Isabel and the Werewolf Beast (Vampire Tales #1)

1. Isabel

Chapter one

Isabel

T he castle hummed. Music, dance steps, and chatter coming from the ballroom. Vampire parties were something to behold. We dressed in decadent gowns and wore intricate facemasks. We’d never truly hide our identities since our superior senses meant we’d scent anyone, but the small amount of mystery with the masks had carried on. A sentiment that had been before Lucian turned me into a vampire over a hundred years ago.

The one who’d turned me and introduced me to this life of beauty and darkness, danced across the ballroom. His back to me, he wore a tailored black suit that no doubt cost him a few thousand dollars. Lucian swept his partner across the timber floor. Her resplendent gown of gold glittered under the golden lights of the ballroom. Rhythmic footsteps from all the dancers echoed inside my ears like the constant thudding of human hearts.

Moving through the crowd, I stopped and chatted to a select few. It was my party, after all, and everyone expected a conversation from me. The lace mask conformed to my friend Renee’s face as she talked. Her hands fluttered over the billowing fabric of the burgundy ballgown as though she couldn’t help touching the satiny fabric. Vampires were very tactile. My fingers curled into my hands, stroking the soft skin of my palms.

Humans were here too, as guests dressed in the same formal attire. They would later turn into sustenance to rejuvenate us from the party. Most would return home. Some might not be so lucky, but what my guests did with their dates wasn’t my concern.

The white ballroom doors opened in a burst of magic. Sparkling silver swirled inside black shadows around the door and slithered inside the ballroom. Those closest to the door stepped backward further into the room.

The black cloud of magic lightened as though a breeze blew the darkness away. Silas, a wizard, stood in the doorway, his hands aglow with an inky black smolder. He’d tapped into dark magic. Dark, forbidden magic. His cloak billowed behind him, the magical breeze floating the material up into the air. A shiver ran down my spine.

But this was my party, and I hadn’t backed down from Silas yet. I wouldn’t do it now either.

“What is the meaning of this?” I yelled, storming toward him.

This wizard would not take no for an answer. He hounded me every night to take him as my lover, but he wanted more. Silas wanted my vampire kiss of immortality. One I didn’t think he deserved .

An evil smirk crossed his face. “I hope you enjoy dancing because you’ll be doing it for eternity.”

His head flung back. Black light streamed from his body to the ceiling and circled the room. I ran toward him, but the blackness slammed into my body and flung me against a wall. I righted myself, placing a hand on my head, and struggled to my feet. The air was thick with blackness, making every movement seem impossible. I waded through the thickness, my arms and legs struggling as though I were wading through filthy mud. The sensation on my skin was the same. On and on, I struggled until I was within range of him. My arms snapped out, ready to end his life, but my hands reached straight through him. His body was there, but not there.

“What did you do?” I lunged for his throat, but my entire body passed through him. I stumbled on the other side of him. Was he an illusion?

“I cursed you. All of you.” The wind settled. His thick cloak clung to his body as though protecting him even more from me. He strode toward the front door of the castle.

“Silas,” I screamed.

What did he mean by a curse? He was the one who I couldn’t touch… or was there more?

He paused with his hand on the golden doorknob. “All you had to do was love me back and change me.”

“How can I love someone so evil?”

He scowled. “I’m not evil.”

“What do you call this, then? Why can’t I touch you?” I reached for the lamp to throw it at him, but my fingers flowed through the flowery base and out the other side.

What curse was this? I spun. Behind me, my guests stood inside the ballroom. Their pretty dresses and handsome suits faded. I stood outside looking in. They were ghostly figures trapped inside the decadent ballroom, filled with flowers and dainty lights. Still, they danced as though nothing had happened. As though Silas and I weren’t arguing in the foyer.

“Change me and I’ll undo the curse.” He folded his arms over his chest. The cloak tightened even more around him.

I laughed. His curse made sense now, but his thinking was wrong. So very wrong.

“There’s a minor flaw to your plan. How can I change you when you’ve made me incorporeal?”

“Give me your blood oath that you’ll change me.” The evilness of his smirk sent another shudder through my body.

I narrowed my eyes. A blood oath was bound by more than words. Magic would seal me to this man. A man I realized was evil. I’d never shackle myself to him. Never put myself at his whims. I’d suffered at the hands of men before Lucian found me. He’d saved me from a life of torment. From being used and abused by men in power who’d thought I was their plaything. Lucian would be disappointed in me if I turned myself over to Silas, even if it was to save us from this ghostly fate. I’d find another way. There had to be another way out of this curse.

“Never,” I said.

“Then you’ll stay this way forever. Always here in this castle. Always less than you were.”

“And you’ll always be evil.”

“At least I’ll be free, unlike you.”

“When I get out of this, and I will, I’ll be coming for you.”

“Such scary words from a vampire ghost,” he mocked with an evil chuckle.

Silas turned on his well-booted heel and walked out of the door. I ran after him, outside into the fresh night air. The coolness hit my cheeks like the slap of a winter kiss. Silas jumped on a murky brown horse, kicked it in the ribs, and raced from the castle grounds. I gave chase, my legs straining against the long fabric of my dress. I contemplated ripping it, but the second my body hit the gate, I slammed into what felt like an invisible wall. Silas reined the horse to a halt and watched me, slamming my fists into the invisible force field. The ground groaned in an unearthly howl. The castle and the grounds within the walls lifted off the ground and hovered in the air. A prison. He’d cursed us all to a magical prison, too. I yelled curse words at him, but I was no warlock with the power to curse souls. My curse words were just that. Profanity instead of magic.

The castle hovered in the air. I imagined it looked like a snow globe. Pretty. Magical. Untouchable. As we would be inside the cursed land. A long time later, the shifting castle landed. The ground rocked against the earth for a moment, as though settling into its new position and finding the perfect place. Once it stopped moving, I walked toward the open gate, but yet again I couldn’t pass through it. The invisible wall still held. I walked to the stone wall on the side of the gate and tried climbing the walls. My fingers dug into the gray bricks, and my toes too. Black mortar crumbled, but the more I climbed the bricks, the more they felt like they extended to the moon, as though I’d climb forever and get nowhere. I dropped back to the ground, my feet thudding on the soft green grass beneath me.

Trapped.

As a ghost.

For eternity.

My head and shoulders slumped as I walked back to the castle. How would I tell everyone in the ballroom a curse had trapped them inside? A curse aimed at me, but Silas had cursed them too. Now they were all a form of incorporeal being. For who knew how long? Or how to end the curse .

My dejected steps carried me through the front door. The ballroom doors were closed. My fingers closed over the doorknob as I turned it. The music exploded inside, as though cocooned inside. My feet carried me into the ballroom toward my friends and my family. To the ones I’d hurt by denying Silas. I shook my head. This wasn’t my fault. I hadn’t made Silas curse me. He’d performed his dark magic by himself, under his evil scheme.

A hand caught my hand. Fingers curled with mine. The grip was comforting. Familiar. I glanced down as shock barreled through me. Had I imagined what Silas had done? The curse? Was it a figment of my imagination?

“Dance with me,” Anton, a vampire friend for the last fifty years, said.

I stepped into his arms and let him lead me around the dance floor. His steps were as familiar as my own. We’d been friends for so long that the years blended into each other. If I told him of my dream, would he laugh, though? Curses and ghosts didn’t make sense.

“Where did you go?”

“Outside for fresh air,” I said, frowning the entire time.

“These parties get a bit much sometimes.”

“Yes, I must be tired. I thought I saw something.”

“What?”

“Silas…” I shook my head. “Never mind. Thank you for the dance, but I think I’ll retire to my room now.”

He kissed the back of my hand. “Alone?”

“Yes.”

He was an atrocious flirt, but he always knew I’d say no. It was one reason he persisted in flirting with me, knowing I’d never break the boundaries of our friendship.

“Very well. I shall dance with more beautiful women.”

I left Anton and the ballroom. The music faded with each step further away from the ballroom doors. My footsteps faltered. What if it was real? The curse? Silas? I turned back. The doorway to the ballroom shimmered an iridescent rainbow, as though the room inside was in a bubble. Maybe I hadn’t imagined Silas. Instead of heading to my bedroom, I walked back outside. The fresh air was cool on my cheeks. A breeze ruffled my long white dress and slithered up my legs under the folds of the material. My feet padded along the path to the main gate, mocking my dainty shoes. But the gate… pausing, I noticed the forest beyond was different. Beneath the pale moonlight, tall trees reached for the sky. The castle should be located outside a different forest. I lifted my foot, ready to walk through the gate, but it was as though a wall was there when there was none. The invisible barrier was real.

Silas had been real.

His curse was real.

My friends and family were stuck inside the ballroom with no knowledge anything was wrong. They didn’t realize Silas had cursed us. Didn’t realize he’d doomed us to this prison of a castle. Would they stay not knowing forever? Were they cursed in an endless loop of dancing, partying, being happy? While Silas cursed me to remain in this castle and grounds? To know we couldn’t escape. That I would never be truly happy.

Would the vampires get hungry and eat the humans? Murder everyone in a bloody spray inside the beauty of the ballroom amongst the pretty dresses, the tailored suits, the intricate masks.

How would we all survive?

The only thing I understood was if I saw Silas ever again, I’d rip his throat from his body and find a witch to curse him for eternity.