Wolves in the Shadows

  “Robert and I were soul mates,” Michelle tried to sound dignified but her comical squirming kept her from succeeding. Living together in close quarters for almost two years had ensured that they both knew exactly where the other one’s ticklish spot were.

  “You went on like three dates,” Elizabeth said with a grin

  “That’s it!” Michelle said dramatically. “It’s on!” She slid the computer off her lap and started to tickle Elizabeth’s neck.

  Any further discussion was drowned out by giggling until they were both red in the face.

  #

  “Okay, okay, truce!” Michelle threw her hands up in surrender. “You’re just too fast, Lizzy.”

  “One of the benefits of being small,” Elizabeth said. “I need something to drink now.”

  “There’s some soda in the fridge,” Michelle said. “Get me one while you’re at it.”

  Elizabeth tossed a can to Michelle and sat down at her desk to drink her own.

  “Are you coming out with us tonight?” Michelle asked after she had taken a gulp of her soda. “Emily is going to get us some vodka, and we’re all going to that party at Sigma Tau.”

  “I can’t tonight,” Elizabeth said.

  Michelle tilted her head to the side at looked at her suspiciously. “What are you up to, Lizzy?”

  “I’m just busy,” Elizabeth said. “I’m not trying to blow you off or anything.”

  “It’s a Friday night.”

  “And you know I like to get my homework done early.”

  Michelle rolled her eyes.

  “Lizzy, you need to get a life. You’re always studying and being a little hermit. We’re in college! We have to live it up!”

  “I’m sorry, Michie, I really am. I just have something really important to do tonight.”

  “Just please tell me that it has absolutely nothing to do with school.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “Michelle, I promise that it has nothing to do with school.”

  “Yes!” Michelle said. She pumped her fist in triumph. “Is it some hot date that’s not Chase? Do you have multiple guys interested in you? Tell me everything!”

  Elizabeth opened her mouth to reply, but Michelle was not finished yet.

  “Does it have something to do with why you were out all night last night? You wouldn’t tell me anything, and I let it go because you were obviously tired, but now that you’re awake-”

  “Michelle!” Elizabeth interrupted. She knew her roommate well enough to know that she was about to go on one of her rants. It was best to stop her early. “It’s not a date. I’m just meeting some friends.”

  “Who do you know that I don’t know?”

  Elizabeth chuckled and shook her head.

  “You don’t know everyone in the world, Michie.”

  “Well, I should,” Michelle said with a grin.

  “Shall we get some food?” Elizabeth asked. “The commons should be open for dinner, and you know what happens to you when you drink on an empty stomach.”

  Michelle grimaced at the thought. “Good point. Let’s go.”

  “Excellent,” Elizabeth said. She helped Michelle to her feet and got her keys and meal card out of her backpack. “I don’t know what it is, but I’ve been starving all day.”

  Chapter 7

  Sir Marcus was leaning indolently against the wall with his eyes half closed as Elizabeth slipped through the gap into the grove.

  “Hi,” Elizabeth said with a shy smile. He seemed so much less threatening tonight even though he was every bit as big as she had remembered. She noticed that he wore a silver hilted sword at his hip that contrasted jarringly with his dark jeans and collared shirt. She hadn’t remembered seeing it the night before, but then again she had been too surprised by their sudden meeting to really notice what he might have been wearing. She was happy at least the she had chosen not to wear her old university sweater. Her roommate may have had a point about that old thing.

  Romulus trotted up to her through the trees and licked her hand. She patted his head in greeting.

  Sir Marcus greeted her warmly, but then wrinkled his nose and said, “The smell of garlic precedes you.”

  “I brushed my teeth,” she said. She was not sure if she should be offended; he hadn’t sounded like he was trying to be rude.

  Sir Marcus chuckled.

  “Forgive me, I’m not laughing at you,” he said. “It just brings back memories.”

  “I didn’t even think about it,” Elizabeth said, embarrassed in spite of what Sir Marcus had said. “It was Italian night at the commons, and I love the garlic bread.”

  “I’ve never cared for it myself,” Sir Marcus replied. “Even when I was human.”

  “So, garlic really does repel vampires?”

  Sir Marcus let out another snort of laughter before he replied, “garlic repels just about everything.”

  “Sorry,” Elizabeth said. She dreaded that he would send her home for the night all because she had been too ignorant to realize that eating garlic bread would make her smell bad.

  “It suits you, oddly enough,” Sir Marcus said. He tilted his head to the side and frowned ever so slightly. “I think it will be a good way to keep us from forgetting that you are human.”

  Elizabeth tilted her head and mirrored his expression without even realizing it.

  “Garlic doesn’t actually repel us,” Sir Marcus said. “It just makes the blood smell and taste different, but so does just about everything else that people put in their bloodstream. I’ve known a number of vampires who actually like the taste. The idea that it’s so repellent probably came from hunters using garlic to mask their scent.”

  “How would it mask their scent though,” Elizabeth asked. “Wouldn’t you think as soon as you smelled the garlic that there was a hunter around?”

  “Once we figured out what they were doing, but smell of garlic is so strong that it makes it harder to tell which hunters are around, and the smell spreads so quickly that it becomes harder to pinpoint their exact location.”

  “So it’s like a sensory overload?”

  “Indeed,” Sir Marcus said. “Shall we go?”

  “So, did you think that I was a hunter?” Elizabeth asked mischievously as they began to follow Romulus through the grove.

  “Not even for a moment,” Sir Marcus said. “The garlic might disrupt my sense of smell, but my other senses work perfectly. I know the sound of your breath and footsteps, and I can feel the beating of your heart as if it where my own.”

  Elizabeth was not sure how to respond.

  “Did you have that sword last night?” she asked, feeling the need to change the subject. “I feel like I would have remembered it.”

  “I did,” Sir Marcus said. “I always carry it, but most people cannot see it.”

  “How come I can see it?”

  “You are not most people.”

  “Why can’t most people see it? What’s so special about me?”

  Sir Marcus laughed. “Most people would be too terrified to speak in my presence much less notice that I bear Aldo Der Siberschmeid’s sword,” he said. “But you are forever overflowing with questions.”

  “I can’t help it,” Elizabeth said with an apologetic shrug. “I’m just curious, and I hate feeling so completely ignorant about everything.” She didn’t add that he was less intimidating than his father.

  “You’re still young,” Sir Marcus said. “The longer you live and the more you learn, the more you realize how much you don’t know.”

  “But that’s no reason stop learning,” Elizabeth replied. “I don’t need to know everything in the world, but I’d like to know enough so that I don’t do seem like a total moron. Every time I open my mouth around you or Lord Reginald, I’m afraid I’m going to put my foot in it.”

  Sir Marcus smiled.

/>   “Aldo Der Sib-Siber- Der Siber-” Elizabeth quickly gave up trying to pronounce the name. “That was Anya’s father right?”

  “Yes,” Sir Marcus replied. “He was my grandfather and a good man.” There was something in his tone that sent a shiver down Elizabeth’s spine.

  “Did he give you the sword?” she asked, though she somehow knew the answer before he said it.

  “No,” Sir Marcus said. “I took it from him. I ripped his heart out of his chest with my bare hands.”

  Elizabeth shuddered and suddenly found that she had no more questions.

  Chapter 8

  Lord Reginald smiled warmly at the sight of Elizabeth. He stood up from his velvet covered crate and bowed.

  “I am glad that you have returned, young Elizabeth.” His deep voice rolled over her like a warm flood. “Your return is braver in many ways than your initial visit.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Elizabeth said with an awkward attempt at a curtsy. His power was every bit as potent as it had been the night before, but she found that she could endure it somehow. “I wish I actually felt brave. I almost didn’t come back even though I said I would. I felt like I was going to rip myself to pieces when I tried to decide. Even now there’s still a part of me screaming to run away and never look back, but there’s no way I ever could. I don’t know why, but I feel like I’m somehow connected to you. And I have to know what it all means.” Elizabeth shook her head, as if she that could somehow organize her thoughts. All it did was make things seem even more jumbled. “I feel like I’m going insane,” she said.

  Lord Reginald indicated that Elizabeth should sit beside him. She obeyed him without even thinking about it. It was vaguely comforting to know that the turmoil in her mind did not affect her ability to follow direction. Romulus immediately curled up at her feet.

  “Do not mistake courage from lack of fear,” Lord Reginald said as he sat down with her. There was something like pride in his expression. “Or confusion for insanity. You have come for answers to creatures that, until last night, must have only existed in your nightmares.”

  “Or in horror movies,” Sir Marcus said. He had sat down on the other side of Elizabeth without her even noticing. She looked at him questioningly.

  “I’m nearly 700 years old,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve seen my fair share of movies.”

  “Actually, I was thinking about how weird it is that you can move so quickly and quietly,” Elizabeth said. “It’s creepy.”

  Sir Marcus smirked. “Maybe you’re just too noisy,” he replied. “In addition to being smelly.”

  Elizabeth punched him in the arm and then grimaced in pain when her fist came in contact with his solid bicep. She realized suddenly how strange it was that he always seemed to switch between being completely approachable and amusing one minute and terrifyingly cold and dangerous the next. Maybe it was just a result of centuries of existence.

  “I get the hint,” she said. “I won’t eat anymore garlic.”

  His smirk broadened but then vanished at a look from his father.

  Elizabeth turned back to Lord Reginald. “I’m sorry that I fell asleep last night when you were telling me about Lady Anya. I don’t know what happened. I remember seeing Lady Anya, and she told me that she would keep me safe, but then everything was just a blur.”

  “Your mind was almost destroyed,” Lord Reginald said sadly. “I should never have put you in so much danger. You could have died.”

  Elizabeth eyes widened.

  “I didn’t know,” she said. “If that’s what death feels like, I don’t know why people are so afraid of it. It was beautiful.” She shook her head, trying to think how to describe the way she had felt her consciousness slip into a warm oblivion. That had been something that she had left out of her journal. Until this very moment, she had not remembered it, but even if she had, there were no words. She shook her head. “I think we talked for a long time, but I don’t know what we talked about. It was like I became someone else for awhile, but that’s not right at all.” The words ‘place between places’ floated through Elizabeth’s mind, but she wasn’t sure what the significance was.

  She looked at Lord Reginald and saw that though his eyes sparkled with tears, he was smiling.

  “She protected you,” he said.

  “Anya?” Elizabeth asked.

  “I knew it was so,” he said more to himself that to her. “I was right.”

  “Perhaps, father,” Sir Marcus murmured. “But we do not know for certain, and if it really is so, then we don’t know how.”

  “You might not know, but I do,” Lord Reginald said.

  Elizabeth felt lost. She was just a little girl sitting between two ancient men as they discussed something far beyond her understanding.

  “The sign has been given,” Sir Marcus said. “Regardless of how it happened. It’s been so long, I almost doubted that it would come.”

  “It has indeed been a very long time,” Lord Reginald said.

  For a brief moment, Elizabeth could see the toll of long years upon his ageless face and feel the weight of time upon his shoulders. It was overwhelming. How many children had he seen grow old and die while he never aged? How many kings had risen and fallen while he watched? What even was time to such a being? A way to number innumerable years? Did the nights fly by so quickly that he felt like he was forever standing still in an ever changing world? Or did they drag on endlessly?

  “So quickly do the seasons seem to change and the rose blooms and withers, but yet how slowly do the centuries pass, but it is all an illusion.” Marcus said, as if in answer to Elizabeth’s silent thoughts. “Long ages have passed since I saw my beloved sister with flowers in her hair as she danced in the moonlight, but the memory remains as clear as if it happened yesterday. But no matter how many years go by, it can never be again. Would it have been better if it never happened?” He trailed off into a thoughtful silence.

  “No, indeed,” Lord Reginald said. “I can still feel the warmth of Anya in my arms and hear her sweet voice. She is still the light in my darkness.”

  “It was love,” Elizabeth heard her voice as if from a great distance, but they were not her own words. “Love changed you both into something more than what you were. I made you strong enough to prevail against the very gates of Hell.” She winced as a searing pain shot through her head. She looked down at Romulus and saw that as he looked up at her, his eyes burned blue. She blinked, and the wolf’s eyes were yellow again. The pain faded as quickly as it had started.

  “Romulus,” Lord Reginald said sharply. He looked at Elizabeth as if he was seeing her from the first time. His grey eyes bored into her skull.

  The wolf whined and laid his head between his paws.

  “What was that?” Elizabeth asked. Her voice was a little shaky, but she now had control over it. “It was like someone was speaking through me. Was it Romulus? His eyes were like Anya’s eyes! What is he? What am I?”

  “It’s okay,” Sir Marcus said. He patted her back gently. “Father, you should finish telling her about mother.”

  Lord Reginald nodded and said. “It’s the best place to start.”

  Chapter 9

  “So I took her as my bride,” Lord Reginald said. As he spoke Elizabeth could see Anya standing before her dressed in white and glowing with happiness, just as she had looked the night before when she had taken Elizabeth under her protection.

  “I built her a cottage with my own hands just beyond the shadow of the castle walls, for my lovely Anya did not belong in a cold stone fortress surrounded by dead and cursed warriors. She belonged in a garden surrounded by the flowers that she loved so much. The fear of the Wolf Clan was so great through the countryside that no mortal would dare come within sight of castle. And amongst the Great Clans, the Wolf Clan was so powerful and dangerous, that even the bo
ldest of renegade masters would not dare enter our borders without permission.

  “So Anya was safe in her little cottage from the outside world, but it was my own clan that I feared the most. I instructed her to plant wolfsbane around the borders of her garden to ward away the Wolf Guard, and I commissioned her own father to make a silver crucifix for her to wear whenever I was not with her. I also warned her to never permit any other vampire to cross her threshold even if they were willing to surrender their power to her. I feared for her safety whenever my master sent me away on clan business, and for good reason, you will see.”

  “My master, the Lady Selina, found our union deplorable. She had planned on me becoming partners with the master of the roving Bat Clan, Laila the raven haired, and so unite our clans. She would say to me, ‘It is not proper for the prince of the mighty Wolf Clan to join with a mortal. Have your way with her and cast her aside, or at least turn her into one of us and keep her as a lover, but you will insult Lady Laila if you continue to insist that this Anya is your bride.’

  “But I could not tarnish the sweet perfection of my love. I did not want to have anything to do with Lady Laila. What did I care of grand schemes and clan politics? They were nothing to me when compared to my Anya.

  “Because Lady Selina had already named me as her heir, she could not outright control or command me as she could the less members of the clan. Indeed, if I had less loyalty, I could easily have broken away and become a rogue master, but I was not willing to give up my position, and I could not bear the thought of taking Anya away from her home.

  “When I refused to bow to my master’s wishes, she sought the aid of one of her most trusted followers to put an end to our burgeoning love.

  “Demetrius, who was third in command of the entire clan, already hated me for being named as Lady Selina’s heir. He was older and far more powerful that I and had served the Wolf Clan loyally since before the fall of Rome. He had been my mentor and friend until I surpassed him in the esteem of our master. When I had been named heir, his anger had been terrible to behold. He had been so certain that he would have had that honor, and perhaps he deserved it. But from that moment onwards we became bitter rivals.