Promise

by

Kristie Cook

*****

SMASHWORDS EDITION

*****

PUBLISHED BY

Kristie Cook/Ang'dora Productions, LLC

On Smashwords

This book is also available in print at all
major retailers.

Promise

Copyright © 2010 by Kristie Cook

*****

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. If you would like to share this book with another
person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If
you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not
purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com
and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work
of this author.

Please do not participate in or encourage
piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's
rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters and events are either products of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

For Shawn, Zakary, Austin and Nathan Cook

And Chrissi Jackson

Acknowledgements

A ginormous thank you to all of you who
helped make this a reality, either through direct involvement
or much appreciated moral support.

My parents, Valerie Templeton and Danny &
Keena Perguson, and all of my "boys," Shawn, Zakary, Austin &
Nathan Cook, for your patience, understanding and support.

My biggest cheerleader, supporter and the
best business partner, Chrissi Jackson; and Terry Frank and Lisa
Adams. Without
your encouragement, this would still be a fun little
indulgence never seen by anyone else.

My first readers, the girls: Alys Roark,
Heather Call, Lesley Turnpaugh and Charlotte Waldon, for giving me
your time and support when this was still just a mess of words.

And thank you, reader, for giving me this
opportunity to touch your life, if only for a few hours. I hope you
enjoy
this story and come back for more.

Chapter 1

9 Years Ago

The sensation of being watched clung to me
like a spider web, invisible threads bristling the back of my neck
and down my spine. I brushed my fingers across my shoulders, as if
I could drag the feeling off and flick it away.

It was ridiculous, of course. Not just
ridiculous to think I could pull it off so easily, as if it really
was strands of a web, but it was even more absurd to feel it in the
first place. Nobody ever held that much interest in me. Sure,
sometimes people stared with curiosity when they picked me up on
their "weird radars," but usually they just ignored me. No one ever
watched so intensely.

Yet the hairs on the back of my neck stood on
end at the feeling as I visited my favorite Washington, D.C.,
monument for likely the last time. I sat on the stone steps with
the stately Thomas Jefferson behind me and gazed over the Potomac
River tidal basin, enjoying the peace just before sunset. Well,
trying to enjoy it anyway.

I blamed the feeling on my unruly
imagination, with it being twilight and the sky looking so ominous.
It was the perfect setting for one of my stories. The sun hung
low—an eerie, orange ball glowing behind a shroud of clouds, a
column of steel-blue rising around it, threatening to snuff it out.
I envisioned something not-quite-human watching it from the
shadows, waiting to begin its hunt under the cover of darkness.

That's all it is, just my fascination with
mythical creatures
, I told myself.
Uh-huh. Right
.

Surrendering hope for a peaceful moment, I
hurried to the closest Metro station. The feeling of being followed
stuck with me on the train ride home, but at my stop in Arlington,
I forgot the spooky sensation. Some kids from school stood near the
top of the escalator as I stepped off.

"Hey, there's the weird girl who heals," one
of them said loudly to the others. "It's s'posed to be really
freaky to watch."

"Hey, freak, got any tricks to show us?"
another called.

I pretended not to hear and crossed the
street to avoid them. My eyes stung, but no tears came. I wouldn't
allow them. It was my own fault—I'd been a klutz with the Bunsen
burner in Chemistry and my lab partner saw my skin heal the burn
almost instantly. Kids harassed me about it every day the last two
months of school. If I didn't let them get to me, they were usually
just annoying. Usually.

Night had crept its way in during my ride
home. I walked quickly through the bright commercial district and
turned down the darker residential street for home, still four
blocks away. Footsteps behind me echoed my own. I quickened my
pace.
Two more days. That's all. Just two more days and we're
out of here
.

"C'mon, dude, we just wanna know if it's
true," a boy's voice said.

"Yeah, just show us. It doesn't hurt,
right?"

I glanced over my shoulder. Three teens
followed me and I caught the glint of a blade in one of their
hands. I realized their plan to satisfy their curiosity—slice me
open and watch the wound heal.
What is
wrong
with people?
Of course, it hurts!
Bungalow-style homes lined the street,
each with an empty front porch. Not a single person sat outside on
this summer's evening. No one to witness their fun and my agony. My
heartbeat notched up with anxiety.

Pop! Crack!
The streetlights along the
entire block blacked out at the sounds. I inhaled sharply and
halted mid-stride. The footsteps behind me ceased, too.

"What the
hell
?" Surprise and fear
filled the boy's question.

A couple appeared from nowhere, about
twenty-five yards down the street. It was too dark to see their
features. I could only tell their genders by their shapes. The
woman's high-heeled shoes clicked on the pavement as they walked
toward me. The man, big and burly, pulled his shirt over his head
and handed it to the woman. Without breaking stride, he took off
one shoe and then the other, leaving him with only pants.
What
the…?

I considered my options. The woman and her
half-naked companion blocked my way home, but I wouldn't just raise
my chin and walk brusquely by them, pretending they meant no harm.
Because I just knew they did. I stood trapped between the boys with
the knife and the odd couple. Somehow, I knew the knife was less
threatening.

"Boo!" The woman cackled as the boys took off
running. As she and the man closed in on me, the alarms screamed in
my head.

Evil! Bad! Run! Go!

My sixth sense had never been so frightened.
I couldn't move, though. Fear paralyzed my body. My heart hammered
painfully against my ribs.

The couple stopped several yards away. The
woman studied me as if assessing a rare animal. The man lifted his
face to the sky, his whole body trembling. I followed his gaze to
see the thin, gauzy clouds sliding across a full moon. The woman
cackled again. Panic sucked the air from my lungs.

"Alexis, at last," the woman said, her voice
raspy, like a long-time smoker's. "We'll get such a nice reward for
you."

My eyes widened and my voice trembled. "D-do
I know you?"

She grinned, a wicked glint in her eyes. "Not
yet."

Or ever, if I can help it.

I turned and ran. My pulse throbbed in my
head; breaths tore through my chest. My mind couldn't focus,
couldn't make sense of it, but my body kept moving. The bright
lights of the commercial area I'd just come from shone like a
beacon. I ran for their safety.

The woman abruptly appeared in front of me
before I was half-way down the street. The shock sent me hurling to
the ground and my head smacked hard against the pavement. Stars
shot across my eyes. My hands burned from asphalt scrapes. Fighting
the blackness trying to swallow my vision, I rolled onto my side,
gasping for breath. A sticky wetness pooled under my temple.

My eyes rolled up to the woman, who now
pointed some kind of stick at me. Her lips moved silently as she
waved a pattern in the air. I felt pinned to the ground, though
nothing physically restrained me. Panic flailed uselessly below the
surface of my paralyzed body, making my breaths quick and shallow.
I was done for. They could do anything they wanted with me. There
was no escape now.

My vision faltered. Now two women stood over
me, two sticks pointed at me. Two moons wavered behind them. I
didn't know if it was fear or the head injury that caused
everything to slide apart and together again. I squeezed my eyes
shut.

But I couldn't close my ears, couldn't block
out the gnarl. My eyes popped open with terror. The feral sound
came from the man. His eyes rolled back, showing only whites. His
hands clenched into fists. His muscles strained, the veins
protruding like ropes along the bulges. His body shook violently.
The edges of his shape became a blur.

"I can't hold it!" he growled.

"Then don't," the woman said. "Don't fight
it. It's time!"

A ripping sound tore through the night as the
man lurched forward, his skin shredding. A gelatinous liquid spurt
out of him like an exploding jar of jelly. His pants tore into
ribbons as his body lengthened and grew. The shape of his limbs
transformed. His face elongated, his nose and mouth becoming a…
Holy crap! A snout?!
I gasped, a scream stuck in my throat.
By the time his front…
legs
…hit the ground, fur covered his
body. He was no longer man. He was wolf.
A freakin'
wolf?!

The wolf moved closer, a low growl in its
throat. Its stench of decaying corpses and rotting leaves
overwhelmed my sensitive nose, gagging me and forcing me to breathe
through my mouth.

Pop!
Another woman appeared. Her pale
skin glowed and her white hair shimmered in the moonlight.

"I smell blood," she said, her voice a
flutter of wind chimes. "Mmm…delicious blood."

The scrapes on my hands had already healed,
but not the cut on my head. It must have been deep enough for
normal people to need stitches. For me, it could take ten minutes
to heal. So my blood was still fresh.

I
could only smell the wolf's rancid
odor as it hovered over me.

"Back off,
mutt
," the white-blonde
snarled as she stepped closer. "This is too important for the likes
of you!"

"How dare you!" Stick-woman gasped. "We had
her first!"

"Alexis is mine. Always
mine
!"

What the hell is happening?!
W
hat
do they want with
me
?
Whoever they were, they wanted to
do more than just scare me. I could hear it in the way the blonde
said I was
hers
. She wanted me to hurt…or worse. Cold fear
slid down my spine and hot tears burned my eyes.

Pop!
A man materialized in the
darkness and strode toward me. My heart jumped into my throat.
Not more!
The wolf growled. Both women hissed. Goose bumps
crawled along my skin.

The man stepped in front of me, placing
himself between me and the others.

Good! Very good!
Safe!
My sense slightly calmed me.

"You're alone?" the blonde asked. "Ha! You
haven't a chance."

The wolf lunged at my protector. He raised
his hands and thrust them out toward the beast. It flew back as if
blasted by something unseen. I heard a thud and a whimper as it hit
the pavement. I blinked several times, disbelieving what I just
saw.

The women hissed again. The first one raised
her stick, pointing it at my protector. The blonde took a step
toward me.

Pop!
Another person appeared, between
the two women and my human shield. The women responded immediately.
Their teeth gleamed in the moonlight as their lips spread into
grins.

No way could my protector stand up against
this second man. The new one was taller, wider in the shoulders,
thicker in the torso and arms than my protector, who was now
out-numbered and out-muscled. The second man took a single step
toward us. I didn't dare look up at him, afraid of what I might
see. But I felt his eyes rake over me. My trembling turned to
quakes.

Evil? Good! (evil?) No, very good!

Again, my sense screamed loudly, and, again,
it surprised me. It never questioned itself, never sounded so
confused. It settled on good as he turned to face the women and
their expressions darkened.

I swatted down a leap of hope. The attackers
still out-numbered my protectors.

The wolf, now back on all fours, stalked
toward us. The fur on the back of its neck rose. Hunger shone in
its eyes as its lips curled back in a snarl. Its pace quickened, my
heart galloping with it. It lunged once more. I tried to scream. My
constricted throat only allowed a whimper.