Isabel and the Werewolf Beast (Vampire Tales #1)

9. Isabel

Chapter nine

Isabel

T he werewolf was so annoying, yet his constant questions sparked my mind into action. I sat on the edge of the fountain and ran my hand through the water above his coin. What would he have wished for? Escape surely. It was what I’d wish for. I’d been excited to show him the castle grounds and then he’d changed his mind and returned to the castle.

I hoped he stayed well away from the ballroom. The fact his footprints dotted along the hallway downstairs said he’d come close to the room. What would I have done if he’d come inside? The other vampires would have attacked him. Ripped him to shreds and left him a bloody mess of blood and bones. I no longer wanted to see him dead.

And if his brother returned with Silas and an end to this curse and found his brother dead, then what?

No. I had to keep him alive.

Which meant I had to keep him happy too. I wandered back to the front of the castle, up the stairs, and inside to the library. A pile of books sat next to Dante while one was open on his lap. He didn’t glance up.

“You either read fast, or I sat outside for a long time.”

This time he looked at me. His brows furrowed in his furred face.

“You appear even more see-through than last time.”

I held my hand in front of my face, not surprised to find he was right. For a long time, I’d wondered if I was fading away and if one day I’d fade away to nothing.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.” He rose and walked toward me, his long legs eating the distance in no time.

I stepped backward and held up my hand. He scowled but stopped. I might want to keep him happy here, but I couldn’t have him touch me.

“I get it. I’m an ugly monster.” He flung the book in his hand onto the chair.

It bounced off the seat and thudded to the floor with a jolting, reverberating sound that echoed in the quiet confines of the room.

“Is that temper yours or the werewolf’s?”

He tugged at the fur on his arms. The frustration, the anger, was clear in every tiny twitch he made. “What do you think?”

“The werewolf.”

His small outbursts reminded me of a newly made vampire. No one had ever taught him how to harness his new strength. To suppress the overwhelming urges that came with being supernatural. Powerful.

I swiped a hand over my face, but my fingers met icy air as though my body wasn’t there. Usually, I could at least touch myself in this state, but now I couldn’t. My stomach churned. Would his brother return? Or would I disappear before he made it back? Would Dante and everyone in the ballroom still be stuck here without me or would the curse end with my demise?

He inched forward. Stalking like the predator he was.

“Dante, stop.”

His head tilted to the side. His eyes glowed with a ring of red bloodlust. It was too late to talk any sense into him. He couldn’t touch me in the castle, could he? What if he could? What if he killed me? I didn’t want to die. I wanted out of this curse. Not stuck here with a werewolf who couldn’t control himself.

He kept walking as I scurried backward. His top lip curled, showing his fangs lengthening. I doubt I’d be able to touch him in here to stop him. To snap some sense into the werewolf. There was only one place I’d incapacitate him and that was outside in the gardens where I could touch things. Which meant I’d have to beat him outside. I should be able to do that, but as Dante said, my body was even more translucent, and I sensed deep inside a lessening of my power.

Dante’s top lip curled and a deep growl rolled out of his lungs.

The hairs on my arms stood on end.

I turned and ran from the library, down the stairs, across the hallway to the front door. It didn’t open. I spun around, dress and hair tangling with my hurried pace. Dante paused at the bottom of the staircase. Eyes glazed. Lost to his werewolf urges. His hand tightened on the banister and broke a piece of the timber off in his enormous hand. He flung the piece of timber at my head. I ducked in time and dove across the floor. The door opened on a sudden swing of the hinges. I scrambled to my feet and launched myself across the doorway, stumbling in my haste as my body once again became corporeal. Dante’s hand curled around my ankle, palm warm against my flesh. I kicked him in the face with my other foot. He howled in pain and let go. I lunged to my feet and ran when I should have stopped and fought him, but I’d never incapacitated a werewolf before, just killed them. How would I even stop him without killing him?

Maybe I’d just wear him out until the werewolf rage wore out?

I raced toward the labyrinth. A place in which I’d confuse him because I knew it so well, but ever since the curse, I hadn’t ventured inside. The hedges seemed to shift as though alive. What choice did I have? Try to stop Dante and risk killing him instead.

Right now, I wished I’d killed his brother on sight, then I wouldn’t be in this predicament.

I ducked into the entrance to the labyrinth and turned left. Dante howled behind me. He was close, but then the hedges repositioned sealing me off in a section that had no entrance or exit. Trapped. Curse this damn maze. There was a reason I’d avoided it. I forced both hands into the hedge to part the branches. I’d make my way out with brute strength except the plant exploded to life slithering up my arms and tangling me in their grasp. I wrenched my arms with all my muscles, but the plants held tight. Thorns burst from the branches and pierced my skin. I bit my lip to stop myself from cursing aloud at the pain so I wouldn’t alert Dante to my position. It stung so much that I had to sit on the ground.

Tears welled in my eyes as I watched crimson droplets run down my arms pinned over my head and drip onto my white gown. Each droplet spread across the fabric sealing my doom with every stain. If a vampire was bleed dry, they’d die. With no one to help me but a werewolf in a hunting rage, I didn’t like my chances. I tugged on my arms again tearing the flesh on my forearms in my panic to get free.

The plants shot out more limbs and even more thorns. Before too long the pain and blood loss grew too much. My eyelids grew heavy. Each blink was like lead that weighed my eyelashes down. Silas’s curse kept on making my life miserable and now he might have killed me.

If vampires appeared back as ghosts in the real world instead of this cursed existence, then I’d haunt him for eternity. Make his life as miserable as he’d made mine.