DARK ALLIANCE (Scarlett of the wolves #3)

Chapter 5

I had no idea where we were going, but despite the heat, Rucker had asked me to keep the car windows closed. He had also blocked all the vents. It was only when we passed through several villages that I understood why: he wanted to prevent the odours from overwhelming me, which was a non-negligible precaution. Not being outside made it much worse for me to perceive smells. Nonetheless, I had felt extremely nervous when the car stopped at a traffic light to let a few pedestrians pass.

We came to a path that led to a large abandoned building, an old factory. He paused for a few seconds and went out to unhook the chain that blocked access to the field. A sign “STRICTLY FORBIDDEN ACCESS PRIVATE PROPERTY” hung there. He got back into the car and stopped again to lock up.

He parked in front of the building.

“Where are we? I asked curiously, removing the jacket I was wearing. “Is this land yours?”

“Yes. This is an old lamb’s wool processing plant. It’s perfect for what we’re going to do.”

“And what are we going to do, exactly?”

“We’re not going to fly,” he said when he saw that I had put on a sports bra.

“Oh, okay.”

“We’ll start your training. You can go wild as much as you want. Here, there’s no risk that you’ll be heard!”

I was frankly not reassured. On the one hand, because initiation sessions had always made me uncomfortable, and on the other hand, because this one should not resemble any of those I had already experienced when I was human.

We entered the building in which lay some concrete blocks, metal bars and other leftover bits of all kinds. You really couldn’t say the place was welcoming. On one side was a sort of half-broken mezzanine struggling to stay upright, on the other, a partially demolished gable wall clinging to nothing, not even supporting the roof on this side. And the roof in question made you want to run away.

“We’re not going to waste time. Come over here,” he demanded.

We walked to the centre of the factory and sat cross-legged across from each other on the dusty floor.

“Good. What I’m going to offer you is special. I wasn’t trained this way. But I resorted to this practice with Minah because she was tortured from within and the ghosts of the past pursued her. You, it’s Ewan who haunts you. So, I’m going to use the same method with you.”

“Which means…?”

“I’ll use Transfiguration.”

“Which is…?”

“Metamorphosis.”

“…”

“I’m going to change my face.”

“But… how?” I gasped; half convinced I understood what was going on.

A gleam of amusement crept into his eyes before he resumed his seriousness.

“It’s something we can do. Ewan triggers in you a flood of emotions too intense to be controlled and...”

“No!” I objected, understanding what he was going to do. “I don’t want you to take his appearance. I don’t want to be like before, Rucker. Do you hear what I’m telling you? Just thinking about him drives me crazy!”

But he wasn’t listening to me. He had bowed his head as if to look at the ground. His long hair formed a golden curtain around his head, completely hiding his face. When he got up, it was too late for me to protest again, I was horrified. His handsome face had transformed into Ewan’s, even his hair was changing, he had become this horrible deceit whose neck I wanted to break. Seeing him in front of me drove me crazy. Impossible to tell the difference. Rucker no longer existed.

My reaction was the one expected by my trainer and dreaded by myself. I threw myself on him ready to bite him, to m******e him. A handful of seconds later, Rucker was himself again. Taken aback, I stopped my face a few inches from his, not knowing how to react. I hissed threateningly and closed my eyes to pull myself together.

“I hate you!” I yelled, moving away from him like a plague victim.

“Come back here, Scarlett!” he ordered.

“No!”

“However you want it…”

Rucker, Ewan… I was lost, threw himself on me to push me hard to the ground. I fell violently forward and stood up instantly, in rage, with the firm intention of ripping off his horrible face.

Rucker pushed me away without difficulty and jumped on the rickety mezzanine, releasing several streaks of dust. I uttered a howl of an animal being slaughtered and without even gaining momentum I joined him five meters higher, determined to have his skin. He started to circle me at a crazy pace. A human would only have seen a shadow pass by, but I could see him perfectly. With speed and agility, I managed to stop him by tackling him like a football player would. He fell and I grabbed him by the neck and threw him several yards away, crashing him into a stack of wooden crates. As I jumped on him to bite him, a part of my consciousness convinced me that the one who was hitting me was my friend. Once in front of him, I had a pause, panting. Then Rucker became Rucker again.

He resumed his directing several times (I stopped counting at ten), until, determined not to put myself in such states again, I decided that I could control myself, even when he was Ewan.

“That’s good! You won!” I admitted, breathlessly, knees bent, hands flat on my thighs. “I understood what I had to do…”

After which I dropped to the floor, exhausted.

“No, not yet…” Rucker whispered.

Then he gave me a low blow.

I never would have believed him capable of such a thing.

Lying down, arms outstretched, I looked at the gaunt roof and tried to come to my senses. But these were tormented at the highest point.

Above my head, inches from me, Elgin’s beautiful green eyes appeared. His skin, his lips, his nose, his beautiful hair, it was all there. Nothing was missing. Not even his dazzling smile.

I sat up as if I had seen the Devil in person and, instead of controlling myself as I had done for Ewan’s double, I hugged him and put my lips to his. I poured out on him all the passion of which I was capable. He didn’t push me away, on the contrary, he responded to my kiss, making his mouth ripple under mine, waltzing his tongue around mine, skilfully nibbling my lower lip.

How good it was to have found him. I would have cried if I could...

I plunged my fingers into his hair as his fingers gripped me tightly against him; almost savagely. I savoured the moment and buried my head in his neck, exactly where I always should have been.

This is where I belonged.

I wanted to inhale his scent. But Elgin’s perfect replica didn’t have his scent, I didn’t smell any of the sweet, musky aroma I knew. This is what brought me back to reality.

Disgusted, I looked up to find myself face to face with Rucker, Perceval, the winged vampire. It wasn’t Elgin, it had never been...

The disappointment I felt then was stronger than the anger boiling in my veins. I was angry with him for using his power to change his face to Elgin’s, but I was even angrier with him for not having managed to make me believe it was him.

I pushed him back violently against the wall and ran away, as fast as my newfound abilities allowed.

As I ran, I felt a tingling sensation in my back. Understanding what was happening, I leaned on one leg to jump up. My feet left the ground.

I only knew how to function with my emotions and at that precise moment, I was grateful that they had ordered me to fly. It seemed to me that nothing else could have alleviated the pain and anger that was plaguing me. I would have liked to scream so that the whole earth could hear me and I didn’t care that anyone saw me.

How I hated him for doing this, and how I hated myself for being so weak, still so human inside. I was burning with love for Elgin.

High up in the sky, I twirled and twirled, doing my utmost to push away the thoughts that washed over me in waves. I would have liked to reach the sun so that it burns me and erases everything. But my twisted mind decided otherwise, my wings suddenly retracted. A howl choked in my throat as Rucker’s arms encircled me. He held me firmly against him and landed softly in the middle of a field.

“I trusted you!” I yelled; my fists clenched.

“I’m sorry. I was cruel and stupid,” he said, stroking my face. “I have no valid reason to give you, except that...”

“Exactly, you are stupid and cruel!”

“I know…”

“And you shouldn’t have responded to my kiss! I believed in it, I believed in it so much!”

He scratched his head, visibly embarrassed.

“It’s that… I’m just a man, and you’re so…”

“Well, no, precisely! You’re not a man!” I interrupted him angrily. “You’re seven hundred years old and you should have known how to control yourself better than me!”

“I was curious, shall we say...”

“It’s not funny, Rucker! I don’t want to do this with you anymore. I don’t want you to transform yourself anymore, I don’t want to kiss you anymore. It’s over for me, you hear? Bastard! Never metamorphose again!”

“You were breath-taking in front of Ewan,” he pointed out, ignoring my grievances.

I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.

“You surprised me more than once, you know.”

I glared at him.

“Do you want me to continue teaching you?” he asked uncertainly.

“You never pretend to be Elgin again, okay? I can’t take it.”

He brushed my cheek.

“I won’t do it again.”

“You better not! Otherwise, next time I’ll kill you!”

And he burst out laughing.

On the way home, Rucker automatically opened the driver’s side window. I realized it but didn’t say anything. When we pulled up to a red light and two pedestrians passed, I didn’t react to their smell. Probably because I was too absorbed in what had just happened. I could smell their natural aroma, but it didn’t appeal to me. One smelled of salt and iron, while the other had drunk so much alcohol that his blood could have made an excellent whiskey!

Was it possible that Rucker’s lesson had paid off to the point of giving me control over my thirst? I wasn’t completely sure, but it was clear that these two pedestrians didn’t affect me...

“Is it difficult to learn to transform?” I asked Rucker after silence had prevailed for at least twenty minutes.

He gave me a sidelong glance.

“Not all dark angels are capable of it. Learning is long and difficult.”

“Isn’t it in everyone’s genes?”

“Yes, of course. But that doesn’t prevent mastery from being hard to acquire. For me, it took a good century of study.”

“That much?”

“Yes… You didn’t imagine yourself transforming yourself tomorrow, girl?”

“Of course not! I already have a hard time accepting who I have become.”

“Yet it is very practical,” he said with a wink.

“Is the face you have right now yours? I mean... the original one?”

“Looks like you’re talking about a spare part!” he laughed. “No, it’s not my original face.”

“What did you look like?”

“Close your eyes for a moment, for the surprise,” he scoffed.

I obeyed on the spot, too curious to see him for real.

When I opened them again, I was speechless. There was a stranger next to me. He had traded his golden skin for an even whiter complexion than mine. His hair was red and fell over his shoulders in big, neat curls, his eyes were a luminous green, his nose was a bit thinner than the one I knew and he had lips to die for!

“So?” he said smiling. “You like it?”

“You look like an angel,” I echoed.

“What could be more normal, eh?” he said, giving me a wink.

“Why don’t you stay yourself when you’re at home? In front of your brothers?”

He sighed.

“We like change, the kids and I. Besides being necessary for me to continue to stay in college, the transformation allows me to remedy seven hundred years of routine.”

“Your brothers also have other faces, in ordinary times?”

“Yes. They have to change it as often as I do, so as not to attract attention. They learned very quickly.”

“Do they look like you?”

“Rather, yes.”

“They must be beautiful then...”

My thought crossed my mouth, which made Rucker smile. He shook his head and resumed the appearance I had known him to.

“We’re here.”

He applied the handbrake and turned to me to entwine my fingers, his face serious and contrite.

“I won’t disappoint you again, Scarlett. You have my word.”

He was bursting with sincerity.

“I believe you.”

Especially when he looked at me like he was doing; he was beaming.

“Perfect. Now that the essentials are settled between us, explain to me how it felt to you not to be attracted to human blood.”

“Because you did it on purpose?”

He raised his eyebrows, amused.

“I wasn’t born last rain, Scarlett. Did you think I was thoughtless?”

I had to admit, shamefully, that I did.

“So, your impressions?”

“I don’t know. The smell of those pedestrians didn’t bother me, nor even made me want to feed.”

“Good…,” he said with pride. “You learn quickly. Very quickly. The afternoon we spent wasn’t just about teaching you to control yourself in front of Ewan. I had to teach you to control yourself overall. You work with your emotions. The rage you feel for Ewan is far greater than your desire for human blood, believe me. If you can resist Ewan, you can resist the blood.”

“But that doesn’t mean I’ll never be thirsty,” I concluded.

“That’s right. Human food and animal blood!” he recited like an elementary motto.

“I don’t want to drink animal blood.

Rucker’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re rambling. And I’m sorry, Scarlett, but that point is non-negotiable. You’ll have to get used to it.”

 He got out of the car and added just before slamming the door:

“And I don’t think there’s any point in going over it.”

End of the conversation.