Page 3 of Midnight Prince
Benedict
The way her cheeks heated at my words and the twinkle in her eye meant she got the double meaning. But I really was good with a hammer. Both of them. When I was younger, I used to build a lot of things with my hands. Now, I didn’t get to do those kinds of things. Most people don’t like someone with a hammer at two o’clock in the morning. So I had to change professions. Although, why I have stuck around in Russet wasn’t because I was keeping an eye on the shifter pack here. It was because this was my hometown. I was born and raised here many moons ago.
My being here upset the pack, especially Thomas, the Alpha. They were the worst wolf shifters in Washington State. It was sad, they used to be a fine and upstanding pack. But drugs back in the eighties sent them down a dark hole. Now they were one of the biggest heroin dealers on this side of Seattle.
I heard them out at night, howling at the moon near Hazel’s place. I knew what they wanted and there was no way I would letthathappen to another female in this town. I was tired of the pointless killing. And that was if she was lucky, because no one would want to live through that and be mated to them.
The Russet pack were just like all the other wolf shifters. They believed they had been cursed to never have female pups – they only bore male children. They had the power to change a human female by injecting her with their venom. Only the mortality rate was so high with the change. And with the Russet pack, they had only successfully changed one female in the twenty years I have been back. She had one child, then tried to run with her lover. Thomas and his pack killed her and her lover, too.
He was a good friend of mine. He was a shifter who was tired of all that was happening to his pack. He wanted to go straight, with his mate and her son. I tried to help them, but Thomas got to them before they could leave. The son was spared and that was why I have stayed here so long. To watch the pack and stop them before they hurt or killed another female. But I never saw the son, Rafferty. I always kept hidden from him. Worried if he was seen in my presence, they would kill him. So I watched from afar and let a friend of mine – Shelly a social worker and vampire who could walk in the sun – know what was happening.
I heard Hazel’s voice clear and I looked over to her, she was visibly nervous around me.
“I might have to take you up on that, Ben. Hammers are not my area of expertise.” She held up her thumb which was swollen, purple, and a little angry. I chuckled at her. She was a natural beauty, that girl-next-door type of beautiful and so innocent. I could easily sense that.
I could hear the pack talking behind me, they were angry that she was speaking with me. They didn’t like me, and I despised them. But they were really pissed off that she rejected Thomas. their Alpha.
They steered clear of me for many years. They could take me out with just one bite of their venom, because what turns humans into shifters was the same thing that killed vampires. But in just over twenty years they had never attacked me or made a move. Because as fast as they were, I also had venom that would kill them or turn a human, and then the tables were turned. I wanted to live. And surprisingly with how much drugs they ingested, so did they.
“Well, I better be going, Ben. It was nice to meet you.” She stood up from the stool. Her red dress was a sun – she was like an eclipse in this dark bar, all eyes were on her and you knew you should look away. You didn’t care if you went blind. If the last image you saw was Hazel, it would be worth it.
I felt the want and need from the human males in the bar. I held myself together. I could smell her blood… and I wanted more than a taste. How could I not? She smelled so sweet, but I wouldn’t do that to her. I already felt so protective of her. That wasn’t something I thought I would ever feel. I hadn’t felt that way in a long time. A very long time.
“It was nice to meet you, Hazel. Maybe we will see each other again soon?”
I hoped so. She was everything I had ever dreamed of, she made me feel alive. I wanted to get married and have a family before I was changed. Before I became what I am.
Dead inside.
