Thirst 🌶️

Ekon

“What the fuck does he mean ‘he’s out of town on business?’”

“I’ve only been able to get hold of his secretary,” Alpha Vladimir exclaimed in exasperation. “Apparently he’s back in South Africa for the next couple of days to attend to some domestic dispute.”

~Great. Just fucking great.~

Now we were saddled with this witch for another couple of days.

I couldn’t say that she had been a bad prisoner. On the contrary, she’d done as she was told with absolutely no remonstrance.

But the fact remained that she was a witch. A unique connection to werewolf-kind’s most powerful enemy.

No one was keen on having her around.

But I don’t think any of us were as sore as that goddamn cunt-sniffer, Hunter.

He just about blew a fuse when he found that the witch would be staying in the same house.

“Get your fucking ass moving, Ela!”

~Speak of the devil.~

At that moment, Hunter stomped down the stairs with his suitcase in his hand and his mate in tow.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” I yelled at him.

“We’re not staying in this house another minute! And if you’re smart, Ekon, you won’t either. You’re just baiting yourself to be caught by Devina.”

“Well... Well… Well…” Alpha Leonardo strolled over with a smug expression on his face. “Look at the cunt-sniffing coward running out just when the going gets rough. Have a pleasant flight back!”

“You shut your fucking trap, Leonardo,” Hunter pointed his finger in the councilor’s face. “We’re not going home. We’re just moving into a hotel until this whole thing is done! We’re not going to sit around and wait for Devina to appear out of nowhere and vaporize us!”

“Ela,” Bambi called out to her friend as she ran down the stairs.

She looked surprised to see her friend with her bags packed and ready to leave.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “You’re actually leaving?”

Ela sighed, nodding.

“But why? Is he making you do this?”

“As a matter of fact, he is not,” Hunter interjected. “It just so happens that this young lady also has the brains to get out of Dodge before Wyatt Earp shows up.”

“We’ll still be at Parliament,” Ela smiled reassuringly at Bambi. “Once we hand over the witch to Fakari, we’ll move right back in.”

“Hey! That witch has a name, Ela! She’s a person, too!” Bambi snapped back.

“Yeah!” Hunter scoffed. “If you can call a murderer a person!”

Leonardo laughed sardonically, “Ha! The pot is calling the kettle black!”

A heated argument ensued as boiling emotions came to a head.

The dissonance compounded my already throbbing headache.

It had been two days since my last drink and did I ever have a craving for one.

Surprisingly, the advice that Bambi had given me when I was rolling around drunk after the pool party had been kind of effective.

I kept imagining that scene of sweet release, how it felt for her to be in complete control of my pleasure. Even more than the booze, I craved that again.

But right now... I couldn’t have either.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Please!” Alpha Vladimir’s polished voice rose above the din.

“This is my house, and I should like to say my piece.”

Everyone turned to the old politician.

“Quite truthfully, it matters very little who stays where. What matters is we all stay on the same page, regardless of where someone chooses to lay their head for the night. We now have all the irons in the fire to accomplish our goal. Let’s not invalidate our work for such petty reasons.”

Vladimir turned to Hunter and Ela. “Alpha and Luna Blackwood, I shall make arrangements for a room at the Hotel Imperial forthwith. My driver will take you into town.”

“Thanks, Alpha Vladimir,” Hunter said softly. “That’s damn decent of you.”

The tired peacemaker exited the room. Leonardo followed shortly after without so much as a word to anyone.

As Hunter and Ela walked towards the door, Bambi called back to her friend. “Don’t worry, Ela, I’ll do enough questioning for the both of us.”

“I know you will,” Ela chuckled back.

After the two exchanged a conciliatory smile, the Blackwood party left.

“Bambi,” I motioned for my mate to come closer to me. “I don’t want you going anywhere near that witch. I’ve done enough inquisition for the both of us, and she washes with me. You know how rare that is.”

“But Ekon! You don’t know what I’ve found out yet! And ~how~ I found out! See, Tyler is actually…”

“Not important right now.” I leaned down and hungrily kissed Bambi’s lips.

“I need you upstairs. Right fucking now.”

Bambi

~Perfect. He’s dead asleep!~

I tiptoed quietly out of the bedroom as Ekon lay snoring away. A rowdy afternoon of hard sex had worn my mate out. And it had created the perfect opportunity for me to slip away and have a little chat with our bewitching visitor.

I slinked discreetly down two flights of stairs into Alpha Vladimir’s den.

After ascertaining that nobody else was down there, I made my way quietly over to the forgotten closet in the corner.

~Goddammit!~

The door was locked.

I felt kind of stupid. I really should have anticipated this.

Then I got an idea. I took a bobby pin out of my hair and managed to jimmy the old lock.

A smile swept across my face as I heard the tumblers turn.

The door creaked open.

I peeked inside. In the center of the room sat Tyler, with her head buried in her legs.

Without so much as looking up at me, she said: “Whatever questions you have, I can’t answer them.”

I didn’t know how to respond.

“I… uh… how did you know I was here to—"

“You have a strong aura of curiosity about you,” she interrupted. “A prying mind that yearns to always know more. But in this case, you shall have to remain ignorant. I have nothing to share.”

Her manner was very odd. Not angry, not sad, not despairing. In fact, she seemed almost catatonic.

“Well... alright. You don’t have to answer my questions. Really more than anything I just came to chat?”

She scoffed. “You make a habit of befriending your prisoners, do you?”

“Truth be told, you’re my first one,” I said.

“Well, lucky me. I’m flattered,” she responded sarcastically.

I shut the door behind me and sat down on the floor across from her.

“You’re sitting awfully close to a monster, you know?” she growled quietly. “You’d better sit back a few steps, lest you become my next victim.”

She lurched at me, rattling her chains.

But I didn’t flinch. It seemed like she was trying to convince herself more than me.

“I think I’m good,” I said casually. “You know, truth be told, I’m not so sure that you are a monster.”

“The rest of the world would say you’re wrong. Might even call you a traitor for having the slightest bit of sympathy,” she said, her voice now trembling.

I reached out and put my hand on her shoulder.

“You know, when I have questions, I go to the library first. It’s amazing the kind of things you learn when you read enough… eh, Thalia?”

She looked up at me with tears in her eyes.

“It’s… been years since anybody’s called me that. Not since… my parents were alive.”

Tyler began to sob. I put my arm around her to try and comfort her.

As the tears flowed freely, so too did stories about her past.

She talked about how it was one of Devina’s attacks that had taken away her parents. A deadly fire that burnt her home and family to a crisp. The only reason she had been spared was that the evil witch sensed great potential.

As a little girl, Tyler had no idea of the magnitude of the crimes she was involved with. Her “Auntie Devina” always made it seem like her dark magic lessons were just fun games that all kids played.

It wasn’t until she was a teenager that the horrors of her actions became known. But by then, it was too late. Devina had her whipped and completely at her mercy. Any refusal to comply would have meant a swift death.

“After the attack on the Royal Werewolf Palace,” Tyler said, “Devina didn’t abandon me. I chose to stay behind and let them capture me. It was the only way I would ever escape her clutches and still have any chance to right my wrongs, slim as that chance was.”

I helped wipe her tears with my sleeve.

My heart genuinely ached for her.

She wasn’t, at heart, an evil witch. Just a pretty regular girl whose morality had been warped and abused as a means to an end.

I wanted to help her.

In fact, I almost felt guilty myself for turning her over to Chair Fakari.

WHOOSH!

A gust of wind swelled into the room out of nowhere and I let out a surprised scream.

The dark room was now alight with a ghostly, blue glow beaming out from beneath Tyler’s wrist shackles!

Her face wore a look of terror.

“What’s going on?!” I screamed over the roaring wind.

“It’s Devina.”