The Shepard's Agony (8 page)

“
We worked
together.
And
, since Evey was a witch before she was turned, she had some inside information to help us … uh, solve the problem. We’ve kept in touch since then.”

So they killed all the w
itches,
Shepard
thought
before picking up on what she’d said.

“
Wait, you said she was a w
itch before she was turned?” He didn’t understand. How did that work? Even as a vampire it didn’t explain why she would go against her own kind.

Gwen shook her head, knowing where his thoughts had run off to. “She was a
Wiccan
witch, not the other kind. She’s alright.”

“
Like it matters
,” Shepard muttered. He’d worked with enough witches to know that he didn’t like them. The last witch he’d seen had been an old blind woman with a cackling laugh and a crooked
nose
; classic look for a
witch
. The woman had poisoned Jimmy just to see how long it would take for her new potion to kill him.

He wasn’t the kind to hit a woman, not an old, blind woman either, but he did what he had to do to get her to hand over the
antidote
. Jimmy spent a month sick in bed after that.

Some w
itches weren’t born into the practice, they had to learn it and they were never as strong as those with natural talent. In Shepard’s eyes, anyone who wanted to learn it was not to be trusted and he wasn’t about to stop to get to know anyone to find out if their talent was natural. It was all bad news.

“
Witches might be human, b
ut they’re still dark creatures,” he said.

Gwen’s eye twitched. She could feel bitter emotions coming from him and she didn’t like them. “Dark creatures?”

“
Completely dangerous, you shouldn’t t
rust any of them—”

The tires
screeched and Shepard briefly saw white when his forehead smashed into the dashboard.

He hadn't been
wearing his seatbelt and the first thing he did after grabbing the spot on his forehead that was flaring with pain was curse.

“
Ah!
Fuck! What the—?”

The next thing he knew, he was in the air, thrown out of the truck.

Damn. He let his guard down
and forgot about her strength.

Opening his eyes, Shepard looked up and saw Gwen’s angry face leaning over the seat and glaring down at him.

“I happen to be one of those dark creatures you think can’t be trusted!”

Shepard tensed as he realized his
latest
mistake.

“I didn’t mean—!”

“
You can
stay out here and
walk
, you asshole!” Gwen slammed the door and locked it before Shepard could grab for the
handle
.
She
then sped off, kicking up rocks and dirt at him as she escaped.

Shepard could only stand there and watch her go, kicking himself for being a fool.

What had he been thinking? Shooting off at the mouth like that when he knew how she’d react. What did he expect her to do? Join in and agree with him? Of course not.

Shepard sighed when the tail lights of the old truck went out of sight. He could never be with Gwen, but if he wanted his last memories of her to be good ones then he had to accept that she was different. Not human, but not bad.

Shepard frowned and sat down on the pavement, crossing his legs to think.

He loved her
and
, despite
everything
, he
still
wanted to be with
her
. If she really was the wonderful person he thought she was, then didn’t that mean he had to give the same chance he was giving her to the other Weres? He didn’t think it was right to kill them, but that didn’t mean it was easy trying to erase years of conditioning by his father and
brothers
.
However
, if he wanted her forgiveness, he would have to.

It was probably best that she threw him out.

Spitfire
. He grinned at the thought.

If
she hadn’t been born a werewolf, she would have been a wildcat. Still, somewhere inside
himself
, he really doubted she would leave him with so many dangers out searching for
him
. All he had to do was sit and wait for her return. Hearing a howl off in the distance, he checked that his gun was in its holder, the one that was loaded, and silently hoped she wouldn’t take her time getting back.

He waited a few minutes and began wondering if he was wrong in assuming that she would come back for
him
.
It was the
n that he spotted a van on the road.

Shepard rose to his feet and stepped out of the
way
.
Hiding
his gun beneath his
wife
-beater
shirt
, he waved his arms in the hopes that the driver would give him a lift.

It wasn’t slowing
down
. He also didn’t notice that it was a black truck and not a van until it passed right by him, the faces of his brothers in the windows.

They were going after Gwen.

“
No, no, stop!”
he roared, but they left him in their dust. He tried to think of a way he could warn Gwen, but she didn’t so much as have a cell phone on her and there was no way he could outrun two trucks to get to her first.

A low growl behind him said he was no longer alone. Shepard spun and saw a large wolf, head bent and teeth bared, snarling at him before it lunged.

***

Gwen’s foot held the gas pedal to the floor, trying to outrace her
fury
. It was
turning out to be
an even bigger speed demon than she
was
. She banged her hand on the
steering
wheel and pulled over to the side of the road. She continued to hit the wheel again until it dented, then clutched it and seethed.

She needed to breathe, needed to calm down. She couldn’t leave him back there no matter how mad at him she was.

He’s a h
unter. He’ll be fine.

She shook it away, it didn’t
matter
; to leave him would be the kind of behavior he was weary of in her. Dark, dangerous, and
uncaring
. Uncaring was the last thing she was where he was concerned, even if she didn’t want to admit it.

Gwen put her chin on the dented wheel at the defeating thought. Love or no love, caring, whatever, she was afraid of him. Her pride didn’t want to admit to that either, it didn’t want to own up to being afraid
of anything. As a
hunter
, his first priority should have been to kill her first and ask questions later. Hunters were the kind of people she grew up being warned against. Normal children were taught not to get into cars with strangers, she and the others were taught what the signs of hunters were. Children or not, they would kill them.

Witches, she could handle
. Vampires, she could handle. Zombies were the easiest to
handle
. Unlike hunters, witches and vampires weren’t always out to kill werewolves and each other. Some of them were even nice, like Evey, when she wasn’t in a mood. Hunters were single minded and hell bent on turning anything deemed not human into a trophy.

But
, David wasn’t like that. She didn’t even know he was a hunter until less than an hour ago.
Plus
, she still felt something for
him
. What was she going to do with all that?

Gwen shook her head. No, h
unter or
not
, she couldn’t leave him. John and Di would kill him if they found him, if they got away from the other Shepards that is.

Gwen wiped her eyes, surprised to feel moisture there. Her hands were wet now, so she dried her face with the sleeve of her shirt and put the truck back into drive.

It sputtered and whirred, moved a few feet when she tried to turn, and then died.

She was shocked into stupidity.

What? It couldn’t die on her, it never died on her! She tried again, but this time the truck moved a few inches and then went to truck heaven.

Gwen put the truck back into
park
, threw the door open, stomped to the
hood
, and checked the engine.

It wasn’t something she could fix on her own
. She needed a jump start and the highway was dead.

No wonder David pulled into a motel. So much for being the only one who could keep the truck running.

Sighing, Gwen pat the hood affectionately
and
began walking back in David’s direction. She stopped when headlights appeared far down the road, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

Danger, danger was coming.

Get off the road!
She screeched at herself before dashing into the woods. Her nerves were kicking in
and
, after years of having them come to the
rescue
, she trusted them.

She ripped her clothes away and prepared to change, praying she hadn’t been seen. It was bad enough she left the truck back on the road. She should have hidden it!

One second she was on two feet, the next she was running on four paws, ignoring the twigs of trees that whipped at her face and snout. She didn’t think David was with his
brothers
. That meant he was still on the road and she had to get to him.

***

Shepard ducked and rolled when the wolf lunged. He reached for his gun, confused when it wasn’t there. What the …?

Looking up, he was stunned to see it in the mouth of the wolf that had jumped at him.

Great.

He pulled a hunting knife out of his boot to compensate.

“
I don’t want to kill you,” h
e said, knowing it was probably a friend of Gwen’s.

The wolf snorted as though it didn’t believe
him
.

Fine then, come on.
Shepard readied himself when something caught his eye.

Shepard raised his head when a woman with fire red hair walked out from behind the trees, completely shameless
in her nudity.

His eyes widened.
What was she doing here?

A bark brought him back to the
fight
. Shepard looked up in time to see the wolf in mid
jump
, jaws open. He did another duck and roll, but it was one second too late.

Shepard was on one knee, inspecting the scratch on his arm with wide eyes and praying it was from a twig on the ground.

Realistically, he knew the Were had scratched him.

“
Wait! John!” Di called, rushing forward and standing in the middle of the two. “
Don't kill him!”

The wolf cocked its head before growling its disagreement, trying to circle around her.

“He might know where Gwen is. Do you see her anywhere?”

The wolf looked around to
check
. Judging by the bodily expressions and long silences, Shepard could swear they were having a conversation only they could hear.

After some
thought
, the wolf snorted, stood on its hind legs and changed back into a man, a man that sneered down at Shepard.

“Where is she?”

Shepard
recognized him as the man who’d held Gwen in his arms earlier that
day
. He snarled back.

Rising
to his feet, he
held
the knife in one hand while using his other to cover the scratch on his arm. “She’s gone. Drove away,” he said.

“
I watched you drive away with
her
,” John snarled, his voice cracking.

Shepard
recognized the sound. The Were was having trouble staying human in his rage. If Shepard didn’t start saying the right things, and soon, he would probably change and kill him.

Di came rushing back from where she’d left, dressed this time and with spare clothes in her hands for John. She must have been carrying them in her mouth as a wolf. Even when dressed, John still snarled at him, head slightly bent.

“
I think she went to Evey’s,” h
e said, hoping the name would buy him some time.

The shock on both of their faces was welcome.

“How do you know about her?” Di asked.

“
Gwen told me. She said you had some trouble with Witches a few years ag
o?” he
asked
, the full attention of both Weres on
him
. Luckily, not in a blood thirsty sort of way. To them, the fact that he knew who Evey was suggested that Gwen was alive and had spoken to him about her willingly. Such a suggestion could spare his life
and
, perhaps, get him to Evey’s house where Gwen might be.

John didn’t trust the h
unter. He trusted him about as much as he would trust a Chihuahua to guard his home.

Still, if he knew about Evey …

“
Do you know where she lives?”
he asked. If Gwen told him that then they must have made plans to meet there.

Shepard told him and John nodded at the correct address. “Alright, but if she’s not there, you’re dead.”

Chapter Six

Gwen skid to a halt at the clearing. She could smell David, it was the place she’d left him in, but he wasn’t there. She could also smell John and Di
. Blind terror gripped her.