Ashes of night, p.1
Ashes of Night, page 1
part #5 of Haunted High Series Series
Haunted High Book 5
Ashes of Night
By Cheree Alsop
Copyright © 2018 by Cheree L. Alsop
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN
Cover Design by Robert Emerson
Editing by Sue Player
www.ChereeAlsop.com
To my husband,
I want to live where you live, even if that means we’re both ghosts.
To my children,
Each story I write is for you.
To the reader holding this book,
You are unique, you are your own kind of beautiful,
And you make this world better just by being a part of it.
Never give up.
Chapter One
“Something’s following us.”
The strange voice woke me. At the feeling of the bag over my head and my hands cuffed in front of me, I kept perfectly still.
“What is it?”
“It looks like a vampire.”
“Why is a vampire following us?”
“How do I know? I didn’t think vampires could run so fast.”
They sounded tense. I bided my time. My head ached. I tried to remember what had brought me there. I remember returning to the Academy and stopping a fight between Uncle Conrad and Professor Briggs. When I went to bed, Alden had been missing. I tracked him down and he told me about Sparrow flying away. The thought of the baby sylph dragon lost somewhere in the city gripped my heart. I willed my breathing to slow as I fought to remember.
I had laid on my bed and was just about asleep when hands grabbed me in the dark. Someone threw the bag over my head. I remembered a threat.
“Move and die,” someone had whispered into my ear.
I grabbed him and threw him over my shoulder, then something hit the back of my head. At least my headache made sense.
“Drive faster.”
“I am driving faster!”
“Maybe I can shoot him. Hold on.”
The sound of a zipper was followed by the metallic click of clip sliding into a gun. It was a sound I knew all too well. The person to the right of me rolled down his window. That meant the driver sat in front of me. A quick check showed fast breathing from the front seat. There was something different to their scent, something I had smelled only once before. My heart sped up at the realization that I was surrounded by werewolves.
“Steady,” the man in the driver’s seat commanded. “That’s it. A little closer.”
If Vicken was the one following the car, I couldn’t let him get shot.
“No!” I shouted.
I threw my bound hands over the driver’s head and pulled. He gave a strangled yell. I felt the car jerk to the left, then to the right. The car struck something that sent us flipping through the air.
I didn’t know if it was worse watching us roll or experiencing it with a bag covering my eyes. My back slammed into the roof and then I fell back to the seats while my companions bounced around me. I wondered if any of them had thought to wear a seatbelt. If they had put one on me when I was unconscious, I wouldn’t have been able to reach the driver. I figured being in the middle of rolling to a stop wasn’t the time to preach vehicle safety.
The car finally halted on its hood. With my body twisted and upside down, I managed to shove the bag away. It was night and the car lights had gone out during the crash. I took advantage of the darkness to kick out the glass on my side.
“Where do you think you’re going?” the person beside me demanded with a groan.
I ignored him and wiggled my way through the window. I was about to stand when a hand grabbed my arm with a grip of steel.
“Finn, are you alright?”
I grinned at Vicken’s worried expression. His fangs glowed in the moonlight. The accident had landed us down a slight hill from the road. No other cars were in visible. I rolled my shoulders to check for damage. I would have bruises, but nothing worse.
“I’m harder to kill than that.”
“Tell me about it,” he replied drily. “I—”
Vicken jerked backwards with a hand on his shoulder. The sound of a gunshot rang out.
“Wait!” I shouted. I threw myself in front of the vampire. He fell to his knees. I looked back to see one of the werewolves stand up from his hiding place behind the car.
“That should hold him,” he said with a satisfied nod.
I launched myself at the werewolf. He backed up several steps in surprise at my attack. I hit him so hard he landed on his back. My hands closed around his throat.
“I was doing you a favor!” he said tightly. “The vampire was going to kill you!”
“The vampire is my friend,” I growled.
His eyes widened. “Th-that changes things.”
“That was a good shot.”
I looked back to see another werewolf standing over Vicken. He carried a gun that matched the one that had shot my friend.
“Stay away from him!” I shouted.
I grabbed the gun the werewolf beneath me still held, rolled to the right to break it from his hand, then rose to a knee with the gun aimed at the man near Vicken.
He quickly held up his hands.
“Whoa, slow down, son. We’re here to help.”
I glared at him, “Step away from my friend.”
His eyebrows rose at my reference to Vicken, but he did as he was told.
“He’ll be fine,” he said. He waved his gun with his hands still up. “It’s a stunner. No big deal. He’ll wake up with a headache. That’s about it.”
The nonchalance to his words after seeing my friend go down made red burn in my vision. I shot him and then shot the werewolf next to me in the chest. Both dropped the way Vicken had. I ran to my friend and checked his pulse. I sighed in relief at the feeling of his heartbeat beneath my fingers.
“Let’s get you out of here,” I told Vicken.
I knelt and picked him up in my arms. It wasn’t an easy feat given the manacles around my wrists, but I managed. The sound of cars pulling off the road made me hurry.
“If we can just find somewhere to hide until you wake up—”
“What’s going on here?”
The woman’s voice was gruff and deep. I turned slowly and glanced up the hill. Four men stood on either side of a middle-aged woman wearing green cargo pants and a brown shirt. All had guns trained on us. Even with the one I held in my hand beneath Vicken’s legs, I didn’t have a chance. Firing uphill and unable to aim would be a losing battle at best.
I watched her carefully, aware that the sight of the two fallen werewolves behind me didn’t bode well for the encounter. Even though I was downhill and couldn’t smell them, the moonlight that reflected off of their gazes let me know they were also werewolves. I didn’t have time to be amazed that I was currently surrounded by more werewolves than I had ever encountered in my life; my friend’s wellbeing was literally in my hands. I had to play it smart.
“They kidnapped me. I don’t take kindly to being kidnapped,” I said levelly.
The woman’s expression was calculating when she replied, “I think there’s been a misunderstanding. My pack was on a rescue mission.” She crossed her arms. I glimpsed what looked like the head of a wolf branded on her forearm.
I shook my head. “Rescue should be willing, don’t you think? And they shot my friend. That doesn’t sound like a rescue to me.”
The woman gave a shallow nod. “I’m afraid some procedures may not have been followed accurately. They’ll be held accountable for their actions.”
“I’d like to return to the Academy,” I told her.
A glimmer of surprise showed in her eyes. “The Academy doesn’t allow werewolves.”
“It does now,” I replied. “And as far as I knew, I was the only one.” I gave the men with her a searching glance.
Her lips pulled up in the barest hint of a smile. “Our secrecy is our protection. I’m just sorry we had to meet this way.”
“Me, too,” I began. “But—”
The snap of a twig warned me a second too late. I spun and fired. My bullet went wide at the same time that one impacted high on my sternum. Numbness flowed instantly through me. I fell to my knees, then collapsed on top of Vicken.
“Sorry,” I mumbled as my eyes closed.
Hands grabbed my arms and pulled me away from Vicken.
“See those fangs? And the werewolf’s friends with the vampire. I’m not so sure about this,” a male voice said.
“Look at the mess he made. Are you sure he’s worth it?”
“This certainly isn’t going the way I planned,” the woman said. “Get him back to the Den.”
“What about the vamp?”
“We’ll have to take him with us.”
“We should leave him here to die of thirst. That’s what he deserves for attacking us,” a man suggested gruffly.
The woman’s voice was heavy when she said, “No. We’ll keep him under. We don’t need another fiasco like the winter slaughter.”
“He’ll need blood.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“What about the car?” someone else aske
“Burn it,” the woman ordered.
I was set in the back of another vehicle. Though I couldn’t get my eyes to open, my brain refused to slide into unconsciousness. I wondered if I was actually getting used to being shot. Perhaps I had built up some sort of tolerance. I wasn’t especially sure that was a good thing, but maybe I could use it to my advantage.
By the time we stopped, I had heard references to the Den several times as well as grumbling about some sort of gauntlet.
“You would do better if you learned to keep your nose down and your thoughts wolf,” a man suggested.
“Just because you think like an animal doesn’t mean it’s easy for the rest of us,” the one who was whining replied.
“Quiet,” the woman said. “You’re lucky you passed the trial; it’s a lot more difficult than when you ran it. Keep this up and another year of rounds will be the least you deserve.”
“Yes, Meg,” they both replied sullenly.
Silence filled the car. I preferred it with the way my head was starting to pound.
The car finally stopped. I heard the driver shift in his seat as if he was anxious to leave.
“I’m getting as far away from that vampire as I can,” he muttered. “He stinks like dirt and blood.”
“You just volunteered to take him to the holding room,” Meg replied in her deep voice. “Jax, help Bruno. Make sure the chains are tight. Stix, you’re in charge of this werewolf. Roundy and Gets, carry in Cooper and Devin.” She paused, then said, “I can’t believe he got the drop on them wearing handcuffs. That’s ridiculous. Tell them they get rounds when they wake up.”
“Even with the headaches?” someone asked.
“Maybe it’ll teach them a lesson,” Meg replied.
Someone picked me up and swung me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I hung with my head down his back and my handcuffs in front of me as he carried me in that graceful position into wherever we had ended up.
“Put a manacle around his neck.”
“What?” the man carrying me questioned with surprise in his voice.
“You heard me,” Meg replied. “Manacle him and put another chain on those handcuffs. It’s either that or the cage. I don’t need him phasing and attacking our pack because he’s mad about the vampire. We need whatever control we can get until some ground rules are covered.”
“Yes, Meg.”
I was set on a hard surface. The sound of keys caught my ear. I heard metal slide on metal and knew they were close to using the manacle.
I had survived a manacle in the Mythic Labs. The pressure of the metal band and death by strangulation if I tried to phase had nearly overwhelmed me with the claustrophobia. I refused to fall under someone’s power like that again.
I forced my eyes open and pushed to my feet. “Don’t touch me,” I growled.
The werewolf closest to me backed off with a shout of surprise. I felt a wall against my back and leaned against it for support in the hopes that my blinding headache wouldn’t get the best of me. I stood in a hallway of sorts made of huge bricks. Sound echoed from the matching brick floor to the high ceiling that was nearly lost in the shadows. It looked as though I was in the middle of a medieval castle, but that made no sense.
“Take it easy,” Meg said. Her arms were folded across her chest and she regarded me with a hint of frustration in her steely green eyes. Her gray-streaked blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail and from this close, I could see the deep lines around her eyes and mouth along with a scar that ran from her jaw down her neck and was lost beneath her shirt.
“Where’s Vicken?” I demanded.
“Safe,” she replied.
I glared at her. “Not safe enough. You need to let us go.”
Other men and women began gathering behind Meg. By their scents they were all werewolves. The fact amazed me.
Meg shook her head. “You’re not going anywhere for a long time. You might as well get used to it.”
“You can’t keep me here,” I said through gritted teeth.
She gestured to the thick handcuffs around my wrists. “You’re in no position to make demands.”
A few chuckles came from the werewolves behind her. The adults I saw had the same wolf head brand on their forearms as Meg. She silenced them with a glance.
I tried a different route. “You said werewolves aren’t welcome at the Academy, but I’ve been just fine there.”
“Oh, really?” Meg replied. “No prejudice? No wary glances as though they’re afraid you’re going to kill someone?” She nodded at the embarrassed look I couldn’t quite stifle. “They’re waiting for you to mess up, and when you do, they’ll kill you. It’s what they do.”
I shook my head quickly. “They wouldn’t kill me.”
“Oh yeah? What about Conrad Roe? They killed him quickly enough.”
Relief made me smile. “Conrad’s not dead! In fact, he’s at the Academy right now. He went back to help us!”
Talking began behind Meg. She glanced back and then at me again. “What are you talking about?”
“Conrad’s not dead,” I repeated. “He survived. But a demon controlled him, which is why Vicken and I need to return to the Academy. We killed Conrad’s demon, but we have to go after Chutka. It’s the only way.”
Meg shook her head. “You’re not making any sense. Conrad’s dead. They framed him after vampires murdered other students. They wanted to keep werewolves out, so fear was the best way to do it.”
I shook my head quickly. “That’s not true at all! You need to let me go. We have to get back!”
“What you have to do is calm down and settle in. You’re going to be here for quite some time,” Meg replied.
“I can’t.” I looked around for anything I could use as leverage. The other werewolves were watching me as though I was either crazy or unstable. Their wary expressions calmed me faster than anything Meg could have said. I was used to being careful around dangerous expectations. The Academy had given me plenty of practice. I took a steeling breath.
“I’m calm,” I told her. “But I need you to understand that it’s urgent for me to return to the Academy. They need my help.”
A man behind her chuckled. “Like mythics would take assistance from a werewolf.”
I stared at him. “Of course they would. We’re mythics, too.”
Laughter rolled through the crowd at my words.
Meg held up a hand to silence them, but a humored smile showed on her face when she said, “Werewolves are werewolves. Mythics are their own creatures. We aren’t the same.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but she cut me off. “Do you know of any mythics that change form the way we do? How about werewolves who can perform magic? Or mythics that have animal survival instincts? What about pack hierarchy? Do you think mythics follow the same rules engrained in our nature since the beginning?”
I grabbed onto her comment about pack hierarchy. “I’m an Alpha.”
Her brow furrowed and she watched me for a moment before laughter bubbled again from her. “Son, what makes you think you’re an Alpha?”
Her question caught me by surprise. “Well, uh, I just am.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Why? Because some night owl running the Academy told you so? What does she know?”
I was at a loss for words.
Reading my expression, Meg motioned to one of the men who stood protectively on either side of her. “Stix, remove his handcuffs.”
The man stared at her. “Are you serious?”
She nodded. “He doesn’t need them.”
I felt her gaze on me when the werewolf approached. I fought the urge to back off before he could touch me and instead held my ground. His nervous expression kept me still while he slid the key into the thick handcuffs and unlocked them. When the handcuffs were off, I rubbed at my wrists to encourage the circulation to return to my hands.
“What’s your name?” Meg asked.
“Finn,” I answered. I didn’t feel like they deserved my entire name. I kept it to myself to pretend as though I at least had some control over the situation. Besides, if they had been told lies about Conrad and the Academy, I didn’t want to think they believed lies about my mother. I wouldn’t give them the chance to disgrace her memory.
“Come with me, Finn,” Meg replied. “I want to show you something.”
The crowd parted to let us pass. Their gazes bored into my back as though they seldom saw werewolf strangers. A glance back showed six of them following. A shiver ran down my spine. I returned my attention to where we were going.
