“Yes, well, if Alyssa hadn’t told you about us, you would still be among those clueless humans. Instead, you are a very rare, privileged”—her eyes darted upwards for a moment as if she were trying to find the right word to describe Fallon—“friend of the family.”
“And happy to be one.” Fallon turned to look at me. “Though I’m still not signing up to become a full-fledged member anytime soon.”
I shrugged. “I wasn’t planning on initiating you.”
“Just making sure,” she turned back to Crystal. “Sorry, please continue. I’d like to hear more about these wolves. Maybe it will give us a hint to the connection.”
Crystal stood up and paced the space in front of the bed. “Well, about twenty or so years ago, we stopped in Colorado. There were a few more members back then.” She paused and winced as if the memory caused her pain. “Many of them are gone now.”
Her words reminded me of Jessie and Damon, the two younger vampires they had originally brought with them when they arrived in Vegas. Both died shortly after. Damon had been a vampire less than a year before the Acta Sanctorum got him.
Crystal continued her pacing and pulled her hair up into a ponytail. “We were near Boulder, and Drew and I fell in love with its beauty. When the time came for the clan to move on…” She looked at Fallon. “We never stayed in one place for very long, often times no more than a week or two.”
Fallon and I both nodded.
“Drew and I opted to stay until the clan returned. There we met Gareth and his pack. We’d set up a small home near a wooded area beyond the city limits. About a month after settling in, we spotted a scout party in our backyard. The first thing we noticed was that werewolves were quite a bit larger than the standard variety. Secondly”—she punctuated the word with two fingers held up in the air—“their bodies are a bit bulkier in the front. They have larger tufts of dense fur around the neck, almost like a lion’s mane.”
Fallon sat like a statue, hanging on Crystal’s every word, hungry for more knowledge.
“Lastly, their scent is different. To a vampire, a human smells very sweet.” Crystal turned her eyes on Fallon.
“Like candy,” I said.
“Correct. And when a human gets excited or nervous or frightened, their scent becomes a bit tart and tangy.” Crystal closed her eyes for a moment and her tongue darted out to lick her lips.
Fallon shuddered, shaking the bed.
“I’m sorry,” Crystal said, her hand flying to cover her mouth. “I didn’t mean to make you nervous.”
“It’s fine,” Fallon’s squeaked. “I know you’re not going to go after me. I trust you. It’s just really creepy hearing you talk about tasty people smells.”
“Right. Back to the point, then.” Crystal nodded. “An animal has a musky scent. Not nearly as appetizing, but not bad. These wolves had a rich, earthy smell, like patchouli oil and fresh cut grass. They smelled of nature. Which is a surprisingly enticing scent.”
“I didn’t realize there would be so many variations to the way things smell,” Fallon said with a hint of unease.
“Our noses are much more sensitive than they were when we were human,” I added.
Crystal resumed her pacing. “When we went outside to greet the wolves, they didn’t run, but stood their ground. A regular wolf would have retreated to a safer spot to continue watching us; these wolves showed no fear. Even though we’d never dealt with them before, I had a feeling they knew exactly what we were.”
She paused and stared at the ceiling while drumming her fingers against her thigh as if trying to remember something important. “We attempted to make greetings. At first we thought they didn’t like us. We didn’t know that weres cannot talk in their wolf form. They took turns circling us, each taking time to smell us and growl and yip before taking off, loping into the woods. That was the extent of our first meeting.”
“Was it a full moon?” I asked.
Crystal shook her head. “The full moon has no real effect on werewolves, it’s just their favorite time to gather and hunt. No, they were just inspecting us and reporting back to their pack. I believe they felt safer approaching us in their wolf form. A few days later, Gareth, the pack Alpha, came calling with two of his higher ranking pack members.”
“Sounds like he brought enforcers. Were they worried about you being there?” I asked.
“No. It’s customary for an Alpha to have his second and third with him when he’s on official business. Greeting new supernatural creatures counts as official.” Crystal smiled. “The meeting was quite pleasant. They explained their territory and asked our intentions and hunting habits. After that, we were given an open invitation to join the pack at their private ranch.”
Fallon seemed to wake from a trance. She blurted out, “Private ranch?”
“Werewolves today cannot live in completely secluded packs as they once did. They live in society, among humans, but often have private retreats nearby for pack business and safe places to go when they need them. They’re like small towns, dedicated just to the werewolf population, but set as far away as possible from large cities.”
“Well, that’s pretty cool,” Fallon said.
“Yes, and an open invitation to their private ranch meant they accepted us as friends. Over the next year we spent a lot of time with them, learning their ways, and sometimes joining in on the monthly hunt. They’re a very interesting people, who take their history and family very seriously.”
“Wait,” I jumped up from the bed and grabbed the laptop off of the table, and brought it back to the bed. “You learned their history? Maybe there’s a clue there.” I handed the laptop to Fallon. “Keep your search engine handy.” I looked back to Crystal. “Tell us everything you know about their beginning.”
“Well, as you already know from your research, the first wolf was the king of Arcadia.” She sat down next to Fallon. “After he was turned, there was a festival held every nine years on Mount Lykaion. The festival was called the Lykai. Men wishing to become wolves would eat a meal prepared with a bit of werewolf flesh. After the meal, they were sent down into the woods. Werewolves would then hunt the participants. If they survived their wounds, they would transform into werewolves.”
“Okay, but what about Kallisto? Did their legends tell about her?” I asked.
Crystal shook her head and leaned back on the bed, propping herself up on her elbows. “I never heard any mention of Kallisto.”
“What about any major battles at the beginning of their existence?” I asked.
“Sure, there were plenty of battles early on, but nothing is sticking out in my mind specifically involving a woman,” Crystal said.
I let out a defeated sigh. We were getting nowhere. “Do you still have any connections to the wolves?”
Crystal’s expression stiffened. “No. Santino claimed he killed Gareth’s pack. They were the only ones I spent time with.”
I looked to Fallon to see if she had decided whether anything that had been said was worth looking up.
She shrugged. “Sorry, Lyssa. That is pretty much the same thing we’d already learned from the first search.”
“Great.” I flopped back on the bed. “So we’re back to square one. There has to be something to clue us in.”
A pricking sensation crawled up the back of my neck. Both Crystal and I looked at each other at the same time. The hair on my arm felt as if it were standing on end.
“I think the guys are back,” I said, as the warmth, my connection with Lysander, began to wash over me. I could always tell when he was close: as master and fledgling and also as mates, we were bonded closer than any other vampires.
Crystal must have sensed her mate too. She shot up from the bed and was at the window in an instant, peering through the curtains. “Yes, they’re here. I can feel Drew. He’s close, but I don’t see him yet.” Crystal left the window and unlocked the door.
“Well, if they’re back, I’m taking a smoke break,” Fallon said wearily. She set the laptop back on the table and grabbed a pack of cigarettes from her purse. “I need to clear my head and get some fresh air.”
Lysander, Nicholas, and Drew entered the hotel room somberly. Each man appeared drained and depressed. Fallon passed them as she walked outside to have her cigarette. Nicholas, who was normally quick with a snarky comment, didn’t bother this time. In fact, at that moment it looked like he wanted the cigarettes to kill her.
I didn’t think Nicholas would actually hurt Fallon, but I had the feeling he was holding a grudge against her for opening the box. And if he was looking at her that way, it wouldn’t be long before he turned those angry eyes on me. I should have stopped her from opening it.
“Have you had any luck in your research?” Lysander asked wearily. He joined me on the bed and pulled me into his arms. Through our bond, I not only felt the warmth of our connection but also the grief and sadness bearing down on him.
I shook my head. “Nothing new.”
Crystal hugged Drew, who looked just as forlorn as the rest of us, and walked him to the bed she’d been sitting on.
Nicholas collapsed where he stood along the wall and leaned his head against an armoire that doubled as a TV cabinet. Sadness and rage played tug-of-war for control of his face. I could still see faint tracks of bloody tears along his cheek.
My heart ached for him. Nicholas had always been Mr. Tough Guy. Nothing ever bothered him. Seeing him so destroyed really put things into perspective. “Is there anything I can do for you, Nicholas?” I asked, hoping in some small way I could ease his pain.
“Leave me be,” he grunted and turned to stare at a blank spot on the wall.
Lysander let out a deep sigh. “We will find a way to destroy that thing. Rozaline will be avenged. There has to be some clue we are missing.”
Crystal looked up. “The wolf legend seems a promising clue because there’s mention of a Kallisto. If we can pinpoint for certain that the Kallisto legend is the same Kallisto you were mated to, it might lead us…” She squinted and her forehead crinkled. “The problem is, without full knowledge of Kallisto’s origins, we can’t make the correlation.”
“She was your mate for a thousand years,” Nicholas snapped at Lysander. “How could you not know her origins?”
I felt a growl rumble in Lysander’s chest, but when he spoke his voice remained calm. “Kallisto would not speak about her creation. She refused to talk about anything that happened before she met me in Amfissa.”
Nicholas’s voice softened, giving away the desperation he felt. “There had to be something she told you. No one keeps secrets for that long without slipping.”
“He makes a point, Lysander.” Drew said, sounding much calmer than the other two men. “You might not remember it now, but is there any chance of some clue in your older writings?”
Lysander perked up. “It is certainly possible. I cannot be held to account for thousands upon thousands of years of minute details.” He shot Nicholas a look that was stern enough to remind him of his place yet soft enough to show he still felt empathy. “My memory is only so good. But my older works might hold some knowledge.”
I turned to Lysander, confused as to what he meant by that. We’d already been through most of the books in the home library and found nothing. “Does this mean we’re going back to the house? What about that thing? What if it attacks again?”
“No,” Lysander replied. “We need to get to Boston. We need to find my original writings.”
Thoughts of traveling across country temporarily replaced my fear with excitement. I’d been looking forward to a trip back east with Lysander since we’d first learned of the location of his missing memoirs. “How are we going to get there? Will we take the RV?”
The Peregrinus regularly used a large RV for their cross-country travels. It had been outfitted to look more like a tour bus than a family camper. Rather than a back bedroom, it had six curtain-covered sleeping bays, so everyone could rest safely away from the sunlight. Instead of a kitchen, since vampires don’t eat, they’d opted for a large bathroom with a roomy shower. It even had a small living area with a couch and television.
Drew shook his head. “Not a good idea. A cross-country drive, at night, will take us at least a week. If the answers to our problems are in Lysander’s memoirs, and even if they are not, we can’t waste time.”
“We will have to fly,” said Lysander.
“You can do that?” Fallon asked, catching the tail end of our conversation, as she returned from her smoke break.
I looked over, seeing the sparkle in her eye, and laughed. “Of course we can.”
“Seriously? Why didn’t you tell me that before?”
“I thought it was obvious. We’ll need to find a late night flight, though.”
“Oh.” Fallon’s face flushed red. “Yeah, that’s what I meant. A red-eye flight.” She quickly ducked her head behind the laptop screen. “Let me see if I can find us some tickets.”
“I do not think we should all go,” Lysander said. “This is not a vacation. We will only be there to pick up the memoirs.”
I had a feeling his comment was directed at me. I’d hinted at wanting to leave Vegas for a vacation and travel with the Peregrinus since the day I was turned. Okay, maybe not the exact day, but since I’d met the Peregrinus and learned about their cross-country jaunts. Lysander didn’t like travelling. He, like an old human man, was set in his ways and preferred to stay put. If it weren’t for me, I doubted he would ever leave the house, or his precious writing. He could make a hermit look social.