DARK ALLIANCE (Scarlett of the wolves #3)

Chapter 7

Twenty-third of July, nine o’clock.

“Are you ready?” Rucker asked, sliding his head into the half-open door.

He had decided that tonight it was time for me to feed on blood. I was going to have the happiness of stretching my legs during a fabulous hunting party. All this for what? To prevent my family from being an occasion for a fall, to prevent my tearing out their throats!

I was on the verge of changing my mind to stay here. What if I suddenly turned into a bloodthirsty killer? They couldn’t defend themselves; I would s*******r them all!

“What’s wrong?” my friend whispered as he approached.

“I don’t trust myself.”

“Stop it,” ordered Rucker, who never needed me to express my thoughts to him to understand. “If I didn’t feel like you were ready, we wouldn’t be going anywhere. Do you understand?”

I nodded uncertainly.

He raised an eyebrow.

“You’re not trying to avoid going hunting, are you?”

“I might be tempted,” I finally joked.

Suddenly he cupped my face and rested his lips on mine, so gently I barely felt them. Then he stepped back, smiling, his eyes sparkling with joy. I was dumbfounded.

“Why did you do that?”

“Because I’m happy to know you.”

I rolled my eyes with a long sigh.

“You’re even weirder than me!”

“I know, but that’s why you love me. (He held out his hand to me.) Come on, come on. The rabbits won’t wait!”

Putting my fingers in his palm, I felt an intense jolt shake my shoulders... I was going to gut a rabbit! Yuck!

When we went out, it was pitch black. The sky was so clear that a multitude of stars illuminated it. We lost ourselves for a few seconds in our silent contemplation.

“This way…” Rucker said, at last, taking a dirt track on the edge of the property.

“We’re not taking the car?”

“No. We’ll stay in the undergrowth. It’s old enough to find enough to feed you. And what are we going to serve you, madam?” said the master of the forest. “A hare, a muskrat, a gerbil…?”

I suppressed a quiver of disgust and followed Rucker.

I remember when I was almost nine years old, one fall, my father was invited to a wild boar hunt in the private woods of one of his friends. He took me, thinking it would do me good to walk a little in nature. What an idea when I think about it! Invite his kids to the s*******r of poor animals who didn’t ask for anything… Anyway, there was complete silence in this forest. We were explicitly told how to walk to make as little noise as possible. I remember it like it was yesterday. On dead leaves, you had to put your tiptoes on the ground first, then your heels, and on dry ground, your feet flat. Everyone hated me. With each of my steps, I made a hell of a racket. Then we had to stay hidden for long minutes behind an embankment—what am I saying, at least two hours— waiting for the beast to show itself. And the beast showed itself… Except that I had started to sneeze in a monstrously noisy way. So much so that I had scared everyone. Moral of the story? Scarlett isn’t good company when it comes to hunting... I thought, glancing sideways at Rucker.

We arrived at the start of a track. This one was lost in a thick grove, filled with brambles and broken branches. The collapsed trunks were covered with damp moss. In the past, the passage must have continued through the woods. Lack of maintenance and bad weather got the better of it.

Rucker sniffed the air, while I would have liked to block my nostrils as the smell of wet dog caught me! I wasn’t going to complain, but I shivered from hairline to toe tip.

“You’re not going to make me believe that you are cold?” Rucker whispered deadpan.

I shrug my shoulders without answering. If he wasn’t in the mood for joking about having to be serious, well, neither was I. I hated being here!

I took three steps forward and cracked a branch under my feet. The woods were so silent that it seemed to me that the noise would echo for miles!

Rucker turned to me, irritated.

“Okay, before continuing to move forward, I think it would be appropriate that I teach you to move silently.”

And here it was, it started again! He too was going to teach me to walk!

“The faster you move, the less noise you make. From here (where he was), to here (he had moved two yards away like a furtive shadow), I was perfectly silent. (I confirmed.) And yet, I didn’t lose my sharpness, nor my attention. The world doesn’t see you moving around, but you see everything. You don’t miss a thing. Your turn now.”

Without saying anything, and at the same speed, I went exactly where he was. Awkwardly, I land right up against him. He held me back by the shoulders to keep us from falling.

“Fortunately, I’m not a tree!” he quipped.

I dared a shy smile.

“Okay. Take the trip in the other direction. Concentrate and decide where exactly you want to go beforehand. Quickly look at the ground to gauge its condition, and go for it!”

I nodded and, concentrating to the maximum, I advanced three meters further, precisely where I wanted to arrive. Not a sound had was heard.

“Perfect. Do the same through the woods now. See the big oak tree with a pink number written on it? Go ahead.”

Up to the oak tree, there was about a six-meter obstacle course, littered with wild mulberries and logs strewn on the ground.

I observed the environment in which I was going to have to move, then I launched myself, intoxicated by so much speed. I continued for about twenty meters, in perfect silence.

Rucker joined me immediately, a broad smile on his lips.

“Perfect. Now you need to visually get used to where you are. They say forests have a soul. This is wrong because, in reality, they have several. Very small, and bigger ones.”

He knelt abruptly, so quickly that I barely had time to realize. His hand formed a dome on a piece of wood.

“Look at this...”

I bent down next to him and waited for him to open his hand.

A tiny beetle began to run in panic into a c***k in the wood when it realized it was no longer trapped.

Rucker straightened up and caught another critter in the air. A moth.

How did he manage to spot them so quickly?

“You try?”

I tried to concentrate, on the lookout for any suspicious noise. The exercise turned out to be unbearable. I heard so many different sounds at the same time: scratching, pinching, screeching, crackling... All these noises crisscrossed in an unbearable cacophony. If I had still been human, I would have had a terrible headache.

“It’s painful, isn’t it?” Rucker said with a broad smile.

“How do you do it? It’s almost impossible...”

“Almost doesn’t mean completely. Let’s say if there’s only a one per cent chance of concentrating properly, that small percentage is the privilege of vampires. It’s up to you to know how to use it.”

“Easy to say!”

“As easy said as it is for someone like you, dear Scarlett. You just have to want it. Concentrate again and let go of each noise you hear. Listen to whatever is closest to you. It’s perhaps the most discreet, the least noticeable, but this makes it more attractive.”

I closed my eyes slowly and began to listen carefully. A few seconds later, it wasn’t noticeably less deafening, but there were still many different sounds. I concentrated a little more, diligently, and managed to notice a subtle, faintly audible scratch. The more I focused, the more distinctly I heard it. The scratching was getting louder, it was there, a few inches from my feet. I could only hear it.

Quickly, I moved a quarter of a yard and reached out to the base of the tree behind me. I had something imprisoned.

Rucker walked over to find out the identity of my tiny trophy: a chafer.

It climbed on my wrist, unimpressed, and rubbed its feet before flying away to other horizons.

“Perfect!” Rucker said. “Now you are ready for the great adventure!”

I was reluctant to see what was to come.

“Know that in the woods, your hearing will be more useful to you than your sense of smell. Even if I know that it’s very developed with you. Small warm-blooded animals are easily confused with the scents of the forest. Thus, it isn’t uncommon to miss a rabbit because it smells of moss and mushrooms!”

He walked gracefully, with a velvet step, and sank a little deeper into the woods. I stayed within a yard of him, trying to scrupulously imitate his every move.

“Are you going to hunt too?” I asked.

“No. Tonight I’m like a driving school instructor. I keep my feet on the pedals, but you’re the one driving!”

“Do you and the boys come here often?”

“No. We go further, in general, where the prey is more abundant, or larger.”

“How large?”

“A deer, a doe, a badger, a wild boar… The bigger they are, the more we drink. And the more we drink, the less often we need to come back to hunt. It all depends on the lifestyle we have chosen.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you have decided to eat only blood or blood and human food.”

“Some only feed on blood?”

“Of course. But they are a handful.”

“Why aren’t you one of them?”

Rucker sighed.

“So many questions tonight, Scarlett!”

I stuck my tongue out at him.

“Okay. From now on, we are silent and we don’t make any noise.”

I nodded, silent and tense.

We had been walking for about five minutes and we could have heard a fly. Besides, I heard them all! I wasn’t focused, I was afraid of what was to follow. And because I wasn’t focused, a big branch cracked under my feet. Rucker whirled around and glared at me. Then he stopped abruptly. So, me too. He had heard a noise. He wasn’t the only one, I just pretended I wasn’t paying attention.

At an extraordinary pace, Rucker ran to stand about twenty yards away. There he probed the space around him and inhaled the air.

When he had finished his observation, he made the way in the opposite direction and came to stand in front of me.

I was still half-hidden behind a hedge of wild mulberry trees. And that dog smell only got worse! It was driving me crazy; I was increasingly uncomfortable.

Rucker stepped back a few feet.

“Come over here. Come closer, don’t be afraid, you have to get started now. It’s your turn. It’s up to you to hunt.”

I walked timidly towards him, coming out of my hiding place. I stopped halfway, closed my eyes, and began to listen to the sounds of the forest as before. But this time, I knew I shouldn’t focus on the bugs. It’s the warm blood I needed to find. Mammals.

I gagged. This smell... It made me lose all my control. It invaded all my senses, made me dizzy and prevented me from concentrating properly. I didn’t notice any life.

After a minute or two, I couldn’t take it anymore. What’s the point? I wasn’t made for this, that was for sure.

“I don’t want animal blood,” Scarlett moaned. “I don’t want anything...”

“Stop it, Scarlett, I don’t want to discuss this anymore. You haven’t had a drink since the time El… Seven weeks ago.”

I bowed my head.

“Okay, listen, you have to concentrate. You have instincts, let them express themselves. Smell the air, sense nature. The prey isn’t far away. (Rucker frowned.) Although I find this wood almost lifeless as if those damn animals had deserted! Try, you’ll get there!”

I let my arms hang down beside my body. I was discouraged, certain that I wasn’t going to manage it. I lifted my nose and closed my eyes. I was going to try to smell since this sense was the one I had sharpened the most.

I tried to eliminate the other smell. I couldn’t, it didn’t want to go.

“I don’t smell any prey...”

“Try again!”

That’s enough! Why was he insisting?

“But I’m telling you that I don’t want to!” I retorted with a hint of anger in my voice.

Rucker approached me and, with immense gentleness, he brushed my arm.

“Go ahead. Easy, take your time. There’s life and warm blood here, a little, but there is! Focus once again. Our plans will be for nothing if you don’t succeed. Think about what you’re here for tonight.”

My parents…, my family. I was here for them this evening. If I couldn’t feed myself, we wouldn’t be going anywhere. This thought alone is enough to give me some semblance of will.

Once again, I looked up at the trees to try and concentrate more. I took a deep breath, hoping to fill myself with several smells and know how to sort them out afterwards.

Impossible. It was all muddled up. My sense of smell was completely invaded by this harsh odour and suddenly my hearing suffered too.

Disgruntled, I decided to tell Rucker the truth.

“I don’t smell anything except a wet dog…,” I admitted cautiously.

“What?” Rucker asked, frowning.

I shrug my shoulders in annoyance.

“You smell a wet dog?”

I bit my lip and looked sorry.

Rucker inhaled much more carefully. Finally, his face locked onto a thicket a few yards from us.

Cautiously, he took a few steps forward. I was intrigued, wondering what he had smelt. Surely a prey. He stared at the shrub without blinking.

Curiously, I stepped forward to find out what had caught his attention.

He accelerated and stood in front of the thicket. He had his back to me; I couldn’t see his face. But, I could swear I saw his muscles tighten suddenly. He remained motionless for a few seconds.

Before I even understood anything or could get any closer, I saw a gigantic white shadow leap from behind the shrub.

The animal jumped over a trunk and… My mind had taken too long to figure out. It was already spinning.

“Elgin…. Elgin!” I yelled.

I followed him running.

“Scarlett!” I heard behind me. “Come back!”

I jumped over the dead trunk and arrived in less time than it would take to think, at the edge of a river.

I saw him running in the distance. He was fast, but so am I now. I took a spectacular leap over the water and landed on my feet to continue my run even harder. But I had the horrible feeling of standing still, he was running much faster than me. After a few seconds, I no longer saw him.

I paused for a moment to look around. He disappeared. I had lost him. Once again.

At the end of my strength, more mental than physical, I collapsed to the ground. My head between my thighs, I had this indelible feeling of sinking into a black hole. I hadn’t felt like this for weeks. I would have liked to die.

At no time had I made the connection between him and that smell... At no time... certain that Elgin would never come back...

“Scarlett…,” I heard behind me. “Stand up.”

I looked up, he held out his hand to me.

“Did you know he was here?” I whispered.

“No.”

“I’ve been smelling him for weeks! Not you?”

He shook his head.

“And tonight, I wasn’t focused enough on my sense of smell, I’m sorry.”

He helped me up and hugged me.

“Why do dark angels have to suffer as much as humans? I would like to die…,” I moan, my head buried in his chest.

“Don’t say anything stupid, girl. You’re suffering because you have a heart. Rejoice.”

My head was starting to spin.

What a strange feeling; I hadn’t felt any physical weakness for weeks. It seemed like my extremities were tingling.

“I’m exhausted… I don’t feel well at all.”

He pushed me away slightly and lifted my chin to look at my eyes.

“You’re thirsty, Scarlett.”

“No…, no I don’t…”

“Don’t move from here!” he ordered me.

He made me sit on the ground and ran away, like a shadow, before plunging into the undergrowth.

When he returned, a few minutes later, I hadn’t moved. He knelt in front of me and handed me the remains of a still-warm rabbit.

I put a hand in front of my mouth, to block it.

“No blood!”

“Scarlett…,” he said with authority.

I shook my head vigorously.

“That’s enough!”

He sat behind me, his legs completely encircling me, preventing me from moving.

“No! Leave me alone.”

He put a hand under my chin, firmly, to hold my jaw open. With the other, he put the rabbit in front of my mouth. At first, I tried to look away, then a scent much more delicious than that of human food rushed into my nostrils.

I didn’t resist any more.

Without doing anything to control them, my canines lengthened and, limply, I ended up biting into the tender, warm flesh of the animal.