Shade's Loss

  “At first I was still aware of being human and wanted to comfort her, somehow that changed and I did not recognize her. When I forgot myself in the werewolf’s violent and angered mind she was within my reach and I must have grabbed her. When she cut herself I lost everything I was, all my humanity, and I must have tried to kill her. It seems I owe you my thanks. She means everything to me vampire.” The veiled threat between them was more than clear.

  A low growl from his mate had him quickly clarifying himself. Her jealousness was annoying in the least. He nearly rolled his eyes. Staking a claim was no longer necessary.

  “Not counting you Shayla, of course. She is innocent and weak. People are always trying to hurt her. I made a promise to protect her with my life and I will not change that now because of this… thing, this new life,” he said quickly looking back at his mate. Having to placate his newly forcefully acquired mate would be difficult he was sure. A task he was glad he did not have to bear. At least Shade was a bit more civil.

  “I understand. She has been lost without you but she is safe and well cared for. There is a problem though. One you could seriously hurt her so you cannot be alone with her. Second, our world does not allow humans in it. She will have to become one of us. I am sure you will learn all of this soon enough but the fact remains, she must be turned. This is not something that is not in my control, unfortunately, and the sooner the better.”

  “Over my dead body!” Mikhail yelled as he dove for Damon who moved quickly out of the way.

  “No!” his mate, two seconds too late understanding the ramifications if the vampire chose to fight back, screamed putting herself between them changing again into her wolf form clearly showing Damon she would fight beside her man if necessary giving the two an edge that could possibly tip the balance in their favor.

  Damon watched though as she turned to her mate and pushed her dominancy on him. Her hair rose, her teeth snapped, and she growled pushing him back onto the ground. Saliva saturated her muzzle creating a nice ferocious effect. Not that Damon was impressed.

  “I cannot allow her to go through that!” Mikhail screamed and fought back trying to get past her to the vampire. Mikhail was not being gentle either. He tried to throw her and when she gripped him he broke her hold, twisted her, and pushed her back towards Damon but she flipped back around an instant later and was still in his face.

  “I would never hurt her Mikhail, I refuse. If I turn her she will be strong, fast, and no one will ever hurt her again. She will be my mate and she will have everything she needs or wants. No longer needing protection but having mine forever.”

  Mikhail screamed at the top of his lungs the last part becoming a howl. He would turn if he didn’t control his anger.

  “I am sorry. If I had left her alone she might be dead. You would have turned on her for sure if your mate had not returned for you. Personally she should have asked you instead of forcing this on you.”

  Mikhail gave her a look of pain and then lowered his head in silent agreement.

  The ancient switched back to her human form and sat beside him her arm around his shoulders. Her guilty actions not of consequence to her, she saw herself above and beyond that.

  “I have to get back to her. Here is my number. Call me when you’re ready, before you both go home,” Damon said giving the female his number.

  “I am Shayla, vampire,” she informed him.

  He nodded and turned to hurry back to his Shade. His, he questioned. Where had that though come from?

  He only moved two steps when Mikhail called out.

  “Wait!”

  Damon turned hesitated but turned back.

  “I swore to her I’d take care of her. Will you protect in my stead?”

  “Of course,” Damon said taken aback, it was obvious to him.

  “Then will you tell her I’m not breaking my promise but asking you to uphold it until I can again someday?” the look saying that he knew that may not ever be possible.

  “I will. She thinks you’re dead though. I thought you were until I came back to find your mate had released you,” Damon replied.

  Mikhail shrugged. He seemed reluctant to speak of it. Damon understood that the pup had been forced. Luckily he was not a feral. His life would change but he would live a long time. “I need to speak to her.” Mikhail said all but silently, his face downcast in agony and completely disheartened the pain and agony of the situation clearly visible in his demeanor. Shayla seemed oblivious still to what she had put him through.

  Damon agreed and transformed to his cat form so it took less time to travel back to his car.

  He felt terrible for the brother and sister. Both forced to become like Shayla and he, against their will and rights. Both stripped of their humanity and thrown to the wolves, Mikhail quite literally. If he was Mikhail, someday he would kill the female. Take her life like she took his.

  He shook himself and hurried down the tight, overgrown deer path back towards his car. The sounds of nature around him were soothing, but he had an inner need, no desire, to return home as quickly as possible. Something he had never before felt. He was never in a hurry for anything.

  His internal debate of his worthiness of her was beyond confusing and aggravating. He could not be near her it seemed without wanting more.

  Damon was almost there when he smelled a distinctly odd odor to the right. He veered off and followed it some ways, over a hill and through a creek. Yes, he was right. Another shadow creature had been through here recently, smelled like demon.

  Well, not his problem. He had not been informed of any problems in the area but anything was likely.

  He cut back to his former trail and doubled his pace. It would be dawn very shortly and he hoped to be home before his new ward was awake.

  Damon contemplated his options with her fate and still the only conclusion he had was to turn her, the sooner the better, best to get it over with.

  How old was she though? To be caught forever frozen at sixteen or seventeen was horrific. To an older person maybe not so bad, someone that dreamed of youth.

  Damon was virtually back to his car, he would have to find a place to change back, and just in time too. Dawn was twenty minutes away. He could feel the sun just behind the horizon.

  Daywalker or not, the sun still aggravated him. It drained him of his strength and speed. It was a lot more painful to change during the day for some unknown reason.

  He was at the edge of the woods and did not smell anything mortal in the immediate area. He began the transformation that more often than not would take only a moment but with the rising sun it would take much, much longer.

  Damon felt the energy he called stir within, the ache building and consuming him. He had stopped paying attention to the alteration within the first fifty years and now it was just another part of being a vampire.

  Heat suffused him slowly beginning at his paws and working upward. The ache began as a tedious pain but built to an incapacitating inferno that made him want to scream. Usually the process lasted mere seconds but in this case would last minutes.

  He could not escape this, bound as he was to immortality and the laws of his kind.

  He had not changed into a were-panther while mortal before becoming a vampire.

  Damon arched his back, claws extended and scraping the ground before him, and his lips pulled back showing his two inch long fangs meant for ripping and shredding. A sharp intense pain speared its way through his spinal cord causing him to spasm and drop to the ground. He writhed in silent agony counting the seconds until it passed.

  Dark shadows engulfed him eating the fur away like acid leaving a clothed, quivering, and immobile male in the felines place. The shadows would disintegrate leaving him exactly as before the conversion.

  Damon lay still a moment longer catching his breath as the last of the pain faded away. His skin felt shiny and new, like it was instantly created from scratch. His old skin having died when he became his alternate feline form.
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  He stood awkwardly in measured movements, the last motion he was kneeling until the spots before him receded before he stood and staggered the short distance to his car and unlocked the door and slid in. His tinted windows kept almost all of the sun out leaving it shadowed within the small car.

  He shifted the gears and pulled out of the vacant parking lot. He appreciated the light traffic and swiftly proceeded to the highway.

  The orange and yellow color of the sky was bright but he was grateful that he could bear the pleasure of it.

  Damon was not far from his home but Shade would be waking soon he was sure of it. He kicked it into the next gear, the speedometer inching ever closer to the hundred miles an hour marker… then beyond, his speedometer needle racing up to one hundred five, one ten, one twenty.

  Damon kept both eyes on the road and his rear view. An officer of the mortal law would not pull him over simply because of the tags on his car. They were government. Not a mortals of course but they would not discern the difference in the least.

  He was ten minutes outside of his town when a spike of pain shifted through his head, his heart racing unbelievably then faltered, although he maintained his speed and perfect control of his vehicle.

  Only one thing could explain this. His mate somewhere in the world was dying. Only one person could be his soul mate and she was in danger.

  Damon could not fathom why but he hit one eighty five nonetheless.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Shade woke at the nearly silent sound of her door opening, just a tiny squeak in the dark. She instantly assumed it was Damon and cracked opened her swollen eyes.

  Thankfully the room was black at night so the intruder didn’t see her slowly roll, noiselessly, to the other side of the bed away from them as she realized the person was way too short to be Damon, not more than a foot taller than her. Whoever it was exuded a menacingly slow approach, more than likely trying to ascertain her position in the room. Their left hand hid a silver instrument that looked suspiciously like a blade of some sort, nearly unseen in the inky darkness.

  She crept stealthily towards the end of the bed on all fours, more or less scooting, her small stature saving her life. The intruder leaned over the bed reaching painfully slow towards where she should have been, the covers creating a perfect symbolism of her body or Damon’s.

  She waited until they struck with the knife before she scrambled awkwardly for the door, sliding on the wood floor in her ankle socks. She made it to the frame before the person behind her kicked her viciously, squarely in the back sending her flying dangerously close to the stairs, less than a foot from the top.

  The air was knocked from her before she landed, sprawled indignantly on her stomach. She gasped as the air returned to her bruised body. She was sure her ankle was sprained because she had tried to slow her landing by falling on her feet first, even these minor injuries better than the fall had she been knocked down the stairs.

  Shade whimpered, tears of pain stinging her eyes, as she heard the person behind her snicker, a male person from the sound of it. It was hard to breathe leaving her wondering if a rib was cracked. She hurt so bad she could not tell if it was from the kick or something worse.

  The brief training her brother had given her combined with her will to live was the reason she jumped swiftly back to her feet, throbbing ankle or not. She leaned to her good side and waited for the creep to approach.

  Apparently he figured they had the upper hand, more than likely thinking she was a child or young teenager, obviously not Damon.

  She felt behind her for the railing and inched oh so slowly for it. Of course she’d never make it. She was not fooled in the least by false hope. Her mind worked unlike other humans. Her life had showed her that she must earn her freedom, her innocence. Nothing was free in this world.

  The man reached blindingly fast for her and grabbed a fistful of hair, yanking her towards him. When he had her within reach he bit suddenly into her neck. Blood seeped around the man’s mouth dripping along her neck and collar bone and soaking her shirt. The man slowly released her and stood up looking at her as if confounded.

  As the prowler proceeded to stand there with a look of plain confusion she whipped out with her good leg, instantly regretting the decision as her bad ankle gave out, but not before landing a kick between the intruder’s legs. She crumpled to the floor, crying out. Her neck was beginning to burn like cold fire, but she paid it little attention other than wondering why a human man would bite her. There were no fangs like Damon’s. He was not the same as the vampire.

  She realized that the stalker was not done with her, confused or not, so she pushed herself to all fours and rammed unexpectedly straight into his legs. It caused the man to stumble over her and down the stairs. She knew her luck could not hold out so she pulled herself slowly up.

  Shade did not hesitate in the hall or even look back at the man downstairs but continued to the bedroom and slammed the door behind her locking it. She was surprised to find a dead bolt along with five other locks.

  Shade was extremely curious but did not worry herself with the why’s only that she was grateful.

  She was not strong enough to move any furniture but she could escape from the window.

  Aggravated by the recent turn of events, Shade considered sitting in the middle of the floor and giving up.

  She sighed and knew deep down she was a fighter. She would not let her brother die in vain.

  Having firmly made up her mind she limped painfully across the room. She seemed oblivious to the fact that her best chances were to stay in the locked room, hidden, rather than escape as her mind urged her to do. Running was not an option, or jumping from the second story.

  She roughly shoved the thick curtains out of her way to discover the window completely boarded up, blocking the sunlight completely.

  “No!” She cried in frustration, banging angrily on the wood. There was no way she could pry the nails from the wood. She kicked the wall and instantly regretted that as well. She slid to the floor in complete and utter misery.

  Her neck was on flaming now, burning with such an intensity she wanted to cry. She was desperate to escape, feeling like a caged bird with a cat grinning wickedly at her blocking only escape. That thought was echoing wildly in her skull.

  She decided to thoroughly examine every inch of the room.

  After what felt like an eternity she found the only items in the room were the closet and dresser. Small or not the dresser was not an answer. Was the closet an obvious hiding spot or under the bed?

  She would be stuck in the closet with no escape. The bed had two sides but both left her little time to make a dash to the door again. So closet it was. She could hide her limber self among the clothes or the shelf above and maybe she would blend in.

  She quietly opened the door and took a look around. A long leather trench coat blocked the wall on her right. She felt behind the jacket and was surprised to find a neatly hidden trap door.

  Shade quickly closed the closet door leaving her cramped inside. She opened the small door with cut into the side of the drywall and climbed in. The other side was a cramped two by three foot space that had only wooden rungs leading up. She closed the wall behind her and quickly but painfully climbed the built in steps. She made it only three feet off the ground before she more or less gave up, breathless. Her ankle instantly collapsed and nearly caused her to cry out each time she put any amount of weight on it.

  Shade was not a loser or one to willingly concede. If the man who’d attacked her was not dead he would be back. Maybe not for the same reasons if only because he was seriously upset that she had outsmarted him.

  So she would pull herself up with her teeny arms. One way or another she would climb, her life depended on it. The wound in her neck was still bleeding freely and the fire was burning its way painfully and slowly down her arm towards the crook of her elbow.

  A crash below and behind her caused her to reach for the next rung and g
ive everything she had to pull herself up. Her good foot pushed up as she reached for yet another rung above her. She wiggled and tried to even use her knee to help support her weight.

  The crash was more of a thud, like the man had hit the wall because he found the door locked so securely.

  She was not sure if it would hold him out for long. There was only three places to go and it would not take him long to check them. She would have roughly ten or fifteen minutes to get to the top and find a hiding place.

  She was nearly to the wooden ceiling above her head, only three more to go. If the man below her found the trap door he’d easily see the rungs from which she now clung to. It would be a tight fit for the man to slip through she was sure and feared that he would not give up.

  Where was Damon! He should have been back by now. She needed a strong vampire to rescue her, no matter how strangely pathetic that sounded. She hated the fact that she had to depend on others to protect her, feed her, and take care of her.