"Lena? Listen, I'm sorry to wake you, but State Patrol called in another stranded car on your access road." Kelly Ann was the local dispatcher, and while she was trying to say it in a kind way, at this time of night, nearly three am, her message was sure to ruin my night. As it was, she was lucky to get me; I had just come in to bed not twenty minutes earlier from my studio.
"Was there a crash? Because the last time you sent me out there, I was almost shot by that damn amped up hunter who ran his car into a tree." Kelly Ann seemed to find this little anecdote far more amusing that I did, and laughed accordingly, before remembering that she need my help. Clearing her voice, she continued.
"No accident, just trouble with the engine. With this heat wave that came down last week, that's the fifth request for assistance we've had since Monday. You think folks would learn to take that into consideration this far from town," Kelly Ann commented with a pronounced yawn. It echoed through the phone, eliciting one from me as well.
"Did they make it down my road, or are they still on the Route 35?" I asked while stretching out on my bed. My legs were still aching from dragging all the firewood from the back woods and into the studio. Chopping and hauling wood was a cruel chore that I put off as long as physically possible.
"They made it to the entrance, but his car didn't complete the turn, so it's likely he's in the dirt."
"Do I need to take Gallifrey with me?" I asked Kelly Ann then, knowing she would understand what I was really asking.
"He seemed like a dick to me, going on and on about how and why we were incapable of sending someone out to him with the truck. But his license checks out, nothing to cause concern, no priors or so much as a speeding ticket. And he's driving a Mercedes. It's not the city boys that you have to worry about, but I'd go packing somethin' at least. Clint and Dan are out at some rager the kids were throwing at the lake cabins, and judging by their last call, they might not be able to bring the tow rig until tomorrow evening." If Kelly Ann was rolling her eyes as I did, I wouldn't be surprised.
This entire summer had been cataloged with adolescent mischief, and I had taken more than a few wayward drunken kids into town for their parents to collect. I was glad they were breaking up now, before anyone got the brilliant idea to target the old Wheeler house on the hill. My feet hit the floor with a thud, and I stumbled my way over to the dresser in search of decent clothing. "Alright. I can keep him out in the studio for the night, if you can send whoever comes in for the first shift to collect him. Maybe if they make it before noon, I'll throw in some bengiets?"
"That a deal honey. I might just come myself if you're offerin' that up," Kelly Ann responded before hanging up the phone. She was the only person I knew that didn't end the call with the standard niceties; Kelly Ann simply hung up when she was done talking.
To be honest, I think she was scared of me too. Twenty minutes later, I was headed down my private drive on my four wheeler. The cooler night air felt like fresh silk on my skin, compared to the sweltering temperatures of the daytime. Even with all the windows open in the house, there was never any comparative to the open air of the land out here. It took me a good five minutes to navigate down towards the intersection of my road and the main one, and I almost missed the man and his vehicle entirely.
The car he was driving was a deep dark blue, with such breathtaking beauty and class that even with my untrained eyes, I knew it must have cost a fortune. The urge to feel out of place gripped me instantly. I had chosen a pair of old denim jean shorts and loose t-shirt, with my cowboy boots and one of my brother's old hats to cover up hair I didn't bother to brush. Combining that with my entrance on this four wheeler, it accounted for the confused face the man held. He was currently leaning against the back quarter of the side facing me, with his long legs crossed casually out in front of him.
The car was sleek, but by no means small, and yet he still managed to appear imposing against it. I realized he had to be at least six four, maybe even taller, with very broad shoulders. There was a suit jacket draped on the back bumper, so he was only wearing a crisp white shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, with suspenders that hung with surprising effortlessness attached to neatly pressed suit pants.
The scowl he was wearing didn't feel like it matched up with just how handsome his face was. He had longer dark hair that dusted his collar, shadowing his face in the lights from my vehicle, and making it hard to tell if the planes on his face were as sharp and angular as the appeared. His face held a wide jaw, currently clenched in a painful contraction.
My eyes blinked several times, just checking to make sure it wasn't some bizarre illusion. People cut from the same cloth as he, didn't find their way into the back country where I lived. Once the engine to the four wheeler cut off, the silence that settled felt odd. It wasn't uncomfortable, just strange.
Gallifrey, of course, broke the silence by bounding into the space I was standing in and barking at the stranger. At my command, he stood down, backing up until his big German Shepard ass sat down at a familiar spot near my left foot. Then, the mystery man laughed. It sounded bitter to my ears, mocking me almost, and it compelled me to speak.
"I'm Lena," I said while dismounting and pointing behind me to the road. Gallifrey came trailing behind, his head and eyes trained on the new person.
"This is my private access road, as Kelly Ann probably told you." My hand hung suspended in the air the between us, with the man looking from my hand, to my face, to my dog in quick sucession.
He didn't say anything or make a move to take my offering, but I didn't take it personally. I'm sure the theme to deliverance was playing a steady track in his head. At my lack of breaking the stare we both held, he smiled tightly, finally reaching out to take my hand.
"Blake," he responded back with a firm handshake, but with no indication of a smile, or surname. Getting down to business seemed best, since he looked so uncomfortable.
"The tow isn't going to be here until tomorrow at some time, so if you want to grab what you need from you car there," I explained, motioning towards the vehicle, "I can give you a lift up the mountain."
"My didn't give any indication that there was anything but trees in the area," Blake said with audible frustration. It wasn't unwarranted, or out of place, in this part of the back country. Outsiders often got lost, and in this age of super location technology, most folks weren't accustomed to feeling such disorientation. It turned the best of us cranky, but adding in the heat, and his car trouble, I was surprised he wasn't yelling at me.
"That car must be even more expensive than I imagined if it can get a satellite signal out here," I commented with an admiring glance behind him. Gallifrey, now bored that the stranger, decided there was no threat to me, and promptly laid down at my feet and fell asleep.
"She's never failed me," Blake responded back, glancing over his shoulder before grabbing his suit jacket off the trunk. He ran his hands over his pockets, and then turned to look at me. t was dark out, almost too dark to catch, but the shadow of something dark popped out from behind his collar when he had stretched for the jacket. A tattoo by the looks of it, was just peeking out from not only his neck, but also one arm. The end tail of some script showed under his rolled sleeve. It added to his considerable handsomeness, making him seem alien. Perhaps that is where he came from. Some foreign planet where ridiculously beautiful people fell from the sky and into the forest.
Kelly Ann was going to love this story, I thought to myself.
"Ok right, um," I stammered, realizing a little too late that Blake had caught me staring. "The tow isn't going to be able to give you a lift until tomorrow sometime. I can provide you somewhere to sleep for the night, until Clint or someone can come and retrieve the car with the tow.
"Gallifrey, up!" I commanded, giving him the signal that we were heading back home. My loyal boy sprung up at attention, not for one second giving away that he was sleepy still. He took point in front of the four wheeler, nose pointed directly where we had to go.
Blake was standing near our transportation, with a speculative gaze running it over. My hair was sticking to the back of my neck, so I set about fixing it before the long ride. "You can put your jacket on if you want. It's cool enough out, and then you won't have to worry about losing it along the way," I instructed.
Taking my hat off, I bent my head down and shook out my long blonde hair, wrapping the hair band around it and sliding it into a ponytail before shoving it back under the ball cap.
Once I had righted myself and glanced to Blake, he was sitting astride my four wheeler, with a look that told me he didn't quite know what to do with it. There was no space at all in front of him, where I would sit and drive. Instead, Blake's thick legs were situated on each side, with Gallifrey bellowing like a hell hound at his knee.
There was no yelling, or complaining for Gallifrey to stop, Blake was just staring him down with a curious expression. Then he spoke a few words, in what sounded like German, and my dog stopped barking. Gallifrey sat slowly, but held no anxious tail, and his ears were perfectly relaxed.
"I'm the only one he listens to," I explained to Blake with obvious disbelief at what I had just seen. "What did you say to him?" My initial slighted anger retreated into pure curiosity.
"Let's go Lena," Blake said, ignoring my question entirely and starting the engine. It thrummed to life in the silent woods, shaking the ground and picking up leaves. They swirled around the dirt near my feet, and so I watched them for a minute, surprised by the artistry that even something as simple as the wind could produce.
Blake cleared his throat, redirecting my attention back on him.
"What did you say to my dog?" I asked again.
"Why Gallifrey?" Blake countered back with a smirk.
"Amos named him, I mean my brother did. What did you say to my dog?" Any patience I held earlier fled, and the clear anger in my voice caught his attention.
"Your German Shepard is well trained Lena. But he's not some ordinary pet who brings you the paper. I bet he's fast, strong, and protective. Responds only to you, only to your commands, yeah?" Blake asked. I could have been wrong, but his voice sounded kinder than before, softer even.
"My, my brother Amos gave him to me." Even my voice sounded strange and higher, as it was when I was younger. Only Amos brought out that side of me, a part of myself I so rarely let out at all, no less this strange man.
"He was created especially for you, and started out his life trained by a very skilled professional. Most of them use German commands in the beginning, as they have for a long time. Gallifrey here was quite the gift," Blake explained as he looking down at the dog. My mouth, as he began speaking, dropped with each word, until it was hanging wide open.
"He wanted me to be safe, Amos, I mean. Because I was always alone. Gallifrey wasn't a puppy, and I even complained that he hadn't brought me back a little puppy like I asked him to. How ridiculous, to even imagine I was that stupid. It lasted for five whole minutes, and then I was in love," I said with misted eyes as I looked upon my dog. Gallifrey was it for me, the only memory filled with light in a lifetime of that only reflected the darkness.
"Will you get on now Lena? I'd like to get some sleep tonight," Blake asked suddenly. He brought me out of my sadness like a splash of cold water on a hot face. It was almost dizzying.
"That is my four wheeler, and you have no idea where you are going in the dark," I pointed out.
"Gallifrey knows the way. Are you always this stubborn?" he asked with another smirk. If he gave me one more, I thought, it was likely I would slap it off his face.
"Yes but-" was all I could get out before Blake interrupted me.
"Get on Lena," he commanded at me again. The idea of me obliging him was at once ridiculous, and logical, which left me in an odd state of confusion. I didn't want to get on and do what he told me to, but his voice left so little to inch my way in and reason with him. So with a quick command to my dog in German, I mounted behind Blake, and we were gone.
Blake drove the damn thing like he had been born on one. Even the holes in the ground that I always seemed to hit, no matter how many times I had hit them before, he seemed to dodge them ease. The only upside to his showing off was that I didn't have to hold onto his body to stay steady. All it took was one careful hand behind me onto the back of my seat to keep myself stabilized. Blake, curiously, chuckled at one point, looking over his shoulder and smirking at my lack of contact with him.
It was his smell that was getting to my head. It wasn't necessarily a cologne, or anything so clean and artifical; Blake smelled of fresh water, almost rain, and a underlying layer of male. Even then, the description wasn't really close to what it actually was like. Between that, and the sheer immensity of his size, it was sensory overload.
The wheels slowed to a stop, but a few seconds before, I had already dismounted. Blake was disarming me, putting me at ease with a strange sense of familiarity, and at once making me irrationally awkward. It felt like someone shoved a sixteen year old version of myself into my skin.
"You in a hurry peaches?" Blake asked, himself finally getting off the four wheeler. He shook out his legs, brushing some leaves and dirt of his pants before slinging his suit jacket over one shoulder. Of course, he managed to still look perfect, which may have sent me over the edge.
"Call me peaches again, and I'll Google the German command for castration," I replied, eyebrow arched in clear defiance towards my dog. That traitor was panting near where Blake stood, his eyes bouncing from the stranger, to me, as if he were asking if he could keep this fun new toy.
"Noted," he said with his arms raised.
"This is my house," I explained drying while gesturing to the building behind me. Blake nodded, his eyes taking it all in.
The house, all that was left of my brother and his legacy, sat large and imposing on the hill at my back. It was in an old style, with a large wrap around porch and three full stories; all filled with the ghost of Amos. In every creek of the floor, with each warped window, I heard his voice, and saw his face. If I could stomach the actual act of selling it, I would practically give it away.
"Come with me," I said quickly, afraid of giving him too much time to come up with a question about why someone as young as I, owned a mountain mansion in the middle of nowhere. Gallifrey bounded after me, coming to stride along side my flank, as he usually did. He gave me an amount of peace; battling back the demons that followed me so closely.
Blake kept up with me some, but I had a nagging feeling he was choosing to give me the space, and not because I was power-walking up and around my house at a hurried pace. We rounded the corner, and my studio came into view.
If the house was my personal cemetery, than the converted barn was a nursery.
Life was born there; despite the lifelessness that clung to me and everything else, I could hide from it in here. This wasn't the first time, or the last, that I'd let a wayward traveler stay there. Even so, something about Blake grated on me, like I could tell already he wouldn't understand the significance of this place. Or, I thought deep down, he seemed the type to see it all. Either way it rankled my pride.
I stopped outside the doors, and turned to face Blake for the first time in a while. He wasn't smirking any longer, just looking at my face with an odd expression. It was halfway closed off, not allowing me any indication of what was working behind his dark eyes.
"You can stay here tonight." I was seconds away from keeping him in my house, just so that I wouldn't have to take him in here, but safety hastened my more logical side. "It's going to be hot, but you can leave these doors open if you want, and it should be cool enough for the night," I explained while opening the wide barn door to let us in.
The motion sensor lights kicked on as soon as Gallifrey crossed the barrier into the main space. Blake was quiet behind me, and I did my best to ignore whatever that meant.
"This is your studio," Blake finally said after a few minutes of him roaming the main floor. He looped around each of my kilns, with interested eyes gazing over the racks and racks of finished and unfinished pottery.
"Yes," I responded, unsure if he was asking a question, or making a statement.
Blake then took a long and slow lap around the back portion of the barn. It was where almost all of my driftwood sculptures were located. He had to carefully navigate all the tree stumps and hand carved tables that littered the area between projects, each with supplies and empty beer bottles stacked precariously on top. In short, it was a riot of disorganization, and Blake with all his fine suited glory looked about as out of place as anyone I had seen in here.
"There is a loft apartment upstairs, and a basket of linens next to the pull out couch," I explained. Blake was viewing everything with a peculiar kind of intensity, and I was keen on him moving on. "I keep some old clothes up there for when things get messy, there should be something that fits."
"They are very moving," Blake said then, ignoring my blatant hint for him to leave it all be. His hand reached out to touch one, but before he could contact it fully, Blake pulled his hand back. There was a reverence in here that it seemed even this man could feel.
"There is no bathroom in here, but near my stack of firewood around the corner is an old outhouse you're free to use." Blake turned form his perusal of my work, his expression surprisingly devoid of scorn, unlike most of the summer guests I had stay here.
This time, the stranger simply nodded at me as he shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against one of the roof uprights. It felt like he was waiting for me to speak, or instruct him further, but I was too busy staring at him to act. After an awkward moment, the realization hit me.
"Come on up when you wake, and I'll try and call Clint," I said finally, and then turned to leave.
"And if I can't sleep," Blake called out to me. He sounded playful and cheeky, unlike his earlier cold and arrogant countenance.
"Count sheep," I responded with an eye roll.
"Is that what you do when you can't sleep?" he asked, with an interested head tilted in anticipation of my answer.
"All this heat, combined with the silence you find out here, it gets to your mind. Amplifies the noise, and suddenly the doubts in your head find a voice where they shouldn't. My advice, find something to quiet it all. Count sheep, make grocery lists, recite the gettysburg address, whatever floats your boat. As for me, I throw pots," I explained while gesturing towards me wheels. It was an oversimplified explanation of how I cope, but Blake seemed to recognize my struggle, echoing his own recognition deep in the deapths of his dark eyes. He was entrancing, so similar and foreign all at once.
"Why not the wood sculpting?" he asked, moving out of his pocket of light to stand in a little bit of a shadow. It almost looked like he was trying to move in closer to me. I found I wasn't as scared as I probably aught to be.
"Knives and wood tools, this late at night, isn't a good combination." With a perfect example, I held up my left index finger. There was a dark line running on the outside edge, where I had to get it stitched closed after slicing it open one late night working on a piece.
Blake closed the short distance between us, and reached out for my hand. Before I could protest, he held it gently in his own, leaning it into the overhead light to get a better look at it. The knuckle wouldn't straighten all the way, and while it had hindered a few works, I mostly forgot it was there.
"You sliced right through the tendon," Blake noted, and I nodded.
"Doctor said I'd never have full use of it. Idiot quack," I muttered to myself, eliciting a lazy smile from Blake as well.
"There is no accounting for what the mind can do to heal the body." He muttered it, almost as if he wasn't saying it towards me, and more to himself.
"The mind can imprison as readily as it can set free. And the line between the two is as sharp as a knife edge." Our simple conversation seemed to be heavy with an underlying layer of a serious exchange.
Typically, I eschewed others, keeping to myself and hiding in my studio. And now here I was, chatting about the mysteries of the mind with a total stranger. The local kids called me all sorts of names, but the main theme was crazy hermit artist lady with the scary dog. The house itself scared them enough, and adding in my family story didn't do much but encourage rumors, and the occasional trespassing drunk teen with a dare from his friends to try and poke at me and my property.
It was then I realized Blake was still holding my hand. It was cradled in his, ever so gently resting in the center of his wide palm. My body responded in accordance with my brain, and I finally managed to pull my arm forcefully from his.
"Lena-" Blake began saying but I cut him off. He was looking at me with a clear apology in his features. He hardley knew me, yet I got the sense he knew that touching me was a rare and unwelcome gesture.
"Good night Blake," I called over my shoulder as I left.
"
Don't look at me like that Gallifrey," I chided my as I changed back into my nightgown.
The entire way back from the studio, he kept glancing backwards towards where we had left Blake. He looked both anxious to get back to the house, and uneasy about leaving our guest there. "I couldn't let him in the house old boy, we know nothing about him. Plus he got under my skin." And no one did that.
Gallifrey gave me a gruff bark in response, and then curled up onto the end of my king sized bed, with one eye curiously watching me.
Normally, I would be washing up from the studio and getting ready for bed, but now I needed to do it in order to clear the dirt from my face and hands. I told myself it was for that fact alone, and not for the strange smell of Blake that penetrated my clothes and hair. The skin under those areas, face included, still felt warm and flushed, as if I were attempting to blush. The possibility of such was ridiculous to consider.
My virginity was long gone, buried in the woods somewhere among the other landmarks of my legendary mistakes. Since then, I had filled my time well with male suitors, as my grandmother used to call them, so getting flustered over a guy wasn't something I was used to.
My body slipped under the covers, enjoying the feel of cool sheets freshly chilled by the open window near me. Thankfully, it was a fast descent into sleep, though it wouldn't last long.
Chapter 2
Gallifrey, of course, was the one to wake me. It wasn't his usual bark, the one that let me know of a possible intruder. Only years of hearing it attuned me enough to tell the difference. Now was different; he was growling and whining in equal parts. If I had to equate it to something, it would be that he was telling me something wasn't right.
His nose was pointed out my window, the same one that blew a strong breeze over my body while I slept; but also the same one that overlooked the back lawn. It unfortunately had a direct line to the studio, and the goose flesh that broke out on my arms and legs told me Gallifrey wasn't the only one in the room that could sense the danger.
"Gallifrey, stay," I commanded, in a voice that I hoped held no doubt as to what exactly I was expecting him to do. The nightgown I was in stayed on, but I threw a long sweater over top, and pulled my boots quickly on.
My hair was a mess, matted in the back to the point that the left side seemed to be defying gravity. I threw Amos's baseball cap over it again, just as I did nearly every morning.
My dog tilted his head at me, interested eyes searching my face. "I mean it Frey. I'll go check it out. It's probably just another kid, or some hunter yahoo who couldn't find his camp come nightfall. But I can't risk you coming, and I can't risk you leaving the main house unprotected. So, stay." Gallifrey, in response, whined long and loud before finally sitting and turning his face once again towards the open window.
"Alright, I'm going," I placated. With a quick reach under the bed, and afterwards my nightstand, I was ready to go.
The walk, which usually took under a few minutes, seemed to drag on this time. Perhaps it was the sense of forboding that had taken over me, or the weight of the gun in my hands.
When I practiced shooting, a past time passed down by Amos, it never felt this heavy. It was a strange sensation, as if the gun itself knew the situation we were in was vastly different than before.
As soon as the barn doors came into view, I knew the earlier feeling I had was right. The main doors were completely shut closed. At this time of year, with the heat we were experiencing, there was no sane reason to keep them closed. On top of that, I had instructed Blake to keep them open. And he didn't seem the type to ignore reason.
My body dropped into a crouch, and I made my way slowly towards a back side door that I hardly used. It was a fire code stipulation when I made updates to the barn, and it was a minor miracle that I heeded Clay's warnings and put it in. Even more amazing, was that I was too lazy to ever install a lock.
Most of the town here kept their distance from me, and after a few choice rumors began circulating after Amos's death, it was rare that anyone messed with me. Outside of the occasional drunk teenager, I hardly ever felt the need to lock my studio or my home up. And that was all outside of the threat of Gallifrey, who looked as close to a hellhound from myth and legend as I had ever encountered.
After rounding the back of the barn, a few sounds of a scuffle had become evident. While I treasured my art, the sound of pottery hitting one wall sent me into a panic for a different reason. It was always hard to make others understand, but it was the act of creating itself that produced most of the pleasure for me. Selling pieces were necessary for survival, but my most treasured works I usually trashed. Much to the chagrin of my dealer.
Voices were rising in intensity from the time I was close enough to discern them, but they really took off once I got within ear shot of the back door. I had re-purposed an old door from the main house to replace back here, and the windows were nearly as old as the house. As such, it provided a very poor sealant, and the noises coming from within were as clear as if I had been inside.
"Stopping here like this was a mistake Alec," a man's voice mused from behind the wall. It sounded mocking, as if there was not a more appealing idea he could think of.
"Michael, I could go my entire existence without hearing you speak and it would be a day too soon," Blake, or Alec, responded back quickly. He said it so fast there was hardly a breath between their two sentences.
"The least you could have done was hide that ostentatious piece of German engineering that you left like road kill off the road. You might as well have projected your location into the sky," the man, I assumed was named Michael, quipped. "If I didn't know you so well, I would assume that you wanted me to find you."
Multiple footsteps echoed against the door, and I closed my eyes, imagining them circling one another. I leaned into the door frame, pressing my ear into the window panel.
"You have a very peculiar fascination with me, doesn't anyone in your clan have better things to do outside of chasing me and my friends down?"
Clan, I wondered to myself in a whisper? There was nothing decidedly Scottish about the man, who I now wasn't sure what to call, and that left me with only one other option of what they were talking about.
A flash of my brother's face interrupted my closed eyed meditation of the events inside, like the flash of a camera. It was as visceral as any image right in front of me, bringing a cacophony of feeling that ripped into my stomach.
There was protocol for times such as these, ingrained in my mind like muscle memory. It had happened off and on since Amos died, but there hadn't been a time in last three years that I had a house caller of his sort.
But this time was different, and I could feel the subtleties it from the very beginning. Blake, or Alec, or whatever he was really named, hadn't sought me out. There was no invocation of his species, or his affiliation, or even my brother's name. Most of the vagrants that came calling, often incoherent and bloody, could at the very least call for Amos. But even Gallifrey took to him, and I employed my dog frequently as means of sniffing out the dangers in others.
"Now Alec, the blame of our constant violence falls directly on your shoulders. You really can't get out of it now of course, now that you have your new position," Michael said, punctuating the last word with an amazing amount of contempt.
"Our constant violence, as you so poetically put it, can only be attributed to your irrational fear and hatred for me, combined fatally with an irrational desire to kill everything in your path. That's not a singularly odd trait for your brethren, so why is it that you and your family take such exception to our laws?"
"Because you killed my father you self righteous cretin!" Michael screamed out.
Blake, I just decided to stick with the original name for now, barked out in a harsh sounding laughter. It was far from kind, but I had no idea about how appropriate it was, so I would forestall judgement of his cruelty.
"Your father took out half a town before we could restrain him, and then he massacred half of the guard staff that was sent to see him traveled safely. Putting him down was a mercy Michael. He could have turned on your family next. All those sisters," Blake chided with a low whistle, insinuating much about how Michael's father's state of mind wasn't exactly settled.
"You could at least pretend to have a heavy conscious Alec. You are responsible for so many deaths, one would think your hands would falter or slip, what with all the blood on them." Michael managed, somehow, to snarl his words out with a particular ferality. They mystery of what he was unraveled by the second. And that knowledge gave me ammunition, and a direct time line of my own interference here. Too late, and my help would be useless.
"I am not responsible for the acts that put them in the line of my sword, but the deed of using my weapon does feel heavy in my hands. It makes no difference though Michael, the heads roll off the blade regardless of how I feel." While Blake had a dark tone, there was an underlying sorrow that I could feel through the barrier of the door.
"I would very much like to see your head hit the dirt Alec. And tonight, I hope I have the chance to see it. Right boys?"
The front barn doors slid open, whining and squeaking as they usually did. The delay in time it took to open them fully, I used to my advantage. With my boot to the door, and a firm hand on my gun, I kicked it in.
"Stop where you are, all of you," I shouted with my barrel pointed strategically at the man named Michael.
There was pride in my voice, both for catching him off guard, and for not flinching at what I saw. Most of my studio was ripped apart, and my feet crunched under the fragments pottery and canvas.
Blake was staring at me, with eyes as wide as the bright full moon outside. He quickly schooled it into a scowl, and I could see him bite back words. My act of help wasn't a comment of his capabilities, but men like him never took kindly to intervention, especially from a girl.
"Tell the gentlemen you came with to stop giving one another eyes. I am a very good shot, and another move from thing one and thing two and I'll blow pieces of you into the next county."
Michael laughed. It was a stifled chuckle, chocked off with a bitter snarl. His hands were shaking, so fast, and so violently, that my eyes were drawn to them. Keeping an eye on both Michael, and the group at the back, was becoming maddening. His human state, and by proxy the state of the others, was in a delicate position.
"Anytime you wish to step in here, it would be appreciated," I gritted out between a clenched jaw at Blake, who seemed far more interested in me than I was comfortable with, and far too unconcerned with the real threat in the room.
"Well Michael, I think the lady doesn't quite like you on her land," Blake said with a viscous smile as he made his way towards Michael. "I will allow you to leave, if you make gone quickly, with a promise to leave the country. A year or two visiting your kin in Russia would suffice. Perhaps Oleg can talk some sense into you. Yeah?" he added in with an interesting head tilt in Michael's direction, as if he was capable of detecting deception if only he looked hard enough.
"Who is she, I wonder?" Michael asked, mimicking Blake's head and indicating with his hand towards me.
"You can look at me Michael, and not at her," he snapped out suddenly. His next words came out sarcastically sweet. "She seems a bit twitchy on that pretty gun in her hands. I'd hate to benefit so nicely from her nerves. Your name on my kill list will be a line item I'd relish crossing off."
Michael's face began taking on a deep red color, and the shaking in his hands was beginning to snake up his arms to take a place deep in his chest. I wasn't sure exactly what he was, and I was keen on knowing just how to defend myself.
With a deep breath to steel myself, I said, "I require you to disclose your species."
The mood in the room, which had wavered between tense and amusing before, turned hostile. Tendrils of anger, disbelief, and violence snaked its way through the room, and its inhabitants.
"Is she yours then Alec?" Michael asked. His eyes were such a deep yellow, that they resembled glowing, dried daffodils. Where there was interest before, it was now replaced with a sickening look of fascination, as if I were now a rare delicacy, and he, starving.
"I am my own," I blurted out, enraged. "And be that as it may, I am also vastly smarter than you. I will ask you again, and you will answer me, for you have to. You cannot contain your beast or your demon much longer, not while denying me my right to invocation. So, Michael, what is your species."
His scarlet face had turned an almost eggplant color, and his ability to hold out scared me shitless. I had never met a supernatural creature who could refrain from a direct command of identification. It was ingrained in their dna, as crippling as a vampires shyness from sun, and werewolfs curse of the moon. Amos had ingrained it within me from birth, and unfortunately this was not the only occurrence of me using my knowledge.
"Halfling. Demon and shifter," Michael spat out. His face, before quite purple, was now flickering in between bright red and dark brown.
"Bear?" I asked out loud, but directed it in particular towards Blake. When I finally looked at him, I found him staring right back at me, with an intensity that I wasn't expecting.
"Wolf, a dark wolf," Blake responded back to me. He was yet to break eye contact.
"Then wolf, you know that this gun, with my aim, can sever your spinal cord to the point of death. And while that will not kill you, I am very sure that the man next to you will finish what I have started. So get the fuck out of my studio." With the end of my words, Michael smiled and hissed, drawing back the attention of Blake. And that was all the opportunity the man behind me needed to club me blind.
Whatever thug hit me didn't put much into it, and I woke up a few minutes later bound loosely and blindfolded, propped up against one of my shipping crates near the back door. He thought me a small and weak human, and didn't even bother checking me for other weapons once he took my gun from me. The idiot.
"Michael, quit looking at that girl like that," a man boomed from in front of me.
There was no way for me to tell for sure, but I had a feeling that it was the same one that snuck up on me. He felt as if he was the one in charge. His timbered voice shook me through, like the waves of an alpha. I had never been in presence of one before, but I could hear my brothers lectures on the particulars as clear as the birdsong out the window.
"I want her I think Bates," he responded back. "If not for the fact that Alec could watch something of his burn for once, than for the fact that she is so breathtakingly interesting. A human with such knowledge, and almost a complete lack of fear, it touches me."
A hand, steaming hot and covered in sweat, trailed a long line across my open collarbone. As in complete opposition, a cold chill replaced the spot where Michael's hand had touched me. There was another noise, a low growl that eminated from in front of me. Blake, I realized quickly, and he seemed to be in the center of the room, judging by the sound.
I let all my senses go, shaking off the slimy sensation that was left in the wake of Michael. The air smelled and tasted of fresh cut wood, and there was a faint trace of lighter fluid in the air. With his position most likely in the center of the room, and the smells, I would have to guess that they had Blake tied up, most likely to a wood post in preparation for his very own live funeral pyre.
The only other noises I could determine seemed to coming from Michael, and the man who clubbed me in the head. He sounded very close to where Blake was, versus Michael, who was pacing around the room. The two others, who had served as primary backup, I couldn't detect anywhere.
From my position, I eased my hands out of the binding, and moved them across the floor without notice, quickly palming one of the knives that I had tucked into my boot in the process. Then, I returned my hands back behind me, as if they were still tied. No one noticed me at all.
"She is not the right fit for you Michael. Humans never make good guests, or pets," the man, whom Michael referred to as Bates, replied back. In the lull of tense silence that descended after his comment, there was a faint scraping sound, and the smell of fresh blood. My guess, was that Blake was trying to break free, or resisting the act of Bates restraining him.
"I don't want her for a pet, I want her for a toy. Perhaps a wife," Michael added in at the last second, and I didn't need to use my eyes to tell he directed it at Blake. "What do you think Alec?" Michael asked. His footsteps sounded loudly at first, and gradually softened as he walked away from me. Whatever time line I had been trying to figure out before, was now escalated, especially as Michael continued taunting.
"How long have you been sneaking off here Alec? What if the PD knew about your extra curriculars, they wouldn't be too happy about their newest born princeling romping off with human women? Diluting their gene pool wouldn't be so easily accepted, even with your considerable charm. But you're in luck buddy, because I'm going to take care of this problem for you. She's coming with me." This time, the smell of blood combined with an audible yanking of restraints, and it was enough information to make a call.
As I stood, my left hand pulled back my blindfold, and my right threw the knife in my hand. It sailed through the air, hitting Michael in the back of his head with an impressive degree of accuracy. He dropped quickly at Blake's feet, drawing the attention of Bates, who was on his phone near the front barn doors.
"Behind you," I called out, alerting Blake to Bates, who was staring intently at me under a narrow gaze. It sent a wave of cold fear straight through me.
My weapon stash was gone now, and though I wasn't without any talents, they wouldn't hold up for long with an alpha of unknown origin. The few times in life that I had been subjected to a test of my skill and strength, Amos had always been there as well. Blake didn't appear to be a threat to me, for now, but that was a certainty that I wasn't sure I could afford.
Bates had abandoned his phone call, and was now stalking his way towards Blake, who was vigorously trying to abandon his tie downs. Somehow, it didn't seem to be working, no matter how hard he was working at it. Someone in the party had to had some magical knowledge, or Blake would have shredded those ropes during this struggle. He was a monster of a man, with muscles so large and well formed he resembled a marbled statue.
Time had slowed during Bates' prowl, as most pivotal moments in life can seem. Amos' voice in my head was spurring me on to run; to duck through the back door, head into the safety of the house, and prepare myself. But I couldn't, wouldn't, and that was something I knew already. I could have slipped out by now, but instead I was rooted to the spot, stuck staring at what was going on with the wide eyes of someone struck with an intangible fear. Where that fear originated, I was still unclear.
"No," Blake hissed, most likely noticing the decision for action in my eyes.
After a quick study, the area around me didn't yield any viable options in terms of a weapon, and the only one that was anywhere near me, was lodged in Michael.
The blow I sent him didn't kill him, his inner energy would heal the wound by morning, but he was safe for now. My feet took me quickly, quicker than it seemed in the moment, and I slid into Michael's body with all the excited fervor of a professional baseball player.
My hand jerked the knife out of Michael's neck, and in one careful yet rushed movement, I sliced through the bindings on Blake's feet. By the time I stood to get at his left hand, Bates slammed into me.
We flew, with his body on mine, several feet back until we skidded to a stop by a pile of pottery shards.
They cut into the back of my shoulders, leaving a hot trail of fresh blood and pain behind them. The back of my head was also cut, and my ears were ringing so loudly I almost couldn't hear his words.
"Aren't you just full of surprises," Bates hissed out. There wan't a part of his body that wasn't touching my own, and he made no move in order to put some space between us. I turned my face from his, and refused to acknowledge his statement. Or any further ones, as he preceded to taunt me with insults.
"Get off of her. She isn't the one you came for, and you can hardly blame her reaction to your clan mates. Even a human can smell the stink of inbreeding and malicious intent. That's without the mention that a girl managed to subdue Michael, and almost release me."
If misdirection was his aim, the blow struck true. Bates turned his body, so he was half on me and half sitting up to face Blake. It freed up my arms nicely.
"Michael has always had peculiar tastes. His fascination with this little girl was easily explainable as part of his derangement, but now that you seem to have taken such an interest in her I am considering that there may be more to her. As you say," Bates continued, looking at me again before continuing, "she has more ability than most her species."
"Yes I do," I agreed as I ran a broken shard of glass across his throat.