31. Bound

Previous Chapter

Friday, September 25th
Waning Gibbous Moon (Twenty-Nine Nights to Next Full Moon)

I awoke to the feeling of warm breath on my neck. At first, I got a little panicky because I didn’t know where I was, but after a moment I got my bearings. I felt Randall stir beside me, awakened by my sudden movements. I quickly came to the realization that not only was I waking up in Randall’s bed, but we were both now back in human form, and we were both completely naked on top of the covers. Moving quickly, I pulled back the comforter and slid under it, trying to cover my exposed body as completely as possible.

Randall opened his eyes and looked at me as I was frantically trying to get under the blankets. I saw the smirk on his face turn to embarrassment as he realized his own exposure. He rolled off the bed and hid himself by blocking my view with the bed.

“This is awkward,” Randall was actually blushing. All I could do was laugh. Neither of us were thinking ahead when we came up to his room last night. “How about, uh, I turn around and close my eyes and you can go in the bathroom and take a shower. I’ll bring your bag and leave it by the door so you can get dressed.

“Only if you promise not to peek,” I smiled, looking down at the blankets again to make sure I truly was completely covered. As werewolves, nakedness really shouldn’t have been an issue, but the human part of us made it a problem.

He laughed, “It’ll be hard, but I think I can do it.”

I got up and quickly went into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. I turned on the water, picking bits of grass and leaves off my skin that were still stuck there from the previous night as I waited for it to get warm. When I got in, I stood there for a few minutes and just let the heat of the water soothe my muscles, sore and tight from my run. I stretched out my body under the pounding water and washed away all the dirt and grime. I was sore and exhausted; I could have slept a few more days.

It was already well after noon by the time we were both showered and dressed. We ate, and then Randall drove me home. In the truck, he told me, “You did really well last night. You never lost control. It was you in there the whole time.”

“I told you that I practiced,” I kind of wanted him to drop it. I didn’t want him to catch me in my lie.

“Well, you have a lot of discipline to have accomplished so much in so little time. I hope you haven’t been neglecting other important things, such as school or being social.”

I fidgeted with a loose thread on my shirt. I had been doing my assignments, but I had also missed a lot of class, mostly due to exhaustion. “My grades are fine,” I told him. As for a social life, Randall was really my only friend other than Lilith, and I couldn’t tell him about my friendship with her. My other roommates ignored me and pretended I didn’t exist, and the only other person I really knew was River, but I hadn’t talked to her much other than in class. “I’ve been spending some time with River too,” I lied. I didn’t want him to think I’d been alone all the time, which wasn’t the truth either. Almost every evening was spent with Lilith, though I should have been a little more proactive in finding some human friends. Maybe I would ask River if she wanted to come over and watch a movie or something.

He only nodded and then dropped me off at my apartment, kissing me goodbye. I went up to my room and spent the rest of the daylight hours teaching myself what I had been missing in my classes and trying not to fall asleep.

When nightfall came, I felt Lilith stir. I didn’t know why or how, but I did. I knew she was awake, and her being awake erased all my exhaustion. I got up and knocked on her door. When she opened it, the lights were off and it was pitch-black inside the room. I couldn’t see any of the interior, even with my better-than-human vision.

“How did last night go?” She asked.

“It went flawlessly,” I said uneasily.

“As I expected,” She wasn’t smiling. I wondered if I had done something wrong. This was the first time I had ever knocked on her door. Usually, it was the other way around. It was also the first time I had felt her awaken, which was part of what made me uneasy, but there was something else.

Something was different.

Spending the last month with Lilith, I had gotten used to her vampire scent. So used to it that I hardly even noticed the smell. But now, “You smell different.”

She raised her eyebrows in surprise, or was it amusement? “Different, how?”

I breathed in deeply through my nose, using my animal sense of smell, “Like,” I paused, goosebumps running up my arms. “Like a werewolf.”

She grinned, “Good, that means that it’s working.”

“What’s working?” I asked cautiously.

“Your blood, inside of me.”

I was confused, “You’re turning into a –” I began to ask stupidly before she cut me off.

“No, silly,” She laughed at my ignorance, “As a vampire, I get my power from the blood I drink. Most of the time, I drink from normal humans, who have no power whatsoever. During those times, I have my own power to rely on, but I’ve told you before that I’m special. When I drink from you, a powerful creature, I also get certain powers from your blood, which mingles with mine, and if strong enough, overrides mine temporarily. What you smell is your own power inside me. As I am right now, no werewolf can tell what I am. Thinking I am one of them, a whole pack would welcome me with open arms.”

“What’s the point of that? They would find out eventually.”

“Probably, yes. But not before I got close enough…” She trialed off, a smug look on her face.

“You’re planning something. Something terrible,” I didn’t know what to do. I had to call Randall, I had to warn the Pack about the monster I’d created.

She reached out, faster than the blink of an eye, and grabbed my arm, pulling me into the dark room and locking the door behind us. She held me by the neck and forced me to the ground, pinning my arm behind me with her other hand, my head hitting the hard floor under the thin carpet. I saw spots but nothing else. The room was like a cave. There was no light. My face dug into the cheap, rough material of the carpeting.

I tried to struggle, but she had me solidly pinned, and my arm was at a painful angle. I would have to break it to get free and even then I might not be successful. I could do nothing but growl at her.

“I know what you’re thinking, Selene. You want to be a little do-gooder and tell them. But you wont,” She said. The skin of my cheek was rubbed raw and the pain in my arm was making me cry. “What do you think they would try to do to me if you told them?”

“Kill you,” I snarled, the pain pissing me off. Her sudden aggression was scaring me, but I knew she needed me too much to kill me. She needed my power. She couldn’t pass as a wolf forever.

“But do you know what would happen to you if I died?” Her voice changed to something soothing, like an elementary school teacher asking a small child if they knew what would happen if they hit their peers. Would there be a consequence?

I stopped struggling and asked, “What do you mean?”

“You’re bound to me. I know you’ve felt it; felt me.” Witnessing her sudden aggression, I had forgotten about the reason why I knocked on her door in the first place. I had felt her awaken. I might have even felt it the evening before. I knew I’d felt something different, but I thought it was just the moon and being with the Pack. I realized that at least part of what she was saying was truth.

“So I’m more attuned to you, that doesn’t mean that if you die, I die.”

Her silence implied the opposite.

She let go of me and I sat up, rubbing my arm and face. She turned on a small lamp, its soft glow piercing through the solid darkness of the room. I couldn’t see much of the room, only outlines. It was clean, neat, and orderly, but other than that I couldn’t see much.

“As I said, you are bound to me. You feel what I feel,” She pulled a small knife out of her pocket and cut into her right arm. It wasn’t a deep cut, but it was enough to draw blood. Immediately, I felt a sharp pain in my arm, in the exact same place she’d cut herself. A wound didn’t open up, but it felt like I’d been cut into as well. A minute later, her wound healed and the pain went away.

“Do you believe me now?” She asked. She was smiling to where I could see her fangs.

“You were able to do this just by drinking my blood?” What had I done by associating myself with her?

“Drinking your blood was the final step, but I’d been preparing long before that. Every time we trained, I used my power to slowly bind you to me. The last step was a willing blood donation, which you gave to me, and which you will give many more times, unless you want both of us to die.”

I sat there and stared, paralyzed with anger. I wanted to call her every name I could think of. Every word, every curse seemed too mild. I really wanted to tear her throat out, to wipe that smug, satisfied smile right off her face, but I couldn’t, and it was all because of her. I was defeated before I even knew there was a fight.

I got up, wordlessly, and she let me pass. I left the room and slammed her door behind me. I left the dorm altogether, too mad to look at the empty, white walls and went to the edge of campus, where smooth landscaping met the rough edges of wilderness and woods. I went into the trees and stripped off my clothing, hiding it under a rock. I would easily be able to find that scent again. Then, I changed to my wolf form and began to run.

Next Chapter
-----

A/N: This took me a little longer than I expected to put out, since it's a fairly long chapter in comparison to some others. This twist is one of the main things I planned when I wrote the book. I really wanted to see what I could do with a character like Lilith, someone that is so practiced at lying, so great at acting that you really don't know what to believe. I'm sure you all know someone like Lilith, to different extremes. (I know several Liliths, without the affinity for blood of course.) I also enjoy putting characters in hopeless situations like Selene's. I'm not even completely sure how she's going to fix her problems. I have several endings for the book in my head, but not written out.

Poor girl. :P