Warrior

Chapter 7-3

“Tristan told us about the situation you are dealing with there,” said my sire, coming to my rescue. “Wouldn’t it be easier to convince the girl to go to Westhorne.”

I let out a short laugh. “Trust me; it’s easier to fight a dozen vampires than to convince Sara to do anything. She doesn’t exactly have the highest opinion of us.” I told them how Madeline had abandoned Sara and then Sara’s father had been killed by vampires.

“That poor girl.” My mother’s eyes glistened. “Surely, she must see now that it’s too dangerous for her there.”

I shook my head. “She lives in the heart of werewolf territory, and she’s close to the pack. She thinks they’ll protect her, and I can’t make her see reason.”

My sire laughed. “Someone you can’t command? I may have to meet this girl.”

“A female immune to my son’s charm? Impossible,” my mother chimed in.

I scowled at the pair of them. “Go ahead and laugh.”

“I’m sorry, Nikolas.” My mother’s lips twitched, and she pressed them together. “What can we do to help?”

“Nothing.” I thought about Sara going off on her own yesterday and a sigh of frustration escaped me. “Unless you can tell me how to talk to someone who has a total disregard for her own safety. A few days ago, a pack of crocotta attacked her, and yesterday, she slipped away when Chris was watching her to go off doing God knows what. She refused to tell me where she went, and she got angry at me when I confronted her about it. How am I supposed to protect her if she won’t listen to me?”

My parents exchanged a look, and my mother gave me an indulgent smile. “I think, my son, that you’ve forgotten what it is like to be young and reckless.”

“And to challenge authority,” my sire added.

“I might have broken a few rules, but I –”

Their laughter filled my hotel room, and it was a full two minutes before either of them could talk. My mother wiped her eyes and leaned back in her chair.

“My darling boy, there wasn’t a rule you hadn’t broken by the time you reached puberty.”

“I wasn’t that bad.”

“Really?” She arched an eyebrow. “How many times did you sneak out to watch the warriors train after I forbade it? How many times did you injure yourself playing with your papa’s swords even though you were warned against it? We went through more gunna paste than five warrior units together.”

“I wanted to be a warrior. What was wrong with that?”

“You were ten, a little young to be a warrior.” My sire nudged my mother. “Irina, how old was our son the day he decided he was ready to join the warriors on patrol?”

Her eyes sparkled with laughter. “Thirteen.”

I remembered that day well. I had wanted so much to be a warrior like my parents, and I’d spent every hour I could with the warriors, watching them train and listening to their hunting stories. I started practicing with knives when I was ten, years before my formal training began, and by the time I was twelve, I was already proficient with most of the weapons used by the warriors.

The warriors’ stories of the world had enthralled me. I had never been outside the walls of our stronghold, and I longed for the day I could go out and see the world. I started asking to go on patrols as soon as I was skilled enough to ride a horse and hold a sword at the same time, but the warriors told me I wasn’t ready. I knew better – or I thought I did.

One day, I hid inside a supply cart going to an isolated village suffering from an especially brutal winter. It took three hours to reach the village, and by the time we got there my whole body ached from huddling in the cart. I knew by the warriors’ hushed voices that something was wrong, and I climbed out to see the villagers gathered around seven bodies laid out in the village square. Two vampires had attacked in the night and killed six people before an archer took down one of the vampires. The other had fled.

We helped the villagers bury their dead and stayed the night with them. The warriors were furious when they discovered I had stowed away, and they gave me a severe tongue lashing. That was nothing compared to the scolding I got from my parents when I returned home the next day.

For weeks, I’d dreamed of the bodies lying in the bloody snow. Seeing up close what a vampire could do lit a fire in me, and I began to train with a new intensity. By the time I entered the warrior training program at sixteen, I could best all but the most experienced swordsmen.

“Your escapades were much talked about back then.” My mother laughed softly, laying a hand on my sire’s shoulder.

He smiled and reached up to lay his over hers. “You always had a good heart, Nikolas, and you were passionate about your dreams, but you didn’t like to be told what to do. And you always felt ready to take on the world, thinking you could handle anything. Remember that the next time your orphan challenges you. Maybe you two are more alike than you think.”

A faint knock sounded on their end and my mother went to answer the door. She came back wearing a rueful smile.

“I have to go. I have a new litter of weerlaks, and no one else here will handle them. They must be fed six times a day or they become difficult.”

Difficult was a mild word to describe the bad-tempered brutes. Weerlaks resembled a cross between a honey badger and a saber-toothed tiger, and they were just as mean. They were always born in litters of four, and they communicated telepathically with their litter mates. They were fast, deadly, and territorial, and if trained properly, they made excellent guard animals. My mother had been raising and training them for as long as I could remember, and her weerlaks were highly sought after by other strongholds in Europe and Asia.

She blew me a kiss. “I love you. Get some sleep so you are strong enough to keep up with your charge.” Laughter followed her as she left before I could make a retort.

My sire grinned at me. “I’ll let you get back to your rest. I’m sure it’s well deserved. Don’t wait too long to call next time. You may be a great warrior, but she worries.”

I nodded. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

Laying the phone on the nightstand, I slid down on the bed and put my arms beneath my head to stare at the ceiling. Had I been as incorrigible as they made me out to be?

I thought back to my childhood in Russia and then in England, and I came to the surprising revelation that I’d really been as bad as my parents had said. All I’d cared about back then, besides my parents and Viv, was becoming a warrior, and I hadn’t wanted to listen to anyone who slowed me down or got in my way. I’d been so sure I knew what was best for me, and I took foolish risks, believing I was ready for anything just because I could use a knife and a sword before anyone else my age.

I understood Sara’s behavior a little better after talking to my parents. The anger she’d directed at me yesterday was a mask for her fear. Not fear of vampires, but of losing the life she knew. New Hastings was her home, and she felt safe here with the pack. From my observations and my interactions with her over the last few weeks, I learned she was a private person, despite her friendships, and she valued her independence greatly. She saw me as a threat to her way of life and her freedom. I could empathize with that, even though it wouldn’t change my plan to keep her safe.

I sighed heavily. I just wished I knew what she was hiding. Asking her about it only pushed her further away, and I wanted her to trust me, not fear me. I racked my brain for answers, but nothing came to me. Sara seemed too guileless and clean to be involved in anything criminal, and her werewolf friends obviously cared for her a great deal. Werewolves had the uncanny ability to sense malice and corruption in others. Even if the pups were too young to pick up anything, Maxwell would have caught it for sure.

Rolling over, I punched my pillow in frustration. I could make demons cower and give up their own mother, but I couldn’t crack the shell of one teenage girl.

My groan dissolved into a laugh full of self-mockery. It was no wonder my parents had been so amused. They’d no doubt get a few more chuckles out of it. If I was them, I probably would too.

* * *Chris and I stepped up our watch after Sara’s little escapade. We no longer tried to hide our presence from her because I didn’t want her taking any more risks. She wasn’t happy about it. But she would have to get used to us being around. Until we eliminated the threat to her, I was taking no more chances with her life. I didn’t like the situation any more than she did, and if I had my way, she’d be living at Westhorne right now where no vampire could touch her.

When I wasn’t in New Hastings, I was in Portland, working with Erik to deal with the city’s growing vampire problem. And it wasn’t just vampires. In the last week, we’d seen an increase in demon activity in the normally quiet city.

Some demon races were innocuous, quietly living among humans who were blissfully ignorant of the world around them. Then there were the troublemakers, the ones that posed a real threat to humans. The vampire presence in Portland had attracted a number of these demons, including the lizard-like gulak thugs. Gulak demons were known to work for vampires, and they would do anything for the right price.

The werewolves were not happy about the growing demon population in their territory, not that I blamed them. Maxwell requested another meeting with me on Saturday to discuss the problem, and this time, I went to visit him at his lumber yard in New Hastings. The Alpha not only led the largest pack in the country, he also made time to run a successful business. I had to admit, my respect for him grew every time we talked.

Maxwell was waiting for me outside his office when I pulled up. He held out a hand when I walked over to join him. “Thank you for coming.”

I took the offered hand that was weathered from a life spent outdoors. “I’m glad we can work together on this.”

We walked into his modest office. He sat behind the worn wooden desk while I took one of the visitor chairs. As soon as we were seated, he got straight to the reason for our meeting.

“I’ve been here for almost fifty years, and I’ve probably seen a dozen vampires in my territory in all that time. In the last three weeks, we’ve killed twice that many between my pack and your people.” He scowled deeply. “There are vampires and demons running around Portland like it’s LA, and I had goddamn crocotta hunting a mile from my home.”

My body tensed. As long as Sara was in New Hastings, the vampires would be in Portland. Had he called me here to ask me to take her away so his territory would be safe again? If so, he was in for a disappointment. Sara did not want to leave her home, and I would not force her to leave unless I felt I could no longer protect her here.