2

MELVIN

 

This is no job for a king, Melvin I thought as I scoured the wetground for tracks.

 

On the wet dirt floor, there was a trail of footprints. These werenot wide footprints. They were not the foot imprints of a man, by the looks of it. They were smaller. A child perhaps, or a woman. A smallwoman. They went on and on through the woods until they disappeared completely, vanishing all of a sudden right in the middle of the trail without any trace.

It was as the person who had made the prints had vanished as they had, growing wings and flying off into the night sky.

A tracker, perhaps a human tracker would have been terrified out of his mind. He would have turned tail and retreated the moment the tracks of his quarry vanished, or if he was a braver, less sensible tracker, perhaps a young man with plenty of talent, he would sniff around and poke around the woods until he gave up. But Melvinwas neither human nor frightened. What he was was disgruntled. Frustrated. Very, very frustrated.

 

It was the fifth time in three weeks that his sister was disappearing without informing any one prior to her disappearance, and while she was a grown woman who Melvin would ordinarily have left to her devices, she had certain... inclinations.

 

'Sir, did you find anything there?' Edmund asked. He was the head of Melvin's personal guards, even though Melvin had insisted many times that he did not have need for any.

 

Edmund was a tall vampire with bright grey eyes and fast hands, hands that Melvin had seen break bones at the first sign of danger. A distinguishing scar ran from below his eyelid to the end of his face, tapering off his chin. While the man knew very little of tracking besides the natural gifts of sense and smell being a vampire had presented him, he was quite a formidable force, one to be reckoned with.

 

 

At the question, I shook my head and got to my feet. 'She went past here, that's for certain, but the trail ends here. Send out some of your men to search the last places we located herpreviously.'

 

'Sir,' Edmund saluted with a fist to his chest.

He began to move immediately, an impatient man by hid very nature, but I stopped him short with a hand on his shoulder.

'Pick only the most sure footed, most discreet of them.' I ordered.

 

 

 

 

I knew Edmund would not find her, neither would any of the men he sent out. It was the way it had happened the last four times. Claire vanished and he followed not  her trail, but her thoughts, or rather, traces of the thoughts she left behind and she whirled her way through the city. I always found a way to evade my escort before he found her. And once again, that was what he would be forced to do.

They could not find Claire as he had found her that first time: at a quiet corner of a tavern with a man, their bodies twisted oddly in the darkness. But instead of doing what would have been expected of two people, man and woman, in the privacy of darkness, she had her mouth pressed against the soft spot of the man's throat.

 

Claire sucked noisily.

 

I had felt something between rage and disgust. I was not sure which emotion it leaned towards more. I yanked her off the man's body and marched her home. But not before I cleared up the evidence. It was better the humans did not even know they were. Then Claire did it again. And again. And again.

 

When I found her this time, she was in a smaller tavern full of humans and the sweet sea-salt smell of their blood. I was earlyenough to prevent her from sinking her fangs into a human in full public view.

 

'Claire,' I said calmly, settling into the seat across her,  struggling to quel the rising urge he felt to yell at her.

 

'Mel,' she said tiredly. 'Right on time.'

 

'Right on time for what?' I asked.

 

'For a telling.'

 

I blinked surprised, looking at her for the first time since I had  found her, and realized she was different from the other times. Her eyes were not glazed over—the eyes of a vampire who had had too much to drink—instead they were alert and sharp, encircled by sleep bags. She wore none of her jewelry, just like him. Her clothes were roughspun.

 

At least, she had the sense to look like the common folk when she mingled with them. Like most of the members of Asgard's royal family, Claire had a gift. Where Melvin could read minds, Claire saw small parts of the future. Trifling amounts. And she could showthem, those visions of hers, to the people she touched. Claire had never bothered to show me one.

 

But now she reached across the table and took his hands in her fingers. Her hands shook on their own accord.

 

Then I saw: blonde hair so blonde it was white, silver like Claire's eyes, like his eyes fluttering in the wind. A crescent moonshining malevolently on a rainy night, a dark figure that resembledthat of a woman swaying under the torrent, unconscious of the rain. A candlelit hall much like a throne room full to bursting by of a crowd of men and women, their hands lifted, wine sparkling red in cups.

 

 

 

 

 

The vision ended as suddenly as it had begun, and I jerkedaway from Claire.

 

She had chosen a quiet corner of the booth, so no one saw what happened between us. I opened my eyes to see her staring back at him. I realized only seconds had passed since she touched me. Everything was going as it went. But it felt like ages had passed since she took my hands in hers. i felt exhausted.

 

Claire was staring at me meaningfully. 'Now you know why I needed to feed so simply.' She said. 'The weigh of these visions... It is not like being able to pick the most prominent thoughts in the minds of others. It is more demanding. More exhausting. I needed to keep my strength up.

 

 Claire had always been the type of vampire who could not control her taste; she had always had an affinity for breaking rules. When I found outwhat she was doing, I did not ask questions. I had simply goneafter her, a step away from enraged.

 

'Who were they?' I asked now, stupefied. My head was swimming. Of all the visions, the crowded hall had stayed with him. Who were all those people?

 

They had all been brown. All tall as Edmund. Just as wide, too. Even their women. Together, such a force could overrun any army, any city or realm if they put their minds to it.

 

Who were they, he wondered.

 

The answer came to him as soon as the question formed itself inhis mind.

 

Wolves, Melvin thought.

 

'Werewolves.' Melvin and Claire said in unison.

 

***

 

KHLOE

 

Caleb sat at the dais with his father, the Betas of each one's pack, and other members of the royal family. A table of food and drink lay stretched out before them. There was venison and there was brothwith carrot and turnips. There was pork, roasted over the spit, greasyand pinkish-brown. There was a pile of finely cut vegetables and Khloe caught Caleb eyeing it distastefully.

 

After Caleb had been presented before the people, and after a fewhundred toasts had been made, they had retired to the dais where they all sat now, overlooking the rest of the people who were present. It had been too early in the night to begin the choosing a mate, so they waited, easing through the night with wine and food, and music that had evolved from mild to wild somewhere along the line. When, I was not sure.

 

I remained at my place, a spot that, thankfully, was quickly shrouded in the shadow as soon as evening descended into night. I might be amongst them, but it did not mean for a second of the day that I was one of them. Bian, the new sage, could force me  to shimmy into a red dress and come here, Khloe thought, but she was not obligated to participate. It was not as though she could if she wanted. Like Cassie had said, she was, in their eyes, still the CursedWolf.

 

That was all that I was to these people. Perhaps, it was all that I was ever going to be to them. The thought did not faze ke the way it used to. But I was not going to sully myself further mingling with people who already thought I was unclean, unfit to be among them.

 

The music quietened, slowing down until it died down completely, giving way to silence. First the flutes, then the harps and the banjo. The quietness that filled the hall was the sort of silence that paid attention, the kind that demanded a speech. This was because Tybald had risen to his feet. He, unlike Caleb and most of those sitting at the dais, had not had a drop of wine. Tybald's was solemn and severe disposition. He was what I thought an Alpha should be. Taciturn, calculating, and shrewd. I was not certain she had seen the Alpha grin, except through his son's face which was a replica of his, perhaps at a younger age, which was also always grinning.

 

'My son is a man today.' He said in the absolute silence. He glanced around the room at the somber, watchful faces, his hand on the buckle of the leather belt he wore around his waist.

 

'We the Westerners of the Blood Moon pack, we say that a wolf is strongest when it belongs to a pack. We are all one pack, one wolf.'

 

The gathered crowd cheered in agreement, laughing and clapping and hooting. The cheering tapered off soon. Tybald waited patientlyfor the people. When they stopped, he continued. 'Today, Caleb choses a woman to be his mate, one of our very own, to begin his journey into adulthood. Let us bear witness to his choices.'

 

A cheer went up again and the older man stood waiting for his son to join him where he stood. A whisper of excitement ran through the crowd. I could sense it even where I sat, in a corner, concealed by the darkness.

 

There are many here who would want to be wed to Caleb, she realized, surprised. I had always known that the position of Beta was a highly coveted one, same as that of the Alpha of the pack. Men fought and died for these things, and women manipulated and schemed, and sometimes, when scheming was not enough to do the trick, they fought for it too.

 

I had known Caleb much of my childhood, and he was nothing like his father. Where Tybald was silent and watchful, his son, Caleb was a loud, big oaf. A vain one, too. It did not matter that he inherited his father's appearance. He was nothing like the man, and it showed. I could never have wanted him, even if I was out of her mind. In fact, I felt a deep pity for the Blood Moon pack when Tybald passed, or Caleb became Alpha, for what would befall them.

 

Caleb sauntered towards the dais. In his red cottons and silks,with his hair combed back into a neat cascade of jet black locks that swept down towards his shoulders, his toned arms on full display, he was the very picture of pulchritude

 

The ceremony began in earnest.

 

I remained hidden, watching, suddenly intrigued. It was not my first time seeing such a spectacle, but it was the first time I was invested, the first time I so close to royalty.

 

When the night was over, Caleb chose. All breathes were hushed, all anticipating his choice. But he did not call any of the names he was expected to. Not Autumn, not Gellis, not Jane.

 

'Khloe Hamilton,' Caleb said, his eyes fixed on me.

 

The ripple of shock that ran up my spine was louder than thecollective gasp in the hall.