Broken Moon by Laken Cane
Chapter Twelve
Wolves hated vampires, but they understood them. Demons, however, were a whole different matter. Demons were power-hungry, baby-killing, soul-stealing, evil-spreading, sadistic sons of bitches.
Eli was the one to tell Jared that my dagger was a demon’s blade. “She should not,” he said, “be able to wield it. As a wolf, it should burn her in battle. Yet she stands before us, nearly healed from being stabbed with it.”
Jared glanced at his own palm, which was still slightly black from the burns he’d sustained when he’d used the blade to try and kill the creature. Even though he’d simply wrapped his hand around the exsoloup’s as he’d stabbed it—or forced it to stab itself—the part of his flesh that touched the dagger had burned.
When he’d carried it back to me, it hadn’t hurt him. Only in battle does a demon blade burn a wolf. Not even shifting had completely healed him.
“Put her out,” one of the pack yelled, “before she leads the demons to us.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw another wolf walking toward me. She was small and old, but something about her caught my attention. My hackles went up, and I narrowed my eyes, watching her as she drew closer. As another wolf in the gathered crowd voiced a decidedly rude comment about where I should go, the old lady wolf tossed half a cup of water right into my face.
“Burn, demon,” she yelled, cackling.
The crowd gasped and then quieted, waiting to see if I would indeed react to the holy water. I wiped the water out of my eyes, then put my hands on my hips and lifted an eyebrow. “I have to say, guys, I’m feeling just a little unappreciated.”
“Enough of this,” Jared growled. “She’s not a demon. She came here because I hired her to help find the creature killing us. Go home, all of you.”
They dispersed quietly, some of them grumbling, none of them willing to go against the alpha. The two young wolves who’d got in my face earlier were there, but they didn’t even look at me.
It was going to be a hard road ahead, getting the pack to accept me. It dimmed the joy of my coming shift, but it’d be okay. Eventually, after Jared officially welcomed me into the pack, they’d see me as one of them. Maybe.
I didn’t want to think about the fact that Jared had never told me I’d be one of his pack. He’d said only that he’d free my wolf. But Lennon had promised—or warned—that his freeing me would mean I was his. I’d believed her.
Jared might have other ideas. I was not confident enough to ask him. Not yet.
When we’d returned to the pack there was instant chaos as the wolves became aware of our run-in with the killer. They wanted to know what he was, if their alpha was harmed, had the creature escaped, and on and on.
When Jared had approached me, I remembered his words in the woods and cut him off before he could command me to undress and show him my boo boos. My wolf was giddy at the attention from an alpha and the coming possibilities, but my woman brain took over and demanded quite sternly that I calm the hell down before I got myself hurt. I’d learned early to guard my heart—especially from wolves.
After I’d stowed my various belts and weapons in my car, I’d stood beside him as he assured his pack he was fine and told them the creature had escaped. He’d also assured them that we would catch the bastard. We were the first wolves to have seen it, survived it, and returned to talk about it.
“It seems it can only hurt you if you’re shifted,” he told them, “so until we bring the bastard down, you cannot shift.”
The doctor and his nurse arrived as the wolves were going back to their homes. After he had a murmured conversation with them that I wasn’t privy to, Jared took my arm and led me to the admin center, which housed not only meeting rooms and offices, but a small doctor’s office and clinic, as well.
“What about you?” I asked him, trying to ignore the way the warmth of his hand sank through the fabric of my jacket and made my skin tingle. It was difficult to resist something I’d craved for so long—the touch of another wolf. I blamed my poor hobbled wolf for that need, but it wasn’t all her. “The creature had you for a few seconds. Do you feel any effects from that?”
“You no longer hate me,” he said, ignoring my question.
I swallowed, then shrugged. “My wolf is making that hard to do. She’s too happy about your promise to free her.” I grinned, going for casual and completely unaffected. I wasn’t entirely sure I was successful. “I guess she sees you as her savior.”
He glared. “I am no one’s savior, Ms. Silver.”
I already noticed how he called me “Ms. Silver,” when he was displeased or upset with me. “To my wolf, you’re a god, Alpha. She doesn’t agree with me that you’re a coldhearted asshole.”
He glared harder, but I saw Eli turn his head to hide a smile. “Eli,” he barked, likely having noticed the smirk as well, “get Lennon and bring her to my office. We need to figure out what this creature is. She should be able to see something now that I’ve gotten a look at it.”
“I know what it is,” I told him. “At least, I’m pretty sure I do. I’ll do some research to dig up everything I can, but hopefully when I’m finished, we’ll know how to kill it.”
“Tell me,” he ordered, as we strode into his office.
I gestured at the computer on his desk. “Can I use your computer? I’ll show you.”
He nodded, and I sat down in his comfortable chair, shivering slightly when he leaned over me to look at the monitor. “Just bring it up. I’ll read while the doctor looks at you.”
“I told you I’m good,” I said.
“You were injured working for me. It won’t hurt to be examined.”
I sighed, then gave in. “Fine.” I clicked the keys, scrolled through the results, and finally brought up what I was looking for. “This,” I said. “This is the creature we’re up against.”
The images were only illustrations, but there was no doubt it was the creature haunting the woods and killing the wolves.
“Exsoloup,” he muttered. “These images do look similar to the creature in the woods. I heard stories when I was a child, but never thought they were real.”
“Apparently they’re extremely rare,” I told him. “The wolf’s bogeyman.”
His shoulder brushed mine as he leaned closer, and as I tried to concentrate on the exsoloup’s story, I was distracted by the realization that if I turned my head just a little, I could slide out my tongue and taste the alpha’s skin.
I’d lost my mind, apparently.
I glared at the screen, forcing myself to remember how I’d felt when Jared had stood at his father’s side and watched my mother and me being pelted with rocks and forced from Gray Shadow land.
It did help. I stiffened and moved a little away from him, and I know he noticed. He said nothing, however, just silently read the story of the exsoloup’s origination.
It was believed to have originated in France. The creature was a wolf who’d begun a relationship with a sorceress. The sorceress fell in love with him, got pregnant, and when she went to him with the joyful news, she found him with another. He spurned her, telling her he’d never intended for her to be his one and only.
“A little stupid to fuck with a sorceress that way,” I murmured.
“Maybe he didn’t know she was a sorceress,” he replied.
She lost the child she carried—whether deliberately or from the shock was unclear—and as the months went by, she became obsessed with her lost love. She grew more and more bitter, stopped seeing people, stopped taking care of herself…nothing mattered to her but the wolf.
And getting revenge.
I shuddered when I read that bit, commiserating with the sorceress. I, too, had dreamed of revenge, though it was locked up tight in a dark corner of my mind.
The sorceress had cooked up a spell—a curse, really—and when it was ready, she’d sneaked up on the wolf as he lay sleeping, or so the story went, and hit him with the curse. It took his shift. He would always long to shift, but he was cursed to live the rest of his long life as a human. A human with a shifter’s needs, desires, wants.
Shit. Now I felt sorry for the fucking wolf. I well knew the agony of a wolf losing its shift.
But in a surprising twist, the wolf’s mother was as full of magic as the sorceress. She was a witchwolf, and in her grief at her son’s pain and loss, she gave him the ability to take what he couldn't have. When he sucked the life force from a wolf, he became a wolf for a little while, able to find his shift and run until the power wore off—then he was back to the monster.
He became like the creature we’d seen, hiding in the shadows, sucking life from wolves, alone, despairing, unable to shift but full of the agonizing need to do so, and his only relief came from killing others.
He took it, the selfish son of a bitch.
Who knew how the rest of the exsoloups came to be? There were only two theories in the article. One of them said the creature had raped one of his victims but let her live. Another said he’d fallen in love with one of his victims, gotten her pregnant, and they lived happily ever after.
But I knew monsters didn’t get a happy ever after.
Anyway, an exsoloup had come to Clinton County, and it had found the wolves. I imagined the creature traveled the world looking for victims. Wolves weren’t that numerous, really, but our county happened to have two packs. A veritable feast was at his fingertips.
“I’ll have to kill him,” I said.
“If this article is to be believed,” the alpha said, stepping back, “you can’t kill it.”
I frowned and peered at the rest of the text. Only a demon possessed the power to kill an exsoloup. The original sorceress had apparently put that into the curse as a way not to give the wolf relief in death, but to give the wolves reprieve should he become too powerful.
“Not a good plan, sister,” I muttered. Then I blew out a tired breath. “That explains why you didn’t kill him despite stabbing him a dozen times.” I looked at him. “And quite viciously, might I add.”
Someone tapped on the door and then the nurse who’d arrived with the doctor stuck her head into the room. “He has surgery in two hours, Jared.”
Jared pulled me to my feet. “Go with Belinda. They’ll make sure you’re all right.”
I didn’t argue. I wanted to think about the exsoloup and how we might possibly kill it. I had a demon on my ass, but I didn’t see a way of convincing him to kill the creature for me.
I stopped to look back at Jared as I reached the door. “It’s just a tale, you know. I’m not going to stop chasing the creature just because an article tells me I can’t kill him. There has to be something, some weakness. If I can’t kill him, I’ll catch and imprison him so he can’t do any harm. I can take his head, wrap him in silver, and bury him in the ground like we do rogue vampires.”
I didn’t want him or his pack thinking I was a failure. Also, he’d already paid me, and I wanted to be sure he got his money’s worth. I was suddenly concerned about what the alpha and the pack thought of me. I didn’t like it, but it was true.
“Kaitlyn,” he said, his voice low and smooth, “I know you’ll do your job.”
I frowned and walked away with the nurse, wondering why his words really didn’t make me feel any better.
