The Shepard's Agony (9 page)

If they were there then there must have been a fight. Someone had to of gotten hurt
. Or worse, killed.

She stopped to clear her thoughts and sniff the air. No, no one was dead. There was the faint scent of blood in the air, nothing serious, but she didn’t smell the stink of a body. Whatever had happened, they’d left together in the end.

Gwen was confused. John wouldn
’t leave a hunter alive, especially if he thought that hunter had kidnapped her. What did David say to make them take him with them?

Then it hit her. The only thing he could use for leverage.

Evey.

His knowledge that she even existed was valuable. David must have thought she’d gone to Evey’s without him, told John about
it
, and left with them.

She sniffed the air again, they couldn’t be
far
, and Evey lived barely ten miles down the road. Unless they hijacked a car while she was running in the bushes, she should be able to catch up with them.

Ano
ther gunshot blast echoed. The hunters were still on her trail, shooting at something moving in the
woods
. She still had to be careful. That thought in mind, Gwen took off running again. She would have to run around the Shepards if she wanted to avoid their
guns
, and that would take more time that she didn’t have.

***

Shepard stood back while John knocked and opened the rusted, paint-peeled door.

“
Evey! You home?” No one answered, but he let himself in
anyway
. Shepard
and
Di
followed
behind him.

Shepard surveyed his
surroundings
. The lights were
out
which was normal with vampires being so sensitive to it. Strangely, Shepard’s eyes adjusted
quickly
. He could see everything with a near perfect clarity. He blinked a few times, searching for a light source, but there was none, just a warm glow in the room.

The place looked abandoned, broken overturned furniture
rested in various
spots
and
, when he walked, he created footprints in the dust. The air was stale and he felt thirsty just breathing it in. The vampire who lived here either lived in the basement or the attic to give passerby’s the impression that there wasn’t a dark creature in the area.

Di and John walked as though they could see perfectly as well
. But, Di flicked the light switch on and off until she was satisfied that it wasn’t
working
. “Sorry, hunter, you’re walking in the dark.”

His breath hitche
d as he remembered that seeing in the dark was a trait most Weres
had
; a useful defense mechanism against enemies being able
to
sneak up on them. Except, maybe, a vampire with the same ability.

“
You okay, hunter?”
the male wolf asked staring straight at him, his face suggesting that he really didn’t care.

Shepard closed his mouth and shook away his shock. He blurred his eyes and tried to pretend that he was having trouble seeing. “Fine.”

“
Good, because I don’t want you running away when we find that Gwen isn’t here.
Actually, run all you want. It’ll make the killing that much more fun.” John grinned at him, showing all his teeth with a hint of fangs.

Shepard tried not to look at him, but he still snarled. He really wanted to punch that smirk off his face.

There was no denying that he was going to change. Moon Night was an event held every other
month
on the night before the full moon. That
meant
Shepard only had hours until the moon became full and he would change for the first time.

Shepard had seen men who’d been bitten days before the full moon cry like children over the pain, only to not be able to move for hours after it was all done and over
with
. He had less than twenty-four hours until he became as weak as an
infant
. Even still, if a few hours were all he had, he wouldn’t let his family be taken by the arrogant Were in front of him.

H
e
then
wondered about Gwen. Was she in this little house? Something told him she wasn’
t
. He didn’t know exactly what it was, but he could
feel
that she wasn’t there. Someone was, not Gwen, and it was enough to put him on edge.

“
Evey, we know you’re
here
,” John said. “It’s just us, come out already.”

Shepard heard a tiny creak in the wooden boards above, a sound that suggested someone was walking on the second floor, which was impossible
seeing
as
the shack had no second floor. Slowly, he turned his head up and saw the face of a pale woman with glowing red eyes staring down into his soul. She was standing upside down on the ceiling.

Shepard opened his mouth to say something, shout a warning, anything, but she’d already pounced. Flipped
down
, she grabbed Di by the throat and
backed her up
against the wall with her fangs extended suggestively over her neck.

Dianna shook with
fright
. John
simply
crossed his arms and shook his head, ready to laugh. “Di, I can’t believe you let her sneak up on you.”

Evey smirked around her fangs and Di lunged away from her, her hands on her neck, feeling for a bite or any blood that might be there.

Shepard studied the woman in front of them, completely forget
ting that he wasn’t supposed to show any signs of his change by seeing her so clearly in the dark. For some reason, every time he saw a vampire, he expected them to be clothed entirely in black leather, black make-up, and even black hair, Matrix style.

Evey’s clothes were grey, her
spaghetti strap shirt had a hole in it and cut low on her cleavage. Her baggy jeans looked like they’d been made for a man and her long hair was a pure white, so much whiter than Gwen’s white-blonde
hair
. So
white
, in fact, that he wasn’t surprised to realize that her glowing red eyes meant she was actually albino.

“
How you managed to stay alive for so long with suc
h bad reflexes, I’ll never know,” she said, shaking her head at the still trembling Di who shot her a look of contempt.

“
She doesn’t do much field
work
,” John said in her defense, though he nodded his agreement.

“It’s not my fault!” Di wailed.

Shepard frowned, every minute he spent around these creatures he noticed their human qualities over their
monstrous ones.
He
, himself, was going to be one of them in a few short
hours
,
and
while his body was changing, mentally, he didn’t feel any different at all. There was no urge to eat something dripping in blood or to sink his teeth into the neck of some young, innocent bystander. He felt exactly as he did when he woke up that morning. Human.

“
Evey, we need some help. The
Shepards found our Moon Night spot and attacked
us
.” John shot Shepard a dirty look and Dianna ducked her head away shamefully. “They’re still in the area. We’re going to need you to help us fight them.”

“Wait a minute! No one said anything about that!” When Gwen mentioned Evey, Shepard assumed she would bring the vampire back to their pack to help with the injured while he went back to the barn and convinced his father that it was time to leave. What they did wasn’t right, but they didn’t deserve to die for it.

“
Keep your mouth shut,
Hunter
,” John sneered.

Evey’s eyes looked from one man to the other in cautious
curiosity.

“You’re not going to attack my family!” Shepard yelled, his fists balled and ready for a fight.

“You mean like how your family attacked mine? You lousy hypocrite!”

That was the last straw, Shepard swung at him in a blind rage, but John caught his wrist in a steel grip and smashed his elbow into his nose. Shepard fell on his back
with
John immediately on him.

“
Don’t think
that
because you’re changing you’re stronger than
me
,” he hissed, angry fangs extended and hair sprouting on his face, struggling not to change in his own anger.

Shepard wasn’t worried about that, or even his bleeding nose
and
damaged pride. He was too shocked to discover that the Were above him knew he was going through a change.

John chuckled at the face he made. “You didn’t think I’d scratched you by
accident
, did you?”

“
You did this to me on
purpose
?
”

“
You’re damn right I did! Now you’ll know what it’s liked to be hunted! To be shot at for doing absolutely nothing
no
reason
aside from
being alive!” John’s face took on a look of indifference. “Don’t think this means I won’t kill you, I still
will
.
But
, until then, you’re cursed like us. You’re going to die as one of the monsters you’ve been killing all your life and you’re going to feel how much pain a silver bullet can cause.”

“
What’s his name again?” Evey
asked
. Shepard shoved John off of him and stood up before he could answer for him, wiping the blood away from his nose.

“
David
Shepard
,” he
growled
,
emphasizing
“
Shepard
”. Most creatures of the night either feared or despised that name, but he wasn’t about to hide who he was because he was outnumbered.

Evey didn’t flinch at the name. “You’re seeing Gwen?”

Shepard was the one who was stunned now. “You know?” He decided not to correct her
on the
fact
that he and Gwen were no longer seeing each other. Any leverage he could get would be useful.

“What are you talking about, Evey?” John asked, immediately suspicious.

“
If this is the man Gwen is so desperately in love
with
, then neither of you will kill him,” Evey said.

“
It was you!” John yelled,
coming toward him with his fists clenched.

Shepard stood his ground, ready to
fight
. Evey suddenly appeared between the two of them, staring John down and startling Shepard.

Vampire speed.

“I said no!”

John stared into her eyes for a few seconds before rapidly blinking and turning his head away. “Don’t try that hypnotism garbage on me, Evey.”

“
Don’t try to kill him and I won’t
,” she countered.

Shepard wasn’t one to let another person defend him or fight his fights, but watching the cocky Were taking orders was amusing, so he allowed it.

“Wait a minute,” Di said. “This is the guy who slept with Gwen and then left the next morning?”

Shepard clenched his teeth. He should
have known Gwen would tell her packmates about it and
that
they had drawn their own opinion of him from the low act.

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Oh yeah, then how was it like?” John growled.

Sh
epard crossed his arms. “Mind your own business.”

John figured it out. “You found out what she was and ran scared then, eh?”

Shepard growled, a low sound deep in his
throat
. It shocked him
at
how much he
sounded like a
wolf already.

“
Gwen’s
here
,” Evey said, interrupting his wayward thoughts of killing him.

“She is?” Both he and John asked at the same time.

“
If you’d both stopped trying to kill each
other
, you would have heard her running a mile away.”

John turned to Di who shrugged and nodded her head. “I heard her
coming
, too.”

John grumbled and felt around the area where his ear used to be
.
Shepard
quickly realized that not hearing Gwen coming had nothing to do with their arguing.

“
I’ll get her something to
wear
,” Evey sighed, stepping through a door that hung on a single hinge.

The last thing she wanted was the two men in love with Gwen to fight over her while she was naked.

Some seconds later, Gwen was inside
. She didn’t bother
to
cover up her naked body with her
hands
.
Instead
,
she demanded
water. It was the second time she’d changed that night and it was taking its toll on her.

She spent a few minutes bent over a sink that didn’t look like it would work, letting the water run until she was sure it was
drinkable
. She drank
as
much
as she could
from the tap before Evey had
enough
. Grabbing her,
she
shoved clothes in her hands and threw her in her tiny room with no doorknob to change.

It was also the second time Gwen had changed clothes that night, the outfits seemed to be getting worse and worse. Not that she blamed Evey for her lack of funds, but she’d gone from a too small tank top to a baggy grey T-shirt and grey sweat pants. Her make-up had
rubbed off with all the changes she’d made and her white-blonde hair was in worse frizzy tangles than when she woke up in the
motel
. She didn’t need a mirror to know that.