Faults in Fate
A Vein Chronicles Novella
Anne Malcom
Contents
The Four
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Anne Malcom
Copyright © 2018 by Anne Malcom
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design: Simply Defined Art
Editing: Hot Tree Editing
To everyone who believes in magic.
The Four
Witches are born of the earth, from the soul of nature itself. No god bestowed power over the first mortal women to gain the powers of the elements… no, it was the benevolent power of nature herself that gifted the first of our kind with their magic.
“It was neither good nor evil what The Four were blessed with, just power itself. But it is dangerous, that neutrality, especially when put into human spirits. It is forbidden to use natural powers to create unnatural acts. This crime is unforgivable. Any child of the earth who choses darkness over the spirit of The Four is lost forever.”
Chapter One
A witch.
The mere thought was toxic in his mind.
All these years—all these centuries—he’d been waiting for the female who would belong to him. Who the gods and the animal inside him had tied to him, the one thing he might be able to hold onto in the world that had abandoned him. His destiny. And she was a fucking witch.
He’d despised the supernatural world ever since he had escaped decades of torture. Shunned the pack that had failed him—that he had failed. The failure resulted in pain that stalked after him, somehow one step behind him and ahead of him at the same time.
He despised every creature on the planet, even of his own race, but he did not despise her.
It was biologically impossible for a wolf to hate his one true mate. The animal inside him and the ancient instinct rendered such a thing impossible.
He despised the fact that she was a witch.
One that, from what he could see, only had one companion, a vampire.
And she was a mercenary, not doing good for free but doing anything—good or evil—as long as she got paid.
Not that he cared about good or evil, but fuck, he’d expected his mate to be better than him, of his own species. He’d needed it. Wolves were not designed to be alone. They needed their pack. They needed other animals to run to when in their truest of forms, especially on the full moon. Every time he changed there was unnatural agony in the solitude that surrounded him.
But he was used to pain, so he endured.
That was his existence. Enduring.
Until her.
And she was more pain than anything he’d experienced.
His mate.
The witch.
He craved her the second his eyes touched her shapely body with its unusual and strangely erotic markings covering it. Until that moment, he’d hated the way humans had repeatedly marked and altered their bodies with insipid scribblings.
Hers, he wanted to explore every single one. Touch them. Run his tongue along them.
The animal inside him demanded he take her. Claim her as his the moment he glimpsed her in the rotten bar where he spent his nights, waiting, plotting.
But the man in him knew better. She was not of his kind, and she would not recognize their fate as a shewolf would’ve.
It infuriated him.
She did.
The way she showed her flesh like some kind of wanton woman. Her dirty mouth. The way she played with her mortality as if she wasn’t the only being in the supernatural community who had it. He knew little about witches, but he knew even though they had the ability to live forever, they didn’t have the healing capacity of most immortals and that meant they were as close to mortal as they ever could be. It was their magic that protected them.
The only one who could die, almost as easily as a human welcomed the abyss.
The thought of her succumbing to it when he’d only just found her filled him with dread so heavy he could barely walk with it.
But he did walk with it. Every one of his steps ghosted hers.
He tore down the foe that she seemed to face off with every night, the danger she danced with, the death she flirted with. He tore out the throats of those who threatened her, but did not touch her, grasp her and never let go.
He’d steal into the shadows.
Watching.
Waiting.
The wolf didn’t like waiting.
It hated it, rattling inside the cage in fury.
But he knew he had to. His instinct, honed over centuries told him he must. So with great struggle, he did.
He would claim his mate.
Or he would die trying.
“You will die for that, bitch,” the demon snarled, speaking about the flaming remains of what used to be his best friend.
His best friend who enjoyed torturing and killing humans before he yanked their souls from their broken bodies.
So not cool.
But not the reason for the smoke that would stick to Sophie’s hair for days, no matter how many times she washed it.
No, she was getting paid for this particular bonfire. She didn’t do assassinations much—that was more her vampire buddy Duncan’s thing—but she dabbled when she had a free Tuesday.
Her palms crackled as the demon approached. “Witch bitch, thank you very much,” she corrected, grinning as the demon’s eyes turned black, as they did right before the whole soul-sucking thing. “And it ain’t my death that Hades is gonna get giddy about. I’m afraid it’s yours. Say hey to your daddy for me.” The power building in her palms itched to be released, to kill, its hunger for death more unyielding every time Sophie met the grave.
One of the many reasons not to die.
Before she could barbeque the demon á la well done, a shape tore through the alley, barely visible even with Sophie’s improved sight. Not as good as a vampire’s but much better than that of a lowly human.
Growling and the tearing of flesh emanated from where the demon had been moments before, and then there was silence, death chased away all sound. She was used to the void it created, but it didn’t mean that goose bumps didn’t rise on every exposed piece of Sophie’s skin.
Another blur, a scent, a strange jump in Sophie’s stomach as she sensed… something. An instinct long forgotten, one that yanked at her psyche with the presence of an immortal being that had torn the demon’s throat out and left the alley with dizzying speed before Sophie could even char the edges of his flesh for taking her kill.
Werewolf.
She readied herself to catch onto the fast-dissipating aura hanging amidst the death in the alley so she could imprint it and then do a scrying spell. Without it, she wouldn’t have a hope in heaven to find whoever—or, more aptly, whatever—she was going to give a lecture to about demon killing etiquette.
“Dude, you killed demons without me. That is such a shitty friend move.”
A vampire with bloodred hair, a great winged eyeliner and a kickass pair of Manolos appeared in front of her, pouting like a teenager.
Her best friend, Isla Rominskitoff, was almost five hundred years old in immo
rtal years, though her maturity was closer to that of a sixteen-year-old. Precisely why she was her bestie.
That and they had the same shoe size and liked killing things and causing general mayhem.
Isla’s appearance was usually welcomed, but it jolted her out of her concentration enough for her to lose grip on the aura and therefore the opportunity to track the being it belonged to.
Why was it such a big deal to her anyway?
She scowled at Isla, irritated at her best friend for the first time in decades. Other people got irritated with them, they did not irritate each other.
Well, except when Isla almost tricked Sophie into marrying Henry VIII. That was a dick move.
“Well, if you were a little more punctual and answered your phone once in a while, you might’ve gotten in on this,” Sophie replied, nodding to the charred ashes and the throatless demon. She noted the black blood trickling from the head that was still attached. “I even left you the best part, decapitation. And you say I’m a bad friend.”
Isla looked over her shoulder, grinning as her fangs extended. In a blink of a human eye—Sophie was able to follow her movements, unlike the wolf of before—she was standing outside the pool of blood, thinking of her shoes, obviously. She bent down, grasping the horns of the demon as he reverted from his human form.
She glanced at the tear in his throat, then eyed Sophie with a raised brow. “Since when do you kill by mauling?” she asked with suspicion. “Do you have a taste for demon flesh now? It’s okay, you can tell me. I’ll only tease you mercilessly for a hundred years or so.”
Sophie scowled at her. “I’m just testing out new spells,” she lied. The words were out of her mouth before she’d even had a chance to think on them. That wasn’t unusual on principle, but Sophie never lied to Isla. Except when she’d asked her if it was possible to get magical calf implants, but that was for good reason.
Why did she want to keep the presence of some unknown werewolf a secret?
There was the wet gurgling of blood, then the tearing of flesh that chased away most of Sophie’s thoughts. Isla stepped back, tossing the head over her shoulder.
She glanced down to frown at the single droplet of blood that was staining her white boob tube; somehow she’d managed to get nothing on the high-waisted white pants that were tailored to her slim body. Who said vampires wore black lace and velvet? Isla had a violent dislike for the fabric.
She glared at Sophie. Isla felt very strongly about bloodstains getting on her clothes, but refused to wear things that would be a little more suitable considering she had to spill blood on the daily to survive.
“I’m not letting the fact that I have to tear people’s throats out and drink their blood hinder my fashion choices. It would be immoral,” she’d snapped the last time Sophie mentioned it.
“I’m thinking a no for this spell,” she hissed, stepping over the body as she tapped a button on her phone. “Too fucking messy.”
Sophie fell into step with her as they exited the dingy alley and rejoined the masses rushing down the New York street, unaware they were a handful of feet away from a witch and a vampire who’d just killed two demons.
“Yeah, I need a cleanup on 7th and Madison,” Isla said into her phone. Listening to the excited squawk on the other end of the phone, she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yes, Scott, it’s me, undead and fabulous. But I’m busy, so just get the cleanup done and stop saying the word ‘sidekick’ or I’ll eviscerate you and your entire Vein Line, mmmkay? Buh-bye.”
She shoved her phone back in her Chanel, rolling her eyes at Sophie.
“You’re buying me a new top,” she said. “Then we’re getting absolutely trashed and cursing every human we see smoking an E-cig.”
Sophie shook her head with a grin, preparing for just another night with her bestie, trying to force her reaction to the wolf’s presence from her mind.
Easier said than done.
Instances like the one in the alley became frighteningly common for Sophie.
Every time she was on a job—or, more often lately, hunting down hybrid vampires, turned from humans using dark magic—she’d felt a presence. Not malice… toward her, at least. It was toward any being she faced off with.
She did her best to snatch at the dissipating plumes of his aura—she knew it was a he, the feeling of his presence overwhelmingly male—but she always got distracted by a snapping hybrid or a testy vampire before she could get a grip on it.
The first time she’d really seen him was in a crowded human nightclub. She was the only supernatural at that particular loud, sweaty, tacky establishment serving overpriced drinks and playing bad music.
She’d designed it that way.
It was her secret shame. Pretending to belong among the throngs of idiotic humans whose lives were fleeting and simple. She’d pretend that her life was simple and that her biggest problem was a bad hair day, a bad molly, or a guy who just wasn’t that into her.
Pretending because she never had bad hair days—though Isla would disagree with her there—she didn’t need drugs to be awesome, and every guy, demon, and vampire was always into her.
And a particular human slayer named Silver who just wouldn’t accept his new place in the friend zone. A place she’d put the sexy surfer dude in the second she’d tasted the wolf’s presence in the alley that day.
Her life was awesome. She wouldn’t change it for the world—or the end of the world. But things were becoming too real lately, things like finding out that Isla had been spelled to become mortal and eventually die by the witches they’d been battling and still didn’t know how to defeat. Sophie didn’t even know how to counter the spell.
Scratch that, she did find out how to fight a death spell. With more death. More accurately, Isla drinking her slayer boyfriend’s blood—which had the pesky side effect of instant death.
She had yet to tell Isla. Not because Isla would lose it. She likely wouldn’t even blink. Nothing worried her.
Nothing bothered Sophie usually. But this held a finality to it that somehow Sophie was certain would be death.
And she felt helpless, angry, wanting to level the entire city with her power.
So she came to the place that might quell the need to become inhuman.
Sometimes she just needed to be a simple human with simple problems, pretend she didn’t have something inside her that scared her so bad she sometimes wished for the one thing immortals despised—humanity.
That was what gave him away. That and the werewolf stench.
The lack of humanity.
And the fact he was focused solely on her. He wasn’t there to hunt, like many of the supernatural community did. No, it almost seemed he was there for her.
She’d locked eyes with him across the dance floor. And it wasn’t like those idiotic movie moments when the crowd slowed down and blurred away and the music muted.
The bass was still so loud it made her teeth chatter, sweaty inebriated humans still shoved at her and hit on her, and the world still moved. As it always did.
But eyes that seemed to glow gold and see into her fucked-up soul stilled her.
For a hot minute, at least.
Then she quickly looked away and resumed dancing, pretending the large, muscled, scruffy, and sinfully wild wolf hadn’t just been undressing her soul with his eyes.
She’d purposefully walked down a deserted alley an hour later.
It’s exactly what the victim did in every movie.
Scantily clad, helpless, and ultimately dead.
Sophie was scantily clad, in a bloodred dress with safety pins holding the sides together, and matching thigh-high boots that every hooker would die to possess.
But she wasn’t helpless, and wasn’t looking to die that night.
She was trying to lure a wolf, and was dressed for it, wearing red and everything, even if she didn’t have the hood.
“I’m not going to grandma’s house, and I’m sorry to inform you that your teeth
aren’t abnormally large, considering the company I keep, and they’re not going to be used for eating me.” She turned, regarding the man who had followed her into the depths of the alley. “In any sense of the word,” she finished with a raised brow. Hot excitement shot through her belly at the mere thought of this man, this wolf, eating her.
He didn’t reply. Not a single word.
With his mouth, at least.
It seemed these intense immortals with their equally penetrating and alpha gazes were becoming all too common in Sophie’s life. It was bad enough to see Isla have to weather such stares coming from a slayer who should’ve wanted her fangs as a necklace, and the king of all fangers who should’ve executed her for insolence decades before.
But she was now getting treated to her very own soulful gaze.
From a werewolf, of all things.
An attractive werewolf at that.
She’d forced herself not to linger on him at the club, and it was hard. Some ancient and carnal part of her demanded she not only rove her eyes over him but get closer to, touch, and taste him. The need had been overwhelming, and it snaked around her motor skills even now, in some brutal marriage with that ancient power creeping through her bloodstream, trying to gain hold.
She fought both needs.
Even though she wasn’t going to let herself touch, there wasn’t any harm in looking, was there? She’d give herself a quick perv, then blast him with a medium punch of power and get the heck out of Dodge.
Maybe look up a demon from her little pink book to scratch the itch she hadn’t even known existed until just over an hour before.
Demons were usually her go-to. Warlocks were underneath them, though it was strictly orgasm then bail, because warlocks didn’t like being with more powerful witches. They had a total complex, and Sophie may have technically had an eternity on this earth—if she could hold on to at least one life—but she didn’t have time for that.