Chapter 39

Lucianus

I waited for a time, keeping track of Stella, and waiting for her to make her move. She may not be human, but she was just as stupid as many of them if she thought that I wasn’t going to keep a close watch on her and just trust that my threat was enough.

My wife told me more often than not that once Stella had decided to do something, there was almost no stopping her, even if it was a bad idea. She turned and headed out of the park. I glided through the shadows, stalking her silently for the rest of the night as she went around the city.

I followed her this way for three days. She wasn’t active during the day, but she moved her place of rest seemingly sporadically. There was a hotel, a few apartment buildings, and a few houses that she frequented, but most of the nights, she spent her time wandering around the city.

For a while, I thought she was simply lost and looking to learn the layout. She captured someone to torture and dumped their body carelessly in an alley. I almost rolled my eyes at her arrogance. I hated cleaning up after other werewolves, especially ones I didn’t like. I didn’t bother with the body. At the least, it would lure hunters to the city.

With any luck, they’d capture and kill Stella for me. I smirked at the thought, finding it interesting that there was no guilt there. I suppose my wife would have agreed to let Stella’s arrogance catch up with her at this point.

As I followed her, I kept my distance, but I could hear her conversations with people. She asked for directions, but there was something in her words that gave me pause. I didn’t know what to make of it until she had crossed the city, and I started to realize that she hadn’t been simply getting directions to a place. She’d been getting directions and the whereabouts of a person.

These people she was speaking to were hybrids at most, remnants of the time before the war or children of werewolves and humans hidden in the human world. Others of them were human familiars, relics of that bygone time when humans and werewolves had something like peace. I needed to be closer to be sure either way.

How interesting that she’d cultivated a network like this or was tapping into a network like this. Perhaps this was the work of the royal family, but there was no way of knowing for sure without capturing one of them and questioning them.

As I thought about it, perhaps that was the real reason she had been sent after me: I had been seen in the human world by one of their familiars. Perhaps it was that young vampire in the bar in Utah or someone else on the street.

I’d have to get an idea about how widespread they were and start to cull the royal family’s eyes on me. It was irritating. They knew how much it would irritate me to be watched like some wayward child.

I didn’t make it a habit to murder werewolves if I could help it, but the deaths of these werewolves and hybrids would be on their heads if I deemed it necessary.

They knew better than to try and keep tabs on me when they had done nothing for our people during the war.

My irritations with the royal family aside, Stella was proving to be just as stubborn now as she had been centuries ago. It didn’t take long to figure out that she was using her network to track Trinity, likely with the intention of finding the best time to attack her when she didn’t think I would be around to save her.

She left a bar with a nod to several men inside and headed into an alley. She seemed to be in a blissfully good mood when I dropped silently into the alley before her. She shrieked and stumbled back as I crowded her back into the shadows and glared down at her.

She trembled for just a moment. “How long… have you been following me?”

“I thought I warned you,” I said. “Yet you are clearly provoking me.”

Stella looked up at me defiantly. “You could kill me if you find it so irritating.”

I glared at her. “You think I won’t?”

“I think my sister means more to you than life, blood, and the territory you’re heir to.” She narrowed her eyes. “I’m her only living relative. Didn’t you promise her that I would always be your family? Are you going to betray her two-fold for a human girl?”

I grit my teeth at that. Yes, I had made that promise to her. She had asked it of me because of the difference in our stations. It was the reason that Stella could move about in the noble court the way she had without fear of being double-crossed. I was not a werewolf royal, but no one would cross me, not even after all of these years of my absence. It had protected her in ways that she could not even imagine.

And yet, she was throwing it back in my face as if it was owed to her. I pulled back, feeling my anger start to fade. She was little more than a child, willfully acting out. There was no real malice towards me in her, just bitterness and selfishness.

“Yes, I did.” She turned, and I blocked her path. “However, do not think that such a promise will hold sway over me should you choose to betray me.”

She scoffed and walked away from me. I watched her. The sun was rising. I returned to my living arrangements to clean up and contemplate the path forward.

Stella was a stubborn woman. She would not listen to anything I said. She would likely think I would be unable to kill her when it came time. I didn’t want to chance her testing it and me falling short the way I hadn’t been able to kill Trinity.

I didn’t want to be bothered at all, but I knew that if Stella succeeded in killing Trinity, it would be beyond my control. The madness that had gripped me for centuries, the grief and agony would have no end. I would lose control again, and the human world would be painted in blood, human and werewolf alike. Then, when I was done, I would march on the werewolf royal family.

Our world would never recover from my fury. They knew that, but Stella didn’t seem to understand that. It might be a move toward the death of me and everyone I still held dear, but it didn’t matter to me. Trinitia was dead. I already had so very little to lose, and I would not die without seeing them all dead first.

The air shifted as I stepped onto the balcony as twilight began to come. My connection to the shadows of the human world was different from that of the werewolf world but no less powerful.

A sense of alarm and warning went through me, and I focused on it.

I heard the screeching of tires and the crunch of metal that reminded me of the day I met Trinity and kidnapped her.

Then, I saw her get out of the car, stumbling around in a daze. I frowned, closing my eyes, and trying to find where she was as I smelled blood being spilled. I saw the glint of masks under the fake lights. Then, there were weapons and the pounding of Trinity’s feet across the ground.

I growled and disappeared into the shadows, running, and jumping—moving through the darkness until I reached the park.

She cried out as one of the assailants drove a blade into her shoulder from behind and knocked her to the ground. In wolf form, I grabbed him and ripped his head off, spilling his blood before throwing the corpse aside.

The rest of them let out cries of surprise, but none of them moved fast enough to evade my attacks. I severed their heads, ripped their limbs from their bodies, and stomped their chests into a bloody mess before taking human form again.

Trinity had dragged herself away. The scent of her blood filled the air as she pulled the knife out of her shoulder and turned to me. Her eyes were filled with terror as she dragged herself away from me.

“S-Stay away from me. Stay away!”

“Come with me, Trinity,” I said, taking a deep breath. “You’re—”

“No!” She turned from me with a hysterical whimper.

I looked down at her, deeply irritated, but I stopped approaching her. I turned back to the rest of the bodies as Trinity struggled to her feet and took off towards the main street.

Then, Stella appeared. I growled and turned to her. She grit her teeth. Her eyes filled with anger, but she didn’t scare me. My wolf was much larger than hers.

“Are you happy, Stella?” I asked. “Happy that you have crossed the line?”

“You’ve crossed the line—” she retored.

“I hope you relish the outcome,” I said. “Though I doubt you will.”