62

“How can you be sure? There have been rumors before that never came to fruition. Varro won’t listen if there’s no certainty.” he states openly as if I’m not even here and just addresses her directly. I try to decipher his strange accent; his English is clear and well-spoken but that overlying way he rolls his words is almost Russian, transatlantic for sure, maybe. It’s light, almost not there, American hints, but in some words it’s heavy and pronounced. I’m not sure where to place his origin and it might explain why he’s nothing like the vampires in Arizona. Maybe they have races, much like the humans do, like wolves have colors, and up until now we have seen the ugliest, scrawniest, whitest, and lowest of the gene pool of his kind. He’s definitely nothing like what we know of them at all. This one is strong, built, sinister and seems to be extremely poised and graceful, with an intelligent expression on that almost model like rugged face.

“Really? How can I be sure? You’re asking me? Come on Darrius, you know better than to question my skill and knowledge in anything important. Look at her eyes… she’s also white when she turns wolf. Her mother was called Marina and her family died on the battlefield at the hands of the Santo pack. Sound familiar? We don’t get many coincidences in these lands.” Leyanne leans towards him stiffly, a rise of her attitude that he would question her, and I curl back into the corner and try to pull apart the words she just said. Not knowing how to feel about what she’s telling him or why it’s important. My head confused and overactive with the sudden surge of possibilities.

“Hmmmm” he growls it under his breath, and I try my hardest to sit upright and keep all my internal reactions down. My wolf is fighting me to leap out due to my growing uneasiness and mistrust, and I’m gagging on the stench of vampire invading my senses the longer I breath the air in this small confine. Overwhelmed with the feel of them and hating that a part of me somehow wants to tune in and feel them the way I do with the wolves. I don’t want them inside of me that way, and I fight it with all my will.

“You know there’s a sure-fire way to check. I know you brought him. What are you waiting on? I wouldn’t have asked you to come if I wasn’t sure, and he knows her by sight. He’ll kill your doubts in a flash.” Leyanne almost goads him, confidence oozing, her posture is straight and haughty as though she knows this is all inevitable and he’s wasting time by delaying. I can’t really add anything to this conversation because I don’t really know what it is, what wants with me, or why he’s trying to prove I am who she says I am, or who they have who would know me face to face. My heart ups it’s chaotic beat and my palms turn clammy with sheer stress at this situation.

“He’s hesitant, afraid of disappointment after he’s spent all these years thinking she was gone. I can’t force him to look at her if he doesn’t want to.” The dark stranger shifts in his seat and props an arm on the ledge and turns his head out at the black tinted window, staring at the road out there and flexes that square muscular jawline. If he wasn’t a vampire, if I didn’t have Colton, then I would dare to say he would be crush worthy. As it is I wouldn’t blink twice about staking him through the heart with one of my claws.

“How unlike you, not forcing people to do what you want. Are you going soft? Has age finally caught up with you, old man.” she jokes but his low throaty growl only makes her smile wider and I get that this chick really likes to rile people. She loves to throw in those little stabby words for reaction. He becomes about a hundred times more intimidating and snaps his head back to her, scarily steady, and graceful, yet the killing intent is clear in those glowing reds.

“I’m not that much older than you!” He grinds out, clearly offended with her age digs and I blanche, doing the math in my head and realizing this goon is over three thousand years old. The grimoires have never been clear on vampire life spans but surely that can’t be right. Some of the ones we killed looked way more aged than him, some were even old in terms of human looks and yet here he is, prime of youth, and over three millennia old.

He taps his thumb which I notice is sheathed in a black leather glove on his thigh, another layer of weird on this sinister freak given they don’t feel cold, so why the gloves? he sits still, as though pondering something then nods.

“You’re right. It’s the quickest way. And I need certainty, not possible. Varro requires confirmation as soon as I can confirm it.”

I jump as. my door is opened again without warning, and I realize that much like wolves, the vampires can link psychically, although we haven’t seen much of it back home, and he probably told whoever it was to get in here. I instinctively slide towards Leyanne, inner nerves taking over and shielding myself beside her in hopes she will actually protect me, as a dark clothed figure appears at the blinding light of the open door, tall, muscular but shrouded in shade as the sun sits behind him and makes it impossible for me to see. I peer out, blinking as I try to adjust, eyes watering profusely, rubbing my eyes to shield the sudden retina burning brightness that’s pointed right on my face. He seems to hesitate and stands there silently without coming in or getting closer.

I’m confused for a moment and look to Leyanne, then the vampire with a questioning tightness of my face, and out to the figure once more. Unsure what’s happening here or if I’m expected to say something, do something. Spinning my head and then halting as a new scent enters my nose and makes everything around me stop dead and blur away as a detail homes in all my senses to one thing.