I jolted awake to a knock on the door, laid across the couch with a blanket draped over me and a pillow under my head. For a moment I tried to ignore the knocking, thinking someone else would get it, before it rang out once more.

  Right, everyone was at the party.

  With a groan of exhaustion I rose to my feet, stretching as I walked over to the door and opened it without asking who. If someone was attacking me I didn’t particularly care, and if someone wasn’t that was on them. Hell, for all I knew I’d get to brag I’d won at nine pizzas to Andrew’s seven and a half. Besides, as often as I’d actually been attacked over the last couple weeks I was actually going to consider it a bit unfair if it happened again.

  As soon as I opened the door I wished it was an assassin.

  The Lady and Vergil stood outside, Vergil wearing a pair of black slacks and a mostly open red button-down, and The Lady in a yellow dress and hat that might have been Victorian. In the dark of the night, The Lady’s eyes seemed like two dots glowing red, and I could have sworn Vergil’s had an almost yellowish tint to his brown irises.

  “Okay, what did I do this time?” I asked, sighing as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes

  “What did you do this time?” The Lady asked, stepping forward as she looked up at me, “Where is your…parole officer, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “I’m not sure, probably his room? I think it’s just Andrew here, everyone went to a party… I think? I don’t know if anyone’s home, honestly,” I said, frowning as I stepped aside and let the two in, “do you need me to get him?”

  “Do you need to get him?” she repeated back, shaking her head for several seconds, “I will fetch him, you should…await here.”

  I nodded, and without another word The Lady started through the house and up the stairs, her movements seeming to almost glide over the floor with her feet hidden. It was strange to see, and I watched her closely even as Vergil walked in front of me and fought for my attention. He seemed conflicted, and I saw a strange glint of curiosity in his eyes as I looked back up to him.

  “Getting your hair fixed?” he asked, pointing to my hair and making me remember how it looked. I was being dragged into an emergency meeting and looked like absolute shit.

  “Tara’s helping me out,” I admitted hesitantly, lightly reaching up to touch it, “should I be worried about what’s going on?”

  “More ready to explain yourself,” the man admitted with a shrug, reaching into his pocket and pulling out two slips of paper he passed over to me. “The Lady picked up on something being off with the tickets I acquired for you — you’re terrible at coming up with fake names, Max Cady, really? — and requested I explain. A few facts bled into each other, and she wished to ask you what exactly was happening.”

  I nodded, knowing full well what this was about, and sighed as I leaned against a wall to wait. There I stood until there was the sound of a large crash upstairs and several seconds later Andrew and The Lady came downstairs. The Lady bore a look of moderate annoyance and disgust, and Andrew wore just a pair of sweatpants with a large bruise healing on his eye.

  The man walked over beside me, and we went into the living area as I hesitantly asked, “are you okay?”

  “Yeah, The Lady just did not understand that when you wake someone up at one in the morning they’re bound to say some weird shit,” the man muttered, rubbing the skin as it began to bubble in its healing.

  “I would have hit you harder if I didn’t need you awake,” the woman declared slightly spitefully.

  “What did he even say?” Vergil asked, following us in with a look of confusion.

  “That I had this dream before,” the man admitted with a grunt, sitting beside me on the couch.

  Vergil frowned a moment, and then seemed to consider the point before nodding in agreement. He began to declare, “I can respect-” before cutting himself off as The Lady shot him a glare as well.

  “You can respect it,” The Lady muttered in annoyance, narrowing her eyes, “you are lucky I only find one person here…tempting, and she isn’t properly socialized for such roles.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked, frowning in confusion.

  “Wait, what,” the woman agreed, nodding as she glared down at me. With a sigh, The Lady pulled a cigarette from her pocket, and held it out between two fingers. Vergil didn’t move for a moment, and The Lady stared him down until he stepped forward, pulling a lighter from his pocket he lit her cigarette with. She smiled, drew a long draw from it, and told me, “you have been…a very bad girl, Mary.”

  I nodded, thinking she seemed too proud of herself even as she blew a wave of smoke in my face. The acrid air filled my lungs, and I twisted my face up as I looked away from her, half covering my mouth. It smelled horrible, and I felt like attacking her as I asked, “can you not smoke in here?

  “Can I not smoke in here?” she asked, holding the cigarette idly in her hand, “I have a bit of a…game, I play with myself. There are twenty things I have no interest in. Every five years I take a month to…indulge the habit of one, see if my opinion on the matter has changed. Only wine so far has won though, smoking took its place,” She smirked, looking at Andrew almost coldly as she declared, “sadly for your parole officer there are five more years until I observe if my opinion on men has…shifted, at all. I do tend to kill those men after though, so perhaps I’ll keep him in mind on those merits.”

  “How’s the smoking working for you?” Vergil asked, obviously trying to keep the small talk up like it’d put The Lady in a good mood, “I always found it boring, but something to do with your hands. Calliope made me quit a few years back.”

  “What do I think of smoking?” she asked, frowning as she looked down at the cigarette a moment in disgust, “it’s not very…pleasant. The taste is strange, and I don’t really get the appeal of the… hobby.” I watched them for a moment, seeing The Lady seem to swirl it over in her mouth a moment, before she added on, “I don’t like it.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Andrew and Vergil looked like they were holding off laughs at her bluntness, and I stared at them confused. I tried not speaking immediately, but still unsure of what was going on asked, “am I in trouble?”

  “Are you in trouble?” The Lady asked, suddenly turning her attention back to me with a look of pure annoyance, “I say we should be the ones to…inquire about that, no?”

  Well, shit, that probably meant this was going exactly where I thought it was and I had to explain everything. Vergil had probably let slip that someone was threatening my life, and now I needed to explain that.

  It was going to seem bad, it was probably going to raise too many questions at this point, reveal too many crimes.

  I needed to be honest.

  “Someone’s threatening my life,” I said hesitantly, getting a surprised look from Andrew, “I’m supposed to answer a request for a duel within seven midnights. If I don’t, they’re going to kill someone important to me.”

  “Someone important to you,” The Lady muttered, clicking her tongue, “who would that…be?”

  I froze for a long moment, trying to avoid looking away as I lied and told her, “my dad.”

  “Your dad,” The Lady repeated back, making me wonder if she believed me or not, “and why did you… hold this back from me, little morsel?”

  “It has to do with shit I did in the Purists,” I said, not sure I could have even lied about that, “I…I didn’t want it hurting how people thought about me.”

  “Hurting how people thought of you,” The Lady muttered, nodding as she took a drag from her cigarette, “you were… pardoned for all crimes committed in the Purists, confessed and unconfessed. What could there possibly be that would…shame you any further?”

  I paused, not sure if I could bear myself to say the crime, to confess to what I’d done. Not in front of Andrew, not when he could tell everyone and make it known to them all. It was too great to say, the only crime a werewolf could never forgive, and I’d done it without any remorse for the action.

  Alpha deserved to fucking die, and my regret was only that I needed to confess the true crime behind it.

  “We, the pack I used to run with, killed a man’s son,” I said stiffly, trying to hide all the emotional pain it caused to admit, “he was one of our fellow packmates. We hunted him down, ate his heart, and his father found out somehow.”

  There was a long stretch of silence, and everyone seemed to be reacting in their own ways at the news. Vergil looked confused, The Lady seemed emotionlessly annoyed, and Andrew out of the corner of my eyes looked horrified. I felt him shift on the couch, trying to resist the urge to move away from me, and I held back my tears to the reaction.

  It was precisely what I should have expected from him.

  Finally The Lady broke the silence, turning to the man beside me as she asked, “She hunted him down. she killed a packmate…this is an…offense, among the werewolves, is it not?”

  “Yeah, um…yeah,” Andrew muttered out, his eyes boring into me as he explained, “it’s…your pack is supposed to be the people closest to you, like family. I…I don’t know how it is in the Purists, but…yeah.”

  “The Purists punish it with death, or at least…anyone can duel you for the offense” I answered for them, hugging myself tight at the words, “my pack kept it hidden, I’m not sure how he figured it out just yet.”

  “You’re not sure how he figured it out,” The Lady said slowly, sounding almost judgemental as she paced the floor, “Mary this is…quite the predicament you have placed me in. You make it seem like you’re guilty with your… actions, and you expect me to think you a victim?”

  “I know how it looks,” I admitted, ready to rise up and only then stopped myself, “you need to understand though, this wasn’t on me. I…we needed to kill him, and I shouldn’t be the one getting fucking punished for this. I didn’t want you all to get the wrong fucking idea, and I didn’t want any of you to know about this, okay?”

  The Lady nodded slowly, slowly stepping toward me as she clicked her tongue in absent thought. My breath was uneven, my heart racing, and I felt on the verge of tears as I resisted the wolf’s urge to run away. Fuck, I couldn’t even move if I wanted to, not sure what to expect, and she started, “didn’t want any of us to-”

  She reached out, touching my chin for not a half second before I was on my feet and my hand was wrapped around her throat. A warning growl escaped my lips, my nails lengthened, and I felt my eyes shift, and not a moment later I realized what I’d done.

  Everyone looked shocked, except for The Lady who continued to look eternally bored by the whole exchange. Vergil looked unsure of who he was supposed to help, and Andrew looked ready to run out of the corner of my eyes. I wasn’t even sure what I was supposed to do, and instead could only stand there frozen as I watched The Lady reach up and wrap her hand delicately around my wrist.

  She didn’t even seem to flex a muscle, but before I knew it a burst of pain shot through my arm and I was forced to let her go.

  I growled, nearly falling back on the couch as I gripped at the place she’d touched, now loose and with bones poking out in several places. My arm radiated in pain, and I panted for a long moment even as I tried willing the bones to snap back in place.

  “Mary,” The Lady purred, standing above me as she traced a nail along her palm, drawing a thin line of blood, “do promise not to do that again. Now, be a good little morsel and apologize.”

  “Sorry,” I hissed out, trying to control the anger boiling within me as the wolf wished to lunge toward the woman.

  “Sorry,” she scoffed, shaking her head as she held her hand above me, “do…partake, in a few drops of this, little morsel.”

  I nodded, knowing better than to argue with her, and held my head up to face her bleeding palm as she squeezed it into a fist. The blood, thick and smelling better than anything else in the room, gathered on her skin, formed a bead, and slowly fell down. The drops slipped against my lips, against my teeth, against my tongue, feeling like a drug in my veins.

  I let out a moan, and shivered even as my wrist felt like it was healing nearly instantly and The Lady withdrew her hand. She looked down at me in disgust and, with a brief scrunching of her lips, licked her hand once to heal it. My arm healed and still trying to contain my anger, I watched as she turned her back to me and started out the door.

  “The matter is settled,” she said, sounding strangely sad in her emotionless way. “I can’t have an…outside threat dealing with my agents. You shall deal with it and…supply me proof of the issue being settled.”

  “Fine,” I said, trying to focus on calming myself down, even as I watched Vergil and The Lady walk off.

  A few moments later the sound of the door opening and slamming rang out, and I felt Andrew step up behind me. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and Andrew said my name a few times as it rang out dully in my ears. I didn’t respond, and it was only as his hand went to touch my arm I jerked away and turned back to him with a growl.

  “Don’t fucking touch me,” I warned the man, mentally trying to come up with the best way possible I could rip out his throat. When he took the warning, stepping back and lowering his hands, I stormed past him and through the door to my room. Andrew didn’t follow me, and I was glad for it as I slammed the door shut and locked it behind me.

  Lord wasn’t in my room, something I was happy with, and I crawled under my blankets and held them tight around me as I laid on my side.

  Right now, I need to be alone.

  Right now I felt like I needed to never see another human again.