Fanged
A Novella
by
Elisabeth Wheatley
Copyright 2012 Elisabeth Wheatley
Published by Inkspelled Faery
All Rights Reserved
For the readers, bloggers, editors, and friends
who’ve kept me writing. You guys rock
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
About the Author
Other works by Elisabeth Wheatley
Chapter One
“Are you here to kill her?” Damian’s voice is caught between apprehension and aggression as he moves to shield the human girl.
The girl’s platinum blonde hair falls around her face in feral wisps. Her soft doe-eyes are touched with fear as she watches me from behind Damian. The strings of her pink hoodie sway ever so slightly as she shivers in the cool breeze blowing through the night air.
I sigh. “Damian, if you actually believed I’d do that, you wouldn’t have told me about her.”
Damian hesitates. “But Dad sent you, didn’t he?”
“I haven’t worked as an enforcer in three months,” I respond.
“You know what I meant, Haddie!” Damian snaps.
I respond with a shrug. “He might’ve asked me to come home due to a family emergency. He said if anyone could talk sense into you, it would be your sister.”
Damian curses.
“Come off it, Damian,” I say, dismissively waving my hand. “I didn’t come out here to eat your girlfriend.” I nonchalantly survey the squat, cottage-type houses lining the street. “Cute neighborhood, Madelyn,” I say. “Which house is yours?”
The girl behind my brother looks confused. She gazes up at Damian, but he’s too busy honing his eyes on me.
“Then why?” His pale, flawless skin is almost luminescent in the dim light. His sharp, angled features show caution, apprehension, and maybe even aggression. His eyes are ice-blue for now. I have no doubts that they’d light up red and his fangs would spring out if I charged the girl. He’s handsome, like most of our species. I can see why Madelyn would fall for him.
“Because I was hoping to find you two before Uncle Devin did,” I say. At the mention of Uncle Devin, fear and hatred roil inside me in equal measures. I keep my face blank and don’t show any of my emotions.
Damian swallows. “Uncle Devin?” His reaction to the news is much calmer than that of an ogre I once helped hunt down. And the ogre had only known Uncle Devin by reputation.
“Yes. Dad called him a few hours ago. He’s flying in from Omaha.” I adjust the sleeves of my sweater. “Uncle Devin is to deal with this situation if I can’t resolve it. You know how he’ll deal with it.” I stare down as I pull my cuffs over my wrists. My mind wanders back to something that happened a year ago. “And FYI, he was tracking a rebel chupacabra’s trail but lost it, so he’ll be in a bad mood.” Soon my sleeves are perfect and I have to stop fussing with them. “Really, Damian, I’m amazed you could be so stupid.”
Damian frowns and shifts.
I vaguely motion between him and Madelyn. “Have you already forgotten what happened when I tried this?”
My brother grimaces. His eyes drop from my face to my neck. He doesn’t say it, but I know he’s thinking about the scars, the ones hidden by the collar of my sweater.
I pull my turtleneck up self-consciously. I just hope these marks fade before sweater season is over.
“You can’t help who you fall in love with,” Damian softly says.
I shrug. I’ve never quite bought that theory. I know I could’ve kept myself from falling in love. But I hadn’t wanted to. “Maybe.”
“So why are you here?” Madelyn asks.
“She speaks! I’m here because we need to run for our lives,” I casually explain.
Madelyn blinks. “What do you mean?”
“Well, more specifically, we need to run for your life.” I cross my arms. “And we need to leave…” I glance down at my wrist in a mocking gesture. “…sometime yesterday. My car’s a few blocks down.”
Damian hesitates. “You’re saying we need to leave?”
I roll my eyes. “Do I have to spell it out for you with shadow puppets? Yes!”
Damian’s jaw clenches with resolve and he nods once. So he does remember what happened a year ago. My brother finally moves away from Madelyn so he’s not planted between us. He turns to her and traces his fingers along the side of her face. “She’s right, Lynn. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but we need to go.”
Madelyn’s stare flickers between us. “Wait, you don’t think your father would actually kill me, do you?”
“Why not? That’s what he did to Fletcher,” I snap.
Her eyes go wide with confusion and fear. “Fletcher?” She swallows. “Do you mean Fletcher Haverson? I thought he ran away.”
I blink at her. “I suppose you could say he’s missing. Get your stuff. Now.” I whirl around and march down the sidewalk, my ankle boots clicking. I shout over my shoulder to my brother. “Damian, I’ll meet you at her house. Your stuff’s in my trunk. Hurry up.”
“But you don’t know which one’s mine!” Madelyn protests.
“I’ll sniff it out,” I retort. As I march off, I can hear them scurrying back toward Madelyn’s house to get what she’ll need. “And try to avoid her parents!” The last thing we need is a stuffy human couple demanding where we’re taking their daughter in the middle of the night.
For a moment, I have doubts. This, what we’re about to do, is going to take commitment. Damian and Madelyn are going to be stuck with each other. I’m not sure for how long, but I’m guessing years, at least. They’re only seventeen. Do they know each other well enough and know themselves well enough to be actually and truly in love? Fletcher and I were their age, but I have never doubted that what we had was real. Still…
I shake my head.
I never expected Damian to fall for a human. What were the odds of it happening to both of our father’s children? But I don’t bother to marvel at the universe’s sick sense of humor.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. Our father will drain Madelyn dry if he ever finds her. He doesn’t mind vampires seducing or feeding off humans. Even though we’re supposedly the supreme race, he doesn’t mind it when we consort with the other Kaiju—werewolves, rusalkas, makaras, koschei, harpies, or the others. But when one of us gets the wild idea to love a human, all hell breaks loose. No exceptions.
He says it’s a threat to the natural order of things or something like that. I stopped listening to his lectures years ago.