"Are you sure you want to know?" London asked, massaging the area between his neck and shoulder. It was a gesture of exhaustion and reluctance. This wasn't a tale that he wanted to tell.
"Yes," I snapped. Of course I wanted to know. Why else would I have asked?
An itch built beneath my skin while I waited for him to begin. I went to scratch it. Nerves shrieked, and I looked down at my forearm, only to find that I'd torn back some skin. It was a foreboding symptom of an impending lapse into instinct.
"It begins with her," London said quietly. The vampire was entirely unaware of my agitation, lost in another time and place.
"Her?" I asked, trying to sound nonchalant, hating the jealousy that crept into my tone. Now that I'd admitted to myself that London was attractive, it was hard to remember that I could never pursue something with him. It was simply impossible with Jerome in the picture and our people at war.
And that was assuming the attraction was mutual.
"Rose," London clarified, almost sighing the name. "So beautiful... and full of the most fantastical facts. For example, did you know all rainbows are donut shaped when viewed from above? And that elephants carry their pregnancies for nearly two years before giving birth? Oh, and..."
He has a girlfriend. Something sank inside me, and I commanded it to stay sunk. I clicked my fingers to get his attention. "You're getting off track."
"Sorry." Crestfallen, he took a moment to gather the threads of his story once more. "It was her birthday, the night that your brother died. I told Rose she could have anything she wanted, that she could go anywhere, do anything, with anyone. Whatever her desire, I would make it her reality.
"She wanted to go out," he went on. "She liked to dance. So I took her out for dinner — well, dinner for me, and some blood-laced wine for her — before rounding up our friends and hitting the clubs."
"You can eat real food?" I asked, suddenly curious.
"Yeah," he said. "It's a lamia thing. Pretty cool, actually."
London paused for breath. It was bizarre how human he seemed, how something as simple as a lung-full of air could blur the lines that separated mortality from immortality. From what I understood of the lamia strain of the vampire race, he had been born in the way that a mortal was born, ate and drank in the way that mortals ate and drank, and he could brave the sun without consequence. The only thing to separate him from humanity was his supernatural strength, and his need to consume blood as well as food in order to survive.
"What happened next?" I asked.
The beautiful boy shrugged. "We danced. We got tipsy on drunk people's blood, and we... did all the usual partying stuff." The last part of the sentence was tacked on, suggesting intimacy, and I winced. Why did my imagination have to be so vivid? "It was late when we left the first club and went to find another one. Everyone was laughing, having the time of their lives... well, almost everyone. I noticed after a bit that Rose was unusually withdrawn. She walked ahead of the rest of us and only answered direct questions. Then she started ignoring even those.
"I was so absorbed by her unhappiness," he said succinctly, lingering on every word, "that I never saw them coming. I didn't realise how close we'd come to the border, and I didn't realise we'd taken a wrong turn until we found ourselves at the end of that alleyway. We tried to go back the way we came, but a group of werewolves blocked our escape."
The suspension of his story-telling and my restlessness combined. I did my best to ignore the fact that it felt like I'd stumbled into a nest of fire ants. "And then?" I asked through gritted teeth.
"Rose asked them to move aside. The red-head — Richard, I think you called him? Anyway, he grabbed her and held her hostage against the rest of us. He accused us of trespassing on your territories; said the pack should make an example of us. Only Arthur seemed unconvinced, suggesting that..."
I lost the next few words to a shudder, one that threatened to undo my anatomy and warp it into something stronger. Something bad is going to happen, I thought grimly, fighting back a wave of the searing energy. Something really bad. I'd never felt so out of control, so uncertain of my shape.
With great effort, I tuned in again. "... the two wolves bickered some more, but by that stage I was fed up with it. I wanted Rose back in my arms, where she would be safe. She was so scared," he whispered, and looking at his face, I had no doubt he'd be haunted by the events of that night for as long as he lived. "She started crying. That was the end of my control. I tried to snatch her back, but it was a mistake; it was the excuse the werewolves needed to engage in battle. Next thing I know, bodies are flying, and I'm feeling the crunch of bone underneath my fists, and oh god... one by one we all went down, painting the bricks with our blood."
Gold swirled about my chest, and much like the night I'd learned of Arthur's death, the implications of that heady colour made me feel sick. Neither side had been at fault, not entirely... although it seemed my people were to blame for aggravating the situation.
It was almost baffling to think that the impending shadow war had sprung from such a small misunderstanding. Countless innocents — human and supernatural alike — were going to be slaughtered senselessly for the sake of a few twisted facts.
I needed to fix this.
London stiffened when I lay a hand on his shoulder. "Tell me the rest," I tried to say gently, but the effort of fighting an impending transformation twisted my tone into one of frustration.
"Most of it's a blur," he admitted, still looking at the hand on his shoulder. I expected him to remove it, or step back out of my reach, but he did neither of those things. Somehow, whilst recounting how our people had killed each other, he was taking comfort in my solace. "But I remember stumbling into Ben and Arthur. Your brother was seconds from plunging his claws into Ben's eyes. He didn't see me coming, so I snapped his neck. His death flicked a switch in all the others. Their attacks became sloppy, uncoordinated. Richard actually screamed when it happened, like he could feel it somehow."
London had been directly responsible for the death of my brother, then; it could not be blamed on any of the other vampires that were present that night. Feeling confused to the point of nausea, I let my hand drop. Guilt flashed through London's eyes and he took a step back, refusing to look at me.
"Richard still had Rose at that stage," he said. "I tried to save her, but his claws were erupting from the middle of her chest before I could reach them. And then... then he..." London broke off, clutching at his stomach as if it would help hold him together. "He ripped off her bloody head, Chance. He threw it at my feet."
"I'm sorry you had to experience that," was all I could say. I couldn't stop looking at his hands. They'd ended Arthur's life. It had been such a dishonourable, impersonal death.
But I recognised London had been manipulated into killing my brother, to an extent. There was someone else more deserving of my anger.
Richard needed to suffer for what he'd done. But I couldn't make him suffer whilst I was locked in my room, on bad terms with my father. My skin crawled dangerously. It was all I could do not to shake with the strength of my murderous feelings.
London went on, oblivious to my building rage. "Richard came after me next, trying to disembowel me with a swipe of his claws. Ben took the blow for me, and I thought I'd lost him, too. I got so, so mad, Chance. I don't remember how, but I think I killed the surviving werewolves in my rage, because when I regained awareness, everyone was on the ground except for Richard, who was running. I would've gone after him if I hadn't heard Ben struggling to get up. I chose my friend over revenge."
I realised that I'd forgotten to breathe at some point and took in a draught of air. There was so much to process in so little time. What prevailed over everything else, however, was an anger so extreme that it hurt to foster it, an anger so hot that it burned like coals in the pit of my stomach. Oddly enough, it wasn't directed at London, who had slaughtered my brother. It was directed at Richard, who had instigated the fight.
"We have to fix this," I said vehemently. "We can't let the mistakes of a few damn the masses."
"I know," London said quietly.
There was resolution in his eyes and determination in the set of his jaw. It seemed the Irephang boy was as dedicated to finding a peaceful solution to this conflict as I was. "You are not solely responsible for this tragic turn of events, London; I openly acknowledge that. But you are responsible in part, and so you're going to help me stop this war before it starts in earnest."