Silver's Bane

Chapter Two Dead Girl in a Coffee Shop-1

Chapter Two Dead Girl in a Coffee ShopThe roar of the wind was all around Kyle as he flew through town toward her home. He came to a speedy stop in front of the old apartment building, just in time to see the love of his life walk from her family’s apartment. She was being followed closely by her older brother, Adam.

“Dad doesn’t always know what’s best Adam!” she shouted when he grabbed her arm, spinning her around.

“Neither do you!” he shouted back.

Kyle turned off the ignition and dismounted but kept his distance. He relaxed against the motorcycle, waiting for the fight to fizzle out.

“Why is he here?” Adam questioned, catching sight of Kyle.

“Kyle’s a part of my life, Adam. Deal with it.” Hayley pulled her arm free and turned away from her brother.

“You barely know him!” Adam shouted after her, shoving his hands into his pockets and storming back inside the apartment.

Hayley ignored him as she reached the motorcycle.

“Do you two ever get along?” Kyle asked, wrapping her in his arms and pulling her against him.

“We have our moments.” She smiled at Kyle in a way that suggested she was no longer thinking about the quarrel she and her brother were just having.

“Hello, wife.” He smiled down and ran one hand through her long, highlighted, hair.

“Hi, husband.”

He bent down and met her in a kiss. A few weeks back, Kyle had done something that, when discovered, would not be easily forgiven. Kyle had whisked Hayley Reynolds, now Hayley Reynolds-Cooper, off to Las Vegas and married her. The marriage was legal by the United States standards, of course. However, pack laws were quite different. When the Alpha of your pack had his eye on a mate, marrying her was severally looked down upon. A little over a month ago, Carson had demanded that Hayley’s father grant him his daughter’s hand in marriage. Mr. Reynolds had not immediately complied, but Kyle would not take the risk that he would relent; damn the consequences.

“Get a room,” another one of Hayley’s brothers, younger and still attending Aboit High, commented as he walked passed them.

“Good to see you too Landon!” Kyle called after him.

He waved once but didn’t turn around.

“Let’s go somewhere we can be alone,” Hayley whispered.

“I had an idea about that,” he whispered back, rubbing his nose softly against hers.

JULIANA

On a long, quiet street directly across from the sea, sat Jules’s little green house. She walked passed the car she’d neglected to drive to the art gallery and through the freshly painted front door. It was peaceful and charming and full of character, but mainly, it was all hers. Jules was four hundred years old. Her first hundred years as a vampire had been a life of extravagance and indulgence. She’d lived on an English estate, in a grand manor, which housed one of the oldest covens in existence. After her time there had come to an abrupt end, she’d spent many years drowning in loneliness. Until Gabriel. With him, and then Eileen, came an existence of family and hope. Even so, the last few years had caused her to thoroughly enjoy the solitude of living alone.

Jules walked through the darkened house, stripped off her sweatshirt and jeans, pushed back her covers, and dropped gracefully onto her mattress. She still had a few hours before she had to resume her current life as a modern-day American. She pulled her soft, feather blanket up around her shoulders and instantly drifted to sleep.

Jules tossed. She hadn’t been prepared for her past to haunt her dreams this night and yet…

There she was, standing at the entrance to an opulent ballroom. She walked inside, her long dress swaying with her stride. Music set the mood as couples moved across the dance floor. She could see her friends happily waltzing in wide circles. Gwendolyn, a primordial vampire, one of the first of their kind, and Stephen, her werewolf husband.

Jules could smell the blood that was served in large goblets. She could almost taste it. Jules licked her lips in her sleep.

“Dance with me Juliana,” a familiar voice said. The atmosphere changed, darkened, as he slipped an arm over her stomach possessively.

Jules thrashed in her sleep.

She turned and stared into the face that she dreaded most. An accustomed, cold smile shown on his primordial lips. Hector. “You’re mine, Julie.”

The dream shifted as she cowered under Hector’s glare, his hand connected with her face yet again. Another image, the bloodied and lifeless body of her friend laying on the riverbank. “Juliana, help me,” called the distorted and rotting corpse of Stephen Cain.

Startled awake, Jules sat up in bed. She pushed her matted hair from her face and took a few deep breaths. It was a human reaction to steady the nerves, but still relatively effective. Jules swallowed, her throat was dry. She was parched.

Jules pushed back the covers and walked to her sparsely stocked kitchen. Her cupboards had some plates and things for if she had company, but in this area of the home, her own need was extremely specific. She reached up and pulled one of her glasses from the cupboard. She squinted as she opened the refrigerator to retrieve a bag of blood with the hospital’s tag still on it. She had several stored up from her last raid on the local blood bank. She ripped the bag open with her teeth and poured its contents into the glass. Throwing the empty bag in the sink, she walked to her tiny living room and flipped on the television. Some news program played as she sipped from her glass.

For a moment, Jules thought of nothing but the liquid seeping into her tissues as she drank. Everything inside her was consumed by the quenching of her thirst. She drained the rest of the blood in the glass. The ecstasy and rejuvenation that blood brought to her erased the pain of her nightmare. Her, now crimson-colored, eyes blinked as she regained her composure. Jules then set the empty, blood-stained glass down on her wooden coffee table and sunk back into her plush, velvet couch.

Her thoughts drifted to her life before the English coven had taken her in. It was a time when humans greatly feared but believed in such superstitions as vampires. They were considered demons on earth and she had just become one of them.

Once the physical pain of her death had receded, her heart stopped beating and the change was complete. She was strong but disoriented. Her senses were amplified. She could hear and see things from great distances.

She’d run faster than she’d ever thought possible to her fiancé, Laurence; ever her rock and protection. After being invited into his home, she’d told him what had happened. She had hoped he would try to see passed her demon face and into her heart. He did not. All he could see was evil standing in the place of the one he was to marry.

She’d run from Laurence’s cottage straight into the arms of Hector. He had taken her to his home, to his coven at Pelmoore Manor. There Jules met his sister, Gwendolyn, who was as sweet as she was mad. They had become instant friends.

Jules had watched as Gwendolyn fell in love with a young werewolf from the village. Stephen was strong and gentle. After they were married, life at the Manor couldn’t have been more peaceful and jovial. Over time, the packs elected Stephen Alpha over much of England. Together, Gwen and Stephen ruled both species as one; equally.

However, when Stephen had stepped in to help Gwendolyn rule, their combined influence usurped Hector’s authority. His early attempts to reconstitute his power over the vampires were futile. In hopes of disintegrating the alliance between werewolves and vampires, Hector had told Gwendolyn and Stephen that their people were beginning to fight amongst themselves. This was true, but only because of Hector’s coaxing lies. The couple had decided to remain steadfast. They believed that the hate would pass in time. But they were wrong; it did not pass. And Hector’s greed grew. Hector was a vampire of nightmares, even Juliana’s.

Jules could feel the bitterness overtaking her. That night still haunted her, the one down by the river. The night of Stephen’s death. If only he hadn’t been walking alone. Hector had ended Stephen’s life that night, but he hadn’t stopped there. He tore him apart bit by bit and sent the pieces to the neighboring werewolf packs. Instead of disheartening the werewolves as Hector had intended, this whipped the packs into a frenzy. They retaliated. Both sides lost many lives. Hector wanted war, and he got one.

Vampires began disappearing in droves. Jules found out later that the packs were burying their enemies in coffins, far underground. How humans had gotten and twisted that information, Jules didn’t know. The races fought until the casualties were too great for both werewolves and vampires. Jules didn’t know what had caused the cease-fire because, by then, she was far from England. After Stephen was killed, Gwendolyn’s heart had grown cold and she had banished Jules.

Jules was pulled from the memory when she felt a single, thick blood-tear escape her right eye and slide down her cheek. She shook herself free of her thoughts yet again. When she wiped under her eye, the back of her hand came away smeared with blood.

The Manor and all those within were no longer a part of her existence. They hadn’t been for centuries. Jules tried to focus on what the late-night newscaster was ranting about; some murder somewhere not far from Aboit.

LUCA

Luca woke abruptly as a door slammed and someone yelled, “get the hell out of this house!” It was Carson roaring in anger about something or another. Being a normal occurrence, Luca rolled over and closed his eyes again.

“She was never yours, you bigoted brute,” Kyle shouted back, apparently finding a shred of defiance deep inside himself and acting on it.

There was a sound that meant one of them had gotten punched. Luca assumed that the soon to be bruised one was Kyle.

Luca sat up in bed, trying to shake himself awake. He wobbled a little as he stood and untangled himself from his sheets. He moved to the door, pulled it open, and walked down the hall toward Kyle’s bedroom. They met on the stairs. Kyle’s lip was bleeding.

“Did you know about this?” Carson shouted, upon seeing Luca at the top of the stairs.

“Nope,” Luca lied and followed Kyle to his room.

Kyle started haphazardly shoving his belongings in one of three large duffle bags he pulled from his closet. Luca stopped at the door and watched.

“Hayley’s brother told him,” Kyle explained, without turning around.

“Which one?” Luca asked referencing Hayley’s many brothers.

“How should I know?” Kyle snapped as he continued.

“Probably Adam,” Luca said.

“Probably.”

“Where will you go?” Luca asked, leaning against the doorframe.

“I’ve got a place,” Kyle said, then smiled mischievously. “You didn’t think I was gonna stay in this frat house forever, did you? I’m a married man.”

Luca shrugged. He’d moved into the Den around ten years ago, Kyle had been here before that. Kyle leaving after he and Hayley had tied the knot hadn’t really occurred to Luca.

“Come by the apartment later,” Kyle said, picking up bag after bag and slinging each one over his shoulders. He looked like an overstuffed pack-mule as he walked toward Luca. “It’s on the floor above Hayley’s parents.”

“I bet they’ll love that,” Luca joked.

“We’re married now,” Kyle said. “They’ll get over it.”

“You’re sure?” Luca asked, rubbing his eyes, still feeling a bit groggy.

“Ehhh,” Kyle waved his hand in a swiveling motion to indicate that the real answer was maybe. “Can I borrow the Jeep?” Kyle asked, looking down at his belongings.

Luca imagined Kyle trying to get himself and three large bags balanced on a motorcycle and chuckled.

Kyle shifted until he could dig the keys to his motorcycle out of his pocket.

“I’ll bring it by Hayley’s later,” Luca said, catching the keys when they came flying toward him.

“It’s my place too,” Kyle chided.

Luca made a face.

“You’re right, it’s Hayley’s.” Kyle conceded. Despite being thrown out of the house he’d lived in for over a decade, Kyle was in good spirits. Of course, he was generally in good spirits. It was just in his nature. “Throw down the Jeep keys,” Kyle said as he thudded down the stairs.

Luca walked back to his room. His bedroom was the largest room in the house, the master suite. Kyle said it was a fair bribe for someone with Luca’s lineage to become Carson’s Beta, instead of putting forth the challenge for Alpha. At first, Luca had laughed it off, but now he was thankful for the space to escape.