Isabel and the Werewolf Beast (Vampire Tales #1)

35. Dante

Chapter thirty-five

Dante

A sher lay in the infirmary bed as pale as the white sheet covering his body. He hadn’t moved or made a noise. Isabel had set up a blood transfusion between me and Asher, but it hadn’t made a difference. All it did was make me tired. And a little lost. Maximus gave me cooked meat, and I mumbled my thanks but I barely tasted the food. Isabel hovered by my side as though a butterfly trying to decide if the flower was good enough to land on. I yanked her onto my lap and her body molded into mine. Her sweet scent filled my lungs. I buried my nose in her hair and breathed deeply .

So soothing to have a mate.

The animal inside me had never felt this calm. Happy. If it wasn’t for Asher lying unconscious, then I would have been thrilled.

Lucian paced the castle coming into the infirmary to check on us occasionally, but then he’d disappear as though he was waiting for something or someone.

A knock echoed from the front door. Isabel jumped to her feet. Was she waiting for someone too?

“I’ll see who it is.” She strode from the room so fast, her body left a blur in my eyes.

“I’ll go too,” Maximus said.

Now I was highly suspicious. I longed to see who was at the door, but what if Asher woke and no one was here? I couldn’t leave my little brother alone. And to think I would have left him alone in the new wolf pack. What had I been thinking?

The sound of muffled voices drifted through the castle, but I couldn’t work out the words. Was Isabel okay? I tore my gaze away from Asher. Perhaps I should go to my mate. Every part of me was torn in two. My mate or my brother. I stood. Mate it was. My feet carried me to the door and out of the hospital-style infirmary and into the formal section of the castle where priceless works of art adorned the walls and surfaces. Toward the voices.

Raised voices.

Isabel’s raised voice.

I rushed toward Isabel’s loud voice at a run, every instinct inside me screaming to protect my mate. Should I shift? Let that feral monster loose once again? Did Silas have more people come and attack us? It didn’t sound like fighting with fists, there were no sounds of flesh hitting flesh, no weapons clanging against each other, this was a fight with words. My hand curled around the intricate doorknob of a room I’d never been inside, and I thrust open the door to where the voices were coming from. To where my Isabel was arguing.

Vampires’ eyes snapped in my direction.

Many pairs of vampire eyes. Not just the three pairs I was used to. A red-haired woman sat beside a dozen vampires all wearing the same black tailored suit with an embroidered red crest on the lapel. Each was as immaculately presented as the last, not a single hair out of place, or a speck of lint on the black suits. They glared at me, which I was used to vampires doing, but these men and women were even creepier than the vampires I’d already met. Their eyes were fathomless depths tinged with a dark stain of red. Calculating. Assessing. They continued to stare.

The grandfather clock ticked in the otherwise silent room. My gaze skittered around the room quickly. A gold oval table sat in the middle of the room, the surface so shiny the vampire’s faces reflected from the tabletop underneath the chandelier. They sat on gold-trimmed chairs, carved legs, and white upholstery. Their black suits seemed out of place in this white and gold room. Isabel looked right at home though as she sat across from the vampires with Lucian and Maximus by her side.

She opened her mouth, but an older-looking male vampire with hair the color of golden straw and eyes a combination of steely gray tinged with red, held up his long, pointed finger. Isabel snapped her jaw shut with an audible click. The vampire pointed his finger at me.

“You,” the vampire said, his voice sweeping across the room in a hypnotic cadence.

“Yes?”

A black talon stretched, then poked from the end of his finger. “We should kill you.”

Isabel squeaked a tiny noise in the back of her throat .

Well, shit, more vampires want to kill me. Nothing new here. This was growing tiresome.

I folded my arms over my chest. “Go ahead and try.”

His long limbs rose from the chair as though ready to test me. The vampire beside him placed a hand on his forearm and urged him back into his seat. My hands tightened into fists. The looks coming from the other vampires were strange. It was as if they feared me. Which was weird since they were the ones who killed werewolves and not the other way around.

I ground my teeth together. “Does someone want to tell me what’s going on so I can get back to my brother?”

“The arrogance,” the first vampire said.

“It is,” the second vampire said.

“Dante,” Isabel said. “His name is Dante. He saved my life multiple times.”

“You should be strong enough to do that yourself,” the first vampire said.

I snorted. “Against an evil warlock who was stalking her? My brother is lying in a coma because he saved us.”

The vampires whispered back and forth between themselves, speaking so quietly that even I couldn’t hear them. They turned their attention back to me. Their shifty eyes darted back and forth between Isabel and me. Cold. Calculating. But there was an interest in their eyes that made me realize they would not kill me. Not today at least. I assumed these were the professors from the academy since Lucian had mentioned them earlier. The teachers who’d helped Isabel harness her vampire powers when Lucian changed her. The same ones who trained new vampires to kill werewolves.

“What’s the real reason you train vampires to kill werewolves?” I asked.

They blinked in unison. That was the only sign my question had thrown them, but I’d bet my life on them knowing all the secrets they’d kept over the years. Hell, they’d probably made them. There was one perk to being a bookworm, and that was all the knowledge I’d amassed through my reading. Learning to decipher what words were truth and where red herrings came from those pages. There was more here than what met the eye. These professors were old even though they appeared to range in age from late twenties to mid-forties. Their vampire years were much longer than their human years had been. How much longer was a guess, but I’d find out one day.

“Lucian told you,” Vampire Two said.

“Yes, but that was a smoke screen, wasn’t it? Like the books in Isabel’s library. You give everyone enough information to keep them happy, but you don’t reveal all. Why?”

“Who do you think you are talking to us like that?” Vampire One asked, flashing the long length of his fangs.

The long, white teeth of the vampire didn’t scare me either. Isabel’s bite had shown me it was pleasurable. I wasn’t na?ve to think they wouldn’t do damage with them if they so desired, but their threat was all for show. It would be good if I learned their names, so I didn’t have to keep calling them numbers, but they didn’t seem to want to become involved with me. To give me information I might use against them.

“I’m Dante Ormond and you are?”

“He’s got balls,” Maximus stage whispered, leaning into Isabel’s side and cupping his mouth to her ear.

I reminded myself he was her vampire brother before the beast side of me yanked him away from his mate. The brother who’d gone with me to save Isabel’s head. I understood what it was like to have a brother.

Isabel’s lips tugged up into a smirk. Was she thinking about my balls sexually? I couldn’t wait to get her alone again. But, yeah, murderous vampire professors first .

“None of your business, werewolf,” Vampire One sneered.

Like I thought. They were pompous assess who were keeping secrets. Secrets that affected us all.

“You know what is my business?”

“What?” Vampire Two asked.

It might have taken me two years, and the acceptance of a vampire and my mate, but I was finally here. Finally, I’d accepted the werewolf side of me. The beast that I’d become, and I’d be damned if I sat back and watched others of my kind die for no damn reason.

“Me finding out why you kill my kind. Tell me now or I’ll turn into an actual monster and slice you all in two with my claws.”

The vampires’ eyes darkened. More red flooded into their eyes, their fangs lengthened and grew longer, the deadly white tips spearing straight from their mouth as they opened their lips and let out a blood-curdling hiss of rage.

Lucian shoved back his chair and stood. “I wouldn’t if I were you. We all witnessed his twelve-foot werewolf monster kill Silas. It was impressive.”

Did that mean Lucian sort of liked me now? Guess becoming a monster was the only way to show these vampires. I shifted into my half-shifted shape with ease. Fur burst from my body as it contorted into the monster I’d once thought myself to be. Razor-sharp claws extended from my fingertips as I lifted my hands and prepared myself to fight for my mate, and myself, for our future. The act of shifting was so natural now, I didn’t comprehend why I’d had such a problem before as I stood taller than my human form, now towering way above them.

“Wait.” Vampire One stood. “We’ll tell you. Then you can see for yourself this match is a bad idea. ”

Vampire Two stood as well. “In the beginning, we were one.”

I raised an eyebrow, waiting for them to finish their story. They glanced at each other for a split second as though concluding that telling me, all of us, was the only way they’d keep me and Isabel separate. What they didn’t realize was that there was nothing that would keep me away from her. She was mine now and forever.

“Vampires and werewolves,” he said. “We were one species. Powerful. Unstoppable. Animalistic to the point of destroying entire villages when we thirsted for blood. We hated ourselves. Saw the destructive path we were on would destroy us all. We wanted a cure. A way to be more refined yet still stay powerful.

“We found a warlock and a witch to cast a spell. A brother and sister who were extremely powerful. The spell was supposed to remove our animalistic urges, but it split us into two species. The vampire and the werewolf.”

Isabel’s gaze met mine as surprise flitted across her face. She hadn’t known her origin as a vampire. It was about time she learned who she was.

“You became enemies?” I asked.

“No. We were best friends. Family. The werewolves could control their animal side and without the animalistic urges, vampires could control our thirst for blood. The spell worked. We were happy.”

“So, what happened?”

“Humans hunted us. The werewolves had revealed our secrets of drinking blood. It took many years to hypnotize the humans into believing vampires weren’t real. We were so angry they turned on us, but as animals, it was to be expected I suppose.”

“No.” I shook my head. “That doesn’t sound right. Family don’t turn on those they love. And vampires and werewolves were family. You said yourself that you were happy together, so why would the werewolves ruin their happiness? Whoever set the humans on you, wasn’t werewolves. Hell, Silas set humans on me. Are you sure it wasn’t the warlock and witch that cast the spell?”

A ripple of murmurs ran between the vampires as the red leeched from their eyes and their fangs returned to their mouths. Once again, they became the eerie vampires in their immaculate suits instead of the face of nightmares.

“What could they gain from outing vampires?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” I rubbed the fur on my forehead. My brain ticked over trying to solve the problem. Find a solution. I didn’t know as much as these vampires, but they’d let years of hatred fester. “Why did Silas stalk Isabel, curse her, remove her head? Some people are simply crazy and evil.”

“Silas Constantine?” Vampire Two asked, his eyes widening.

“Yes,” Isabel said.

Vampire One and Two put their heads together and had a heated discussion. Then the entire line of vampire professors whispered back and forth along the line. They seemed to keep coming back to Vampire One and Two as though they were the leaders. The ones they looked to for answers.

“What?” I snapped when it didn’t look like they’d ever stop whispering and not tell us anything.

“Constantine was the last name of the warlock and witch who cast our spell.”

“What does that mean?” Isabel said.

I rolled my eyes. They’d come to the same conclusion as me. The warlock and witch were the wrongdoers in this feud. It took little for me to guess where this was going but I wanted to voice my thoughts aloud and have them confirmed .

“Silas was obsessed with you and becoming a vampire, right?” I asked Isabel.

“Yes. He tried blackmailing me into turning him. I sensed he was evil and didn’t want to do it. I refused him time and time again until he placed the curse on me. Trapped me here.”

The vampires stared at Isabel listening to every word she told them.

“So, I’m guessing ever since the original warlock and witch who cast the spell and saw what they created, they wanted to become a vampire. They wanted to be powerful yet refined. Live forever. Is that right?”

“The warlock, yes,” Vampire One said.

“What about the witch?” Isabel asked.

“We know nothing about the Constantine witch and her descendants.” His eyes narrowed into tiny slits, daring me to ask more questions about the witch, but there was a warning in the glare he was giving me too. I might be new to vampires but I was observant.

“How many Constantine warlocks have tried becoming vampires?” I asked.

“A few,” Vampire Two said. “Not all, but enough.”

Incredibly, they didn’t think the warlocks were the wrongdoers in this centuries-old feud.

“And all this time you didn’t think they might have been the ones to set the humans on to you? The ones to cause the conflict so they could get closer to you. Us werewolves are excellent protection. We’re fierce and loyal.”

“Perhaps,” Vampire Two said. “But the humans we hypnotized into forgetting always said it was a werewolf that told them that vampires hunted and killed humans.”

He seemed the most reasonable out of the two talking. The other vampires seemed content to sit back in the fancy gold and white chairs and whisper amongst themselves .

“What would happen if a vampire turned a warlock?”

“We’re not sure… He’d be powerful with his magical abilities, and strong with his vampire abilities. He’d be virtually unstoppable… I would imagine.”

“That’s why you said no to the original warlock,” I said.

Vampire One nodded.

I stepped closer to Isabel and scooped her out of the chair and up into my arms. She let out a surprised squeak but didn’t complain. She flung her slender arms around my neck and hung onto the half-shifted beast I was showing the vampire professors that she didn’t want to kill me. Didn’t believe in all her years of training to kill werewolves. She’d shown them with her acceptance of me, a werewolf, that we weren’t enemies. We didn’t need to be enemies any longer. Perhaps we hadn’t needed to be enemies to begin with.

“This woman is my mate and I’ll protect her forever. I’ll protect her family too.” I nodded at Lucian and Maximus. “You need to decide here if you want to be friends with werewolves again because there’s a large pack in the woods waiting to protect me and my brother as well.”

“You want us to change centuries of training for one couple?” Vampire One asked.

“No,” I said. “I want you to change your centuries of unwarranted hatred for a species you used to care about. One that used to be a part of you. One that was your family. I have had little in my life, but my brother, he’s my only family, and I’d do anything for him as I would do anything for my new family.”

Isabel lifted her hands to my face and drew my lips to hers in a claiming kiss. She never cared what form I was in. She loved me anyway I was. Would the vampires take a leap from her example?

“I’m happy to be a part of your family, Dante,” Isabel said with a breathy exhale. “I had a human family a long time ago that I’d forgotten the care I once felt for them. Thank you for reminding me of that love.” She tilted her head to look at the vampires. “I’ve had a vampire family for many years, as I know you all have. While we care for each other, perhaps some of us even love our vampire family as I do, but there is a great difference between being connected because of your sire. Family loves you. Would do anything for you. Protect you in your darkest hour. Smile with you in your happiest. Hug you in your saddest moment. They are there for you no matter what, and Dante has shown me he will always be that family for me.

“You say you used to be friends, family, with werewolves. Don’t you miss your family? Don’t you want to experience that love again?”

The vampire beside Vampire Two stood, a woman with a bob of chocolate brown hair, and eyes shining under the chandelier. “What is the name of the pack alpha?”

“Barth,” I said.

“Oh.” She placed her hands over her cheeks. “I haven’t seen him in many years. I’m so happy to hear he’s still alive. We were as you say family a long time ago. I vote for ceasing this war we have on werewolves and looking into who started the rumor of vampires to humans. I understand we might never learn the truth, but we have to try to discover it. Who is with me?”

“Aye,” said Vampire Two.

Vampire One scowled.

The rest of the vampires cast their votes one by one down the line sitting at the oval table. I tried to tell myself I didn’t care what the outcome was, but my stomach churned anyway. Each vote swayed one way and then the next. When it was over, the votes had decided our fate.

Five to keep the war. Seven to bring it to an end .

We’d won.

I’d won so much in such a short time, but the most important win of them all was Isabel’s love.

“Can you facilitate a meeting with Barth?” Vampire Two stared directly into my eyes, daring me to say no.

If I wanted this war to end, and I did, then I had no other choice. “Yes.”