Werewolves.
There were werewolves living in New Zealand. But I couldn’t let anyone catch wind of this. I had to somehow lie to my boss who was going to demand a story by the end of the weekend. I couldn’t very well tell him there were werewolves here. My boss was human. And Darcy and I had to keep the existence of supernatural creatures a secret to the human world. I had to kill these wolves somehow and then tell my boss it was just a large pet dog that had escaped into the forest. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.
I stepped back inside my cabin and plugged in my phone, which had died some time ago down the hill. When the phone had enough power to come back on, I had numerous missed calls and unread emails. I sighed and slumped on the bed as I clicked onto the first email just as my phone vibrated in my hand with an incoming call. I blinked, not sure if I was seeing the caller ID correctly. It was Darcy calling. Well, I wasn’t exactly surprised. And I was expecting him to call since he’d fled. I sighed again and clicked answer.
“Where’d you go?” I said casually, reclining back onto the pillow.
But Darcy’s voice was gruff and abrupt. He sounded pissed. “Are the wolves still alive?”
I sat up. “Yeah… I didn’t kill them if that’s what you’re implying.” I heard an exhale of breath.
“Good. They’re not doing any harm.”
“They are if humans keep seeing them. I can’t keep this up forever.”
Darcy chuckled. I shuddered, and blood rushed to my face, and suddenly the room was too hot. Damn him. I hated the way he made me feel.
“I knew you’d grow tired at some point, Emmaline,” he growled. I clutched the pillow behind me and squeezed tight. I squeezed the pillow so tight my fingers punched a hole through the pillow slip and into the fluffy down inside. I reached in and pinched out a tiny gray feather. I held it up between my thumb and forefinger and studied it.
“Don’t call me that. And I am not tired.” I let go of the feather and hovered it in the air in front of my face. Then I incinerated it with the power of my mind. Embers and ash fell to the bed in sooty clumps. I quickly brushed it off the white quilt.
He annoyed me so.
“Don’t lie to yourself, Emma. It’ll be best for both of us if you just give up and give in.”
I gritted my teeth and called my athame to me, which was still in the side of my boot.
“Don’t tempt me, Darcy. You’re making me destroy all this fancy bed linen. Carl, my boss, won’t be happy when he gets the bill for the damages.”
There was a pause, and then his voice was suddenly incredibly close like he was standing beside me. I glanced around and found him leaning against the door to my room smirking at me. I threw the phone on the bed, and because it was still plugged into the power cord, it slid off the bed and clattered to the floor. I growled and sent my athame hurtling toward him. And because he’d drawn some of my power long ago when he drank from me, he was able to stop the athame before it pierced his heart. I watched Darcy’s eyes go to the black smear on the quilt and what was left of the feather I had incinerated.
“Why are you destroying everything? You’re not mad at me, are you?” With the flick of a finger, he turned the athame around mid-air and sent it floating gently back toward me as if it were caught in a stream. I snatched it out of the air and set it on the nightstand.
“No. You make me mad. You drive me mad. You bring out the worst in me.”
He sauntered to the bed and sat inches from me.
“No. I bring out the best in you.”
I was momentarily entranced by his gaze. He was the spider, and I was the fly caught in his web. Then I realized what he was doing.
I screamed and used all my power to throw him across the room into the wall.
“Don’t use your vampire tricks on me, Darcy. I won’t fall for it.”
Darcy’s body crashed into the wall, splintering the wood. He was able to stop the momentum before going all the way through the wall. He pushed himself back to his feet and brushed off his leather jacket.
“I’m not trying to seduce you, Emma.”
He was starting to get on my nerves. I felt like shaking him and screaming and glaring at him like he was stupid. Instead, I let loose a noisy, frustrated breath.
“Then why are you here?”
“If you must know, Emma, I am here to make sure you don’t do anything stupid, like killing the werewolves. You have a choice to make.”
“Ugh. Why are you giving me an ultimatum? You’re not my boss. You can’t tell me what to do.”
“It’s the truth, Emma. You’re in denial. Make up a story for your boss, lie. Do whatever else you need to do. But don’t make any rash decisions.”
He walked out of the room but left me with his last words before he disappeared into the night. They were words that would haunt me for the rest of the weekend.
“Don’t kill the wolves. I’ll be watching.”
Then the door shut, and he was gone.