Page 54 of The Agent and the Outlaw
The words were a whisper at my ear, startling a yelp from me. I whirled to see the man in black standing next to me, glaring at the soldiers with his unnatural eyes. In this light, they looked more red than yellow, and despite my own frightening state, I shuddered in fear. My lips pulled back in an involuntary snarl, but he raised his hand to stay me.
“You have nothing to fear from me, Comtesse. On the contrary, I am here to protect you.” His voice was deep and hypnotic, lulling me into a strange sense of comfort.
I would have scoffed had I been in human form, but it came out as a sniff. He chuckled.
“I have much to explain to you—not at this moment, but soon. For now, I think it’s time we finished off these so-calledbeasts of blood. Don’t you?”
I didn’t trust him, but the softthumpof Antoine’s heart sounded dangerously thready. What was the saying?The enemy of my enemy is my friend.I glared at the soldiers, then back at the man. He seemed to sense my resignation. He grinned, displaying two sets of fangs—teeth unlike any vampire I’d ever seen.
“Excellent. I’ll take the two at the front. While I have them occupied, you sneak in and take out the two in the back,” he directed, his tone suffused with ennui. He began to disrobe, and I looked away, embarrassed. Again, that dry chuckle. “Ah, and one more thing,petite louve. If you decide to eat them, I daresay you’ll have a terrible stomachache afterward. Take it from me.”
With that, he shifted into the wolf-like beast I’d seen before. It was a gruesome sight, watching the immediate restructuring of bone and skin and sinew. In wolf form, he nodded once to me, and we took off in opposite directions. The closer we got to the cave, the stronger the scent of blood.
Dieu, please let Antoine be okay.
“Frederick, do you smell that? I think it has returned—ulp!” Before the vampire could finish his sentence, the beast leaped atop him, clamping its jaws tightly around his throat.
The other soldier out front dove into the fray, hissing and screaming. I turned away to avoid witnessing the gory spectacle, praying that the wet crunching and yelping sounds meant things were going in our favor. The two soldiers inside saw the fight taking place out front and turned to help rescue their comrades, but they weren’t expecting a second monster, which gave me the advantage. I jumped in before they could draw their weapons and knocked them both to the ground. I attempted to bite one around the neck but was clumsy and instead ripped open his shoulder. He screamed and pushed me off with impressive strength while the other soldier lunged at me with his sword. I dodged the attack, praising my balance on four legs instead of two, and clamped down on his arm, ripping his hand off. His sword clattered to the ground, and he screamed, clutching the bleeding stump where his hand had been. Before I could attack again, the first soldier slammed into me, knocking the wind from my lungs and pushing me back against the cave wall. He leaned forward, fangs bared in an attempt to bite my throat, but I twisted away in time, and he reeled back with a mouth full of brown-black fur.
“Arrrgh!”he spat. “What the hell are you?”
His comrade moaned on the floor, attempting to staunch the flow of vital blood from his arm. I snapped at the vampire holding me, trying to force him off balance, until he stumbled backward and tripped over his prone companion. He rolled mere inches away from my unconscious Antoine, which elicited an automatic snarl from me. He raised a brow, apparently realizing my loyalty, and held his sword at Antoine’s throat.
“One more step and I’ll kill him,” he threatened. I growled but backed off. He raised his other sword at me, preparing to strike. “Stupid bitch!”
Before the lunge came, Antoine’s eyes flew open, and he thrust his own sword upward, impaling the vampire from below. He crumpled to the floor on top of the other soldier, who was dangerously close to passing out.
Antoine looked at me, dazed and bleeding. To my utter dismay, his eyes filled with horror, and he gripped his sword until his knuckles turned white. He struggled to get to his feet and hobbled in front of Van Helsing protectively. She tried to speak around the gag in her mouth and her muffled cries echoed off the walls of the cave. Antoine’s eyes darted to her before waving his sword threateningly at me.
“Antoine, calm yourself! It’s me!” I tried to say, but it came out as a canine whimper.
I need to change back and let him know that he’s safe—that I’m safe.
I closed my eyes and tried to find my humanity deep within, but the pain from my injuries was too distracting. Antoine picked up a stone from the cave floor and threw it at me, hissing and shooing.
“Be gone, foul beast!” he shouted. “Get back! We’ve no quarrel with you—leave us be!”
Van Helsing struggled some more, trying to attract Antoine’s attention. I cowered against the wall of the cave, worried that, in his fear, Antoine would run me through with his sword. He took a step toward me, but in bounded the other creature, letting out a warning growl as he paced in front of me.
The shock at seeing two werewolves stopped Antoine in his tracks. He paled and stumbled to his knees, clutching at a bloody gash in his side. Again, I whined.
Thankfully, Van Helsing is here—she can patch him up!
I cut my eyes to her, but she was staring at my comrade with a mix of…what?It looked like disbelief, sadness, and…longing?How odd.
I heard the soft click of a pistol cocking and looked to see Antoine leveling his twin flintlocks at us.
How rude!I barked at him, but he gestured toward the mouth of the cave, indicating we needed to leave.
Again, the other beast growled, but I was not about to test Antoine’s charity when he was gravely injured and near death at the hands of thebêtes.Tail tucked humiliatingly between my legs, I trotted outside. I would fetch my clothes, find a quiet place to shift, and come back to help Antoine and Van Helsing.
I thought I heard the other beast following me, but when I turned around, he was gone.Merde.I was unsettled by his sudden appearance and disappearance, and needed to ask him about a million questions that were racing through my mind, namely,who are you, what are you, why are you here, how do you know me, what the devil did you do to me?
The visceral remains of the two soldiers out front littered the grass and bushes. I wrinkled my nose, glad for the darkness. I didn’t want to see any more blood tonight. The tally so far was at least three of thebêteswere dead—or, dispatched, as it were. That left the one called Frederick gravely injured and handless, and the one called Hugo… Well, I wasn’t certain what had become of him.
I walked slowly back to the small glade where I’d stashed my bundle of clothes. My ribs hurt from smashing into the cave walls, and the bitter taste of plague blood lingered in my mouth.Dieu,I was tired. Had I really rested for two weeks during my transformation? It felt like I hadn’t slept in a month. My stomach rumbled with hunger, despite having eaten a large meal just this evening. I suspected I needed to eat more often if I spent more time in this form, given that I’d just run several miles and fought a gruesome battle.
Enough, Charlotte. Relax. Take a deep breath. Find your center and shift.
