Isabel and the Werewolf Beast (Vampire Tales #1)

6. Dante

Chapter six

Dante

I sabel’s scent was sweet, which surprised me. Knowing she was a vampire and lived off the blood of others, I imagined she would have smelled like the coppery tang of blood. Perhaps she hadn’t fed recently? I inhaled deeply. She almost smelled like what was it… lemon balm. Yes, there was a citrus tang to the aroma drifting from her hair as the wind rustled her long, black tresses.

Her hair was so thick, I longed to run my claws through it. I shook my head. Where had that thought come from? According to Asher, I should fear vampires and not find her beautiful. She was, though. Her skin was pale but not in a deathly sick sort of way. It almost shone with vitality under the moonbeams. Was her skin as tender as it looked? I curled my claws into my palms to stop myself from reaching for her.

She had a sharp tongue, which made me want to silence her with a kiss.

Good grief, I needed to get a hold of myself. My werewolf side didn’t want to listen to reason. He wanted the vampire with a single-minded lustful purpose. I punched a tree to snap my wayward thoughts away from the curve of the vampire’s ass walking in front of me. The sway of her hips beneath the skirts of the white ballgown…

Isabel’s head snapped around. Her eyes narrowed to slits.

“Why are you damaging my tree?”

“Sorry,” I said, dragging my thoughts away from ravishing the gorgeous woman in front of me. “I still struggle with this form.”

“Great,” she muttered. “Now I’m stuck in here with a rabid beast. I should put you out of your misery and be done with it.”

Ice skittled down my spine. Her words held an amount of truth to them that made me pause and reconsider the beauty of the woman before me. The deadliness of the vampire now staring into my eyes with death on her lips.

“Wait,” I pleaded. “Give me a chance.”

“I suppose,” she said, flashing her fangs in a warning.

I didn’t need to be told twice.

She turned, all grace and poise, but with the speed of a vampire, she walked toward the building. As she approached, the massive wooden door flung open to the castle.

I peered over her shoulder. No lights glowed. Dust motes fluttered in the moonlit air streaming in through the doorway. I couldn’t even hear the scurry of a mouse. The castle was like an icy tomb. One she wanted me to walk into. With her by my side, after she just threatened to end my life, I had my brother’s life to consider. It was never just mine.

“Follow me and close the door after you.”

She stepped over the threshold. Her dress lightened, and so did her skin. The ethereal glow she had about her turned into a delicateness that faded into a vision. She shimmered, almost translucent. She appeared as a ghostly apparition as she glided across the floor. I hesitated on the doorstep and scrubbed my eyes, unable to comprehend what had occurred before them.

“What’s going on?”

“A curse, remember.”

“But… you’re…” I couldn’t believe I was about to say this. “Almost see-through now.”

“I was wondering if that’s how I’d appear to you.” She turned around and placed her hands on her hips.

I hauled in a breath. At least her hands didn’t disappear through her body. “Will that happen to me?”

“Only one way to find out.” A hint of fang peeked through her lips as a small smile graced her face.

Even with the implied threat of death, I still said, “I think I’ll stay out here. ”

She tilted her head to the side. “I didn’t take you for a coward.”

I bared my teeth, showing her I wasn’t as placid and helpless as she kept treating me. Dammit, I was a werewolf. “I’m no coward.”

“Right.” She turned and walked, no, glided up the stairs of the castle. “I guess you don’t want to see the castle and all the hidden treasures?”

“What sort of treasures?”

I tilted forward on my toes, my head almost passing through the doorway, but the fear of turning into a ghost kept me outside. I’d already turned into a werewolf. Now there was the possibility of becoming an apparition. What would that mean?

“This and that. Imagine what an old vampire can collect…” Her teasing voice trailed off as she disappeared on the first-floor landing.

I glanced back over my shoulder. My neck strained as the tension radiating through me increased tenfold. I’d explore the castle grounds, as I hadn’t turned into a ghost out here. Surely that meant it was safe. There were sure to be hidden treasures outside too, but the vampire lured me to her with her words and her body. Not to mention her sultry voice. And the beast inside me longed to follow her.

A door creaked open somewhere inside the castle. Where did she go? What was she doing? The temptation to know was too much. Curiosity was always my weakness. My undoing. I hauled in a breath, my chest expanding even more in my beastly form. I held my breath. Should I? Shouldn’t I? I walked into the castle. Pausing inside the entryway, I lifted my hands and held them in front of my face. My body was still solid and not translucent like Isabel’s. Curiouser and curiouser. Why would whatever turned her into a ghost not turn me into a ghost? I walked across the parquetry flooring, which once would have shone in a way it didn’t now. A layer of dust coated the floor, but Isabel’s footprints weren’t in the dust. A tall column rose from the bottom of the staircase. I walked up the first step and then turned back around. My footprints lined the dust. Whatever this curse was, it didn’t seem to affect me like it had Isabel.

Taking each step at a time, I checked for footprints in the dust, and sure enough, I still left them. I ran a finger over the banister and examined the layer of grime on my fingertip. How long had Isabel been stuck in this curse? A long time going by the thickness of the dust. I approached the landing and paused, listening for any sounds of movement. When none arose, I walked along the hallway. Each door was closed, an ornate doorhandle the focal point in the carved wood, but I’d heard Isabel open a door and not close it so she wasn’t in any of these rooms and I had the innate desire to ask her more questions.

Questions she probably wouldn’t answer yet again, but the hunger, the longing to learn everything about this place, about her, pounded inside my head. Perhaps it was the way our parents left us when we were young, the unanswered questions they’d left me with, why they’d left us that made me this way.

I found an open doorway, the heavy white wooden door splayed open to the room inside. My footsteps carried me inside. My heart pounded with excitement.

“Interesting,” Isabel said, gliding to my side in her ghostly, ethereal way. “Your heart is beating fast suddenly. Why?”

My gaze couldn’t stay still. It scanned every white wall, trying to take in all the leather-bound books on the white timber bookshelves. The ceiling was so high that there was a wrought-iron black ladder on a rail to the bookshelves. In my werewolf form, I’d climb those shelves, but that would be sacrilege to damage them.

“This library,” I said, a small amount of drool built in my mouth like I was a starving animal and hungry for the feast before me.

“You like?”

“Love.” I wandered over to the closest shelf and tilted my head to read the titles on the spines.

Vampire Lore. The World of Witchcraft. Sorcery and Scandal. Werewolves and Mayhem. Careful of my claws, I slid that one from the shelf. Knowledge, so much knowledge at the tips of my fingers waiting for me to find the answers to so many questions in my mind .

“Where did you get all these?”

“Various places. Some were gifts. Others I stole.”

I flicked open the book, the yellow pages crackled as I thumbed them open, the ink of the words a tad faded as though many years had passed since the book was written. “Stole? You couldn’t buy them?”

She laughed. “Oh, to be so young and innocent. Books like these, one does not buy.”

“I’m not young.” I scowled, dragging my gaze away from the book with a reluctance to let it go.

Her eyebrow quirked in question as she asked, “Tell me then, how old are you?”

“I’m thirty.”

“How many of those long thirty years have you spent as a werewolf?” she drawled.

“Two,” I admitted. Two long years of being this beast. After two years of struggling to accept this new version of myself, but then I’d never really accepted who I was before Asher bit me and turned me into this beastly version of myself.

“See, young. You’ve been immortal for two years. It’s baby terms.” Her voice was light and airy, but there was a heaviness to it that made me want to know how long she’d been a vampire.

I closed the book, tucked it under my arm, and stepped so close to her that my toes almost touched hers.

“I’m no baby and I’ll prove it.”

She rolled her eyes. “Men and their masculine egos. You don’t even comprehend anything about being a werewolf, do you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re walking around under the light of the full moon in your werewolf state, but you’re wearing pants.”

I scowled.

“Who made your pants this size, anyway? ”

“An old man. I killed him. See, I’m not so innocent either.”

Guilt flickered through my heart. The man had been so kind to me and yet when I’d changed and he’d been too close, I’d inadvertently killed him.

Her astute eyes flickered over my face.

“Why do you have a masquerade mask on now?” I asked, changing the subject before she asked me about who I’d killed.

“The curse.”

“You don’t leave footprints in the dust, but I did. Let me guess the curse?”

She walked over to a chair and sat, fluffing her gown around her legs. She sat on the furniture. How did that work? I settled in a chair opposite her and placed the book in my lap.

“How old are you?”

“A woman never admits her age.”

“How long have you been cursed?”

Her ruby-red lips firmed into a thin line.

“You don’t know, do you?”

Her fangs popped out over her bottom lip. They were white and shiny. Different from mine, but no less menacing. I almost smiled at her attempt to scare me from asking more questions, but from where I sat, she appeared a gorgeous woman. If not for the fangs and the translucent thing, then I wouldn’t think otherwise.

“Too many questions again?” I flicked open the book carefully, so my claws didn’t rip the pages. “I might be able to help you lift the curse if I understand a little more about it and you.”

“You don’t even realize who you are.”

Her words hit too close to home. I knew nothing about my parents. Where they’d gone. Why they’d left us alone. At least I had Asher. The only one I could count on. My only family. I was his big brother. That was the only certainty in my life. This beautiful woman, vampire, apparition, whatever she was, smirked at me, knowledge hovered in her icy blue eyes. Knowledge that was within my grasp to understand this new form of myself. The werewolf. The beast.

“Tell me then, since you seem to comprehend so much.”