The Devil's Wolf
Chapter 7

There was a polite knock at the door.

"What?" Elior snapped over his shoulder. "If I wanted to be interrupted, I would call you."

"Was there a disturbance, Elior?" It was a man's voice. "Do you require back up?"

Elior sighed. "The situation is under control. Isn't it?" He narrowed his eyes at the bedraggled angel. "I have seen you before, during the battle of the ill-named Armageddon," he began to smile with revelation. "Your mate, Ashlynn?" He purred it smugly. "Your father might have an opinion on that."

The angel sneered. "Release the girl."

"I am not in thrall," Ashlynn stepped around Elior. "And Elior is not a danger to me."

"Come here, foolish girl," the angel held out a hand imperiously. "You seem bent on self destruction."

"No stay," Elior caught her hand. "This man tried to kill your mother, Ashlynn, he is not safe."

Ashlynn's lungs emptied with shock. A lot of people had tried to kill her mother, but only one of them had been winged. "Oh, f-k," she muttered grimly. "Well, that is going to complicate things. Cael?"

The angel lifted his chin and peered at her down his nose. "No," he angled his head and squinted at her as if trying to see past her features. "It is impossible."

"This is Cecelia's daughter, Ashlynn," Elior pulled on Ashlynn's hand, encouraging her away from the angel. "Cecelia and Raiden Grenmeyer's daughter, and Ashlynn Cohen, now," he added, firmly. Ashlynn glanced up at him, her jaw falling loose at the appropriation, but she shut her mouth. That was a discussion for another time, she told herself, when things weren't so tense and everyone so tired.

"F-k," the angel said under his breath. "It has gone to the next generation. I am cursed. Die, then, if you are so determined to do so, idiot girl, maybe that will free me," his expression held loathing. "Call me to you again, and I will kill you myself."

He turned and leapt out of the window, tearing the drapes down in his wake, so that daylight flooded the room, sparkling off the broken glass shards like they were diamonds. She saw the open spread of his feathers as he winged away. "Be careful of the glass," Elior edged her towards the door. "You will cut your feet." He picked her up, carrying her with ease out of the door before settling her down on the rich red of the hall carpet, and closing the door behind them. "Oh my god," she had begun to shake. "This is just f-ked up."

"Oh, I don't know," he replied as he took her hand. He looked both ways along the hall and inhaled before choosing a direction, leading her across the hall. He opened the door and looked within. "This will do," he decided drawing her in after him. He closed the door. The room was identical to the one they had just left, except its window glass was intact, rather than shattered over the bed and floor. "I am thinking that as sons-in-laws go, given the choice between a vampire and the man that tried to kill his mate, I might actually come out ahead with your father."

"Haha," she replied and let him ease her into bed. "He was Cael." She couldn't get over the twist of fate that had her mate the man who had tried to kill her mother during the battle of Armageddon, which had resulted in her mother discovering her wings and her power. And had, ultimately, lead to her mother being able to be turned into a werewolf.

"If that was the name of the winged man that tried to drop your mother to her death, then, yes, that was Cael," he eased his arm under her head so that she rested on his bicep and curled around her.

"His family had just been murdered, he was distraught," she murmured, her eyes heavy. "Oh, f-k, this bed is comfortable."

"Yes. Go to sleep, my mate."

"Elior," she said gently.

"Just... give it time, Ashlynn," he replied quietly. "The situation with Cael is complicated, and we will be together until we reach pack lands. It will not hurt you to give me time."

There were worse ways to spend her time, she decided, and Cael was going to be difficult. It wouldn't hurt to keep her bed warm with the gorgeous vampire in the interim, and he was such a delicious and talented lover. Her lips curled. "I would give you more than time, Elior, if I weren't so tired right now."

He chuckled and relaxed. "I am taking that as an agreement." He pressed his lips to the back of her shoulder. "Go to sleep, my mate."

She sighed and fell asleep at the end of it, only to wake, seemingly moments later, sitting straight up in alarm as the door opened, hitting against the stopper with a bang as if it had been thrown grandly back. Or maybe not grandly, she thought, so much as with attitude as the woman vampire from the day before walked in and deposited a load of shopping bags onto the foot of the bed with a sneer.

She wore her blonde hair pulled back in a scalp-torturing ponytail, and a black satin trench coat belted tightly at the waist beneath which the lazer cut lace of a dress grazed her knees. Her legs were clasped in above-the-knee boots that hooked with eyelets and laces and were, Ashlynn was sure, ridiculously expensive, because that sort of workmanship did not come cheaply. The heels were sharp and pointed enough to be registered as weapons, Ashlynn noted, and perhaps that was the purpose of them.

She looked very fashionable and disdainful, Ashlynn thought, feeling very shabby in comparison as she pushed the tangle of her hair back from her face and tried to suck the fuzz of the night from her teeth and wipe sleep from her eyes. "I have bought you clothes," the woman vampire announced.

The drapes covering the windows in this room were not fully closed and light spilled across the thick red and gold carpet, picking up and reflecting off fine dust particles in the air, and Ashlynn squinted against its glare. "Thanks?" "And shoes," the woman continued. "And toiletries."

"I appreciate it." Ashlynn wondered how she knew her size, but whatever was in the bags had to be an improvement over the stolen clothes and pyjamas and more decent than the top of Elior's that she still wore, though, she thought, it smelled of him which was very nice.

"Hmm." The woman reached into a bag and tossed a box at Ashlynn. It landed heavily on her lap. "It is set up."

A mobile phone. Ashlynn opened the box. "Thank you."

The woman reached into another bag and pulled out lingerie. "He likes stockings." She draped them over the foot of the bed with more respect than she had shown the phone. In the vampire's value system, stockings rated higher that technology, obviously, Ashlynn observed wryly.

"Okay," Ashlynn had a good guess which he she referred to and wondered at being dressed according to the sexual proclivities for one vampire by another. A little kinky, she thought wryly, but she could roll with it. If Elior liked stockings, and she liked the man, she would happily wear them for him, just to replace out exactly how much he liked them. There were many uses for stockings, she added to herself. She could always tie the vampire to the bed with them and have her way with him. Or, they might be handy, should her mate re-appear to keep him from flying off again. "I like stockings too," she decided. "I am sorry. Are you and Elior...?"

The woman arched an eyebrow. "Lovers?" She stared at Ashlynn for a long moment, her expression unreadable. "No." She was dismissive with the answer as if it were an impossibility with a side of disgust. "Elior is my father."

"Ah. Okay." Ashlynn knew that there were two types of children amongst vampires - biological children, and those the vampire chose, for whatever reason, to turn. She wondered what reason Elior had for turning this aggressively haughty woman. "I am Ashlynn."

The woman narrowed her eyes. "We are not friends. You do no need to try to be friendly."

"Obviously, and yet, here we are," Ashlynn held her hands out, palm up, in a shrug.

"You will cause him trouble. He does not need more trouble."

"Well," Ashlynn considered her and decided to prod her a little just for the hell of it. "I certainly don't want to cause him more trouble. I am happy to just f-k him stupid, if that keeps things less troublesome," she smiled insincerely, baring her teeth. "Very happy." She winked.

"Hmm," the vampire drew the sound out dubiously. "He is very important."

"I know, so important, and so big,"Ashlynn widened her eyes.

"No, you do not know," the woman was irritable in her reply. "Vampires are the gatekeepers between the human world and the Others. We are exposed to humans in a way the rest of the Others are not. Elior keeps the order, keeps the humans calm, and protects the Other world. Without him, the humans will panic and there will be another Armageddon. The work he does is very demanding, and unappreciated by people like your parents."

"Okay. I understand. I will try not to cause him any more trouble. I am sorry about the window in the other room. I am seriously just here for a ride home. And to ride Elior seeing as he is such a stallion," Ashlynn couldn't resist adding, enjoying poking at the vampire woman. "Giddy-up."

"You are very crude, and not at all his equal," the woman turned and strode across the room, pausing in the door. "In any way. Someone will bring you food," the woman's lip curled with distaste. "He deserves better than a failed wolf." "F-k you too," Ashlynn said sweetly, but she spoke to the closed door, the vampire was gone. "Friendly," she muttered to herself. "But with excellent taste in clothes."

She dug through the bags, raising her eyebrows. "Stockings, hm?" It didn't surprise her. If there was ever a man into lacey-topped thigh highs and garter belts, she thought, it would be the immaculate, suit wearing Elior.