Supernatural Night

Chapter 4

Before either could say anything further the lift opened, and Elena was suddenly standing there. She was devoid of any of the weapons she had been armed with in the pub, so clearly, she had stored everything. For a second, she looked exhausted, before she looked like the cold stranger from earlier.

Damien didn’t know how to approach this stranger who was in Elena’s body. She was stunningly beautiful. Her body was lithe, but well defined.  There was strength under the smooth skin. Not one scar marred her smooth skin.

As the silence drew out Elena narrowed her eyes at both men sitting in her living room. Clearly, she had been the topic of discussion. What had they discussed about her? Leo always wanted to know about her life before they met that fateful night. But he also knew when to back down.

“What?” Elena asked as she went to get herself a beer from the fridge. They had better start talking or she was going to wipe the floor with both of them.

Leo grinned at her as he stood up. “Oh nothing, we were just discussing the differences between us,” he said. He was edging his way around the diningroom table. Putting something between them, still with a grin on his face.

Very casually Elena put her beer bottle down and leaned against the kitchen counter. “And what differences would that be?” she asked softly.

“Oh, you know,” Leo hedged. He was moving back, towards the windows. There was a fire escape behind him. He tried the latch. It didn’t budge.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Elena said as Leo tried to force the latch.  She smirked as he stiffened.

“You didn’t,” he said, looking back at her with his eyes narrowed.

Elena shrugged. This was going to be fun. She needed an outlet for her tension. She was acutely aware of Damien and where he was in her home. He still looked as good as she remembered, and he smelled even better. It was amazing how her sense of smell had improved over the years. It was disturbing that all she wanted to do was jump Damien the minute she saw him. What was wrong with her?

Leo was standing by the window waiting. He knew something was coming, he just wasn’t sure what. Elena was unpredictable at any given time, but when she was in the mood she was currently in, things went to a whole other level. She might not look it, but she was spoiling for a fight. He’d sparred with her enough times to know that when she was in this mood, you would not be walking away, you’d be crawling away.

Damien watched the interaction between Elena and Leo. There was tension in the air, but he wasn’t sure what had brought this on.

“Elena, why would the Hunters run the risk of going against the treaty? Surely, they know there are consequences? That’s the reason I haven’t tried going after them myself. I won’t condemn Lilly or Drake for my actions,” he said.

Her eyes had moved from Leo to him and he felt the impact of those grey eyes down to his toes. He had always been fascinated by her eyes. No one had ever had those silver-grey eyes. They were like liquid mercury. They were framed by long thick lashes.

“If they’re a rogue group, then they wouldn’t give a s**t about the treaty. They aren’t part of the Hunters Council, so they aren’t answerable to them, or so they believe. The problem is there have been enough rogue hunter factions over the years that the Hunters Council haven’t been able to stop them effectively,” she said. She knew because she had been called in more than once to neutralize the problems of rogue groups.

“Tell me about the were that she saved,” Elena said, taking a sip of her beer. She kept Leo in her sights. He was going to make a run for it.

“He had been hunted by a group of hunters. They had kept him locked up for torture and he’d somehow managed to escape. Lilly had gone for a walk in the woods out behind the estate and tripped over him. She managed to get him to our house,” Damien said, he shook his head. He had just arrived home when she came stumbling into the house covered in blood and a man who had dropped to the ground. The look of her covered in blood had been terrible and had reminded him of the incident ten years ago.

“I don’t know how it works,” he said, “She laid her hands on him and it was as if time itself had stopped for a moment. I saw his wounds heal right there. When she lifted her hands,… he was completely healed and it was as if he had never been injured before.”

“Vampires and lycans can heal faster than any other being,” Leo pointed out. He was calculating how fast he had to move past Elena to get out before she took his head off.

“Yes,” Damien agreed, “But not this fast. We can heal faster than humans, but this was instant healing.”

“What was his name?” Elena asked Damien. She might need to talk to the guy.

Before Damien could answer, Leo flashed past him to get to the elevator door, he didn’t make it. In a move so fast, Damien had trouble understanding what he was seeing, Elena had blocked Leo’s path, flipped him over and was pressing a knee into his throat.

“Didn’t think you’d get away with it did you?” she asked Leo. The weird thing was, the lycan couldn’t seem to budge her off of him. How was that possible?

Grunting, Leo spread his hands out to his sides, to show his surrender. He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of using him as her punching bag. She could use the vamp. He was the one she wanted to wipe the floor with.

Elena could see that Leo knew exactly what was going on and she felt a twig of guilt for taking her issues with Damien out on him. It wasn’t fair, but then again, he shouldn’t have been fishing for info on her from Damien either. With a small sound of irritation, she lifted off of him and went to retrieve her beer on the counter.

Leo sat up slowly rubbing his throat. Elena was strong, and she knew what she was doing. At least he wasn’t going to get his ass handed to him. He wasn’t going to question her about it. He’d discussed her without her permission, and he’d learned a little about her past. He knew she was pissed with him.

“Elena, I’m..”

“Shut-up you buffoon, before I change my mind,” she said before taking a long drag from her beer.

She watched Leo get up and make his way to the elevator. He knew better than to argue with her. She’d given him a reprieve for now. He knew they were going to have it out later, but not now.

Damien watched the by play between Elena and Leo. She was obviously pissed with the were but wasn’t inclined to discuss it at the moment. His mind was also trying to find an explanation for what he had just witnessed. Elena had moved faster than any human or supernatural being he had ever seen. And she was strong as hell. Leo was no lightweight and he hadn’t been able to budge her when she’d taking him down.

There was no logic to what he’d seen. He had listened when Leo had told him that she had changed and that she was not human, but his mind just couldn’t seem to accept what he’d witnessed with his own eyes.

For a long time, they just stared at each other. Damien couldn’t read anything in her eyes. Her eyes were cold and flat, her expression was blank, no emotion showed. He needed to know what she was thinking and feeling. He needed to know that she had at least missed all of them. That she had missed him.

“Are you going to explain why you just up and disappeared?” maybe going on the attack wasn’t the best way to find out what she was thinking or feeling, but he didn’t know how to reach this Elena.

“No,” one word, nothing more. Just a flat no. Damien wanted to shake her, he wanted to kiss her. Feel her come alive in his arms like she did that one afternoon at his house in the gym. He hadn’t forgotten that day. It was etched in his mind and his heart.

“Everyone’s been looking for you Elena. Your mother and father have suffered not knowing where you were or if you were even alive. Don’t you think that’s a bit selfish on your side to not get in touch with them?” he demanded, when she just kept staring at him.

Elena shrugged. She wasn’t going to tell him how much she missed her family, how much she had missed Lilly, Drake and him. Especially that she had missed him. He could go to hell for all she cared. She wasn’t a young teenager with stars in her eyes when it came to him. She was a grown woman who made her own decisions.

“And what about Lilly?” he asked, “She was devastated when you disappeared. For a long time, she wouldn’t talk to anyone. She mourned losing you. Every time I had to tell her that the tracker or investigator came up with no clue as to where you might be, I had to watch her eyes dim and fill with tears. Do you have any idea what any of us has been through these last ten years you’ve been missing?”

Elena walked over to the bank of windows. She needed to see what was outside. She needed to know if something or someone was coming at her. She stood staring out at the night. She loved the night. It was quiet and peaceful. It helped calm the rage in her. It had been slowly building over the years until it was molten lava just bubbling under the surface. Even Leo didn’t know about the rage she carried around with her.

She didn’t have to see Damien to know he had come to stand behind her. He might be a Vamp and he might be one of the best trained warriors they had, even if he looked like a businessman, but he would never be able to sneak up on her. No one could.

“Do you have any idea what it’s been like for me these last ten years? Not knowing if you were dead or alive. Not being able to see you or touch you?” Damien hadn’t meant to admit that to her but, nothing seemed to get through to her. He placed his hands on either side of her head on the window and leaned closer to her. She still smelled amazing.

Elena leaned her head against the cool glass. What did he want from her? He had been the one to chase her out of the house. He had said she wasn’t welcome and now he was telling her he missed her. She was responsible for bringing those hunters to Lilly. She was responsible for what had happened at the house. He had even said as much. The heat coming off of him was melting the cold inside her. She had to stay cold to survive what she was doing.

Slipping out from under his arms she walked back to the kitchen where her warm beer was. She needed breathing space from him. He’d always taken up too much space in a room. Even when they had been kids. He’d been the one to command a room.

“Tell me about the attacks on Lilly,” she said, she needed something to occupy her mind with.

For a moment Damien just stared at her. She was avoiding the subject about the two of them. Fine, he’d play her game a little longer, but sooner or later they were going to have that talk and he would make sure of it. Because if there was one thing he knew for sure, Elena was his and now that he had found her again, he wasn’t letting her slip out of his hands again.

“The first time they made a try for her was in town. She has an office in town that she works from and they tried to grab her outside the building. It was blind luck that I had gone to meet her for lunch when they made the attempt on her.” He had been more angry than afraid at the time. That someone would dare touch his sister. He had wanted to kill them, but Lilly had stopped him. There had been to many witnesses.

Elena frowned. “Why did they try to grab her? If they fear her powers that much, why didn’t they try to kill her there and then?”

Damien glared at her, “I didn’t exactly think to ask them that. They were after my sister Elena.” Sarcasm thick in his voice. “They called her names, Elena. They said she was the devil’s witch.”

“I hear what you are saying Damien, but I’ve been dealing with this s**t for the last ten years. If Lilly’s such a big threat to them as you say, they would have killed her on the spot. If they are making a grab for her, then there’s something else going on,” she said, trying to figure out what the Vampire Hunters would want with Lilly.  “You said the first time. How many times have they made a grab for Lilly?”

Damien frowned. It’s true, the hunters never tried to kill or maim Lilly. Could he be wrong? That they weren’t trying to kill her but something else? Why would they try to kidnap her? They hated Vampires. “Seven,” Damien answered.

“This lycan that Lilly saved, how did he end up in the woods behind the estate? Where had he been kept?” Elena asked.

Something wasn’t adding up. She didn’t like it. Hunters acted a certain way towards the group of supernaturals they hunted. The only time they kept a supernatural alive was when they wanted to torture information out of them or punish them for a perceived wrong. But even then, they wouldn’t try to kidnap the supernatural. They’d just shoot him and drag him off where they could keep him alive as long as they deemed fit.

Damien stiffened. He’d never questioned the lycan on how he’d ended up in the woods. He’d been so socked at seeing Lilly covered in blood and a dying lycan that he hadn’t even thought to ask. He’d taken the lycan at his word. But why would a lycan help the Hunters?

“He said that they had kept him in a cold storage place and when he escaped he made for the woods, because he could lose them in the woods if they followed him,” Damien said. It made sense. Lycans were most at home in the woods, so for them to pull a disappearing act on humans would be a piece of cake.

“Where is this lycan now?” Elena asked. It was a plausible reason, but something wasn’t adding up.

“He was so grateful to Lilly FOR saving his life that he swore to stay with her until his debt was repaid.”

Elena didn’t like it. It sounded sincere enough, but the whole thing stank to high heaven to her. “I need to speak to this lycan. What’s his name?”

“His name is Cameron Michaels, he’s now part of Lilly’s protection,” Damien said.