Revenge and the Wild (6 page)

“I don’t need help.” She pushed his hands off her and stumbled away.

It was midnight by the time Westie left the saloon. Ten or so vampires walked the streets, dressed like they were ready for a funeral. Ornate copper gasoliers hung from poles lining the wood planks of the sidewalk, casting enough light to see without a moon. She wondered why they were even lit. The vamps didn’t need light, and no human in their right mind would be roaming around town at such a late hour. After nearly an entire bottle of whiskey to herself, Westie was definitely not in her right mind.

She snuck around the back of the saloon to relieve her bladder, and when she came back, Costin was standing out front with her horse.

“What are you doing here?” she said, taking hold of the horn on her saddle to steady the carousel town.

“You’ve been in there awhile. I thought you might need some help getting home.”

The soft light of the gasoliers gave him an ethereal glow. Long black hair shimmered around his face. He had skin without a single pore, like an eggshell, eyes black, pupils blown, lips stained pink with blood. Looking at him took the breath right out of her. He was perfect. Too perfect. Inhuman. That perfection reminded her that he was a creature, and that she couldn’t allow herself to get caught up in his charm.

“I can kill twenty men with my machine and not even break a sweat,” she said. “I don’t need anyone’s help.”

Westie climbed up into the saddle. Once mounted, she promptly slid down the other side with a yelp. Pain stomped a trail up her back as she hit the ground.

Costin smiled, making no effort to help her. “Clearly,” he said.

She heard the cackle of vampires from the top deck of the blood brothel across the street. She glared back at them.

“Damned bloodsuckers,” she mumbled.

The ache in Westie’s head was enough to keep her on her knees, but she managed to get to her feet, standing on the precipice of ugly drunk crying. After she made several unsuccessful attempts to get back onto her horse, Costin grabbed her by the waist and hoisted her into the saddle. He then climbed up and sat behind her, taking hold of the reins.

She was surprised when her horse didn’t protest. Henry was a picky beast when it came to his riders and had never let anyone but Westie onto his back.

Traitor
, she thought, and gave him a loving pat on his neck.

She didn’t have the strength to fight Costin, and once she felt
the chill emanating from his skin, she didn’t want to.

He clicked his tongue and sent Henry on the path home. Once they were away from the lights of town, everything became suffocated by darkness.

Westie had started to doze off when Costin said, “Do you remember when we first met?” Westie kept silent, afraid if she opened her mouth, more than words would come out. “It happened just over there, beyond those trees.” He pointed into the distance, but she couldn’t see a thing. “It was two years ago,” Costin continued, voice soft, breath cold against her ear. “I had just moved to Rogue City and had decided to take a walk in the woods, not knowing there was an infestation of rebellious young werewolves with a hankering for vampire blood.”

She remembered that night. After a fight with Nigel—she couldn’t remember now what that fight had been about—she’d stormed out of the house and gone to her favorite spot in the woods. She’d been pouting up in a tree when she heard the cries for help.

“I was cornered by a lone wolf,” Costin said. “I had no weapon, and my speed and fangs were no match for a wolf who had already transitioned. I’d lived more lifetimes than I could count and yet there I was, about to meet my end as a meal for some ravenous dog.”

He leaned in, lips brushing against her cheek. Closing her eyes, she reveled in the softness of those lips against her skin. It was hard to believe he was over a thousand years old when he looked barely twenty.

“Then suddenly you were there,” he said, hand touching her stomach, moving in slow, intimate circles. Her skin tingled.
“Moonlight made a red halo of the hair tangled around your face. With your copper machine you looked like a goddess of war. I’d never seen anything like you. You pulled that werewolf’s tail and spun it in the air like a child’s toy and tossed it over the trees.”

“I know,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “I was there.”

She was thankful when she saw the porch lamps of Nigel’s house ahead. It made her nervous how comfortable she felt being so close to Costin, his lips so close to hers. The alcohol buzzing through her veins, lowering her inhibitions, wasn’t helping matters either.

The lamps lit their path and the forest around them. It was still hot out despite the darkness. Westie had felt fine until she saw the trees swaying in the breeze, or maybe that was her. Everything seemed to be spinning.

She leaned against Costin to share in the coldness of his skin. His breathing quickened, legs tightening around her, almost painfully so, but she didn’t care. His cold body was the only thing keeping the nausea back.

She closed her eyes and felt some relief as the chill of his lips settled against the side of her neck.

When his mouth opened and his fangs grazed her skin, the muscles in her shoulders tensed.

“Don’t you bite me,” she said like she would to a frisky pup.

Laughter rumbled in his chest and he closed his mouth, but left his lips lingering. When they approached the house, he sat back. Westie opened her eyes and saw Alistair sitting in a rocking chair on the porch.

Westie grumbled. She’d locked her bedroom door when
sneaking out and had hoped she’d be able to sneak back in without anyone noticing she’d been missing.

Alistair stood. “Costin?” He didn’t seem to like the vampire much and had many of the same opinions as Nigel. They were always talking about the brothel, as well as Costin, being the bane of Rogue City. Westie didn’t care about the brothel, though. A person had a right to make a living and do with their body as they pleased, in her opinion. “What are you doing with Westie?” His mask made it impossible for him to sound upset, but Westie could tell. He always breathed heavier when he was mad, which forced air through the mask’s voice box, causing the internal gears to grind. If that wasn’t enough of an indication of his mood, the fiery look in his eyes got the point across.

Regret filled her. She hadn’t wanted him to see her drunk ever again.

Costin seemed undisturbed by Alistair’s reaction. “I’m helping her to get home safely.” He climbed off the horse and reached out to her. She slid into his arms.

“I’ll take it from here,” Alistair said, stepping forward.

“As you wish,” Costin said.

Somewhere behind her sloshy thoughts, Westie knew she should protest being passed around like a sack of grain, but she was too far into the bottle to care.

Alistair stumbled backward, nearly falling, when Costin released her.

“Jesus, she’s heavy,” Alistair said.

“Hey,” Westie mumbled.

Costin laughed and caught Alistair before he toppled over with Westie in his arms.

“Let me go—I can walk on my own,” Westie said, pushing at Alistair’s chest, not liking the way he was suddenly taking charge of her after he’d ignored her for so long.

When he released her, she canted a bit but managed to stay on her feet.

She said good-bye to Costin and leaned forward to politely kiss his cheek—and if it pissed Alistair off, so be it—but when Costin turned his head abruptly, their lips met instead.

Westie was too stunned to pull away at first, even when she felt his mouth part and the tip of his tongue brush against her lips. It wasn’t until Alistair made an ugly grating sound with his mask that she finally reeled back, looking between Costin’s lazy smile and Alistair’s wide-eyed mortification.

She thought about slapping Costin because that was what she
should
do, but hitting a vampire with her left hand would be ineffective, and using her machine could knock out his fangs, which seemed far too rash for the situation.

She touched her lips, willing herself to curse Costin or say something, anything, to stop Alistair from looking at her like that, but no words would come. If she had been being honest with herself, the kiss wasn’t entirely unpleasant except for Alistair being there to witness it.

The front door to the house opened and Nigel walked out, wrapped in his dressing gown.

“Alley,” Westie said as Alistair pushed past Nigel and went into the house. There was a slight thrill seeing his anger, but there was guilt too. She didn’t like seeing him upset.

“What’s the meaning of all this noise?” Nigel demanded. His eyes locked onto Westie’s, lips pressed together. “Oh, I see.” Westie looked at the ground, shame heating her cheeks. She tried to focus on a single rock in front of her to keep from tipping over. “Get to bed,” he said with a disappointed sag in his voice. “We’ll deal with this in the morning.”

She was more than happy to oblige.

Despite a vicious hangover, Westie woke early the next morning. She wanted to be out of the house before Nigel woke up so she wouldn’t have to talk about the Fairfields.

She couldn’t blame him for not believing they were cannibals. Her memories were not always reliable. Once, when she’d first gone out looking for the killers of her family, there’d been a woman slain and eaten by cannibals in the valley where Westie had gone hunting. She had seen a man lingering in the town nearby who’d had the same beard, build, and deep-set menacing eyes as the man who’d cut off her arm. Taking him off his guard by playing the part of damsel in distress, she’d managed to knock him out and string him up by his feet.

Though no other authorities believed there were cannibals in the valley, Westie had managed to convince Nigel and the sheriff both that there were, and that the man in her possession was one of them.
But just as the man was about to be hanged for his crime, his brother came to town with proof that the accused man had just flown in from New York on an airship days before and couldn’t have been the one who’d killed and eaten the young woman the week before.

It had been a great scandal and embarrassment. The only thing that kept her from sitting in the sheriff’s cells for her wrongful accusation was Nigel’s good word that she’d never pull a stunt like that again—and yet she would have yesterday if Costin hadn’t been there to stop her.

Because of past follies, there was no way anyone would believe her based on her word. To get the sheriff on board, she needed Nigel’s backing, and for that, she needed proof. Only way she knew to get it was to go back to the scene of her nightmares.

She left the note she’d written for Nigel on the desk in his study and went out to the barn, stumbling when she saw Alistair waiting for her.

Bena was beside him, brushing her horse. She gave Westie a questioning look that Westie replied to with a shrug.

“What are you doing out here?” Westie asked Alistair.

There was a long pause as they watched each other. Alistair was an athlete at the staring game. “Curious why you’re sneaking around.” He didn’t look angry like he had the night before.

“You’re spying on me?”

There were dark circles beneath his eyes as if he hadn’t slept. “Do you really think that after what happened at the docks I would let you out of my sight?”

He left out the part about her time at the saloon, but she wasn’t going to remind him.

Westie slung her saddlebag over Henry’s rump. She didn’t know what to do. Alistair was a hitch in her plans.

“You haven’t cared about anything concerning me for the last three years—why start now?”

“I’ve always cared about you.” His mask whirred and his face reddened.

Westie fought the smile rising up. It was the first time he’d ever admitted anything of the sort, but it was difficult to believe after all the time he’d spent avoiding her.

Alistair cleared his throat—though it sounded more like the clank of metal bits pinging off one another—and continued, “You’ve always been independent and competent for the most part, but after showing up at the house in the middle of the night, drunk and kissing vampires, no less, I’m not so sure anymore. Clearly you need some assistance with your decision making.”

There it was.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were jealous,” she said, mimicking his statement from the docks.

He gave it right back. “It’s a good thing you know better.”

Westie ground her teeth. He was only copying the words that she’d said earlier, but they stung all the same.

“Does Nigel know you’re leaving?” Alistair asked.

“I left him a note saying I was going to Sacramento with Isabelle for a few days.”

“Where are you really going?”

“The cabin.”

Alistair moved so close he couldn’t be ignored. “The cabin . . . where your family died?”

She didn’t answer, just went on about her business, checking her saddle, Henry’s bit, and the length of her stirrups. When Alistair took her flesh hand in his, Westie looked down at their tangled fingers as if he’d grown tentacles. How unlike him it was to even stand near her. She could’ve easily slipped out of his hold, but his warmth and the firmness of his grip kept her grounded as her strength withered away.

He had big, strong hands that were rough to the touch. They were hands that had never shied away from hard work, but were still agile enough to dress wounds and assist Nigel in the surgical rooms.

Seeing their fingers laced together, she was reminded of the day they’d met, the day she and Nigel had found him. The men who’d attacked him and his family took off into the woods, and Nigel, with his cane and horse, went after them. Westie stayed back with Alistair.

The cannibal men had bitten his cheeks, but the worst damage was done to his throat, leaving scarlet craters. Blood gurgled from his open wounds. Air whispered from his lips. His voice was gone, but she understood well enough. His lips moved and he mouthed the words “Kill me.”

Though only fourteen at the time and small for his age, he gripped her flesh hand with the strength of a man twice his size, holding on as if she were his last tether to this earth. Westie was in agony as he crushed her fingers together, but she refused to pull away.

Heavy tears fell from her eyes into his wounds. She’d thought about strangling him with her new powerful arm, but looking into his glittering eyes, she couldn’t bring herself to end his suffering. After losing her family to cannibals, Westie knew losing someone else—even a stranger—in the same violent way would be too much for her heart to bear. And so she begged him to live. She kissed his forehead and begged and begged.

Nigel came back covered in the blood of the cannibal men and looked like a creature out of her worst dreams. She turned her begging on him and asked him to save the boy’s life.

He slid from his saddle and crouched over the boy, examining the wounds.

“You have to save him,” Westie demanded, tears blurring her vision.

Nigel smoothed the boy’s hair and whispered. “Westie, I don’t know if—”

“No! You have to,” she cried, her voice echoing off the trees.

He let out a long sigh and nodded. “I’ll try.”

Alistair sat on the edge of death for weeks after infection ravaged his body, but Nigel managed to save him. Westie stayed with Alistair through his recovery, through his nightmares and sorrow. She never once left his side. Like a silly girl, she believed he lived for her, so he was hers and she was his.

“Don’t go,” Alistair said, interrupting her memories. “Creatures and bandits are all that travel the wagon trail now that the trains and airships have come back from the war.”

Westie closed her eyes, memorized how his touch felt against her skin before shaking him off.

“I have to.”

“I am going with her,” Bena said. “She will be safe.”

Alistair wouldn’t give up that easily. “Why are you going back there?”

It wasn’t the first time Westie had tried to get into that cabin to learn more about her family’s killers. Once, two years ago, she and Bena had ridden out to the cabin in search of clues. An old man had made the place his home and refused to let them in. This time Westie wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“Proof,” Westie said. “Solid evidence is the only way I’ll convince Nigel that the Fairfields are cannibals, and Nigel’s word is the only way the sheriff will believe it.”

“It’s been seven years since your family died in that cabin. What do you expect to find?”

“A photo, a piece of paper with their names—I’ll know it when I see it.” From what Westie had seen of the old man living in the cabin, he didn’t throw anything away.

“What about Emma? Nigel needs the Fairfields’ money to finish it.”

Westie glanced at Bena, who checked her paint’s hooves and acted like she wasn’t paying attention, though Westie knew better.

“I won’t say anything till they hand the money to Nigel. That’ll give me enough time to gather the evidence I need to build a case against the Fairfields, one as solid as a steel wall that neither Nigel nor
the sheriff can deny.” She mounted Henry and pulled the reins to face Alistair. “We need to get on before Nigel wakes up.”

Alistair took a deep breath that made his mask hiss. “I’m going with you.”

It had been so long since they’d spent any length of time together that she wasn’t sure how to act around him. She tried to breathe around the lump in her throat.

“Suit yourself.” She clicked her tongue, urging Henry out of the barn.