Part 5 (2/2)
He smiled. ”You are not dead, Tori. You're just a little more than human now.”
”And the man who did this?”
”He's not exactly dead either. But he's no longer human.” He moved closer, grabbing a soft chenille throw from the foot of the bed and draping it over her shoulders. ”A true, full vampire doesn't feel the cold of a late evening in early spring. Or the heat of a sultry night in August,” he told her, using the warmth of his hands to chase the goose b.u.mps from her body. ”A true vampire can't have a climax without drawing a little blood. And most, even the ones who aren't feral, don't mind some pain thrown in.
”They cannot eat food, even though the older ones can tolerate liquids. A full Master learns to tolerate bits of the evening sun, when it is at its weakest.” Reaching up, he laid the pad of his thumb against her neck and said, ”And a vampire's heart can only beat so many times. It takes too much energy, and would drain him, if it beat as steadily as yours.”
”So if I am not a full vampire, but a little more than human, exactly what am I?” she asked, reaching up and covering his hand with hers.
”I imagine you are a bit like me,” he mused. Lifting his eyes, he met hers and said, ”A hybrid.”
He watched as her brows lowered over her eyes, as her mouth pursed briefly before she repeated, ”A hybrid.
Exactly what would make me a hybrid? And how are you a hybrid?”
”My mother was human, although she had the blood of s.h.i.+fters, both were and inherent through both sides in her blood. My father was a s.h.i.+fter born, able to control his form from the time he was thirteen. His father had been a were, and pack leader. His mother was an inherent s.h.i.+fter. After they died, my father was made pack leader, being the eldest son of the pack leader.
”He led them for many years, alone. And then he came to America on business, and met my mother. They fell in love and married within one week of meeting each other. She went to Ireland with him, was taken rather reluctantly into the pack. I was born three years later.
”We left Ireland when I was ten. Ireland was too small for the pack. It was growing-even as rare as our kind are-it was growing. And Ireland still believes in myths and magic. It was getting too challenging to remain hidden. And too many people had gone missing. Da had a few feral were in the pack and he executed them.
They had started hunting humans.
”After the execution, he felt it was wiser to move the pack. The pack was given the choice to go, or stay. The majority went with him. Wolves feel loyalty to a rather extreme degree, and even though they were reluctant, they went.”
”But one of his seconds decided after we left Ireland that we should have stayed and gone back to the old ways-hunting whom we chose, trying to infect as many as we could. He kept his wishes quiet, not wanting Da to know he was trying to change the pack's mind. He gained a few followers. He talked of how Da was trying to make them human again, to weaken them. How he had taken a human woman instead of another wolf.
And he had a whelp who was just human. Neither inherent or were.
”They killed him because he wouldn't live as an animal, because he took a human as his wife, and because I wasn't a s.h.i.+fter. They thought.
”The night they killed him, he was ambushed by men he thought were loyal to him. They also killed my mother that night. Broke her neck and left her lying in bed, like she wasn't worthy of anything more.
”I was sixteen, and away from home on a camping trip with a friend. They sent only three of the younger Alphas to take care of us. I was just human, you know. No true danger-not against three fully grown weres. One went after Cy, and the other two came after me.
”Cy? Your partner, Cy? He knows?”
”Yes. The one who went after him left him for dead, thinking he had gutted him. Cy spent the entire summer in the hospital recovering.” He paused, reflecting. ”The were that attacked him left without ensuring Cy was dead because he heard something, felt, and smelled trouble. Most weres can't change unless it is close to the full moon. And a were never has his first change until the full moon is overhead. But the were heard something.
”He heard someone bellowing the way they do until they learn to control the pain the change can cause. It was me.”
”You.”
”Aye. One of the were bit me. That's how you become a were, you see. It's rare. If a thousand people were bitten, only five or ten would become were. And some don't survive the first change. The infection, or curse-whatever you want to call it-pa.s.ses from one generation to the next through the men. The women who get bitten don't get pregnant. It sterilizes them somehow. A man who has been bitten and becomes a werewolf has about a fifty- fifty chance of pa.s.sing it on to his children.
”Inherent s.h.i.+fters, like my grandmother, are even rarer.
And they are the most feared. An inherent is one of the few things an Alpha were will fear. If an inherent enters an Alpha's territory without permission, without warning, one of the first things the Alpha will try to do is kill that inherent, because if that inherent wants it, he will be pack leader. He is dominant, even among the dominant Alpha werewolves.”
”Why?”
He looked down. ”The inherent has so few weaknesses.
The animal is his to call, as he chooses. It costs him little energy to s.h.i.+ft-whenever-as often as he chooses. He doesn't feel the call of the moon and if an inherent chooses, he can resist the change for months on end.”
”And this is important because...?”
”To resist the siren call of the moon is the ultimate power. The were struggle for control-to control their impulses as the moon draws nearer, to resist the need to hunt. The need to hunt repulses almost as much as it entices. The inherent doesn't have that battle.”
”So what are you-were or inherent?”
”You've been with me on nights of the full moon before,” he reminded. And so they had, a number of times, meeting to exchange information or running into each other by chance. And once on a stakeout.
”So you are inherent.”
”I'm both.”
”Both?”
”Aye. Ma had the blood of an inherent, and Da was a were. I feel the call of the moon, but I can answer or ignore it as I wish. I control the animal at all times. It doesn't control me.”
”But you hadn't ever changed before. What happened?”
Declan smiled, rather bitterly. ”I was infected. I fought back, and I was stronger than they had expected me to be. I hadn't ever been fully human, despite what we all thought.
”They weren't able to kill me. Two weres against one should have worked- except I was more powerful-a true wolf. Inherent wolves are almost always dominant to a were, and they didn't realize what they had caused.
One of them was a powerful Alpha and could change shape at will. He changed and bit me. And that is what caused me to change. There were inherent gifts inside me, but they had never been tapped. When he bit me-”
”He tapped them. He set those traits loose, and you were able to s.h.i.+ft.”
”Yes. I s.h.i.+fted, and I...was able to get away,” he finished after a brief pause. He wasn't ready to tell her about the other trait that many of the more powerful inherents had-the one that made all Alphas fear the inherent in their midst-the gift of fear, the ability to radiate a ferocious fear that could paralyze the mind and body.
”I found one of my father's seconds-one who was loyal- and he kept me hidden until William Murphy-the one who had betrayed my father-went to take his place as pack leader. He had the proof that he had killed my father, and he was under the impression that I had been done away with.”
”Why kill you?”
”As long as I was alive William couldn't claim that he was rightful leader. Even though I had never changed, I was the son of the leader. Tradition and pack law were things the pack lived by. If a wolf wanted the old leaders.h.i.+p gone, he had to kill the leader's entire blood family, from his mate down to the grandchildren.”
”Killing children, lovely,” Tori whispered, grimacing.
Her skin had gone pale again, and her eyes were wide and a dark, turbulent blue-troubled. ”What proof?”
”You don't really want to know, do you?”
”I think maybe I need to. I'm trying to follow this, and I know it's unpleasant, but I think I need to know.”
<script>