The Devil's Wolf
Chapter 3

She sheltered under the overhang of a building during a sudden downpour, hugging her arms around her and shuffling from foot to foot trying to alleviate the contact of each bare sole with the cold concrete. Her breath smoked out in the cold.

Ironically, in the window behind her, the faceless mannequins of the fashion store were immaculately dressed from top to toe, and seemed to laugh at her predicament from their dry window boxes.

"Just f-king great," she muttered to herself as she shivered. "No phone, no purse, no bra, no shoes, and it is f-king raining."

As soon as the rain eased into a mist, she set out again, not wanting to stay still too long in case she was pursued. If they were Wingless, how had they tracked her? She wondered as she danced around a puddle. The cuffs of her pyjama pants were getting wet from the spray and stuck unpleasantly to her ankles.

She had performed the wards daily, even whilst in hospital. Unless that brief time when she was unconscious had been long enough for them to locate her... Surely not, she thought. But who knew? No one, to her knowledge, had managed to actually talk with the Wingless in order to really understand their motivations, or how they tracked down the descendants of Evelyn.

Her mother and father had encountered them several times over the last two decades, and Cecelia had defeated them each time, with the Wingless fleeing through portals to where-ever they came from. There had been discussions, she knew, involving Alatar, about trying to hunt them down and ending the threat that they presented, but life through up distractions from their plans, and the threat of Wingless was a minor inconvenience, really.

Until they traced you down in a foreign country, totalled your car with your purse and mobile, and then tracked you to your apartment, driving you out into a rainy night in your pyjamas and bare feet, she amended ruefully. Then they became more than a minor inconvenience, they became a major pain in the arse.

She was entering the city center, and drew stares as she made her way along the road. She kept her head down, knowing that it wouldn't stop her looking out of place barefoot and in pyjamas, walking briskly along the busy streets, but feeling better when she didn't have to meet anyone's eyes.

Her feet were freezing, and she regretted mightily not wearing a crop top under her pyjama top. "If wishes were horses," she muttered to herself as she dodged another puddle. "This beggar would drive a Porsche."

"Hey, gorgeous," a man called out, to a chorus of laughter from the group around him. They were leaning against the wall, trading a bottle of whiskey between them. Young men, dressed for a night out on the town of a different sort to most, these wore hooded jumpers under their jackets, ripped jeans, joggers or, rather grimly, steel toed boots. All the better to stomp you with, she thought.

Down the alleyway, she could see two of them beating up another man, and a third spray painting the wall. They looked up at the man's greeting. The two gave the man on the ground one final kick, the oomph of his breath loud, and then grabbed the spray painter by the shoulder, laughing and jerking their heads her way with lewd comments.

"Hey," she turned her eyes to the ground quickly, and kept moving.

They peeled themselves away from the wall as she passed, the ones from the alleyway trotting to catch up as they fell in around her. It was one way, she thought, to disappear, surrounded by a wall of thugs up to no good. For many, it would mean a permanent sort of disappearance.

In her, however, they had bitten off more than they could chew. Raised by alpha werewolves, Ashlynn wasn't intimidated by the thugs. She had a few tricks up her sleeve that would more than take care of them if they persisted. In the meantime, she eyed them off, they might prove useful.

The one who had called out to her, moved in closer, dropping his arm over her shoulders. "Your old man kick you out? You look cold," he commented, to the amusement of his friends. A variety of comments followed, or the predictable sort. "Would you like some whiskey? Here, Dan, pass it." He offered the bottle.

She took a mouthful, grateful for the burn.

"You can have more," he encouraged, trying to tip the bottle back to her lips.

"I skipped dinner," she told him, pushing it away. "I will puke if I drink too much."

"Fair enough. How about a smoke?" "Don't smoke."

He was edging her across the footpath, positioning her for a grab into an approaching alley. She imagined that they had rape on their minds - they certainly weren't keeping her company for fun. She stopped walking, smiled at him, and angled her face upwards in invitation.

He took her up on it, closing his mouth on hers, his tongue flavored with whiskey and cigarettes, and one of his hands against her lower back, pulling her against him, whilst the other explored her arse, pushing his erection against her stomach as he did so.

His friends whistled and joked whilst she used the lessons taught by her mother since a child and pushed the magic into him. She eased the kiss back and judged his size and clothing options. "I want your jacket and jeans."

He began to remove his clothing.

"James, mate," his friend laughed as he toed off his shoes and shoved his jeans off his hips, leaving him standing in close fitted boy-shorts covered in comic strip characters. "What the f-k?"

"Nice undies," Ashlynn sneered as she pulled his jacket on over her pyjamas, and shoved her legs into his jeans, before checking his shoe size as he stood shivering, oblivious to the ribald comments of his friends. "Did your mummy buy you those?"

She turned to his friends, spotting one whose feet looked the right size and smiled at him."Want a kiss handsome?"

"We all want a kiss, lady," one of the others said chortling and nudging his mates.

"Alright, but wait your turn," she replied, and kissed the one whose shoes she wanted. "Shoes, my friend," she said to him as she eased back and watched him toe them off with speed. With her feet covered, she grinned. "Much better." The friends were beginning to suspect that something underhanded was going on.

"Hey," one of them said in a tone of protest. "You can't just take off with their clothes."

"Why not?" She replied, feeling cheerful now that she was warmer. She began to run along the sidewalk.

They gave chase, half torn between their dazed and spellbound, semi-clad friends, and the others determined to catch her. But their smoking habits caught up to them quickly, and she laughed as she put distance between them and her as they had to stop to catch their breaths, doubled over and bracing their hands against their knees, and yelling out breathless insults behind her.

She slowed back to a walk and as she did so, she caught a glimpse of something white on the rooftop above her. She slid a look up discretely and felt her heart leap. She was being followed, and not by a gang of creeps, but by a very delicious looking golden haired winged man.

She put her hands into the pockets of her stolen jeans and trotted across the street. From there, she had a better view of her roof-top stalker, and it was a view well worth having. He was ridiculously pretty, she thought, and seemed to shine in his whiteness against the overcast sky. He walked a parallel path to her, across the roof-tops, his wings carrying him effortlessly over the alleyways and streets that cut through the buildings.

There was no glamour on him, and it was testimony to human beings inattention to their surroundings that no one looked up in order to spot the winged man that strolled along the roof line over their heads. He certainly made no effort to hide himself, she thought. His wings were out on full display, their white feathers bright against the dark clouds.

An angel, or a devil, she thought, watching him. Her parents had spoken to her of the origins of the people on their realm. But they had indicated that angels or devils did not come there, and that it was forbidden. What did it mean then, that one had saved her from her car wreck, and that he was her mate?

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What did it mean that she knew he was hers, although she was unable to transform into a wolf? Had the car crash been life threatening enough that it had begun to release the ties around her abilities? She hoped so, but it was just as likely that her latent abilities simply let this through.

How it worked exactly, no one knew. Not her mother, not her Uncle Alatar's coven, and certainly, not Ashlynn.

She could use magic taught to her by her mother, but she could not generate the power to her hands as her mother could, she could not change into a wolf, and she could not cause wings to grow. It was very frustrating, she thought, to be something too rare to be understood.

He was scowling even as he shadowed her passage through the city, and she grinned. Her ornery angel was all pissed off that he was irresistibly drawn to her through the mate bond. She had several ideas just how to make it up to him when she got her hands on him again. And her mouth. She giggled cheered by the warmth of her new clothes.

She approached the vampire embassy, a building clearly signposted as such in gold lettering above the front door and by the propaganda that covered the windows on the lower floor. There was a line painted around the door and a sign plastered on it. She knocked on the door, watching her angel out of the corner of her eye, and saw him brace his arms against the lip of a roof, the scowl on his face darkening.

The sign on the door read:

"Vampires in Attendance On Thursdays and Mondays

Auditions only on these days

All auditions only by appointment.

Appointments issued only to online applications.

Outside of these Hours Call..."

The door opened and an exceptionally elegant blonde woman dressed in immaculate designer wear from top to toe, leaned against the frame, red flashing in her eyes as she rolled them heavenwards.

"Auditions are held on Thursday and Mondays," she said in a disinterested drawl. "And only by appointment when an online application has been lodged. It is illegal to turn humans until the paperwork has been through the appropriate channels, and the age of said human has been ascertained."