Page 14 of Isabel and the Werewolf Beast

“How would I know?”

“Right. Sorry. Thinking out loud. I’m going to assume something happened to her, and that’s why she didn’t take us into her pack.”

“Either that or she was a rogue.”

“Rogue?” He glanced up again. Every time his gaze hit me a spark of need lit inside me. His focus was so intense. So focused on me I longed to have more of his attention. To see me when others hadn’t while Silas had cursed me here.

“An individual who thinks themselves above the laws of their species and whose thirst for blood overwhelms them so much thatthey are a liability to others. We have laws to uphold as immortals. They sometimes kick werewolves out of packs for breaking laws.”

I’d killed a few of those too. I assumed that was the pack’s way of getting rid of their liability because they appreciated a lone wolf would be picked off easily by a vampire.

“Laws? I need to read those.”

“The volume on laws is on the top shelf on the right.”

He stood, thick, muscular legs straining against the pants he wore, and strode to the ladder. Clasping the ladder in his huge hands, he climbed to the top of the ladder and then shoved it to the right, the wheels whirred across the floor and stopped at the correct place. A moment later he found the book on laws, extracted it from the shelf, and jumped from the top of the ladder in a graceful display of his werewolf form. Clouds of dust puffed from his enormous feet and swirled around him. He coughed at the particles circling his head, his nose wrinkled as he waved the dust away from his face with the book.

Dante strode back to the chair. To me. Every step he made was full of confidence. How hadn’t he accepted who he was? Why couldn’t he sense the power in him now? The werewolves were strong. Stronger than most. They were formidable opponents to vampires.

He flicked open the law book.

The teachers at the Nightshade Academy had pounded the laws into my head. I didn’t need to sit here and watch him read that book too. I could though. He intrigued me more than he should have.

“I’ll leave you to read that.”

He glanced up, brown eyes studying me with his intense focus. “Where are you going?”

“Obviously not far.”

He laughed, a deep, husky sound that tickled my cheeks into wanting to laugh with him. I didn’t though,for what would becoming his friend get me? Nothing good would come of this. We were natural enemies, yet…

“You’re a werewolf. If you want to find me, you can,” I said. “But whatever you do, if you track me to the ballroom, never go inside.”

“Why? What’s inside?”

“Your death.”

His face flashed with fear so quickly, I thought I almost imagined it. He should be afraid. If he walked into a ballroom full of vampires they’d kill him on the spot. I almost experienced a pang of pity for his death. I’d warned him. It was the most I could do. If he ventured inside the ballroom after my warning, then his death was on him, and I wouldn’t feel guilty. Would I?

I walked from the library, gliding in my ghostly state and never leaving a footprint in the dust growing inside the castle. My dress swirled around my legs as I glided back down the stairs to the ballroom. I needed to sink my fangs into a human and feed. Remind myself I was a vampire, and the werewolf was my enemy. At the door to the ballroom, I paused and glanced over my shoulder making sure Dante hadn’t followed me. If he saw all the people inside, then he’d have even more questions I wouldn’t be able to answer.

The door opened for me as though welcoming me back to this cursed party. Where masks and ballgowns adorned the room. Where vampires partied over and over with no knowledge of anything wrong with their existence. To where I once again became corporeal inside the castle.

Skirting the outside of the dance floor, I found my friend Renee, delicate lace mask in place across her face highlighting the ecstasy of her fangs buried in a woman’s neck whose equally ecstatic face gazed unseeing to the ceiling. Renee lifted her head and licked her lips, notspilling a drop of the crimson liquid down the smooth column of the woman’s neck. Even though I didn’t suffer hunger, a thirst for blood welled inside me. The need for blood was a deeply rooted vampire characteristic.

“Care for a taste?” Renee asked, flashing her blood-covered fangs in a delighted grin.

This was what I’d come in here for. Being around the werewolf had made me hungry. Needy.

“Yes.”

I picked up the woman’s hand since her head had lulled backward, resting on the wall behind her with the blissful release of our bite in her system. Our fangs released a chemical that produced a euphoric state in humans. Some people chased the high of our bite until they died from either blood loss or too much of our chemical. This woman looked close to the latter, but my fangs poked my bottom lip desperate for a drop of blood to quench this need building higher and higher inside me. I lifted her wrist to my mouth, listening to the steady pound of her heartbeat. At least her body was strong. She hadn’t suffered too much blood loss being stuck in this curse. Another bite wouldn’t kill her tonight. My fangs slid into her soft skin with a pop and her blood seeped into my mouth one tasty pound of her heart at a time. I let her body do the work instead of sucking down her blood like an animal until the vampiric urge for blood waned, eased, then passed. Releasing my fangs from her skin, more blood entered my mouth before I swiped my tongue over the puncture wounds and sealed them with the healing properties in my saliva. The woman let out a contented sigh as though my bite had been the one thing she desired in her entire life. I lowered her to a chair to rest and recover, to let her ride out her wave of euphoric bliss with our bites. The long skirts of her gown fluffed around the chair making it seem like she was floating in the air.

Renee gathered my hand into hers, a familiar hold from our long years as friends, and led me onto the dance floor. I welcomed this distraction from the werewolf, but my mind kept going back 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 top lip curled in distaste. “Werewolves! Why ever would you bring them up at this delightful party?”

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