Mistfall (3 page)

I turned around, ready to demand to know why
he was staring at me and hot damn he was gorgeous! The bronze god
before me was wearing jeans and an un-tucked white dress shirt, his
body stretching the material around his arms, chest, and
thighs.

Mr. Sex Personified had a full head of sandy
blonde hair, piercing turquoise eyes with gold flecks around the
irises, and full lips you wanted to nibble on. I must’ve been
lingering on him a bit too long because he cocked one eyebrow up
and grinned at me. I could feel my cheeks turning scarlet but shook
it off, not having time to be embarrassed.

“Why have you been staring at me all night?”
I strained, trying to be heard above the music.

He took my arms, putting them around his neck
and grabbed my waist, pulling me closer, his lips finding their way
to my ear yet again. There was a distinct tingle going down my
spine right before my body broke out in goose bumps.

“I was looking at you because you are
beautiful and I found it hard to look anywhere else.”

He started moving in time with the music,
leading me, while my brain went to mush.

“I..I don’t even know your name,” I
stammered.

He pointed to his ear and shrugged, letting
me know that he couldn’t hear me. I dropped my arms from his neck,
settling on his chest to back away from him, feeling distinct
ridges and valleys under my fingertips. I can’t say I wasn’t
halfway interested to see him shirtless.

Unable to have a conversation in such close
proximity to the speakers and him, I grabbed his hand and led him
to the hallway in the back of the bar, near the bathrooms.

“Okay, what’s your name and why have you been
staring at me all night? Do me a favor and give me the truth this
time while you’re at it.” As flattering as his words are, I knew he
was full of it. No one watches someone like a predator staking out
its next meal without reason.

“My name is Luca. As for my story, I still
claim what I said before. I will, however, add that I did not like
seeing the wolf trying to paw his way all over you tonight. When I
pulled you to me on the dance floor, it was to keep you from him.
He was only a few steps from you. Luckily, his back was
turned.”

I guess chivalry isn’t quite dead yet.
“Oh, well, um, thank you and my name is Mags,” I said, tripping all
over my tongue.

“Well Mags, I would like to buy you a drink,
would you join me?”

“Sure, why not, but no Purple People Eaters
please.”

He gave me a quizzical look. “What’s a Purple
People Eater?”

“I haven’t a clue, but I definitely don’t
want another.”

He brought his hand up and pointed to me.
“Alright then, no crazy sounding drinks, but you have to promise me
something.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Next time you come here you have to follow
the rules, no pets allowed.” His straight face broke out into a
huge grin and we both laughed at his joke. I told him that it
wouldn’t be a problem.

Over the course of the next two drinks I
found out a few things about Luca. He was twenty-seven, one of two
children, and in town visiting a relative for the next two weeks.
Good news for me, he only lived twenty minutes away on the Mistfall
side of Eden, Kentucky.

I told him a little about myself, skirting
around the truth as much as possible. I didn’t lie though. As
hypocritical as it sounds, I’m big on trust, even when I’m omitting
certain parts of my life that could get me killed. The redacted
version included my parent’s death, my moving here, and sharing a
house with Melissa.

I was pushing the ice around my empty glass
with a straw deciding if I should have another, when I glanced at
the clock above the bar. It was around midnight which gave me an
hour to get home before the
brew
wore off. I could’ve stayed
for one more, but didn’t want to push my luck.

“I should get going,” I told Luca.

“So soon?” he asked.

I nodded in response.

“Well, how about dinner tomorrow night? I’d
like to see you again.

“That sounds like a good idea,” I replied,
trying to not sound as excited as I really was.

We exchanged phone numbers and he offered to
walk me to my car, but I had to find Melissa and get my jacket and
purse. I thanked him for the offer, told him I was looking forward
to dinner and walked away, his eyes on me until I disappeared into
the crowd.

I made my way back to the booth, peeking
around the people milling around in front of it. David was slouched
down in the both intoxicated.
Great,
I thought,
now I
have to walk.
At least I had my cell phone. We only lived two
miles away so it was no problem to hoof it.

I sent Melissa a text:
Hey girl, going
home, gonna walk. Grab my purse/jacket? Thx.

The phone beeped. I looked at it to find that
my message didn’t go through. 3G service…only when you’re outdoors
because no one ever calls from inside a building. I put my phone
back in my pocket. I would try and get a hold of her after I got
home. I walked out the doors, said goodnight to Vin, and headed
across the parking lot and into the adjacent park to cut through
and shave ten minutes off my walk.

I was distracted, musing about the surprising
turn of events in my night, so I didn’t hear David’s footsteps.

“Leaving so shoon shweetheart? I
thought..hic..you and I were going to have a good time
tonightsh.”

Fan-flipping tastic, I’ve got a drunk
stray following me home.
I turned around and saw David, drunk
and staggering as he continued to walk towards me. I shook my head
at him. “David, go back to the bar and leave me alone.”
Please,
please, please,
I prayed to all the deities, hoping one could
spare a second (They kept busy schedules).

“Why would I do that, shmexy?” he said while
closing the distance between us.

“Because, I have no interest in you. Now go
away before I call animal control!” I really wasn’t in the mood for
a confrontation with a drunk and horny werewolf.
Maybe I can
magic him up a stuffed animal to hump.

The drunken look on his face was replaced by
one of anger and hunger. And I don’t mean a t-bone and baked potato
hungry either. “Now that wasn’t very nicesh of you to shay. I’ll
give you one more chansh of coming over here baby. If you don’t,
I’ll come over there and take whatsh mine, one way or another.”

That’s it, I’m going to neuter him.
“So my choices are between letting you fuck me or fight me? Well
mongrel, I’m going to make it easy, I choose fight,” I snarled and
dropped down to a crouch.

I freed one of the daggers from my boot and
swiped up as he lunged at me, ripping through his pants, leaving a
six inch gash along his thigh. My dagger wasn’t silver, so there
wouldn’t be any lasting damage, but I could temporarily disable him
long enough to make my escape.

Wolves are a little more special than the
rest of us Otherworlders in terms of killing. Our weapons would
hurt them, but unless the damage was severe, they healed easily. If
you really wanted to hurt a wolf, have your weapons coated in
silver. It screws up their healing, painfully prolonging it or
causing death.

“You bitch! I’m going to make you pay for
that!

His right hook made contact with my cheek,
leaving me on my butt seeing stars. I could taste the blood from
where he split my lip. I scurried back on my hands and feet,
crab-like, to buy me precious seconds for my vision to recover.
Looking through the stars, I could see he was no longer in control
of his emotions. His body was becoming twisted and deformed, bones
breaking and twisting into new shapes.

He was snarling and growling, in the throes
of the change. I needed to do something quick before I had paws,
claws, and snapping jaws to fend off and I didn’t think throwing a
stick and playing fetch would do it.

When they change, werewolves are rather
intimidating looking. They are about three feet tall on all fours
and ten feet long, weighing in around two hundred pounds. I’m 5’8”
and one hundred thirty pounds, you do the math.

I shuddered when I thought of the jaws.
Becoming a butt-sniffing dog-jinn hybrid was not on my list of
plans for the night. David was still immobilized in place
mid-change as I headed back over to him, his transformation almost
complete.

I wrested my other dagger loose and stabbed
one up and through his snout, the other between his ribs, hopefully
puncturing a lung. Backing away, I got caught by a paw, as he was
full wolf now, his claws slicing away at my back. I fell to my
hands and knees, screaming out in pain.

I felt as if I had been torn through with
knives and now fire ran freely through my wounds. I couldn’t help
the tears that were flowing freely. I palmed a fireball (I was
created from fire, hence my natural tendency to use it), not
worrying about exposing myself as a Iblian at this point. Before I
got it off, David had tackled me to my back, his jaws inches from
me.

He pulled the one blade out of his snout and
gnashed his teeth at me, trying to find a meaty place to bite. I
slammed the fireball quickly into his side so I could use both my
hands to squeeze David’s neck as hard as I could. The smell of
singed dog hair permeated the air around us as he howled in
pain.

The gravel from the path I was lying on was
digging into the gouges on my back, intensifying the agony I was
already in. David kept snapping and batting his paws at me, trying
to wear me out and it was working. I managed to find my one dagger
still embedded in its chest. With one last surge of strength I
grabbed it and twisted. He leapt off me with a yelp and fell to his
side.

I could hear the gurgling as he attempted to
breathe. He was going to be there for awhile until he healed and I
didn’t want to be around when he did.

I dragged myself up onto my knees and took a
few deep breaths, summoning all the strength I could to get up off
the ground and make it to safety. It took me a few minutes to stand
as I struggled through the pain and exhaustion. Quickly as I could
muster I walked down the path, back towards the street, leaving the
fur ball behind me.

The club was closer than home so I headed
back that way, hoping Melissa was still there. If she had taken
off, I could count on Vin to help me. I made it as far as the
parking lot before collapsing on my back.

While lying there, I felt Melissa’s potion
wear off. It felt like someone ripped a warm blanket off, exposing
me to the cold air.
Great, if help does find me, they’ll just
kill me now.
I should have been more worried about that, but
the thought was quickly forgotten. My mind was focused solely on
the torment I was in.

After what could have been minutes or hours I
heard feet shuffling towards my head.

“Mags? Holy hell, what happened to you?”

I opened my eyes and saw Luca towering over
me with a horrified expression on his face. “Wolf,” I half
whispered, still in shock, too exhausted to try and talk.”

He bent down to pick me up and I groaned when
his hands touched the already painful wounds. Luca carried me to
his car and paused before opening the door.

“I’m sorry. If I had walked you out none of
this would have happened.”

“Not your fault,” I murmured in another half
sentence.

Luca set me down as gently as he could in the
seat before making his way to the driver’s side. He sat silent a
moment, swore something unintelligible under his breath and started
the car.

“Mags, I can take care of the wounds, but we
need to get out of here. Where do you live?”

I gave him the directions, leaned my head on
the cool glass of the window and closed my eyes while he drove
away.

I didn’t want to move an inch by the time we
pulled into my driveway. I begged Luca to let me sleep where I
was.

“If I leave you where you are then you have
to come home with me tonight,” he gently teased me and chuckled
softly.

It hurt too much to laugh, so I just groaned
and rolled my eyes at him.

“Do you think you can walk?” he asked

“I think so, but I’ll need your help.”

He came over to my side of the car, opened
the door and helped me up. I felt lightheaded and steadied myself
against his arms. I looked back to the car and saw that there
wasn’t an inch of the seat that wasn’t now covered by blood, my
blood.

Luca let me lean against him as he helped me
inside, his warm body cocooning me like a safety net. He deposited
me softly on the couch while he went around turning on the
lights.

“Mags, I need clean rags, water, some herbs,
and a few other things.” He listed off what he needed and I
directed him, to the kitchen where Melissa kept her spell
ingredients and the bathroom, for the rest of what he was looking
for.

He laid everything in front of me on the
coffee table and handed me a towel. “Um, you’re going to have to
take off your shirt and, um, bra so I can clean you up,” he said
with a slight pink rising in his cheeks.

“Oh. Could you give me a minute please?”

Luca acknowledged my need for a little
privacy and turned his attention to the make-shift first aid kit
while I struggled to get out of my shirt. My top was shredded,
caked in blood and dirt. All things considered, I was more upset
about the ruined halter top than the current state of my body. I
really liked that top and it looked good on me.

After I had adjusted the towel to cover the
appropriate parts of me I didn’t want on display, Luca gave me
something he said would take away the pain. It looked like tar and
smelled even worse. He promised me it wasn’t as bad as it looked.
He lied. Tree bark and battery acid would’ve tasted better. It took
me a few minutes to swallow it down, in between the gagging. Not
long after, I started to feel the drink’s effects. It made me a bit
woozy, but numbed the pain and sedated me.