Isabel and the Werewolf Beast (Vampire Tales #1)

17. Isabel

Chapter seventeen

Isabel

W as there something wrong with my castle too? I’d never considered the building was that different. Sure the doors opened and closed for me, but I’d assumed it was my thoughts making that happen. I followed Dante over the threshold and outside into the night air. The instant I was outside my body returned to normal. I was used to the sensation now and had thought little of it. Inside I was a shell of who I was. Outside I was me. It was why I’d spent most of my time outside in the gardens, but even that was growing deadlier.

The more time that passed, there seemed to be something new to contend with. I dreaded to think what might be next.

Dante led the way to the back of the castle and the cozy area he’d set up underneath my favorite tree. When would that turn on me too? I stopped on the smooth, satiny material beneath my shoes.

“Is that my curtain?” I asked.

He hung the coat hangers on a branch and peered over his shoulder. “I’ll go back inside and get more books while you’re changing. I’ve read these.”

I glanced down at the three stacks of books he had next to the cushions. It almost seemed like he’d made a little nest. A cozy place for two lovers. Except we weren’t lovers. He’d run a mile in the other direction when lust had overcome both of us. I watched his enormous form disappear around the side of the castle.

A vampire and a werewolf stuck together. I shook my head. I bet Silas never expected this would happen. If anything, I’d say he intended his curse to kill me, but then what? He still wouldn’t have got what he wanted from me. The lasting bite of an immortal vampire to turn him.

If Dante’s brother was as kind as him, then I hoped he saw through Silas and didn’t let him do anything bad to him. Why, oh why, was I caring about what happened to Dante’s brother now? I should hope he found him, so he’d undo this curse. But the way Dante cared for, and protected Asher, made me wonder what it would be like to have someone care for and protect me with that same fierce determination. I’d taken care of myself for so long. Lost my human family and friends so long ago that I’d forgotten what it was like to have that mortal connection. It had been so recent for Dante that he hadn’t moved into the long life of an immortal. Hadn’t formed connections with immortals. Hadn’t found his home among his pack. Vampires didn’t have packs, but we had our vampiric family starting with our sire. We cared for each other, but that blindingly loyal love mortals shared wasn’t a part of us anymore.

I stretched behind me and undid the buttons on my dress. It would have been nice if Dante offered to undo me before he left me alone. I didn’t enjoy being alone. Not after having him by my side after so long of being lonely. Even my friends in the ballroom didn’t ease my loneliness like Dante did.

The dress fell to my feet, and I stepped out of the pool of ruined fabric. One of my favorite gowns too. I selected the pastel pink gown to put on instead. Each pearl button was slippery, and I struggled to thread them through the loops.

“Allow me,” Dante said, sweeping my hair over my shoulder.

Goose bumps erupted over my skin. His warm fingers brushed my back as he slowly did up each button.

“Sorry, the claws impede nimble things like this.”

My chin fell forward lengthening my neck. A vibrating growl rumbled from Dante. One that wasn’t a warning or a threat. This one was different, and it made my insides quiver in excitement.

“Don’t move,” he said, his voice thicker, deeper.

I couldn’t move. A part of me loved the presence of his body at my back. The way I felt protected. Desired. My skin sparked like a live current. Each brush of his knuckles across my back made my breasts ache, my nipples harden, and a throb began between my legs.

Dante’s breath grew heavier on the back of my neck blowing against my hypersensitive skin. What would his lips feel like on my skin? His tongue and teeth?

I bit back a moan. What was wrong with me lusting after a werewolf ?

Dante’s fingers stopped moving. The pad of his finger traced the line of the buttons but it kept going up the back of my spine to the base of my skull. Nerves at feeling this way made me step away from him and spin to face him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should never touch a woman without her permission.” He hung his head. The shame pouring off him surged in waves.

“Dante.” I inched closer. “My body language was all the permission you needed.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I’m a beast. How could you even want me like this?”

I inched closer to him and placed my hands on his fur-covered chest.

“I don’t know myself, but I do. Ever since I tasted your blood it’s as though I need you.”

His eyes met mine.

“A vampire and a werewolf?”

“It shouldn’t happen.”

“So, it won’t.” He placed his hands over mine.

His heart thudded underneath my hands. His skin bristled against the softness of my palms in a way that made me want to explore more of his body.

“Agreed. What books did you carry with you this time?”

He released my hands and lifted his haul. All ten books were on spells and witchcraft.

“I’m sensing a theme,” I said through the smile stretching my cheeks.

“We can’t rely on Asher to find Silas. I’m not doubting my brother, but who knows how long Silas has trapped you here. The man might be dead.”

“He’s not dead.”

“How do you recognize that?”

“A sixth sense. ”

He sat on the ground, placed the stack next to him, fluffed the cushion behind his back, and picked the first book off the top. He flicked the page open. I sighed it’d been so long since I’d held a book or read a book. Wait. I touched the books he’d carried outside. I dropped to my knees, snatched a book from the pile opened it to the middle then placed it to my nose and inhaled.

Dante laughed.

I threw him a sheepish look. “It’s been so long since I touched my books.”

“I appreciate how you feel about smelling them. The kids in the village saw me doing it one day and threw stones at me.”

“I’ll suck them dry,” I said with a menacing curl of my top lip to show my teeth.

“You’d do that for me?”

I held up the book. “For the books. No one should mock books or people who read them.”

“Ah.” He dropped his gaze back to the book.

I flicked the pages of the book I held back to the start. “What are we looking for?”

“Anything on how to break a curse.”

“Obviously but what else?” I rolled my eyes.

“What else should we look for?”

“All the things that are happening in this curse might be a help too.”

“Such as attacking birds?”

“Yes. Attacking pets. Lethal plants coming to life. A building that as you keep saying is weird.”

I should mention the trapped people in the ballroom, but what if Dante wanted to ask them a question? I couldn’t have his death on my conscience not now he’d saved my life. Cared for me. Tended my wounds. Healed me and brought me back to life in more ways than one.

Was that the only reason ?

So, what if I liked him, and too bad if I was attracted to him?

Neither of us would do anything about it.

Never ever.

We couldn’t.

We were enemies.

Yet as we sat beside each other reading. I never once considered him an enemy.