Page 41 of Bane of Hate and Silver (Primordial Inheritance #1)

“And it is? You love Monica, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do. A lot, but she’s always so secretive. It feels like she’s always hiding something from me. I just couldn’t take it anymore.” Tai started speed-talking, a trait he had picked up from Monica. Luca struggled to keep up but managed to catch Tai’s gist.

“Did you tell her all this?” Luca asked him.

“Yes! That’s when she blew up and started raving about how she couldn’t tell me and if I couldn’t trust her then maybe we should just break up. The next thing I know, my relationship of two years is just over. I suppose it’s my fault, but I…”

Luca felt a pain in his chest as he listened. Was Jules right? Was this his fault? Was the secret Monica was keeping the one about the secret supernatural underbelly of the world? The one Luca had insisted she keep. Can Tai handle the truth?

“What good is a relationship without trust? And she doesn’t trust me, and I can’t trust her.”

He wanted to tell Tai everything, to insist that Monica had a good reason to lie, but instead, he said, “that sucks, man. I’m sorry.”

He sat there with his friend as he finished up his meal, not saying much more. He needed to talk to Jules. Together, they would decide what to do.

Ricky reached out to touch Tasha’s thigh.

They sat together on her family’s old basement couch.

After he’d showered, he’d sought refuge in Tasha’s home.

Little did he know asylum would lead to kisses.

She giggled as he leaned forward to kiss her again.

She slid her hands onto his shoulders and bit down lightly on the tender part of his lip.

“Tasha!” someone called.

“Who was that?” Ricky asked as they both stopped abruptly.

“My brother,” Tasha said. “Ignore him.” Her brother was a senior football player at Aboit High.

He called out for her again as Tasha pulled Ricky down on top of her by the t-shirt. Ricky tried to ignore his increasingly aggravated calls as they kissed again.

The basement door burst open and Ricky heard footsteps clomping down the wooden stairs. He pulled himself off her.

“You little creep!” her brother screamed, rushing at Ricky.

Ricky was too fast for the large football player and easily avoided the charge. With one last smile over his shoulder, Ricky rushed out of the house.

As he headed into the woods, he peeled the layers of clothing off and leaped into the air. Tasha’s brother shouted angrily from somewhere behind him, but he would never catch Ricky now.

Even if he did, he wouldn’t be looking for a black-haired wolf. Ricky turned and trotted away from the voice with a toothy, wolf-like snicker. Once he was well out of range, he stopped to stretch, utterly pleased with himself.

“That was reckless.”

Ricky spun. Before him, in a random patch of woods behind Tasha’s subdivision, was Jules.

He stared at her with his yellow, wolf eyes, and then turned his head from side to side, unsure what to do now.

“Hang on,” Jules said and then bolted in the direction he’d come from, returning moments later with the pants he’d discarded. She tossed them at him and then turned her back.

In a burst of light and laughing easily, Ricky the wolf became Ricky the boy and pulled on his returned piece of clothing. “Okay,” he told Jules, who turned around to face him.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked before she took the opportunity to question him. “You know these woods butt up against the preserve this pack runs in.”

“I did not,” she admitted. “This is the fastest way to Monica’s from my… Mr. Prentiss’s house.”

“You and Mr. Prentiss huh?” he teased.

Jules made a face at him that he interpreted to mean you know what I mean.

“By the way,” Jules began, sounding like his teacher for a moment. “What if Neal had seen you?”

“Who?” Ricky hadn’t the foggiest idea who she was talking about.

“Tasha’s brother.” Jules pointed back in the direction of the houses.

Ricky shrugged. “He didn’t.”

“Teenagers.” Jules smiled and scoffed at the same time.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Ricky asked, thinking about the fact that Jules had been on her way to her friend’s house.

“Yes,” Jules said, like she may have forgotten that fact. “And where are you headed?”

Ricky shrugged again. He wouldn’t go back to the Den, that he knew. But he didn’t exactly have plans beyond this particular moment.

Jules bit her lip for a moment, presumably thinking. “Listen, if you don’t want to go home.”

“It’s not my home,” Ricky interrupted.

“Well, then, if you need somewhere to be, I think Luca is back at my house.”

Ricky’s eyebrows raised as he waited for Jules to continue.

“Even if he’s not, there is a spare key under the planter by the back door. You can’t miss it. The plant is dead.”

“You’re really offering to let me crash at your house?” Ricky asked. “Why?”

“Honestly,” Jules began, “because I see something in you that reminds me of someone I once loved. Someone I loved above all others.”

“What happened to him?” Ricky asked, catching the context of the past.

“He died long ago,” Jules said. “But what you did back there, that recklessness, he would have loved it.”

Jules finally made it to Monica’s house. As she walked up the drive, Monica’s co-worker was just leaving. “How’s she doing?” Jules asked.

“She hasn’t stopped crying,” the girl said. She looked emotionally spent.

“It’s my turn. I’ve got her.”

Jules rang the doorbell and Ethan answered.

“Hi,” she greeted.

“Hey,” he said, “Thank the stars you’re here. I can’t stand the wailing.”

“Very compassionate, Ethan.”

Ethan rolled his eyes.

Just then a gut-wrenching cry came from upstairs.

Jules cringed.

Ethan shrugged and gestured in Monica’s direction as if to say, “see.”

“You want to come and cheer her up with me?” Jules asked as they walked up the stairs side-by-side.

“No way,” Ethan stepped back and Jules moved toward Monica’s bedroom door. “I’m not going near that with a ten-foot pole.”

“Such a great little brother you are,” Jules teased.

“Oh, I know I am.” He laughed and then walked into his own room, shutting the door behind him.

When Jules pushed open Monica’s bedroom door, she was not surprised to find her curled up in her fluffy chair in the corner; tear streaks down her face and a box of tissues on her lap. Her eyes were red and her cheeks were blotchy. She looked so human in this moment, Jules’s heart broke for her.

“Oh, Jules.”

Monica rushed toward Jules and hugged her. Both girls sunk onto the bed.

“I can’t believe this is happening. I mean, I know he feels like I’m hiding something from him. I mean I am hiding something from him, a really, really big something. But...” Monica continued to speak, and Jules let her, rubbing her back and waiting.

“Monica, I’m so sorry. It’s all my…” Jules began, once Monica had stopped to take a breath.

“Don’t you dare say this is your fault,” Monica snapped, fixing Jules with a glare. “He should have trusted me!”

“Still, if you want to tell him you should be able too,” Jules said. “I’ll talk to Luca. I promise.”

“No. Don’t bother. It doesn’t matter now. If he can’t trust me, it’s over anyway.” With that, tears began to run down Monica’s face once again.

“Are you sure about that?” Jules moved her head down, so she could look into Monica’s lowered eyes.

“I don’t know. But he’s the one who broke it off. I won’t go crawling back to him,” she said with what Jules thought was false conviction.

Jules didn’t say anything. Monica was being too negative to receive any real advice right now. So, she held her in her cold arms as she cried. Jules remained quiet as Monica finally moved on to silent sobs.

“We should have a girls’ night,” Jules suggested once the tears had stopped and Monica had begun to make an effort to compose herself.

“Maybe… I don’t know if I’m up to it.”

“Think about it. We could hang out. Maybe watch a movie. You could order in. Take your mind off things.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Monica admitted. “We could invite Hayley.”

Jules knew that hanging out with a vampire might be asking too much of the werewolf but if Monica wanted to at least invite her, Jules would.

“Please,” Monica begged.

So, Jules picked up her phone and scrolled through her contacts until she found Hayley’s recently added name. She hit send and waited through the rings.

“Hey, you were supposed to call me,” a male voice greeted. “I’m the one who likes to get phone calls from beautiful women.”

“Hi, Kyle.” Jules laughed.

“Hand it over. She doesn’t want to talk to you,” Jules heard Hayley say in the background.

“How do you know? She might have called the wrong number,” he said but his voice was no longer near the phone.

Jules chuckled. After what sounded like a chase around the living room, Jules heard the sound of a hand smacking bare skin. “Ouch!”

“Jules. Hi, I’m so sorry about that. He’s an idiot.”

“Don’t be.” Jules tried to stifle her chuckling.

“What’s up?” Hayley asked.

“Monica needs a girls’ night; Tai broke up with her.”

“Jerk!” Hayley said. “They were perfect together.”

“Are you up for an evening in? With us?” Jules added to clarify that she, the vampire, would be in attendance as well.

“Absolutely! That sounds really great, actually,” Hayley said. “Honey,” she called away from the phone. “I need you to run an errand for me.”

“What for?” Kyle’s distant voice asked.

“A boatload of wine. We are having a girl’s night in,” Hayley said happily.

“Wait! I’m not a girl,” Kyle exclaimed. “What about me?”

Jules could almost see the face he would be making at his wife.

“Sometimes you are just not that important,” she said away from the phone.

He groaned.

“I’m back,” Hayley said. “See you at your place in two hours.” With that, Hayley ended the call and Jules set down her phone.

“Party at my place,” Jules told Monica.

She raised her eyebrows.

“Don’t worry,” Jules said putting her hand on Monica’s. “It will be girls only.” Once I get rid of the boys, she added to herself.

Nick had been waiting in all his old murder spots for hours with no luck.

After much planning and strategizing, it was decided that Nick would be the bait to catch the people looking for him.

Also, a discrete team had been sent to the apartment to watch, with no luck.

They still waited to hear back from the two that went to the dank motel Nick had followed Chad to.

It seemed the people Chad worked for didn’t have any intention of checking on their missing but very dead employee.

“Hi there,” Nick greeted an attractive, dark-skinned, young man he had in his sights.

The man gave him a sideways look but didn’t respond. Instead, he kept walking in the direction he had been headed when he had been stopped by the vampire.

“Alright then,” Nick said aloud, to no one in particular.

He startled when he felt a hand on his arm, and then a frail body bump into his side unsteadily. “Hello?” Nick questioned, looking down at the small woman.

“Hi,” said a drunk, and probably drugged, boney human. Nick recognized her as a regular at Incognito. “I know what you are,” she mumbled.

“Do you?” he asked looking around for Antonio or one of the other vampires that had accompanied him to the stake out.

“Yep, you can drink from me if you want,” she said, sticking out her wrist toward his mouth.

Nick licked his lips in anticipation. He hadn’t been looking for a drink, he was on a mission. But when one so readily presented its self, who was he to turn it down?

“You have no idea what you’re offering,” he told her but walked with her toward a secluded side of the fountain.

“Yes, I do!” she slurred incredulously. “Don’t you want to?” she asked, swaying on her feet and dropping onto the edge of the fountain with a thud.

He glided to sit beside her, putting one hand on the back of her neck to steady it.

His chuckle was low and breathless. He watched the pulse under her skin, the vein exposed.

She was offering herself for a moment of relief from this mortal coil.

How could he resist? His fangs slipped free of their sheaths.

She lifted her arm towards him again and he shoved it aside.

He lunged instead for her neck. Piercing the skin there, he began to drink.

She gave a little shriek and then sank into him. He pushed aside the memories that flooded his mind. Images of a sad and lonely life. Of rejections and endless isolations.

He focused instead on the pulse beneath his lips.

It began to slow, and he knew it was time to stop if she was to live.

A part of him wanted to, for some reason he couldn’t identify.

However, he’d inherited his addictive personality from his drunken father.

His grip tightened around his prey, holding the source of his addiction to his lips as he continued to drink every last drop.

Hearing the distinct clearing of a throat, Nick pulled his fangs from the dead woman’s neck.

“Oops,” he whispered to the bar staff hiding in the bushes to help him ambush the people Chad worked for, whom they hadn’t seen hide nor hair from.

He laid the woman against the edge of the fountain on the cobble stones and spoke normally.

“I say this one is a wash anyway boys. We should go.”

He heard the hidden vampires stalking away nearly silently and was about to follow when he caught sight of a stranger.

A blonde, male vampire was watching him.

Stock still and furious looking. Nick looked from the vampire, down to his fresh kill, made a kissy gesture accompanied with a nod at the vampire he didn’t know, and left to follow the others to his next trap attempt.