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EVEN THOUGH GRANT’S connection had failed miserably at keeping us safe, he did manage to come through and get us safely onto a plane.
The flight was a long one, and one of Grant’s connections met us at the airport, then drove us as far as he possibly could. “I have to let you out here,” he said. “I’ve got plenty of food and equipment for you, and the path is pretty clear.” A short while later, we began our long hike toward the French Alps. I adjusted my backpack and stared at the remote valley before us. The air was chilly, about fifty degrees and with a slight draft, but the sky was beautiful, like black velvet speckled with diamonds.
After a few hours, we set up camp, and the guys set off to secure the perimeter and make sure no one had followed us.
I sat on a big rock and unpleasantly reminisced about my confrontation with the vampire. It was the stuff of nightmares, and it wanted nothing more than to taste my blood and separate me from my head. Did the witches order that? I wondered. For my head to be brought back to them on a silver platter? My heritage made me sick to my stomach, and I shuddered.
“What’s wrong?” Julie asked.
“Just a little chilly out here,” I fibbed.
“Liar. I can tell when something is bothering you.”
“I guess I’m just thinking about what you said.”
“And what was that?”
“That I’m not safe as a mortal. That vampire really freaked me out. There was no one around, nobody to help me. I was face to face with it, and I felt like I was facing my own demise. If I was immortal, I might have had a chance to take it on. I was lucky to be rescued this time, but what if I’m not so lucky next time?”
“I’m immortal, and Fred is immortal, and we couldn’t even fight him.”
“I know, but at least I would have lasted longer than a regular mortal, maybe gotten a few good whacks in on him before he took me down.”
“We’re all lucky Jesse showed up.”
“He’s really been stepping up to protect me.”
She laughed. “That’s because he’s in love with you. Love is blind...and sometimes stupid.”
I chuckled, happy that my friend could still put me at ease. “Jules, I don’t know what I’d do without you guys.”
“Taylor...” Julie said, her face waning serious.
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you,” she whispered.
“It isn’t your job, Julie.”
“I know. It’s just...well, I thought I’d be, like, a superhero, there to take a bullet, but I’m really just one of those silly sidekicks. I mean, I’ll do the best I can, but obviously, my best wasn’t good enough. I got knocked out, and you were left unguarded.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“My point is that you’ll never survive this thing as a mortal. They always find us, and that primeval prick threw me around like a ragdoll. As you just said yourself, a human is no match against an immortal.”
“Julie,” I said softly, “I just don’t know if I’m ready to give up my humanity yet. I mean, why are you so dead set on me changing anyway? Is it so you won’t feel different or alone? You already have Grant, and Fred and Jesse are—”
Her gaze narrowed, and she looked insulted as she cut in, “This has nothing to do with me. I fear for your safety. I’m scared to death they’re gonna kill you. If that happens, I truly will be alone, because I will have lost my best friend. Taylor, I know this sounds like some corny Hallmark or something, but you’re all I have left in the whole wide world. If anything happens to you, I-I don’t know how I’ll be able to go on.”
“Nothing is going to happen to me,” I reassured her, “not on Jesse’s watch.”
“You don’t know that. If your boyfriend hadn’t woken up and spotted those intruders, they would’ve stormed the place. Our lives are in constant danger, yours most of all because it’s the easiest to take.”
“I know it would be safer, but if I become a vampire or a werewolf, I won’t be allowed to date Jesse.”
“What his people think of you should be the least of your concerns. He already ran off with you. He’s never going to go back to them. He already broke the peace by helping you escape. Besides, you heard those werewolves. They want Jesse as much as they want us.”
I shook my head. “I shouldn’t have brought Jesse into this.”
“Water under the bridge,” she said. “What’s done is done. Now we need to figure out how to survive.”
“Easy. We stay one step ahead of them,” I said.
“That’s not enough. With every step we take, they take two. Sure, we’re off the grid, and we aren’t leaving a paper trail, but that doesn’t mean they can’t use another tracking spell to find us. I’m afraid we’ll never truly outrun them.”
“We can if we stick with The Lost Race and Jesse’s dad.”
“Are you so sure he’ll help?” she asked.
“He loves Jesse. His wife tore his children away from him over a divorce. He won’t hold that against Jesse.”
“Then why hasn’t Jesse talked to him before?”
“He didn’t want to upset his mom, and he only recently learned of his whereabouts. I’m certain his dad will help us.”
“The only thing I’m certain of is that we’ll be dragging someone else into the mess. The immortals will go to every effort to hunt us down, and he’ll be on their hit list if he helps us. Don’t you think it’s a little selfish of us to show up on his doorstep and bring all this hell to him and The Lost Race?”
“First, the immortals have no idea where we’re going. Second, his dad is a very powerful vampire, and he can easily hide us. And third, he’s dating a powerful immortal who can hide us in her kingdom, where no magic tracking spell will ever detect us.”
“Immortal lover, huh. Gee. That’s becoming a bit of a common theme,” she said, winking at me. “What is she, vamp or werewolf?”
I sighed. “Neither.”
“But you said she’s immortal.”
“She is.”
She cocked her head. “What else can she be then?”
“She’s...a different kind than what we’re used to dealing with.”
I bit my lip, afraid to tell her.
“Just spit it out,” she said.
“Okay. She’s a gargoyle.”
“A gargoyle? You mean, like, one of those grotesque, monstrous faces carved into Gothic buildings and famous churches? Seriously?”
“Dead serious...but we’ll be completely safe with them.”
“If they’ll grant us sanctuary,” she said.
“They will.”
“This is crazy,” she said. “Remember when we first met at the beach? All we were concerned with was an upcoming party.”
“It’s all changed since that day. I guess we had to grow up pretty fast, huh?”
“Yeah. I’d give anything to be that carefree girl back on the beach. Now I’m a werewolf, on the run from witches and immortals, traveling with vampires, and making allegiances with gargoyles. It’d be so much easier to be some fangirl, babbling about the hottest singer out there, my only decision in life being choosing between Lusty Lady or Fuchsia Fusion lipstick.”
“Yeah, I’m thinking we should opt for Gothic Goop now,” I said. “It’s like...a loss of innocence,” I whispered. “Goodbye, carefree adolescence. Now we just have to try to wake up without a bullet in our brain...or missing our head altogether.”
“I’ve already said goodbye to my old life,” she said. “It’s really the only way to save ourselves and the others.”
“I can’t say goodbye. That choice is too hard to make. It’s a one-way trip, one I’m not ready to take.”
“Wow. All you need are some boots and a guitar, and you’d have a country song,” she joked, trying to make the reality less painful. “But you’re right. You know you can’t ever go back.”
“Not now.”
“Not ever.”
I bit my lip hard. The thought of never seeing my family again tore at my heart. The love I felt for them was overwhelming. My family was my life, and I wasn’t ready to give them up, but that was the price I would have to pay if I was going to move on with my life, if I was going to keep them safe.
Also wearing on me was the decision of whether or not to become immortal. The choice was mine, but I didn’t want to become an animal, and I sure didn’t want to drink blood. I didn’t want a raging beast to lurk inside me, didn’t want to have to fight it and struggle with it the way Jesse did.
“I can’t handle this,” I admitted, my voice trembling.
“You can. You’re strong.”
I wiped a tear from my cheek. “I don’t want to change, to become immortal. It seems like an unending curse to me. I mean, do I really wanna live forever?”
“I know it’s hard. We’ll watch all our loved ones die, but we’ll get to live, and if you have an immortal partner—which you obviously do—then spending every day with him will be a gift. Imagine being with Jesse forever. Besides, think of all the good we could do.”
“How can we help when we’re always hiding from the dark shadows all around us?”
“Maybe it’s true what they say,” she said, shrugging. “Maybe time will heal all wounds. Eventually, the witches will die out and quit sending vampire bounty hunters after us, and maybe future generations will just think it was all a myth.”
“But the others won’t forget so easily.”
“The vampires will. Their only beef is that we took Fred. I’m sure they’ll get that bur outta their bony butts in a century or two.”
“But Drake won’t forget what I did to him so easily.”
“He’ll move on too. I’m more worried about the werewolves. They’re immortal and pissed. If we don’t join the vampires and wipe them all out, I’m afraid they’ll be on our tails forever...literally. The trouble is, I don’t want to destroy my own kind. Anyway, we’ll always have immortal enemies. The second you released the witches’ powers back into the air, we were blacklisted. You really need to choose a side...and I’m really hoping it’ll be the werewolves. Remember, a dog is a girl’s best friend,” she said with a wink.
“What about the diet?” I asked. “I mean, how can you eat raw steaks?”
“Ew! I don’t.”
“I saw you trying to eat raw meat when you first changed.”
“That was during transformation, when I didn’t know what was going on. Now that I’m stable, I eat regular food, like perfectly cooked steak. If you go the vamp route, you can’t eat at all, so no more five-star dining or Taco Bell fourth-meal drive-thru runs after midnight. Also, you won’t be needing any sunscreen, because you won’t be able to set foot outside in the daylight. No food and no sun sounds kinda sucky to me, no pun intended.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “I don’t want to be confined to darkness.”
“Some vampires have daylight rings. Fred does. Tabby and Drake do. So did that bloodsucker who chased us, ran us off the road into the lake. I saw his ring. So it’s possible for vampires to walk in sunlight.”
“Hmm. Sticking up for the vamps now?”
“No. Vampires suck...and I mean the pun this time. Of course I want you to come to Team Jacob, but what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t give you all the facts and let you make your own decision?”
I smiled weakly. “Thanks, my furry friend.”
“Well, as for the pros and cons list. Don’t let those Hollywood movies fool you. We don’t wake up naked in a field with blood on our breath, not remembering a thing. We don’t kill for sport or food. We always know what’s going on. We don’t keep flea shampoo in the shower, and we don’t need collars and leashes.”
“Aw. I bet Grant is disappointed about that.”
“Ew! Stop! But no, I don’t go through five or six razors a week, and I can’t put a French braid in my shin.”
I chuckled. “But how does the moon work?” I asked. “Tell me about this curse they want to break?”
“They want to have control over their transformations, so they have one hundred percent control over when they change, rather than giving Mother Nature any say in the matter. It’s not really a big deal though. It’s sorta like Aunt Flo.”
“How so?”
“You just have to plan for it.”
I smiled. “So we just chain you up during full moons?”
She laughed. “Only on full moons. Otherwise, we’re in complete control and can even transform at will. But when the moon comes, we lose complete control. And we can’t control when we change back. We’re forced to change whether we want to or not. Yeah, full moons suck big time for werewolves.”
“So when it’s not a full moon, you’re good?”
“Yeah. I know what’s going on all around me. I shift whenever I want to. We’re not all ferocious and murderous, rabid hellhounds like in the movies. I haven’t been a werewolf for long, and I’m still learning, but I know what’s going on, and I have complete control. Also, it doesn’t hurt to change. It’s a supernatural thing, and it happens in the blink of an eye. If you become a werewolf, you’ll be able to enjoy life with Jesse, even in the daylight. I don’t mean to push, but there is a world of opportunities just waiting for you.”
“Jesse hates werewolves...and I’m not sure he’s into dog-breeding,” I said, a halfhearted attempt at humor.
“He loves you, Taylor, and you two could have a life together—a long, eternal life.”
“Could we have kids someday?” I asked.
“Not as a vampire, but since Jesse is Leyna, he could get you pregnant if you were a werewolf.”
“Great. I can bring hybrids into his pure bloodline.”
“Isn’t Jesse’s dad dating a gargoyle? I wonder what those babies would look like.”
“Ew. I don’t even wanna think about that.”
“If you want to have kids, you could stay in your human form for a while, then become immortal later. But every day you put it off, your safety is at risk.”
“I love kids, but I’m not ready for them anytime soon, especially with this dangerous lifestyle.”
“I agree.”
“What’s it like to run around as a wolf?” I asked.
“When I’m in werewolf form, it’s like wearing night-vision goggles or something. I don’t really feel like an animal. It’s kinda like a virtual reality videogame or something, and I have this super vision.”
“Well, it seems to me that no matter what side I pick, the transformation is horrible. I’ve seen Jesse’s and Fred’s, and I’ve seen yours.”
“Do what you feel is best. The last thing I wanna do is pressure you into a life you don’t want. We will all try our very best to protect you.”
“Thank you for understanding. I guess for now, we just have to trust that the gargoyles will give us sanctuary until we can figure out what to do next.” I let out a long sigh.
“What else is bothering you?”
I frowned. “I’m worried about my family back in Big Bear Lake.”
“Tabby promised to keep an eye on them.”
“Yeah, and I’m sure she’ll make a valiant effort, but can she really protect them? It they can’t get to us, they’re going to retaliate, and like we were talking about earlier, they’ll suspect she’s helping us. They’ll be all over her.”
“You’re right,” Julie whispered in horror. “They’ll go after them.”
I wrung my hands. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“What if they wipe out everyone we know and love?” she asked, tears welling in her eyes. “Maybe I shoulda just gone to that ceremony.”
“Don’t start that again,” I said softly. “We’re too stubborn for that.”
“But everyone we love and know is gonna die because of us.” She looked away. “I was willing to fight to live, but I guess I didn’t realize it would cost all my loved ones their lives. Gosh, Taylor, what have we done?”
“It’s ironic, isn’t it? We thought we’d buck the system and live, and we did it, but at what cost? Watching our friends and family get slaughtered by witches and werewolves?” I met her gaze. “I can’t let that happen.”
“But what can we do? We’re powerless to stop it.”
“Maybe we can form an allegiance with the gargoyles, elicit their help,” I said.
“We can’t just drag our loved ones away to live with monsters. They’ll hate us forever.”
“I don’t know what the answer is. I just wish... They can’t blame this on me,” I said. “I didn’t do it. My bloodline did. They made the mess, and now you and I are left to clean it up. It isn’t fair.”
Julie wrapped an arm around me in understanding. “We’ll get through this together. That’s what besties are for.”
I hugged her as emotion consumed me. “I want to stay strong,” I said, hating the salty tear that made a trail down my right cheek, “but how do I protect everyone I love when I can’t even protect myself?”
“You’ve got Jesse, and he loves you immensely. He’ll look after you, even if it costs him his life. No guy in their right mind would’ve stuck around for all of this. He left everything behind to be with you.”
I wiped another tear. “Yeah, he’s a great guy...and a cute one too.”
“What’s it like?” she asked.
“What?”
“When he kisses you?” she clarified. “I mean, does he nibble or bite or—”
“Jules! He doesn’t bite. He’s not a dog. No offense to you or Grant, of course.”
“Hey!”
“With Jesse, it’s...slow and sensual.”
“Seriously, though, it must be tempting for him, being so close to your jugular with those fangs of his.”
“He’s quite able to control himself.”
“No premature lacerations, huh? That’s good to know...and it’s a whole lot better than most teenage guys,” she said, grinning. She reached into her sack and pulled out a small bag of chips. “Here. Have some,” she said, holding it out to me. I promise not to growl if you get too close to my food.”
I laughed and munched on some chips.
“Hey! Quit hogging the snacks,” Grant suddenly said.
She smiled. “Bite me.”
“You’d better be careful, little girl. I’m a big, bad wolf, and I just might take you up on that offer.”
Fred turned to me. “See? That’s what I miss.”
“What? Two werewolves fighting over chips?”
He laughed. “No. It’s just... I wish I had somebody special in my life.”
“It’ll happen when you least expect it.” I looked up at Jesse and smiled. “Trust me on that one.”