Page 5 of Isabel and the Werewolf Beast

Forever.

I strode outside. At least I had a small amount of freedom compared to the vampires and humans in the ballroom, but they didn’t comprehend Silas had cursed them. There was a difference in not knowing you were trapped. Their faces were always smiling. Their greetings were always happy. I shuddered to think what it would be like if they realized they couldn’t escape that room.

The night air was pleasant, as always. Stars shone in a cloudless sky. The full moon bathed the gardens in a silvery glow. I wandered through the herb garden, wrenching weeds as I walked. It was strange I could touch plants in the garden and not items in the castle, but I’d take whatever contact I’d get. You didn’t truly miss something until it was gone. Touching and being touched was one of those things. I bent and brushed a hand over the basil, breathing in the aroma it released at my touch.

Vampires didn’t eat, but it didn’t mean we didn’t enjoy the scents of food. Whatever food a person ate, flavored their blood. It made hunting more interesting too. We’d search for a certain taste. Some vampires even staked out restaurants when they found a flavorsome blood. Back when I was corporeal, I’d been a frequent consumer of a fruit stand in a little village in France. Those who ate there had the sweetest blood I’d ever tasted. My mouth watered recalling the sensation of feeding. Something I hadn’t done in a long time. My fangs lengthened and descended into my bottom lip. Blood welled to the surface, and I licked it clean before my advanced healing rate sealed the wound.

I was that desperate. I wanted to drink my blood. Just because I didn’t experience hunger didn’t mean I didn’t crave the euphoria of drinking blood. The sensation ofmy fangs sinking into soft flesh. The pop of blood as it gushed into my mouth and swelled over my tongue.

I plucked a leaf from the mint and lifted it to my nose to stop smelling blood and my unquenchable need for it. Even though I wasn’t hungry and didn’t need the sustenance of blood in this incorporeal form, I still longed to feed. The urge was ingrained in my vampire DNA.

The herb garden path led to the glasshouse. Inside, the mister system was going and spraying a mist over the orchids and lilies. Vibrant blooms of orchids reached from the thick green leaves of the plants. Their faces smiled at me. The lilies were softer in color, their orange-dusted stamens poking from the pointed petals. Fine water droplets landed on my skin and sprinkled on my eyelashes. I blinked them away as I walked through the greenhouse and out the other door. My nightly shower. I laughed to myself, since there was no one around to hear me. I could go inside the ballroom and laugh with the others, but keeping the curse to myself was wearing me down.

How much longer would I bear this burden? I’d put these vampires and people in this position because I’d said no to Silas. Would they understand why? Or would they have wanted me to agree to a blood oath?

I didn’t want to risk them turning on me. For I believed I’d find a cure. Someday. Somehow, I would.

Chapter four

Dante

Under the light of the full moon, I prowled the village. Cottages with thatched roofs lined the streets. Their windows were dark. Darker than the night. Perfect for hiding who I was now. Asher was off running through the woods like usual, but I preferred sticking closer to home and my books. He didn’t understand my love of the written word. Or how I’d disappear into the stories woven by the authors. He might not understand, but he loved me just the same.

Ever since he’d bitten me and turned me into a werewolf, it had filled me with anger. I’d never asked to become this monster. Every full moon, I had no controlover my body, my destiny. I changed into a hideous creature over seven feet tall, with hair over my entire body, claws at the tips of my fingers, and fangs poking from my mouth. Not to mention, my face became more animalistic.

I hadn’t been near a woman since. I was too afraid I’d change during sex and rip her to shreds. A shudder ran through me as I imagined the horror of that scene. I’d ripped a few people to shreds in the first year of my transformation. Most had been my bullies from the village, and I’d shed no tears for causing their deaths. But there’d been an old man once who approached me during my change. I hadn’t meant to hurt him, but my contorting body had inflicted a grievous wound he didn’t recover from.

His death still haunted me.

I hadn’t even told Asher.

Asher had embraced his werewolf shape easier than me. I still struggled with the power. The strength. The enormity of the situation was that I’d live forever this way. No longer human, but something else entirely.

Thinking of Asher, where was he? He should have returned hours ago. Concern for my brother niggled at my skull. I lifted my nose to the air and searched for his scent. I found a trail from our home leading into the woods. Pricking my long ears forward, I scanned the forest for any sounds of conflict, but none arose. Sensing no threat, I followed the scent trail of Asher deeper and deeper into the woods until the trees loomed over me so much that they cut the shine from the moon entirely. My beastly eyes adjusted to the lack of light. I trekked over fallen logs dead and decaying with moss, ducked between solid tree trunks, and followed Asher’s scent to a castle nestled in the thick forest.

I’d lived in this area all my life. No one ever mentioned a castle buried deep in the woods. I paused under thecover of the trees, their branches a creepy umbrella over my head, shielding me from the glow of the moon. My supernatural eyes surveyed the area. The castle was tall, with spindly towers reaching to the moon, turrets decorated the exterior, making it more good-looking rather than imposing. It was quiet too. As though it was deserted. A ruin then? Had Asher gone inside an abandoned castle for fun? I inched out of the trees. Asher’s familiar werewolf shape inched around the brick wall surrounding the castle’s garden.

“Asher,” I called out and loped over to him.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, whipping his head around on his huge shoulders.

“I was looking for you. What is this place?”

I pointed to the castle, to the unnatural sensation emanating from the building. Such a strange thing to think. Buildings didn’t give off vibrations the way humans did, but then my gaze drifted back to the structure.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen it or heard of it before. Have you?”

Asher’s voice dragged my attention back to him. He always reveled in being in his werewolf shape. His chest, hell, his entire body was bigger, but it was more than that. It was the way he held himself with pride now.

“No.”

“Let’s have a look inside.” He waggled his thick, busy werewolf eyebrows.

I eyed the wire gates standing wide open in invitation, but a prickling sensation running up my spine told me we shouldn’t go inside.

“I don’t think so.”

“Are you scared of an old castle? There’s not even a light on inside.”

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