Hunger Pangs Read online

  “Where are you headed?” she asked, grasping the case in both hands; her eyes lingered on the brass stripes pinned to the empty left sleeve of his greatcoat, which only partially concealed the sling. “We rarely get visitors this far north.”

  “I’m not visiting; I’m coming home,” Nathan replied, self-conscious of the scars that marred the left side of his face. He was acutely aware of how others perceived them; his injuries at the Bhalein had not been insubstantial: scarred face, ruined arm, and more. His hearing loss on the same side was just the invisible cherry on the shit-sundae his life had become.

  “Oh? And where might that be?”

  “Just a short walk,” Nathan replied breezily as he accepted his kitbag down from the driver. “Up past Braen Loch—”

  “Och, that’s miles away! You’ll not get any farther than the Tannochs,” she interjected, referring to the small cluster of standing stones that was now used as a signpost to the nearest pub. “The roads won’t be clear for another week yet.”

  “I wasn’t planning on going up past the Tannochs,” Nathan said as he adjusted the strap of his kitbag. “I was planning on taking a shortcut.”

  There was a moment’s pause while she took in his meaning, and then her expression froze; her eyes grew comically wide. “Surely you don’t mean to go through the woods?”

  “I surely do,” Nathan said, amused by her worry.

  “But you can’t!” she protested. “It’s not safe!”

  “I’m sure I’ll be fine.” Nathan assured her as he strolled toward the forest. “I grew up in these woods. But thank you kindly for your concern.”

  “At least stay on the path!” she called after him. “There’s bears and wolves and all sorts of wild beasts in there!”

  In the shadow of a towering hawthorn tree, Nathan turned to regard her. “Yes, I’m aware.” He sketched a polite, brief bow. “Good day, miss.”

  And then he left the woman, the crossroads, and the human world behind him.

  Like all enchanted forests, time had no meaning in the Ironwoods. Many a man had wandered aimless and happy through this forest and never known, nor cared, where he was until it was too late. Fortunately for Nathan, such dangers did not so readily apply owing to a minor technicality of species. Or at least, it never had applied until now. When he passed by the same fallen tree stump for the third time in as many minutes, Nathan took it as an invitation and sat down. The forest, he realized, was leading him in circles—just like it was supposed to.

  “Well, this is unfortunate,” he said, tilting his head up toward the canopy where thick red foliage blocked out the light.

  The Northland werewolf pack had been the guardians of this land since before the First Age of Kings. His ancestors had planted these very trees to keep his people safe from intruders… and now he was lost in them. It was almost funny in a bleak sort of way.

  Clearing his throat, Nathan opted for a little folk mysticism. His mother always said the forest listened to her children, and besides, it wouldn’t do any harm to try.

  Probably.

  “Um, hello,” he said, trying not to think about what he’d do if the forest answered back. “Look, I’m not much for faith, but if my mother is right and the spirits of the forest do listen, I’d like to make it home sometime today.” He considered his words, then added, “Alive. With all my bits intact. Please.”

  The clamor of everyday forest life continued around him, heedless of his plight. But there! Just on the edge of his limited hearing, off in the distance, Nathan heard the rhythmic sound of a smithy hammer striking iron. Typical. He rolled his eyes. All that worry over nothing; he’d been within walking distance of the gates of the castle this whole time.

  Clambering to his feet with a weary grunt, Nathan continued toward the sound, his feet growing heavier with every step. He was just about to sit down and rest again when he spotted the castle spires sticking up out of the horizon like two sore but extremely defensible thumbs.

  Nathan had never been happier to see them.

  He picked up his pace, and soon enough he stumbled over the lowered drawbridge. As he entered, Nathan dropped his kitbag to the ground and allowed himself a shaky bark of laughter as he tried to catch his breath. “Oh bugger that for a walk in the park.”

  “Nathan?”

  Nathan spun unsteadily to find his mother watching him from atop the kitchen steps, her chestnut hair swept back from the sharp features of her thin face. She looked as though she’d seen a ghost.

  “Hullo, Ma.” He smiled around the sudden lump in his throat. Belying her regal demeanor, she leapt to the ground at a run, barreling into him and wrapping her arms around his still healing chest. “Hey! Ow!”

  “Don’t you ‘Hullo, Ma’ me,” she scolded, clipping him upside the ear like an unruly whelp. “You had us worried sick, you awful child. Don’t you ever frighten me like that again!” Then just as quickly as she’d clipped him, his mother pulled him into another crushing embrace. “Oh, my boy, oh thank you Gods, my boy, you’re all right, you’re all right.”

  Despite his stinging ear and smarting chest, Nathan smiled tenderly and gently patted her on the back. “I missed you too, Ma.”

  “Let me look at you.” She drew back, holding him at arm’s length as she raked bright blue-gray eyes over him. He knew what she would see: brown curly hair made unruly by the rain, his face weathered and tanned by several years in the unforgiving desert climes, the crooked tilt of his smile. But he also knew he looked gaunter than before, the dark bruising under his blue eyes denoting yet another break in his nose, the red mess of scars still fading on the left side of his jaw, his arm—a shadow of the man he’d been. “Och, look at you, you’re naught but skin and bones. Did they not feed you in that infirmary? Oh, Nathan, silver! When they wrote to us…”

  “I’m all right, Ma,” Nathan reassured her, flexing his injured arm so she could see his fingers move against the lapel of his greatcoat. “It just aches a bit in the cold.” It was a lie, but a convincing one he’d told so many times he nearly believed it himself.

  “Well, we’d best get you in front of a good fire, hadn’t we?” His mother swiped at her tears with a self-conscious little laugh. “Oh, but look at the state of you! You’re soaking wet! Honestly, Nathan, did you walk all the way home from the front?”

  “Only a little, Ma.” Nathan allowed her to fuss and berate by turns as she led him inside. His reply was mostly accurate, he reflected as he wiped his boots on the rug inside the door, if you didn’t count the bits where he’d crawled.

  Still, despite everything, it was good to be home.

  *

  Some weeks later, Nathan sat under the shadow of the Ironwood’s ancient Ancestral Tree, his head bowed. Around him, the sound of the hunt rose into the night. Nathan turned gleaming eyes up to the bright light of the full moon.

  His blue human eyes.

  “Well, that’s that, I suppose,” he said, grateful there was no one around to hear his voice crack. The wellspring of grief stoppered in his chest finally broke and overflowed, washing away the terrible hope he’d been carrying for so long. There was no escaping the reality of his situation now. Nathan might have survived the silver bullet, but the damage was irreversible.

  He was wolfbound no more.

  After a time, Nathan got up and began the long walk home. He turned back just once to look up at the moon framed by the boughs of the Ancestral Tree, the bare branches shining silver in the lunar light. It had been a wild and childish hope to think that coming home would cure him. But it had been hope all the same. Now, even that was gone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Also Also 1887

  Framed by the rising full moon, Castle Eyrie loomed against the skyline like a jagged bruise reaching for the stars. With an appropriate sense for dramatic narrative timing, lightning split the sky, followed by an ominous peal of thunder. By rights, a flurry of bats ought to have ensued moments later.

  But then you can’t have ever
ything, can you?

  Inside, a party was underway, the ghostly echo of a string quartet floating out into the night. Secluded on a balcony overlooking the tumultuous sea, a young man was very obviously beginning to regret several of his life choices.

  Vlad Blutstein, Viscount of Eyrie and self-proclaimed misanthrope extraordinaire, gathered the shadows further around himself as he studied Lord Foxley. He couldn’t understand what Elizabeth saw in him. His cravat, for one thing, did not complement the rest of his attire. And his shoes were entirely inappropriate for the season. They were white for goodness’ sake. Who wore white after Queen’s Day? No one with taste, that was for sure. It was like she was deliberately taunting him: both with the flirtation and the other man’s appalling dress sense. He couldn’t help but notice, however, that while she smiled and laughed at all the right places her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  The glint of her fangs, however, very much did.

  Poor man. Elizabeth really needed to stop toying with him like this. It was cruel. But that was Elizabeth for you—beautiful as a diamond knife and twice as deadly.

  Vlad could almost hear Sir Foxley’s thoughts. Should I run? Should I stay? Will everyone laugh at me if I do run? She’s so beautiful…

  Someone should probably save the young man. Not because he was exceptionally valuable, but because of the mess it would cause if he did become Elizabeth’s dinner. There were laws about that sort of thing, and while Vlad wasn’t particularly an obedient kind of fellow, the island guards probably wouldn’t like having to investigate the fop’s disappearance. Especially considering the disappearance of their own Captain.

  Which meant that Vlad would have to be Lord Foxley’s knight in shining—well, shadowy—armor. Damn, he needed a cigarette.

  Striking a match, Vlad emerged from the shadows. “I do wish you wouldn’t play with your food.” He paused dramatically to take a drag on his cigarette. “It does so unnerve the other guests.” And me, but he didn’t say that aloud.

  “Vlad, darling.” Elizabeth extended a slender hand to him. “I was just coming to find you.”

  “I’m sure you were.” Vlad took her hand and pressed his lips to the cold digits. When he straightened, it was to find the young man staring at Vlad in wide-eyed recognition—like a mouse who had been caught creeping into the cat’s lair. “Why, if it isn’t Lord Foxley. What a pleasure it is to see you again. Are you enjoying the party?”

  “Er, y-yes, Viscount?” Lord Foxley squeaked.

  “Percy here was just telling me some utterly charming facts about fox hunting,” Elizabeth interjected, giving the petrified man a glowing smile that seemed to do little to calm his nerves. “Did you know, Vlad dear, that the start of a hunt is called a ‘cast’?”

  “Fascinating,” Vlad agreed as he flicked the ash from the end of his cigarette. “Percy…” he said, his eyes never leaving Elizabeth.

  “Er, yes, Viscount?”

  “Piss off, there’s a good chap.”

  “Yes, Viscount, right away.” Relief flooded his voice. “Thank you, Viscount.”

  The little lordling fled, leaving the vampires alone on the balcony. Silence settled, well, as much silence could settle in the middle of a party with a gale threatening, which was to say not much silence at all. But still, there was a distinct lack of talking and that was really what Vlad was aiming for.

  Elizabeth folded her arms across her chest and raised a dark painted eyebrow at him. She was a natural blonde, but you’d never have known it under the elaborate black wig she was wearing. “Well?”

  “Did I say anything?” Vlad countered mildly.

  Elizabeth’s hands moved to her hips. “No, but perhaps you ought to.”

  Vlad shrugged as much as the stiff line of his tailored dinner jacket would allow. “Would it make any difference if I did?” It felt like all of their arguments started this way. And most of their conversations too, now that he thought about it.

  Elizabeth returned his shrug, moving to perch on the side of the balcony appearing for all the world like a beautiful little songbird—if songbirds had diamond-capped fangs and a streak of malevolence a mile wide. “Probably not.”

  Vlad stood beside her, staring out at the roiling sea below. It was quite nice of the sea to mimic the churning of his stomach, he thought as he waited for Elizabeth to tell him what was truly bothering her. If she stayed true to form, it wouldn’t be long now.

  Eventually, Elizabeth said, “You left me,” with an acerbic note of accusation in her voice.

  Lifting his cigarette to his lips, Vlad sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. It had been mere weeks since their last fight. It was probably time for another. “Captain Falmer waylaid me. He wished to discuss business.” He tried to keep his tone as even as possible.

  “That’s even worse,” she sniffed, her nose in the air. “You left me to talk to a tradesman.”

  “Captain Falmer is a gentleman and a first-rate engineer,” Vlad corrected. Not that it should have mattered. “And besides, you were well attended to the last I checked.”

  Down below, the party spilled out into the courtyard. The people of Eyrie were hardy sorts; they had to be, living on an island where the rain whipped sideways and hail regularly fell from the sky like meteors. But even the foolhardiest Eyrie citizen tended to stay inside during a thunderstorm. Vlad watched them cavort boisterously around the garden, their voices echoing loudly off the castle walls.

  “I wonder if they realize how small they are with all their tiny thoughts,” Elizabeth mused, her gaze and voice distant as she peered beyond the crowd’s rowdy exterior. “So ordinary. So mortal. Do you think they know how little their lives matter?”

  “I wouldn’t know, dear. That’s always rather been your forte,” Vlad replied with only the tiniest hint of scorn in his tone. While Vlad had his affinity for shadows and sparks, he’d been eternally grateful he’d not been cursed with the ability to read others’ minds. Absently, he massaged the side of his head. Perhaps it was the storm, but he could feel a headache coming on.

  “True,” Elizabeth conceded, reaching out to card her fingers through his dark hair in a rare open gesture of affection. Though Vlad suspected it was simply to stop him rubbing at his temples. “See her over there?”

  Obediently following the line of her spear-like fingertip, Vlad squinted at the indicated woman.

  “She’s having an affair with her sister’s husband,” Elizabeth told him, a nasty smile tugging at her ruby-red lips. “She’s worried her husband will find out when the baby is born early.” Elizabeth pointed to another person. “He cheats at cards; he’s got an ace up his sleeve. And he—”

  Vlad cut her off, shifting out of reach of her touch. “I wish you wouldn’t do that, love. People have a right to their own thoughts, however insignificant you may find them.” He tapped the ash from the tip of his cigarette negligently. “I’ll keep that in mind about the card, though. That’s Lord Ellington’s son; I’ve got a game of whist with him later.”

  Elizabeth shrugged, her gaze still fixed on the group. “If they don’t want me to look, they shouldn’t think so loudly. Or stupidly. Honestly, why does Lady Margarete insist on inviting them all? Some of them aren’t even proper gentry.”

  Neither were you when we first met, Vlad thought morosely as he jabbed his finger against his temple when the pressure spiked. Elizabeth tried to pet him again, but he shook her off. Usually, he would have welcomed any slight gesture of affection from her, but right now, it was just another source of annoyance. Out loud he said, “She likes people. And they like her.”

  Visibly annoyed, Elizabeth went back to her jaunt through the guests’ heads. It was almost like she was taunting him. “They’re thinking about the war,” Elizabeth informed him with a lilt of defiance. “They all are.”

  Vlad laughed bitterly, taking a long drag from his dwindling cigarette. “I don’t need to be psychic to know that. The war is all anyone is talking about.”

  “T
hey say it will be over by Yuletide,” she said, blinking back into the present with a delicate shiver.

  “Oh?” Vlad asked as he flicked the butt away and shook his rain-drenched black hair back out of his eyes. “Which one?”

  He hadn’t intended the remark to be funny, so it surprised him when she laughed. “Oh Vlad, really, you’re too droll sometimes. This one.”

  “It’s a nice thought, but I rather doubt it.” The politicians had been saying the war would be over soon for the last few years. So far, all that had happened was that ‘soon’ had lost all relevant meaning.

  “Really?” Elizabeth seemed surprised at his statement. “What does your father think?”

  Vlad selected another cigarette and slotted it carefully between his fingertips. He stared at the tip, willing it to ignite. It was easier than trying to strike another match against the wind. “The Count is exceptionally pleased he bought up all those war bonds from the last big war.”

  “Oh, well then.” Elizabeth sniffed, her interest in the looming global conflict dropped as easily as a lace handkerchief. “I don’t see what all the fuss is about. It’s just some stupid scrap of land no one’s ever heard of.”

  “Yes, dear,” Vlad said diplomatically as he finally managed to get his cigarette lit. He took a long pull, letting the hot, acrid smoke settle into his lungs before letting it go. “Though I doubt the people in Bhalein see it that way.”

  They lapsed into silence again, listening to the dull roar of the sea crashing against the rocks below. Vlad felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to find Elizabeth looking at him expectantly. Discerning what she was after, Vlad lifted his hand obligingly. But instead of taking the smoldering cigarette from between his fingers, Vlad was treated to the rapturous spectacle of Elizabeth clasping his hand by the wrist and raising it to her mouth, her blood-red lips pursing around the gold-tipped filter. She exhaled directly into his face, her lips parted in the ghost of a kiss.