Isabel and the Werewolf Beast (Vampire Tales #1)

2. Dante

Chapter two

Dante

T he cottage was warm. Unlike last winter, where we’d almost frozen to death inside our home, I’d made sure to have enough firewood this winter. A stockpile I’d slaved for hours, days, weeks, months to build. Sitting by the fireside, the pop and crackle of the logs became soothing music to the book in my hand. This was my preferred place to be. The hinges of the wooden door creaked open. I lifted my head at the cool breeze blowing into the cottage. My brother Asher walked inside. He tilted his head to the side in the same cocky manner that he’d always had, no matter our circumstances, and studied me.

“Where have you been this time, little brother?” I asked.

For as long as we’d lived here these past twenty-five years, he’d always fled the confines of the cottage.

Asher’s head tilted to the other side. “I met a woman.”

“Another?” I lifted the book back up to read. The weight of the spine comforting in my hands.

“This one was different.”

I sighed. “You say that about all the women? No matter how many you meet, you’ll never find one like her.”

“I’m not trying to replace her.”

I snorted. “You could have fooled me.”

He slammed the door closed. “Dammit, Dante. I wanted to tell you about the woman I met tonight. She changed me.”

“Sex will do that,” I mumbled.

I wasn’t opposed to sex. I simply didn’t see the need to have sex with every woman I met. That was harsh on Asher. I flicked the page and attempted to read, but my concentration had evaporated.

“We didn’t have sex.”

That made me close the book and look at him. He seemed different. His muscles appeared bigger. His eyes were brighter. Was his hair longer, too?

He inched closer to my chair. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as though I sensed a threat coming for me, but this was my little brother. We may fight sometimes, but we love each other. I’d no sooner hurt him than he’d hurt me. We’d suffered together. Formed a bond that we would never break.

“What happened then?”

“She bit me.”

My eyebrows rose high, touching the shaggy hair hanging over my face.

“She changed me. ”

He inched closer to my chair. To the glowing warmth from the fire licking along the lengths of timber in the hearth. The way he moved…

“I want to change you, too.”

Change me? I stood and faced him. The glow from the fire shone in his eyes. They were as different as he was acting. Every nerve in my body screamed at me to run. Run from my little brother. Which was ridiculous.

“I like who I am,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

“A book nerd that the town makes fun of?”

“I don’t care what people say.”

Asher sighed with all the pent-up anger of our upbringing. “I do. I’m stronger now. More powerful. You can be too. We always deserved more than we’ve had. We deserve to be treated better, Dante.”

He opened his mouth, his teeth appeared longer, sharper, and harder. He lunged at me as though he was about to bite me.

“Get off me.”

I fought him. Placing my arms in front of my face to keep him back, I wrestled him. Arms pushed against arms. Body against body. Sweat slicked down my back. I held him off for as long as possible, but he was stronger than usual. Stronger than me, for once. He got my arms pinned to my sides. His eyes lit with triumph. His mouth lowered to my face, the sharpness of his canines coming into focus. He bit the side of my neck. I yelped in pain as his teeth tore into my flesh. Blood dripped from the wound and rolled down the side of my neck. Asher rolled off me, wiping his mouth and smearing my blood across his face in a gruesome tale.

“What the hell did you do that for?” I spat, sitting up, and placed a hand over my wound. Warmth and wetness seeped between my fingers and dribbled down my wrist and into my shirt cuff .

“Your blood tastes gross.” He spat on the floor.

“What did you think, dumbass?”

Now I’d have this mess to clean up and bandage my wound. What had got into Asher? I’d never thought he’d hurt me. Suddenly, pain lanced through my body. Pin pricks along my skin. An ache through my bones. The pressure in my head grew and grew until a howl of pain ripped from my lungs.

“Wh…at?” I gasped, struggling to breathe through the agony coursing through my very veins.

“The first time you change is painful. Next time, not so much.”

“Change?”

Another wave of pain engulfed me. Consumed me. There was nothing but the pain inside my body. I rolled onto my stomach as my insides churned. My skin was too tight. Stretched tight and tighter still until I thought it might crack open and spill my insides out. My bones ached, then cracked and twisted. Even my teeth hurt. My mouth widened as they too grew bigger. Sharper against my tongue.

“You’re like me now, brother. A werewolf.”

I lifted my heavy head. My skull throbbed. “You made me a werewolf? Why?”

“Now no one in town will ever make us feel small ever again. We won’t be the children whose parents left them. We won’t be too weak to be bullied. They won’t hurt us ever again.”

“Asher…”

“You won’t be the book nerd they throw stones at. I’ve protected you this time.”

“Protected me? By changing who I am?”

The pain was so much that sweat broke out across every inch of my skin. It dripped from my forehead and into my eyes. Ran rivers down my back under my shirt. Even along my legs, under my pants. My fingers curled and uncurled on the wooden floor. The joints ached with every movement. Every noise sounded clearer. The tiny whisper of a mouse in the kitchen. The flap of a moth’s wings by the window. My vision grew sharper. The flickering flames were brighter. The blood on the floor was clearer.

“You’ll still be you, but with fangs and fur.”

I tried to say his name again, but every bone in my body cracked and contorted, reshaping into that of a werewolf. I rose from the floor. A beast of fur and claws. Fangs filled my mouth. My head hit the ceiling. I eyed my brother through the fresh eyes of an apex predator.

I wanted to hate him for what he did to me, but power and strength coursed through my body. Fueled me to walk outside, lift my head to the pale moonlit sky, and howl for all the world to hear that I too was stronger. A beast that would no longer allow anyone to tear me down. No longer made to feel less. No longer the butt of the villagers’ jokes. Of being the children, their parents didn’t want. Who’d left us to fend for themselves for too many years. Never really being children. Knowing no difference. Until now.

Our lives had changed.

I hoped Asher had changed them for the better, but a part of me comprehended that while I might be stronger now, people would always target us as outcasts. We were still different.

Now we were monsters.