The Devil's Wolf
Chapter 18

His children, Ashlynn thought, viewed her as an unwanted step-mother invading their happy family. The idea entertained her, and she snickered. "I am the evil step mum," she grinned at Elior whose lips curled in amusement. "I can warm myself," she added. "When I am not sitting in a wooden boat on water. But I will need some clothes. They don't tend to survive the process if I wear them during and putting on wet ones will just chill me again."

"I am intrigued," Elior arched a brow. "I am assuming a fire spell."

"That would be right. And the sooner the better," she told him. "I am so cold. I would offer to do the same for you," she told him apologetically. "But it is difficult to do for someone else without accidentally burning them, and I am so cold and tired it will be too dangerous."

"Thank you, but the cold does not affect me," he smiled warmly. "And the wet clothes are a minor inconvenience."

"She is like a doll," Jacinta said to Rebecca. "I must eternally be procuring clothing to dress her in."

"You love it," Rebecca smiled at her around Ashlynn, there was a warmth to her eyes as she looked at the blonde vampire.

"I love shopping," Jacinta agreed. "But this will not be shopping. It will be stealing."

The white curve of sand appeared before them, and Ashlynn moaned in anticipation of the warmth of the fire spell.

"Not where we intended to land," Elior said as the Merfolk sent the boat towards the sand. "But we are adaptable."

Nate leapt out, holding the boat whilst Rebecca and Jacinta lifted Ashlynn between them, and deposited her onto the sand. The two women vampires disappeared, blurring from Ashlynn's sight.

"They will not be long," Elior assured her. "No doubt someone has left their washing on the line overnight."

Ashlynn began to strip off her clothing under the cover of Nate's coat. Elior met the other vampire's eyes and made a slight gesture of his head, sending Nate into the night. He took the coat from Ashlynn. "Nate is out of sight." "Okay," she didn't much care at the moment, her need for cold outweighing her modesty. "Step back a bit, Elior. I don't want to burn you."

She cast the fire spell, the flames flaring brightly around her, lifting her hair as the heat sizzled the moisture from its strands. She almost swayed with the pleasure of being warm, as the flames intensified a moment before going out. Elior stepped forward and dropped the coat back around her. "That was impressive. You are an accomplished witch."

"Told you my parents didn't send me out into the world unprepared," she told him. The coat was slightly damp and unpleasantly cold against her skin, but better than being naked. "I might not have been able to turn wolf, and I might not have the power of my mother, but what she and Uncle Alatar could teach me between them, they did."

"Pity you cannot do the same for me," he looked down at himself wryly. "My tailor will be happy once this is done, however. The number of suits that I am destroying."

His three children appeared, and Jacinta and Rebecca circled Ashlynn pulling the coat from her despite her protestation and dressing her like a wilful child. "Just like a doll," Rebecca smirked.

Ashlynn looked down at herself and shrugged. What they'd placed on her was more like what she normally wore - t-shirt, jeans, sneakers, and a jumper. Elior was dressed in sweatpants and a hoodie. He twisted his hair, tucking it into the neckline and pulled the hoodie up around his face.

"A disguise?" She asked him.

"It will not necessarily work, but it is better than nothing." He took her hand and led her across the sand. The three vampire children had disappeared again.

"Where have they gone?" She was glad they had brought her sneakers as she had to trot to keep up with the pace that Elior set. The car park near the beach was empty, but the street parking around the houses a street back from the esplanade were full.

"If they are visibly near me, we are identifiable by them. At this time, it is best if we separate ourselves," he replied.

"That leaves you unguarded, doesn't it?" She watched as he tested the handles of a parked car before moving her along to the next.

"Unavoidable at this time," he found one which had a window unwound just a little and inserted his fingers, pushing down on the glass. The glass cracked. "Damn it," he muttered. "Pushed too hard."

"Do you want some help?" She picked a car and placed her hand against the handle. "Recludam," she murmured and heard a click. She opened the door. "Ta-da. I can start it too if you like."

He grinned. "How convenient. I was going to hot wire it, but your way is less complicated."

"It's the least I can do as I am slowing you down," she felt guilt for that. She slid into the passenger seat and used a spell to activate the engine for him. She suspected that he would prefer to drive than be driven. "Without me, you could just run to the pack lands."

"That may be," he replied as he eased the car away from the curb. "But if I showed up without you, it would be doubtful whether I would gain access. The pack has a long memory, and vampires have not been permitted to cross pack boundaries since the misnamed Armageddon."

"Misnamed?" She watched the streetlights slide over his face. Dressed as he was, he was almost unrecognizable as the Elior she had watched on TV, that gloss was well and truly gone, but she preferred this Elior, her Elior.

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"I don't know who began the use of the name, but it was premature," he shrugged slightly. "Though I do think that naming that skirmish gave many people comfort as it made it a past event, rather than a present one. "Armageddon is not one uprising of vampires against vampires and humans, nor one battle in werewolf territory. It is the exposure of the Other world to the humans, and that is far from complete. The reality is that what we call Armageddon was only the beginning and the last twenty years, what was begun then has continued."

He was right, she realized. "Do you think the rest of the Other world will be exposed?"

He glanced at her as he waited for a streetlight. "I think it is inevitable, and maybe necessary. The time for hiding and secrecy has passed. The vampires should not be the front-line of defense for the Other world, it makes us targets, as you see

now.

"After Lucian, we took this position because it was unavoidable - we had already been exposed. But it is unfair to expect us to continue to protect Others when there is no protection for us."

Ashlynn could not imagine a world without glamour, she could not imagine werewolves being identified as such. At the moment, her people moved freely amongst the humans, unidentifiable as different. Take the glamour away, and that freedom would disappear.

"Shit," he cursed as they hit traffic and had to stop, the car behind them hemming them into the queue.

"What is it?" She wondered. She could see red and blue lights ahead.

A muscle worked in his jaw as he considered. "I think it's safe to assume that it has something to do with humans moving against vampires and therefore does not bode well for us."

"You need to run, Elior," she told him urgently. "You need to get to pack lands, where they cannot reach you. I'll be alright. I'll just be a bit slower."

He weighed up the options, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel. She heard the metal framework beneath the padding groan in complaint. "I don't like that idea," he said. "But it may be unavoidable."

They got out of the car. The driver behind them honked his horn and gestured with his hands. "Hey!" He wound down his window to yell at them. "You can't just walk away from your..." He looked up in alarm as Cael's landing on his roof caused the metal to groan.

Cael stepped onto the bonnet, and from the bonnet to the ground.

"Cael," she felt her heart leap.

"They are searching for her," Cael said to Elior, ignoring Ashlynn. "They know what she is and want her. I will take her."

"Thank you," Elior seemed relieved to see him. "I will meet you at the pack lands?"

"I remember how to get there," Cael picked Ashlynn up like a child. "I will race you," he added with a wicked grin and jumped back onto the car bonnet, and from there onto the roof, as if Ashlynn weighed nothing. His final jump from the car roof onto the air caused the car beneath him to shake on its axle, and Ashlynn could see the human drivers and passengers pointing through their windows.

"You're not glamoured," she realized as he gained height. She could not see Elior below. Cael's wing strokes were powerful, carrying them through the air at speed.

"Only slaves use glamour." He had changed, wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt now, rather than the torn shirt and slacks she had last seen him in. His feet were still bare, but it was somehow appropriate for him to be barefoot.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her face into his neck, enjoying the scent and heat of his skin. Cael's skin carried the scent of sandalwood and bergamot whereas Elior's was rosewood and patchouli. She could bottle them, she thought whimsically, and sell them as a perfume.

"Thank you for coming for me," she pressed her lips against his throat.

"You are dangerous," he replied. "Your bloodline, and the other Wingless. It is bad enough that you have let that vampire have your blood. If the distribution widens, this realm will become unsettled again, and my people may decide it is necessary to quell the uprising. Once they open passage into this realm, my last refuge will be lost."

"That may be true, but that is not why you are helping me."

He glanced down at her, and his eyes narrowed. "If anyone is going to kill you," he told her, his lip curled. "It will be me."

"You're going to regret being mean to me one day," she predicted.

"That day is not today," he landed on the road in front of her parent's house.

Elior leaned on the porch railing. "I won."

"We arrived at the same time," Cael replied. "The slaves may not be able to track your movements, vampire, but I am not a slave."

"No," Raiden stepped out of the shadows, the moonlight glinting off the golden Other in his eyes. "You're a f-king devil. Convince me not to make you a dead one."