Page 271 of Dragon Slayer

Vlad paced slowly into the room, hands clasped behind his back. Relaxed, unconcerned. Every blink and every step was a threat. “No, it’s true,” he said mildly, coming to the sideboard beside Fulk and picking up a clean glass. He poured himself a Scotch, and the normal, comfortable way he handled the decanter was one of those strange moments that kept sucker-punching Fulk: those Vlad-the-Impaler-is-just-a-man moments.

Not just a man. A vampire. A vicious one, at that. But one who slept, and ate, and who liked Scotch, apparently.

Vlad took a sip and lifted his brows at Fulk over the rim of the glass.

Fulk shrugged and looked away, back toward Talbot – who was starting to turn purple with a combination of fear and anger.

“It’s true,” Vlad continued, mirroring Fulk’s pose against the table. “I’ve been called a madman by many.” He didn’t seem bothered by it. “A monster. A murderer. Warlord. Blood-drinker. Eater of the dead. What do you think, Doctor? Did you wake up a madman to fight your war for you?”

Fulk paused with his glass pressed to his lip, watching.

Talbot’s face went slowly blank. “I – of course I don’t think that.”

This was the problem, and had been since his birth: People underestimated Vlad’s intelligence. No one could reconcile the idea of a person accused of such cruelty as being razor-sharp, but he was. Fulk didn’t think he’d met anyone as calculating in his life. But the difference between Vlad and every scheming Cassius that had ever lived was that Vlad always took the most direct route. Because he could, morals and obstacles be damned.

Staring unblinking at Talbot, Vlad said, “You seem frightened.”

“Do I? I’m only worried for my daughter’s safety.”

“Hmm.” Another sip of Scotch, and then Vlad set the glass aside. “Do you want to know what I think?”

Fulk did. A quick glance at Anna proved she did, too.

But.

Fulk felt it as a low pulse deep in the center of himself. The tolling of a bell. He’d felt it recently, only a few weeks before, the day they’d brought the redheaded girl into the manor. Anna liked to joke that it was their internal alarm system, but it wasn’t much of a joke if it was true – and it was. Whenever a mage got close enough to sense, something went off inside him like a depth charge.Danger, his wolf growled, and raised its hackles.

Vlad must have felt it, too, because he tipped his head back and looked up at the ceiling.

A moment later, the faint thump of helicopter rotors drifted down from the roof; the building shuddered, quiet, in a way that humans couldn’t detect, when the Blackhawk touched down on the pad.

Fulk’s stomach clenched hard. He growled, an unhappy rumble he couldn’t help, one that Anna automatically echoed. “Liam.”

Vlad’s nostrils flared as he inhaled. “It seems your necromancer has arrived, Dr. Talbot,” he said, gaze dropping. “Let’s see if he lives up to expectation.”

Talbot began to wring his hands. “Yes. Well, he’s very agreeable, as I’m sure you will see. A very respectful man, he…”

His voice faded into the periphery. Fulk strained for the sound of an elevator, for footfalls, but all he could hear was the rush of blood in his ears, strong like the tide, drowning out everything else. Air turned thick in his lungs, hard to push, hard to pull in; his chest ached, and his stomach cramped, and–

A small, warm hand touched his neck, and he jerked his head down, vision swimming.

Annabel looked up at him with the softest smile. “There he is. It’s alright, baby.”

He growled again, and spoke through his teeth. “It isneveralright when it’s about him.” Every time he blinked, he saw Anna the way she’d beenthat day: lifeless, limp, bloody. Dead. In that last moment, before he plunged the knife in, he’d searched for a rapidly-fading pulse, and hadn’t been able to find it. It was the wolf that had brought her back, howling and clawing. The wolf and the demon had brought his wild girl back to him, made her whole, made her immortal.

But it was Liam who’d–

“Fulk.” She shifted her hand, up his jaw, over his cheek. He raised his own and covered hers with it, held her to him. “Do you want to shift? Will that make it easier?”

It would. They could go down to four legs and leave the manor, go running through the dark woods, until the smell of pine forest and the thrill of the chase had crowded out all his fear and hate.

But he said, “No,” with a deep sigh. “He’ll know I’m avoiding him.” And appearing weak in front of him was anathema.

Anna urged him down, until their foreheads touched, so that all he could see, and smell, and feel was her. “It’s not like it was then, baby,” she murmured. “We’re both so much stronger now.”

She was. Physically, at least – she’d always been stronger than him mentally, emotionally. And what was he now? Not a man, nor a wolf, but a tool that allowed itself to be used.

“Fulk,” she said again, stern this time, and a smile ghosted across his lips.

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