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She opened her mouth as if to speak, and a new revelation was made. She had fangs, but not like a vampire. Her fangs were long and curved and yellowed. They reminded him slightly of the canines of a wolf, but they did not fully fit that category either.
“Who made you?”
The woman’s voice was even and strong. “You made me.”
That was not possible. Gideon had only ever made two fledglings. It was not the sort of thing one did by accident. There had to be transfer of blood. There had to be drinking… had she somehow cut him that evening? She had tried to defend herself…. Perhaps she might have tasted a very small portion of his blood. But that alone could not be enough to create a being like this, and even if it had, she would be vampire.
She was not vampire.
“I am a part of all that has hurt me,” Lora Candy declared. “I am woman, and like too many women, I have been molded by the men who wanted to use me, hurt me, turn me into a vessel of their desire and then discard me and take the issue of my womb for their own. My body. My blood. My flesh. You took it as if I was nothing but a wrapper for your desires. You wanted to end me, but instead you created me.”
With those eloquent words imparted, each of them spoken in a voice trembling with rage, not fear, Lora let out a cry of rage and flew at Gideon.
The Maker had not been attacked in a very long time. He laughed at the impudence of such a brash act and prepared to end the woman for a second time, but instead of destroying her with an easy slashing of fang, he felt her pass under his muscular guard like a shadow. He was allowed only the most vanishing moment of surprise before he felt his flesh being rended with claws and teeth, his stomach, his neck, his thighs. She was like a whirling devil of death spinning at him almost more quickly than he could see. The power was tremendous and primal, coming from a place beyond the mundane world. His eyes lit up as he felt it meet his flesh and he felt pain.
In the last ten thousand years, Gideon had never been assaulted by any creature with potential to harm him. He felt her energy even before she reached him, a total twisting of the fields of possibility and calamity around him. He was not merely being attacked. He was being unwound on an entirely existential level.
As her claws slashed through his flesh he felt a surge of something he did not recognize at first. Later on, he would identify it as the first time he felt fear. For the moment it was nothing more than pure exhilaration, and he shouted with absolute glee.
He felt wet and hot. When he looked down, he saw himself coated in sanguine essence. It was not the first time he had been in such a state, but it was the first time it had been his own blood that slaked his flesh.
“Oh my,” he mused.
He was distracted, so very distracted. So much so he did not notice his chained hounds loosing their bonds and fleeing, their chains dragged behind them as they made good their escape. He staggered backwards, looking down at himself with an astonished gaze.
“Father!” Ray’s angsty cry filled the night air.
Candy was gone. It appeared the undead dervish had danced her dance and departed, content to mortally wound rather than outright kill on this cursed occasion. Gideon crumpled onto his knees as visceral blood ran down his midsection, and the coiling interior of his form escaped through deep gouges.
He had seen many people lose their stomachs before and had laughed as their viscera had spilled out into desperately clutching hands. Never in all of his eternal existence had he imagined one day he would be on his knees in the dirt attempting to claw his organs back into his body.
3
Will could not believe his luck, or his freedom. He and Henry fled through the streets, the pads of their feet pounding against the tarmac. They were free. They were unleashed. The chains and collars still remained heavy about their necks, but they would be dealt with soon enough. Finally, after months of anguish and captivity, air flowed about them and the world unrolled itself before them, and all was finally well.
He had seen Gideon go down and instantly turned tail. Henry was right by his side. Will could feel the pack master’s relief and see it in his lolling tongue, his pricked yet flopping ears. They were running with joy. The two of them had spent months enduring humiliating imprisonment, and now they were free. Completely, entirely, beautifully free.
They had discussed in quiet whispers many times what they would do if they were ever to get free. There was a protocol in place, a set of actions, instructions, and safeguards. They were not running blind in a feral panic. They were heading toward their first rendezvous point, just as they had planned.
They had always known that one day their chance would come, and they were prepared. This was no desperate flight at random. This was a journey with a destination.
Lorien had planted a cache for them in an apartment several blocks from Central Park. At the border of the park, they shifted back into human form, which made the collars instantly far too loose and easily slipped off. They were naked, but better to be seen naked running through the streets of NYC than for two great wolves to be caught on CCTV.
Nobody bothered to look at them in their human forms, which closely resembled drug addicts. People would pay attention to wolves, but nobody wanted to make eye contact with a naked man on a city street.
They got to their destination in very short order, a railroad apartment with peeling paint and a faint scent of mold. Will didn’t care, he was just glad it wasn’t Gideon’s fucking mansion. Waiting for them there was a box of food, clothing, money, and ID. There was also a note for Henry, his name written on it in Lorien’s hand. Henry grabbed the note before he grabbed anything else.
It had been a while since Will had laid eyes on Henry’s muscular, tattooed form. The alpha was graying at the temples now more than ever, and his hair had grown out to his shoulders, so two silver streaks framed his face.
“I’m going to take a shower,” Henry said. “I need this stink off me.”
He disappeared into the shower with the note. Will saw the gleam of a tear in the dominant older wolf’s eye and knew that he did not want to be seen having all kinds of emotions. Henry would be reunited with Lorien soon enough, and that was sure to be passionate. Will tried not to think about romance, love, mates, or anything of that nature. He had already decided that the rest of his life would be lived as a lone wolf. He would eschew all matters of the heart and refuse romantic contact. Maddox’s betrayal cut deep.
He was hungry. He heard Henry start the shower and knew it wouldn’t be long before the pack master was rushing them out the door to the next rendezvous, where he and Lorien would be reunited.
There was a box of toaster pastry on the kitchen counter. Will gravitated to it immediately, but recoiled when he saw that there was a note on that too. It was not marked for Henry. It was marked for him, in Maddox’s curling script. After a second he picked the box up and tossed it in the trash. He’d rather go hungry than depend on Maddox for anything, even a pastry snack.
Henry came out of the shower, refreshed, clean, and with hope for the first time in a long time. Being captive to a vampire coven had been particularly galling for him, not to mention worrying. He had a pack to worry about, a pack that had been without their alpha for so long he was certain he would have been replaced by now. He wondered who the pack had chosen. He wondered if he was still mourned, or if he had been mourned at all. The latter thought was borne of the darkness of captivity, and he knew better than to let it feel like truth. It was all too easy to feel abandoned and forgotten when trapped in an enemy’s lair. He had told Will this fact many times, but Will did not have broad enough experience of life to understand that his suffering did not mean he was hated or irrelevant.
