The Corollaria (7 page)

“How is she?” Samuel asked. A
slightly bemused smile played on his thin lips.

Curtis looked up and answered with a hard edge to his voice
, “Scared.”

Samuel laughed. It was a cruel humorless sound that made Curtis cringe. He dropped his eyes back to his hands that hung between his knees.

“I’m not going to kill her,” Samuel said evenly. Curtis looked up, the older vampire’s steely eyes sliced into him and he could almost hear the
yet
.

H
is voice was too calm and matter of fact when he spoke, “I need another favor from you, Curtis. Seeing as you failed in my previous request.”

“What do y
ou want from me?” Curtis choked. His hands began to slightly tremble.

Samuel leaned forward, “Curtis, I told you, if you cooperate with me I will give you everything you desire.”

Desire.
The word sent a ripple through him. He wasn’t even sure what that was anymore. Did he desire Emily? Or was it just her blood. His throat felt like sandpaper, rough and scratchy, at the thought of the warm thick liquid as it glided along his tongue, coated his throat, and filled his gut. He swallowed hard, and closed his eyes. He could hear her heart beating from here.

Immortality
, he thought suddenly. The word rang in his ears. Was that what he desired? He mentally shook himself trying to dispel the cacophony of thoughts that buzzed inside his head. If his heart could still beat it would be erratic, he surmised, and even though it was unnecessary, his breathing felt ragged.

“I have a small problem, and I need you to see to it, Curtis,” Samuel continued
, as if he was totally unaware of Curtis’s inner turmoil. Curtis looked up, and furrowed his brow, waiting for the order.

“I need you to kill Luke.”

L
uke paced. It was all he could do to keep the insanity that literally vibrated in his body from taking over. He fisted his hands in his shaggy brown hair. His breathing was ragged and his nostrils flared as he wore a path in the carpet of his older brother Carson’s Manhattan apartment.

Emily was gone and that knowledge burned inside him. The moment he realized that, he’d exploded, his heavy paws
had thudded against the floor, and his claws had scrapped helplessly. It had taken him at least an hour to phase back, and even when he did, he felt a sharp staggering pain pierce his chest. His eyes had scanned the room uselessly.

He had staggered to his feet, and flipped the light on.  The bright yellow illuminated the shadows and made the room seem so innocent compared to a few minutes earlier. But a heavy stench
had still hung in the air, reminding him that he hadn’t imagined the night before.

He had tried to call
his parents as he’d shrugged into a shirt and jeans.  Luke had searched the house, his parent’s room, and Emily’s room again too. Everything looked perfectly in order.  Luke decided to take the train to Carson’s apartment after he’d finally gotten a hold of him.

It was almost impossible to ignore the intense heat that licked up his spine and pooled in his mouth
like bitter molten lava.  Or the empty hollow pain that punched through his gut. He wasn’t even sure where or why he felt this intense longing for her suddenly.

Luke
closed his eyes and tried to tell himself, it was just his over-protective brother-like instincts for her. But that had always been Carson’s role, not his. And the way he felt, the way he could imagine the feel of her skin beneath his lips, was anything but brotherly.

Luke sank down onto an overstuffed chair, and held his head in his
shaking hands.  Emily’s blue eyes were suddenly all he could see. Sparkling blue eyes with an uncanny depth he would gladly drown in.  He remembered the feel of her in his arms, the exact weight of her against his chest, her fingers in his...

He swallowed.
His fur
. It was still impossible to wrap his brain around exactly what he was, but he was unable to deny it either. He could feel the animal inside him, separate but the same. It was a strange feeling of duality he couldn’t quite describe.

The sound of footsteps outside and the lock clicki
ng as it turned made Luke tense. He relaxed when he recognized his brother’s big stature, followed by Jenny, his girlfriend, all slender curves and dark red hair.

“Luke, you okay?” Carson asked when he entered the living room. His face was serious,
which Luke was used to. But there was something, a flicker of deep knowing in his dark gray eyes that confused him.

Luke shrugged. He was not okay, but he didn’t think he needed to articulate that to Carson.

Jenny looked uneasy. This was odd. She was usually the confident, sexy vixen, unruffled and unfazed.  But she looked worried as she chewed nervously on her thumbnail.  Carson sat down on the long black sofa across from Luke. He leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees. His eyes were focused intently on Luke, and his nostrils flared like he was sniffing the air around him.

“Tell me what happened ton
ight, Luke,” he asked calmly, but there was a hard gravelly edge to his words.

Luke told him about what he saw when he walked out of the bar, the feeling that he had that something was wrong,
and his explosion into a wolf. Then, he recounted the attack in their kitchen.

He kept the intensity of
his feelings for Emily to himself. He wasn’t even sure what it meant yet. It felt too private to share, even if he could describe it. Maybe he couldn’t, maybe he just wasn’t ready to.  The knot in his stomach tightened.

Carson remained stoic through the explanation, except for the occasional hard twitch of his jaw. Jenny looked pale and sick, her golden skin looking more yellowish every second
.   A heavy sense of foreboding settled in her gut.

“Luke, I should have told you. Dad should have too. We didn’t think...” Carson trailed off and sighed, raking a—Luke noticed a somewhat shaky—hand through his brown hair, and then blew out an exasperated breath. “I don’t know what we thought.”

“I don’t understand,” Luke admitted. Carson opened his mouth to speak, and then paused, his brow furrowing as he searched for the right words.

“It’s a gene. The werewolf gene is passed down from father to son,” Carson explained, and Luke heaved a heavy breath.
Werewolf?
he thought. The word felt both familiar and foreign and stuck to his tongue.

“So, Dad’s a wolf too?” Luke
asked.

Carson nodded.

“Dad is—was—the Alpha of our pack,” he explained, clearing his throat as he tripped over the words.

After Carson heard the explan
ation from Luke, he remembered the visit he’d had with the vampire, Vanessa, last night.  He was Alpha now.
Did that mean his Dad was dead? Had Samuel already gotten to him and now Emily?
Carson felt a sick twist of his stomach.

Luke frowned, “A pack?”

“Yes, our family bloodline has been the Alpha bloodline for many years, but there are other families too that share the gene. Most of them live here in New York. We try to remain close in physical location, but some have formed other packs all over the world,” Carson told him, as he tried to swallow against the pain and dread in his chest.

“Okay. I still don’t get why
last night was the first time I...” Luke wondered aloud. His mind was whirling.

“
Shifted. You would have eventually, but the danger to Emily probably jump started it,” Carson told him slowly. Luke flinched when he heard Emily’s name, it was hard not to. That same deep sense of pain and longing, desperation and panic gnawed at him.

“I don’t—”

“Emily is special,” Jenny interrupted.  Carson turned to her, lifting his brows in surprise.  She flicked her golden eyes to him, “
Corollaria
. I remembered what it means.”

Luke frowned, but didn’t say anything. Carson waited patiently and intently for her to continue.

“It’s Latin, it means ‘flower girl’,” she revealed, pausing for a moment before continuing, “I think that Vanessa vamp chick was talking about Emily.”

“Vanessa? Who the hell is that?” Luke asked. He couldn’t help getting mad, he felt like he’d suddenly been sucked into a very dark alternate universe. And he literally felt gutted.

Carson put a calming, but firm, hand on his shoulder. Luke hadn’t even realized he’d been shaking. He felt the hot bitter taste of metal in his mouth and gritted his teeth. He closed his eyes, his nostrils flared as he tried to control the beast within.

“Luke,” Carson said evenly.  “Intense emotions, especially anger, can trigger the wolf inside.  You have to try to remain calm.”

Luke took several deep breaths, trying to dispel the intense emotions
. They seemed to strangle him. Carson removed his hand and Luke’s shaking slowed down.

“Vanessa is a vampire who came to speak t
o me last night,” Carson paused as he considered his words. “She told me that Samuel—a very powerful vampire— was looking for the girl and that her wolf had failed to protect her.”

Luke’s frowned deepened. T
he words reverberated inside his head.
Her wolf?
He wanted to ask Carson what that meant, but somehow he just knew. He could feel the knowledge of it in his bones. It was heavy in his chest.  His heart ached with the weight of those simple words.

“There is a legend, among my people, about a girl
and a wolf,” Jenny interjected. Her voice was soft and calm, as if she were speaking to a child.

“Your people?”
Luke echoed. His eyes were focused on a spot on the carpet as he tried to control his emotions.

“I am a F
aerie,” she said easily, but there was no smile in her voice. Luke stayed quiet, and Carson reached over, his fingers gently interlocking with Jenny’s.

“The legend says that a thousand years ago there was a fierce war over a flower,” Jenny continued. 

“A flower? A war over a flower?” Luke asked in disbelief.  He felt like he just kept falling further and further down the rabbit hole.

Jenny grinned, “It wasn’t just any flower. Most plants and flowers in The Hidden City are anything but normal. This particular flower was exceptional and unique in its magic. It had the power to heal.”

Luke looked up, his hands still in tight fists. His gray eyes flickered once to Carson and Jenny’s combined hands, and he felt his chest tighten in response.

Her wolf
, repeated in his mind again.

“Not just to heal though, it promises youthfulness,” she paused and swallowed before adding, “
Some say it gives immortality.”

“Vampires are not immortal, Luke,” Carson jumped in. “Not anymore. They deteriorate very slowly, like a decaying corpse so to speak. They can live for a thousand years, sometimes less. But not forever.  It’s a witch’s curse.”

“What does this have to do with Emily?” Luke asked. Her name felt like acid on his tongue.

Carson
looked to Jenny. Everything was starting to make sense. He’d know some of this, but now all the pieces were starting to come together.

“The legend says that during this war, a coven of vampires wanted this flower, but vampires are forbidden in The Hidden City. They were jealous of the
immortality and magic the Faeries have. That the witches had shown them favor.  There was a woman, a witch, who protected the flower, but was frightened that the vampires would get it,” Jenny continued the tale. 

To Luke,
it all seemed like it was out of some fairytale book.

“The witch who protected it didn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands
, so she had her daughter, Cate, eat it, and ordered her daughter away. But Cate refused to leave behind her werewolf lover, Conall. The witch bound the two together, a spell that has been passed down for generations so that the wolf’s line will always protect the daughter’s. For hundreds of years the wolves have protected the descendants of Cate.”

Luke sl
owly absorbed the information.
His wolf was meant to protect Emily?
She must be a descendent of the daughter.

“So the magic of the flower is
...what, in the blood?” Luke asked.

Jenny nodded, “Yes, it’s passed down from mother to daughter. Just as your werewolf gene is passed down from father to son.”

“So Emily, she is...” Luke trailed off as his mind raced to piece it all together.

“
The Corollaria. She is the last one left since her mom and grandmother have both died,” Jenny filled in. Her voice was a strange mixture of awe and sadness.

Luke went quiet. He dropped his eyes to the ground in front of him, and shoved his fingers roughly through his brown hair. He felt the heaviness in his eyes and muscles. 

So was that it? The longing, the emptiness, the need to feel her in his arms? Is it just duty that calls him to her?