The Devil's Wolf
Chapter 17

It was bitterly cold, and the water was inky around them, disappearing into the night sky on the horizon. The winking lights of the shore seemed so far away, a strand of fairy-lights in shades of orange and gold that draped along and netted the deeper black of the land. The water rippled in constant movement, small disruptions indicating life below - Mer? A curious dolphin? A fish, or some other aquatic life? Or just a change of current underwater?

Did Mer sleep? She wondered. Where did they sleep? She tried to imagine what it would be like to sleep in the water? Or did they come ashore like seals during mating season, and sleep on the curve of sand with the water sucking at their fins?

The vampires were on their phones again. The horror movies had it wrong, she thought with amusement, casting vampires as velvet wearing, shadow lurking relics of old times struggling to move forwards and preying on sleeping virgins. These vampires were very modern in dress and technology, although occasionally speech patterns would hold shadows and accents of the time of their birth, and if their prey of choice was commodities and business. The modern-day vampire was a suit wearing businessperson and they stalked boardrooms and not graveyards.

Elior's conversation was getting heated. She did not know the language that he spoke in, but he spoke it with fluency, spitting the syllables into the receiver with vehemence. Despite his tone, his face did not reflect anger or frustration. He was very much in control of the conversation and used the impression of anger as another political tool.

There was something chilling about how adept and thorough he was in his manipulations, she noted as she searched the skies for a speck of white against the midnight, but other than the stars, there was nothing to be seen.

She hugged her coat closer around her as Elior ended his conversation, sliding the phone into his pocket. "I am so looking forward to clean clothes," she told him.

The rowboats were only just visible on the horizon and seemed to crawl across the water at a ridiculously slow rate, the water giving and curving around the prow. She could make out a great many people on board and wondered where the vampires and she were meant to fit. The moonlight picked up the white line of jaw and nose, throat, a glint of metal, but otherwise they were blurs of moving shapes to her that vaguely resembled people.

"No airplanes," Elior murmured his eyes also on the sky. "They have closed the airways."

"What does that mean?" Ashlynn asked him. She took his hand, her skin crawling with alarm.

"Trouble," Jacinta predicted direly from her left.

The bark of machine guns was loud, kicking up sparks across the hull of the submarine and echoing off the water. Elior threw Ashlynn out of its path. She slid along the slick metal as if it were a child's slippery dip, until the water met her, it's touch icy, forcing the air from her lungs in a gasp. She blew bubbles, her eyes stinging in the salt, as she flailed, the water having swallowed her neatly, taking her deep.

For a moment, there was no direction underwater, and the thick wool of her coat was a cumbersome weight that bound her arms and tangled around her legs as it dragged her deeper. She kicked off her high heels and fought her way free of the coat as she tried to determine the way to the surface, turned around, her salt-blinded eyes seeing nothing but darkness and her chest compressing as her lungs demanded that she inhaled, even if that inhalation was salt water. As her lack of air became desperate, a flash of light appeared in the distance, the gleam of moonlight on silver scale, catching the sheen of hair and fin, and an arm wrapped around her waist, lifting her, until she broke through the waves, gasping. The mermaid's dark eyes blinked vertically with milky white lids and then horizontally.

The fish catching the fisherman, Ashlynn thought as she gasped and clung to her savior with gratitude. "Thank you." The submarine was some distance off she saw with surprise, a dark shape reminiscent of a surfacing whale, in the waves. She could not tell what happened, whether the battle continued or whether it was over, and she felt the pinch of fear for Elior as the mermaid arranged her so that she lay on her back and propelled them both through the water.

On the other side of the submarine, she could hear gunfire and screams.

"I have her," Elior's voice was a relief as he caught her against him. "Thank you." The mermaid surrendered her catch with a flash of pointed teeth and dove back into the waves.

Elior clung to the side of the submarine, his hand on the rung of a ladder. He helped her to replace purchase on a rung below her feet but retained his grasp on her as the waves tried to steal her away. They listened to the gunfire and screams and clung together until a sudden silence descended.

She looked up at him in alarm wondering if they were going to have to abandon their perch an swim for shore, but, after a moment, the tension left him and he looked down at her.

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"You drifted out further then I had expected," he commented pressing his lips to Ashlynn's forehead. His vampires had won, she thought, as he obviously did not fear being overheard. "I feared that I had lost you for a moment."

"It was so fast, I was surprised by the distance," she admitted her teeth chattering with the cold and shock. "I was on the point of drowning when she grabbed me. I couldn't tell top from bottom in the water." "Well, thank f-k Gladrielka found you," he replied, his tone disconcerted. "I am sorry Ashlynn."

"What happened?" Ashlynn was shaking so hard she could barely speak, her breath misting before her face. Even Elior's breath was warm enough to mist, she noted, which was evidence that it was f-king cold, as vampires' internal heat was not normally enough to do so.

"Traitors," Elior replied grimly. His attention shifted, and he looked up towards the rise of the submarine. She could hear voices, laughter, and movement across the metal. "The mer had it handled, once they realized what was happening. They upended the boats and dragged those onboard down. They will spend an unpleasant time in the depths of the ocean until the fish pick their flesh from their bones," he predicted with enjoyment.

A rowboat approached them around the submarine, and Jacinta and Rebecca climbed down from above, not surprised to replace Elior and Ashlynn clinging to the side. They had known, Ashlynn thought, somehow, that they were there. She wondered if Elior had entered the water to rescue and keep her safe rather than fight with his children above and glanced up at his face. Yes, she decided, that was exactly what had happened, and her heart tightened. Her vampire, her mate. "Here," he lifted Ashlynn until she could grasp their hands, and they transferred her into the boat, before reaching back for him. He had cast off his suit jacket and just wore the sodden shirt and waistcoat, somehow managing to look neat and tidy, and a little like a model, she thought, in designer wear on some sort of strange fashion shoot, with his hair slicked back by water emphasizing his sharp cheekbones and strong jaw and his eyes smouldering.

He moved up the submarine gracefully, to the hatch where a sailor stood. She could not hear what they said but Elior gestured and pointed towards land, and then they both laughed and clasped hands and he slid back down the side as lithe as a wild-cat and took the seat facing her.

"I won't sit next to you," he told her apologetically. "I have little body heat to offer you and would probably just make you colder." He was unaffected by the cold, though his lips were visibly blue as he took his phone out of his pocket and grimaced. "Another phone destroyed. I have no luck with them," he commented ruefully flashing her a wry grin.

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F-king oath, she cursed as she shivered and dripped onto floorboards of the rowboat, the man managed to turn her on with his beauty even when she was half drowned and frozen through.

Nate slid down the submarine, effortlessly, and landed neatly into the boat, perfectly balanced. He took off his jacket and dropped it around Ashlynn's shoulders. It's lining held no body warmth - the vampire too cold to generate it, but it was better than nothing and she accepted it with gratitude. "Thank you, Nate."

"No survivors," Nate announced without acknowledging her or his kind gesture, sitting next to Elior and looking at her as if she were an interesting specimen in a jar that he was watching react to a chemical.

The boat rocked as Jacinta and Rebecca stepped into it. They sat to either side of Ashlynn, facing towards Nate and Elior, pressing close with irritated sighs. As they were dry, they were trying to offer her their minimal body-heat, she realised, but they didn't want to. "Thank you," she said to them through teeth that wanted to chatter annoyingly.

The boat began to move, and Ashlynn would have fallen if the vampires had not braced her from either side.

"Someone is trying to kill me," Elior observed sounding mildly amused, as it the attack had been nothing but a minor diversion, rather than an actual threat to his life.

"Do you have a long list of enemies?" Ashlynn wondered surrendering to the shaking as her body tried to heat itself. Her lips were puckered and cracking from the salt water and her eyelashes were crusting with salt.

"I have lived a long time," Elior replied unperturbed. "The list grows every year. Add to it my position in the vampire community, and the possibilities are extensive. We will need to seek shelter with the werewolf community again," he decided. "It is beginning to become a habit, but at least I know the identity of the person there who would like my head."

He grinned at Ashlynn. "And Raiden we can distract simply by mentioning the name: Cael."

"Haha," Ashlynn grumbled.

"We need to warm her," Rebecca commented. "She will suffer hypothermia. If she dies, the werewolves will not offer us shelter. And," she added hastily when Elior cast her a glare. "She is your mate, of course."