BOUND BY FANG AND CURSE

CHAPTER 6

Ishtar

This was another unexpected twist I never would have predicted. A werewolf was asking a vampire to tell them about themselves. If my vampire friends in the parlor saw me now, they would shake their heads in bewilderment, just as I was tempted to do, but then kill the werewolf without answering his question; such was the ancient feud between our kind. The more time I spent with Adonay, the less inclined I was to do so. It was… amusing… to put it mildly. When was the last time a person or a vampire surprised me? I honestly couldn't remember. Time stretched when you were immortal. Friends of the past faded into the distance. I remembered the joy I experienced as a human with human friends, but so much time had passed that it seemed more like the memory of a dream.

Stopping to think about it, I said, “Did you realize you have three forms?”

He placed the book back in his lap; his large hands made the pages seem small and insignificant. The tips of his claws hovered over the delicate paper, as if he were afraid to tear the precious work within. His brown eyes lifted to mine, questions swirling in the depths of his desire to learn more about himself.

"Your human form, your werewolf form, and your wolf form".

His eyebrows rose at each statement. “Can I turn into a wolf?”

Yes. That's what most people transform into during the full moon. Your current half is unusual for werewolves, who walk around as half-beast and half-man. I suspect it's because you haven't yet accepted who you truly are.

Did anyone truly accept themselves as they were? I had struggled when I was a human woman. Weakness was inherent to being a woman a hundred years ago. I reveled in the strength a vampire possessed when Lucian transformed me. I no longer felt weak. Vulnerable. Not until Silas and this curse. Once again, a mortal man had caused a woman to become relentless with his power. History seemed doomed to repeat itself.

Adonay lowered his intense gaze from my face to the book in his hands. He pursed his lips as he stared through the library window at the bright orb of the moon high in the black sky. “Your words have merit. Ever since Asher transformed me, I’ve fought the beast inside me. It only comes out during the full moon, when I have no control over the outcome. I’ve even tried hiding from the moonlight, but it keeps happening.”

You can't hide who you are. Even if you weren't like that at first, it's like that now. Vampires are created too. I was once human.

Once, a long time ago.

His enormous head lowered as his gaze searched mine again, trying to confirm that I, too, understood being one thing and then transforming into another. And so it did. I understood the shift all too well. He opened his mouth, lips that, despite their bestial appearance, seemed soft, and closed them again without a word. I sensed he wanted to ask me about my human life, but he realized I would be upset if he asked more questions. Giving a werewolf information about myself was wrong in so many ways. We were natural enemies. Created to kill each other.

"If I accept this change, will I be able to turn into a wolf?" he asked instead of the questions about me that I saw hidden deep in his eyes.

I shrugged gently. "I'm not a werewolf, and I couldn't explain how it works. Perhaps the book will give you the answers you're looking for."

"Good." He opened the book again, but scanned the library shelves, searching, searching for the knowledge he longed to learn. "Are all the books here like this?"

I smirked. “No. There are works of fiction too. My treasures. If you hurt them, I’ll kill you.”

"I would never harm a book." He hugged the book to his chest with his hairy, muscular arms.

"You're a strange werewolf."

"You keep saying that." His lips lifted in a wry smile.

I smiled back. What was it about this strange werewolf that made me smile when I should have ripped his throat out and rejoiced in his death?

His attention was drawn to the book in his lap. Molten chocolate eyes scanned the pages. His fingertip carefully lifted the pages and he flipped through them faster than I'd ever imagined he could read. Werewolves were fast, but not as fast as vampires. I was almost tempted to get behind him and read too, since I couldn't open a book in my cursed state. I couldn't do anything inside the castle except sit or lie on the furniture. The doors opened by themselves whenever I wanted to enter a room, which was handy since I couldn't open them myself. It was as if a part of me had become the castle.

I clasped my hands and rested my chin on them. His fur seemed soft, and I wondered how it felt beneath my fingers. I'd killed several werewolves before, but I'd never taken the time to register how their fur felt or anything about them. Now I had time to observe this werewolf. He was annoyingly attractive. I wanted to hate him, but so far I hadn't found anything about him to hate.

They taught vampires how to kill a werewolf on sight. I tilted my head. Why were they our enemies? I couldn't remember the reason. Had they even told me? Or was it something drilled into us since we changed without explanation? I guess, in a way, I was lucky when Lucian changed me all those years ago. His father and my grandfather helped run the Nightshade Academy for new vampires"maybe they still did, but I wouldn't know since I was trapped here. At least at the academy, we learned who and what we were and, most importantly, how to control our bloodlust.

Adonay wasn't having any of that. Werewolves usually traveled in packs and passed on knowledge, but since it was just him and his brother, he'd missed out on an important lesson in his growth as an immortal.

“Werewolves live in packs,” he said, as if reading my mind, but what he was repeating was information from the book.

-Yeah.-

That's why we used to take out a lone werewolf when we found one. It was easier to kill a single werewolf than a pack.

"Why don't my brother and I join a pack?"

"You'd have to ask whoever bit your brother.

I only know it was a woman. One he didn't have s*x with.

"Was clarification necessary?" I raised an eyebrow.

He chuckled. "Probably not, but I was shocked they didn't have sex."

"Changing someone and having s*x with them are two different things.

He looked up from the pages. Our gazes met and held for a moment before he returned his gaze to the book.

"Did a vampire kill her?" he asked.

"How could I know?"

"Sure. I'm sorry. I'm thinking this out loud. I'm going to assume something happened to him, and that's why he didn't take us to his pack.

"Either that or she was a scoundrel."

“Scummy?” He looked up again. Every time his gaze reached me, a spark of desire ignited inside me. His attention was so intense. So focused on me that I craved more of his attention. For him to see me when others didn’t while Silas cursed me.

An individual who believes himself superior to the laws of his species and whose bloodlust so overwhelms him that he becomes a burden to others. As immortals, we have laws to abide by. Werewolves are sometimes expelled from packs for breaking them.

I also killed a few. I assumed it was the pack's way of getting off the hook, realizing that a lone wolf would be easily dispatched by a vampire.

Laws? I need to read them.

"The volume on law is on the top shelf on the right.

He stood up, his thick, muscular legs straining against the trousers he was wearing, and headed for the ladder. Gripping it with his massive hands, he climbed to the top and pushed it to the right; the wheels whizzed across the floor and stopped in the right place. A moment later, he found the law book, pulled it off the shelf, and leaped from the top of the ladder in a graceful display of his werewolf form. Clouds of dust rose from his massive feet and swirled around him. He coughed at the particles surrounding his head, wrinkling his nose as he dusted his face with the book.

Adonay returned to the chair. To me. Every step he took was filled with confidence. How had he not accepted who he was? Why couldn't he feel his power now? Werewolves were strong. Stronger than most. They were formidable opponents for vampires.

He opened the law book.

The teachers at Nightshade Academy had drilled the laws into me. I didn't need to sit here and watch him read that book too. Although I could. It intrigued me more than it should.

"I'll let you read this."

He looked up, his brown eyes watching me intently. “Where are you going?”

"Obviously not far."

He laughed, a deep, husky laugh that tickled my cheeks, making me want to laugh with him. But I didn't, because what would being his friend do me? Nothing good would come of this. We were natural enemies, but...

"You're a werewolf. If you want to find me, you can," I said. "But whatever you do, if you follow me to the ballroom, don't go in."

Why? What's inside?

"Your death."

His face lit up with fear so quickly I almost thought I'd imagined it. He should be afraid. If he walked into a room full of vampires, he'd be killed instantly. I almost felt a pang of pity for his death. I'd warned him. It was the most I could do. If he ventured into the room after my warning, his death would be his, and I wouldn't feel guilty. Or would I?

I slipped out of the library, slipping into my ghostly state, leaving not a single footprint in the dust growing inside the castle. My dress swirled around my legs as I descended the stairs toward the ballroom. I needed to sink my fangs into a human and feed. To remind myself that I was a vampire and the werewolf was my enemy. At the ballroom door, I paused and glanced over my shoulder to make sure Adonay hadn't followed me. If he saw all the people inside, he'd have even more questions he couldn't answer.

The door opened for me, as if welcoming me back to this cursed party. Where masks and ball gowns adorned the room. Where vampires partied again and again, unaware of any harm in their existence. Where I once again became corporeal within the castle.

Circling the dance floor, I found my friend Renée, a delicate lace mask over her face, highlighting the ecstasy of her fangs digging into the neck of a woman whose equally ecstatic face stared blindly up at the ceiling. Renée lifted her head and licked her lips, not spilling a drop of the crimson liquid down the smooth column of the woman's neck. Although I wasn't hungry, a thirst for blood was within me. The need for blood was a deeply ingrained characteristic of vampires.

"Do you want to try?" Renée asked, showing her blood-covered fangs with a delighted smile.

That's what I'd come for. Being around the werewolf had made me hungry. I needed it.

-Yeah.-

I took the woman's hand, as her head had tilted back, resting against the wall behind her, the blissful release of our bite welling up in her system. Our fangs released a chemical that produced a state of euphoria in humans. Some chased the rush of our bite until they died from blood loss or too much of our chemical. This woman seemed close to the latter, but my fangs sank into her lower lip, desperate for a drop of blood to sate this need growing ever deeper inside me. I lifted her wrist to my mouth, listening to the steady beat of her heart. At least her body was strong. She hadn't suffered too much blood loss trapped in this curse. Another bite wouldn't kill her tonight. My fangs slid into her soft skin with a snap, and her blood seeped into my mouth, one tasty heartbeat at a time. I let her body do the work instead of sucking her blood like an animal until the vampiric need for blood lessened, eased, and eventually passed. As I released my fangs from her skin, more blood entered my mouth before I ran my tongue over the puncture wounds and sealed them with the healing properties of my saliva. The woman let out a contented sigh, as if my bite had been the only thing she had ever wanted. I lowered her to a chair to rest and recover, to enjoy her rush of euphoria from our bites. The long skirts of her dress billowed around the chair, making it appear to float in the air.

Renée took my hand, a familiar hug from our long years of friendship, and led me to the dance floor. I was grateful for this distraction from the werewolf, but my mind kept returning to him. Was he still reading? Had he left the library?

As we danced to the music, I leaned closer and asked, “Renee, do you remember why we hate werewolves so much?”

Her upper lip curled in disgust. “Werewolves! Why are you mentioning them at this lovely party?”