Immortal Dawn
Immortal World
LIAM
I knew I should kill Lea, but all I wanted to do was protect her.
But how can I do that?
According to the law, I needed to correct my mistake.
But when it came down to killing someone I’d grown to consider a friend…
Fuck the law!
What have I done by saving her, though? How’s she any better off than before I arrived? She’s in as much danger now as she was when I intervened on her behalf…
The moonlight flickered off the water as I headed toward my family’s lake house.
I had to figure out how to handle this absurd situation.
And it was absurd.
It’s likely the royal family will track us both down.
But I must protect Lea at all costs.
I could hear a light rain hit the treetops above before it began to land on my soft fur.
I moved deeper into my remote, leafy property. I’d always enjoyed living on the edge of the forest. I felt the area represented my status.
Living on the cusp of two vastly different worlds.
Existing in a dual identity: one not complete without the other. At least not for me.
I considered the stories I’d heard my whole life. Immortals disappearing after having revealed themselves to humans.
It’d happened countless times before.
Despite the consequences, we come up with excuses to justify ourselves.
We’re drunk.
Or careless.
Or worse…in love.
And then, before we know it, our very existence is just a rumor—a cautionary tale.
No one is outside the reach of the royal family…
The rain began falling harder, and I picked up the pace.
There was no one in sight. My family’s lake house was isolated. We lived deep in the woods, not far from where I’d found Lea…
If I’d wanted, I could have killed her there. No one in the human world would ever have known which wolf it had been.
And no one in the Immortal world would ever have cared that it had been a wolf at all.
But I had no intention of killing this young woman.
I considered my options as my feet padded across the wet ground.
Of course, I could turn her—but that was equally illegal, and I’d suffer just as much for transforming her as I would for revealing the secret of our world in the first place.
Not to mention that that would be a more difficult transgression to hide.
Fuck! Why did I ever shift back into human form? That hadn’t been necessary to save her life.
But the truth was, I was sure a part of me wanted her to know. A part of me was so taken with her openness, with the possibility of knowing her better, that I’d needed her to know me…
What’s wrong with me?
I turned at the corner of my street and rushed toward the steps.
I thought about how, amid my depression and drunkenness, Lea had taken me home on a night like this.
I didn’t remember much.
I’d been brooding. It’d been dark. And late.
I was sure she’d had better things to do, but she’d taken me to her modest apartment, tucked me into a makeshift bed, and slept soundly only a room away…
And I’d repaid her by destroying her couch!
Lea had shown me empathy, and trusted me, even when we were strangers.
I suppose I returned her favor earlier…I’d saved her too.
I shifted back into human form and picked up the key underneath the fake rock in the garden. I turned the key in the lock and tumbled inside, dripping on the doormat.
I toweled off, dressed, and sat on the couch, sighing.
I wondered if all this was irrelevant. The only way I could help Lea was if she accepted my help.
Only time would tell…
But we didn’t have much of that to spare.
A knock at the door shook me out of my thoughts.
Could that be…
LEA
I was still in a daze when Liam answered the door and let me into his lake house.
What makes more sense: that werewolves exist, or that my eyes can’t be trusted?
But, against all reason, I decided to trust my own senses.
I looked around and took in a lavish living room, complete with a fireplace and bearskin rug.
“Is that…” I said, examining the dead bear onto which I’d almost stepped.
“Real?” he laughed. “No, Lea. Don’t worry, your veganism is safe with me.”
I blushed. I suppose, given the circumstances, the rug should have been the least of my worries.
Liam told me to make myself comfortable while he got me a blanket to wrap myself in.
Comfortable? I wondered. How could one not be comfortable here?
I forgot for a moment that my life had been in danger today.
I forgot that the dashing young man I’d recently met had transformed from an enormous wolf before my eyes.
That’s how distracting my surroundings were.
The room was large and decorated with a taste for modern design.
I sat timidly on a red leather couch—was everything here potentially made of animal skin?—and admired the gleaming marble staircase up which Liam had just disappeared.
I glanced at the art on the walls, wishing I could formulate something intelligent to say about the abstract paintings…
In a minute, Liam had returned. He sat in an armchair next to me, a troubled look on his face. Then he smiled and said, “You must have questions…”
I tried to hide my excitement, knowing it wasn’t the standard response to this situation.
The average response would’ve been…fear, I suppose.
But I wasn’t afraid.
I was excited.
Excited to have my world opened up, excited that my wildest guesses had been the closest to reality, excited that things were about to change.
I smiled back at him. “You’re a…”
“Werewolf,” he finished. “Yes.”
I paused, waiting for him to elaborate. But Liam fell silent.
“Do you want something to drink?” he asked after a minute, glancing toward a table in the corner of the room.
“No, thanks,” I responded, anxiously tapping my feet on the floor. “So, I guess my first question is…what the hell is a werewolf?”
Liam sighed, moving in his seat. “Right. I’m going to tell you about my world, but I need you to promise me not to tell anyone.”
“No one would believe me anyway,” I replied, still not sure I believed it myself.
“Lea…”
“I promise, okay?”
“Originally—by which I mean hundreds of years ago—werewolves were people, humans, who were infected by a particular virus we call the Lupine virus…”
“And now?”
“I’m sorry, I’ve never tried to explain this to anyone before.”
I nodded, waiting for him to continue.
“The virus was originally spread from wolves to humans. But now, it can be spread from werewolves to humans, causing those humans to turn into werewolves too.”
If Liam didn’t save me earlier, would I have contracted the virus too?
“How long has this been going on? Is it still…spreading?”
“It’s not what you think. My world and your world have been coexisting for longer than you can imagine.”
What could he mean by that?
“The first and last child to have survived the sickness that passed from wolves to humans was a boy named James,” Liam continued.
“He was the original werewolf. Since his brood, every new werewolf has been bitten by an actual werewolf.”
I let Liam continue.
“There’s a myth that a Native in wolf form bit a human sorcerer and was cursed to live as half man/half beast for all eternity. But I don’t believe all that…”
Yeah, like THAT would be so crazy, considering everything I’ve heard tonight…
“I think James contracted a virus,” he concluded.
“So, why did you say the virus isn’t spreading?” I asked.
“We have laws within our society, created by the royal family,” answered Liam, a shadow of concern passing over his face. “One law is not to turn any new humans without permission. Another is not to…reveal the secrets of our world.”
Shit, the night I hear about the Immortal world, I get on the wrong side of its royal family…
I gulped. “I think I’d like that drink.”
I tried to crack a smile; Liam looked more frightened than I was.
He traversed the room and returned with a bottle of whiskey. After pouring us each a glass, he asked, “Any further questions?”
There were so many, but I had to focus on the most critical first.
“Whose permission?”
“Hmm?”
“You said you couldn’t turn humans without permission.’”
“Well, James met Jane, who was suffering from her own virus: Vampirism.”
I said nothing as Liam paused to let that sink in.
“They were married, but they couldn’t reproduce traditionally, of course…though they both could turn humans…” he said.
“Still, they wanted children of their own, so eventually, they had a witch cast a spell on Jane, making her temporarily human—and she became pregnant.”
There are werewolves, vampires, AND witches now?!
I almost spilled my drink as my mouth dropped open, but I was determined not to interrupt Liam until I’d heard my fill.
“Jane bore a litter of four children before she died in childbirth: one werewolf, two vampires, and one hybrid.”
“A hybrid is…?”
“She has a mixture of the characteristics of each.”
“She?”
“Our ruthless queen.”
“You have a queen?” I asked. “What about the other three children?”
“The werewolf killed their father in an attempted power grab. And the others are twin vampires. These four make up our royal family. They are the oldest Immortals in our world now and, therefore, the most powerful.”
So, the older they are, the stronger?
“They are the ones that punish those that break the law,” Liam finished.
At first, I said nothing as Liam continued looking at me, concern in his bright-green eyes.
Then I said, “So, you’re immortal.”
Liam laughed, “In most cases, but…don’t try any funny business.”
He finished his drink and set it on the coffee table with a thud.
“Would you like to sleep?”
“Sure,” I answered, not really listening.
There’s a whole Immortal world I haven’t known about? That no one knows about! How is this possible?!
The full effect of my actions was beginning to dawn on me. Both our lives were now in danger from the royal family.
What the hell had I gotten myself into?
Either way, it’s one helluva bedtime story…
Continue to the next chapter of Immortal Dawn