Untouchable (Wolf Kings of Twilight Book 1), page 7
With a soft yelp, Boris lays back down. As I make my way up to the deck, I hear a lot of yelling. I cautiously peek out from the stairwell to see what’s going on.
I see two rather large grappling hooks embedded into the deck of our boat. The pirate ship is a large sailboat with three masts and what looks like a full crew on board. Since it’s such a windy day, I can easily see how Damon knew we wouldn’t be able to outrun it. Given the fact that our boat is so small, it never would have picked up enough steam to go faster than the sailboat on a day like today.
Damon and Oliver stand on the side of our boat where the grappling hooks are embedded. With guns drawn, they appear ready to shoot if the pirates try to board us. Edmond is still up top at his station, but he has his own gun pointed in the direction of the would-be bandits.
“Stay on your ship or I promise you won’t like the consequences!” Damon threatens the man who appears to be the pirate’s captain.
The ten or so pirates I can see are dressed shabbily, except for the older gentleman that Damon is addressing. He’s wearing a nice maroon long coat with silver-gray lining and piping around the edges. His long white beard is braided. His head is bound by a black kerchief with a black tricorn hat sitting jauntily to the side.
“I wouldn’t be making demands if I were you, laddie,” the pirate retorts. “Who are you to be bossing me around? I’m the king of the river and you need to pay the fee for crossing it.”
“You don’t own the river,” Damon scoffs. “It’s neutral territory between Dawn and Midnight. Not even the kings own any part of this river.”
Ahh, so Damon doesn’t want the pirates to know who he is. Is that why he’s wearing the eye patch and pirate garb? To hide his identity? I’m sure most people know all about the handsome king with the scars around his eye. I suppose if I was him and wanted to go incognito, I would wear an eye patch too.
“You,” I hear a strange voice say behind me as I hear the click of a gun’s hammer being drawn back. “Put your hands up and walk out of there slowly.”
I raise my hands and glance over my shoulder to see a young man around my own age holding a gun pointed directly at my head. He’s dripping wet, which tells me he probably swam to the other side of our boat to board so he could catch us unawares. Cautiously, I walk up the last remaining steps to stand on the deck.
“Well, well, well,” the pirate captain says when he sees me. “Who do we have here?”
“No one of any consequence to you,” Damon growls. “She’s mine.”
The men on the pirate ship laugh heartily. Now that I’m on deck, I can see that the crew on the other ship is composed of both men and wolves. It makes sense. If you have a mixture of men from both Dawn and Midnight manning the ship, you can roam up and down the river all day and all night long.
“I’ll be deciding who Red here belongs to,” the pirate captain says, eyeing me with interest as if he’s calculating in his head how much I might be worth to the right person. “Who is she?”
“I’m someone you don’t want to mess with.” I lift my head in defiance, but that only seems to amuse the captain further as he starts to chuckle at my expense.
Like most men, he shouldn’t underestimate me.
“Bring her closer, Alek,” the captain says, presumably speaking to the man holding me at gunpoint. “I’ve never seen a woman with hair as red as hers before.”
“You heard him,” Alek says, walking up and poking the end of his gun in the middle of my back. “Move forward.”
“No.”
He pokes me harder with his gun. “Move!”
I give Damon a meaningful look, hoping he understands what’s about to happen next.
“Make me,” I challenge Alek.
Damon nods slightly, as my intentions become crystal clear to him.
Alek keeps the barrel of his gun on my back, but he uses his free hand to grab hold of my shoulder.
Big mistake.
I may not like my curse, but in moments like this, it provides me protection from people who think they can boss me around. The second Alek touched me, he forfeited his life. With force, he begins pushing me toward Damon and the others. I make him push me all the way. When I hear him start to cough, I know my window of opportunity has arrived.
I grab the hand he has on my shoulder, yank it down, and spin until I have his hand pinned to his lower back. He’s too weak now to put up much of a fight, so I grab him by the front of the throat with my other hand and look the pirate captain straight in the eyes.
“If you value this man’s life at all, you’ll let us go!” I shout.
Alek starts to cough uncontrollably. I pray the captain is smart and values Alek’s life. It’s the only way we’ll get out of this mess alive.
“Have you heard about the human in Dawn?” Damon asks the captain, grasping the opportunity of escape I’ve given us.
Fear enters the other man’s eyes, and I know the effect of my curse has even reached his ears.
“Let my son go!” The captain points his gun at me, but he doesn’t shoot. Odds are he would wind up hitting his son since I’m using his body as a shield.
“No! Let us go first! Decide quickly, captain, because your son only has a few more seconds to live if you don’t!”
The captain’s lips tighten in frustration before he lowers his gun.
“Throw the hooks overboard, you fool!” he yells to Damon.
Damon and Oliver run to the grappling hooks tethering us to the other ship and yank them out of the wooden planks they’re embedded in. While they’re doing that, Alek falls to his knees. I crouch down behind him to keep his body between me and a bullet from his father.
“Return my son to me now you witch,” the captain demands.
Damon walks over to stand in front of Alek. “I’ll make sure he’s brought back to you after we reach Midnight safely. You have my word.”
“I don’t even know you. How can I trust you’ll do what you say and not just kill my boy after I let you go?”
Damon rips off his eye patch, revealing his brown eye and scar. The expression of instant recognition tells me that the captain knows exactly who Damon is.
“I promise,” Damon says, “he will be returned to you. Now leave so you don’t lose your son this day.”
The captain growls in frustration before he turns to his crew and orders them to hoist the sails and steer the ship downstream.
When I let go of Alek’s shoulder, he slumps over unconscious, but he’s still breathing. At least for now.
“Get us out of here!” Damon yells up to Edmond, but it’s a waste of breath. Edmond is already turning the wheel to get us away from the starboard side of the pirate ship so we can resume our journey to Midnight.
Damon looks down and fixes me with a hard gaze.
“Did I just lie to that man?” His eyes are filled with doubt and suspicion. “Will I be able to return his son to him alive or have you already killed him with your touch?”
I stand to meet his gaze. “As far as I know, there is no cure for my curse. The moment the captain’s son touched me he sealed his own fate. You’ll be able to return his son to him, but I’m afraid he won’t be alive.”
“How exactly does your curse work? Do you even know?”
“All I know is that when someone touches me, they die. How it works is still a mystery, even to me.”
Damon looks intrigued as some of the fire leaves his eyes. “Do you secrete some sort of poison from your skin or is the curse magical in nature?”
“I’m not sure. I wish I knew.” I look down at Alek, saddened by the fact that I’ve taken another life, but I remind myself it wasn’t my fault. Even so, I know I’ll live with the guilt until my dying day.
“If it’s a poison and not some magical nonsense,” Damon crosses his arms in front of him as he contemplates my curse, “then there has to be an antidote. Almost all poisons have one, as far as I know, but I’m not an expert. We do have an apothecary in Midnight who might be able to tell us though. If she can find the antidote, maybe we can save his life after all.”
“Really?” This is the first time anyone has offered me hope that my condition might be curable for those unlucky enough to touch me. “Do you think this person will help us?”
“Perhaps.” For someone who suggested a solution to my problem, he doesn’t look very confident it will work. “We can ask her if she’ll help. There’s no harm in doing that.”
“This might be an odd question for you to answer since I’m sure your people find you so charming,” I say sarcastically, “but why wouldn’t this person help if you ask them to? You’re their king. Shouldn’t they jump when you say jump?”
“That might work if the apothecary in town was anyone but my mother. She was against me coming after you in the first place. According to her, you’re an anomaly who should be left alone.”
“I like her already. You should have listened to her advice.”
“Perhaps,” he reluctantly admits, “but I had to do what I thought was right for my people. You may or may not be able to help prevent us from losing our humanity. I don’t have a crystal ball that can tell me what the future holds for us. All I can do is fix the problems I see in our present, and if Simon believes adding your blood into our population is the solution, I have to try it.”
I remember what Simon told me about the children being born in Dawn and wonder if it’s true that the same thing is happening in Midnight.
“How many babies in your city have been born as wolves?” I ask.
Damon flinches at the reminder. It’s a sure sign he feels some sort of guilt about what’s happening to his people, but I’m not sure why.
“A few,” he says without emotion, but I feel like it’s just a front to hide how much he cares. “But we’ve been luckier than your people. We’ve been able to reverse the condition in some of our pups.”
“You’ve what?” My mouth hangs open, and I’m at a loss for words as the ramifications of what he just said sinks in.
Damon looks amused by my shock. “My mother found a way to help them.”
“Bu-bu-but how?” I stammer.
“She won’t tell me.” His brows knit together, showing his aggravation with his mother’s reluctance to share information. “All she says is that it’s beyond my understanding and that I shouldn’t worry about it. That’s one reason she told me to leave you alone. She’s sure she can find a way to reverse the condition in all the newborn pups, but by the time she does that, it might be too late. I can’t risk it. Her success rate has only been ten percent so far, and that leaves many families helpless with children who can’t shift into their human form.”
“What is she using? Some form of medicine? Magic? What is it?” I ask excitedly.
“Like I said, she won’t tell me her secret.” Damon tightens his jaw.
“Why won’t she tell you?”
“Huh.” He jerks his head up and to the side as if amused by my question. “You would have to ask her. Maybe she’s afraid I’ll share the secret with Simon. My mother would rather die than help anyone in Dawn.”
“That seems harsh. Why does she hate my people so much?”
Damon shrugs. “She won’t tell me that either. All I know is that whatever the reason is, she’ll never change her mind.”
“Well, at least I know where you get your stubbornness from.”
Damon cracks a smile, but when he realizes he’s smiling, he quickly shuts it down.
“Oliver!” he calls out to his friend who unbeknownst to me has been listening in on our conversation the whole time.
Oliver walks the five feet over to us. “Yeah?”
“Why don’t you go down and make sure our guests are still comfortable?”
Oliver salutes Damon in a casual gesture before heading down the stairs.
“Guests?” I ask, having picked up on his use of the word. “Who else did you kidnap from Dawn besides me and Boris?”
“I didn’t kidnap you,” he states.
I laugh. “I beg to differ on that point. What exactly do you call taking someone away from their home against their will?”
“If you’ll recall,” he says all high and mightily, “you came with me of your own free will.”
“You’re deluding yourself if you think that’s true. I only came with you because you used Boris’s safety against me.”
“You still came with me,” he points out as if the reason behind my cooperation doesn’t matter at all.
“You’re getting me off track,” I complain. “Who is your other ‘guest’?”
“Hey!” I hear Oliver shout below deck. “Stop!”
Turning to face the stairs, I expect to see Boris run up to join us, but I quickly discover that my assumption was dead wrong.
A little ball of white fluff in the shape of a wolf pup with dark eyes runs up the stairs and launches itself straight at me. Reacting on instinct, I grab it, forgetting in that split second about my curse and realizing too late that I’ve sealed the fate of the little life wiggling excitedly between my hands.
Chapter Eight
I don’t need Damon to tell me who I’m holding. There’s only one white pup that I know of and that’s the prince of Dawn. I drop him like he’s on fire. He lets out a yelp in surprise before regaining his legs and looking up at me as if I just stomped on his tail.
“It was for your own good,” I tell him, hoping his wolf brain can understand me. “I’m dangerous. These,” I hold out my hands for him to see, “can kill you. I may have already killed you for all I know.”
The prince wags his tail in response to my words not looking one bit affected by my touch. I breathe a sigh of relief. It’s the first time I’ve ever held a wolf pup in my hands. Maybe they’re immune to my curse. It’s the only explanation I can come up with to explain why he seems completely unaffected.
The tip of the little prince’s pink tongue hangs out as he continues to look up at me with wide, innocent eyes. He’s so adorable all I want to do is pick him back up and smooch his cute little face. That might mean sure death to him though, so I restrain myself from following through with my urges.
“Is he all right?” Damon asks me urgently.
“I think so. He doesn’t seem to be in any distress.”
“Damn it, Oliver!” Damon looks in the direction of the stairwell. “I thought I told you to keep that thing in its cage.”
Oliver runs up the stairs. His face red with embarrassment. “I know, I know, but look at him, Damon. Even you have to admit he’s freaking adorable. All I wanted to do was pet him for a little while, but he heard the two of you up here talking and jumped out of my arms before I could stop him.” Oliver looks at the pup staring up at me. “He seems to like you.”
“Yeah, he likes me so much it may just end up killing him. Keep him away from me.”
Oliver bends down and sweeps the pup into his arms. “Don’t listen to her, Tripp. She’s not mad at you. She’s mad at me.”
Oliver returns below deck with the prince of Dawn tucked safely in his arms.
“Did you kidnap him to keep Simon in line?” My question ends up sounding more like an accusation.
“No.” Damon sounds irritated by my assumption, but I don’t care.
“Then why is he here?” I demand to know.
“Not that it’s any of your concern, but Sophia asked me to take him to my mother to see if she can help reverse his condition. You were payment for my help with her son.”
Now everything makes perfect sense.
Sophia must have heard about the miracle Damon’s mother was able to grant some of the pups born in Midnight. When she appeared surprised to learn that there had been other children in Dawn born as pups, she must have been acting for my benefit. It’s obvious she already knew that information since she also knew about Damon’s mother’s cure. In order to ensure her son is given a fighting chance to survive in this world, she made her bargain with Damon even though I’m the one who has to pay the price. She isn’t some love-starved woman who was trying to keep her husband from straying from her bed. She’s a mother doing whatever it takes to make sure her son has every advantage she can give him for a normal life.
I can understand the woman who would do that for her child. I can even admire her to an extent.
“I hope your mother is able to help him.”
Damon watches Oliver as he takes the pup back downstairs. “So do I.” He directs his gaze to Alek who is still lying unconscious on the deck. “How long does he have before he dies?”
“From what little I know about my curse, it could take anywhere from an hour to a whole day for him to die. I’ve only watched one person die after touching me. He passed away rather quickly, but there were other factors involved in his death that hastened it.”
“Factors?” He looks intrigued. “What were these factors?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.” I close my lips determined to keep the details of that horrific experience to myself.
“If you don’t tell me, you’ll have to explain it to my mother yourself. Who would you rather tell?”
“Neither.”
Damon sighs. “She’ll need to know every scrap of information you have about your condition in order to concoct an antidote. If you leave anything out, even the smallest of details, it could make finding a cure impossible.”
This time it’s my turn to sigh. I know he’s right but reliving a time in my life that still haunts me can’t be good for the soul. I’ve pushed that memory so far back inside my mind that sometimes it feels more like a nightmare than reality.
“Every detail?” Hope lives inside my heart that he’ll say no.
“Yes. Every detail.”
Hope dies a quick death, and I brace myself for the look of disdain I know will appear on Damon’s face once he learns how stupid and selfish I can be.
Not having the strength to look him straight in the eyes while I recount the events of that fateful night, I avert my gaze to a point behind him along the riverbank.
“When I was twelve,” I begin, forcing my mind to pull out the memory strand by strand until the full horror of it lashes out and scars my heart all over again, “I had a crush on a boy at school. His name was Mick. Being so young, I thought I was in love with him, and worst of all, he thought he was in love with me too. We played hooky from school one night so we could be together without having the other kids pick on us. Mick was a bit of an outcast like me, but his only crime was having poor parents.”
