VAMP RISING (By Moonlight Book 1) (9 page)

              Thinking fast, Gwen tore at the bear’s fur, pulling out clumps in hopes of clearing access to its jugular when without warning she was suddenly thrown off the great animal after it forcefully tossed its head. Flying backwards through the air she slammed into the broad side of massive oak tree where her right shoulder was immediately impaled by a broken branch, like a spear.

              Gwen screamed as pain radiated from her shoulder, searing through her entire body. As her scream subsided, but not the pain, she glanced down and realized she was hanging five feet above the ground. She was pegged against the tree.

              The bear roared again and lumbered towards her, as she tried desperately to wriggle free, but it was no use. She was speared to the tree thanks to the branch that had impaled her and any attempt to move caused such excruciating pain she couldn’t stand it. Scrambling, she thought to cast glamour over the crazed animal, but the pain in her shoulder was so consuming she couldn’t latch onto the feeling that the glamour required. Suddenly she remembered the whistle around her neck and fished it out from her dress with her left hand. Just as the bear rose up on  hind legs to reach her, Gwen blew the whistle as hard as she could.

              It didn’t make a sound, but she supposed that was to be expected since it was like a dog whistle and only audible by canines, so she blew again and again and again, as she kicked at the bear that was swatting her feet, fangs bared and roaring, trying to bite down on one foot then the other.

*              *              *

              Brandon heard the whistle’s piercing tone from where he was scouting along the base of Mount Rainier just shy of the Hollis Lake. The sharp blow kept repeating itself, distressed and deliberate as though Gwen was in immediate danger. According to the sun it was just after five and Gwen should still be in class, not deep in the western corner of the Cascades, but he didn’t have time to make sense of it. He had to act.

              He howled, as he collapsed into his wolf form, alerting his two dogs to follow him. They leapt to action in perfect unison, sprinting after him and towing their sled. With his dogs at his heels, Brandon tore through the woods heading west in the direction of those punctuated whistle blows until he found Gwen pinned against a tree and fighting off a grizzly bear.

              Without making a sound, Brandon turned human, dropped to his knee then reached over his shoulder for the tranquilizer gun that was resting at his back, and swung it forward taking aim at the grizzly's neck where the tranquilizer would take the fastest effect then fired.

              The dart struck the grizzly’s neck and the bear immediately started wobbling on its hind legs. After a moment it dropped to all fours, and then toppled over with a loud thud.

              Brandon rushed to Gwen, wanting to take hold of her waist so that her body weight would no longer strain the wound at her shoulder, but when he stood directly beneath her he realized she was too high up.

              He called his dogs over and positioned the sled at the base of the tree then stood on it, which gave him just enough extra height that he could grab her. 

              “Wrap your legs around me,” he ordered, as he held her bottom with one arm.

              She did as she was told, though she was overcome with pain, as Brandon assessed the branch that was sticking through her shoulder.

              “How’d you get yourself into this mess?” He asked, as he wrapped his hand around the branch.

              “The bear threw me,” she said wincing through her teeth.

              “I’m going to snap the branch as close to your shoulder as possible then I’m going to slide you off,” he informed her.

              “Ok,” she said, sucking air through her teeth in preparation for the agony that would surely follow.

              “One, two, three,” he said and snapped the branch on three, which jarred the wound just enough that she yelped. Brandon inspected the break in the branch and decided it was clean enough that she wouldn’t get splinters passing off it. “I’m going to pull you off the branch now, fast, like ripping off a band aid.”

              Gwen snorted out a half-laugh that twisted into a painful grimace, and sensing her body relax from laughter, though only slightly, Brandon jumped on the opportunity by quickly pulling Gwen towards him in one fast jerk until she was free of the branch.

              She screamed then held her left shoulder, as blood poured from it. But Brandon didn’t pause. He lowered her down to the sled so that she was sitting on its edge then sat beside her and began inspecting the wound.

              “How long will the bear be out like that?” She asked, staring at the giant creature that had tried to kill her.

              “Hours,” he said, before whistling through his teeth.

              The dogs approached then stood still in front of Brandon, while he unzipped one of the packs that was strapped to the nearest dog's back. Choosing carefully, Brandon extracted disinfectant, gauze, and first aid tape from the pack and set each item down onto the sled.

              As he worked to disinfect the gash in Gwen’s shoulder that was a good two inches in diameter, he felt suddenly overcome with anger. He’d seen the bear cub and knew that its mother wouldn’t have attacked Gwen unless it had been provoked. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but it was obvious what had happened. Gwen had attempted to hunt and it had gone terribly wrong. If he was upset with her reckless attempt that could’ve harmed these bears, he was even more furious at the danger she’d put herself in. He didn’t know much about vampires, but the law that a stake through the heart could kill them came to mind. If Gwen had been thrown four inches to the right, the tree branch wouldn’t have sliced through her shoulder. It would’ve sliced through her heart, and she’d be dead. Permanently.

*              *              *

              Gwen noticed Brandon had fallen silent working on her wound, but sensed it was more than just concentration. His brow was furrowed and he seemed to be avoiding her eye. Then he began handling her roughly, as he twisted an alcohol-laden pad into the wound.

              “Ouch,” she said under her breath.

              “What were you doing out here?” He asked sternly.

              “My class got canceled,” she said, which narrowly avoided answering his question fully.

              “So why didn’t you go back to your room?” He pressed.

              “Would you have?” She challenged.

              “You could’ve waited there a few hours until I came for you for our hike,” he said dryly.              

              “I felt the need to get some air,” she offered, again without elaborating.

              “Did you come out here to hunt?” He asked flat out.

              “Not initially,” she said, admitting that’s what had occurred.

              “But you were going to attack the cub,” he stated.

              “It was dying anyway,” she pointed out then realized afterwards that this was news to Brandon.

              He looked over at it and asked, “What do you mean?”

              “I think it was shot,” she said, though it was only a guess. “It’s bleeding from the lower abdomen.”

              “Hunting isn’t permitted here,” he said to himself, as he sewed up the gash in her shoulder that was now cleaned thoroughly with disinfectant, coldly blocking her out as before by avoiding her gaze.

              “Look, I’m sorry. Elektra had me all riled up. Everyone seems to think I’m a danger to the Sanctuary, and I needed some air. When I got out here I guess I smelled the cub’s blood and lost all sense of myself. I wasn’t going to kill it, really,” she said, though as she listened to herself she found her words disingenuous. Even
she
wouldn’t have believed her. Never the less, she went on, “I glamorized it.” Brandon shot her a confused look, to which she clarified, “I influenced it so that it wouldn’t feel any pain, which worked. And I was only going to take a little blood, but then that other bear tried to attack me.”

              “That other bear is its mother. She was protecting her cub. She didn’t attack you. You were the one that attacked her family.”

              “But I didn’t actually,” she objected.

              “Well she didn’t know that,” he countered. “I spend all day out here trying to help injured animals. And you’re sneaking off to hurt them?”

              “It was impulsive and I wasn’t thinking,” she apologized.

              Brandon straightened up, having finished dressing her wound. Gwen could feel his eyes on her, his interest in her shoulder having turned from strictly medical to something else, but he immediately denied it and went to the bear cub.

              After a long moment of assessing the gunshot wound in the cub’s abdomen, Brandon gave the animal a shot (Gwen guessed a sedative or tranquilizer since the animal immediately slumped loosely after he'd administered it) then he cleaned the wound with disinfectant, bandaged it and lifted the animal into his arms. As he carried it to the sled, Gwen rose to make room, so that Brandon could gently set the cub down and strap it in. 

              He met her gaze then and said, “You’re lucky that branch didn’t stake through your heart, you know that?”

              It hadn’t occurred to her, but he was right. She was lucky.

              “You’re not immortal, you know,” he went on.

              “I hadn’t thought of that,” she said, considering the close call.

              “I don’t want you going anywhere by yourself,” he stated. “And I’m sure Christoph would agree.”

              “Well, what am I supposed to do?” She challenged all of a sudden. “Christoph hasn’t gotten around to teaching me the appropriate way to hunt and no one’s given me blood. He’s gone for the night. Elektra told me to simply go to my room, but how does that help me? I really am sorry I was so reckless, but what did everyone think was going to happen? I need blood,” she ranted until her breaths got the best of her and she began hyperventilating.

              Brandon sandwiched her chest between his hands, placing one firmly just beneath her collarbone and the other between her shoulder blades in back.

              “What. Are. You. Doing?” She asked, as her inhale hitched in her throat, causing the question to jut out of her in a staccato rhythm.

              “Breathe,” he said, as he pressed against her.

              She tried to and found that the pressure of his hands helped her breathe deeply and slowly. When her upset subsided, he softened his hold, lowered his hand from her chest, and used the other to rub long strokes up and down her back, which helped her calm down even further. Then he guided her to sit at the back of the sled beside him.

              “I feel like I have no control over myself,” she admitted. “For a second I felt empowered with Christoph, but I lost that feeling. Now it’s like I’m just as helpless as I was when I was human and knew I was dying.”

              Brandon stilled his hand so that it rested on the small of her back. He studied her face, though she was looking down at the leaves and brush that were scattered across the ground. It was getting dark, and the temperature was falling, but he didn’t want to head back until Gwen felt comforted and restored. He brushed his hand through her short blond hair, tucking the longer pieces behind her ear.

              “You’ll get through it,” he assured her. “It’s only been a day.”

              Gwen gravitated towards him, sinking into his warm body so that her head was resting on his shoulder. As she moved in, he caressed his hand further until it rested on her hip, while at the same time the other hand crossed over her lap so that he could join his hands and hold her tenderly.

              “I feel like there’s something dark inside me that’s itching to get out,” she whispered. “I’m worried it’ll take over and there will be nothing of me left in here.”

              “That’s not going to happen,” he said softly, as he drew her even tighter against him. “I shouldn’t have been so hard on you. I’m just concerned. That’s all. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. But I get that your actions seem beyond your control. In a lot of ways they are, but you still have a choice, deep down. You still have the power to hold yourself back from doing impulsive things. You have the power to ask for help.”

              Gwen felt his right hand disengage from his left and soon he was stroking his fingers through her hair and caressing the length of her neck then across her shoulder and down her arm until he couldn’t reach any further, at which point he started from her head again, tracing the same path downward.

              “When I was first turned,” he resumed, speaking softly and continuing with his soothing caress. “I had a mind altering fever for weeks. I couldn’t string two thoughts together, that’s how consuming it was. It was like I was losing my mind and it terrified me. When the sickness passed, at first I was relieved, but then I realized I still didn’t really have a command over my thoughts, never mind my impulses. It was like there was someone else inside my head thinking for me, acting out, and I was watching it all, unable to do a thing about it.”