and mocking. They speak a great deal about the way people would have lived. They are fiction, I think, but they seemed like everyday people’s stories, only more harsh and mocking.” Her cheeks reddened and she looked down, blurting the last sentences. “I have to admit, I only read them because of the Heath Ledger movie, A Knight’s Tale. My mom told me it was based on the tales and I read it. The old English was hard to understand.”

“I see. Does anyone in this class have a desire to read the tales?”

No one moved.

His lips turned up, slightly amused at the lack of interest in anything from their generation. He spoke with a bit of a sigh, “It is one of my favorite stories in all of the world. It shows of the life they would have lived back then. It’s exactly how life was, actually, it was fragile back then. You had a respect for life that you do not see nowadays. It’s almost romantic in the sense you see how deep their love was, and their hate. Everything was about survival, so you fought harder for the things you loved—the people rather.” The memories flooded him, forcing him to stop mid-thought. It had been a better time, there was no doubt.

Every girl and the one guy in the back of the room, raised their arms in the air. They filled the room with the sound of desperate begging to read it. Apart from the one girl he wanted so badly—he actually ached from the want he had for her.

He noticed the icy-blue stare of that one girl who didn’t have her hand in the air. Liv shook her head. He looked once more at her face and sighed again.

The whole thing was a grave mistake and he knew it, but he couldn’t look away and he couldn’t stop himself. He didn’t even try.

Chapter Ten

Liv

“The way he enunciates and uses the old language makes me respect him even more. He really is the best English teacher I have ever met. Something about the way his lips move makes me happy inside.” Liz gushed, making me slightly sick. “Did you see the way he smiled at me, up through his lashes, while he was blushing? Dude. I almost peed my pants. He is beautiful and he makes me want to learn. The school needs to find more hottie teachers. I think it would make people learn easier. My old school had this one art teacher—good God. Everyone did better because you wanted him to look at you.”

I groaned, “Can we talk about anything other than that?”

Liz nodded, “Sure.” She slapped my arm, “Oh my God, did you check out his ass? You could crack walnuts on it. So firm in his cords. Who even wears cords anymore? No one. And yet, Briton rocked them. I love the way he lets us call him Briton. Don’t you love that name?”

I grabbed her by the shoulders, “Dude, you’re killing me here. The guy is a dick. I met him at the ball, he was a complete jerk. Head-game psycho pants. And no one wears cords ‘cause they’re not cool anymore. I’m switching classes. Screw this.”

Her jaw dropped, “You can’t. You’re the only person I know. Stop being so moody.” We walked into her mom’s store through the back door. It smelled like herbs and old ladies. It was creepy, and yet, I could swear I’d been there before.

“You want a sandwich?”

I nodded, “Sure.”

A beautiful lady with brown curls tied up in a rag bun came around the corner. She smiled and I sighed. She was so pretty, and yet plain. Her face was stunning, but it didn’t match her messy hair, makeup-less face, and dusty clothes. She plopped some bottles of herbs down on the dusty counter in the store. “How was first day and who is this?”

“First day sucked hard.” Liz pointed, “This is Liv Daniels. Her dad is the new doctor in town. We were both new today, so that was fun. I had someone to suffer with, instead of being completely alone and alienated.”

Her mom gave me a wide smile. She looked like Julia Roberts kinda. I liked her just for that. “Liv Daniels?” She said my name like she was in a dream. She nodded. “I am so pleased to meet you. And you two are friends? That’s excellent. You girls hungry?”

Liz gave her mom a look. “You okay?”

She blushed. “I am. Just tired from the books and the inventory.” She turned and pointed. “I made sandwiches. They’re in the fridge on a plate. It’s really nice to meet you, Liv.” She put a hand out for me to shake, but Liz dragged me down the hallway to the stairs that led to the house above the store. “Come on, I’m hungry.” Liz seemed pissed at her mom. The move away from the art school must have been brutal. I was a regular school kid and it was brutal.

“Sorry, she gets weird sometimes. I don’t even have an excuse.”

I looked back as Liz got the sandwiches out. “Yeah, she seemed like she knew my name.”

“She’s fried. This whole thing has been bullshit. My grandma randomly dies and we have to move here, even though other family members could have run this dump of a store. It’s bullshit.”

I folded my arms. “I hear that.” The upstairs of the store was not much different from the downstairs. “Your grandma sure liked stuff, huh?”

She passed me an egg salad sandwich and laughed. “She was a hoarder. It’s going to take us years to clean this crap up. Old books that aren’t even in English.” She walked to a dusty old bookshelf and pulled one of the books off. She opened it and pointed.

It was in some kind of language I had never seen before. “That’s weird. I wonder what that is?” I took a bite of the sandwich and felt instantly better. There was something homey about it. It was like a hug from my mom in a sandwich. Liz seemed to cool off too. She turned on some music, a song I didn’t know that was a little more wrist cutter than I was used to, while it was still daylight.

We sat down on the chairs and stared. It wasn’t an awkward silence. It was something else. Like being stoned. I looked at the half-eaten sandwich and cocked an eyebrow. “Does your mom drug your food?”

Her head snapped towards me. “Huh?”

“I feel crazy relaxed like I smoked pot or something.”

She started to laugh. It made me laugh too. It was involuntary. We both lost ourselves in the laughing.

She stammered. “I-I-I think sh-sh-she might h-h-h-have d-d-d-drugged us!”

I laughed harder. It got to the point I made no sound, just a wheeze. It matched Liz’s. Tears were streaming my face, and I couldn’t help but curl up, trying to get a grip on myself.

The laughing stopped for us both instantly. Liz looked at me, stunned and unsure of what that was. We both looked at the sandwiches, not speaking or sure of what had just happened.

“Want to go to your house?”

I nodded.

We got up slowly, rounding the couches in an odd way but giving the plate of food a wide berth.

I shuddered, cold suddenly. “Okay, that was spooky.”

“I know. My mom said my grandma was weird, but dude, that was crazy. Her bread must be, like, stoner bread.”

It made me giggle again the way she said stoner. We looked and sounded like stoners.

She pointed at a white door. “Meet you out front? I just have to grab something.”

“Yup.” I walked down the stairs and walked into the shop. Her mom wasn’t there. I went to the back door we had come in and walked out into the grey day of the alley.

“Come here often?”

I grimaced as I spun around. “Seriously?”

He smiled and my stomach burned. How was Briton, my new teacher and the guy who had humiliated me, also now standing in a random alley staring down on me. His dark eyes were like magnets. I couldn’t look away. I didn’t even want to.

“I have to see the new owner.”

“What?” What was he talking about?

He pointed at the door. “To the shop—Liz’s mom.” He seemed like he was being nice, but I didn’t want to trust it. He was one of those head-game dudes, and my freaking teacher now. He took a step towards me, speaking quietly. “I wanted to tell you, I’m sorry you think I’m a jerk. I honestly had to talk to an old friend before I could dance. I wanted to dance, with you. I took the job at the school because of you. I had to see you.”

What a confession. He blushed and looked down, then looked up at me through his lashes. My heart stopped for a second and then started back up with a vengeance. He took my hands in his, holding them like they were fragile—so tenderly I could barely feel the heat from them. In fact, there was no heat. He was cool, from the alley no doubt. He squeezed a little. “I want you . . .”

My breathing was lost in the sentence. But then he finished it. “To give me a second chance at my first impression with you.”

I nodded. I didn’t even want to.

He smiled and everything got funny. My hands were sweaty and clutching to him. He seemed so controlled and cool for such a vulnerable moment.

He lowered his face close to mine. His cheek brushed against mine and I froze. I had frozen long before that, but it got worse. His face tickled against mine, and then his lips brushed my cheek. I leaned into it, savoring the nothingness of a cheek kiss, and yet, it felt loaded with everything we hadn’t said. What was there to say? We didn’t even know each other.

“I want to take you out for dinner, tonight?”

I was about to accept, but I leaned back slightly, pulling back into the headspace I needed to be sane. “You’re my teacher, you can’t.”

His eyes narrowed. “I will quit. I’ll go do that now. See you at your house at seven?”

“No. My father’s wife doesn’t like you. I will meet you.”

His sexy smile crossed his lips. “No. You will change your mind. I will meet you one block from the house. It’s called Fern Avenue.” He turned and walked away.

My brain fought tooth and nail to change everything that had happened in that two minutes but my heart smiled, just like my dumb face. The smile owned me, inside and out. I didn’t even know I could smile inside, but I was. He made me glow. I was already planning my outfit. I pulled my cell and looked at the time. I opened the door to the store and called up. “LIZ! I HAVE TO GO! SEE YOU TOMORROW?”

She rounded the corner, breathing deeply and looking wild eyed. “Yeah, that actually works out better. See you in the morning.”

I slapped my hand against my forehead. “The party tonight. I’ll pick you up, like ten?”

She nodded and waved weakly. I closed the door, hoping she was okay.

She must have been still freaking out about the weird egg sandwich. It was probably just something in the sandwich, like off mayonnaise or something.

I pushed that to the back of my mind and turned, running the entire way home to start getting ready.

Every time I stopped myself, reminding my heart we had spoken a whole three times and he was an ass, I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror. My eyes were filled with hope and the smile owning my lips was ridiculous and expectant. I couldn’t recall a time ever feeling that excited.

Ever.

I didn’t care that he was the wrong choice and he was the wrong guy and the wrong age. I didn’t care that he was a teacher for a day or that he had been a jerk at the ball. I wanted to give him a chance to explain. I wanted to see what was behind those dark eyes and that sarcastic smile.

I just wanted to feel that thing I did when I was with him, that lost feeling. As odd and slightly demeaning as it was, I couldn’t wait to be eaten up by his gaze.

I bathed, showered, shaved, plucked, loofahed, moisturized, and then started the process of hair and makeup. Dad came in as I was blow-drying my hair. He frowned.

“I have a date.”

His eyebrow cocked. “With who?”

“Boy from school.”

“The Michaels boy?”

I shook my head. “No. A different one.” It wasn’t entirely a lie.

He sighed. “What’s the plan? Is he coming here?”

“Dad, you have to stop the whole ‘city dad’ thing here. You wanted me to move to this hellhole—let me enjoy the few things about it that are fun. Freedom is one of them. I am going to dinner and then I am going to a party. The kids here deke out the po-po and parents by partying on Mondays. It’s whatever. I’m going. I need a life again.”

He folded his arms, but I pointed at him. “Dad. This is what seniors do. If I’m gonna have any kind of life, I need to go out and have fun. How else am I gonna meet peeps? I need fun or I will die. It’s a friggin’ pit party in a hillbilly town. I got this.”

“Frank, you leave her alone. I heard about this party already. It’s cool if she goes. Stop badgering the poor girl.” Judith shouted up the stairs. “Your dinner is ready, get down here.”

I smiled. He held his hands up in the air and walked from the room muttering, “Take your cell and make sure you call me if you do anything you shouldn’t. I will come and get you.”

I rolled my eyes and finished off the preparations. When had I ever done something I shouldn’t? Okay, I had done those things, but he hadn’t ever found out. I was responsible enough to get my own drunken ass home.

When I finished and went downstairs, Judith slipped me forty dollars and a smile as I left the house. She was growing on me fast. My dad grumbled. “What kind of boy doesn’t come and meet the parents? What is this world coming to? Did he ask you out by text? Have you even met him or is this an Internet thing?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “Dad, it’s like a group date. We’re meeting. Stop. I’m meeting a friend one street over. God.”

I turned and ran down the street in a sexy beige miniskirt; light-blue, off-the-shoulder sweater; and my cutest almost-thigh-high riding boots. My hair had light curls bouncing along my back and my makeup was done to make it look like I didn’t have much on. Really it was caked, but boys were dumb about that. They saw perfection and were happy. They never saw the amount of work we put into perfection.

As I rounded the corner, nerves built in my stomach.

He was there, standing under the light of a lamppost. I shuddered when I saw him. He made my breath ragged from a whole block away.

As I got closer I smiled. He was so formally dressed all the time. Luckily, I had anticipated it and dressed nicer than the town deserved. But when I got closer, I noticed he was dressed in jeans, but they were still European cut, and although they were slim, they weren’t skinny. They suited his body. He had a European-cut body, trim but cut. I could only imagine what was under those clothes. I could bet it was good.

Boys in jeans with no shirt on were easily one of my favorite images.

I almost laughed at myself when I saw his shirt. He was in a light-blue sweater too, almost matching mine. Awesome, we would be those dorks that matched. He ran a hand through his unruly hair, looking around like he might run away.

I felt the same. My insides were clinging to each other. In fact, my whole body was clenched. I looked around, wondering if anyone would see and tell my dad or Judith. I had a single flash of regret, but the moment I was close enough to see his eyes, it was gone. He smiled and everything else faded away.

My brain screamed at me, not a warning but just begging me to think it through. When I got close enough that he would hear me, I spoke softly, “What are we doing?”

He shook his head. “Going for dinner?” He said it like it was a question, like he was unsure too.

“No, what are we doing? This is crazy. I don’t even know you.” I stopped walking. The ten paces between us felt like an ocean.

He didn’t miss a single beat. The moment I stopped, he started to walk towards me. “It’s impossible—I know we have never met, and yet, I feel like we have never been apart.”

He summed it up perfectly.

How odd.

I nodded. “I know.” My words were whispered.

When he got close enough to touch me, he titled my chin. I thought for sure he would kiss me, but he just stared at me.

He shook his head, like he was pulling himself from the trance we were caught in. Clutching my hand, he turned down the street. He didn’t walk fast, thankfully. My boots were super cute, but not made for walking.

His voice was the only sound on the uninhabited street, besides our footsteps. “This is a very bad idea, Liv. I think when two people feel the way I think we both do, they’re smarter to walk away. You know the inevitable attachment that will come in a situation like this one? It’s a life-ruining experience.”

I laughed; he was ridiculous, and yet not wrong. I could feel it too. I decided humor was the best solution. “Do you place that level of intensity and commitment on all your dates?”

He gave me a sideways glance and smiled. “I don’t date. I have never actually dated a girl before. You are my first date.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, you seem the pillar of virtue I imagined in the man who would tell me that my love would ruin him.”

“I am not a pillar of anything. I just don’t see the point in dating. I don’t stay places very long.” He chuckled.

I slipped my hand from his, folding my arms around myself. “What is the point of dating? It’s a necessity. You’re getting to know someone, deciding if they are the person you want to spend at least some part of your life with. Spending a few moments in intimacy so you can see if there is something about that person you can’t live without. Dating is the start. It is the beginning point of any relationship.”

He stopped walking and looked down on me. “I already know the answers to those questions. I already know everything I need to about you.”

That scared me. I stepped back. “How?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you know?” My heart was racing.

“You talk to your dead mom, but you don’t tell her everything. You still lie to her, to keep her safe from the truths in your heart. You love clothes and makeup but you’re very smart. I can see that—smarter than a girl like you should be. You love your dad and dislike your stepmom. You have hordes of friends, but few people know you.” He walked to me as he spoke and paused when he was right in front of me again. He paused in his speech and dragged his thumb down my cheeks slowly. He looked pained when he spoke again. “And you don’t ever ask boys to dance, so when you asked me and I turned you down, I truly hurt your feelings, and for that I am very sorry.”

My eyes watered. I cursed him silently. If the tear formed, I would murder him. My mascara was heavily applied. My whole face would be black.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

He shook his head, still holding my face. “I told you, I feel like I’ve known you as if we have never been apart a day in our lives. I don’t know why. I knew it the moment I saw you. I watched you walk into the ball with your family. The wind blew in behind you and you paused in the entrance, and I knew.”

“This is crazy.” My heart was beating so hard, if I had looked down I would have seen it. But his tragic eyes held me captive. “You’re crazy, aren’t you? Like bipolar or mentally unstable.”

“No! Are you actually hungry?”

I shook my head. There was no way I could eat. I was in some strange version of butterflies-in-my-stomach hell.

He lifted my hand and kissed it before turning and walking down the street again. “I want to show you something.” He led me down a dark street and my stomachache got worse.

It was crazy but I wanted it and I couldn’t explain it, even if he was crazy.

Chapter Eleven

Briton

She looked scared.

Her blue eyes were more electrically charged as they darted about. He had seen it the minute she had rounded the corner on the sidewalk. He had heard it in her heartbeat.

She was terrified.

He couldn’t help but wonder if she knew. Had they told her what he was? Would the Michaels family do that?

They would.

He knew that. They would protect her. He needed to tell her himself. But first he needed to show himself to her, the man he was before he became the monster. It was his only chance at having something with her.

Had Briton had a heartbeat, his would have been rapid like hers. But he was too overwhelmed to be afraid. Yes, he knew better than to do any of the things they were doing, but he couldn’t be scared of them.

When her eyes met his, and he saw her face completely, all of his doubts were gone. She was so beautiful. There was something more to it. Something that matched him perfectly. He couldn’t name it, but he could feel it.

He wanted her more than any single thing he could recall in two thousand years.

But he needed her to see inside of him. She had to know the man he might have been, had he ever been given the chance, before he revealed the truth.

Leading her down a dark street was a mistake though, especially after she had asked him if he was bipolar. He knew that, and yet, he was leading her into a dark alley. He could feel his fangs lingering just at the point where the tiniest thing might make them drop.

He was holding her hand and taking her to a place that would make no sense to her. But to him it was a piece of mortality, even it if it was a small piece.

He had to show her the only thing that he could, the only human piece. It was an insignificant place to anyone but to him—it had been his spot. He took deep breaths, preparing himself mentally for the fact the story in itself would out him.

He pointed and spoke gently, “The town used to be considerably smaller. This was farmland here. There was an old barn where the chickens had been kept, but they kept getting out and things were getting in, killing them off. It was run down so the farmer gave up on it and built a new chicken coop. When I lived here before, I would come here whenever I needed to get away. I would sit in the loft, on the hay and just watch everything around me. When you’re still, the world moves around at a beautiful pace. The view of the sunset was perfect and no one would have thought to find me in an old run-down barn. It was my quiet spot.” He pulled her down another alleyway and pointed at a low-lying mountain range in the dark sky. “The sun sets there in the summer, and from the barn the view was uninterrupted. I was actually in this very spot the night my family died. I had five brothers, a mother and father. They all died in a fire and if Miles, the old man you saw me with at the ball, had not saved me, I would have died too. They burned to death and I haven’t loved anything since. I didn’t believe love was a possibility for me, until now.” He skipped over the part where they would have been poisoned before burning to death.

He turned and looked at her. Her face was paused, like she was deep thought. “You were here before?” She had missed the point of the story completely. His chest ached as though his heart beat still. What else could he say? What did a man of this age say to win a woman’s heart?

“I lived here many years ago, sort of grew up here in a sense of the word. It was the safest place I had been, enabling me to be myself at all times.”

“Dude! No way! This house right here is over a hundred years old. It was here when you were a kid. You’re mixed up. The barn is probably closer to the farm on the outskirts of town. It’s a sweet story though.” The way she said it, it sounded like a foolish story.

It was not going well. She had bypassed his confession of believing in love because he had met her, really just seen her. There was something so magnetic about her. She made him feel alive again. He spoke softly, trying not to show his frustration, “It was a long time ago. My family was one of the first settler families of the area.”

“What year was that? You are so full of shit. Why are you making this up?”

He spoke through a clenched jaw, “A long time ago.” He had made a mistake. How could he have thought that showing her something like that would reveal who he was? It didn’t matter how he explained it, she would see the monster. It was all he was—a monster. He didn’t have anything else to show her that proved his heart had existed. He had spent centuries pretending he didn’t have one.

She jerked her hand free of his. “You are such a weirdo. Why the hell am I even here?” She turned and stomped down the alley.

He heard her mutter something about fifty shades of cray and all the hotties are always insane. He paused, thinking about how to tell her—just tell her. He had to tell her before they did. All she would see were the scary stories, not the parts of him that were real. He shouted at her, “DON’T LEAVE. I’LL SHOW YOU I GREW UP HERE THEN!”

She paused, not turning back to look at him but at least she had stopped walking. He could smell the fear. She was scared of him. His brain whispered that she should be. He closed his eyes for a moment, contemplating the proof he would need. His hands vibrated, they had a plan of their own. Take her and make her love him back.

She turned, her blue eyes almost glowing in the night. She shook her head, speaking so low only he would have caught it. “I can’t do crazy. I don’t have that inside of me. I like normal. I figured you were a billionaire weirdo. You guys always are, but I never imagined you were this level of weird. I have senior year, getting into a good school, dealing with my dad and Judith. I don’t have time for mentally unstable.”

He clenched his jaw and walked to her, making the only noise around them. The silence of the town had not changed, regardless of the growth. “Give me a chance to explain it all.”

“Fifteen minutes and no more creepy alleys.”

He held a hand out for her. Touching her hand might be the only thing that stopped him from breaking something. “I promise no more alleys.” She looked at his hand, like she might take it but kept her arms wrapped around her slim waist. She was so small and fragile, it scared him.

She scared him.

How could something so small affect him so greatly? He hated that he couldn’t take her memories. He wished he could start over. Reintroduce himself.

He brushed past her, going to the street. They strolled in silence until he reached the old museum. He had seen it the other day and was shocked at the things inside of it.

“I wish I could start over with you.”

She scowled. “Why? What’s going on?”

“There is something you need to know about Wolfville. Something you won’t believe without proof.” He walked around the back with her, turning the knob on the locked door so hard the lock broke off in his firm grip. “Shhhhhh.”

Her eyes widened. “We can’t go in there.” Her whisper made him laugh.

“We can, but we have to be very quiet.”

“I’m not going into a dark, creepy museum with you. This back alley is a bad idea, not to mention, you promised. This museum is you murdering me in there or worse.”

He laughed harder. “Liv, if I wanted you dead, I would have killed you the first night I saw you.” He paused, regretting that sentence instantly.

She paled, stepping back.

He winced. “I didn’t mean that like that. I just meant killing people is easy.”

Her jaw dropped. “Oh God. You’re like Dexter. You’re going to confess to me and then have to kill me but your conscience is going to make you hate yourself. Oh God. Oh God. Judith was right about you.”

Who was Dexter and why did she know such a man? Damn. He was losing her. He grabbed her hand, pulling her inside of the open door. He closed it and pressed her back against it. What was he doing?

The smell of her delicious fear lingered around him. His fingers gripped her arms a little too tightly. He could feel her trembling. He savored the moment, fighting his fangs from springing and attacking her. When he had it under control, he leaned down, close to her face and whispered, “Trust me. I would never hurt you.”

Her blue eyes were actually glowing. It was the strangest thing to see someone’s eyes glow so brightly. A human’s.

Oh dear God, she wasn’t a human, though was she? No human’s eyes glowed like that. There was only one thing that had eyes like that.

Everything made sense instantly. Judith warning her to stay away from him. Her father, the doctor moving to this small town.

He died inside a little bit.

She muttered, “Could you—hurt me?”

The question burned in his throat with the smell of her skin stuck there. He wanted so badly to bite her but he didn’t. He would never get the chance to bite her. He could feel something in his chest, something horrid. It choked his words so he nodded his response.

The trembling of her delicate jaw became noticeable. Her eyes welled slightly. “Please let me go. Please, I won’t tell anyone what happened. I swear. I’m not one of those girls who say that and then call the cops. I know that girl always dies.”

He slipped his hand around hers, shaking his head. “I can’t. I need you to see one thing. After that you can go.” She would know everything in a week or so anyway. She was so close to the change.

He turned and pulled her through the museum, gracefully avoiding the furniture and artifacts. She was sobbing. Had she been a normal girl, he would have bit her just to shut her up—at least she would enjoy that. They always liked the bite.

But not her kind. Besides, he didn't want that to be her last memory of him. When they were forbidden to be together in two weeks, she would only remember the bite.

He walked to the picture he remembered taking like it had happened the day before, not hundreds of years earlier. He held his free hand up to the picture. “This was shot in the early 1800s. My father Thorlak, my mother Maria, my brothers Simon, Finn, Gunnar, Leif, Ragnar, and me. My name was Nicolai. I was the youngest of six boys.”

She was shaking in his arms, but he held her tightly and spoke softly, “I was born before Jesus. 976 BC. My father had been a Viking in Naddodd’s expedition to discover Iceland. He was a Norseman from the Faroe Islands. The first year in Iceland something attacked the settlement. They had assumed they were the first to discover Iceland, but no. The stories from the men who survived were unbelievable to be exact. No one understood what had happened to them. But from then on they were different. The men there were cursed, transforming into hideous creatures. Some becoming wolves, attacking everyone they saw, ripping them to shreds, even their own family members. Their changes only occurring on the full moon at first. It was three days of violent hell and they couldn’t be killed—not without the bite of their one enemy.”

“A werewolf?”

He was surprised when she whispered; she was actually listening to him. He winced when he saw her brightly glowing eyes. “Yes. But my father changed into something else—something worse. He feasted on people, animals, whatever he could find. He couldn’t sate his thirst. It took him a hundred years to stop the bloody storms he and the few men like him inflicted upon the world. When he met my mother, he fell in love. He felt a part of him—a part he hadn’t thought existed anymore—awaken. His heart beat again for the first time, or so he thought. He loved her instantly, she had saved the small piece of the man inside of him. So he stole her from an Italian man who he had befriended in trade. She had been a slave there. They had children, something he hadn’t realized he was able to do. The children of such a union generally killed the mother in birth. But mine was strong. She lived through six births and then my father changed her to be like him. Only the bitten can never truly be like the born or the cursed. She could never go outside in the light of day again, not without burning to death in the sun’s light.”

“Vampires?”

“Yes. I was born this way and I cannot die unless by the bite of their enemy as well. Wooden stakes, holy water, and the sun have no effect on me. The things that were created on that island were not made by God. It is something older and much worse. The curse comes down from something as old as the world. We have never had it explained to us, no one has ever seen it happen again. Iceland is a normal country now.”

Her face was completely pale, making the glow of her unlikely eyes fierce. She shook her head. “I can’t believe this.”

“I know that feeling. When I was eighteen I knew the change would happen. It always does when the born turn eighteen. But I wasn’t prepared for what happened to me.” He pushed on in the story, hoping she would see him eventually. “This town was made in the 1700s, as a haven for the things like me. The wolves and the vampires and the witches naturally dislike one another, but we knew that if we worked together we would have a better chance. Where there are people like me, there are things that would destroy us. The Knights Templar was made by the church to hunt us, killing us off. They are what we fear and hide from. They murdered my family. I have spent the last hundred and fifty years roaming the world aimlessly, trying to forget how to feel their loss. Recently I noticed, there aren’t any like me anymore, bitten yes, but no born or cursed. The hunters are killing us off faster. I came back here to hide. There are witches who are part of the things hiding here. They protect the town with spells. Hunters can’t come here. They can’t see the town, not without help.” He turned and looked down on her, desperate for her to see his truth. “I have never felt what my father described, that type of love you have for someone instantly that changes the course of your life. I have never dated, I never lied. I feed. I live as the monster that I am.”

Silent tears leaked from her electric-blue eyes, dragging black down her cheeks as if her tears were ink. He hated himself but he said it—what would it matter in two weeks? It wouldn’t, but at least her last memory of him would be of the declaration and not the hate she would feel. “Until I met you—the moment I saw you—I knew what my father had meant. My heart feels like it beats, though I know that’s impossible. My body feels alive, regardless of the change that occurred when I was eighteen. You make me feel like I am a man again.”

She stood there shaking, her eyes darting from the picture to his face and back. He hoped she was processing, but her face didn’t look like that was what was happening. She backed away slowly, shaking her head in small twitches. “I won’t ever tell anyone. I won’t, I swear. I’ll keep your secret, what you think you are. But please, let me go.” She heaved a bit when she spoke, “Just let me go back home. I won’t ever bother you again. I won’t look at you. You won’t even know we met, I won’t either. I’ll forget you, I swear.”

Something broke inside of him—snapped. It filled him, with bitterness he couldn’t manage. He burst forward, grabbing her arms. Horror filled her face, fear claiming her completely. Her knees buckled and he held her up in his strong grip. “I don’t want you to forget me, Liv. I want you. I want you to see me! If only you knew what you were becoming, you’d hate me less.” When the words left his lips, he could hear his fangs meddling with his speech. The fear on her face was because she was seeing him. She was seeing the thing he desperately didn’t want to be.

He searched her electric-blue eyes for some hint of the attraction he had seen earlier. They still glowed more than they should, but he didn't see any of the look he sought. Instead, he saw his own anger-filled face reflecting back at him with glowing red eyes.

He saw a monster.

His hands dropped to his sides, as he shook his head. “I’ll never bother you again.”

She cried, struggling with breath when she spoke, "It was you outside of my house?”

He didn't move, frightened of what he could do to her. She was so small and fragile, and he feared loving her to death. She wasn’t strong yet, not strong enough to handle him.

Bravely and unexpectedly, she stepped closer for a moment, lifting his face. Black tears streamed her cheeks, but she looked into his eyes hard.

It left him, the blood lust. She took it all away, like she sucked it from him instead of him sucking from her. The warmth of her hands on his face soothed the agony burning through him.

Her face was confusing, conflicted and scared, but there was something else he didn't know how to read.

Delicately, she ran her hand down his cheek. “I will keep your secret and I won’t forget you. I couldn’t, not even if I wanted to.” She turned and walked from the room, turning her back on him like she trusted what she saw in his eyes.

He clenched his jaw, his whole body really. He fought the urge to follow her out into the dark night. He hated the look he had seen on her face. He never wanted to force that look again.

Instead, he stood there, vibrating with anger and self-hatred. Never should he have confessed. He should have spent the time that he had with her, waiting for the Michaels to divulge his little secret—when they finally told her the truth about herself. But even if they had told her, at least he might have had more time with her.

Even if it meant she would change in front of him and they killed each other.

A sound caught his attention. He looked down to see droplets of blood falling from his clenched hands to the hardwood floor. He released his grip, turning and looking back at the portrait of his family.

“They aren’t dead.”

He spun around, seeing Jamie Michaels standing in the doorway of the museum.

“Did you follow me here?”

He nodded. “I was worried. Judith called. She sort of assumed you were after the girl. I guess she was right and wrong. You’re still different than your family, aren’t you? You turned and you didn't hurt her—how do you do that?”

Briton folded his arms across his chest. “I try not to be the monster I was born to be. I imagine you aren’t much different.”

Jamie walked into the museum. “We run, but we hunt only animals. If anyone hurts a human, they die. Same as your kind. But we have zones for running, we don't change in town in front of people. You have always been odd though, even when you were here before, I could see it.”

“I think we both know that girl isn’t what she thinks she is.”

Jamie laughed. “Yes. That’s a mess. You loving her is even worse. I actually feel sick for you. I knew one of our kind who loved one of yours. Always ends badly.”

Briton felt sick. He couldn’t shake the feelings inside of him. They owned him until he realized what Jamie had said moments before and frowned. “You said they aren’t dead. Whom are you speaking of?”

“Your whole family. I think. I found the cave a couple years ago. I had a suspicion they never died in the fire. But if it is them in the cave, they’re frozen in time, wrapped in a spell and locked away in a cave. No one may enter but a witch of the Whitburn family.”

Rage filled him again, it returned so quickly. He seethed his words in angry breaths, “Take me there.”

Jamie held a hand out. “We can’t get to them, but I’ll show you where they are.”

Chapter Twelve

Liv

I wasn't shaking by the time I had walked two blocks. I was calm and rational. I had nearly convinced myself it was some sort of lead paint–arsenic leakage–asbestos–shitty accident. He was a normal guy, maybe a bit cuckoo, but not a monster. I shook my head, pausing on the sidewalk, and looked back.

Suddenly, he left the museum with someone. Seeing him made my heart race. I jumped into the bushes of the house I was in front of.

“Colliers Caves, you know the place. Meet me there in thirty minutes,” the man next to Briton said and walked away. Briton turned and looked down the road to where I was. I looked around, wondering if I heard someone else talk. How had I heard him speak from two blocks like he was standing next to me?

I was losing my damned mind. That was how. The night actually couldn’t get worse.

I crawled, in my damned skirt, to the side of the house and ran down the alley, scrambling to Liz’s house. My knuckles rapped too hard, hurting slightly when I knocked. I wiped my face clear of the dried mascara I could feel flaking where it had run. I licked my hand and rubbed under my eyes fast.

Liz’s mom smiled when she opened the door. “Hi Liv! How are you? Are you all right?”

I caught my breath, leaning against the house and swallowing the thousand things I might have said. Instead of talking, I decided nodding was a smart move.

Liz’s mom opened the door wide, “LIZ!”

The thump on the stairs was loud, like a huge man was coming down them. When Liz rounded the corner, she smiled wide. “Hey! You’re really early.”

My eyes darted to Liz’s mom, hoping she would leave. She hovered, smiling. So I nodded at the door. “Yeah, the party is earlier than I thought.”

Liz brushed past her mom, waving backwards. “Be home later.”

“It’s a school night. You better be home earlier.”

“Whatever!” Liz sighed and walked away. I followed, not sure if I should say something to her mom or not. “Night, Mrs. Whitburn.”

She waved and when we rounded the corner, Liz gave me a look. “What the heck is wrong with you? You look like you’re about to spazz! You look like crap.”

“I am about to spazz. But I can’t tell you. I have to show you. I swore I wouldn't say anything. Come on, this town is effed. We need to find Josh and go to something called Colliers Caves. It’s like a park.”

“Yeah, I know where it is. My mom took me there today after she explained some weird-ass shit about our weird-ass family.” Her eyes darted back at her house. “We need to walk.” She grabbed my arm, pulling me along the broken sidewalk.

I grabbed her hand, “Wait. What did your mom say?” I panicked. What if she was something creepy like Briton? What if it was true?

“My grandma was a witch, dude, a real one. That shop was hers and she was magical. This town is some bullshit place for weird things or something. She called it a name, started with a V.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Oh my God. It’s true, isn’t it? Your family must be the ones who are guarding the town with the spells.”

“Dude. How the shit do you know that?”

I opened my eyes. She was pale in the moonlight, more pale than before. “Briton. If you know about the spells, you must know about the monsters here in the lovely town of WOLFVILLE! That shit is making more sense. How did I not see Wolfville meant werewolves?”

She swallowed, but it didn't steady her voice when she spoke, “It’s all real. I saw it.”

“Show me.”

She nodded and pulled me down the road. “My mom said it was a secret.”

“Yeah well, Briton said the same thing. I guess we are both in on the secret.” My feet weren’t hurting, which was super odd. They had been when I had left the house. We ran the whole way to the edge of town.

She pointed at a field as we gathered our breath. “The—cave—is—over—there!” she gasped.

I put my hands on my hips, walking in a circle. “I haven’t run in like four months, since my soccer ended last June.” I felt lightheaded for a second but she looked sick.

“I don't run,” she wheezed.

“We can catch our breath in the field.” I grabbed her arm and pulled her, helping her across the hayfield. I had never crossed one before. The whispering of the long dried grass was eerie, but the way it tickled against me was like having something crawling on me. When we got to the other side, I froze. I heard a voice, I could swear I did. It whispered on the wind, like the forest called to me in an odd way. I could feel a pull from the darkness. I hadn’t ever been in the woods either, so to see them and feel that was completely creepy.

She pulled me into the trees and instantly there was a trail. It glowed almost. It was the damnedest thing.

We walked silently for a minute before I spoke, “So you’re a witch then if your grandma was?”

“I guess. I mean, I always sort of knew things were different for me, like things I could do that other people couldn't. Sometimes when I’m alone I catch a glimpse of someone there with me, hanging out, watching me. It scares me and then it’s gone, but my heart is pounding and my body freezes up. Scary as hell.”

My skin crawled. We were in the woods and she was talking about ghosts. I couldn't fight the urge to look around. It made her laugh. She nudged me. “You are an idiot. There aren’t any ghosts here. It’s just sometimes, and I don't even know if they’re ghosts. They could be something like my imagination.” She glanced at me, stopping dead in her tracks. “Dude. Your eyes are glowing, like hardcore.”

“What?” I raised a hand to my face, feeling my eyes. They didn't feel different when I closed and opened them.

She stepped back. “Dude, they’re like really glowing in the friggin’ dark. Like flashlights. It’s spooky. Stop it.”

“I don’t know how.” I panicked, “What did you do? You did some magic juju thingy and made them glow. Make it stop.”

She laughed harder. “I don't get any powers before I’m eighteen. I didn't do it. You are having some kind of reaction to the caves probably. They have some powerful spell on them.” She chuckled when she dragged me along. “Come on, crazy. This night gets any weirder and I’m going to commit myself into the nuthouse.”

I didn't feel crazy, but I was getting a little light-headed. Damned town, damned hot guy making me know shit I didn't believe in, damned witches making my eyes glow. “I need some eye drops.” My insides were clenching. I glanced up at the three-quarter moon shining down on us through the trees. I felt like I was seeing it in a whole new light.

When were deep in the forest, with only the sounds of our rapid heartbeats to keep us company, she pulled me into a dark cave. I tried to pull back but she seemed different suddenly. “Liz? Let’s just look. I don’t want to go in.” I swatted at her grip, but it was like a vice. She dragged me into the scary caves, even when I tripped on a rock I didn't see, she kept pulling. I heard her mutter something. The air grew cold and thick, like we were surrounded by fog. I pulled back but she dragged farther on, jerking me to stay with her. She stopped as suddenly as it had all started, looking around like she was lost as to how we got there.

Her eyes cleared and she looked normal. She looked at the cave and frowned. “Where are we?”

“Really? Really? You just dragged us into this friggin’ cave and now you don't know where we are? What the shit? It’s cold in here and creepy. It’s really dark.” I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and clicked the button, jumping back when I saw what was there. The screen went black and I scrambled to click it on and get the flashlight. She had hers out already and was pointing out the bad shit.

“Is that an altar?” I asked.

“Yeah. It’s just like the one in my grandma’s house.”

“Oh my God, is that a coffin? Oh my God, there’s like five more coffins in here. What the shit? Oh God. Why are we here? Why did I drag us here?”

She gave me a look. “You wanted to see it.”

“NOT INSIDE OF THE CREEPY CAVE!”

She shook her head. “What happened when I dragged us in here? What did I say? Are you sure it wasn't you and the spooky eyes?”

“It wasn't me,” I said as I looked around the large stone room. There were wooden coffins inside of the room, six of them. I backed away from them but stopped when I heard his voice. He was talking, but it was too far for me to make it out. “Briton is here. Hide,” I whispered.

She gave me another look in the bright cell phone lights. I pointed to the coffins. She shook her head and grabbed my hand. We hurried to the far corner of the cave and hid behind a wall. We switched our phones off and sat in the scariest silence I had ever known. My heart was racing, my hands were melting with sweat, and my entire body was trembling.

“What is Briton?” she leaned in and whispered into my ear.

“He thinks he’s a vampire. He has red eyes, so maybe. But my eyes glow blue and I’m still me. I think he’s insane.”

“Judith is a Michaels, right?”

I nodded against her face.

“They are all wolves—that’s what my mom said. They are wolves and then Briton’s family was vampires. They’re the people in the coffins.” She nodded against my face.

My stomach sank. What a shitstorm. I actually felt bad for Briton; his family was here, hidden in a scary cave, and he had thought they were dead. The image of his face confessing all that weird shit filled my mind. I liked him more than I should. He was right about the instant attraction thingy. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I really liked him.

How had this happened? How had I ended up in this crazy town filled with crazy monsters with terrible secrets and falling for the king of the weirdos?

Why did God hate me? Me and Liz. We clung to each other harder when the voices came to the entrance of the cave we were in.

The man from the alley spoke. “This is it. We can’t cross the lines here. But look, six coffins.”

Briton muttered, “I have seven family members.”

“I would imagine at least one died, Nicolai. It’s impossible they’re here at all, let alone all of them.”

“How do we get them open?”

“We don’t. We leave them in their restful slumber where they can’t hurt anyone.”

Briton seethed, “You WILL help me get them out.”

A struggle occurred. The other man grunted. “NO. I WON’T. THE WITCHES WON’T EITHER! THEY DON’T COME HERE!”

Liz swallowed against me. I could feel her tense up.

The cave fell silent. Then Briton spoke with a smirk, I could hear it in his voice. “You don't hear that, Jamie?”

My head jerked around. Did he hear us there, moving around slightly?

It was silent for a moment and then he spoke softly. “Liv, what are you doing?”

I scowled. How did he know it was me? I held Liz, not moving or breathing.

“Holding your breath makes your heart beat faster. I would know your heartbeat anywhere. Come out.” He sounded weird, distant, like he was angry it was me.

I stepped out, leaving Liz there. Someone flashed their flashlight on me. I winced, putting my hand up. The light went to the ceiling, making the room bright enough to see.

Briton gave me a sad look. “What are you doing here?”

I shook my head. “I had to see if it was all true.”

The other man laughed, boldly. “You will see soon enough, child. You don't even have two weeks, I would imagine.”

I stepped back from them. “What do you mean?” My shaking started up again.

“The eyes, they are the first to change. They are the windows to your soul, after all.”

I dropped to my knees in the dirt, words spinning around in my head. “What does that mean? That's doesn’t answer anything.” My anger was bubbling just below the surface. “WHAT AM I BECOMING?”

The other man stopped smiling. “You will be like us, you are born like us. You will change around your eighteenth birthday.”

I gulped. “That's the second week of November.”

He nodded.

Liz walked to me, wrapping herself around me, but I barely felt her. I was lost inside of the words and my body and the glowing eyes. What was happening to me? Why was it happening?

Briton held a hand out to Liz and spoke in a calm voice I didn't recognize from him. “Come to me, Liz. Come and take my hand.”

She let me go, walking to him as if she were in the zombie trance again. I didn't care what they did. I was stuck, paralyzed by the things the man had said. My eyes were glowing and I was changing. I had heard them talking from two blocks away. I ran in heeled boots like it was nothing. I was craving meat lately too. I was going to become a vampire. I knew it. Oh God, my mother was probably looking down on me from the heavens, disappointed in the curse I was. I was a monster?

But how?

How did a girl with normal parents become a vampire?

Oh God. Oh God. I let my face fall into my hands. My parents weren’t my parents. It was the only way.

Oh God, I was a monster and an orphan. Oh God.

What could I do to stop it?

Liz screamed.

My head shot up.

Her hand was bleeding over the open caskets, blood dripping like she had a terrible cut.

The man with the flashlight was screaming and pounding on the wall of the cave. Apparently, he couldn’t get to us. He was screaming and motioning at me.

Everything fuzzed out. Briton’s eyes were glowing red and his fangs were dripping with blood. He looked at me, we froze for a moment. When I saw what he was, I screamed. It rang off of the walls of the cave. It made him wince, like I had hurt him. I screamed again. It forced Liz out of the trance she was in. She grabbed my hand, dragging me from the cave. We raced past the man with the flashlight, through the tunnels, tripping and screaming. When we broke out into the forest, we were both still running and screaming. Her hand gripped to mine, slipping in its grip from the blood that coated it.

We cleared the field fast, like track-star fast. She didn't wheeze and I didn't stop. When we got back into town, we hid amongst two buildings, leaning our butts and bent over gripping our knees. I was gasping for air and she had started the whole wheezing thing. Tears rolled down both our cheeks as incoherent words slipped from our trembling lips.

Nothing made sense. The whole world had fallen apart.

I shook my head after a minute, fully recovered from the run but scared I might never recover from the rest. “Why did you let him bite you?”

She started to cry harder. “I don't know. I don't know. He bit me. Now I’ll become like him. That’s how it happens in the movies.”

I wrapped my arms around her and prayed that she wasn't on the same track as I was, sort of. The selfish part of me was grateful to not be alone, but the mature part of me was heartbroken for her. She was shaking harder than I had been.

We were doomed.

Everyone from our class was partying somewhere and we were coated in blood and tears, hiding in an alleyway waiting for some sort of death to take us.

Chapter Thirteen

Briton

She screamed so loud, and her face looked frightened in a way that scared him. He wanted to soothe her but the beast was out. There was no calming it when he was in such a rage. Their eyes locked when she screamed again, breaking his hope of love forever. He looked past her, to where each of their gray faces started to take shape again, amongst the screaming of the girls and Jamie.

Suddenly, the girls were gone, and he was left with only Jamie screaming at him. He ignored him and looked down on his family. He had never been more excited in all his life, apart from the moment he saw Liv. Not that it would matter now. She was destined to be something he could never be with.

His kind always had red eyes, only wolves got to keep their natural color.

Hers were bright blue.

He pushed her face away from his mind and smiled down upon his reviving family members, apart from one. His brother Gunnar was not there. No doubt the witches had refused to save him. He had been the start of the trouble in the haven.

He had been the one who had shed innocent blood with no remorse, drawing the eyes of the hunters there. Unexplained deaths, tragic losses, strange behavior. And someone had betrayed the witches’ secret to the hunters. Someone had made it possible for them to come into town. Gunnar had no doubt taken the blame for that too, bargaining for his life and selling out the haven, in return for sanctuary. Briton didn't really know the story. It had been confusing and hushed up. He clenched his jaw at the thought of it.

It didn't matter now. His family was waking, thanks to the blood of the Whitburn witch. She might not have had power yet, but she could enter the caves and free his family with her blood.

“YOU FOOL! YOU WILL GET US ALL KILLED!”

Seeing the rage upon Jamie’s face Briton scoffed bitterly. “What did you think you brought me here for? Of course I would wake them!”

“I DIDN’T KNOW THE WITCH WAS HERE! I BROUGHT YOU TO LOOK! THEY ARE NOT USED TO THE NEW WORLD! THEY WILL EXPOSE US ALL!”

Briton shook his head. “No, they will learn to fit in like we all have. They will adapt. The old witch spared them because father is the oldest of us. She knew he held importance.”

Jamie’s face twitched slightly. “I asked Helena; your father held her children captive and forced the spell. He did it against her will when he heard the hunters were coming.”

“Then how did he save your family from the hunters if he was here?”

“It was all a ploy. When they felt the hunters coming, your family helped move all the wolves to inside of the guarded area where Helena’s sister Grace was keeping everyone safe with glamour. Only then did Helena cast her glamour, making it look like your family had fled for the farmhouse, leading the hunters there to the place outside of the guards. But only she went inside. Only the old witch burned to death in that fire. She sacrificed herself for her children and the town. Our debt has always been to the Whitburns, not you. You fool. Your parents fled for the caves with your brothers. It was a trap. She told them to get into the coffins and hide there, they were spelled to keep them hidden. But really it was the only magic the old witch had against them. She sealed them in there for the safety of everyone else.”

He didn't believe it. His father had lived thousands of lives without ever being barbaric in his ways or noticed by the hunters. He had always taken what he needed but never too much, and he had never killed without thought. He wasn’t a risk to the townspeople then, and he wouldn't be now. “My father has never been a danger to humans.”

Jamie looked disgusted as he spit his words, “You were always the only one of your family members who didn’t live as a vampire. Why do you think Miles hid you? He did it because he knew you were salvageable. It has been quiet here this last hundred and sixty years—no hunters. Do you think it’s a coincidence?” He didn't wait for Briton to answer. He turned and walked from the cave, leaving Briton standing in the dark, amongst his waking family.

They groaned and writhed, making sounds that forced a grimace across his face. Had he made a mistake? He didn’t know the answer, but he was frightened to see if his love for them had blinded him.

“Nicolai?” a dark whisper crept through the cave. “Nicolai?”

He shuddered at the disparity in it.

“Yes, Father. It is I.”

The dark came alive with shadows as they crept from their coffins in a fashion suiting a monster.

“Brother!”

“Bright one!”

“Nicolai!”

The voices that he had convinced himself he would never hear again, filled the dark. Hands reached out, gripping to him. Arms wrapped around him, embracing him—love so desperate and fierce.

His mother cried into his nape, his father shook with a strange laugh, and his brothers joked and slapped each other.

But he remained still with the words of Jamie Michaels ringing in his ears and the face of the ever-beautiful Liv haunting his eyes.

“Nicolai, what year is it? How long have we slumbered?”

He glanced at his father. “It’s 2013. You have been gone nearly one hundred and seventy years.”

They all fell silent. None of them had missed a year in their one thousand, eight hundred years, and now each was missing almost one hundred and sixty years.

“The world you will see is not the one you left. Let me show you.” He gripped each member of his family, doing the thing only born vampires could do. He flashed images and knowledge to each person, apart from his mother. He kissed her leathery cheek and whispered, “I will explain it all to you at home.”

He looked around the dark, barely able to make out their faces. “Now let’s go home. You start making your way from the cave, and I will find some animals for you to eat. I will meet you at the entrance.”

They were weakened from their hunger but each made a sound when he said animals.

He sighed. “We do not survive by human blood, but we treat ourselves to it without killing the person we take it from. This new world is filled with technologies and surveillance and the population is large beyond what you can imagine. I eat animals if I am desperate, otherwise I feed from humans without killing them. That is the reality of this world. It is no longer our playground.”

His father grabbed his shirt roughly. “You expect us to live like we are the lesser?”

“No Father, I expect you to live as though you are exactly like the other men in the town. I expect you will live like a regular man would. I expect no one will ever know what you are. What we are lives silently in the shadows in this world. We are the last of our kind.”

He grabbed his father’s shirt back, shaking slightly. “There are no more born or cursed vampires in the world!”

The group of them fell silent. He nodded. “None that I have found. The hunters have killed many. I will find you food. Make your way to the forest.” He got up and hiked down the tunnel. When he walked out of the cave and stood again under the majestic moon, tears filled his eyes. He closed them and nodded. “Thank you. I know they are not perfect, but they are all I have.”

And there it was. The thing that separated him from most vampires: he believed in something beyond them as the gods of the world. It was what drove him to be a better vampire than most.

Chapter Fourteen

Liv

I sat on the balcony of my room, hoping deep down that I would see the red eyes again.

But I didn't.

I didn’t even know why I wanted to see him. Why would I want to see the monster again, or why did I care so much for him? I was worried about him seeing his family. I hoped he was okay. I knew he probably wasn’t. He had been so sad when he showed me the portrait of them all.

I needed to be sure he was okay. I was shivering and tired, but I couldn't sleep without knowing. His problems seemed to supersede my own. Though mine had not shown themselves to me yet. I had not changed beyond the glowing eyes. If I was honest with myself, I didn't even believe it all, not yet.

“Liv?”

I turned to see Judith coming out on the deck. She sat next to me on the frigid balcony. “Are you all right?”

I shook my head. My hatred for everything that had been going on bubbled inside of me, pushing away my thoughts of Briton.

“My brother phoned me—Jamie.”

I shuddered when she said his name. She wrapped her arms around me. “Your father wanted so badly to tell you, but how do you tell someone that their mother was a wolf and maybe one day they will be too?”

I turned my head sharply. “What? He knows?”

“Your mother . . .” She spoke with a sigh, “She had been from here—her parents. Your mother got a disease that wolves rarely get. Lupus. It is what killed her. I’ve only ever heard of a few getting it. And only wolves that don't change anymore. Our immortality is linked to the change.”

I started to cry. It was a releasing cry. I didn't understand a single thing that had happened, not one, but I needed someone to take my pain away. Her hug felt motherly and not in a way that betrayed my mother.

“Your mother was my second cousin. You were my family all along. I met your father on purpose. I wanted him to know that when your eighteenth birthday came, we would be there for you, to help you. But he and I fell in love. It wasn't on purpose, but we agreed living here would be the best for you.”

I looked up at her. “You’re my cousin? I’m a Michaels?”

She nodded.

I wrinkled my nose. “Josh asked me to dance?”

She laughed. “That's what you’re most worried about? In all of the things brewing in your mind, that’s the biggest deal?” I scowled and she laughed. “Josh didn't mean it in a creepy way. He’s a good kid. His side of the family is very distantly related to mine. He’s probably your tenth cousin or something. Trust me, that's the least of your worries.”

Images from every horror movie I had ever seen flashed through my mind. “Does it hurt to change?”

She nodded. “Every time it’s forced on you by the moon. But when you change for yourself, it doesn't. It’s quite nice. Running through the woods is amazing. Sleeping under the stars as a wolf is an experience you would wish on every person you know. I will be there with you. You don't have to do this alone.”

“I don't want to do it at all.”

“But it will happen and you need to be ready to do it. You have weeks left before the next full moon and your birthday. Literally weeks of being a human.”

I looked down at my hands. They were still coated in the blood Liz had left there. “Liz is a witch, Briton is a vampire, and Josh and I are wolves. Is there anything else I should know about?”

“There are hunters, they hate us. They are made with one purpose. One! They are made to kill us. They think of themselves as God’s army, like we are Satan’s. But we are not evil. We do not harm anything or anyone. The guard on the town is the ancient creed of the witches. ‘Do what ye will but harm none.’ It is our most sacred of laws. The town guards may remain intact and protecting us, so long as that is obeyed. The moment we stray from it, the guards weaken.”

Fear started to fill my exhausted body. “Will I want to kill people?”

She placed her hand gently on my cheek and turned my face to look at hers. She nodded once slowly and spoke in a hushed voice, “You will. But that is why we run outside of the guards. We run in the deep woods, far from humans. We hunt animals. The wolf in us must be sated or the change will be brutal and forced. If you change in town, you will be banished. I will teach you all of this. You will be safe here.”

I started to cry again. It was fear, sleep deprivation, shock, and God knew what else, all mixing around inside of me. “No college? No leaving this crappy little town? I don’t want to stay here forever.”

Her eyes glowed in the way I imagined mine had. “You don’t have to stay, but you have to be in control when you leave. It takes time for that. Right now you are a normal girl. So these problems don’t feel real. But in a few weeks, you’ll be grateful to be here. Trust me.”

And I did. I could see it in her eyes. She knew my pain. She leaned in and kissed my forehead before getting up. “Don’t stay out here too long. You’ll need some sleep for school tomorrow.”

The thought felt weird. School tomorrow? Could I even go to school? I didn’t think so. I was certain actually, school was never going to happen.

I got up and followed her in to take a shower.

No matter how much the hot steam and water washed me clean, I didn’t feel it. I felt scared.

I got out and brushed my teeth and climbed into my bed.

The stars on the ceiling were glowing bright, making me rethink everything that had happened. My father was the only doctor my mother ever saw. He had treated her illness. She had died at home. Lupus? What an odd thing to kill an immortal werewolf. Why didn't she just shift and heal?

What an odd thought for a seventeen-year-old girl to think about, immortal werewolves.

I was loosing my damned mind.

A noise caught my attention.

The shape in the doorway of my balcony didn’t scare me. There were no red eyes, but I knew him. I would know him anywhere.

He crossed the room silently and sat at the edge of my bed. I wasn’t scared of him. I was more scared to be without him.

“Are you okay?” I asked. I should have run away, screaming my face off. But I had the strangest feeling that when he said he would never hurt me, he meant it.

He shook his head. “I came to apologize for what you saw . . .”

I climbed from my sheets and crawled on my knees to where he was sitting at the end of the bed. I took his cool hand in mine, shaking my head. “Don’t.” I pulled him, directing him closer to me. He slipped his shoes off and crawled along the bed with me to my pillows. The butterflies inside of me were bouncing off the walls, but I promised them we would talk, and that was all.

I lay down, pulling him next to me. I didn’t face him. I stared up at the glowing stars on the ceiling, scared of what I might do if his lips were close to mine. “So your family is back?”

He swallowed before he answered, “Yes.”

“Are you excited?”

His answer didn’t come right away. He sat silent and then whispered, “No. I thought I did the right thing and now I’m not sure.”

We sat in silence for a moment before he sat up, speaking quickly, “I should go. I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry.”

I grabbed him, pulling him back. “Stay with me, please.”

He turned, looking me in the eyes like he was searching for something. “I was so scared when you saw me that way. You looked so frightened.”

“I was. I am still, but I don’t think you’ll hurt me. I don’t know why.”

He lifted a hand and ran it down my cheek. “I think you are hiding all your feelings. I think this is too much for you to handle, so you’re not letting anything out.”

I leaned forward to kiss him, I couldn’t take it anymore. But he moved his face, landing his lips on my cheek and mine on his. He whispered into the embrace that might have been so much more. “We can’t do this. When you change in a few weeks, I will disgust you. It is our natural way. We tolerate each other for this place, this sanctuary. But none of us like each other, especially not that way.”

I held him to me, scared of what might happen. “I don’t care about then. I want you. I want to be with you.” It was my truth. I wasn’t hiding behind any of it. If I only had weeks left to be me, I wanted them spent in his arms.

“Your family and mine will never agree.”

I pulled back, looking into his eyes. They broke my heart with the intense sadness that lingered there, like he was trying not to cry. “I don’t care what they say or do. We can be discreet about this. I just want you.”

He clenched his jaw, swallowing hard.

“Please!”

“Fine, but only if we are discreet. We need to be smart about this. You sleep on this. If you still want this in the morning when you are rational and calm, I will come to you.”

I didn’t think I liked his idea. I gripped to him. “Don’t leave though, okay?”

He leaned in and kissed my forehead. “You need some sleep.”

I pulled him down onto the bed to lay beside me again. I closed my eyes. “I know, but I’m scared.”

He wrapped an arm around me, holding me to him tightly. “Then I will stay. Sleep.”

Nothing made sense. No, that wasn’t true. My attraction to him made sense. We were like a lock and key fitting into each other.

Everything else was a friggin’ hot mess.

Chapter Fifteen

Briton

He walked into the room, pulling off his coat and looking around at them all.

Leif gave him a moody, dark-eyed look from the iPad he was reading from. “This is insanity. We have missed out on the best the world has had to offer. The world has never seen a hundred and sixty years like this and we bloody well missed them.”

Briton sat in the leather chair across from his brother and gently tapped his fingers against the armrests.

His mother came in, her eyes red and puffy.

“Mother!” She raised a hand, wiping her dark-brown eyes. “I just read about the wars. The holocausts and genocides. How could they?”

His father stormed into the room, looking revived and burly as he always had. “What about the genocide being inflicted upon us, Maria? What about us? The hunters have dwindled our numbers to naught.”

She turned and faced him. “My love, we are here now. We are safe. You must get past the betrayal of the witch.”

His bright-blue eyes smoldered. He was plotting something. Briton wouldn’t let his father hurt the Whitburns for a sin committed by their ancestors.

Ragnar stalked into the room, looking cocky as ever. He leaned against the doorframe and nodded. “I just walked through town. The girls are scantily clad, and for whatever reason, I felt as though I were the one being hunted.” The smile upon his lips spoke of the terror he had endured.

Watching them each adapt to the new world and discover the treacherous past, made Briton fear he had done the wrong thing.

Miles came into the room, giving him a wary look. “Maria, Betsy has drawn you a bath as you requested.”

“Thank you, Miles.” She stood, smiling down on her son. “It is good to see your face again.”

He smiled back, but he feared the things he hid behind his smile. He feared she could see them. She had the eye for that.

He looked out the window at the setting sun. The thing that had plagued him all day long would either come true or destroy him in the next hour.

Miles sighed and spoke as if the words weighed a ton upon his lips, “Finn and Simon have left. They asked me not to tell you until they were far enough away. They want to see everything and no longer wish to be trapped here. They think it is not safe.”

Leif scoffed. “They’re right. Rags and I are leaving as soon we can.”

Ragnar folded his thick arms across his chest. “Sneaky bastards. Leaving before we could.”

Their father gave Miles a look. “You let them go? The world is a whole new place we do not know, and you let them go?”

Briton could feel his back stiffening at the tone in his father’s voice. “He couldn’t have stopped them.”

His father growled at him. “But I could have.”

Briton stood, meeting his father’s eyes. “No. They’re grown men, they’re older than any other thing on this earth, you couldn’t have. I haven’t been here since the night I thought you died. I have been completely safe.” His eyes darted at Miles. “Because of him.”

Miles sighed. “That’s enough you two. I am going to take my leave. Betsy has a house of her own, we will take up residence there. Give you your space back.”

Briton caught something in Miles’ eyes.

His father gave Miles a pat on the back. “Thank you, dear friend.”

Miles clasped a hand over Briton’s father’s and smiled back. He left the room. Briton followed him out of the house. “You knew?”

Miles never looked back, he walked to the car. “This is not the place or the time.”

Briton grabbed the old man’s arms. “You knew.”

Miles’ eyes darted up to the old house. “Meet me at midnight in the grove.” He turned and got into the car with Betsy. She waved enthusiastically. The spell of the witches worked well on her, regardless of being one of them. She couldn’t see the wolves or the vampires or the things the magic hid. And though she might not have been born with the witches’ magic, she still helped hold the spell there in the town.

Now that his family was home, she could go back to her regular house, staying there all the time, instead of spending most of her time at his father’s house. No—his house. It was his house.

He frowned, realizing how strange that was. They were guests in his house.

He turned and looked at the great white mansion and puzzled at how different things had become in such a short span of time.

“Nicolai!”

He turned to see his father at the side of the house. “Son, you seem troubled.”

That wasn’t quite a strong enough word for it, but he nodded. “I am, Father. The portrayal of the events that occurred that night is conflicting in my head.”

His father nodded and strolled out into the fading sunlight. He lit his old pipe and puffed. The smell tugged at Briton’s heartstrings. “Mine as well. What happened?”

Briton walked with his father out into the gardens that had long since turned in the cool fall temperatures. He closed his eyes and forced the old memories out of hiding. “I was helping the wolves get their families to the spot the witches had made sacred. Only we could cross the lines. The town had so few ordinary folk, I never gave them much thought, though I suppose some of them must have been dying as we fled. I ran to our house, searching for all of you. We had gotten separated. When I tried to go back to the boundaries of the sanctuary, the witch had sealed them. I couldn’t find them. So I went to the barn and hid, watching the sunset and the smoke coming from where the fight was. I could see the hunters had surrounded the old barn. I didn’t know what to do.” The pain of losing his family had been so brutal, only there recalling the horrid moment he had lost them, did he feel like he had made the right choice in waking them.

“And then you and Miles fled the village?”

Briton nodded. “He came and found me, told me you had all been lost in the fire. We fled and I never came back until this month.” He didn’t tell his father what Miles had really said to him. He had a bad feeling about what was really going on, and he hated not knowing who to trust.

His father smoked his pipe, giving him nothing to go on. He looked out over their land and nodded. “You have done well, my boy. I am proud of your survival instincts.” His father chewed his pipe and puffed the smoke about the crisp dusk air. He was content to be silent. Briton was not. He asked the question burning on his mind. “Why did the witch betray you?”

His father never moved, not even a slight flinch. “She wanted your brother dead. I said no. She called the hunters, set a trap. I found out what she was up to, and took her children. Cunning bitch! The trap she had set was a ploy. The real trap was in the cave, awaiting us. The hunters were to search the entire town. Your mother would be risked, being one of the bitten. So we made a deal. Little did I know, her deal was the trap all along. When we climbed into the coffins, we were sealed until you opened them with the blood of the young witch.”

“How did Gunnar die?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.” That was that. His dad was done talking, and by the fine line of the sun that was left, he had somewhere to be.

“I am meeting a friend. I will be back later.” He turned and walked away from his dad, disturbed by the story.

His chest grew tight the farther he got from his home. Or maybe it was the closer he got to her, the more anxious he became.

She was standing on the front balcony of the house looking for him. He breathed a massive sigh of relief. She was there. She was looking for him. It could only mean one thing. She hadn’t changed her mind.

The pain of that possibility had been at war with the inside of him all day. She smiled when she saw him, pulling a smile across his lips too. He nodded to the right-hand side of the road and walked away from her. He hid inside of a large lilac bush and waited for the moment he heard the front door.

When her footsteps were on top of him, he walked from the bush. “Good evening.”

She bit her lip, but everything he needed to see was in her eyes. She was lit up, glowing even.

He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket. “Meet me here in twenty minutes.” He leaned in, brushing his lips against her cheek. He took a long draw off of her skin, she smelled like heaven.

“We have a few weeks. You realize that, right?”

He nodded, muttering into her ear. “I believe we have less than a few weeks. You are ready to change any minute.”

“Then don’t waste any time. Let’s go there together now.”

He smiled against her face, pulling back to see the impatience all over her expression. “We must be discreet—you remember that conversation, right?”

Her bright eyes narrowed, making a bigger smile cross his face. He leaned forward, lifting his thumb to her plump lower lip that no longer was being chewed. He dragged his thumb across it, smearing the lip gloss that wafted in the air. He wanted so badly for his mouth to take his thumb’s place, but stopped himself. When he kissed her, he wanted it to be special. “I shall see you in twenty minutes.” He turned, eager to see her again.

Chapter Sixteen

Liv

I paced the room, weirded out by the fact he had an apartment in a town where he also had a house, though it seemed like he lived at neither. I paced, holding myself, remembering the feeling of his arms around me when I fell asleep the night before or his thumb dragging across my lips in the bushes. Shit, even the image of him staring at me from across the ballroom made my insides twitch.

I heard the door click but didn't look at it. I stayed close to the wall across the room, frozen in excitement.

The alarms going off inside of my head were screaming that I was making the wrong choice, but I didn't leave. I waited for him to close the door before I turned to face him.

Was it possible he looked better than he had twenty minutes ago?

He looked nervous. It made a blush cross his face but he didn't move. He leaned his back against the closed door, as if trapping me there but taking a moment to study me.

It made me nervous. I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. I didn't want small talk. I didn't know exactly what I wanted, well, besides the obvious, but I wasn’t sure he could do that.

He looked at me from under his lashes. It changed his face. The blush on his cheeks and the dark stare intensified things for me.

My hands started to fidget. Would we stare at each other the entire night?

He watched me for a moment longer. Outside, the sun was setting completely, making the wooden floor between us light up, like it was a barrier between us.

He crossed it after a moment, grabbing both my arms and pinning me to the wall behind me. He looked down on me, becoming the only thing I could see. His hands pinched a little, like he was angry, but I could see that wasn't it.

He was holding himself back and when he spoke, I learned why. “I have a feeling that once this line is crossed between us, there can be no going back.”

I nodded. He always said the thing I was thinking but didn't know it at the time.

His grip lightened as his lips twitched ever so slightly. He ran his hands up my arms, sending chills everywhere. My breath left my parted lips in tiny nervous bursts.

He lowered his face. I leaned towards his lips but he brushed past them gently and placed a soft kiss at the corner of my mouth. He was torturing me. He lifted his face, brushing across my lips but not kissing, not giving me the thing I wanted so badly. He placed a second small kiss on the other corner of my mouth.

He pulled back again, pressing his forehead against mine, looking down on me.

I didn't move, I wasn't certain I should. I didn't know when his red eyes would come back and his fangs would pop out. Some desperate part of me wondered if that was part of the attraction with him. Was being slightly scared of him what was making me so intrigued?

But he didn't look like a monster. No. He looked like perfection. His dark-blue eyes bore down on me, his lips quivered like he might speak or kiss or scream, and his hands pressed me into the wall.

His crazy dark hair was a mess, like he had run his hands through it in some attempt to sort things out by tugging on it.

He lowered his face closer but so slowly I couldn’t take it. I tried to reach my hands up; I desperately wanted to grab him but he lowered my hands.

He moved closer yet again, and I could feel his breath on my lower lip. His hand slipped up my arm, across my shoulder, and settled on the side of my throat. He ran his fingers up into my hair slightly as he lowered his lips on mine.

When he finally kissed me, the tension had built so high, it felt like we were flying. My breath got lost, but I didn't need air. I didn't need anything.

I had him to keep me alive.

The kiss started so delicately, as did his grip on me. As the movement of our mouths against one another increased, so did his grip. My hands slid between us, not to push him away, but to pull him closer. He wrapped himself around me, but I did the same. My hands ran up into his hair, gripping to him, terrified it would end.

He lifted me up into him, carrying me to the large bed with the strange old curtains around it. He laid me down, without breaking our kiss off. His hands roaming my thighs and back. It made me smile, regardless of the fact I was still lost in the kiss.

“I’m not a virgin,” I whispered.

He growled into my neck, sucking at my skin slightly. “Why did you feel the need to share that with me?”

I started to laugh. “You seem to be keeping this pretty PG, and I kind of want to take your clothes off.”

He pulled back. His face was flushed, and I had messed his hair up even more than it normally was. His jaw was clenched but he spoke through it, “I never want to have this conversation again, unless of course you want the young man to suffer through a violent animal attack.”

I rolled my eyes and sat up. “Fine, I’ll take my own shirt off.”

He grabbed my hands. “Stop rushing me, Liv. I am not an eighteen-year-old boy in every way. Unlike your previous friend, I am actually quite good at this.”

He scooped me into his arms, again kissing my neck. I closed my eyes and let him have it his way. It was better than telling him I had actually had two ‘friends’ in my past.

He laid me back down, lifting my shirt but kissing along my stomach. There was nothing in the world but the two of us. The room was sort of creepy in that it was outdated and dusty, but I didn't notice it anymore. The sun had set but we didn't need the light.

We searched each other’s bodies for places of pleasure to pay homage. When I kissed his stomach, dragging my fingernails along his chest, he moaned and squirmed. When he pressed me into the bed, finally giving me the one thing I wanted, I wrapped myself around him.

I lost the time, the world, my mind, and let him claim stake on my heart at the same time as my body. I would have walked across a desert to drink this nectar. I would have done or said whatever it took to make him mine for the remainder of my life, however long it would be.

Our bodies moved along the walls, like dancers in a play, only seen through shadows made by lights coming in the windows from the street lamps. I felt his teeth graze my skin several times—sharp teeth. I tried not to think about how close he was to biting me. It was easy. He made me feel sensations I didn’t know I could.

Things happened that had never before. Words left my mouth I had never uttered. Words that came across as demands from a person who knew their way around the bed.

But he proved I did not. He showed me exactly what excitement from another person’s body could be.

He showed me what it meant to have someone make love to you. When he was finished, and we lay in a heap of sweat and smiles, I felt like he loved me, like he needed me.

He kissed my shoulder, pausing and pressing his lips in. “I don't think a week is long enough.”

I shook my head. “No. I don't want to leave this room—ever.”

He laughed into my skin. “When you change into a wolf, we will both want you to leave this room.”

The reality of it hit me like a ton of bricks. I closed my eyes and nestled into him. “Then we had better enjoy this week, Briton.” I was instantly scared of what I had done. I had bitten off more than I could chew, as my mother always said.

He crawled up the bed to lay alongside me and leaned in, laying a soft kiss on my lips. He hovered there, whispering, “Never was there a kiss destined to such an end.”

He was always saying the thing I was thinking, before I even realized I had thought it.

Chapter Seventeen

Briton

He beheld her for one more moment before leaving through the balcony doors and jumping down onto the grass.

He was across the grass when he noticed a silhouette across the road. He narrowed his gaze, startled by who it was. “Out for a stroll?” he asked.

Miles chuckled from under the bush. “I was hoping to catch you before you headed for the grove. I assumed your father had caught our conversation.” Briton stalked over to the old man and offered him his arm. Miles took it and glanced back at the house. “My dear boy, you are barking up the wrong skirt, literally barking.”

Briton looked back at the mansion and smiled. “I know it. But I have decided to let us have the week before she changes. I need her. I love her, and if I can’t have her forever, then I shall have to squeeze a lifetime into the time we have.”

“You will not be able to break it off.”

Briton ached inside. “The fortunate part of that is that she will become my natural enemy. We will despise one another and have no choice but to break it off.”

“Then why are you torturing yourself with this?”

“Because, dear Miles, I could spend my life watching her and wondering. Or I could let myself have this week with her and convince myself it is enough. Either way, I will spend the rest of my days thinking of her. At least this way I have something to fill my thoughts.” His words were broken and pained, like his unbeating heart.

Miles wrapped an arm around him. “I am sorry, son. It is a tragedy that the girl you finally fell for is something you can’t ever have.”

Briton shook his head, taking in a deep breath of the cool night air. “No. Tragedy would be always wondering. This way I know. I love her, Miles. As unlikely as that is, it is the truth. She is what the people of our village would call a ‘shadow love.’ She is the other half of me—one of us is the good and one is the bad. Like twins, we are the same. We will always find each other, no matter the length of time we spend apart. I have ruined the shadow love for us though by never dying and being reborn.”

Miles snorted. “That is a load of horseshit, if I ever heard one.”

They both laughed, though Briton didn’t feel like laughing. He was stuck in the feel of her silky skin against his, the taste of her neck on his lips, and the smell of her hair as she draped it over him. He was stuck in the way that when he closed his eyes and held tightly to her, they were one.

He had seen shadow love his entire life. His father and mother had it. It was dangerous. It was love you died for, but you killed for it too. Briton already could feel the stain of it tainting his love for his family. They were an obstacle in his way to her.

“So one week?”

“Roughly one week.” The words tasted badly, like a dirty lie.

Miles didn’t look convinced. “Where will you go?”

Briton shook his head. “I don’t know. Go find my brothers. I won’t be able to stay here.”

“You won’t mind if I stay though?”

He wrapped his arm around the old man. “No. You need this place. I hear Dr. Daniels is far too qualified to have the job he does. You’re in good hands.”

Miles gave him a look, blurting out the oddest sentence, “Your brother Gunnar murdered a whole family, not just those girls that had gone missing. That’s why the witches called the hunters. They knew their magic couldn’t kill one of you born vampires. So they called the hunters and laid the traps.”

Briton stopped, mid-thought and step. He grimaced. “Are you certain?”

Miles nodded. “I am. There were children involved and things too horrific to speak of. He snapped, and there was no going back for him. Your father defended him to the death, for your mother.”

“My father let him live? But the hunters came because of Gunnar’s actions. My father knew this? How many of the other vampires and wolves died at the hands of the hunters, fighting to protect my brother? How many deaths lay at my father’s feet?”

Miles grimaced. “Over one hundred. The bitten died first, dragged from their houses into the sunlight when the hunters arrived, but you know that part. The few born who had been here were those that died from the poisons the hunters carry, along with whatever wolves hadn’t been saved. The witches lowered the guards, warning the wolves of it. Some agreed with killing off the vampires, others did not. The ones who believed the vampires were being treated unfairly—we never warned them because we were scared they would tell your parents. I didn’t know the witches intended for your parents to hear of it. The plan was to trap your family. I didn’t know that plan existed. I assumed they would die in the fight, and I would save you.”

Briton didn’t have a response to it. He felt sick, and yet, he couldn’t believe his father would defend Gunnar’s actions. He shook his head. “He will want revenge against the witches. You have to get them out of here.”

“Where will they go? He can find them anywhere. No, it is he that must leave.”

“But he won’t, Miles. He won’t go anywhere until he feels like he is vindicated. I have watched him for two thousand years, and he hasn’t evolved in that way. He is still the barbaric Norseman he always was. Yes, he controls the blood lust but his temper is what it has always been.” Briton sighed. He didn’t want these troubles. He wanted to enjoy his week with the girl he loved.

“Then he must go back inside of the box. It is the only way.”

The thought of it was worse than any other. He couldn’t imagine stuffing his parents back into the coffins. When could they ever come out again? They would always want revenge. They would always be savages. His brothers would free them. They would never understand. If they had defended Gunnar, no one was safe from their insanity. How had he been such a fool?

They walked to Betsy’s small house, just a few blocks over from Briton’s. The old man crossed the road. “Think on what I said, dear boy.”

Briton waved and walked to his house.

He tried to force his brain to bounce back to Liv, but it was stuck on replay, rehashing his family’s problems.

When he got inside of the house, his mother smiled at him from her chair. He walked to her, feeling the heavy weight of the baggage of his family overwhelming him.

“What is that look on your face?”

He relaxed into the chair, closing his eyes. “I am in love, Mother.” It was the easier thing to confess.

She hugged him tightly, whispering into his ear, “Tell no one. Your father is planning something. He believes you are against us.”

Briton turned sharply to look into her dark eyes. She nodded very subtly.

“I would never.”

Her face softened. “I know that. But he is paranoid. Someone betrayed him.”

“Perhaps because he let Gunnar savagely murder that entire family.”

Her eyes darkened. “How do you know about that?”

“A lot of time has passed, old stories have a way of coming back to haunt you.”

“I know. He wasn’t right in the head. Something was wrong. He was a sweet boy. Your father believed the witches had done something to him, to make him that way.” Her voice was nearly inaudible.

“Really? The witches would do that?” he asked, confused on what to believe.

She nodded.

He got up from the couch. “Goodnight, Mother. Sleep well.” He said it knowing she wouldn’t. She never did.

“Goodnight, my love.”

He turned and walked from the room. His brain was working double overtime to rationalize the accusations that had all come about. It didn’t matter who was right or who was wrong; what mattered was who was going to start the next war.

He had a horrid feeling he was a pawn in it all, but he didn’t know who was moving the pieces on the board, or why.

Chapter Eighteen

Liv

I was in a constant state of jittery angst. He was like a form of meth, and I was the addict. I couldn't lose the shakes I got when he was gone. My brain ran different types of scenarios constantly, desperate to find ways to be with him or obsessed with where he was. It was unhealthy, but like any crackhead, I kept whispering to myself, one more hit. I could see it was getting to a dark and dangerous point when I noticed my new substitute teacher was talking, but I didn't understand him. He asked how I felt about the story we were reading. I looked down at my book, but my eyes fuzzed out. I had an answer, but I wasn’t sure it was the right one. I wasn’t sure what we were reading so I answered, “I think that one week is long enough to fall in love.”

My eyes cleared from the haze and my brain started to function again. I had been thinking about him—when I was going to see him again. I looked up after a moment of quiet to see the disgruntled face of Mr. Barnes, my history teacher. When had I arrived in this class? I looked around. Josh was smiling and Liz looked worried. The class sat quiet, staring at me. Only Liz understood my demons. Liz, with her grey eyes hiding the fear roaming inside of her.

“That is a fascinating opinion, one I suggest you hang on to for creative writing. Now, if you will answer the question I asked about China’s percentage of atheists and why there are so many. Answer that, and we can continue on with our class.”

I gave him a blank stare. He pushed his glasses up and waited.

I licked my lips and nodded. “Because when they became a communist country, the leader of the party forbid its members to belong to a church and practice religion. They promote atheism.” I was talking out of my ass. I saw naked skin writhing against more naked skin. I saw dark eyes that pierced my soul. I saw things that made me blush. I didn’t even remember the day. I didn’t recall how I had gotten to school.

“I guess that will do. Pay attention, this will be on the test.” He sighed. “The percentage is thought to be as high as fifty-eight percent. Moving on.”

He started to become a constant sound again, but I tried to remain alert. My face was bright red and the eyes around the room continuously darted back to me. Liz leaned over and whispered, “That was decent.”

“I read about it three days ago, I barely remember it. I seriously thought I was in lit.”

She rolled her eyes.

Josh whispered from the other side of me, “I need to talk to you after this, k?”

“Yup.”

When class ended I left quickly, waiting for Josh outside. He looked different, worried maybe. “Is there something going on?”

I opened my mouth but nothing came out. How did I tell him I knew I was a freak and in terrible danger of falling in a scary kind of love with another freak? I closed my mouth. He grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hallway, whispering into my ear, “I know what you are. I’ve known for a while. Judith told me to make sure I made you comfortable at school. You look weird today. What happened? Did you change yet?”

I shook my head, grateful he knew everything. At least someone did. “No. My eyes keep glowing, and I can hear and see shit I shouldn’t be able to. But that’s it.”

He wrapped an arm around me. “Pretty soon we’ll be running free and then nothing will matter.”

I snuggled into him, smiling at the fact I wasn’t alone. I wondered how much he really knew. “Do you know the other ones like us?”

He looked down on me, I could see he did. “Do you?”

“Yeah. I met some.”

He steered me down a hall where no one else was and stopped. “They ran them all out of town a long time ago. Made them leave the haven so they didn’t bring the hunters down on us. They can’t control themselves the way we can. I don’t know any, but Briton Thorlackson is apparently one. His dad was one of the cursed.”

“They’re all back. The Thorlacksons are all back.”

His eyes widened. “You sure?”

“I watched Liz bring them back, Briton made her do it.” I stopped myself from saying anymore. I wasn’t certain if I was betraying Briton or not. It felt fine to tell Josh, but what if it wasn’t?

He cocked an eyebrow. “Wow. Where were they?”

“In a cave. The witches hid them there to protect them from the hunters.” I needed to shut it down. I needed to stop before I let too much out of the bag I might have been meant to keep sealed.

“Then of course the witches died in the fire, sealing the vampires in there for good. Yikes. That Thorlackson is going to be pissed. I heard they were the better of the vampires. The bitten are the worst, out of control completely.”

I wriggled my lips, hesitating but then needing the answer. “Can they bite us?”

He shook his head. “No. We are something called shadow twins. Like yin and yang. We complete each other. It’s kind of like one can’t kill the other, and one can’t live without the other, and yet, they don’t like each other. They are never attracted to each other and they struggle to be friends, but can never be enemies. It’s weird, like the curse really was a curse. We are brothers and one of us is light and the other dark. That’s how it was explained to me anyway.”

“Who is your dad?”

“Colin Michaels. He was cousins with cousins of the Michaels who live here. He showed up one day, left me with Jamie and took off.”

My jaw dropped. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head. “Meh, whatever. I like it here. I like Uncle Jamie, he’s a cool guy. He’s the leader of the pack, so it’s cool to be his son for all intents and purposes. My dad would actually have been the leader of the pack, but he didn’t want the right. We think he stays wolf all the time, doesn’t want kids.”

I reached out, putting my hand on his arm. “I am so sorry. What about your mom?”

His eyes twinkled when he answered, “The moms don’t make it unless they are one of the born.” His face lifted, his jaw setting in an odd way. I could see he was looking past me. I turned to see Briton standing in the hallway, staring at us. His eyes were focused on my hand resting on Josh’s arm. I let it drop, “Hey.”

He cocked an eyebrow. The look on his face was weird, but the rest of him made me remember a thousand dirty things from the night before. I felt myself blushing, my heart beating faster. It all sort of stopped when I felt Josh’s chest puff out slightly, pressing against me a little bit. I hadn’t realized how close we were.

The tension was ridiculous.

I smiled at Josh. “See ya tomorrow?”

He nodded, still looking stoic and hardened.

When I walked over to Briton, I noticed his stare was still stuck on Josh. I rolled my eyes. “I don’t even want to know what that was.” I looped my arm into his and led him away from the quiet hallway. We left from a side door. He still looked annoyed. It was sort of sexy to see him so pissed—sexy because all I could think about was sex. I nudged him when we got outside. “What are you doing here?” I wanted a sexy answer, like he couldn’t wait to see me and was as obsessed as I was.

Instead, he glanced back at the hallway through the window and muttered, “You started the auditions for who will fill my spot when the week is up?”

My jaw dropped. “Excuse you?”

His dark eyes glowed like there might be a hint of red in them. I reached up and held his cheeks with both my hands, cupping his face. “Go screw yourself.” I turned and walked back into the school, fast. I could hear his footsteps behind me, but I headed right for the busiest spot in the hallway and turned for my locker. Liz stopped dead in her tracks to come and see me. The smile faded from her face.

I could see her reliving every second in the cave. She started to tremble. I walked over and wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her to the girls’ bathroom.

She splashed water on her face, staring into her silver eyes and muttering, “I keep having nightmares about him. At least my mom said I can’t become one of them. My blood blocks the venom.” The door burst open. Liz screamed when she saw Briton, but he acted so quickly I barely caught his movements. Suddenly he was there, pressing his face to Liz’s. He whispered to her, “You remember nothing from the cave. You remember me as a teacher and nothing more. You recall nothing about the whole evening. You and Liv went to a party. It was fun. You drank too much and have decided to forgo alcohol from now on.” He stepped back. I could see she was lost.

“What did you just do?”

He flashed a glare at me. “I will wait for you outside. Be fast.” He left the washroom as quickly as he had come in.

Liz scowled. “What happened? What was I saying? Dude, I think I’m still hung over.”

My jaw dropped again. At this rate I wasn’t going to have a jaw soon. It was just going to fall off. “Uhm . . . we . . . we were talking about history class. It was so crazy today.”

She cocked an eyebrow, giving me a confused look. “Yeah, crazy boring. So are we still on for this weekend?”

I racked my brain for the plans we had made. Of course. We had discussed it this morning. I nodded. “Yeah, wait. No. I have plans. I forgot.” Or did I? No, I did. He might be crazy weird, but he was my crazy weird. And I only had a week of his weirdness and mad sex skills before I would turn, and he would become the enemy.

She scowled. “You promised.”

“I know, I’m sorry. But starting next week, I have nothing but free time.”

She pointed a black fingernail at me. “You better.”

“I will, I swear. Jeesh. So crabby.”

She rolled her eyes. We walked out of the bathroom and then the school. True to his word, he was standing at the foot of the steps, still glaring at me. My stomach dropped. I smiled at Liz, trying to be nonchalant. “My friend is here to meet me.”

She looked over. “You’re friends with Mr. Thorlackson? Dude. He is hot. Can I be friends with him too?”

I laughed and nodded. “I’ll let you know.”

“Well, I want details at the very least.”

I shouldered my bag and muttered, “I’ll text you later.”

“Use a meme creator first, so my details have pictures.”

I laughed harder and walked down the steps.

He wasn’t laughing. He was pissed. That sort of made me pissed. He assumed something from what he saw. I could feel my back hair getting up. I strolled over, feeling less and less of the strange thing that tied us together, like the magnetism was dying off. When I got close enough, I stopped. “He was telling me about his dead mom and dad who abandoned him. Just so you know what we were talking about in the hallway—why I was touching his arm. It’s called soothing and most people do it when the person they’re talking to is troubled or sad.”

He didn’t move. He was going to be one of those people, I could tell. He wasn’t going to tell me how sorry he was or try to understand. He was going to be a dick about it, like his jealousy was completely justified.

But he surprised me when he nodded. “I’m sorry. That was an asinine thing to do.” He flashed me that smile and everything was back. I liked that he wasn’t what I had assumed.

I smiled back. “It was, but I’m glad you came to see me. Now, can you tell me the reason for coming to see me? I did ask that but you got all mean and surly. I thought we were supposed to be discreet?”

He took my hand in his, laughing and walking in amongst the sidewalks filled with kids. We blended, truth be told.

He slid a hand up my arm and pulled my tote bag off, carrying it for me. With his other hand he delicately stroked my fingers. “I knew school was ending, and I hoped you wanted to see me as badly as I wanted to see you.” It made me grin but then he muttered, “I don’t recognize myself when I’m with you. It’s like I close off the man I am and somehow, magically I become the man I want to be. Even if this can’t last, I will always have that. I will always remember being enough and being loved and loving back.”

And there it was. There was the thing I needed to hear. My changes were coming, I could feel myself losing him, but then he would say something like that, and I would remember it all. All of the love and the passion that we would squeak into the week or so we had, it would have to fuel a lifetime.

He gave me a sideways glance. “To the apartment?”

I smiled. “No. I think that your bad behavior has cost you.”

He laughed. “I could make you go there.”

“No, you couldn’t.”

His smile turned childish. He nodded. “You should probably run. You’ll need the head start.”

I gasped. “I’m wearing heels. I can’t run. They’re Jimmy Choos.”

He opened the zipper on my tote bag and held it open. I wanted to think he was joking, but his lip was toying with a grin. He wasn’t kidding. I narrowed my gaze and slipped my shoes off, dropping them into the bag. “How long is my head start?”

“I’ll count to a hundred.”

“No way! Two hundred.”

“Hurry up!” He closed his eyes.

I almost screamed, turning and running as fast as I could in the opposite direction from the apartment. What he didn’t realize was that I was a fast runner. I ducked through yards, jumped fences and hid in a bush, when I figured I was far enough. I had always been a soccer star. I was a champ at sports. The whole wolf genes were probably to blame but whatever.

I sat there, holding my breath.

Hands grabbed me from inside of the bush, lifting me high in the air. I did scream, but his hand slipped across my lips. He kissed my cheek. “Guess we are going to play things my way.”

I struggled but it was no use.

Chapter Nineteen

Briton

They had done everything he could imagine, and yet, he wasn’t sated. He wanted more. He was always going to want more. She was like a fountain that didn’t quench thirst.

She looked down at their hands, where she was drawing patterns in his palm, making it itchy. “Your family doesn’t seem very popular for founding the town.”

He chuckled and looked at her lips, lost in how they felt against his. “We are not. There is a lot of history here.” He glanced down on her. “Do you know it?”

“No.” She shook her head. He had a feeling she was lying, her loyalty already attached to the wolves. It hurt a little. She continued, “I thought my dad hardly knew Judith when he married her. He had made it sound like he hoped she would live in Chicago with us, but the timing was perfect for him to move here. A practice came up for sale. So my ‘over-qualified for the job’ surgeon father bought a family practice here in bumpkinville.”

“Odd thing to do.”

“Very odd thing. Turns out he knew what I was all along. My mom was a wolf who got sick with lupus. So he married Judith and they brought me here, to help me. Why are you back here? I mean, besides your family being here, but you never knew they were.”

“No. I had no idea they were alive. I don’t know why I came back. I have been traveling a long time. I just needed to come home,” he sighed. “I needed to rest. We never rest away from here. We live like survivors. It’s unsettling and the body tires of being on edge and alert at all times. And once upon a time, this was home. It was the last place I was really happy.” He spoke in a way it made him uneasy, like he had to keep talking. He smiled. “Tell me something you don't want to.”

Her eyes widened. Whatever it was, she didn't want to say, but she knew it instantly. He could see her second-guessing herself. She opened her mouth, still thinking about answering and then said it. He could tell it was what she wanted to say because her eyes left his, like she was ashamed. “I love you.”

His dead heart burst inside of himself. She loved him. She had not wanted to say it, but it was her sad truth. He couldn't fight the look that crossed his face. She started to laugh. “You asked.”

“It’s not that I didn't want to hear that—I did. But I didn't want that to be the thing you didn't want to say.” He leaned forward, laying a soft kiss on her pouting bottom lip. “I want you to say it.”

“For a whole week?”

Her bitterness made him smile wider. “This week will become my whole life. So yes, for a whole week I want to hear you say you love me.”

Her eyes relaxed and she smiled wider than he had seen her since the whole monster revelation. “Then I love you, Briton.”

He wrapped himself around her but something happened. She trembled, like she was fighting something and moaned, clutching her stomach.

He had seen it before.

Sweat broke out on her skin instantly, as she writhed. It lasted a moment, leaving her breathless and still. Panic filled him. “Has that happened before?”

She shook her head.

He got up. “I’ll get you some water.” When he came back she was pale. He sat on the edge of the bed and passed it to her.

She sipped the water, shaking her head. “It’s starting, isn’t it?”

He nodded.

“What was it like when you changed?” The trembling stopped, but she was still glowing from the cold sweat.

“It hurt so much, I can’t even remember because my brain won’t let me. There was fire and ice and bones breaking and skin ripping, and yet, there was nothing. I cried and screamed and eventually just lay on the ground and waited to die.”

She sat in horror, staring at him and then burst into a fit of laughter. “Don't sugarcoat it for me or anything.”

He couldn't believe he had said that. “Forgive me. I’m sure it’s different for wolves. I’m sure I’ve heard that.” He was lying. He hated how much pain she would be in until the final change. It was much worse for wolves.

She gripped to the glass, looking lost in the water.

“It feels real for the first time, doesn't it?”

A slow and faint smile crept across her lips. “It does,” her voice was hollow.

“When I changed, I was hunting with a group of men from the village we were living in. I wasn't with anyone from my family. I had to remain completely silent as my body started to break down. It never felt real to me until that moment.” He got up and sat next to her, wrapping himself around her again. He kissed her head, savoring the smell of her.

She leaned back into him. “I keep thinking it’s some kind of nightmare.”

“But then we would be part of that nightmare.”

She turned and looked back. “But I have a feeling that no matter what happens, we would find each other.”

“We did this time.”

She looked confused but he didn't elaborate. He didn't want to scare her off with the soul mate thing. It was weird for him and he had grown up with the idea of it. He couldn't help but wonder how many times she had been born, looking for him. How many lives had she lived without true love? He had ruined it all by being born as a vampire. Had he been a man, they might have had a hundred lives together already. He held her tightly, trying not to think about the cruel fate that they were being dealt. They had finally found each other and they had a week, maybe two before they would become naturally unable to love each other.

He tried not to dwell but he could feel it eating at him.

Chapter Twenty

Liv

I sat on the floor of the shower with the hot steam and water pouring down on me. Even with my legs pulled in around me, the cramps were brutal. It felt like hot pokers were moving around inside of me.

I shuddered from the pain, wincing and gagging.

It was the weirdest thing.

While the pain ate at my insides, my heart was still soaring thinking about the night before with Briton. Every stabbing pain and fiery jerk was fought with a memory of his smile or the way his hands felt when he gripped to me, like he was desperate to touch all of me.

I heaved again, accidentally letting a scream slip from my lips.

“Liv, why didn't you tell me these were coming?” Judith ran into my bathroom, pulling open the shower door and scooping me up in a towel, like I was a naked five-year-old. She was freaking strong. I didn't even care that she was holding me in the air, cradling me. My body was trying to rip apart. A second scream tore from me. She carried me to the bed, rocking me and kissing my forehead. “It’s okay, Liv. This is completely normal, just the first time. Then it gets easier. You just need to change. I think you’re a couple days away.”

The fit of pain passed as she said it. I lay there limp and exhausted, completely uncaring about her bare arms wrapped around my nearly bare body. I twitched, like my body was remembering the pain.

She lifted me, laying me back on my bed and tucked me in my sheets. I closed my eyes, and in a haze that resembled sleep, I could swear I saw Briton. He was standing at the foot of the bed and then he was lying with me. I could smell him and feel him around me. It made me feel safer. The pain never came again.

When I woke I had the feeling he was still there, but Judith was in my room. She was leaning against the bedpost, watching me wake up. My dad was sitting on the bed next to me. He rubbed his hand on my foot. “How are you feeling?”

I tried to assess the damage and exhaustion, but I wanted to go back to sleep. I moaned and rolled over.

“Liv, we need to talk.” He sounded serious. I knew what it was. I glanced back at him, waiting for it.

He looked at Judith and then sighed. “We know about you and the Thorlackson kid. We know you and he have been meeting. Josh mentioned it to his uncle.”

I nodded. “I have a week to be a normal kid before I turn into a man-eating savage wolf. Don't worry Dad, he won’t be my type much longer.” Judith snorted.

My dad looked confused. “Why?”

“Because he’s one of the other kind, not a wolf.” Judith grabbed his arm and nodded. “She’ll be fine.”

My dad’s face was drawn. I nodded. “I’ll be fine, Dad. Mom lived through it and so did Judith. I just need that first change.”

“You’re just taking it all so well.”

Judith smiled. “Honey, that's just who we are. We know on a cellular level. Wolves who don’t know what they are usually take the news well. It helps that she has a distraction.”

I grinned. “We weren’t very discreet.”

“This is why we told you not to see him. We knew when you changed, it would be over. We didn't want him to break your heart, sweetie.”

Pulling the covers closer to my face, I closed my eyes and moaned. “I want more sleep.”

I heard Judith say softly “It’s normal. We sleep a lot, plus she’s a teenager.” The love in her voice when she spoke to my dad made me feel better. At least he wasn't sitting in an apartment in Chicago worried sick and alone.

When the door closed again, I smiled. “How do you hide from her super senses?”

He lay down on the bed again. “I don't. She knows I’m here. I’m hiding from your dad’s not-so-super senses.”

I opened an eye to see his worried face. “I honestly thought she hated you.”

“We should have probably clued in that you weren’t just a shoe-obsessed girl when they forbid us to see each other.”

I snuggled into him, surprised by the shocking cold of his skin. “Get under the covers, you’re freezing.”

He shook his head. “You’re burning up. I’m still regular old me. You, however, are running a very high fever.”

I winced. “That's why I feel like death. I just thought it was ‘cause my body hates me.”

He kissed my neck, mumbling, “I love your body and I have a sneaky suspicion it loves me too!”

It made me smile. He made me smile.

“Liz came by to see you again. She’s really worried. Your dad keeps telling her you have the flu, but I suspect her mother has told her everything.”

I cringed. “Great. Now she’ll know I’m a freak—like you.”

“Hey! Leave me out of that, you’re your own special kind of freak. I’m nothing like you.”

“You’re worse.” I laughed when I said it.

We lay there in each other’s arms, spending every moment we had left.

But we had less than we thought.

He was asleep, something I had learned was more like being in a coma, when something changed inside of me. It was the strangest feeling.

My eyes fuzzed out for a moment, and when they cleared, I couldn't see the things I had liked about him before—even loved. His olive skin seemed unattractive and the way his lip stuck out slightly from his fangs didn’t make me want to suck it like it had before. Nothing was the way it had been. He was just a guy and no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't see him like I had. I remembered it—I remembered how he made me feel. I remembered how in love I was, but I couldn't reach it.

I couldn't fight the desire to be away from him. The night air was calling me.

It had been nine days since the ball. It felt like a lifetime.

I understood exactly why Judith had warned me against him. He had made a hole in my heart. I loved him, there was no doubt, but I couldn't feel it. It was like my brain had shut it off. I knew it was there. I knew it was, I could remember it clearer than anything.

I got up to take a shower, actually to hide in the shower.

There was a fear inside of me that I couldn't escape from. I didn't know if I would ever feel anything again.

He walked into the bathroom, pulling the door open and climbing in. He saw it instantly. His eyes burned and his lips pressed together. “It’s happening, isn’t it?”

I nodded.

He sat down next to me, like we were sitting in the rain. “It isn’t happening to me. I can’t see you any differently. You’re still you. I still love you more than any single thing in the world.”

Tears started to fall from my eyes. I hated the loss of my love. “I think I gave you my heart and when I change, you will keep it.”

He wiped my tears. “I will take care of it, always.”

It made me cry harder. “I am losing you and you are right here.”

He pulled me into his lap and held me, letting me cry about not loving him anymore. He wasn't petty or angry like I would have been. He just let me be who I was, asking for nothing in return. It made everything hurt more.

Chapter Twenty-One

Briton

He might not have had a heartbeat, but whatever lie inside of his stone chest was completely broken. She had ruined him. One week was all it took to destroy a man made to last forever.

He couldn't regret it. What kind of person regretted fulfilling the one thing on earth they were meant to do? He had a soul mate, which meant he had a soul. She was the light and he was the dark of the shadow twins they were.

He walked away from the house, fully knowing he wouldn't be back except that night. They had agreed to go to the Halloween party together. It would be the last time they would be together, in that way.

His body ached, his brain screamed, and his heart wished he would turn around and find a way back to her. There had to be something they could do. There had to be a way.

His feet led him to the doorstep of the Whitburn house. He looked up at the old door, not needing to knock. She answered, giving him a miserable stare. “You fell in love?”

He swallowed hard, not speaking. He didn't need to. She was a witch.

“You realize what this means, right?”

He shook his head.

“You are the shadow twins, the soul mates of your kind. You are meant to break the curse between your kind.” She stepped back, holding a hand out. “You are welcome in my home, Nicolai Thorlackson.”

The barrier that protected her home allowed him to pass. He walked into the old kitchen. It smelled the same as it always had when he had been there in the younger years of Wolfville. He sat at her table before she offered it.

“She is a special girl, Nicolai. Very special.”

He gave her a confused look. “Please, call me Briton.”

Her eyes twinkled. “Your mother named you Briton because you are the bright one? That’s sweet.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, nothing quite like an ironic name.”

“Ironic?”

“I’m a murderous vampire. I hardly think I suit the name.” His eyes burned.

Liz’s mom laughed. “I see. Sometimes the thing we see in ourselves contradicts the thing others see in us. Call me Ellie. It’s my mom’s special name for me.” She sat at the table with him. “Can I see your hand?”

He didn’t trust her, but she was probably the only person in the world who he could. He reached his hand across against the better judgment of his stomach. When she touched him, their hands sparked. She winced. “When was the last time you fed, Briton?”

He narrowed his gaze. It had been the bartender at the ball. “Ten days.”

“You have been feeding off of her, just not with blood. Emotional vampirism is the worst kind.”

“I haven’t done anything of the sort.”

Her eyes lifted, giving him a silver stare filled with doubt. “You haven’t noticed your hunger has subsided?”

“I guess.”

“Love is a form of food. Don’t kid yourself on that one.” She sighed and closed her eyes, massaging his palm with her skinny thumbs. She paused. “Do you know your future?”

“No.”

“Do you want to know?”

He contemplated for only half a second. “No.” he didn’t want to know how much he would hurt when she was ripped from his heart and became a wolf.

“Why did you come?”

He ached but forced the words from his lips. “I need to know the truth of what happened to my family.”

A sly grin crossed her lips though she didn’t open her eyes. “You assume they were the victims in it all?”

“I do not.”

“Clear your mind, let me in. I can show you everything. I have some of her blood left.” She got up and grabbed a jar from a shelf. She sprinkled a brown powder on his palm. Immediately, he caught a hint of the rusty smell. It had once been blood. She cut into his hand, mixing his blood with the dried blood. Then she spit into his palm and rubbed the blood in, then offered him a bright-eyed smile. “You ready?”

He nodded, almost scared of what he had asked for. She pressed her thumb into his hand.

Instantly, he was transported.

He stood outside of a house, muffled screams filled the cold air around him. He looked around. They were on a farm somewhere in town. It took him a second to understand where he was.

Something pulled him through the house’s outer walls and inside to a warm room. His brother, Gunnar, stood before him. He looked drunk, the way he swayed standing still. A repulsive smile owned his pale face. He looked gruesome. Even in that state, seeing him made Briton miss him. They had been the closest at one point. Gunnar staggered towards a trembling woman, standing in the corner of the small room. A man, clearly her husband, was tied to the staircase with rope. He struggled, sobbing into the cloth tied around his face.

Gunnar smiled at the man as he used his fingers to slash the nightgown off the woman. She sobbed, not moving. She must have been compelled.

Gunnar moved closer to her but Briton looked away. He forced his look to stay on the face of the man as the woman’s screams filled the air.

The man screamed with and for his wife.

The movement of small children was what caught Briton’s eyes. He winced, forcing himself to walk from the room to the children. They held each other, rocking on the floor. Two small boys. He knew their fate, he wanted out of the murderous dreamland the witch had put him in, but he couldn’t get out. He was stuck there until it was done. Until every inch of the house was covered in its occupants blood and his brother was passed out on the floor.

He had never seen a vampire react that way. He had never seen a family murdered. He had heard it happened. The vampire in question was always put to death. Always.

He wondered if he was stuck there, trapped in the house with his brother’s snoring and the dripping sound of blood falling from chairs and windows and the ceiling.

But the door opened. The old witch came in. Her jaw dropped as her legs buckled. She scrambled to get to the room with the boys. It all happened so slowly. She dropped to the ground in front of them, lifting their limp, bloody bodies into her arms. Tears flooded her face that was twisted in agony.

They must have been her family or close friends.

He felt hot tears streaming his cheeks.

The screams had been brutal. The sounds of the boys. The father dying last, being forced to watch it all.

Briton begged for the dream to end. But instead, he was pulled to a spot in the forest. He stood next to a much younger Miles. He was waiting for someone. He glanced at his pocket watch. A sound broke in the forest—footsteps. Miles’ back straightened. He looked scared. When Briton saw the wolf, he started to panic for Miles but the wolf shifted right there. Becoming a man Briton recognized, Samuel Michaels, Jamie’s father.

He walked, stark naked to where Miles stood.

His lips moved slowly. “Gunnar Thorlackson has murdered the old witch’s brother and his family, your uncle and cousins.”

Miles’ face paled. “The boys?”

Samuel shook his head. “All dead. Your mother wants her revenge.”

“What is Thorlack doing to give her the justice she seeks?”

Samuel shook his head. “Nothing. He is preparing to whisk his family away. His solution is to leave town and take the boys back to the homeland.”

Miles sat quiet for a moment before saying, “You want to help my mother, stay on her good side? You would throw Thorlack and his family and the vampires to the wolves, so to speak, for the love of the old witch?”

Samuel nodded, looking fierce.

“The other boys have committed no offense. Maria and the boys are innocent in this.”

Samuel’s look didn’t change. “She and the boys must be part of the trap. Otherwise Thorlack will suspect. The only way it works is if they are all part of the plan. The witch has a good plan. It will work.”

“Nicolai must be spared of this. You know of the prophecy.”

Samuel nodded. “I know. That’s why I’m telling you. Your mother sent me to tell you that you must get him out of here and never come back. The witch has called for the hunters. She will lower the guard and glamour, telling the Thorlacksons that Gunnar’s wicked deed made it impossible for her to maintain it, and we are all threatened by the evil he has done. We will say he is in the farmhouse about to be burned. The witch will tell Thorlackson she cannot conceal him and his family with the wolves in the barrier she is making to protect everyone from the coming hunter invasion. The invasion that his son’s evil has brought down upon us. She has a plan for him and his family. It will rid us all of them. The bitten that hide here in Wolfville will be slaughtered by the hunters. We will say they died defending Gunnar in the farmhouse.”

Miles looked sick. “What a pretty package you have made this. Why do I feel as though you have some interest in the vampires being forced from Wolfville?”

Samuel laughed. “Of course I have an interest in that. The town is established, thriving and comfortable. But rumors of what hide here have reached the ears of the hunters. They will come here either way—why not control how they come and why and when. This is for the best. The vampires who do not wish to fight will flee, leaving us alone. The witches will hide a large portion of the town with their glamour. The hunters will see what we want them to and nothing more. They will believe they have cleared a nest of vampires. That is all. We will be left in peace—wolves, witches, and the humans we love.”

Miles was defeated. Briton could see it. He swallowed whatever he was going to say, and instead, turned and walked away.

“Your only chance to save Briton is to comply,” Samuel shouted after him.

“I am well aware of that. I will do as you ask, but I will not be happy about it. I do not agree with this, nor rejoice in it. You are double-crossing the man who helped you build this. He is your brother in your curse, Samuel. You will regret the day you have done this.” He walked from the forest. Briton was confused. His brother certainly deserved the fate he was getting, but the remainder of this family did not. They had been betrayed by the witches and the wolves.

He was pulled from the dream, suddenly sitting in the kitchen again, feeling the dampness of his tears still on his cheeks. His eyes darted to Ellie. “Why? Why show me this?”

Her silver eyes glistened. She too had seen it all. “I fear there is more to this story that we do not know. We need the blood of one who was there. I can only show us what her blood mixed with yours will show. Images of your family. I need wolf blood to see the rest.”

“I can bring a wolf tonight.”

“Liv?”

He nodded.

Her eyes grew worrisome. “She is on the verge of a change. She is unsteady.”

“The moon is days away. I don’t think she will change before it.”

Ellie let his hand go and passed him a napkin. She wiped her own fingers, speaking softly, “You know she is special, right?”

“She is to me.”

“You are shadow twins.”

His stomach started to hurt again. “I know.”

“She has roamed the world searching for you. Being born again and again, trying to be born into the right life that would enable you two meeting. Do you know what happens to shadow twins when they meet each other?”

He frowned. “No.”

“They die. They have come full circle. They die together to be reborn together, finally whole.”

His insides burned. He shook his head. “That’s a lie.”

She leaned forward, taking his hand again. “It isn’t a lie. It’s the truth. There is a prophecy, you saw it in the vision. I know the prophecy. I can tell you if you ask me.”

He jerked free of her. “I DON’T WANT TO KNOW!” He got up and ran from the house. His traitorous legs carried him to Miles’ house. They wanted answers. He had been avoiding his own house. He stalked the font yard, not sure he should knock. He didn’t need to. Miles walked out the door. He looked sickly. Briton wanted to hate him for the lies but he knew why. Miles had been helpless in it all. Helpless and blameless, and he was dying now anyway.

“You’ve been to see the witch?”

Briton folded his arms across his chest. “Tell me it’s not true. Tell me you didn’t let them kill all those innocent people. You didn’t let me leave here, knowing full well what we left behind?”

Miles’ eyes glistened. “I am sorry, boy.”

Briton muttered, “Why did you spare me? Why did Samuel come to you to spare me?”

The look on his face went from sickly old man to something else completely. He appeared to be scared to say whatever the answer was. He licked his lips and finally spoke, “I have had one job since the day I was born—protect you.”

Briton nearly laughed, but he had a horrid feeling about the sentence, like there was some validity to it. He shivered, uncertain about the things going on inside of him.

Miles offered him a thin arm. Regardless of the fear and shock he was feeling, he took it, helping the old man walk down the road, like they were going for a Sunday stroll.

“The thing is, you were born special. When your mom told me she named you Bright One as your middle name, I knew then and there who you were.”

Briton was completely lost.

Miles cleared his throat. “The cursed were told something the day they changed. They remember very little of the events that transpired. Essentially, two Viking warships thought they were the rightful owners of Iceland. They felt they had discovered it. War broke out amongst the two parties. But the truth of the matter is that neither party discovered Iceland. It was a sacred place long before man walked the Earth in all his arrogance. The legends say it is the birthplace of Mother Earth and magic. All the fires there started life. The volcanoes are essentially the way into the Earth, direct line to her heart.”

Briton scoffed.

Miles spoke with a chuckle, “I’m not saying I believe it. I’m just saying it was what was once believed. A fog crept out into the fields where the battle was going on. The men were so distracted by the fighting, they didn’t notice it until it was too late. It crippled each man, dropping him to the ground. The men of one warship turned to wolves, right there in the fields. The other group of men sprang fangs as their beating hearts died away and turned to stone. Neither party knew what to do. They became two sides to the same coin, so to speak. The men ran, scared of the fog and the transformation they endured. It was a night of screaming and writhing in the field they would rather forget. Several tried to fight again, but the problem is when a wolf bites a vampire they both die. So these natural-born enemies can never be responsible for the demise of the other.”

Briton’s head jerked to look at Miles. “But Samuel killed . . .”

Miles nodded. “You will remember my warning I gave him. That he could never get away with the crime he was committing. Killing innocent vampires would come back to haunt him. You are brothers in this curse.”

The story suddenly stung Briton’s insides. “My father?”

He nodded. “Your father couldn’t be killed, not without the wolf who bit him dying also. My family used their magic to seal your family inside of the coffins. It was the only way to stop the war. War between vampires and wolves has many victims and rarely are they vampires and wolves.”

“Your family?”

“I am the son of a witch—the old witch who cast your parents into those coffins and helped me escape with you. The men in my family are never usually magical, not the way the women are. But when I was born on the blood moon, my mother prophesized in my lifetime that I would guard the bright one—the one who would bring balance to the brothers again. I have done everything I can to stay alive as long as possible, keeping you safe at all costs.”

Briton shivered when the words were spoken. He instantly doubted them, regardless of the fact it sounded true. It sounded real. It sounded like bad luck, bringing balance to the brothers. No good would come without something huge, a catalyst to make it happen.

Miles squeezed his arm. “Your mother called you Briton in front of me when I was a boy. Nicolai Briton Thorlackson. I honest to God thought she was saying bright one. I ran home and told my mother I had found you. My mother asked yours if that was your name. She was joyous and frightened when she discovered your name was indeed Nicolai Bright One.”

Briton laughed bitterly. “It was my Native Indian name.”

Miles chuckled. “It was the sign that the times would change. When your brother made war between the wolves and vampires a possibility, I wondered if that was the moment, but I knew that wouldn’t be it. I had to guard you. I had to get you out. I have prolonged my life as long as I could, but I fear I am dying, Briton. I am finally being freed.”

He shook his head. “No. You just need something to help you last longer.”

Miles patted his arm. “No, my boy. I need to let nature take her course. The tinctures aren’t working as well as they used to. My mother’s blood is in them. She gave it to me to heal me and keep me as young as I can be without becoming like you.”

Briton started to feel sick but Miles smiled and spoke with a weak voice, “This girl, she is your way to balance. I know it in my heart. When I realized what she was, I knew it. Now it’s time for you to know it. You need to know that you will love a wolf and save the world of vampires and wolves. She will be something special amongst them. Just as you have always been something special amongst your kind.”

Briton felt his body tighten, holding himself back from the fears lingering inside. “Please Miles, you can’t leave me here alone. I know I’m not like them. I know I’m different. Even when we were boys, I knew. Finn is a ladies’ man of the worst sort. Ragnar is so cocky. I think he has a touch of cruelty in him. Leif is reckless to a fault. Simon does whatever Leif says, making him also reckless. They are jokers and careless.”

“They are good boys. They would never have done what Gunnar did. They would never agree with him living. Anyone who knew agreed he had to die. He was a rabid dog with a taste for innocent blood and a penchant for torture.”

Briton felt sick saying it, but it was true. “My father would have let Gunnar live. And even though he was my brother and I loved him, I wouldn’t. The moment I saw what he did to your family, I knew he must die for it. My father would have let him live back in the homeland. He would have made excuses for Gunnar’s behavior.”

Miles gripped his arm tightly. “But your brothers don’t know the story, they wouldn’t ever agree with him on that one. You must make them all see what has happened before your father uses them to make a war. The war is what started the curse, and I am afraid the war is what will kill them all. Whatever it was that was in the fog that cursed them, it made it so there wasn’t a man from either ship who could kill without being killed. It was trying to show them something.”

Briton couldn’t dispute the fact. It was true. Whatever had changed them had wanted the fighting to stop. “What do I do?”

“Show your brothers what you saw.”

“It will confirm the wolves were against us.”

Miles stopped. His face was pinched, like he was in pain. He spoke with a wince, “I can’t ask you to only show them what your brother did, they too lost nearly a hundred and sixty years. But I can ask that you hold back the rest of the story until you have to tell them that part. Your father is going to start a war. He is going to do things that won’t help either side.”

A spark of anger lit in Briton. “The wolves started this. They did something to make this all happen. Why am I back here? Why did Jamie take me to see my parents? What manipulations am I part of?”

Miles smiled but it looked bitter. “I don’t know the answer to that. You need his blood to see his side.”

Briton glanced at the fading light of the sun. “I need to go. The Halloween party starts soon. It’s my last night with her.” He walked Miles back to Betsy’s house. She was waiting on the porch when they got there.

“Good evening, Briton. How are you?”

He smiled and kissed her on the cheek. “Well, thank you. Take care of this old wind bag for me.”

She winked. “You always seem to get more wind out of him than I do.”

Briton hugged Miles. “Consider yourself lucky.”

Miles swatted at him. “Off you go, lad.”

He waved at them both and started towards her house. His head was filled with the haunted image from the past and the horrid truths that went with them. He couldn’t believe his life had changed so much in ten days.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Liv

The dress was tight, too tight. I felt bloated and gross. Liz walked into the room, her silver eyes shining with worry. “You look so pretty,” she said.

She looked pretty. I turned and smiled. “It’s the dress. You can’t go wrong with a small-town thrift store for barn-dance dresses.” In actuality, Judith had bought it online, but I didn’t want to seem like a spoilt brat. It was a great dress and the cowgirl boots fit perfectly.

Liz was in a grey sweater dress and boots. It made her eyes stand out. Her dark hair was glossy and her makeup was softer than normal.

I, however, was still sweaty and feeling like death. At least my black dress suited my mood. The design of the lace in the back made a huge skull across my entire back. It was sheer and evil looking. My hair was in a high ponytail, and I had large hoop earrings on.

It was perfect for the mood I was in—Judith was good.

“We ready then?”

I shook my head, feeling sick but knowing she needed to understand everything. “I just want to tell you what’s been going on.”

Her eyes shone more as words stumbled from her lips, “I know. My mom told me everything.”

I winced at the everything.

Liz walked to me, opening her arms and wrapping them around me. “I am so sorry this is happening to you.”

I fought my tears but relaxed into the embrace. “It’s happening to us both.”

Liz pulled back, giving a smile that didn’t match the sadness in her eyes. “At least we have each other.” She held her hand out and we walked out of the room together.

Briton was standing at the bottom of the stairs when we got to the stairwell. I instantly felt myself dread being near him. It was worse than any pain I had endured yet. My heart was his but it betrayed me. I felt Liz tighten. What was he even doing in my house?

“It’s okay. Your dad is fine with me being here. He knows everything.” Briton put his hands up.

My father was standing in the hallway near Briton. He didn’t look okay but he smiled. “You girls look wonderful.”

“Thanks, Dad. We’ll be home later.”

The look in his eyes spoke great lengths of his discomfort and worry. But Judith nodded and held his hand. “Have fun. We’ll have the phones nearby in case you need a ride.” All the warnings and advice and precautions were in that sentence.

Briton offered me his arm as I got to the bottom of the stairs. “I will be there for her to the end.”

Judith’s eyes glistened and her jaw set.

I didn’t know what that meant. Was she sad I was going out with Briton, or did she hurt for us and our predicament?

We walked out into the cool night air as a group of trick-or-treaters came rushing at the door.

I left my parents to deal with that, waving backwards as we left the yard. Liz stopped when we were on the road. “I need you to know, I remember everything.”

Briton winced.

She closed her eyes, trembling again in his presence. “I know why you did it and I don’t blame you. My mom told me who and what you are, to each other. I’m sorry for you both.”

I pressed my lips together, hating that everyone knew we couldn’t be together.

Briton pressed his lips into my head, laying them there for far longer than it took to kiss. He pulled back and sighed. “I am so sorry for what I did to you, Liz. I can never ask for your forgiveness.”

“You have it.”

He nodded. “Thank you.” He ran his hands along the bare lace on my back. It gave me chills, the good kind. I snuggled into him, suddenly able to reach my heart again. I looked up at the moon. It was half full. I was running out of time. I could feel its effect on me, but at last I could feel again.

When we started walking again, Briton whispered, “Would you two come with me to see Liz’s mom quickly before the party?”

I nodded. Liz looked apprehensive like she might have an idea as to what he was planning. My wolf brain instantly went for the negative, like he would murder us there.

I pushed it away.

When we got to the house, she was waiting for us. She smiled softly, giving me a look like I should know the meaning of the visit.

The house was lit up with candles; they were everywhere, pulling the air from our very mouths. It made it stuffy and stink of wax.

“Have a seat at the table. Palms in, face up.”

Briton and Liz sat and did as she asked without hesitation. I was more nervous. It felt like a trap.

I sat after a second and placed my hands on the table. She sat in the fourth chair and pulled out a long silver needle like I had never seen in my life, from a long black box. I pulled my hands back instantly. She laughed. “I will never hurt you, Liv. You must know that. I am bound by the rule, ‘Do what ye will, but harm none.’ I take it very seriously.”

Liz rolled her silver eyes at me. “Stop being such a baby.”

“What about the egg sandwiches?” I scowled and slid my hands back towards the middle. Briton chuckled.

“That’s a problem I have. When I feel something, I put it in the food. I was listening to a stand-up comedian when I was making them.” She pricked two of his fingers, Liz’s and her own. None of them even winced. I leaned forward more so she could prick mine. I, of course, winced but so did Briton when my blood filled the air.

She took our fingers and placed them so they touched the person next to us, blood to blood. It was not very sanitary. She closed her eyes. I didn’t want to close mine, but they shut on their own.

She said something, and I couldn’t smell the candles anymore.

I was lost in the fog.

I heard a scream, a man fell to the ground next to me. He was massive and covered in furs. His blood drained onto the field next to me. More screams filled the fog.

I tried to reach to get the bloody fingers into my grasp, but I was alone. Briton and Liz and her mom were gone. I was holding nothing but my own hand.

Another man screamed as a spear cut through his middle. I heard the juices of his body gush against the metal tip. It made me gag.

A woman screamed.

I ran toward her scream. She sounded like someone I knew.

Maybe it was Liz.

I ran past a man who was frozen, mid-throw. His spear still touching his fingertips, though he didn’t hold it. It too was frozen mid-air.

The woman screamed again.

I ran, tripping over the frozen dead and dodging the men still standing but not moving. Their faces locked in a fierce battle cry.

I stumbled blindly through the field of dead and frozen people, sobs pouring from my parted lips into the cold, thick fog.

Sobbing took the place of the screaming.

When I reached the crying woman, I was stunned still.

It was Liz, and yet it wasn’t and somehow I knew her, even in this form. Her dark hair was braided and tied up. Her face was tear stained and filthy. Her beauty was masked by sorrow and agony. Her silver eyes leaked silver tears as she cried over two bodies, also frozen to the ground. A blonde girl and a dark-haired man. She clung to them.

Suddenly a rage filled her. She screamed again, but this time it made me jump back slightly.

She turned the two dead people over, shocking me even more. The girl was me, and yet not. She was dead on the ground next to a man identical to Briton. Their filthy hands frozen in their last act, gripping to one another. They were a version of us, but like Clan of the Cave Bear meets Masterpiece Theatre.

She screamed again, making the earth shift.

I stumbled to the right, regaining my balance. Her thin arms flew to the air, as if she were calling down the thunder. She screamed words I didn’t know but I suddenly recalled. She called upon a curse. A curse to teach them that for every life they take, they kill themselves inside. They must learn to suffer hardship until the two who lay on the ground dead may be reunited in love. She wished they would survive by the death of goodness and their souls would rot inside of them.

She rocked and chanted and suddenly the men around me began to thaw. She took a dagger from the body of the dark-haired man who looked like Briton but lay on the ground dead. She stabbed it into his chest and screamed something. Half of the field of men fell to the ground, dropping their weapons and clutching their writhing bodies. Screams and curses tore from their lips. She pulled the dagger and stabbed it into the chest of the girl who looked like me. I screamed in pain as a fiery hell drove itself into my chest too. The remaining half of the men fell, joining the others in screams and crippling pain. Bones broke, bodies suffered horrendous acts of violence. She pulled the dagger, stopping the pain in my chest instantly.

She positioned the dagger at her own chest, chanted one last thing, and drove the blade into her heart. She screamed and the earth churned. The men screamed louder until she dropped, landing on top of the two people who looked like Briton and me.

Then I was pulled back into the fog that felt like it was lifting and taking me with it. My eyes burned from the feel of it on my face. I closed them, and when I opened them, I was in a forest. It felt familiar.

A man walked towards me, but not to me. He didn’t see me, he looked past. I spun around to see a man I could swear I knew. He looked like Briton, but not as tall, nor handsome.

The man smiled at him. “Good to see you again, Gunnar.”

Gunnar? That was Briton’s brother. He smiled back, his was a kind face. “I don’t understand what you want, Samuel. I have come on good faith.”

Samuel laughed, it was evil. I could tell right away. I wanted to tell Gunnar to run, but I assumed he also could not see me. “I have something for you.” He nodded his head. Gunnar frowned, not realizing the man was not nodding at him. Two more men slipped from the woods. They shot something at Gunnar, hitting him in the back. He spun around, but before he could say a thing or even scream, he fell to the forest floor. Samuel turned and drank a blue liquid from a vial.

“The old witch’s sister still thinks I love her. This potion wears off in two hours. I have no time to waste. I’ll meet you back in the woods. Bring clean clothes.”

The men carried Gunnar’s limp body deeper into the forest.

Samuel turned and walked into the field towards town. He dropped on his knees when he got into the long grass. Pants and muffled screams filled the grass. When he stood up, he was Gunnar. Except he was sweating and staggering. He stumbled through the field, looking exactly like a drunk Gunnar. He headed for a house on the edge of town. When he got inside, screams filled the night air.

I stood there, scared to move. I didn’t know how to escape the dream I was in. I wondered if Briton was seeing this same thing? Was he hurting? I wanted to see him, to hold him and tell him it was just a dream.

Samuel/Gunnar left the house after all the screaming stopped. He was covered in blood. He crept along the dusty street towards the town.

I didn’t move. I waited. I didn’t want to be near him. He came back after a while. There was a girl over his shoulder. She hung limp like he had killed her. When he got to the edge of the field, he lowered her and bit into her throat. I closed my eyes. I could hear him making sounds, but I dared not look.

The grass crunched close to me. When I opened my eyes, I jumped back. He was standing right in front of me. His eyes narrowed, like maybe he saw me. But he started walking through me, back towards the forest, leaving the dead girl in the field. I walked to where she lay. She wasn’t dead. She gargled and gagged on her own blood from her torn throat but didn’t die.

A man came running from the town, shouting a girl’s name. He seemed panicked. I could see blood running down his head like he had been hit by something or someone.

The girl moaned.

The man’s head snapped around, looking in the direction of her gargled cries. He ran to where the noise came from, screaming and dropping to his knees.

The girl gargled once more, saying one thing, “Gunnar!” Her eyes rolled into the back of her head. He sobbed, gripping to her lifeless body.

I was pulled back into the fog again.

My eyes closed and opened. I was in a cell. Gunnar, the real Gunnar, was chained to a wall. His wrists were burned brutally from the chains holding him. He was weak, lying there. His body was covered in sores and wounds that didn’t seem to heal. He was thin and a strange color—greyish.

A man walked into the room, holding a cell phone. He turned the phone, like he was Facetiming someone.

The person on the phone spoke, “We will need another dose, the wolves are breeding. They promised not to breed, and I have seen that they have broken their promise. Get the venom and report when you have enough. You’ll need a little of the wolf too. There are vampires there again.” I could swear I knew the muffled voice I heard.

The man laughed and hung up the phone, slipping it into his pocket. He grabbed a jar and a small makeup brush. He dipped it into the jar and dragged the milky substance across Gunnar’s bare chest. It jerked him alive as a searing sound sizzled through the air. Gunnar screamed, thrashing and rattling the chains.

The man grabbed a needle and stuck it into Gunnar’s opened mouth. He pulled a chalky red liquid from his mouth.

He pulled out a second needle and did the same.

He left the room, walking into another cell. A woman hung there limp. Her dark hair was matted against her face. My throat instantly tightened.

She wasn’t just any woman, she was my mother. My long-dead mother.

Only she wasn’t dead. My brain screamed that it was impossible. She had been in a coma. She was dead. But my eyes and heart saw the truth.

My heart broke. My breaths came in jerky moans. I rushed to her side, but my hand swiped through her. It was a dream. It wasn’t real.

The man lifted a jar from the small filthy table and pulled a tiny makeup brush from it. I screamed. “NOOOOOO! PLEASE DON’T HURT HER!”

He ignored me. I was a ghost in the dream. She woke instantly as the brush was dragged between her breasts. Her face changed drastically the moment she was awake. The scream ripping from her thrashing face was a roar.

He collected from her the same way he had Gunnar, sticking needles into her screaming mouth.

My mother screeched like I had never heard. The sound of it triggered something inside of me.

I screamed too. My voice became a roar with hers. We matched. For a moment, and then it faded again.

She hung there, limp and defeated.

There was no way it was a dream. She was real. No dream could make a sound so harsh.

I was pulled back into the fog, and when I opened my eyes, I was at the table. My body was vibrating. I backed up the chair, knocking it over. I turned and ran for the door. I knew what to do. I didn’t even know how I knew, I just did.

I sprinted along the grass and the streets. A pain tore at my skin but I ran harder. I got to the field, the one where the girl had died and dropped to my knees. Vomit heaved from my lips. Arms wrapped around my waist, lifting me. I knew it was him. I hoped Briton was getting me as far from the town as he could. I knew what the dream had triggered, and I could tell by the urgency in his movements he did too.

When he got to the forest’s edge, he pulled a cell phone from his pocket. I shook my head. “My mother . . .” the words were in a voice I didn’t know. “My mother . . . she was my mother! Did you see her too?”

“Yes.” He lowered his hand. “And my brother. They are alive.”

I gagged more, twisting into the sound of the snapping bones. “My father . . .I think I knew that man’s voice on the cell phone. And the man in the room who hurt my mom, I think my father knows him . . . he’s familiar!” I roared again, screaming as another set of bones broke.

He dropped to his knees but I felt it. I screamed, “GET AWAYYYYYY!”

He jumped up, scrambling to a tree and climbing it. I lost focus once he was gone. I lost everything. The sounds of the forest were lost in my screaming.

In a still moment when the bones stopped snapping and my body took a break, I caught a glimpse of him.

For the past ten days he had been in every thought and feeling. In fact, I could sense that it had gone back much further than ten days.

But as I changed there on the forest floor, he was gone. He was gone from my heart.

Even though I could see him, I was alone and broken.

He was gone and that was the least of my worries.

I didn’t know how long it lasted or how long I was unconscious. But when I opened my eyes, I saw the whole world through different eyes. I caught his scent instantly, jerking my face that way. He watched me from the tree, his red eyes glowing.

But then I caught something else.

A smell I loved. I didn’t know why or what it was, but I ran. I realized part way through the forest, I was on all fours. I was running as a wolf. The feel of it was just as Judith had said.

I felt amazing. I ran faster, feeling a smile spread across my lips.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Briton

“What is worse than this?” he asked her ragged body. She sat naked and limp in his arms. He had followed her for miles and hours all through the forest. She had downed a rabbit and eaten it. There was a small amount of dried blood still lingering on her cheek. He wiped it away, whispering to her, “What is more painful than loss? I know it will be watching you live without me.” He stroked her hair from her face. “But I won’t ever be far. I promise I will always stay and watch over you.”

It all made perfect sense. His instant love for her. His brother’s uncharacteristic violence that had resulted in a war. Her mother dying of a disease when she was an immortal. The pull they both felt to be with each other.

It all made sense.

He kissed her cheek, smelling the wolf on her for the first time. He didn’t even mind the smell. He loved her, regardless of the fate they faced. When her body had changed and she had completed the transformation, his love hadn’t died away. It had not faded, even slightly.

Her eyes opened before she stirred. She looked at him for a moment before smiling. “You are here. I thought so, but I was worried it was a dream like everything else.”

He winced. “Liv, that wasn’t a dream. You are naked in the woods, you turned into a wolf for the first time, and our family members are being held by hunters.”

She closed her eyes again and spoke in a dreamy voice, “My father . . .?” She jerked to life, springing from his arms. “MY FATHER!”

He put a hand up. “Stay calm. You can force the change if you get too emotional.”

“My mother is alive, Briton. I don’t think I can stay calm.” She started to tremble.

He did the stupidest thing he could think of and wrapped his arms around her.

She pulled back. “I could bite you.”

He nodded. “I can think of no greater death. I don’t want to fight this, what we are. I want to let it end me. I want to die exactly like this, so if you have to do it now, I’m okay with it. Just remember to free my brother when you go for your mother.”

She froze. He prayed his words affected her.

“We need to free them, Briton. We need to warn Judith about my father.” Tears started to stream her face. “I have this terrible feeling that my father let them take my mother.”

Briton kissed her damp cheek. “We will make them all pay. Now we must go back to town and see Ellie and Liz. They must know what to do about this.”

She still looked shocked or maybe it was just that she was overwhelmed. He pulled his sweater off and dragged it over her head gently. He scooped her up into his arms and carried her through the dark forest. She closed her eyes and leaned into him. “What are we going to do about us?” she asked the dreaded question.

“Is there still an us?”

“I’m not familiar with the vampire/werewolf rules, but I don’t know how to stop loving you. I don’t know how to escape the ruin of you, and me.” She nodded. “I love you. I know I do. I know I won’t ever love another person. I never have. That dream of us lying on the ground dead and Liz cursing the men—that happened—I think. I think the dream was a past life. When I was a wolf, I saw you in my head. There were other past lives . . . you were a vampire and I was a girl. I didn’t know what you were, but I knew I loved you. But you didn’t see me. You walked by me, like I was nothing. You didn’t ever see me, until now.”

He felt the truth of it tug at his chest. “I must not have known it was you.”

“I know, but I think I always knew it was you. I remember every life I’ve had, like my wolf remembers them all. And each one has been spent wandering and searching but never finding you again. Until this time. I remember our death on the field with the men in the furs. I remember loving you more than any person ever loved.” She paused, shaking her head. “I sound crazy, bat-shit crazy.”

He smiled weakly. “I think we have both far surpassed crazy.”

Her eyes glazed over and she continued, “I remember us in that life where we died on the field with Liz. She was your sister, but we had different names. She wasn’t Liz. She was a witch but we called her a healer. We loved her, she was our family. The day we died in that field, we were gathering herbs when the men came. You tried to save me but we died. That’s what we saw in the dream. That’s when Liz called the curse down.”

“My father must have been in the field fighting that day.” His heart was bursting, regardless of not having a heartbeat or the memory of the disaster of their past. He cared about one thing. “So you remember that you love me? The wolf hasn’t convinced you we are enemies?”

She shook her head. “My wolf loves you. It’s the curse and my brain that are against us, but my wolf knows the truth of it all.”

He kissed her face, taking in a deep inhale of her. “You were pretty cute as a wolf. Very white and soft.”

She laughed, it was weak and pathetic.

He hugged her tighter. “I’m so sorry about your mother.” His fangs nearly sprang at the thought of killing her father. He didn’t want to overstep his boundaries and take her right to kill, but he knew if he saw him, he wouldn’t be able to rein it in. Briton would murder her father slowly, enjoying every drop of his blood. He would kill anyone who meant to harm her.

He would free his brother and make everything right again. If they took away the vampires and wolves from the clutches of the hunters, they would lose their one weapon.

He sighed when he got to the forest edge and Ellie and Liz were standing there waiting for him. They had Josh with them. That didn’t make him feel better, but at least Liv knew she loved him. She had fallen back to sleep in his arms.

“She ran—she is a full wolf now.”

Ellie nodded. “I know. I called Judith, and she knows Liv is a wolf. I asked her not to tell Frank. I didn’t tell her he was a traitor.”

Liz walked to him, running a finger along Liv’s arm. “Was she okay?”

“Yes. She did wonderfully. No issues. Just changed and ran around like an animal.”

“Did she kill?”

He grinned. “A rabbit. She won’t be happy about that.”

Liz grimaced. “She ate it? A bunny?”

Josh laughed. “We all eat bunnies, Liz. We can’t help it. Wolves love bunnies.”

Ellie looked back towards the town. “We have a major issue here. We don’t know which wolves are in on the vampire massacre.”

Josh sighed. “I can’t see any doing it, but I’ll let you have my bloodline to read.”

Ellie poked his finger and said something softly. She pressed into his palm, the way she had done to Briton.

Josh sighed and slipped away. He stood perfectly still, frozen with Ellie.

Liz swallowed hard “It’s so weird.”

“The woman in the dream walk last night, that’s Liv’s mom.”

Liz paused before whispering, like she was stuck in disbelief, “Her dead mom?”

He nodded. Liv started to move and stretch, waking up again. She opened an eye and looked at Liz. “Hey.”

Liz had no poker face at all. She instantly burst into tears. “Liv, I’m so sorry about your mom.”

Liv started to cry too. Briton put her down, letting her walk to Liz. They held each other, crying like teenaged girls. He forgot sometimes that’s what they were.

Ellie and Josh snapped out of it. Josh’s face was drawn. He stumbled a little and then gave Briton a look. “I am so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t either.”

Josh shuddered. “My uncle is responsible for it. His family has been dabbling in this for some time. Buying our freedom with venom to be used as a weapon against our own kind. He just wanted the vampires gone, without the wolves dying too.”

Briton took a long breath, contemplating it all. “At least it makes sense why there are so few of us left in the world. I knew the hunters had some way of killing us; I never realized it was to this degree though. And I thought only the born and bitten could die, not the cursed—I didn’t know venom was their weapon. But live venom would kill any one of us.”

Ellie gave him a frightened look. “We need to find this place where they keep them.”

Josh’s face tightened. “You need to stop the people here first.”

Briton spoke through his clenched jaw, “Oh, I intend to. But first, I need to call my brothers home.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Liv

Briton paced the living room. His father and two of his brothers walked into the room. They gave me a look that made my blood run cold in my veins.

“You bring a wolf into our home?”

Briton gave me a smile. “I bring the girl I love into our home.”

His father reacted instantly, grabbing him and shoving him into the wall. I screamed and jumped at his father, but one of the others grabbed me and held me tight to his chest. “Easy, little puppy. Trust me, Briton can handle his own business.” I could feel the shake starting as his father screamed at him.

His father looked at me, pointing. “I KNEW IT! I KNEW YOU BETRAYED US! YOUR OWN FLESH AND BLOOD—FOR WHAT? THAT DOG?”

Briton snapped back, throwing his father nearly as far as he had been. “SHE ISN’T A DOG! SHE IS NO DIFFERENT THAN YOU OR ME! SHE IS MY LIFE!”

A woman, I assumed was his mother, came running into the room. She grabbed her son, wrapping her arms around him and flashing a dirty bad look at her husband. Briton kissed his mother’s head, hugging her back. “It’s okay, Mother. Father and I were just talking.” He glanced at his brother, pinning me to his chest as I fought the change. I was shaking so hard I couldn’t even see straight. Briton walked to me, pressing his face against mine and plucking me from his brother’s arms. “Don’t panic. Everything is okay. Stay calm.” He reached a hand out to his brother. “Read me so I can keep her calm.” He stroked the back of my neck, pulling me into him, but not taking his eyes from mine. “Bringing you here was a bad idea. I’m sorry.”

I shook. “No. I don’t want us to separate.”

His voice was calming but it didn't last long. His brother screamed, making me jump and sending a shiver down my spine. I spun fast, feeling my clothes tear away from myself and my wolf form rip from my body. I was gnashing teeth and growling savagely before I realized it.

Someone grabbed at me. I turned to snap at the hand touching me, but I saw it was Briton. When my wolf saw him, the word that ran through my head was “mate.” That was what I called him in this form.

I was heaving my breath as a low growl rumbled from me. Being surrounded by them was not good. I needed out—now!

“She changes quickly.” The brother who had been holding me backed up. I could smell the fear on him. His father glared at me. “She would dare change in my home?”

Briton looked at his brother, the one whose lip was trembling. The brother shook his head. “She is innocent in all of this. The treachery goes back to you, Father. The cursed land you fought on was hers.” His eyes darted to Briton, “Theirs. She is his shadow twin. They are soul mates. Her mother and our brother share the same fate. Briton has done our family nothing but good.”

Briton reached his hand forward to his father. The gruff man took it, dropping to his knees as they shared memories. Tears streamed his face. “My boy. I knew Gunnar was innocent.” His eyes looked on at me. “I WILL KILL EVERY WOLF I SEE!”

I backed up. The man scared me, wolf form or not.

“No good can come of a war. We must be smart. If we don’t find Gunnar before we attack, they could kill him. And her mother.” Briton seethed at his father and then turned and walked to me, dropping to his knees, stroking my fur. It soothed me. A house full of emotional and angry vampires, and I was still in wolf form.

The room was filled with an uneasy smell.

Before I ended up lashing out, I turned and trotted up the stairs to the room I could smell him in. I jumped up onto the bed and lay, awaiting the change back. I relaxed, letting my mind wander. I tried to be calm about it, love the wolf. It didn't work. I screamed as I shifted back to a naked girl. I wrapped myself in blankets and tried to stop the shaking.

Briton came into the room and cuddled around me. “It is better they understand us.”

I shook my head. “They won’t ever. I don't even understand us. One bite and we both die. What kind of cruel fate is this?”

He shook his head. “I don't know. I just know I love you.”

“Yeah, and your father wants me dead. This is awesome. I can’t go home, I can’t run away, and I can’t stay here.” My eyes closed, I was so tired. Regardless of the amount of fight there was inside of me, or how much I wanted to free my mother or kill my father or even know where Judith stood on it all. I struggled, but I just couldn't keep my eyes open. I was exhausted, and there was no way I would be able to leave the room without some sleep. ”Don't leave,” I whispered.

He kissed my head again. “I won’t. I will keep you safe, always.”

My eyes sealed and I slept.

The adrenaline and the fear and the work of changing constantly shredded my energy. I slept in a dreamless state, unaware of how long I was out. I woke, feeling nauseated and groggy. I could feel him next to me.

I opened my eyes but the smell was wrong. I pulled back. One of the brothers smiled at me. “You are the prettiest wolf I think I have ever seen.”

I growled making him laugh and put his hands up defensively. “Easy—Briton asked me to keep an eye on you while he went to figure out exactly what the hell is going on around here.”

I pulled my covers over my body better. “I’m sure he didn't mean lie on the bed with me.”

He shrugged. “Either way, my eyes have not left you since he left.”

My cheeks blushed.

He winked at me. “You want to have a go and see if you picked the right brother?” When he saw the look on my face, he backed up. “It was a joke. Not a great sense of humor, huh?”

I looked around the room. “Not a great morning person or a sleeping-next-to-strangers person.”

He snuggled into the pillow. “We’re family.”

“I don't even know you.”

“Ragnar. Briton’s older brother. Better looking brother.”

I laughed. He had a way about him that made you smile. He was handsome, ridiculously. Dark-blond hair, tanned skin, strong features, sexy lips, and bright-blue eyes. But he was cocky. I had never liked cocky. There is an acceptable level of cocky that is permitted. He had exceeded his limit, by far.

A knock at the door pulled my eyes from his bright-blue stare. Their mother opened it, glaring at him. “What do you think you’re doing? He’s home and if he sees you like this . . .”

The door kicked open past her. Briton shoved his way into the room, cocking an eyebrow at Ragnar. “I said keep an eye on her, not climb all over her.” His tone was frightening.

He reached over and grabbed Ragnar, who was laughing too hard to fight back. Briton shoved him out into the hallway. I heard drywall crack. Their mom turned and shouted. “TAKE IT OUTSIDE!”

The crashing sound of a violent fall down the stairs filled the house.

She looked back into the room. “I will bring you some clothes.” She smiled at me like she was the sweetest lady on earth, minus the hate for wolves and the fangs.

She brought me a stack of clothing and closed the door again. I could hear the fighting in the yard, Briton shouting, and Ragnar still laughing.

I scrambled, pulling on her clothes and rushing to the window. I didn't see them. I needed to get the hell out of there. They were all freaking the shit out of me. Me, a lone wolf, with five vampires was too much. At least the other two brothers weren’t there.

I climbed out the window and crept along the high-up roof. I jumped into a huge old willow tree and dropped down. My strength was bananas. My body just did exactly what I needed it to.

“What do we have here?”

I looked up to see two more guys, similar in looks to Ragnar and Briton. I hadn’t met them before so I assumed they were the other brothers. They did look like the guys in the pictures.

“A wolf on our land? How odd.” One of them stepped towards me.

I felt the warmth of his embrace slide across my chest as he came up from behind. “This would be my wolf.”

The guys started to laugh. They laughed exactly the same. Briton held a hand out, still standing behind me. “Simon and Leif, my other two brothers. This is my Liv. Mother and Father would like to see you inside.”

I turned and faced him as they walked past us. He gave me an annoyed look. “What are you doing?”

I shuddered, there were too many of them around me. My insides were in knots. “I can’t be around them. My body is fighting the change constantly.”

“So you snuck out of the house in stolen clothing?”

I looked down at the old-fashioned dress. “I didn’t steal this. Your mom gave it to me.”

“You still snuck out of the house.”

“Dude, I can’t stay here. They’re crazy. Your brother saw me naked, I’m pretty sure. This is weird for me. I never had siblings growing up.”

His jaw was clenched but he spoke through it, “You have no idea how lucky you are.” He turned and stalked back into the house, leaving me standing in the yard.

I heard another scuffle and Ragnar came sailing through a window, shattering glass across the yard in front of me. He didn't laugh. He winced. “It was only a little bit of breast.” He glanced up at me and winked.

I backed up.

Briton came around the front of the yard. “You looked at her while she was sleeping?”

Ragnar got up, shaking his head. “She is a thrasher when she sleeps. The blankets came down on their own.”

The other boys stood in the window, watching and laughing. I groaned and turned and stalked off around the house. I was barefoot and in the oldest dress I had ever seen. No bra, no underwear, no shoes, and no self-respect. It was turning out to be a shitty day. My mom being forced to donate venom was at the top of the things I needed to fix, but underwear was starting to take precedence. I sprinted to Liz’s house and banged on the door. She opened it and pulled me inside, slamming it shut. Josh gave me a look. “You okay?”

I shook my head. “No. Not even close. Can I borrow some underwear? Did your mom come up with a plan? Briton’s whole family is here, so they’re ready to rock and roll.”

Josh scowled. “I have a bad feeling everyone is in on it. Everyone. Including Judith. The only way they have been able to stay safe, is to barter away their own friends and family—the ones no one likes or the ones who move away from the safety of town—to the hunters. It’s some bullshit.”

I sat at the table, really hating the feel of the old dress lodged in my ass and sighed. “So, essentially, they've given all the power to the hunters for a few good hundred years, assuming they would be left alone and now the hunters are like ‘hell no’ and are coming for them?”

“The deal was no breeding. They have never obeyed that. They used the witches’ spells to mask the town in hopes of hiding it.”

“My dad. I bet my dad is the one who has been telling them what’s going on. He married Judith in hopes of getting info for them.” My insides were rotted about that. He was my dad. I loved him, even though he had done the worst things possible. I hated him as much as I loved him.

Liz nodded. “I thought that too. I still think Judith is a pawn. I think she loves you and your dad.”

“I agree.”

Josh winced. “I don't know. She is so close to everyone else. She’s the doctor for the wolves. She knows a lot of shit.”

“Well, we won’t know anything until we know the truth. We need to find your mom and Briton’s brother to find out what’s going on around here,” Liz said.

Ellie came into the room. “I couldn't figure out how my mother died. She is so powerful. Then I realized. She knew what was going on and used her magic to call Briton home. She sacrificed herself to force events to occur. It never made sense that Jamie showed Briton the cave. She forced Jamie to do it from the grave. It never made sense Briton came home. But then he said he had a feeling to come home. I think my mother knew who you were, she knew who Briton was, and she died setting this all in motion. Casting a spell so large it took all the life force she had left. Everything has just worked out too well, in a horrid way for it to not be set in motion by magic.”

I felt bad for us all. We had been used as pawns in a game that had started so long ago, no one remembered the how or why it had even began, apart from the people in the room and Briton.

Briton had come into my life to end a curse, but did that mean it would be the end of us? We would end the curse by ending each other?

I didn't know the answer to that.

When we met, I knew there was no turning back. There was no running from it. I had even had dreams about how it would end. I was wrong.

None of the things that I had thought would come to fruition ever would. We wouldn't go to college together or just be a normal couple, as normal as we could be. We would either die saving each other or run and carry the curse for the rest of our lives, always fighting the underlying urge to bite.

It was called mad suckage!

I didn't know which way was worse, but I really didn't want to die. I would rather run, but I had to free my mother first.

A knock at the door interrupted our silence.

Ellie opened it, looking rather grim. She knew who was on the other side of it. There stood Briton and his four brothers. His eyes landed on me first.

Ellie opened the door wider. “You are responsible for their actions in my home, Briton.”

He nodded and stalked in. He came to my side, pulling me into his arms and kissing the top of my head. When they were all in the house, Josh looked like he might shift any second, regardless of never having done it. I felt like I might, but there was no room to breathe, let alone shift.

They were huge. I had never seen such large men all standing together.

I noticed their faces drawn to Liz, all four brothers. She sat in her chair staring at me, not noticing their eyes on her. Briton held a hand out, “My brothers, Leif, Ragnar, Simon, and Finn. This is Josh Michaels and Liz Whitburn. Her mother Ellie is the Wolfville witch right now.”

They all gave each other an odd look. We were trapped inside of the tiny kitchen, all uncomfortable and full of things to say but not sure where to start.

Josh grinned. “So, where do we start?”

Ellie gave me a look. “I think you should go home. I think you should see what happens when you talk to Judith. We need allies in this thing, and I don’t feel like all the wolves in town are privy to the war being waged. I suspect it would be more out in the open if they were. Jamie keeps it quiet.”

The brothers, including Briton, all spoke at once.

“Well, let’s not risk her out just yet.”

“You trying to bring a rage out in my brother?”

“That's a no, a firm no. I think we all have to admit you are bad at planning.”

I put my hands up. “Hey! She’s right. I need to find out what’s going on. My dad hasn't hurt me yet, I don't think he will. Whatever choices he has made, he has never hurt me so far. So long as he doesn't know I know about my mom, I should be okay.”

Briton opened his mouth, but I walked out of his embrace, “Stop stressing. I’m not a regular girl anymore. I’m not breakable like before.” I stood amongst him and his brothers and Josh, and couldn’t help but feel breakable. It was like being in the middle of a forest filled with huge trees. “You guys make me feel like I’m a woodland creature—for reals.” I walked to the door and looked back. “I’ll be back as soon as I’m dressed.”

Briton shook his head. “Don’t do this.”

I pointed at his mom’s ridiculous dress. “Dude, my dad is going to know some kind of shit is off if he sees me rocking this badass frock. I have to change. I smell like death and dirt. I’m pretty sure when I peed last, I squatted in the woods. I didn’t wipe. I’m going home.”

I stepped out into the cool air and tried to feel brave. I didn't. I felt like an idiot. I probably could’ve kept the peeing thing to myself. My face was burning and I was trying to act cool, like what I had said didn’t matter.

The walk home was cold and short, and I could feel someone on my tail. I knew who that someone was and tried to find it as endearing instead of creepy.

When I got in the front door, Judith rushed to me. She wrapped herself around me, breathing into my hair. “You’re safe. I was so worried. Why didn't you call? Ellie kept calling me, telling me you were fine but I was worried.”

I shook my head. “It was intense but I was fine. I swear. Briton stayed with me as long as he could, and then I just ran. It was just like you said.”

She pulled back, smiling at me. “I’m so excited you’re all right. I was going nuts all night and all day. It’s been brutal. You’ve been gone like thirty-six hours.”

“I slept a lot. I slept in the forest for a while.”

The smile crossing her face was loving and understanding. “It’s awesome, huh?”

“Awesome!” I looked around. “Where‘s my dad?”

Her eyes burned for a second. “We had a fight. He was mad I hadn’t gone with you and you had changed. He’s at his office.”

I bit my lip. “I’ll go talk to him. He’ll see I’m fine.”

Her eyes widened. “NO!” She caught herself. “No. He’s busy. Just wait till he comes home.”

My stomach tightened. She was being weird. The thought that it might be her started to pick at me again. What if my dad was in danger? I shrugged, playing it cool. “Okay. I’m gonna go shower. I’m exhausted still.”

She hugged me once more, kissing my forehead.

I walked over to the stairs and smiled at her as I climbed up to my room. I locked the door, mildly freaking out, and ran for my phone. I texted Liz and asked her to have one or two of Briton’s brothers go and make sure my father was okay.

I pulled off the ridiculous dress and walked to the shower. I smelled like BO and forest and had the weirdest taste in my mouth, like I’d eaten leather or something.

The shower was a godsend. I sat in it, keeping my eye on the door, in case she came in. I even washed my hair with one eye on the door.

It wasn't as relaxing as normal but at least I was getting clean.

It was so strange feeling my emotions and then the ones my wolf had.

At least I still loved Briton. That had been my biggest concern. I could feel myself falling out of love with him before I shifted. The curse had been tearing us apart. But then something had changed when I fully shifted. My love for him hadn’t just been mine. It had belonged to my wolf too. She was all of my past lives, balled up in one white furry coat.

That was a weird thought for a teenaged girl to have. Past lives in a furry coat.

Clearly, I wasn't getting saner.

I opened the door to the shower, poking my head out and looking around the room. She wasn't there. I stepped out onto the fuzzy mat to discover someone was in my room. Ragnar opened the bathroom door and gave me a cocky smile as he walked in and picked up my towel from the rack. “Oh damn, did I catch you naked again?”

I opened my mouth to scream, but I knew that would draw Judith. I snatched the towel from his hand and wrapped it around myself. “What is your problem?” I growled.

He sighed and leaned against the door. “I hate it when my brothers get a new toy and they don't let me play with it too.”

My right eye twitched. “I hope he beats some sense into you.”

“He’s gone to see your father. Asked Liz to tell you that he and Finn went to find him for you. I told Liz not to worry, I would take care of it. Simon seemed to want to have your friend Liz all to himself anyway. Had her laughing as they discussed art and painting non-stop, got tedious? He figures she might be one of those witches who can paint the picture and bring it to life.”

I hurried past him into the bedroom and closed myself in the walk-in and got dressed. He came into the room, pinning me against the shoe shelves. He looked down on me with the most intense eyes. “One kiss and I will never bother you again. I just have to be sure.”

I narrowed my gaze. “Oh, and what is it you have to be sure of?”

“That you aren’t my soul mate. I’m fairly positive I have one of those as well.”

My leg came up fast, kneeing him in the balls. “Kiss my ass.” I brushed past him again, leaving him taking deep breaths on the floor of the closet. I ran to the door and hurried out to the stairs. “Hey, Judith. Is my dad coming home soon?”

She came out from the kitchen, licking a spoon. “I don't know. He never called. I’m hoping so. We’ve never fought before. I don't know how to respond to it.”

I rolled my eyes. “He’ll be fine. He just gets moody sometimes.”

She licked her lips. Something wasn't right with her. I folded my arms. “So, I know about the whole shadow twins and battle of the old ones where the witch cursed them and the whole betraying of the Thorlacksons.”

She winced. “I am so sorry. Jamie made me swear that I wouldn’t tell you when he figured out you were in love with Briton. At least now that you’re a wolf, you must be free of that.”

I nodded. “Yeah. So what’s the rest of the plan to get rid of them?”

“The vampires left on their own last time, except the Thorlacksons. The old witch sealed them away; I didn’t know that until today. I figured they would leave and find their families, Wolfville has become a wolf town. I didn’t think they would stay. But Jamie thinks they will endanger us again like last time, draw the hunters here. He said he wants to end them completely, but I don't want to. Your father wants them gone now too. I don’t even know why he cares. Why any of them care. We are brothers in the same curse. There is no winner if we all die. I still don’t understand why we can’t all live together. I don’t understand why the vampires have to draw the hunters.”

She was clueless. So this was the story all the other wolves had? At least she wasn't bad.

I sort of knew it all along. I wanted it to be her, but I knew it wasn’t.

That left one person. My heart broke a little bit.

I didn't want to include her in the whole thing so I shrugged. “Well, I don't care what happens. I just want to shift and run in the woods. I’m going to bed for the next two days though. I’m bagged.” I waved at her and turned and went back to my room.

A savage vampire pinned me to the wall, the moment I got in there. I snarled at him but he pressed his lips against mine. I shoved him off and he spit on the carpet. “You taste like dead rabbit.” I opened my mouth to fire back at him, but I had the strangest memory of eating a rabbit. My lower lip stuck out. Ragnar smiled weakly. “Sorry. I didn't mean that in a bad way. It’s just . . . I don't think it’s going to work out with us, love. I’m not sure I could get past the wolf thing.”

I growled at him again. “I ate a rabbit, you ass.”

He shrugged, “Tasted like rabbit.” He made a face and leaned in, muttering, “You won’t tell Briton I kissed you, right? I just had to see.”

I flipped him the bird as I texted Liz to ask if she was all right with Simon. These Thorlackson boys were a trouble. She sent a blushing smiley face. I winced. “Your brother is hitting on my friend.”

A cocky grin smeared across his face.

I folded my arms. “She may paint magical pictures and smile sweetly, but she’s a witch whose powers haven’t hit yet. God knows what she really does. I hope she roasts your asses.”

He started laughing. “Rotten luck for Simon.”

I sighed and walked to my deck. I opened the doors and stepped out into the night air. My father never stayed away so late at night. He really was the bad guy? I had a feeling there was something else.

I jumped down onto the ground and walked across the grass. Ragnar caught up and asked, “Where are we going?”

“My dad’s clinic.”

He nudged me a little. “You all right?”

I shook my head. His accent was thicker than Briton’s. I gave him a look. “I keep hoping my dad isn’t really the bad guy, but he’s helping because they tricked him into it. Like he thinks he’s doing the right thing, maybe to help me cure my wolf.”

He cocked an eyebrow.

I sighed. “I know it's a long shot but he’s a good dad. I don't think he’s evil. He’s always done the right thing and he loved my mom.”

“I’ve had some experience with unscrupulous people, they all share a common theme—those people. They say the right thing and they act the right way and that's how they get away with being the wrong sort of person. No one suspects them. But in my experience it’s always that benevolent and compassionate man who never does a wrong thing his whole life, at least not in front of others.” It sounded like sage wisdom. I was about to tell him that, but he continued his thought. “Whereas you take someone like me, I have zero issue flaunting my bad behavior wherever I go. People may assume I am a bit of a rakish sort of fellow, and always go about expecting the worst of me. But the worst you see with me, is the worst you get. I don't hold a single trait back and I don't lie.”

I sighed. “You wear your crazy on the outside.”

He pondered it for a second. “That is an excellent way of putting it.”

I held a hand up. “I totes know your soul mate back in Chicago. She is a moron like you. You’d be the Bonny and Clyde of morals and proper behavior together.”

He frowned. “The who and what?”

“I forgot you’ve been sleeping for a while. I’m just saying, she would be perfect for you.”

He frowned again. “I don't think meeting a girl who acted the way I do would make me happy. I think I’d like to meet a girl who made me want to behave appropriately. Like you do for Briton. He’s awfully stuffy since he met you, not like he was when we were young.” He nudged me, like we were pals and I wanted to hear dirty stories about my boyfriend.

I looked at him sharply. “That's Miles, not me. I didn't make him act all proper and shit.”

“Clearly.”

I stuck my tongue out at him.

“I dare say I don't need further proof of your unruly ways. You are not the lady I mistook you for. My apologies, madam.”

I rolled my eyes and pointed at the clinic. “This is it.” I no sooner said it that the hair on my arms stood on end. I looked at them and then him. “Something is wrong.”

“Wrong how?”

My eyes started to glow and my body started to tremble. My fangs popped into my mouth. “Just wrong.”

He jumped back. “Next time warn me, for the love of God. I didn't know we were flashing our privates all over town. Let me get mine.” He shook his head and instantly his eyes were red and his fangs dropped. We crept around the back of the clinic. I opened the door with a small amount of force and tiptoed inside.

The sterile smell bothered my wolf nose instantly. But there was something behind it.

Fear.

I pulled my shirt off and my pants. I watched the door to the rooms but whispered at him, “Turn around.”

“I’ve seen you naked. Why are you undressing anyway?” he whispered back.

“Because I keep tearing my clothes or leaving them places.”

He turned around. I pulled everything else off and tried the whole deep-breathing thing. But the moment my bones started to break and my skin ripped, I had to hold my breath to stop the screams. My insides raged at the fiery death they were experiencing until I saw it through the other eyes, and I felt all four of my feet on the floor.

Ragnar bent down and tussled my fur slightly. “You conducted yourself like a victor.”

I growled, making him jump back. He led the way through the clinic. There was nothing. All the rooms were empty. Every time I glanced at him or caught his scent, my mouth watered. I wanted to bite him. I pushed it back.

I walked back to the back door. Something about that area was bugging me. I looked around, catching that same fearful smell again. I followed it to the corner. I whined and tried to get my nose closer.

“Let me.” Ragnar opened the shelf, which became a door as the wall opened.

I looked up at him, waiting for the hound comment. I would bite his ass if he did, but he managed just a quick smile and headed down the stairs.

They didn't match the clinic, it was white and pristine. The stairwell was creepy, dark, and wooden. I could see perfectly in the dark. It was a storage area but unlike a normal one. There were cells and chains on the walls. It was a more modern-looking version of what my mother was held in.

We looked around and somewhere back there I felt it. The pin prickle of fear and tension attacked me again. Was it a trap?

There was no one down there but us, or was there? As I was about to turn around and run from the creepy place, I caught it. It was the smell of fear from before. I spun instantly and ran for the cell in the back. I pushed the door open, gnashing my teeth. I stopped instantly, realizing what I had stumbled upon.

It was Finn, unconscious somehow. I pulled back, closing my wolf lips so I didn't accidentally bite him. He had burns on his arms and face. I could smell the wolf’s breath venom on him.

My heart skipped beats. I whined. Ragnar came quickly, dropping to his brother’s side.

He lifted him up and we turned to go back up the stairs. The cellar was empty of the one thing I desperately hoped to find, and it wasn't my father.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Briton

His head ached, and where they had smeared him with the wolf’s venom, he was swollen and still burning.

He cracked a puffy eyelid to see the exact room he had seen in his dream walk with the witch.

His body ached in a way he hadn’t felt since the change.

He lifted his head to see her—the lady who had been in the dream walk, Liv’s mom.

“Are you Liv’s mom?” he whispered.

She moaned a little and lifted her head weakly. The state she was in was horrifying. Her face was beaten, her skin was a sallow pale color, and her hair was falling out. Her eye sockets were huge. The hunters were starving her to death. He wondered if he was being brought there to become next in line for venom donations? Who had he come with?

His stomach sank—Josh. Josh would be the next werewolf to do it.

“Are you Liv’s mom?”

She hissed at him. She was mad, completely mad.

He shuddered at the sight of her. “Liv, Olive Daniels is your daughter, is she not?”

The creature hissed again, struggling with her chains.

He forced the change, bringing his fangs out and spat at her. She hissed at the slight sizzle from the venom he had sucked from his fangs.

“IS Olive Daniels your daughter?”

The creature’s eyes cleared. She paused, giving him a look of confusion and then stopped moving completely.

“Liv?” she wheezed at him with her burned-out voice.

He nearly gagged but managed to keep himself calm.

“Liv?” she asked again hoarsely.

“Yes, Liv. Is she your daughter?”

She nodded her head. “She alive?”

“Yes. She is, but I am afraid your husband is not a good man.”

She twitched. Her face grew angry suddenly. She screamed and raged against the chains, thrashing about. The gates opened in the back and then the old stone door. He hung himself limp again, as though he had not yet woken up.

Dr. Daniels walked into the room. He could tell it was him by the way he walked—smugly. He strolled past Briton, picked something up and walked to his former wife. Whatever he did made her scream in a whole new way. Her legs kicked out and buckled. She was silent then. He turned and walked from the room.

When he heard the stone door close, he lifted his face. She lifted hers. She smiled, her brown chipped teeth reminding him of a homeless man he had seen once. “We save Liv?”

He was confused. How did Liv need saving? It was them in the chains with burns and other sores.

But she was determined. She nodded and whispered again, “We save Liv?”

She was feeble, her brain almost completely rotted out. But her mother’s instinct couldn't be crushed. No matter what Dr. Daniels did to her, he couldn't take that.

Briton nodded back. “We save Liv.”

She reached over and took a huge bite from her arm. He gasped but she did it again. She could have done that all along? She was no different than any wolf in a trap. He assumed she just needed the motivation to free herself. She gnawed at her rotting flesh, wincing at the pain but the drive in her eyes spoke of the great lengths she would go. She slipped the chain past her hand with ease and started on the other hand. She gave him a look. He realized he wasn't getting out without making a similar sacrifice.

He contemplated for half a second as to what his options were, he had none. He knew what he had to do and Liv was worth doing it.

He jerked on his hands, ripping the skin from them, stripping it away like he was peeling a potato. He would have screamed in pain but the doctor would have come back, injecting them both again with the venom.

When his skinned hand was free of the chain, he did the same thing to the other. He wanted so badly to cry out but didn't. They both stood, free of their chains. Her hands didn’t heal as his did, almost immediately.

He picked up a jar of venom, like the one in the dream walk, and a syringe, sucking a full needle’s worth. He capped it and put it in his pocket and did another one.

He carried one and led the way. Her hands were bloody pulp, so she couldn't open the doors anyway.

They slipped up the stairs to the stone door. He pressed his head against it, but all he heard was the ragged breath of the nearly zombified woman next to him. He cracked the door open slightly, seeing a long dark corridor. As quietly as he could, he pushed it open and walked into the dark. His eyes could still see somewhat; he didn't want to change and reveal his red eyes. Doors lined the corridor. He glanced through the bars on the first door. A man lay on the ground in a heap. He opened the door slowly, seeing a jerk from the man.

His head lifted and in his eyes Briton saw the change. He slipped back out of the cell, closing the door suddenly.

He peaked through the other bars, deciding that taking Josh and his brother were the only priorities he had.

The next cage held a woman, he just slipped past it. The next was Josh’s cage. He opened it, lifting Josh over his shoulder. Liv’s mom sniffed him, settling with the fact he was a wolf.

The next cage was empty, and the final one held the thing he sought the most. He opened it and walked in slowly. His brother hung from chains, just like he had in the dream walk. Briton lifted his brother’s head, wincing at the state of him. He moaned but didn't comprehend what was happening.

He grabbed the keys that hung on the wall near the far door and opened the chains. He slung Gunnar over his shoulder and walked silently back out to the hallway. He picked Josh up and carried him over the other shoulder.

It was going to be fun if they had to run.

After they used the keys to get out of the door at the end of the hall, he hung them back up. Everything looked the way it had.

He hurried down the dark hallway, wondering where they were. It felt like it was all underground.

The door at the end came out on the sea. He looked around, realizing quickly he was at a lighthouse, or rather, had been under one.

They scrambled along the cold coast to the parking lot. He looked at the couple cars. It was dark and no one but the doctor had been there.

He carried the men into the forest with the wheezing woman behind him. She stumbled and dragged one of her legs.

He could smell people.

He walked in that direction, knowing full well what he had to do.

When he got as close as he dared, he laid his brother and Josh on the mossy ground and looked at Liv’s mom. “Stay here. I will come back with food, we will save Liv.”

She nodded, but it didn't really look like a nod. It was really creepy. She scratched her head with her stumpy scabby hands, pulling out more hair.

He gagged a little. For a vampire to gag, it was bad.

He turned and ran as fast as he could to the edge of the forest. He couldn't find what he was looking for—he needed evil to feed them. He never killed innocents.

Instead, he came upon a hospital for the elderly and dying. It was a lonely building in the woods, situated on a small lake. He crept to the windows, finding one open and pulled himself inside. He grabbed a man who looked to be on death’s door and the lady across from him. She didn’t look ridiculously sick, but he could smell cancer.

He carried them to the window. The woman started to wake up when it was her turn to be tossed out the window. He looked into her eyes. “You cannot make a sound. You don't know how.”

She opened her mouth, trying desperately to scream but nothing came out. He tossed her from the window and jumped out. He picked them up as he had the men and ran back to where they were. He dropped the two people to the forest floor and sighed. Liv’s mom was on the fatter lady before he had a chance to offer her the meat and blood.

Her hands started to heal as she started to change, not becoming a wolf but her fangs grew and her mouth elongated slightly.

He bit the man, forcing blood from his wrist and held it over his unconscious brother’s arm. Instantly, Gunnar’s fangs dropped. He latched on, draining the man like he had sipped a juice box, the kind Briton had seen children with.

They both recovered remarkably. Gunnar’s milky eyes cleared and his skin started to plump back out. Liv’s mom looked like a different person. Her hands healed completely.

She swallowed a large bite of the dying woman, who was screaming without a sound coming out. He felt sick but the moment he walked close, she snarled at him. So he let her feed her way. It was horrid.

When she finished, she was a new woman and the chubby woman was finally dead. He regretted not compelling her to ignore the pain and fear instead of not being able to cry out.

Liv’s mom breathed normally again and spoke with a soft voice instead of a rasp. “Is Liv all right?”

He shook his head. “I don't know. I think so. I left her with my brothers to come and free you before Liv left to do it. I didn't want her to get hurt. We all just found out about you two.”

Gunnar looked at the wolf and snarled. Briton dropped to his knees, wrapping himself around his brother. “I’ve got you, Gunnar. I’m taking you home to see Father and Mother.”

Gunnar looked around at the forest surrounding them. Briton stroked his face, seeing his eyes darting about. His lips twitched and he trembled. He still looked like he belonged in a psych ward.

He didn't look at Briton like he knew him at all.

“He’s worse than most, been there a long time.” She turned and lifted Josh up from the ground. “But we need to get going.”

He nodded towards the hospital for the old and sick. “There are cars this way. Once we know where we are, we can go home. I don't imagine we are far.”

When they got to the parking lot, he zipped inside, grabbed a set of keys and hurried back out. He had taken a minivan from a chubby nurse he compelled, hoping to keep the wolves and the vampires away from the boy. Fortune smiled upon them. The minivan had a separate trunk cage for large dogs. He put Gunnar back there. He curled up in a ball and trembled.

Briton didn't know what to do, but he knew his father would.

He laid Josh in the middle and Liv’s mom sat up front with him. He had gotten the lady’s bankcard and pin number too. She had GPS in the van. He put the address for the nearest town to Wolfville in and sighed when he saw they were only an hour away.

He started the van and drove in the direction the nice lady with the English accent in the GPS told him to.

“How do you know my Liv?” her mother asked.

His heart tugged at him. She was his Liv. He gave her a look, wondering how stable she was. “I am her shadow twin.”

Her jaw dropped. “What?”

“We are soul mates.”

“But you’re . . . gross.”

He chuckled. “Thank you.”

“I mean, you’re not gross, you’re something that is gross.”

He pulled onto the old highway. “It’s fine. I don't expect anyone to understand. We just are. We can’t fight it.”

“Has she changed yet?”

He nodded. “Last night and the night before. She does it with ease and maintains her common sense somehow. She doesn't attack people or vampires. Very unusual. We haven’t said anything to her yet about it. We don't want her to worry about being different.”

“But she is different.”

He noticed the tone she had used. She knew her daughter was different? What else did she know? “Why is she different?”

“Because he was doing things to me when I was pregnant, I just didn’t know it. Injecting me with things. I didn't know he knew what I was. He says he was trying to find a cure and assumed the fetus was the best place to start. I learned about it after he had taken me to his little torture chamber there. When I got sick from the things he had done to me, he convinced me I had Lupus, very uncommon for born wolves to get. In fact, I have never heard of another case except in bitten wolves. I got so sick, I couldn't even shift anymore. Of course after I had vanished into the caves of doom, I learned he had been giving me things to prevent the change, again trying to cure it. He kept telling me he loved me. It was sick. I had spent our entire marriage as his guinea pig and never knew it.”

Briton couldn't believe the doctor was so gruesome.

“When he realized there was no cure, he decided to let them harvest venom from me. But my venom is different. The shit my ex husband has done to me has made it different. I can’t kill a vampire, only paralyze them and knock them out. So they have been using mine to capture more vampires for harvesting their venom. Gunnar there, he’s the same. The tests and things done to him have made him completely harmless. His bite doesn't even stun anymore. They have had him a long time though. The poor boy.”

He looked in the rearview at his brother in the cage. He wasn't moving. “He is going to require a lot of help.”

She turned and gave him the saddest look. “The only help he needs is to be free of it all. There is no recovery. They have had him for a hundred and sixty years. Experimenting on him and hurting him. Forcing him to do revolting things and demeaning him. You must free him.”

He swallowed his hatred and spite. “That is not my call.” He left it at that.

She shrugged.

They sat in silence and he contemplated the death of his brother.

No longer wanting to think on it, he asked, “How did you snap back so fast?”

“I ate her heart and other organs. Wolves do best with organs—hearts, livers, and kidneys. Humans are like magic for us. I never eat them, ever. We were being sustained on a retched mix they have experimented with. One part blood. One part water. One part ground meat. One part our own kind. Makes you crazy. Makes you weak and limits your abilities. You can’t shift. You heal like a human almost, it’s so slow.”

He gagged and she nodded. “I know. Disturbing. And like humans who consume their own, we start to go mad. It is fixable, apparently.”

“Who are they?”

“The Knights, the same ones. They are no different than they were a thousand years ago. Different men—yes, but no different in the values and morals department. We are evil and they are holy. We run our lives by rules and guidelines, they do the lord’s work to torture and kill us all.”

“Doctor Daniels is a Knight?”

She nodded. “He is. I never knew what he was, and he sure as hell didn't know what I was, or so I thought. When I got sick, I confessed to him what I was. I assumed he would shun me, but he didn't. He was sweet and caring and devastated. Until he and I were alone, and I was supposedly dead. Then he became the man he really is, just a creepy Knight. When it was just the two of us in that hole, he would tell me he was searching for a cure so we could be together again.”

“He is remarried.”

She turned and smiled weakly, still looking sick but much better than before. “I know. He brought me the video of the wedding, the elopement to another wolf, my own damned cousin.”

Briton didn't know what to say about that. All he was thinking about was where Liv was. She was his driving force for everything.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Liv

I sat on the couch staring at Finn. He was still asleep. Liz was next to me. We had no leads. My father had vanished. Briton had vanished. Josh had vanished. Until Finn woke, we would have no answers. I was getting annoyed and ready to wake him up on my own. Not to mention, I was in another one of Maria’s ugly-ass dresses. I had left my neat pile of folded clothing at my father’s clinic.

Finn shuddered again in his sleep.

Maria came and sat beside me. She was so pretty. There was no way she was the mother of such old boys, and yet she was. Ragnar looked behind himself at the window. He was up and out the door instantly. I jumped up and followed him.

Briton climbed out of a random minivan, and my heart leapt. I ran to him but stopped short when SHE got out of the passenger side. I dropped to my knees, sobbing instantly. She ran to me, smothering me in her love. She kissed my head, “My sweet girl. You’re all right.”

“Mom! Mom, you’re here!” I pinched her and squeezed her. She looked bad, really bad, but she was alive. It had been real then? The torture had been real? Something bad switched on inside of me. Something that I wasn't sure I would be able to fix. But I gripped to her, forcing my eyes to stay open in case it was a hallucination and she was indeed gone.

She checked every inch of me, running her hands and inspecting. It got annoying quickly, but I knew she was making sure he hadn’t hurt me. I tried hugging but she smelled and squished until she was satisfied I was fine.

Briton walked to me, hovering over us.

“You found her?”

He nodded. His father and mother came out of the house as Ragnar carried Gunnar from the back of the van. He stayed curled in a ball. I could see Thorlack was distraught but he held himself together. He shook with rage but when Ragnar passed him his son, he cradled the grown man in his arms and kissed his face as tears rolled from his eyes. It was Maria who was the hot mess. She screamed and shook with anger. She spoke in Italian and crossed herself a hundred times. She got down on her knees and prayed in the grass.

Briton looked on, his lips pressed together and his jaw trembling. I got up from my mother and wrapped myself around him. He clung to me, taking in deep breaths of me. I could feel him shaking.

Ellie came walking up to the house; seeing it all must have affected her too. Tears slipped from her eyes. She glanced at me. “Is Josh hurt? I had a bad feeling about him.”

I nodded towards the van. “He’s sleeping. They must have drugged him.”

She walked to it and opened the door. Simon and Liz helped her get him out. “I’m going to take him to my house. He’s safe there. I’ve put the guards back up to full strength. Whatever is in here with us, we will have to fight but nothing that intends anyone in town harm may enter.”

Briton nodded. “Thank you, Ellie. We will start tomorrow. Flushing out the evil.”

She sighed and walked to her house with Simon and Liz. It was weird they had spawned such a friendship so quickly.

I looked at Briton and inwardly laughed at my own comment.

He looked disturbed. I didn't know what he had been through, but I had a feeling it was the kind of thing you didn't recover from.

The thought made me look at my mom. I smiled and hugged her again. She looked so old and tired.

I knew what she needed. I pointed at the field. “Want to run?”

She shook her head. “We can’t. I can’t. Your father made it so I can never shift again. It’s gone. I can heal pretty quickly from wounds as long as I eat a lot of bloody meat, but I will continue to age and die as a normal human. I won’t ever get back what he took from me.”

“How old are you?”

She smiled. “Three hundred and eighty-seven. So I feel pretty good about my lifespan.”

Tears started down my cheeks again. “But I need you.”

She wiped my tears. “I know. I’m here. You’re going to be safe. Tonight we will sleep in the one house your father fears more than any other.”

I winced. “I need to get Judith.”

My mother flinched.

I reached my hand for her but she pulled back. It was a petty reaction I never expected from my mother. My humanitarian mother who had lived her entire life as a vegan, which I still needed to have explained to me, couldn't spare a drop of kindness to the woman who had taken me in? A woman who was family? I cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”

Her jaw set. “I don't have to like that she stepped into my life so quickly.”

“No, but you have to accept she is a part of the family, and I care about her. And it wasn't quick. Dad was single for three years. It wasn’t fast. He was miserable.”

“IT WAS AN ACT, LIV! HE IS A SCHEMING BASTARD!”

I jumped back, Briton was in front of me immediately. She snarled and turned and walked away. I didn’t understand what was happening.

Briton held me, whispering, “She isn’t quite right. He did a lot of things to them.”

She stalked off into the street. I watched her go, feeling like I needed to run after her. But I didn't. If I were honest with myself, I would admit to being scared to leave Briton’s side.

She left my line of sight, making a panic build in me. Briton took my hand and pulled me that way. “Come on.” He dragged me until I decided he was making the right choice.

“How bad was it?” I asked the question I decided I needed to know.

“I won’t ever be the same again. Nothing in two thousand years has scarred me so.”

I grimaced. “That’s bad.”

“I don't want to talk about it.” He looked down on me. “I just want you to know that I love you, very much. From the very first time I saw you then and even more now.”

“You remember?” He remembered it?

He nodded. “Faintly. I saw it when I was unconscious. It was a wonderful life. Simple, but wonderful. We were farmers, a community of sorts. You and I had just been married in our people’s ritual of bonding a man with a woman, and were about to start a family. We were happy.”

It made me feel better he remembered, like our love now wasn't so weird and forced. I still couldn't shake the bad feeling I’d had all day. I kept my senses alert as we rounded the corner to downtown. My mom was sitting on a curb, staring up at the night’s sky.

I walked to her, letting down my guard a little bit. I sat next to her and looked up. “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

“You didn't. I know Judith is important to you now. I hate it because it was my job. I was supposed to be your mom, and when you needed me the most, I let a human take me away. I let him in and trusted him and risked us both.”

I waited to see if she was going to say anything else, but she was silent. I shook my head and whispered, “Mom, I never felt like that though. I loved you. I loved you a lot. I loved Dad too. Now I hate him, but I have never suffered or had hardship. You were an awesome mom and I felt loved. I still do.” She smiled and wiped her eyes. But I wasn’t done. “Now how come you were vegan? How did you make that work?”

She chuckled. “Oh that. I wasn't ever a vegan. I was just trying to be like this mom I met at playschool. She was so awesome. So I emulated her. I voted the way she did, I ate the way she did, I preached the way she did. I figured it made me super human. I wanted so badly to be with your father. When I met him here in Wolfville, I fell in love with him and left with him, against my family’s wishes. My parents were dead. They died in the hunter wars, so I was an easy target for the Knights—I just didn’t know it. Anyway, we moved to Chicago and I got pregnant, and I wanted all of us to just be normal. When I knew you weren’t, I hid it. Your father didn't know what I was, or so I thought. I made it my mission to act like you and I were human. I did everything in my power to make sure we were the most normal people ever.” She turned and looked at me. “I always hunted in the woods until I got sick. When I got too sick to move, I finally had to tell your father what I was. He brought me bloody meat and I ate it in secret.”

I lay back on the cold sidewalk and stared up at the stars. “So you thought he never knew but really he did? All along?”

“Yup.”

“He was a regular human?”

She didn't answer. I looked at her. She shook her head. “I don't think so.”

I sat up. “What does that mean?”

“You aren’t a regular wolf, my dear. Wolves are savage. They can’t stop themselves. They eat humans if they get the chance. They can’t control themselves around humans, animals, or vampires.”

My insides started their fluttering again. “What does that mean?”

The look she gave me chilled my bones. “I don't know.”

I looked at Briton. I could hear him sigh. “Did you know I was weird?”

His eyes gave away the answer. As did his not moving.

“Great, I’m not only a wolf, I’m a freaky one?”

He still didn't move. I looked back at my mom. She nodded. I slumped. “I am never going to have the awesome year I planned. This sucks. Dad’s a dick, you’re all weird and touchy about shit, Josh and Liz are going to change, and I am never going to have the senior year I swore to myself I would have.”

She started to laugh and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “I have missed you, Liv. I really have.”

We got up and walked back to the mansion.

When Briton and I were finally alone in our room, I sent a bunch of texts.

“Judith will message you when she gets a chance. Put your phone away.” Briton whispered into my ear. We lay on his bed, wrapped in each other. Everyone had gone to bed. Finn was still passed out and Gunnar was still a hot mess. They had been feeding him blood bags all night long, but he was still sitting silent, scared of every noise. My mom showered and changed and started looking like a normal person again too. She was still rocking the homeless bag-lady look, but at least she didn’t smell homeless anymore.

I closed my eyes and curled into him. “What are those needles on the dresser?”

He tensed up.

“I saw them, don't even try making shit up.” I smiled when I spoke.

“Venom. They are venom. They make a vampire or werewolf very sick. Blue is wolf and red is vampire.”

“That’s the venom my dad steals and uses as a weapon against us?”

He kissed my neck, moving closer to me. “Yes.”

I moved closer to him, but the whole it being his parents’ house, was killing it for me. “I can’t do this with your brothers next door and my mom down the hall.”

He kissed again, nibbling my skin softly. “We will be very careful and quiet.”

I opened my eyes and looked back at him. “They all have super hearing. No. I heard your brother fart ten minutes ago.”

He laughed but it sounded bitter. He slumped next to me and pulled me into him. I could feel how much he wanted to do it. Truth be told, I wanted it too but not enough for everyone to know we did it. Not to mention, I had plans.

He closed his eyes and relaxed. I was just waiting for him to pass out. The minute he did, I had to move. But his looks distracted me. I couldn’t stop staring. He really was perfect.

His breathing started to get regular, then his body relaxed into the bed. He twitched once and bam—out like a light. He slept so bizarrely, like a coma patient.

I slipped from the bed, grabbed the needles, and jumped out the window to the roof. I crept along the rooftop until I reached the back. I changed there. Learning how to be quiet was awesome, but I needed to learn how to change and not make it hurt every time.

I jumped down, letting my wolf senses run on high alert. I crossed town in the shadows. I caught a whiff of a few wolves but nothing serious. When I got to Liz’s house, I scratched at the door. She opened it and tiptoed out of the house. She was glowing. I knew she had drunk her grandma’s blood and summoned her spirit. She didn't have her own magic yet, but she could borrow from her dead grandma. It was weird, but if it worked—awesome. She had been doing a lot of reading since the dream walk. It had enabled her to understand the books we had looked at but thought were gibberish. I passed her the needles I had carried carefully in my mouth. I drew in the dirt, “Venom. Blue Wolf, Red Vamp.”

She nodded, “Good, Lassie.” Oh no, she didn’t. She chuckled at her own joke.

I gave her my deadpan wolf face. I might not have been a murderous wolf, but I imagined I could be provoked to get there. She pocketed the vials and snickered, “You know that if you touch me and project your thoughts, I can hear them. All witches can.”

We ran across town, like Little Red Riding Hood and her wolf.

When we got to my house, we ran around the back. I nosed the hide-a-key rock. She picked up the key and opened the door. We slid inside, staying to the shadows. She locked the door and walked behind me. I didn't smell a thing out of the ordinary. But it was hard to smell out my dad in his own house. The man lived there, of course it smelled like him.

We had formulated the plan when Briton had assumed I was texting Judith. But it had been Liz, the only other person who would be willing to do this crazy thing with me.

We had to act. My dad had for sure slipped across the borders of the guards before Ellie had put them up. He was here, I knew it.

We walked silently through the dark house to the master suite they had built on the first floor for themselves.

Liz was scared, I could smell it. But with her grandma’s magic and instant know-how, she was set. I could feel her grandma there.

Liz placed a hand on the doorknob, turning it slowly, silently. I swallowed my fear. She cracked the door open. I half expected shit to just start jumping out at us. But it was just Judith sleeping silently. She made the odd sleeping noise, but it was a normal night.

I didn't know where he was but it wasn’t here.

I turned and walked to the front door. I closed my eyes and listened once more for the sound of someone in the house, besides us and Judith. Nothing.

Liz opened the door and we both walked out. She locked it and pocketed the key. We ran across the grass. It felt like I had snuck out of my house to party, only without the fun, and I was wearing fur.

We ran for a block before she started to have problems breathing. I let her rest a minute while I thought about it all. I could go back to Dad’s clinic, but I really didn't want to. My bravery was only going to go so far.

Liz huffed when she whispered, “Remember Josh said Jamie is the leader of all this. Maybe his place?”

I nodded. We ran for Josh’s house.

When we got there the lights were on. We snuck around the back and listened as he spoke loudly to someone. He sounded drunk. My stomach was a ball of nerves, but I tried to keep it on an even keel.

I stood on my hind legs and peeked in the window. Jamie sat at a chair with two other men and my dad. Rage and fury filled me.

I lowered and snarled as quietly as I could.

Liz held her finger to her lips. She looked and crouched back down when she had seen them all. She pressed her lips together. We had a plan, but suddenly I was certain it would fail. I was about to bite her and drag her home when she got up and walked to the front door. She knocked quietly. I watched from the back window as they stopped talking and got up. I cold see her in the doorway. She folded her arms. “I know my grandmother helped you before, and I want to help.”

The men started doubting her instantly. “On the night we have declared war, a young witch wants to switch sides?”

Damn. They were pretty smart.

She nodded. “I do. I think the Thorlacksons are trouble. My mom isn’t going to do anything, but I will. I’ve been doing some reading of my grandmother’s books, and I think she was onto a cure.”

Jamie grabbed her, shaking her like a rag doll, but my father tried to intervene. I got back down and rounded the corner of the house just as she drove the red vial into Jamie’s hand and pushed a small amount of venom into him. He started to shake and froth, backhanding her out of the house. She stumbled down the steps as I dove through the doorway. One of the men shifted instantly, biting down on my leg. I spun, kicking and biting his throat. His teeth sank down farther.

Liz screamed at my dad, “THAT’S LIV!”

My dad kicked him, trying to help me. The other man grabbed my dad’s arm and punched him in the face.

Liz regained her composure.

Something or someone whizzed past me, grabbing my dad and tossing him out into the yard. Liz grabbed the other vial and stabbed the needle into my father’s chest. He kicked her across the yard.

Several men we hadn’t seen came from downstairs. They shifted on the stairs, quite badass actually. I discovered after a second, the thing whizzing around next to me was actually Simon. He broke the neck of one man, and then another. I joined him, biting and kicking. My bite did nothing but piss them off, they were all wolves. But when he got the chance, he broke their necks, knocking them out. I ran interference. For every jaw that tried to clamp down on him, I got in the way. I let them bite me. I could survive a wolf bite.

My legs gave out as a jaw snapped down on my throat and shook me.

Liz snarled in her own way. Suddenly, as if seeing me injured flipped a switch in her mind, she stood up and screamed pure rage at the men. Her face was swelling and her lips bleeding, but it was her eyes that caught mine. They turned molten as fiery lightning shot from her fingertips. She looked crazy badass.

“SIMON, THE NEEDLE IS VAMPIRE VENOM!” She shouted as she zapped the wolf attacking me. He cried out and Simon got the needle and started putting a small amount in each wolf.

She pulled Simon and me from the house with some kind of wind and instantly the house was on fire.

She looked like Drew Barrymore in that weird Firestarter movie. She cackled and caused more lightning. She had fully lost it.

The wolves who were still alive dragged their burning bodies from the fire. Simon injected them as they left the house, letting them die on the grass.

I caught a glimpse of his arm, instantly howling. He looked at me and then his arm.

A wolf bite marked his pale skin.

Liz screamed. It was just like when she had done that crazy-ass screaming in the field. I shifted back, doing my own screaming.

It dawned on me then, they were the same as Briton and me.

I sat naked, clutching to Simon, a man I didn't even know. He looked bad. I did too. I was covered in ragged flesh and bite marks. The change never healed them. Probably because they came from wolves.

Liz was sobbing, wiping the blood and spit away, chanting, “It’s not so bad. See? You’re going to be fine. It’s not so bad. You’re going to be fine.” She sobbed harder. “You’re going to be fine. Please be fine.”

Simon lifted her chin, smiling and shaking his head. “I saved you. That's what matters.”

I knew what I had to do. I looked at her. “Meet me at Miles’ house. I know what to do. Use your magic and get him there. It’s exactly halfway between here and Briton’s house.”

I looked over at my writhing father. He was screaming and his bones were breaking. He would be one of us soon enough. No one deserved the pain he was in, except him. He totes deserved it.

I shifted, screaming and writhing like a baby. Damn it, was it getting worse?

I ran as hard as I could to Briton’s. I howled outside the window. My mom came rushing to it. I howled again. She disappeared and reappeared in the window with Briton. He rubbed his eyes from the window, staring down at me. “What have you done?” he was pissed. He was going to get a lot more pissed. I contemplated changing back to explain, but decided he would just have to figure out my Lassie routine. I wasn’t changing for anyone.

He was out the door in a moment. I turned and ran for Miles’ house. Liz was using her magic to pull Simon down the road to the house when we got there. Briton ran to them. He picked him up and screamed into the night. I barked and howled at them. Miles and Betsy came running out, well, moving fast anyway. I ran to them, nudging against Miles. He looked terrified, but he was part old witch from one family and Betsy was part from another. They had to be able to read me.

I put a paw on Miles and sent him my thoughts.

He shook his head. “NO WAY!”

I barked and growled. If I had to change to explain, I was going to kill him.

Briton carried Simon to the yard. “Miles, he’s hurt. He’s been bitten.” Briton looked at me and shouted. “WHY DID YOU HAVE TO GO OFF AND DO SOMETHING WITHOUT ANY HELP?”

I winced, whining a little.

He placed his brother down delicately.

Miles ran a hand over him. “He’s fading fast.”

I whined and turned to Briton. I bared my teeth, feeling a sickening fear inside of me. He shook his head. “I don't know what you want.”

Miles sat down on the grass. I growled at him, baring my teeth.

Tears slipped down his old cheeks as he muttered, “She wants you to bite her at the same time she bites you. It will release the curse and Simon will live. Wolves and vampires will no longer be venomous to each other.”

Briton looked at me. “No! No! We will find another way.”

I growled. Jesus. There was no other way. I lunged at him. He shoved me back. Simon shook his head but Liz said nothing. I turned and looked at her. I whined.

She nodded. “It is the only way to end this.” Hot tears splashed from her eyes. She knelt and kissed my muzzle. I was covered in blood and injuries still, but I hadn’t even really paid them much attention. Her hands came away with blood coating them. She cried harder. “I love you, sister—I remember you. I remember cursing them. I knew there would be a cost for the curse—I didn't know this would be it. I’m sorry.”

I whined and nudged her. Tears were filling my eyes too. I turned and looked at Briton, hoping he would agree.

Instead, he shoved me away again. “NO!”

Simon shook his head, looking like he was going to die any second. I lunged at Briton, snapping my teeth.

He looked defeated when he didn't push me away. He let me come close to him. I nuzzled my face into his arm. He reached over, running his fingers through my thick coat. Blood coated his fingers, staining my white fur red.

I looked right into his face and whined. It was an annoying sound, but it was the one I made when I was trying to convey something.

He nodded, lifting my paw to his lips. “This isn’t our story, Liv. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.” He kissed it softly. “Never was there a kiss destined to such an end.”

He was always saying the thing I was thinking, but this time I knew it was what I was thinking. His eyes turned red and his fangs dropped. He offered me his hand. We bit at the same moment. Suddenly I was dream walking again. I was the girl in the field. I was with him, holding his hand. He loved me and I loved him, and nothing else mattered.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Briton

In the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of Simon standing. He was crying and gripping to Miles who was pulling them all away from where Briton and Liv lay.

Briton turned his face, seeing hers. She was human again. He reached his fingers across the grass to hers, clutching them tightly. The poison was paralyzing him. He could feel it. His grip on her small hand loosened. He fought harder for it. Tears leaked from her eyes. She shook her head, whispering, “I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head. “I’m not. I found you, finally.”

She shuddered as the venom took away her ability to hold his hand, but he held on tight enough for them both. He was lost in her blue eyes, forcing himself to watch them until they closed.

The cries and sobs of the people surrounding them filled the night air until it got cold and thick, and he wasn’t there in Wolfville anymore. He had been pulled away. He could smell the Icelandic air surrounding him. He had been pulled from where they lay in the grass to the past—to the moment where they had met, the first time, in Iceland.

She had been getting water. He had traveled with his father and sister, seeking a new place to settle. Their home and small farm had been ravaged by the volcano there.

When he first saw Liv, he didn't think she was real. She was so beautiful, so fresh and clean with her white hair and pale skin. She lit up the small river she was next to, like a magical creature from a tale.

She was stunning. When she saw him, she smiled, even though he was a stranger. She waved at his sister, who ran to where she was standing, waving away. His sister had been Liz. She was a healer, people always liked her right off.

The girls were best friends from that moment on. Liv’s father had been the leader of their people. He invited them to stay.

Briton’s vision jumped ahead by years to when he lay dying in the field, holding Liv’s hand. He remembered the feel of his sister touching his chest, gripping to him. She cried and stabbed them both. His body jerked recalling the moment.

Never had two people been in as much love, or loved as much. His sister’s curse was a product of her love for them both.

Suddenly he was in Wolfville again, and he could feel Liz gripping to them in Betsy’s yard. It was the same scene only thousands of years apart.

Briton’s eyes fluttered. In the flashes he caught a glimpse of Ellie. Her steely-silver eyes were focused on him like she was trying to tell him something with a look. She rested a hand on Liz who was crying and gripping her hands on him and Liv.

Everything went dark and the feel of Liv’s cold hand in his was the last thing he saw or felt.

The black was there and then it wasn’t. Like his eyes were still fluttering.

The air got cold and turned white, too bright to see. Her hand was still there. He grasped harder, scared they would be separated in the blinding light. Her breath was ragged and her heartbeat rapid. He didn’t understand where they were. He could still feel the grass against his back.

He didn’t know which life he was in; they felt the same for a moment.

The light blaring down on them held a scream inside of it. The scream came with a flash of light and sound. It was there and then gone before he could even comprehended what had happened.

Were they in Heaven?

He heard a sob, assuming it was Liv, but all the light faded and it was dark again. He opened his eyes, gasping for air. Something horrid burned inside of him. There was a loud thump. It was like restarting an old clock. The first beat knocked the dust off of it.

He heard a scream, it was a man.

The sound made his skin crawl. He looked around, seeing the faces of his loved ones looking down on him. Another scream tore through the air and he realized it was him. The searing pain was real, as was the silence of her heart. The rapid beating of her heart and the ragged breath had left her at some point and became part of him.

His body felt thick, trapped in a fog and heavy.

Could it be Hell?

Was he being punished for his many sins? He looked to the right. Liv was still there, but she didn’t move or breathe. He sat up, lifting her up into his arms. “Liv. Liv?” She was cold, cold as ice. The scream tore from his lips again as the drum continued to beat in his chest. She was gone, and yet, still owned every piece of his heart. He pressed his wet lips against hers, muttering into the embrace, “Please don’t go without me.”

He knew what it was. She still had her whole soul. She was pure. She was the light to his dark, in their complex love.

She was gone.

His eyes shut, refusing to see it.

He clung to her, tears running down his cheeks, his warm cheeks. She was burning him with the cold of her skin.

He felt someone touching him, saying something about how she was different. Her venom wasn’t the same.

He shook his head. How had he let her talk him into it? His venom had been potent and hers had been modified. He had murdered her and his payment for his many sins was to wait for her to be reborn again. But the beating in his once-still chest told him he wouldn’t have the lives he had once had. Something had happened. He was free of his blood lust. He was free of his darkness. She had taken it for him, freed him. He was mortal again for his sins.

He gripped to her, refusing to believe it, though the evidence lay right in his arms.

Liz who was sitting next to him, looked equally distraught. “Do something!” he demanded.

She shook her head. “I can’t. I don’t know what to do.” She sobbed into his shoulder, covering her face.

Ellie put her arms out. “Give her to me.”

He paused a moment, not sure what she would do. She nodded. “I can do this.”

He stood and laid her in Ellie’s outstretched arms. She closed her eyes and started to speak. Something came down from the sky, a star maybe. It was bright and when it was close to the roof, everything went white with it. The light was intense, too intense. It was the same as when she left him. He prayed she was back.

When the light cleared, there wasn’t a sound around them.

Ellie gave him a look, still holding the limp body of the person he needed the most in the world. Tears fell from Ellie’s cheeks. “What did we do?” she whispered.

He shook his head, covering his face and letting the shame and tears cover him.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Liv

The feeling of my heart stopping inside of me burned. Changing into a wolf was nothing, compared to the death I was suffering. I wanted so badly to scream, but I couldn’t, my lips lay still. I felt Ellie touching me, trying to make me wake, but nothing could pull me from the dream world I was stuck in.

There was no waking from this dream.

The pain was just there.

What had happened?

Had there been a choice about something? I recalled something. A whisper on the wind, a voice that asked me to choose my form. I remember thinking about him, wanting to be like him.

How had I been so brave as to choose to die with him?

It had to have been the wolf, she was braver than I was. She remembered things I didn’t.

I felt her leaving me. She took everything with her. She took my heart.

The last image I saw of him was his face, whispering something about there never being a kiss destined to something. He was beautiful and then he was gone. In fact, everything was gone. My mind blanked and I lost all sense of time.

I was still.

The light surrounded me and my eyes opened.

I looked around but nothing made sense.

I was me, and yet, I wasn’t. Who was I?

I was a girl. I was from somewhere. The place sat on my tongue, taunting me with words I didn’t know. I heard them but they didn’t register. I was naked except for a blanket I had wrapped around myself. I clutched to the blanket and tried to remember where I was.

Faces surrounded me. Everything blanked for half a second and then I smiled. “Liz!”

Her bright-silver eyes sparkled like stars in the sky. Tears leaked from them. Couldn’t she hear me? “Liz?”

She reached for me. “You’re okay?”

I nodded. “I think so. What happened?”

Her mom was there. Ellie. I remembered her. There was something about the egg sandwich, I remembered that. My mom came into view. She looked so different. So old and haggard, and yet, alive. My mom was alive? I leapt at her, hugging her. Her heart beat against my chest, echoing off the hollow walls of it. Her hands shook, gripping to me. I was sobbing without understanding it all. “You’re alive?”

She stroked my head. “I’m so sorry, baby. I am so sorry!” she whispered into my hair. I held her and my thin blanket tightly. “Where are Dad and Judith?”

She didn’t answer. My stomach sank. Were they okay? I couldn’t remember what had happened. I looked around at the grass and the people around me. Nothing made sense. There had been a crash and screams and the grass. I remembered feeling the grass. There was a hand. A man’s hand. “Where’s Josh?”

She stroked my head. “He’s safe.”

Liz was still crying. Was I hurt? I looked down at my hands, they were stained in blood and dirt. There had been an accident, but what was it again?

My body was panicking with my brain, but I didn’t have a response. I was still confused and lost.

I turned, seeing the most beautiful guy in the world. He gave me a hopeful look. I smiled politely, hoping my hair and face weren’t a complete disaster. “Hey.”

He scowled and nodded. His eyes glowed funny. They were the darkest blue I had ever seen, and yet, it was like a light came out from them. I could smell him. I could smell them all.

It was weird.

Had I hit my head? I lifted a hand to feel, clutching to my blanket with the other. I felt nothing but hair. I must not have hurt myself very bad.

But I had scared them all. I could see it on their faces, grief or maybe even terror, real terror.

The old man next to me dropped to his knees with a huge amount of effort. He took my hand in his. “What do you remember?” I knew him, somehow. He smiled softly. “Just start with the last things you remember.” He must be a doctor. A friend of my dad’s?

I shook my head. “Chicago, but we moved here. I don’t know the name of the town. I know Liz, she’s my best friend. Her mom Ellie has that weird store with the weird sandwiches. I live with Dad and Judith. My mom died, but she’s here. Oh God. Am I dead too?” I started to get dizzy. “Was there an accident? Did I die?”

My mom shook her head. “No. Honey. I never died. It was not . . . uhm. I never died. I just left, to try to get better. I was in a coma.”

She was lying.

I backed away from her, moving closer to Liz. She was the only person I really trusted there. “Where’s Josh?”

The old man looked past me to the beautiful man. I glanced back at him. “Do you know where Josh is?”

He swallowed funny. “Why?”

I frowned. Yes, why? Why was I searching for Josh? I needed to find him. That was all there was. “Is he hurt?”

The man shook his head. “He’s fine. He’s sleeping, it’s night.”

I looked around. It was night. “What are we doing here? Why am I here? Why am I naked? Is this a dream? Where are my dad and Judith? Did I sleep walk? Is this a dream?” I pushed myself away from them all, scrambling to hold my blanket around my naked body. They looked really upset, but I didn’t care. Someone’s heart was racing but it wasn’t mine, oddly enough.

I looked at each of them, asking, “What happened?”

No one answered me. My not-so-dead mother didn’t even have an answer for me. They all stood there, looking lost.

“Fine, don’t tell me.” An ache burned through me. I clutched my chest, moaning and fighting for my breath. I struggled to my feet and started down the road. I wasn’t sure which way was home.

“Liv, wait.”

I shook my head. “Leave me alone, all of you.” I walked until I came to an old plantation-looking house I didn’t know but it felt like the right place. It was a massive white mansion.

I stopped. There was a wall around my brain and I couldn’t get over it. I dropped to my knees in the front yard of the house, just sitting there and staring at the house I didn’t know, and yet, knew better than any other.

I had the strangest feeling, like my heart was in that house.

Josh came out the front door. He looked rough, tired and groggy. Of course, this was Josh’s house. That’s why I knew it. I got up and ran to him. He wrapped his arm around me. “Are you okay?”

I nodded and then shook my head. I got lost for a second, feeling his heart beat against my chest walls. It echoed in my empty chest, like my mother’s had. I closed my eyes. “I think I’m having a very bad dream.” I looked up at him. “We’re dating, right?”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Uhhhh, no.”

I scowled. “Yes, we are. I remember us at that dance, dancing. I remember you at school. You had your arm around me.”

“Liv, trust me, we are not dating! Where is everyone else? Are you okay?”

I stumbled back from him. “I don’t know.”

His eyes widened. “You have no heartbeat? Are you dead? Are you a ghost?”

My lip started to tremble. “I don’t know. Do I look like one?”

”You look cold and tired. Why don’t you come inside, and we can see if you can get some memories back. Briton’s mom and dad are here. I just got here too. I woke at Ellie’s but no one was there.”

“LIV!”

A voice called me from behind. Josh’s face relaxed, seeing whoever was behind me. “Oh, thank God, Briton. She’s lost it, dude.”

I turned to see the beautiful guy from the scene of the crime I still didn’t recall.

He walked to me, searching my face with his eyes. “You don’t remember me at all?”

I shook my head. “Should I?”

Josh pointed at him. “This is your boyfriend. This is his house.”

My already-stopped heart felt frozen. How was he my boyfriend? How did I not remember him?

He gave me a heart-breaking look.

Josh slapped me on the shoulder. “I’ll give you guys some space.”

I realized then and there, I was standing on the deck of a house I didn’t know with two guys I didn’t really know, in a friggin’ blanket. I looked at the guy, Briton, and asked, “Can you walk me home? I can’t find my phone, and I don’t have clothes.”

He went inside and came back out with a sweater. He pulled it over my head for me. I struggled and got my arms inside without losing the blanket.

We started walking in awkward silence.

“Why did you think you and Josh were dating?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I just remember him. We danced at the ball, and he always was there at school, talking seriously. I guess I assumed.” I gave him a sideways look. “I’m sorry I don’t remember you.”

How could I not? He was stunning.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop what happened. Everything will probably be different now.”

I nodded. “I don’t even know what’s going on, but I think this is a bad dream.”

He gave me a weird look. “You don’t have a heartbeat.”

Josh had said the same thing. I paused, placing my hand on my chest. I fingered my neck, feeling for my pulse. I looked at him, scared and confused. “Am I dead?”

He shook his head. “No. We just had a weird night. Maybe it is just a bad dream. Maybe we’re both sleeping right now.” He reached over and placed his warm hand on my throat, feeling for the pulse. His touch was soothing. I didn’t know him, but his touch felt like he had been doing it my whole life. I didn’t know how that was possible, and yet was certain my body knew him. I felt it in the touch. It wasn’t a spark or lightning or anything amazing, just a regular touch.

He scowled. “Weird.” He leaned in, looking into my eyes. “Can you see really far away or smell things better than before?”

I glanced around, testing his questions. “I guess, yeah. I can hear better too. Like I can hear your heartbeat right now.”

“That is weird.”

We continued walking until we were outside of my house. I knew it was mine. I gave him a look when we got to the front door. “Thanks.”

He swallowed hard. He leaned in, brushing his lips against my cheek. The closeness of his face next to mine was so familiar, I shuddered with a memory. I whispered the first thing that came to my mind. “There never was a kiss destined to such an end.”

He reacted quickly, lifting his hand to my face, staring into my eyes like he was startled or scared. “What?”

I shook my head. “You remind me of something I heard once. There never was a kiss destined to such an end.”

A smile that made my broken heart leap, crossed his lips. “You remember me?”

I shook my head, but it didn’t stop his smile. He lowered his face to mine, pausing to rest his forehead against mine. “I love you, Liv.” He brushed his lips against mine. It was the most delicate kiss. All the fierceness in him was in his grip. He held me tightly to him, but still his lips gently caressed mine.

As his tongue slid into my mouth and my hands slid up his chest to his unruly hair, the blanket dropped to the ground. But I didn’t care. I let him lift me into the air. My mind might have forgotten him but my body had not.

A sharp, stabbing pain like a hot knife slicing across my throat filled me. I moaned into the kiss and tasted his blood.

It started a fever. The sweetness of his blood took over all of my senses. It was like I had starved all my life, only tasting food for the first time. Part of it was the kiss, but the other part was his blood.

He pulled back, laughing. I scrambled to grip to him, but my strength was no match for his. He looked up at the sky, “Seriously?”

I licked my lips, desperate for more of it. He looked at me, his blue eyes glowing. I looked into them, getting lost and found in the same breath.

We had been lying on the grass, when the voice hovered over me, asking me to choose my form. My heart went to him instantly. I chose to be like him. The curse was broken, and as a result, I was allowed one wish. I could become what he was, so I did. I felt with my tongue, wincing when the sharp fang cut me.

His glowing eyes. Of course. Briton. He was my Briton. He was mine and I was his and we had chosen to be what the other person had been, desperate to match.

I started to laugh with him, still struggling with the urge to eat him alive. “You picked to be a wolf?”

He nodded. His smile turned goofy. He laughed and ran his fingers along my fangs. “You chose to be like me?”

It all flooded back in. Every detail. I remembered everything. It might have been the blood, but I let it be the kiss that saved me.

He scooped me up, licking the blood from his lip. “No biting. We need rules.”

I winced. “You still have to shift. Do you have any idea how much that hurts?”

He nodded, his blue eyes glistening. “Nothing will ever hurt as much as you not knowing me. If I shift and you suffer from blood lust, we will make it work. Just don’t leave me here without you.”

Tears flooded my eyes as I realized all of the things I hadn’t thought about. “My dad.” The words came out in a croak.

He kissed my forehead, muttering into it, “I am so sorry, Liv. But at least your mom is alive and we rescued her and my brother.”

“Josh’s dad?”

He shook his head. “There was a wolf there, but he was savage. If he was Josh’s, there is no saving him. He was completely wild.”

I sighed into him, savoring the feel and smell and completion of being in his arms. He scooped me into them, carrying me into the house and up the stairs. He put me down outside of my shower and pulled his sweater off of me. I shuddered at the feel of his warmth. “Were you always so hot?”

He laughed. “No. Now you’re tepid and I’m scorching. We may never match.”

I wrapped myself around him as he carried me into the shower. I nuzzled into his neck and let the hot water blast us. “We match. We have the same heart. It can only beat in one chest, so this time it’s in yours. You just have to take good care of it.”

He kissed me, softly spreading his heat throughout my body. “I will keep it safe always.” He kissed again and again. “I can’t believe you’re here. I thought I was going to die when you died. I thought God was punishing me for being an evil vampire. I thought you got to go to Heaven and I had to stay and try to earn my way to you.”

I smiled and looked up at him. His eyes weren’t glowing anymore. “I didn’t die. I was just trying to catch up to you.”

He kissed my nose. “Never leave me again, even if it’s for a few minutes.”

He kissed me and I knew what he had meant—never was there a kiss destined to such an end. It had been an end of sorts. An end to the suffering of people like us. But it had been a beginning too. It had been the beginning of us. The real beginning. “Briton, this is our story. This is how it starts.”

The two lives we had lived together, the first one as farmers in Iceland in 860 BC, and the one now, meshed together. I felt love for both versions of him. But unlike the version where we had died so young, this time we would get forever.

There was no limit on the amount of time we would share. It would be infinite. And like the time, our love would have no limits.

He cupped my face and kissed me softly. “Then let’s start it off right.”

It felt like the end of the longest journey ever ventured. I had been born over and over, always seeing him or thinking of him or feeling the missing piece of the puzzle. But he hadn’t been born again. The curse had a cost. His father had been a monster made on that field that day, making him born a monster I would spend two thousand years trying to reunite myself with.

But it was over. Finally. I was with him and we were free of the curse. We were free to be together.

I kissed his neck, feeling the fangs spring instantly and smiled. He pulled me back. “We don’t bite.”

I laughed. “How did you resist biting me?”

“I knew my bite would kill you.”

I winced. “It’s going to be harder for me. My bite won’t affect you.”

“It might annoy me. That will affect you.”

I laughed harder.

He kissed me again, gripping to me and kneading my skin. I had never imagined my favorite shower in the world could become even more special. But it did. The walls and windows steamed, and in the mist we got lost in each other and the pleasure we both needed to feel.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Briton

He held her in his arms, kissing her forehead and smelling her. His sense of smell was stronger, which he had thought was already quite good. Thankfully, she still smelled delicious to him.

She was everything.

The image of her lying on the grass, cold and still, lingered in his mind. It haunted him.

He closed his eyes and forced his brain to think about the shower instead. The feel of her body against his had brought back everything else. The life they had had before was closely tied to the one they were living now.

Something strange happened for him just then.

His eyes relaxed and his mind wandered gently.

He saw things he hadn’t seen in a long time, and he felt things he couldn’t recall ever feeling.

His sleep became a journey, a tour through the ages.

Something pinned him down, force-feeding him feelings of both pain and love.

He sat up, gasping for air. It was light and she was smiling at him.

He looked around the room, confused and lost. “I had something terrible happen to me. I was sleeping, but it was a struggle and I couldn’t get out of it.”

She lay back on the pillow and yawned. “You had a bad dream.”

The words rang throughout his head. He had never dreamt before. Well, he had but not since he was a boy. He gave her a look. “Let me guess, you passed right out and woke right up? No dreams?”

She snuggled into the pillow. “No. I had a dream. We were on the beach and it was sunny and we were holding hands. We had a dog. It was a good dream.”

He flopped back onto the pillow. “Whatever your dad did to you, I need him to do to me.”

She winced.

“Sorry.” He offered a weak smile. “I just meant . . .”

“I know. I just sort of forgot about him. I guess we will have to find him today. Jamie is dead. His wolves are dead. My dad is a wolf. It’s a mess.”

He brushed her hair from her face. “Well, you have school so you go to school and I’ll take care of the rest.”

Her bright-blue eyes perked up. “Oh my God. I do have school. It’s like the world ended but it didn’t, you know?”

He chuckled.

She crawled up onto his chest, resting her head. “It’s so weird, you have a heartbeat now.”

He wrapped himself around her. “I know. It hurts sometimes. I think I’m going to have to go out in the field and change before it forces itself upon me.”

She lifted her head, grimacing at him. “Oh dude. It hurts so much. I actually thought I was dying at least twice. So bad.”

“Your heart stopping must have hurt more?”

She shook her head. “No. That was so sudden. The wolf thing is agonizing and brutal and never ending.”

He scowled. “Thanks for sugarcoating it for me.”

She laughed and lay her head back on his chest. “Do you think we will just always love each other?”

“Haven’t we always?”

He knew he had never loved anyone like he did her. Never. But she didn’t answer. He pinched her arm. She squealed. “I’m thinking. I was just checking. I have a lot of lives to comb through.”

He rolled her on her back, pinning her to the bed. “If you ever loved anyone, I will . . .“

She rolled her eyes. “Relax, crazy pants. I never loved anyone. I actually never really lived past like twenty-five. Such an odd thing for a seventeen-year-old girl to say.”

He laughed. “I don’t think there is anything normal about either of us.”

“I don’t want to be normal anyway. I just want to be here with you.”

He looked around. “Can we start sleeping at my place though? I feel weird that this house is your dad and Judith’s.”

“Yeah—no. I’m not sleeping at your house with your parents, sorry.”

He sighed. “Can we just get our own house then?”

She frowned. “I’m seventeen. I can’t live with you. We’ve been dating for two weeks.”

“You’re eighteen in ten days, and we’ve been married before and we both remember it.”

She wrinkled her lips, making that weird goose-faced look the girls all took pictures of themselves doing. She shook her head. “No. I want to date. I think we need to go back to the start, start over and date. This is the start of our story, remember?”

He laughed, looking down at their naked bodies. “We just had sex, twice.”

Her cheeks blushed, not as bright as they used to though. “I know. I think we should cut that back and just get to know each other for who we are now. We have eternity. I don’t want to rush it.”

“You say that now? After we’ve made love for eleven days straight, apart from the day where we were fighting for the right to be together?”

She bit her lip and nodded.

He sighed. “Fine. We can take it slowly and date. Whatever. I don’t care how we are together. I just want to be with you forever.”

She kissed his cheek and closed her eyes again. “I wish we didn’t have to get up though. I don’t want to go to school.”

He wanted to get out of the bed, he just didn’t want to tell her why. He kissed her, savoring the feel of her lips against his. “Is this permitted, milady?”

She rolled her eyes. “You are such a dork—milady? Please.” She climbed from the bed and started getting ready for school. He didn't like the fact she would be at school, vulnerable and in the open. But he had to trust she could wield her newfound strengths if she had to. He had a much larger fish to fry.

He watched, noticing he was suddenly obsessed by odd things. The smells, the sounds, colors. Everything was different. Wolves literally lived a different life than vampires.

He walked to her balcony door and turned to see her pulling on shoes, heels. He shook his head. “See you after school. I’ll pick you up?”

She ran to him, hobbling with the one heel, and threw her arms around his neck. Her strength difference was noticeable. Wolves needed more anger for strength whereas vampires were always strong. She still wasn't any match for him. He scooped her up, nestling himself in her neck. The smell almost drove him to walk back to the bed and do the very things they had just discussed not doing. He pondered if that was her game. Telling him he wasn't allowed to do it made him want it more. Obstinacy must have been a wolf trait. He had already been a stubborn and persistent man as a vampire, he felt it worsen as a wolf.

She kissed him and pushed on his chest. “You have to go!”

He nodded once. “I do. I have to go and let all the bones in my body break before the full moon so when I am forced to become a wolf on that eventful day, it isn’t as harsh.”

She winced. “Nothing takes the harshness away. I think it actually gets worse as you go.”

He laughed, pressing his lips on hers once more. She stepped back, blowing him a kiss. He pretended to catch it and winked at her. “And you call me a dork. I dare say, blowing kisses is equally dorky.”

She gasped. “You caught it.”

He jumped off of the balcony, shouting up at her. “That I did. I will check on your mother before I go.”

She leaned over the railing, no longer smiling and joking. She realized she hadn’t given much thought to the reality of the world they now faced. “Thank you. I don't even know what to say to her. I just hope she and Judith can play nice.”

“Will you tell Judith?”

She pointed behind her. “I’m going to do it now.”

“Then good luck with that and the whole explanation. I’ll see you after school.” He walked backwards, staring at her as long as he could.

Chapter Thirty

Liv

I watched him walk across the grass and past the tree that I had relabeled stalker tree, after him and his creepy red eyes. He made me smile, even then when I had to go and do the worst thing possible.

I grimaced and walked into the room and out into the hallway. My fingers gripped to the railings in protest. They didn't want to do what they had to.

When I got downstairs and entered the kitchen, she was sitting at the table. Her eyes were puffy, red rimmed and still glassy. She held a mug in her hand, tapping her ring against it and staring out the window.

She didn't look like Barbie. She didn’t look badass or perfect. She looked broken. She looked like she knew everything.

I walked in silently, but she still looked up at me. Her lower lip trembled. She started to cry, shaking her head and muttering something I didn't understand. She covered her face, hiding from me. I walked over, feeling the mascara already running down my cheeks.

“I didn't know,” she sobbed. “I didn't know. He used me.”

I looked past her to the back door, jumping slightly when I saw a wolf standing there. He dragged a paw, scratching to come in.

“Is that…?”

“Yup.” She sniffed and looked over at him. “GO AWAY, FRANK!” she shouted and pointed.

The huge grey wolf pawed again and whined, as if he were a lost dog begging to come in.

“How do you know everything?”

She looked back at the table, placing the mug down and speaking as though she were reliving the moment she learned it. “Josh. He came this morning. He was worried about you. Said you had lost your memory.”

My brow knit together as I relived my own memory. “I just had to change it up in my head a little. I was given the choice when the curse broke to stay a wolf or to be like Briton. I chose to be like him, just as he chose to be like me. My memories needed a minute. It’s been a rough two weeks.”

She smiled. “He is a wolf and you are now a vampire?”

“And the curse is broken. The bite no longer kills.”

The smile on her face got larger. “So he is a wolf? He’s been a vampire for two thousand years and now he’s a wolf?”

“With five vampire brothers.”

She burst out laughing, clutching her side. I frowned. I saw the humor but missed the hilarity. She was busting a gut, my dad/wolf/traitor was still pawing at the door, and I was lost. She thumped on the table with her fist, tears streaming from her eyes. The laughter turned to crying again. She slumped on the table and cried harder. I glanced at the clock. I was already late for first period. Shit. I didn’t know why I thought I was even going to school. The first two weeks in Wolfville had been insane.

It didn't look like it was improving.

I looked at my dad and slumped with Judith. “What are we doing with him?”

She looked over at him, crying harder.

A knock at the front door interrupted the worst moment of my life. I got up and answered it, hoping it was a small amount of good news.

It wasn't.

It was a man with a dark beard and dark hair to match. He had steely-blue eyes and a stern face. “Is he here?”

I swallowed hard.

“The law is the law.”

I forced myself to see the cruelty of my mother’s fake funeral and the state she was in after years of torture. “He’s in the back, still in wolf form. I don't know if he knows how to change back.” I felt sick saying it, betraying him even after everything he had done to me, and even worse, what he had done to others.

The man nodded but it looked like a bow. I cocked an eyebrow as he turned and walked around the side of the house. My empty chest ached. I hated how sad I was for such a bad person. I ran back to the kitchen and watched as my father turned, snarling. Several men came into the backyard, pointing rifles at him. He bared his teeth, growling and shaking his face in a snarl.

Judith jumped up. I grabbed her and held her to me. A brief thought of defending him fluttered through my head. But Judith’s cries told me to be strong. I needed to hang on to her as they got closer to him.

He stopped snarling after a moment and looked back at us. He lowered his head, not running or fighting for his life. He was resigned to die.

The first shot made me jump.

The second made me cry.

The third dropped him to his stomach.

He lay there, trembling but not changing. He stayed in wolf form, dying slowly. He was bitten, he could be killed. They would burn him to ensure it.

Judith dropped to her knees, dragging me with her. She hugged me and sobbed into my hair. I gripped as hard to her as she did to me. When his chest stopped rising and falling, two of the men came and lifted him, carrying him away. They didn't look at us. They didn't speak to us. The law was the law.

He had taken human life, wolf life, vampire life, and tortured all the above.

He was a criminal and a sadist. He was evil.

But no matter how hard I tried to make that bigger in my head, he was my father in my heart.

I assumed Judith felt the same. She was heaving and gagging, she cried so hard. I lifted her up and carried her to her room. When I laid her down on her bed, she turned away from me and curled into the fetal position.

I didn't take her hint at wanting to be alone. I curled up on the bed behind her and closed my eyes. The image of him being shot and pawing at the door and whining filled my head. I didn't push the thoughts away. I embraced them.

I knew in my heartless chest, I would never forgive him. I would never forget the horrid things he had done or the thing he took away.

But I could let myself have the memories of him that made me happy. He had been my father. He had loved me in his bizarre way.

I didn't even realize I had fallen asleep until I woke to the sound of Judith crying again. I opened my eyes but didn't see her. I got up and went to the kitchen where I found something I didn't expect. My mom and Judith were sitting at the table crying together.

I stopped in the entrance, watching them. My mom turned, giving me a smile. It was a weird smile. It made me uncomfortable. She got up from the table. “Liv, how are you today?”

I shook my head. “Fine, I guess.” It was awkward, as ass.

Judith gave a sideways stare but didn't say anything.

My mom walked to me, reaching for my hands with her still-scabbed fingers. “I wanted to tell you that I’m leaving for a while. I came here to see if you were okay with that.”

I wanted to say no. I wanted to say that I needed her. But I didn't. I nodded. “Of course.” I didn't know the journey that she had been on, but I could imagine the baggage she had to unpack was severe.

Her fingers quaked in my hands. Her lips trembled. “I just feel like I need some separation from everything. Try to find myself again. It’s been so long since I was honest with myself about who I am. I don't even know anymore. I need help getting past the last four years.”

“Where are you going?”

Her lips pressed into a fine line for a moment before she said, “Where I was born, I have family there still. In Germany, actually. But I was thinking we could write and get to know each other again, the real us.”

It made me cry when she said that. I was a stranger to my mom and she to me. We had never been who we were in front of each other. From the start, I had lied about myself. I squeezed her hands back. “I hope you can let it all go, I guess.” I didn't know what to say.

Her eyes narrowed a little. “I think the justice that has been served has helped a little. I will email you as soon as I arrive in Germany.”

I swallowed it all down. My father died. I became a monster for the second time. And now my dead mother, who wasn't really dead, was leaving me on her own terms.

I looked past my mom to Judith and smiled. I was going to be fine. There was one person who had seen me through it all. One person I had taken for granted and had rejected, regardless of her many attempts to be my friend.

I hugged my mom and knew that no matter what happened with her and I, she would always be my mom. She kissed my cheek and turned back to Judith. “Thank you, for everything.”

Judith nodded.

Mom squeezed me once more and kissed the side of my head. “My car is waiting. One of my other cousins is bringing me to the airport. I love you, kid.”

I nodded. “Me too. Be safe and write me.”

I walked as she walked to the front door. She turned and waved at us both and left.

I didn't feel sad. Maybe because I had already been to her funeral. I had already lost her. I had mourned and healed, and nothing could take away those feelings.

Judith stayed at the table. I turned and looked at her. “I can stay, right?”

She started to cry again. “I’d really like it if you did.”

“Me too.”

She rushed to me, wrapping herself around me. She kissed the side of my head. We stayed like that for a while. Then she whispered, “I’m really proud of you. You let her go and you didn't make it about you.”

I closed my eyes. “Thanks.” I didn't tell her that I didn't need my mom as much as I used to. I didn't tell her that I had such a close second to a real mother, it didn't matter.

Epilogue

Briton crept through the bedroom window, hoping she was asleep. He caught a glimpse of her, mouth breathing on her pillow, and smiled. Slowly crossing the room and dropping articles of clothing, he crawled into her bed with nothing on.

She smiled and moaned. “You smell like the forest.”

“Happy birthday!” he whispered and kissed her face.

She opened an eye, staring him down with it. “You’re not supposed to sleep here anymore. We made a deal.”

He wrapped himself around her, moaning into her hair as he took deep breaths of her. “I missed you. And I wanted to be here when the clock changed and it was your birthday.”

She sighed and let him pull her into him. “You saw me three hours ago at your parents’ house.”

“It feels like a lifetime. Want to go for a run?”

She smiled and nodded against him. “I do.”

He lifted her up into his arms and carried her to her closet. She pulled on sweatpants and a sweater and gave him a devilish look. “Race you!” She breezed past him and leapt off the deck. Her feet were on the pavement when she looked back. He leapt from the deck naked, shifting mid-jump. He truly was meant to be a wolf. The shift was nothing for him. He was a majestic and beautiful creature. His fur was long and shaggy, dark like his hair. His face was strong and his dark-blue eyes glowed. It was a thing of beauty.

She laughed and ran towards the woods.

He caught her in no time. They crossed the field and entered the woods like a twisted version of Little Red Riding Hood. When they were deep in the forest, she smelled it first and veered off to the right. She chased down the bear, leaping logs and creeks until she finally found it. She tackled him, biting as they rolled over the duff and branches of the forest floor. Her fangs sunk in as his huge paw swiped at her. She bit down harder, pulling faster. The hot blood filled her mouth. She closed her eyes and loved every second of it, except when he died. She always hated that part.

Briton nuzzled up against her, as if to tell her it was all right. After she had fed, they strolled through the woods.

She nattered on and he listened.

It had become their thing. She had refused to feed off of humans, unable to kill anyone. She would have preferred blood bags, but the donors weren’t easy to find in a small town slowly getting filled with supernatural beings.

They were halfway home when she ran her fingers through his dense fur. “I like that this is the start of our story. I like this start better than any of the others. I just wish, sometimes, that a few details could have been different, you know?”

He whined and rubbed against her.

They found a spot under a large clearing to lay down. He made the bed and curled into a furry ball. She nestled herself right in the middle, looking up at the stars. Her hand slipped around one of his massive paws. She closed her eyes and slept like the dead.

The next day she walked into class, feeling exhausted but excited—she was eighteen. Not that it would matter. She wouldn't ever age from eighteen, but it felt good to finally be free of the worst year of her life. Regardless of the good, the bad would always taint and overshadow it, seventeen had been horrid.

Liz strolled up, snapping her fingers and making sparks. Liv rolled her eyes. “You are so going to get seen. You know the council is all feisty about shit like that.”

Liz smiled. “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks. You coming for dinner still? Judith has some big dinner planned. She doesn't think I know, but I totes heard her talking on the phone.”

Liz stuck her bottom lip out. “Dude, that was a surprise. You better still act surprised.”

“I will. God.”

“You sound like Napoleon Dynamite when you say God like that.”

Liv stuck her tongue out at her best friend.

“I’m bringing Simon, just so you know. If the other rowdy brothers show up, they are Briton’s responsibility.”

Liv sighed. “They are so crazy. They must give Maria a frickin’ heart attack at least once a week.”

“You mean if she had a heart?”

Liv laughed. “Touché!”

Mr. Barns gave them a hateful look as they got their seats in class. Josh hit Liz in the arm. “He is never gonna like you.”

Liz scowled. “I for reals never did a thing to that man, just saying. He is a hater for no reason.”

Liv smiled and looked at her friends. She was going to have the best senior year a vampire could possibly have in a town filled with the things that went bump in the night.

And she mostly had Briton and NRA Barbie to thank for it.

She glanced out the window to the leaf-covered sidewalk below. He was standing there, already waiting for her to get out. She smiled subtly and watched him walk into the school.

“Mr. Barnes, I forgot something in my locker. Can I go get it?”

He scowled. “Hurry up, Ms. Daniels.”

She got up and ran down the hall to where Briton was coming up the stairs. He grabbed her hand and pulled her into the supply closet she didn't even know was there.

When they got inside, he closed the door. “I forgot to give you your present from me.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “I can’t even see you.”

His eyes instantly lit up, making it ever so slightly brighter in the closet.

He pulled something from his pocket and placed it in her hands. “I know you don't even want to have sex right now, and you want to take everything slowly. I know you are worried about being seventeen and in love. I know your brain is filled with the past month. I know all of that. But it is your birthday and I love you. If this is the start of our story, Liv Daniels, then I want it to start off right.” She felt the square thing in her hand, unable to see it.

He lit up his cell-phone flashlight and placed it on the counter, making it bright in the room. She looked down at the leather case in her hand—leather ring case. Her stomach tightened, but before she could say anything, he spoke as he opened the case. “This is a token of my love for you. It is a diamond from Iceland; from the area of the volcano that destroyed my farm and forced me and my family to move to where your family was. It is not an engagement ring. The shape is all wrong, but it is a ring to show you I love you and I remember you, as you were then and as you are now.”

She looked down as he pulled the silver ring from the box and slipped it on her finger. He put it on the middle finger of her right hand, nowhere near the one that would make her have anxiety attacks.

Surprisingly, she didn't mind it being there.

He tilted her chin. “One day when we become husband and wife in the custom of the people here, this will be your something old.” He kissed her hand where the ring was and then leaned in to kiss her. He whispered first, “Never was there a kiss destined to such an end.”

She smiled. “Yes, a happy end.”

He pressed his lips against hers, sealing the statement that indeed it would be a happy end, apart from the fact she still had to go back to Mr. Barnes’ history class.

As she left the broom closet, Briton smiled. “I’ll keep my brothers inline tonight.”

Liv waved and walked away, saying just loud enough. “You better. I invited your mother, so if you don't, she will.”

He started to laugh.

She turned and blew him a kiss. He caught it and put it in his pocket, shouting at her, “I’ll be cashing that in later.”

She held up her ring. “Thank you. I love it.”

“This is our story, Liv. We have to start out right.”

She smiled and watched him leave the school. She looked down on the ring and knew they were wrong about their ending. It was going to be a happy life with no ending.

And they lived happily ever after.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Epilogue