Page 9 of Isabel and the Werewolf Beast

The brothers exchanged a long, loaded look. They probably thought I was crazy talking about curses and moving castles.

“Asher,” I snapped. “Hurry. I’m not sure how long I can keep my killing urges from…” I waved my hand at Dante.

Asher’s eyes glared bright balls of hatred at me. “I’ll be back. With your damn wizard and when I do, Dante better be safe.”

I touched a finger to a fang. “I can’t promise anything.”

He lifted his head and roared to the moonlit sky, then he raced into the forest. I gazed after his freedom with longing. To be on the other side of these walls, to experience day again even though a vampire should be ecstatic with a perpetual night. It was tiring. I was tired… so exhausted.

“What’s your name?” Dante asked, quietly, his voice barely above a hushed whisper as though he was trying not to startle a wild animal.

“Isabel,” I said, turning to study him once again. “Isabel Monet.”

“Like the painter?”

I grinned. The question was one I’d heard from humans, often before I feasted from them, then hypnotized them into forgetting everything about me.

“He was an artist and lovely. No relation though.”

“You were friends with Monet?” Dante’s voice spiked on the last word as though it was unfathomable anyone alive would be friends with Monet, but then he hadn’t believed vampires existed until a moment ago. How long had he been a werewolf to be so uncertain of the world he lived in?

“Barely. I met him twice quite by accident,” I said, waving a hand at the castle, to the place I’d called home, but was now my prison. “He was quite determined I purchase one of his paintings and hang it in the castle.”

Dante’s head swung back and forth between me and the castle. The questions and eagerness to ask them hovered in the glitter of his eyes.

“Can I… will I…” His throat worked on a swallow. “See it, or do you intend to kill me?”

I stepped closer to him, to the werewolf who was now stuck inside this curse with me.

“You’re in an interesting dilemma, Dante. Every ounce of being a vampire tells me to rip out your throat and leave you to die, while the part of me that’s been trapped here for who knows how long, tells me to let you live because you might be able to get me out of here.”

His eyes widened, but he didn’t shift away from me. I liked his courage, the way he faced me head-on with an unflinching gaze as though he’d take whatever I gave him so long as his brother was safe. That sort of protectiveness was rare.

“I understand nothing about what happened here. How can I help?” He held his massive palms out in a submissive pose.

I shrugged. “Misery loves company. I’m bored. You’re a werewolf who is now stuck under the full moon.”

“What?” He gasped.

“There is no day or change in time. This is it.” I pointed at the full moon above our heads. The round globeshone brightly, as though powered by even more magic than the curse. Moonbeams shone down on us, lighting our features under the ethereal glow.

He glanced up and scowled at the moon with the hatred I’d expected him to look at me — a vampire, the one who killed his kind. “I hate being in this form.” His words came out a guttural growl as though he was angry at himself more than the predicament he was now stuck in.

I laughed with glee at the oxymoron. “A werewolf who hates his most powerful form. Strange creature, you are. Are you hungry?”

“No.” His head snapped back as his glare turned on me as if I was the one who’d made the full moon stay cemented in the inky black night sky.

“Lucky for you, neither am I.”

“You drink werewolf blood?” His eyelids lowered to cover the shock in his expression, but I glimpsed it before he shuttered his eyes.

“Any blood will do when I’m hungry enough. Humans are by far the tastiest. It’s probably why they fear us so much.”

“I’d say it has to do with you killing them.”

A smirk stretched my lips unheeded. I liked Dante’s wit. I’d chosen right to trap him here with me while sending his brother to find Silas. He had to find him. This madness had to end. At least now I had someone to talk to about it.

“True.” I shrugged. “Not all of us kill when we feed.”

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