Chapter 16 - Taming the Alpha
Draken POV
"You know you look fucking stupid right now, right?"
I didn't even try to hold back a growl of pure irritation. It sounded vicious even to my own ears, but she didn't even flinch.
Of course she didn't.
It was obvious this girl had a talent for pushing my buttons. Even I wasn't normally this short-fused. Okay, I was. But she brought me to a whole new level.
How could a single six year old possibly be so annoying? It wasn't normal. Sure, I didn't like kids. I didn't like anyone. But I wasn't normally this prone to such homicidal tendencies for no real reason.
She cocked her head to the side, simply watching me watch her. Even that annoyed me. She was at that age where everything she did was supposed to be cute, but she was grating on every nerve I had.
Every. Fucking. One.
She glared at me through narrowed eyes, striking a ridiculous pose. Her arms were crossed, her hip cocked against the wooden post that was stabilizing the deck her body was leaning on. A fair-haired, glossy, blue eyed doll was wrapped loosely in her arms, staring sightlessly ahead, an immortalized half-smile on its plastic face.
It wouldn't have looked so bad – normal, even – had the girl not been frowning, her tiny button nose scrunched up to imitate anger, and her rose colored lips set in a firm line. I think she was supposed to look like, well... me. Minus the doll. Which wasn't gaining the little chit any points.
I took a deep breath to calm myself, something that only marginally worked.
"Does your mommy let you say that?" She asked, her fake British accent comically incorrect. She had lowered her voice to a tenor I assume was supposed to mimic mine, but everything about it was totally wrong. The outcome left me at odds with myself. Part of me wanted to laugh. The other, far darker side was contemplating slitting her throat with the knife I was conveniently twirling in my hand.
Or drowning her. I could smell a lake not too far away. That was an alternative. Not quite so messy.
A muscle in my jaw twitched.
So many options.
Yet, none of them I could act upon.
"Blood-eey 'ell! Why are we out here?" She continued in that fake accent, her voice way too high. And quite frankly, she sounded more Australian than British. "Wouldn't you rather go inside and have a spot of tea?"
I caught the knife in mid-air and clenched the hilt until it began to hurt, the metal embellishments digging into the palm of my fisted hand. Very, very bad thoughts were running through my head. "No." The single word was spoken with such ice cold steel it would have scared absolutely anyone.
But this little chit was not just anyone.
She was a complete and utter fool.
Her mouth opened and closed around a yawn that penetrated the night air. "And crumpets?" She added, as if on an afterthought.
"Shut up!"
"So sorry, love." She cocked her head to the side. Unruly brown hair fell across her cheek, hiding half of her face from view. She lowered her lashes, her fingers running idly over the doll's head. "What's a crumpet, anyway?" Her nose scrunched up. "Is it edible?"
I raised an eyebrow, trying to remind myself of all the reasons I should keep this child alive. The list was long, but not nearly long enough in my opinion.
"It's like," I paused to think, "an English muffin."
"Then why not just call it that?"
"Because we don't."
"That's stupid."
"You're stupid."
She pushed away from the deck and her chocolate colored eyes darkened, staring at me contemplatively. Thoughtfully. In one swift motion she was standing directly in front of me, peering upward, her body so completely frozen in time I had to concentrate to hear her breathing over the sounds of the night. The wind blew, and dark strands of hair swayed with the breeze, but it was the only thing that moved. She didn't even blink.
"What the bloody hell are you staring at?" I demanded when I had finally had enough. Her stare was utterly unsettling, because though she was looking at me through the face of a child, the look in her eyes was far from childish.
It was predatory.
Her already prominent frown deepened, but she was otherwise unaffected by me. Like always. The child was not nearly as afraid of me as she should be. That much was clear. I wasn't sure how to remedy her oversight yet, but it was very much crystal clear.
"Nothing." She squared her shoulders, finally, mercifully, returning her voice back to normal and accent-free. "Just wondering if your face has any emotion other than anger."
My fingers around the hilt of the blade tightened, but I spoke as calmly as I could through gritted teeth. "If you keep frowning your face is going to freeze like that." I warned.
She shrugged daintily, lifting the doll a fraction of an inch, hugging it tighter to her chest. "Doesn't look too bad on you."
That pesky muscle in my cheek twitched again. I was going to kill something. I knew it. I wasn't sure exactly what yet, but I was definitely going to kill something.
I needed to change the subject. Now.
"What's with the doll, anyway?" I didn't know her well yet, but I was confident in assuming that she was about as emotionally detached from the world as I was. She'd made that quite obvious, though it was entirely unintentional. The girl lived in the human world, yet she acted less like one than I had ever seen before. Maybe her earlier impersonation wasn't so far off, after all. We had more in common than she knew, and I would bet my own set of fangs she was the type of person who would want to carry around a doll about as much as I would.
And I really liked my fangs.
"I'm not sure." She admitted, peering down toward the doll she held in her hands, a tiny eyebrow lifted in concentration. She shook her head, brown hair falling in graceful waves. "I think I'm supposed to like it." But she didn't sound overly certain. No, she sounded downright skeptical.
"Does it do anything?" I asked, honestly curious.
She shrugged, lifting it above her head and holding it at arm's reach to keep it in full view. For almost a full minute she studied the doll, turning it this way and that, committing even the smallest detail to memory, it seemed. In a perplexed way, she seemed utterly conflicted with the object she held so tenderly in her hands. Finally she hugged it to her chest and gave me a look that could have meant anything from complete exasperation to bored confusion. "If I drop it in water, it floats." She offered, almost hopefully.
Which wasn't really much of a talent, if you asked me. A stick does the exact same thing.
"Get rid of it." I told her, fed up with the whole mess. Fed up with her. The sooner I got this over with, the sooner I could leave. "We have things to do."
"No."
I was in the midst of turning away, but stopped at the single word that left her lips. No was not a word I was overly used to hearing.
Turns out, I didn't like it too much, either.
I didn't consciously aim the tip of the blade at her throat, but it was suddenly within an inch of her pale flesh nonetheless.
She blinked rapidly, startled by my actions at last, her heartbeat accelerating to new heights as she eyed the blade that was little more than an extension of my own hand.
Finally! I cut down the urge to smile triumphantly, but just barely. Maybe this was how I could finally get through to the idiot girl. Mental games weren't working. I should have known she would respond more readily to a physical approach.
Mutts always did.
"Here's the deal." I told her, leaning back to steady the blade, balancing it easily between my fingers. "First lesson. I'm going to throw this knife at you, and you're going to catch it."
Her eyes widened to an impossible level. She took a fleeting step backward. Creating useless space between us. "W-what?" She stuttered, clenching the doll to her chest in a white-knuckled grip. Her eyes danced this way and that, searching for an escape I would never let her take. "How?"
Fear. This is what I wanted from her all along, but when it was showing through so fully on her face, the look of pure terror made me want to...do something. I wasn't sure what. I wasn't sure about a lot of things when it came to this girl. I really didn't want to think too hard on it.
"Instinct." I told her instead, which wasn't entirely true. As a werewolf she was born with a great deal of self-preservation. Did it give her the instant ability to fight? Absolutely not. She would learn that from me.
If she survived.
She swallowed so loudly I probably could have heard it a mile away. "What if I don't catch it?" She asked, but it was a ridiculous question. Wasn't it obvious?
"Then you die." I'm not ashamed to admit I kind of hoped for this outcome. It sure would solve all of my problems.
Before any unbidden and long-ago dissolved sense of morals could kick in, I flicked my wrist in one smooth motion, sending the knife slicing through the air, aimed directly at her heart.
Then it happened. The morals thing. Belatedly, but it definitely happened.
The blade left my fingers a split second before I decided against killing the girl. I almost didn't even have time to regret my decision, it happened so fast.
Moments that change the course of fate almost always do.
A scream pierced the night, but it was cut off just as sharply. The pure sound of it chilled me to the core as nothing else ever had before. Or maybe it was that flash in the chocolate depths of her eyes, filled with such...betrayal? Was that the right word? I really wouldn't know. No one ever trusted me enough to feel any sense of betrayal from me. Lie. Steal. Murder. I wrote the book on the fast track to hell, but even when I do those things, people don't feel betrayed.
They expect it from someone like me.
I tensed to move, knowing I'd never make it in time to stop the attack. Even I wasn't that fast.
It was luck that she survived, not skill. Her body moved purely on reflexes that only a shifted werewolf should have. Instinct.
It saved her life.
Still the blade sunk in to the hilt, piercing where her heart would have been had she not thrown her arms up to fend off the attack. It missed the intended target, and instead impaled the doll's chest, sinking true, but you wouldn't have thought she'd just dodged a very literal yet metaphorical bullet judging by the way the girl was looking at me.
Or rather, glaring. With fervor.
It would ruin my reputation to say that I felt even the slightest bit of fear for the tiny girl holding a skewered doll in her arms, staring at the knife protruding from it's plastic chest like it was foreign, but I felt something close to it.
Never in a million years will I ever forget the way she looked when every trace of humanity left her face. Her fingers loosened around the doll, and it fell, slowly, to the ground. The wind changed, as if sensing her anger and conforming to her will. Matching her. Swirling the strands of her hair to float around her shoulders. The normal warm chocolate in her eyes bled to onyx, before finally swirling to become the strangest shade of silver.
It was gone, whatever human façade the girl wore with such little success, and in its place was now an entirely new creature. One that wanted my blood.
That was the same look I was seeing now. Only this time it wasn't directed toward me, thankfully. But where it was pointed wasn't a whole lot better.
It was centered entirely on Blake.
And I had to stop her.
No other wolf could have shifted so fast, or with half as much grace. With a stroke of luck I made it just in time to snatch her out of the air, my hand grasping the soft fur at the scruff of her neck. Her jaws snapped just short of Blake's face. Or, should I say his wolf's face? Even if I couldn't smell the change riding in the air or see the golden shade in his eyes, I wouldn't have mistaken the boy in front of me as human.
Either way, he looked on with an almost bored expression, watching Luna snapping furiously, held immobile in my hands.
"Calm down, love." I whispered to her, knowing it was a flimsy effort at best. Though she tried to let me think otherwise, I was aware of how she only ever listened to me when it suited her. "You did this!" I growled furiously at the boy, shifting my hands to hold the tiny silver wolf in a stronger grip. She pushed against me, aiming for Blake with her fangs bared, but I held firm. No way was I letting her go now. Especially not with her shredded clothes littering the forest floor. "What did you do to her?"
He shrugged, never taking his eyes off her, the faintest of smiles on his face. He seemed almost happy, for lack of a better word. And it was pissing me off.
"Fix her!" I demanded, tugging her tighter to my chest and wrapping my arm around her neck to keep her from turning on me. Holding her back was the easy part, but if she decided to attack me things could go south really fast. I'd choke her out if I had to.
"What? She doesn't listen to you?"
"She never listens to me."
Blake sighed. "You always were one for the..." he paused, thinking over words he had no right to ever speak, "dramatics. Is that the right word?" His eyes burned with penetrating gold. "Don't forget, you're the one who sent her to me."
And was I ever regretting that right about now. "I sent her here for protection." My voice was so low with anger it was barely discernible through clenched teeth. If he kept talking I was going to save Luna the trouble and snap the boy's neck myself.
"She is safe here." He said. "I wouldn't have hurt her.
"You call this safe?" I growled again, glancing pointedly at the snapping wolf in my arms. Had it been anyone other than me who went searching after the two of them, they would both be under a death threat right now.
Blake peered at Luna through hooded eyes, taking in every inch of her. "She didn't lose control of her wolf. She can't." There was that smile again. The one that makes my hand itch for a blade. Too bad both of my hands were busy at the moment.
"I know that!" Luna stopped fighting me in favor of simply growling at Blake, her teeth in full view. Still, I was not about to let up and instead of loosening my hold, I tightened it. I knew Luna too well to go around making silly mistakes.
"You've overstepped your bounds, Draken." Blake said, ignoring the vicious wolf in favor of me. His eyes narrowed, and I couldn't help but feel that his words were completely right. I had overstepped my bounds. A long time ago.
"So have you." I growled, displaying my own set of teeth. "Taking over your human? Isn't that frowned upon?"
"But then I wouldn't have been able to talk to you again. Or Luna." Blake wasn't even fazed. But then, I didn't really expect him to be. He licked his bottom lip, as if tasting some phantom flavor. "You make it sound like we're at war. We aren't. The boy and I are one and the same." He glanced at Luna, taking her in with a fleeting look. "She doesn't know what you are. Afraid to tell her?" He cocked his head to the side, watching me with honest curiosity. "She's too good for you."
I couldn't tell the truth from a lie. Not like the girl in my arms could. But still, I knew this to be true with every fiber of my being. I didn't need someone fucking telling me that!
I held her tighter, biting back another growl.
"She's too good for you too." This was also something that I knew to be true.
Yet again, my words did not faze him. "Yes." He agreed with a nod. "She is." Suddenly he smiled. "But Blake is genuinely good. The human me."
Somehow I held myself back from slamming his head into the nearest tree. It probably had something to do with containing the wolf in my arms, but I wasn't sure. "Just fix her!" I snapped.
"She's not broken." He told me, but instead of arguing further, he leaned down and wrapped his hands carefully around Luna's furry head, immediately stopping the continuous growl we had been forced into talking over.
Rage burned through my veins, making my blood boil. I wanted to fucking snap his hands off just for touching her, but once again I had to hold myself back. This is for the best. I chanted in my head, but I had a hard time actually believing it. Not while he was actually touching her.
Blake was looking into her eyes, searching for something I couldn't even guess at, but suddenly he looked to me, his hands not moving from their spot cradling Luna's head.
I wished she'd fucking bite him already. But she wouldn't, because Blake was the one in charge here.
"Should I tell her to hate you?" He asked, his eyes suddenly glowing.
My teeth clenched. "Don't mess with her mind." I warned. "Just get her back to normal."
"Dramatics. Like I said."
I glared, but it was lost on Blake. He was already back to staring into Luna's eyes, lost in a world that held only enough room for the two of them.
"Luna." He whispered, holding her head captive, his voice deeper than normal. Rougher. "Calm yourself."
She blinked instantly, an intelligence lighting within; the feral glint completely gone. She went docile in my arms as awareness returned, but I wasn't ready to release her yet. It wasn't that I didn't trust Luna.
I didn't trust Blake.
"Love." I caught her attention, needing her to look at me so I could be sure she was okay. Silver eyes I knew so well met mine, seemingly asking a question she couldn't voice without a human throat.
"Everything is fine." I assured her, slowly lowering my arms until her paws touched dirt.
Apparently satisfied, Blake turned to leave without uttering another word, waving a hand in the air to salute farewell. I allowed this only because I wasn't in the mood for a confrontation.
Luna whined, asking for my attention, and we shared a look of complete understanding, from one monster to another.
Blake was leaving, but we hadn't seen the last of his wolf. Judging by the way Luna had her fangs bared as she watched him walk away, we agreed with one another.
This could be a very bad thing.
A/N Yes, i realize you're probably a bit confused. Questions will be answered. Not today. Probably not tomorrow. But eventually everything's going to come out to the light. Oh, and i know everyone was expecting a big fight, but that just couldn't happen yet. That, and i really like to throw curve balls. Give you the unexpected, you know? ;)