Shimmer (Wicked Woods #2) Read online

  Briony paused as she realized who it was. “Kevin? What are you doing?”

  “Starting an escape, obviously.”

  “While attracting every vampire in the place. You didn’t want to use the door?”

  Kevin shook his head. “They reinforced the doors. They forgot that these houses sometimes have thin walls, though. Idiots.” Kevin held out his hand to her. “So are we getting out of here or not?”

  Chapter 2

  Briony took Kevin’s hand gladly, easing with him through the hole that he had created in the wall. She made it through just in time to see a vampire, a young man in his twenties, arriving. He was obviously there to see what all the noise was about.

  Kevin threw himself at the vampire without warning, tackling him to the ground, his hands going to the creature’s head, forcing it well clear of his throat. Apparently, the blood loss from Pietre’s drinking hadn’t slowed him down much. The vampire struggled beneath the young werewolf, rolling so that it was above him and then rearing back, its fangs out for the bite that would follow.

  It didn’t get the chance. Briony stepped forward smartly and slammed one of her makeshift stakes into the creature’s back, driving it forward with all the force she could muster. As she did so, Kevin shoved it back, making sure that it impaled itself fully on the splintered point. The creature burst into cold flame, burning into ashes.

  “Great teamwork,” Kevin said, hauling himself to his feet and brushing off some of the debris. “Now, let’s get out of here.”

  “What about Fallon?” Briony asked. Kevin did not say anything. Briony reached out to grab his arm. “I said-”

  “I heard what you said, Briony. What about Fallon?”

  Despite everything, despite the fact that they had been fighting full on when the three of them had been captured, that was enough to shock Briony. “Kevin, Fallon is your brother.”

  Kevin shook his head. “He was my brother. Now… now he’s just one of them.”

  Briony did not know what to say to that. How was someone supposed to react when their family had been turned into one of the walking dead? It briefly occurred to her that she of all people was in a position to know, but thinking about what Pietre had said he’d done to her parents and brother didn’t make things any easier. She settled for standing there, her hands on her hips.

  “I’m not leaving without making sure that Fallon is ok, Kevin. You can go if you want to.” Briony stepped forward.

  For a moment, just for a moment, Briony thought that he might actually do it. Or worse, that Kevin would try to drag her out of there for her own good. Maybe he got a sense of just how bad an idea that would be though, because he nodded to the room that had held him. “He’s still in there.”

  Briony squeezed through the gap in the wall, doing her best to avoid the jagged edges of the wood. Fallon was indeed still there, chained to a chair and looking over to Briony with a lethargically lolling head. That probably had a lot to do with the silver chains wrapped around him like some giant cocoon. Briony looked to Kevin with something close to disgust then.

  “You just left him like this?”

  “It’s not like I can touch the chains, Briony. Besides, he is one of them. They won’t hurt him.”

  “Except that they will, Kevin. He killed another vampire to protect me. They’ll kill Fallon if he stays here.”

  Kevin had the sense not to say anything then, at least, moving to keep an eye on the corridor outside the room while Briony worked to get the chain off Fallon. It wasn’t tight. Presumably, the other vampires had thought that the silver in it would be enough. Or maybe, they had simply had difficulties holding it long enough to get it any tighter. In less than a minute, Briony had peeled the last of it from Fallon’s seated form. The young vampire stared up at her. His eyes were red with hunger.

  “Come on, Fallon,” Briony said. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  Fallon nodded, started to stand, and then collapsed back into the chair. Briony looked over to Kevin.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “How should I know? Maybe the beating he took has taken it out of him. Maybe it’s the silver. I do know we need to hurry, Briony. More vampires will be here soon. If Fallon can’t make it…”

  He didn’t actually say it, but Briony saw his gaze go to the stakes she held. Briony shook her head. “No, Kevin. I won’t do it. I won’t.”

  “So you’ll leave him here like you should have before?” Kevin demanded. “Or were you planning on carrying him out of here while I fight them off?”

  Fallon made another effort to stand. It was as unsuccessful as his first. “Need… blood…”

  Briony had already guessed that part. Which was why she was busy rolling up her sleeve.

  “What are you doing?” Kevin demanded.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” Briony shot back, keeping her attention on Fallon. He looked so weak. So utterly helpless. “I’m going to feed him.”

  “You are not going to feed that thing.”

  Briony whirled on Kevin then. “That thing is your brother! In any case, you don’t get to tell me what I will and will not do, Kevin. Now, if you can’t bring yourself to deal with it, get back to watching the door.”

  Kevin did not move.

  “I’m waiting,” Briony said.

  Kevin shook his head. “Someone has to make sure that he doesn’t rip your throat out and leave you to die.”

  “What?” Briony demanded. “The way a werewolf would?”

  That made Kevin flush with anger, but he stepped back to their makeshift door, going back to keeping watch. Briony didn’t care right then. She had more important things to concentrate on than the feelings of a guy so callous that he could cheerfully abandon his own brother.

  She held up her bare left arm to Fallon, having decided that she would probably need the left for fighting. “Here, Fallon. Feed. Be strong again.” He did not bite. Briony moved her arm closer, until Fallon’s lips brushed the skin. “It’s all right, Fallon. I want you to-”

  The bite was sudden, Fallon’s fangs piercing her skin in an instant of pain that Briony fought not to recoil from, though given the way his hands clamped around her arm, Briony doubted that she could have, even if she had wanted to. Fallon lapped hungrily at the wound, and Briony could feel the pulse of her blood flowing into him, could feel some fragment of her life going to sustain his.

  The strangest part was how good the whole thing felt. Briony had assumed that would have had something to do with vampire hypnotism, with trickery. This though… it didn’t feel like something false. It simply felt almost sensual. There was something almost beautiful about the feel of Fallon’s lips on her flesh, about the heat of the blood as it passed his lips. About knowing that he was claiming some precious part of her as his own.

  “That’s enough,” Kevin said, moving closer.

  It didn’t feel like enough to Briony. It barely felt like a start. Barely felt like the first whisper of everything it could be.

  “That’s enough!” Kevin insisted. He yanked at Fallon, and Fallon spun, hissing at him. Kevin didn’t seem to care. “You’ll leave Briony too weak to run, you idiot!”

  That produced a tense moment, in which Briony thought that they might fight again, but finally, Fallon nodded. That was good, at least, because now that he wasn’t actually feeding, Briony was starting to feel the dull ache of where he had bitten. At least the bite itself was not too much, just a couple of neat holes in her skin, right at the crook of the elbow. They were not bleeding, which presumably meant that vampires had something in their bite to help coagulation when they were done. It probably made their food last longer.

  Briony recognized that thought as one that she probably would not have had if she were thinking completely clearly, and she shook her head to try to shake off the fuzzy feeling. Maybe Kevin had stopped things just in time, though Briony had to admit there was still a part of her that wanted to ask Fallon for more. Far more. She found
herself wondering then if the stories about bites giving vampires more power over people were true.

  There wasn’t time to consider it, though, because they still had to get out of there. The three of them squeezed their way out of the room, just in time to meet another vampire, obviously there looking for the first. It was another young man, and Briony recognized it as one of those who had helped to capture her.

  “Oh good,” he said, “you’re escaping. I’m sure even Pietre won’t mind if we hurt you a little for escaping.”

  He leapt, straight at Briony. She dropped back, raising both stakes in an effort to impale him, but he seemed almost to change direction in mid-air. Briony lashed out with a low kick and he danced back. Unfortunately for him, that took him straight towards Fallon.

  Fallon grabbed the other vampire’s arm, twisting in what looked like some sort of arm lock. The vampire twisted and wrenched, trying to break free, but that just gave Kevin the chance to grab it from the other side. Together, the two brothers hoisted the vampire until it was pinned to one wall, its feet off the floor.

  “Quick, Briony,” Kevin said, “stake it.”

  “Wait!” it squirmed in their grip, its feet kicking. “Please, I can tell you about your family!”

  Briony thought about that. About her parents reduced to something like this. About what Pietre had done to her younger brother. She shook her head. “I don’t want to know.”

  The stake slid in easily this time, under the ribs and into the heart. Briony found herself staring into the vampire’s eyes as it died, then as the flames claimed it. What she hoped she would see, she did not know. Whatever it was, it was not there. She took a shuddering breath.

  “We need to hurry.”

  The boys nodded, their instinctive hatred put aside for the moment at least as they followed in Briony’s wake, letting her lead them from the house that had brought them so much pain.

  Twice more, as they made their way from the building, vampires attempted to attack them. The first time, it was one of the ones who insisted on wearing old-fashioned clothes, and who was presumably older than many of the others. He leapt from the shadows, and succeeded in getting a hold on Briony, but Kevin and Fallon pulled him off between them. Briony drove the stake home as he hissed and threatened them.

  The second time, it was a woman who looked just a little older than Briony did. For all her speed and strength, she clearly hadn’t spent much time learning to fight. When she lunged at Briony, it was clumsy, and Briony stepped aside. A quick hook of her foot around the vampire’s ankle was enough to send her sprawling, and then Briony was on her, plunging a stake into her heart without so much as blinking. She did not even wait for the fire to claim the vampire this time, but instead strode straight for the front doors of the house. Fallon looked like he wanted to say something then, but Briony cut him off with a look.

  “Come on,” she said, “we’re done here.”

  Chapter 3

  From the outside, the vampires’ house looked even worse than it had from the inside. Paint peeled in bubbling strips and windows had boards over them. Maybe that was deliberate, a ploy to keep away prying eyes.

  Trees surrounded the house, thick enough that they blocked all sign of anything beyond them. Pietre hadn’t lied when he had said that they were far from help.

  Fallon and Kevin were just a step or two away from her, Kevin breathing heavily in the open air, Fallon giving no sign of breathing at all. They looked at one another with the by now familiar contempt, but underneath it there was a level of understanding that said each one knew exactly what the other was thinking.

  Fallon turned to Briony, shrugging out of his coat. “Give me your jacket, Briony.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because it’s you that the vampires want, and when they come, they will use scent as much as sight to track us.”

  It took Briony a moment to get it. When she did, she shook her head. “You’re going to draw them off? Fallon, you can’t.”

  “I can. I have to. Now, give me your jacket.”

  Briony did it, hating the idea even as she knew that it was probably her best chance for survival. “What about my scent, then? You think they won’t notice that there are two of me running about?”

  “That,” Fallon said, “is where Kevin comes in.”

  A growl came from Briony’s waist level, and Briony looked down to see the huge, powerfully built wolf there. She had not seen him transform.

  “Werewolf scent is a powerful thing,” Fallon said. “Hold tight to Kevin, Briony. Hold tight and they will never pick your scent out from his.” Fallon knelt by his transformed brother. “Get her to safety or I will kill you for it.”

  That got another growl, but it didn’t matter. Fallon was already running out into the trees with more than human speed. He was gone in less time than it took to blink. Briony wrapped herself in his coat, hoping that the young vampire would be all right. Beside her, Kevin yipped.

  “I know, I know,” Briony said. “I’m coming.”

  Climbing onto his back was like snuggling into a soft duvet, except that duvets didn’t generally leap forward, plunging through forests at speeds that made Briony cling on for dear life. She dug her fingers into the fur at Kevin’s neck, wrapping her legs around his waist and hoping it would be enough to keep her from falling as trees flashed past. At this speed, falling off would not just hurt, it would probably break something.

  How long did they run like that, with Briony keeping her head pressed down, away from the threat of low branches? How long did Kevin bound along in strides that treated distance like it did not matter? An hour? More? Wherever they had been, it had certainly been well away from any sign of life if they could run like that without meeting anyone.

  For all that time, Kevin did not slow. Briony was aching just with the jolting that came with hanging on, but Kevin kept going, only the slight harshening of the wolf’s breathing giving any clue that their flight was taking its toll.

  Finally, though, Kevin’s lope became a jog, and then a walk. He came to a halt in a small clearing that was bare of anything but fallen branches. Briony slid from his back gratefully, forcing her legs to untangle and remember how to stand. She tried to shake some feeling into them by walking to the edge of the trees and back.

  It only involved looking away for a few seconds, but when she looked back, Kevin was in his human form once more. He was panting for breath, and sweat glistened on his skin. Briony could see quite a bit of that, because his shirt was in tatters, hanging open to give her an impressive view of tanned muscled flesh. Briony realized that she was staring, and blushed.

  “The change can be a little rough on clothes sometimes,” Kevin explained. Briony handed him Fallon’s jacket without a word. Kevin raised an eyebrow. “Are you really so ready for me to cover up?”

  Briony felt her blush deepen as Kevin peeled off the remains of his shirt and used it to wipe away the worst of the sweat. There wasn’t an inch of him that lacked muscle, and Briony felt her eyes lingering even once he had put on the jacket and zipped it up. He had the most gorgeous perfect body, and as her eyes took it all in, all she wanted to do was run her hands over his skin.

  “Better?”

  “I wouldn’t say better, exactly,” Briony admitted. “But it is getting hot around here.”

  That got a chuckle from Kevin. “So, do I make a cute wolf?”

  It wasn’t as a wolf that Briony was thinking about him, and even if she had been, then cute wouldn’t have been the word she would have chosen. As a wolf, Kevin had been all power and restrained energy. To say that he had been anything less just would not have been honest.

  Kevin seemed to take the lack of an answer as a sign of some kind. At least, he moved over to Briony, taking her into his arms. She felt the heat rising off his skin, mingling with her own. Briony half-expected to be swept up in a passionate kiss, but this was no more than a gentle touch of lips to her forehead. She had closed her eyes, waiting for mor
e of his kiss, and when he didn’t move, Briony threw her arms around his neck, pulling his face down to hers. Halfway down, Briony didn’t have to do any pulling. Kevin was already kissing her cheeks, her jawline, and then lips, hungrily with his full animal wildness. Briony was kissing him back just as fervently, her fury, her pain, fear, relief, and happiness all rolling out into the kiss. Finally they stopped, breathless.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what I was, Briony. It must have been a shock.”

  “You could say that.” Briony kept hold of Kevin as he started to pull back. “But it’s okay. Why did you say you were a hunter, though?”

  Briony felt Kevin’s muscles move beneath the jacket as he shrugged. “It seemed like the best way to explain how I knew about this world without mentioning the word ‘werewolf’. You had just been attacked by one.”

  That was true. Briony could just imagine how she would have reacted had Kevin let slip what he was so soon after Carol’s attack behind the diner. Even so, there was a small part of her that could not help feeling a little disappointed that Kevin hadn’t found a way to say something afterwards.

  “When did Fallon tell you that he was one of those… things?” Kevin asked.

  “Homecoming.” Briony pulled back from him then. “Do werewolves really hate vampires that much?”

  “More than you could know,” Kevin said, though Briony could hear the regret there. Apparently, he didn’t like it any better than she did. “It’s a predator thing, I think.”

  Briony had forgotten for a moment that he had been planning on becoming a veterinarian. Of course he would know about this sort of thing. “How do you mean?”

  “Tigers, Lions, whatever… they all kill other predators when they find them, even if they don’t make good prey. It cuts down the competition. Werewolves and vampires, I suppose it’s the same kind of thing.”