Isabel and the Werewolf Beast (Vampire Tales #1)

5. Isabel

Chapter five

Isabel

T he pair of werewolves stared at me like I was stark raving mad. I may very well be. The night never ended with this curse. I didn’t comprehend how long Silas had trapped me inside these castle walls and grounds. An eternity might have passed for all I knew. No clock in the castle worked. I’d laid in a bed and counted once but soon gave up that foolish notion because I’d counted to an astronomical number before losing my focus.

The werewolves’ big brown eyes sparkled under the full moon. If they weren’t my natural-born enemy, I might find them almost majestic. Almost.

“Born or bitten?” I asked.

“Bitten,” the one trapped inside said.

“By whom?”

“My brother.” He nodded his head at the werewolf standing with his mouth ajar.

“Hmm. What to do with you?” I stepped closer.

“Dante, run!” the stunned werewolf yelled from the safety outside the gates of the castle. I didn’t think the exchange would work, but my brief experiment was a success. Now, what to do with this werewolf? What other experiments on the curse would I get him to help me with? For the first time in what felt like ages, excitement thrummed through my veins.

“Whatever for?” Dante, that was what the other one called him, frowned.

“She’s a vampire.” He inched further away from us and closer to the forest. Closer to the freedom and safety of the woods, but he was already safe on the other side of the castle walls.

“Vampire? Huh? I didn’t even stop to think there might be other creatures.” Dante rubbed his chin.

“You didn’t?” I asked, surprise tinging my voice, and here I’d thought he would help me.

“No,” he admitted.

“You’re a strange one, aren’t you?”

He sighed, a long, suffering exhale rumbling his chest on the way out. “I’ve heard that all my life.”

I cocked my head to the side as I studied the werewolf. “I didn’t mean that negatively. Strange is good, but your brother is right. You should run from me.”

“Why? You don’t seem dangerous.”

I laughed at the sudden desire to pinch his cheeks like a baby, like I had many years ago when I was human and my friend had a child. “Aren’t you adorable?”

Inching forward, I lifted a hand to touch him. I must have gone crazy here. Vampires and werewolves were enemies from the time of their existence, and vampires had always beaten them. His brother was right to be afraid of me. Under normal circumstances, I would have ripped his throat out by now, but nothing about this curse was normal.

His brother growled, long and deep. A warning to stay away, but the noise was pointless since he was on the other side of the cursed barrier. The one thing keeping me in this place.

I dropped my hand, the urge to touch Dante vanishing as quickly as it appeared. “What are you going to do out there?”

He growled, another of those warnings, and crept closer, his large build menacing and silent as he stalked me.

It was ridiculous. I could kill them both before they even realized it. The werewolf’s posturing was bordering on amusing, but I needed to assert my dominance because he didn’t know I was the superior creature. Smirking, I said, “I’ll rip his throat out if you want to keep up that attitude.”

“Asher,” Dante said, his voice deepening to an assertive command I didn’t expect from him. “Back off. I’ll handle this.”

I shot Dante a surprised glance. He seemed more mellow out of the two, less like a beast. Perhaps I was wrong to underestimate him. Maybe he was the wolf in sheep’s clothing?

“Give me my brother back,” Asher said.

I stalked toward the gateway. My steps determined, angry, and resentful he was on the other side while I was stuck here. I stopped before the barrier flung me back like it had many times.

“I can’t. See this magical barrier? Some jerk of a wizard placed it there and I can’t get out. Neither can your brother. So, if you want to get him out, then you need to find Silas Constantine and get him to undo his curse.”

“A curse?” the brothers said at the same time.

“Yes. So many questions, and here I thought it would be good to have company again.” I examined my long fingernails. Perhaps I should rip out the werewolf’s throat and be done with him and his brother because I was sure if I hurt Dante, Asher would rush inside and be within my range to dispatch, too.

“Where do I find him?” Asher asked.

“The last place I saw him was in this castle, which was in France, but that’s not where we are now, is it?”

The brothers exchanged a long, loaded look. They probably thought I was crazy talking about curses and moving castles.

“Asher,” I snapped. “Hurry. I’m not sure how long I can keep my killing urges from…” I waved my hand at Dante.

Asher’s eyes glared bright balls of hatred at me. “I’ll be back. With your damn wizard and when I do, Dante better be safe.”

I touched a finger to a fang. “I can’t promise anything.”

He lifted his head and roared to the moonlit sky, then he raced into the forest. I gazed after his freedom with longing. To be on the other side of these walls, to experience day again even though a vampire should be ecstatic with a perpetual night. It was tiring. I was tired… so exhausted.

“What’s your name?” Dante asked, quietly, his voice barely above a hushed whisper as though he was trying not to startle a wild animal.

“Isabel,” I said, turning to study him once again. “Isabel Monet.”

“Like the painter?”

I grinned. The question was one I’d heard from humans, often before I feasted from them, then hypnotized them into forgetting everything about me .

“He was an artist and lovely. No relation though.”

“You were friends with Monet?” Dante’s voice spiked on the last word as though it was unfathomable anyone alive would be friends with Monet, but then he hadn’t believed vampires existed until a moment ago. How long had he been a werewolf to be so uncertain of the world he lived in?

“Barely. I met him twice quite by accident,” I said, waving a hand at the castle, to the place I’d called home, but was now my prison. “He was quite determined I purchase one of his paintings and hang it in the castle.”

Dante’s head swung back and forth between me and the castle. The questions and eagerness to ask them hovered in the glitter of his eyes.

“Can I… will I…” His throat worked on a swallow. “See it, or do you intend to kill me?”

I stepped closer to him, to the werewolf who was now stuck inside this curse with me.

“You’re in an interesting dilemma, Dante. Every ounce of being a vampire tells me to rip out your throat and leave you to die, while the part of me that’s been trapped here for who knows how long, tells me to let you live because you might be able to get me out of here.”

His eyes widened, but he didn’t shift away from me. I liked his courage, the way he faced me head-on with an unflinching gaze as though he’d take whatever I gave him so long as his brother was safe. That sort of protectiveness was rare.

“I understand nothing about what happened here. How can I help?” He held his massive palms out in a submissive pose.

I shrugged. “Misery loves company. I’m bored. You’re a werewolf who is now stuck under the full moon.”

“What?” He gasped.

“There is no day or change in time. This is it.” I pointed at the full moon above our heads. The round globe shone brightly, as though powered by even more magic than the curse. Moonbeams shone down on us, lighting our features under the ethereal glow.

He glanced up and scowled at the moon with the hatred I’d expected him to look at me — a vampire, the one who killed his kind. “I hate being in this form.” His words came out a guttural growl as though he was angry at himself more than the predicament he was now stuck in.

I laughed with glee at the oxymoron. “A werewolf who hates his most powerful form. Strange creature, you are. Are you hungry?”

“No.” His head snapped back as his glare turned on me as if I was the one who’d made the full moon stay cemented in the inky black night sky.

“Lucky for you, neither am I.”

“You drink werewolf blood?” His eyelids lowered to cover the shock in his expression, but I glimpsed it before he shuttered his eyes.

“Any blood will do when I’m hungry enough. Humans are by far the tastiest. It’s probably why they fear us so much.”

“I’d say it has to do with you killing them.”

A smirk stretched my lips unheeded. I liked Dante’s wit. I’d chosen right to trap him here with me while sending his brother to find Silas. He had to find him. This madness had to end. At least now I had someone to talk to about it.

“True.” I shrugged. “Not all of us kill when we feed.”

“Do… you?” he stuttered.

“So many questions.”

“Sorry, I can’t help it. My mind is always asking questions. It’s why I read so much.” A deep grove of his frown formed between his eyebrows.

A bookworm werewolf. Dante kept getting more interesting the longer I talked to him. If he shared an interest…

“I have something you might like to see. Follow me.”

I strode past him, not bothering to glance back to see if he followed because he was trapped in this curse now and there was no way out. If he ran, if he hid, my heightened sense of smell would find his werewolf stench long before I found him.

A moment later, his footsteps echoed on the path behind me.

Smart man. Let’s see how smart he was.