Wolf's Bane: Book Three of the Demimonde

  Cover art: Red Fist Fiction

  Interior design/formatting: Red Fist Fiction

  First edition 2014

  Second edition 2016

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information can be found at www.ashkrafton.com

  Kindle Version

  Copyright © 2016 by Ash Krafton

  Wolf's Bane

  Book Three of the Demimonde

  by

  Ash Krafton

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DEDICATION

  Dedicated to my Beloveds—

  My husband, my children, my family

  Dear Sophia,

  Salutations and blessings from the Pacific Northwest Conclave of American Demivampire.

  We are writing to thank you once again for your guidance and your immeasurable consideration during last month’s DV retreat. Although our envoy was nearly two hundred souls strong, you had ministered to each of us as if we were your own children. May God bless you with long life and all His protection for the countless Saves you have performed.

  Words cannot adequately express our unfathomable gratitude. Your untiring efforts during the week-long healing sessions have earned our deepest devotion and sincerest respect.

  Each of us enjoyed our stay in your city and look forward to enjoying your presence at the upcoming summer retreat.

  Yours in redemption,

  Leah Stephenson

  PNCAD

  Chair, Committee of Sophia Affairs

  The man sitting across from me absolutely hated himself.

  I didn't need to unzip my barriers to make that assessment. The way his shoulders crept up his neck, the curve of his back that left his face parallel to his thighs, the way he avoided looking at me or anyone else—body language said it all. And when he did finally raise his too-heavy head to look at me, his eyes were stony and hollow, too dead to even care what anyone saw in them.

  He wore his self-loathing the way I wished I wore Jimmy Choos—right out there for the whole world to see. Difference was, he didn't care who looked.

  I glanced at the Demivamp who hovered behind him like a first-year teacher. She toyed with the end of her braid and looked ready to throw herself onto him if need be. Maybe he was a flight risk. Maybe he was a danger to himself.

  Maybe he was a danger to me. In that case, the other DV wasn't necessary. I didn't worry so much about myself anymore. I'd learned a thing or two about staying alive.

  Not to mention, I had an entire courtroom full of DV that perched on the semi-circles of benches, elbow to elbow, each waiting their turn with the Sophia. I knew full well every single one of them would fling themselves between me and whatever peril might arise here.

  I was well-guarded. Perks of being a national treasure.

  I flicked my gaze up to the DV who stood behind my client, dismissing her. Once she took her place in the audience, I sank into my Sophia sight. Finding my center, I called up my barriers, peeling away the outermost layer and expanding it until it encompassed us both in an invisible but completely soundproof bubble.

  A nifty little trick I'd learned since Dorcas removed the last remaining obstacles between me and my power. She hadn't been much of a dresser and had a weird thing for vampires, not to mention acting like the scariest damned thing I'd ever seen, but I had to hand it to her. She'd done me a solid.

  When the barrier went up around us, there was a little ear-pop of sensation. He seemed to notice me then. His eyes took up a pale light, gleaming like the teeth he hid behind the disdainful curl of his lips. His power seethed out like the odor of a hot dumpster—the feel of it decayed and ugly and absolutely desperate.

  I smiled, grim and hard. This guy might be the farthest gone DV I'd ever meet. He was going to be a challenge.

  Good.

  I decided to start the same way I always did, knowing this one might not end the same way. "What's your name?"

  He stared me down for several moments. "You want my current name or the one that's waiting for me?"

  Obviously, he was referring to the name change that happened when a DV Fell. Vampires never kept their DV names. All part of the whole born-again (dead-again?) persona of a newly-minted vamp.

  "You have one name," I said, my voice like tungsten. "And you're going to keep it."

  "Like you can stop me."

  I smiled again, glad I had chosen to wear lip gloss because my mouth was so dry, my lips would have split without it. "I can. And I will."

  "Look, lady." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. The pale light in his dark eyes looked like an early hard frost on a green lawn. Untimely end of a sweet season. "I know who you are, and I know what you do. Sometimes, you just gotta let nature take its course."

  "This isn't nature. This is self-punishment."

  He smiled, open-mouthed to show all his teeth. Sharp, elongated, a mouth full of knives. A vamp's mouth. "And I earned every single minute of it."

  Okay. Tough guy. Proud of the shitty things he's done. That was part of the thrill of being so close to Falling. Kind of like passing over the event horizon into a black hole, when one part of you accelerates faster than the rest. His soul was a ragged plastic bag caught on a tree branch, waiting for the last big wind to come along.

  His heart had already flown loose. In his heart, he was a vampire.

  Well, his body was still here, and his soul was still here, and I was still here. He was in for a surprise.

  I surveyed his power, using Sophia-sight to visualize it. It was dark, like cooling lava, black and cracked and sullen red showing through the seams. The black crust was his resignation. He'd stopped fighting. But maybe he just needed the right sparring partner.

  How did you get rid of hard, black cooling lava? Why, you heat it up, of course. Nothing got a man hotter than his temper.

  Well, that wasn't exactly true. There were other things, but that wasn't my brand of therapy.

  I pushed through his brittle ugly shell into the lava beneath, then through the lava to his inner core. It was tiny, but it was cool, and green, and still had the essence of who he used to be. His feelings were still packed away inside and I latched onto it, expanded it, examined it. Family. He had kids. A job. He'd been a lawyer, and a good one. He was proud of what he'd done—in the beginning.

  Ah. That's where it st
arted to turn. I sifted along the line of those memories and found the point when he started fighting for the bad guys.

  "A dirty lawyer?" I snorted and rolled my eyes. "There's a shock. Your parents must be so proud."

  He growled and dug his fingers into his thighs. "Shut up."

  "No wonder you turned into this." I waved my fingers at him as if I were calling out a Coach bag knock-off at a street vendor. "I thought you were going to say you ate babies or something but a corrupt lawyer? That's sick."

  Rage filled him like a burning warehouse, the fury consuming his power. If it weren't for my personal shields, I'd have been incinerated. The fire of his anger melted the hard shell of his former apathy and he became a miniature sun of murderous intent.

  He wanted to end me, wanted nothing more than to get his hands on me.

  I beat him to it.

  With the flick of a mental finger, I opened the door in my mind where all the bad stuff went. It was like a vacuum in there and once it was open, it just sucked at his power, the ugly, the hate, and the agony he'd surrounded himself with. I pulled.

  It hurt. It hurt me, it was like sandpaper on the eyes and it hurt him. He howled as I ripped away all the fury of his self-loathing and hate.

  Normally, I did this in steps, gently, kind of a leeching away. Not this guy. I had to over-power him because at this stage, he could just grow it all back. Vampires were infinite wells of hate and evil and this guy was so damned close.

  His howl became a roar and he made a lunge for me. I slid a ramrod of my shields at him and held him at a mental arm's length. He struggled to reach me, his clawed hands inches from my eyes and if he got to me, if he reached me, he'd tear my throat out.

  No, he wouldn't. I was stronger than that. I bit down on my lips and tasted the tang of blood and continued to strip his agony away.

  This little man wasn't big enough to break me. I continued to pull away the damage of his soul, and sent a simultaneous stream of the Sophia into him, a cool mist against the acrid hate. His soul had been dried and withered and it soaked up the Sophia's healing rain, swelling and anchoring itself once more.

  The fight was going out of him. He dropped his hands, fighting to breathe. Part of my brain screamed to stop, this was too much, too fast. But a part of my heart was intent on pushing the limits, almost wishing to break because maybe then—just maybe—I'd break past whatever unknown obstacle had been holding me back. Desperation drove me just as surely as it had driven him.

  So I was relentless. I continued the pull and the push and I found myself standing over his slumped body. He'd slid down in his chair, head dropped against the back of the cushion, his eyes darkening into a deep green, like spring grass. And I didn't stop.

  I didn't stop until he'd fallen to his knees before me, forehead pressed to my feet, crying and repeating words I couldn't hear because the Sophia was too much in control. My ears didn't work right when she was filling my head. I kind of got used to it.

  When it was all gone, all the damage and the negativity and the self-hate, the Sophia pulled itself back, sealing the drain. Sound returned, and I could hear his labored breathing, his murmured chanting. My insides still felt raw. That would take a day or two to settle down.

  I was aware the outer barrier was still up and I dispelled it. Another ear-pop and we were both submerged in a cacophony of applause and happy shouting. Several people rushed forward to embrace him, hugs for him, awkward hugs for me. I backed away from the jostling and let his family and friends bear him back to the seats. He beamed at me, incredulous joy and gratitude on his face.

  And it didn't touch me at all.

  I only had two thoughts. The first was: I had just gotten inside him, battled his demons, saved his soul, but I never learned his name. Maybe it was better that way. There were so many DV. I couldn't remember all their names and keep my sanity.

  The second was: it hadn't been enough. He was, by far, the worst I'd encountered and it still wasn't enough. There had been no revelation, clue, no hint how to fix the one problem I needed to fix.

  I'd come no closer to solving Marek's problem.

  A terrible panic tried to grip me but I squashed it down. I swallowed hard and pinched myself and turned to the crowd. The entire group fell silent, hanging on my words.

  "Another," I called. "Please. I need another."

  And I continued to heal, and I continued to need, and I continued to fight the growing fear that in the end, I might save a million DV and still stand to lose the one I truly loved.

  Another stepped forward, and after him another, and it was pushing dawn before I realized none of it had given me what I needed to save Marek.

  I stared bleakly at the sea of hopeful faces. So many saves, so many solutions, all of it dwarfed in the shadow of my heart's crushing failure. All my exhaustion, all my despair, all of the raw edges inside me, seething with the scalds of so much negative energy, and all I could think was that I had to do this all again for the next envoy in three days' time.

  Einstein's Definition of Insanity Sophie, that's me.

  Rodrian was waiting outside the courtroom when the Conclave finally let out. The crowd dispersed fairly quickly; good thing, too, since the regular staff would be showing up for official court house proceedings. And by regular staff, I meant generally-unaware humans.

  The sky was as dreary as my mood, and I was tired. I didn't complain when he suggested we make a brief stop. No sense in complaining when it couldn't be put off anymore.

  Fifteen minutes later, a light rain drummed on the roof of Rodrian's silver Audi, mixing with the higher-pitched tick-tick-tick of the cooling engine. It would have been music had we been parked anywhere else.

  Rodrian removed the keys from the ignition and bounced them in his hands, looking as uncomfortable as I felt.

  "I'm sorry," he said.

  I turned to him, a slight drawing of brows to question why.

  He scowled and peered out the windshield. "I didn't bring an umbrella. Damned weather is so unpredictable."

  I shrugged and looked back out the window again, watching the rain stream down, collecting into puddles on the brick sidewalk.

  He laid his fingers on my sleeve. "We can do this some other—"

  "No," I said. "Today is a good day."

  "You sure?"

  "No, not really."

  He nodded. "Right, then. I'll get your door."

  Rodrian was a real gent. His manners came from a time when men bothered to have any. Sometimes his quaint gestures made me feel like an antique myself, even though he was nearly a hundred years older than I. He ducked out and came around to my side, pulling open the door. I stepped out into the rain and headed toward the red stone steps leading to Marek's townhouse.

  I pushed the door open as soon as I heard the lock click. Rodrian had little patience for keys and usually compelled simple things like locks six ways to Sunday.

  The air was close, that sense of damp neglect that rooms get when they'd been empty for a long time. The clouds outside tinted the available light a steel gray, bright enough to see where we walked but not enough to animate the details of the rooms.

  I'd last been here perhaps two years ago but not much had changed. Marek probably hadn't spent the last few years playing Suzy Homemaker.

  Actually, I had little idea of how he'd spent the time since we separated. Considering he'd assumed the position of master vampire (albeit in a non-vampire kind of way) I assumed very few of his evenings were spent with popcorn and reality television. Call it a hunch.

  Rodrian thumbed through a thin stack of mail he'd picked up on the way in. "I've been by a few times to take care of basic things but I haven't moved anything. I wanted to wait for you."

  "Why?"

  He shrugged and tossed the envelopes onto the dining room table, where a pile of old mail had already begun to accumulate. "It didn't seem right."

  "I don't see why not." I looked around at the shadows and vague shapes of furniture. "It's
just a house."

  "If you say so." He took a deep clearing breath. "So, what do we do with it all?"

  "Can't we just leave it the way it is? He'll get mad if he knew we were messing with his things."

  "I don't think it matters to him now."

  "Duh, of course not now. But when he comes back, he'll be pissed."

  "Sophie…" Rodrian's face was gentle, careful, as if he were afraid he'd hurt me. Didn't he know I couldn't possibly be hurt anymore? "He isn't coming back."

  "Oh, ye of little faith," I replied lightly. "Does the water still run? I need to use the bathroom."

  He nodded. "Upstairs to the right."

  Sometimes, he forgot I knew.

  Truthfully, I didn't need to use the facilities. I was simply tired of listening, but I was too polite to tell him to shut up. Rodrian had taken to treating me like a widow, which made me both depressed and furious.

  I never had the joy of being married, the bliss of honeymoon, the opportunity for love's passionate fire to dwindle down to low heat. I wasn't a widow. Being treated like one made me feel like a shutter that had blown loose in a windstorm, banging ferociously against the window, impotent and helpless and raging against being stuck on a hinge.

  I fooled around in my purse, flushed the toilet, and made a big business out of washing my hands before assembling enough self-control to walk downstairs.

  "In here." Rodrian called from a room toward the back of the house.

  I followed his voice to Marek's personal room, which served double duty as office and lounge. This was the only room downstairs that looked lived in; the front parlor was too formal and the kitchen was fresh out of the pages of Better Homes and Garden—all white marble and chrome accent, countertops suspiciously absent of respectable coffee rings.

  For the most part, it looked like a museum. Hence my argument for keeping it that way.

  This particular room was worn and comfortable and, in comparison to the rest of the house, downright cluttered. It seemed to be the resting place of anything important to Marek—books, photos, weapons (no, really. Weapons. Big scary weapons that looked too heavy to lift and left little to the imagination regarding their proper use.) The room took up a full third of the downstairs, which was huge considering Marek hadn't scrimped on square footage when he shopped for a townhouse.