Howl - Brieanna Boyce (free novel 24 TXT) 📗

had done for him and how much he did for me. In a way as second in command he did more for the pack than I did he just had a more subtle behind the scenes role. I so depended on him and yet only now it seemed that he was depending on me. I couldn’t fail him, Jason or the rest of the pack.

When we reached the factory and looked inside its windows, at first glance it merely looked like a brown haired, blue eyed 7 year old girl and a tall wiry teenage boy innocently exploring. These two “innocent” beautiful “children,” were in fact immortal leeches, gouging and sucking the lives out of humans. It would be hard for a human to look at this pair and see them as dangerous or monsters but that’s what they were. Judging by the pair’s incredible speed and grace for even that of a vampire I would guess that they were extremely old, old enough to know what we are, unlike your run-of-the-mill vampire.

Using the body language the alpha male in my head signaled me to use I was telling Derek to back down and turn around; they were too strong and too old. Even if we did defeat them which would be a challenge in itself we would jeopardize the whole pack by gathering more attention. Not to mention that vampires are already on high guard because of Skylar’s killings.

Than we saw the boy drag Jason in, bloodied and beat up but otherwise fine. Derek tried to jolt forward but I grabbed his shoulder, we had to watch him and we had to stand back unless absolutely necessary to attack. The girl circled looking shocked and horrified than her look hardened her blue eyes narrowing menacingly, “It has been quite awhile since I’ve seen one of your kind,” she spit the words as if they were disgusting.

The boy looked at him kneeling by Jason’s side and grabbing his chin, “he was not capable of killing our Delilah.”

The girl grimaced, “What a shame, the queen would be quite pleased if she had an excuse to exterminate the werewolves… perhaps we could just have a bit of fun with him,” she went to hit him with a hard blow to the stomach but the boy stopped her.

“Don’t be daft Melody, this boy could prove quite useful to us,” he knelt down next to Jason, “Do you know anything about these murders?”

“No,” Jason groaned, and looked around, “we were just trying to figure this out ourselves.”

“Whose we?” the vampire girl asked tipping her head to the side.

The boy sighed irritated, “His pack, vampires stay with their packs,” he continued, “has anything odd ever happened?”

Jason looked between the two of them, “will you let me go if I tell you?”

Derek and I looked at each other concerned, what would he say? What would he divulge to them?

“There’s a girl, Skylar,” I felt the blood rush out of my face, “She was first attacked by vampires but our alpha changed her, but she’s very odd she ignores our pack, we don’t even know where she is right now which is very odd since packs stay together for life.”

Both vampires lifted their eyebrows in shock, the boy tried to regain his composure but the girl didn’t bother, “You’re trying to say that a vampire changed into a werewolf?”

“Well she was just bitten, we’ve never heard of anything like this people can die just transforming into a werewolf so for her to survive being attacked by vampires, bitten by them, and then turned into a werewolf is remarkable. She also used to hang around with this one vampire…”

“Who,” The girl said grinning her eyes dancing excitedly.

Jason chewed on his bottom lip, something he tended to do when he was thinking, “Tristan, his name is Tristan, and I don’t know his last name.”

Both vampires looked stunned. “I’m going to be quite honest, normally I would’ve killed you anyway but you’ve shared so much and we have so much work to do.” The boy grinned, “Besides, it’s better not to kill you, we’ll save that for when you go back to your pack after they’ve found out what you’ve done.”

The girl pouted, “what a shame, oh well I suppose play time is over we have work to do mutt.” She took her to fingers and made them look as though they were walking.

Jason immediately stood up his eyes wide and walked stiffly out the door, Derek and I followed quietly after him and when we were far enough away made our presence known. Jason stopped walking stiffly and stopped looking down ashamed his face white. Derek walked over slowly and hugged him than lifted his chin affectionately, “Are you alright?” He asked solemnly. Jason nodded, his eyes diverted away and than Derek bent his head down and kissed him.

I felt my jaw drop in shock, I had never had any clue, and they didn’t even act like friends… let alone like that. I almost forgot how mad I was, almost. I waited until they pulled apart, “Jason you just put Skylar’s life in jeopardy to save your own.”

“I know,” Jason said his voice breaking, “I didn’t mean to, honest, she… she travels all the time, I figured they’d have just as hard a time as we had finding her.”

I ran my hands through my hair, “Let’s go home. I have a lot to fill you guys in on.” Half of me didn’t want Jason home, a part of me wanted to attack him, to put him in his place. My head was an array of emotions, fear for Skylar, anger towards Jason, confusion about Jason and Derek, and a certain sense of disappointment towards myself. Maybe, if I trusted my pack with information more and told them about Skylar than perhaps we wouldn’t all be in this mess. So we headed back to the apartment, the whole time my inner wolf was growling, “Make an example of him, and punish him for endangering your mate. Make him suffer, show him what happens to those who betray their pack, to those who betray you.” I shook it off though, shaking from the effort of constantly pushing down this alpha male part of me.

When we walked in immediately everyone rushed to Jason’s side, Derek apparently no longer putting up a façade about how he truly felt for Jason had his arm wrapped around his waist, carrying Jason’s weight easily while affectionately stroking the side of his face.

“Back away from Jason,” I said darkly, “there’s a reason he’s only shallowly hurt, he gave up information about Skylar for his own safety.”

Derek hurled a glare in my direction but remained quiet his fists tightening by his sides, the others though seemed just as appalled by the idea. Even Meg, who couldn’t stand Skylar, would’ve rather died than given up information to vampires.

“She is hardly part of the pack Kale, she’s very different than the rest of us, and we don’t even know where she is.”

I took a deep breath I checked the premises and sniffed the air making absolutely certain no vampires followed or were around to hear, “Skylar is in New York.”

Meg blinked the sting of betrayal making her gray eyes well up, “you knew and you didn’t tell us? What else have you kept secret?”

I sighed sitting down, “a lot, I’ve kept a lot of secrets, especially about Skylar.”

Everyone sat down, as if the weight of what I was about to say was actually physically pushing down on us, as if the gravity of the room grew stronger. “I’ve known where Skylar’s been for awhile, I found her in Maryland a few months ago in a small little beach town with a human girl by the name of Ashley, apparently she was captured by that vampire boy she is so found of.” I tried to say this with as little spite in his voice as possible, “because as it turns out, when she changed to a werewolf she also changed into a vampire, or so I think. The bottom line is, she does drink blood.” Everyone in the room looked socked than outraged, “but wait! When she was living with the human it had no sign of any bite marks, and she certainly was not anything but human. Skylar’s the one killing vampires, that’s how she continued to drink blood, that and she has an account at the blood bank.”
“Wait,” Derek growled, “She’s the reason the vampires are on high guard? She’s the reason we’ve had to have been more careful?”

Gerard shrugged, “It shouldn’t matter most vampires wouldn’t know a werewolf if one bit them in the a-,”

“Alright we get it,” Meg sighed, “So Skylar technically still drinks blood? Alright fine whatever it wasn’t like the girl wasn’t weird anyway but why didn’t you tell us.”

Everyone in the room looked at me waiting for a great reason that they would die if they found out, that they couldn’t know because it was part of a giant important scheme. I had nothing, I couldn’t give them a reason they wanted to hear, their eyes bore through me, almost begging. They wanted more, expected more, deserved more from me but I am not capable of living up to their expectations, I couldn’t be the leader they needed.

“You didn’t trust us.” Derek said it as a statement; he named the truth, the cold hard fact which no one in the room, including myself was able to divulge.

Everyone waited for some denial, some argument to explode, I think everyone would’ve preferred that, but alas I didn’t deny the cruel truth. I stood, my eyes cold my arms out in front of me as if to say “this is me, this is what I offer.” One by one each person left the room and disappeared into their own. Meg was the last person standing in the room, her eyes filled with tears.

“We gave you everything Kale,” I knew she didn’t mean that, she meant that she had given me everything, I remembered the morning I woke up by her side, in her bed, both of us naked. I could never remember the moments before that, ever. I did remember being very drowsy that morning, and Meg begging me to stay saying she’d do anything if I were just to stay. I couldn’t stay though, not in this bed, and not with her, I got up putting on my clothes and as I left she screamed at me tears running down her face. Telling me that she had to kick most guys out of her bed, and that I would regret leaving her. I never did though.

After that, I knew we did not feel the same about each other, in a way it would perhaps be better if I were to feel the same towards Meg but I didn’t. Even so, looking in her eyes and seeing all the betrayal there didn’t hurt any less. Finally, she spun around on her heel, gracefully whipping her long hair around and swaying her hips as she walked, like she was a model down a cat walk.

I sighed and sunk onto the couch, I needed to forget about Skylar, “She is your mate!” The alpha male railed angrily. I shook my head, obviously we weren’t, mates are supposed to be more mutual, work far more smoothly, at least feel the same way, but we didn’t. She had been crazy about Tristan when I first met her, besides