A Werewolf's Moon (The Council) (26 page)

She nodded, “Always.”

I didn’t think twice and took hold of Quinn’s hand. “So what’s the plan?”

“Save the bait and kill the demon,” he gave me a quick kiss and nodded.

Venna screamed.

I whirled around in time to see the shadows shift behind us.

Quinn leapt in front of me and Zane, snarling, his body changed in an instant. What was left of his shirt fell in tattered pieces to the ground.

I leaned around him and my gaze met a pair of blood red eyes. The rest of him was…different. He didn’t look like the other demon, but he didn’t look like us either. He was dark skinned, almost overly tan, and his hair was buzzed s
h
ort to his skull. Tribal tattoos snaked in odd shapes down his neck, over his chest and arms, to the backs of his hands.

His scent was different too. Not like that rotting, stomach rolling stench of the demons I scented. It was kind of tangy, more reminiscent of one of the vampires, but without the sweetness.

He didn’t have horns, and was of normal height for a boy his age, which looked to be in his late teens, possibly early twenties.

“
Pepper
,” He said my name.

Quinn growled. I stepped around my werewolf, wondering if I was really looking at the boy I’d met in the woods. “Are you…”

He nodded. “Yeah,”

I shook my head, “I thought you wanted to be left alone.”

“I did…I do…but I’m tired of pretending.” He looked everyone around me in the eyes. “My name is Alex. I’m the demon
Pepper
spoke to in the woods. I gave you the warning, but it wasn’t enough I guess.”

“Why are you here, and why shouldn’t I kill you?” Quinn took a step towards him. I grabbed his arm. It was no use though. I couldn’t hold him back no matter how much I wanted to.

“Because you’re going to need
me
wolf.” Alex looked at
Henry
. “You’re all going to need my help, but in exchange for my cooperation, I demand refuge.”

Henry
crossed his arms. “What makes you think we’d protect
you.
You may have told us some of their secrets, but how do we know you’re not playing us for the other side?”

Alex
smirked,
he had a cocky air like Zane. Only his wasn’t playful, it was downright scary. “This whole time I’ve been with the demons, their little pet they’ve kept alive. I’ve been tortured, watched my father die, and I would like nothing more than to make them suffer for what they’ve done.”

“You could have just come with me after we met at the mill.” I said.

“I was trying to save myself by lying low,” Alex said. “When I heard my sister was alive, and under your care, I had a change of heart. I thought she was dead.”

“Who is your sister?”
Henry
asked. “We keep no female demons in our company.”

“She’s not a demon. Her name’s Elisabeth Whitmore…but I guess you guys call her Christy White.” He glanced over his shoulder. “But this is enough talk for now, let’s get that witch and get the
hell
out of here before more demons show.”

Quinn approached him, and I kept my hand on his arm, even though I knew it wouldn’t do any good. “I thought you said there were only five.”

Alex nodded. “I did, five I knew of. The one that is using your witch for bait is number six. You took out three in Capeside, two in the compound.”

“I can count.” Quinn snapped.

I took hold of Quinn’s hand and got his attention. “You can’t kill him.”

“Yet,”

Yet?
“But, his sister is my friend.”

“What if he is lying?” he asked.

“I can hear you,” Alex smirked, walking out from under our protective overhang, into the garden towards Flora. “Zane, that’s your name, right? Why don’t you snatch the girl like
Henry
said, since you’re so fast, and the rest of us will kill the
demon.
”

Henry
nodded, and Zane disappeared. Seconds later, his figure flickered over Flora, and they were gone.

A demon, the rotting, meaty smelling kind, leapt from the roof above us, right where Flora had been lying. He looked a little puzzled and spun in a circle. It was almost comical.

Alex ran at the demon, and then he did something no one expected.

He phased.

In a flash of red light, he was gone. He appeared on the other side of the demon and head butted him in the stomach.

The demon flew back, skidding across the ground, tearing up the flowers and bushes.

Henry
phased. He materialized holding his sword over the demon’s head and brought it down with blinding speed, slicing through flesh and bone, until the demon lay dead at his feet.

“Damn,” Alex nodded in approval. “That’s better than I could have done.”

Henry
thanked him with a nod and shouted, “Zane?”

He appeared with Flora. She was unconscious, but after some attention from Venna woke up.

I went up to Alex, even though Quinn was grumbling behind me. So I glanced back at him. “If he was going to kill us, he would have done it by now.”

That shut him up, at least, for a little while.

With Alex, we went back into the compound to the main hall and found the rest of the Council. They were talking in a circle on one side of the room. On the other lay two dead demons and the dead guards who hadn’t managed to overcome the monsters.

I thought we would have been better protected at the compound, but the demon that had attacked the main part of the compound had been a distraction, so the other could get upstairs to the private wings and attack us.

James kicked a dagger across the room. “Don’t touch it. It’s tipped with some sort of poison. That’s how they killed the guards.”

“That’s it,” Irena was holding Claire, who’d stopped crying and fallen asleep in her mother’s arms. “We’re getting the island. I can’t spend another minute in this hell hole.”

“Might I suggest we all get some rest?” James petted Claire’s hair, frowning. “We’ve been up all night, and the young ones need time to recover.”

“Wait,”
Henry
said, gaining the room’s attention. “We have someone you all need to meet.”

Alex nodded and smiled, introducing himself, and this time he kept his glowing eyes under wraps. Though he did make them glow once to prove his claim. “That dagger has venom on it. The demon king is venomous.”

“How would you know?” Andrew asked.

Alex pulled up his shirtsleeve to reveal his forearm. His skin had black shiny patches all over it.
“Firsthand experience.”

“But how did you survive?” I asked.

He pulled the sleeve back down and kept his eyes trained on the floor, “I’ll keep that to myself for now.”

“Maybe we should hear this young man out,” Vladislav said. “Shall we meet at Caroline’s home…say, in two hours’ tim
e? Alex, you may come with us
until then. I am sure you would like to see your sister.”

Quinn and I said a quick goodbye
.
No telling where we were going, but as long as we didn’t have to fight for our lives, I’d be happy to be there.

Chapter 25

Quinn

I wasn’t sure about Alex, but
Pepper
seemed to think he was okay. The only reason why I wasn’t ripping his throat out was because he told a good story, and everyone else seemed to think he deserved a chance to be heard.

But we could kill him later.

So that was okay.

I was just happy to be out of that compound. I never wanted to step foot in North Dakota again. The sooner we bought the island the better.

I
phased
Pepper
to New York with me. The second we appeared in my apartment she
flopped
face first on the couch with a groan. I left her to take a shower, thinking she probably just needed a few minutes to chill out.

When I came out, she was snoring away, still face first on the couch.

I ordered some takeout from the Chinese guy a block over, phased out to get it, and when I came back, she was still out.

“
Pepper
,” I bent over her, thinking I might leave her to meet with the rest of the Council, or maybe I’d bring her with me and put her in one of my mom’s guestrooms. We weren’t out of the woods yet, and though I doubted a band of demons would appear in an apartment complex in New York, I wouldn’t put it past them to try. “I have egg rolls.”

She sighed. “I can smell them. But first, I’m taking
a
bath.”

I laughed as she kicked off her sneakers and headed into my room. “Don’t worry, I’ll save you some.”

“You better, I’m starving.”

She came back, feeling more human she said. I laughed, but she didn’t seem to realize what she said and polished off the rest of the food. I’d mowed through the fortune cookies by the time she was done, and ignored their advice.
Pepper
read each one I tossed away, and even stuck a few on the fridge.

I
phased
us half a world away for the meeting. When we got to my mother’s home it was night. I wanted nothing more than to go to sleep. We’d been up for a full twenty-four hours.

“Where are we?”

“Belfast.” To be even more precise, “I mean
,
we are in a castle, in Belfast.
In Ireland.”

“You’re kidding,” she glanced around the great hall and took in the fireplace with a roaring fire and a massive claw foot table.

“Nope, that was hand carved for my parents as a wedding present about four hundred years ago.”

“But your mom doesn’t sound Irish.”

“Yeah, she hasn’t lived here in three hundred years. You tend to lose the accent.”

I sat in one of the chairs at the table and stared into the fire. We’d appeared for the meeting first, and it seemed everyone else was running just as slow as us, if not, slower. The turnout was dismal.

Pepper
opted out of her own chair squeezed in with me, resting her head on my chest. I was almost certain we’d have fallen asleep in front of the warm fire, if
Henry
and Venna hadn’t appeared with the rest of the Langley’s.
Pepper
and I didn’t bother moving though. We were warm and comfortable and just didn’t give a damn.

Henry
and Venna sat next to us. His parents took seats on the other side of them.

“
Where’s
Zane and Flora?”
Pepper
asked.

Venna smiled from
Pepper
to me before answering. “They decided to stay in France with Claire and
Henry
’s grandparents.”

“Too much bloody excitement,”
Henry
yawned. “Where is everyone?”

I’d have gone looking for my parents, but they swept into the room a few minutes later.
Garret
and Kylie had gone to bed, exhausted like the rest of us.

And finally, Vladislav and Helene appeared with Alex. Dmitri was still in Russia with Christy, and it didn’t appear he’d be leaving her any time soon.

Once everyone was settled at the table, with hot tea that my mother had brought with her on a massive tray, we all looked to Alex for the reason he was going against his demon buddies to side with the good guys. I wondered the whole time how he could possibly
be
related to a human.

“So, I guess this is where I start talking?” Alex shifted in his seat, and no one said a word. “I know you think I must be some kind of traitor to the demons, but that’s as far from the truth as possible.”

“Then what are you?” My father asked.

Alex eyed the mug in front of him on the table. “I’m new. I’m the only one like me that I know o
f. They tried making others
, but I’m the only one that survived.”

“Are you saying you were not born this way?” James asked.

“Yeah, I was human.” He said. “My dad was a smart guy, a chemist. The head of his department at a college…I forget which one.
Doesn’t matter now.
Then, one night, these things came. They had black eyes, and some had fangs. I was only twelve. I didn’t understand, neither did may parents. We were split up. They took my mom and my sister away, told us they killed them because they were of no use. But my dad was smart, and I was strong for my age…so they traded me for a demon on the other side. I went through this door that looked like it had crystals surrounding it,
then
my dad followed.

“I thought it was hell. I thought I was dead and the devil had taken me.” Alex swallowed some of his tea, shaking his head. “
Hell
probably would have been nicer, now that I think about it.”