Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 87848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
“I want to see it.”
“It’s all shut off, I believe.”
We walk around the church and find the entrance to the undercroft, quite obviously located in the rear, two large doors located at a forty-five-degree angle and surrounded by a stone frame. They are blocked off by large gates, padlocked closed.
“We should go in there,” Beatrix says.
“We shouldn’t. There are gates for a reason.”
“They don’t apply to us. We’re above the law.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Laws are for people. We’re not people. We’re wolves. We’re animals. And animals don’t have to obey the laws of men.”
That’s a dangerous thought process, but I don’t know that I entirely disagree. We are not the same as those around us. We look the same. We are treated the same, but fundamentally we carry an animal consciousness that can never respect what humans respect.
“Boost me up,” she says. “The top isn’t that barbed.”
“Not that barbed,” I sigh. “I brought you here to educate you, not contribute to your delinquency.”
“You brought me here because Volkov made you so angry you thought you might kill him and you had to get out of the chateau before you did something that might be an even worse example to me.”
I look at her, quite surprised at how insightful she is.
“Was it that obvious?”
“The way you looked at him, you wanted to rip him apart,” she laughs.
“He was disrespectful, and I was disappointed. I wanted him to help you. Help us.”
“Therapists are pointless,” she says.
“Are they. How do you know that?”
She rolls her eyes. “Imagine thinking that talking about things makes them better. Crazy. Sometimes bad things happen, and you let them go into the past and you never think about them again, and if you happen to remember them by accident, then you think of something else instead. That’s how it’s done.”
She really needs therapy.
She’s started to climb the damn gates too.
Before we can continue this conversation about the value of not having conversations, and before I can pull her back down, we are interrupted by swinging torch lights and the arrival of two gendarmes.
“What are the two of you doing?”
I don’t like their tone. It is officious and domineering. I don’t do well with that kind of approach. My being an alpha means less than nothing to these humans. They are looking at us with the hard authoritarian expressions of men who have the right to put others in cages.
“He was trying to stop me from doing something I shouldn’t,” Beatrix says. “He never can, though.”
The gendarme looks at me. “Is this your wife?” He asks me the question in a tone that tells me he suspects she’s not my wife. If anything, he’s implying that I’m paying for her company.
I suppose this could be one of the places one would take a lady of the night to if one had no other place to go.
This could go quite badly if it is not handled well. We were on the verge of trespassing, and with Beatrix being on the gate, they could argue that we had trespassed.
The penalty is likely a fine, but we could be arrested. Given what we have both done on our pack lands, this little crime feels like nothing, but that doesn’t mean anything in this tight historical alley.
“She’s my fiancée,” I explain.
“No, I’m not,” Beatrix pipes up at precisely the wrong time. “He hasn’t asked me to marry him.”
“I haven’t?”
“No!”
“You’re right. I forgot. I’m so sorry.”
I go down on one knee before the gendarmes.
“Beatrix, will you marry me?”
There’s a brief moment of confusion and excitement and then I see her expression clear.
“No,” she says. “Of course not, not now I know you’re a criminal.”
The gendarme curses at me.
“Get up, idiot. The two of you are trespassing. Name and address, please.”
“Armand de Lune, Chateau Loup de Lune,” I say.
They exchange looks. They see the way we are dressed, the way we speak, especially the way I speak, that there is some money behind us. That could go either way in terms of their thinking. Some gendarmes are noble beings, but others take full advantage of their authority.
This again starts to feel like a potentially concerning situation. The pack does not know where we are. I brought no retinue. I brought no backup of any kind.
“And your name?” he asks Beatrix.
“None of your fucking business.”
“Her name is Beatrix de Lune,” I say with a glare to her as I will her not to make this worse.
“You said she’s not married. Where is her ID?”
I feel the interaction sliding sideways at a pace I am absolutely not comfortable with.
“I can show my ID, and…”
“No, we need her ID.”
I am not worried about myself, but I am absolutely worried about Beatrix. They have her backed into a corner.
And that is when all hell breaks loose.
This time I see her capacity for killing up close, near enough to feel the blood spatter. I feel arterial sanguine essence splash my face, my neck, cover my clothes, saturate my shirt.