“That was for my brother, Isidor,” she said around a mouthful of heart.

I looked away and spied the last Skin-walker driving its boot into the back of Potter’s head, and lunged out of the sky. Eating hearts wasn’t my style, but taking heads off was. With my claws sticking out before me, I took the head off the Skin-walker as easily as if slicing through jelly. Its head spun away. Even before I’d heard it thump into the snow, I was crouched down beside Potter and lifting him up.

“Potter!” I barked, and could see that his face was swollen black with bruises and blood. I had never seen anyone take such a beating before. His head lolled to one side in the crook of my elbow. “Potter!”

Nothing.

I glanced up to see Kayla had joined in the fight with Sam and the last Skin-walker, who had changed into a wolf. The creature was howling in pain as Kayla and Sam set about it with their fangs and claws. Kayla looked as if she was enjoying herself. Sensing that they would both be all right, I turned back to Potter.

“Come on, Potter!” I barked. “Look at me.”

Nothing.

I shook him in my arms.

“You’d better open your eyes, or I’m going to rip you a new arsehole myself,” I roared down at him.

“I didn’t know you felt like that for me,”

Potter suddenly croaked just above a whisper, his eyes closed.

To hear him speak, however juvenile his remark was, made me just want to grip him tight in my arms. Then, looking down at him, I dropped him back into the snow and barked, “Quit laying around in the snow and act your age.”

Potter groaned in pain as he hit the ground. “You took your fucking time.”

“Shut your mouth,” I snapped at him. “If it hadn’t of been for me following your sorry arse, you’d be dead by now.”

“He doesn’t want me dead,” Potter said, coughing up a wad of blood and spitting it into the snow. “He’s trying to frame me for the murder of some wolf kid and teacher.”

“Wolf kid and teacher?” I said, looking down at him as he tried to claw himself to his knees. “I leave you alone for five freaking minutes and you go and kill a school kid and his teacher.”

“They were wolves,” Potter cried out in pain, gripping his ribs with both hands. “Besides, one of them tried to seduce me...”

“Seduce you!” I shouted in disbelief.

“Don’t tell me you...”

“Nearly...” Potter cut in as he took short, shallow breaths.

“What does nearly mean?” I snapped at him. “You were meant to be coming out here to make up with Kiera for getting it on with Susan...”

“Sophie...” Potter wheezed.

“Whatever!” I snapped at him. “I’m glad you can remember all of their freaking names, because I can’t, there has been so many. What is Kiera gonna say?”

“I thought it was Kiera,” Potter breathed, holding out his hand for me to help him stand.

“Help me get up. I’m bleeding.”

“Quit your moaning. You’ve got a few cuts and grazes. You’ll live,” I told him, ignoring the hand which he held out towards me. “Besides, when did Kiera become a school teacher?”

“The wolf-bitch...” Potter started, falling back onto his knees. “She did that fucking wolf mind-trick on me. She made me believe that I was with Kiera.”

“Jesus, Potter! Don’t you ever learn? If one of these fucking wolves tried to sell you magic beans, you’d buy them!” I shouted at him. “In the future, will you do us all a big favour?”

“What’s that,” Potter winced, still holding his sides.

“If one of these wolves ever tries to sell you a talking parrot, check to see that there isn’t a tape recorder stuffed up its freaking arse!” I snapped, walking away, leaving him looking sorry for himself in the snow. It was then I noticed that Kayla and Sam were nowhere to be seen.

“Kayla!” I called out. “Sam!”

No answer, just the sound of the wind blowing across the field.

I crunched through the snow to where I had last seen Kayla and Sam fighting with the wolf. The ground was covered in blood, but whose? I wondered. I spun around, the snow swirling all about me in the air. I looked for tracks, but there were so many leading to and away from where the fight had taken place. I cupped my hands around my eyes and looked in all directions across the field. The snow continued to fall so thick and fast, that visibility was now only just a few feet in all directions.

“Kayla!” I roared at the top of my voice.

“Sam!”

Only the howling wind answered me.

With my eyes almost shut tight against the snow, I peered again into the distance. I couldn’t see them anywhere. Even the statues I thought I had seen earlier had now gone.

Chapter Three

Kiera

With tears rolling silently onto my cheeks, I lay my father gently onto the floor. I slowly closed his eyes with the flat of my hands. In my head, I kept trying to tell myself that the man on the floor wasn’t my father, not the one who had raised me as a child in the other world – the one which hadn’t been pushed. If I kept telling myself that, then the pain I now felt inside wouldn’t feel as sharp and cutting. Maybe I could reduce it to a dull throb. I turned away so I didn’t have to look upon his face. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to. Had my father really been the man who had treated Jack like a son for most of his childhood? Had he been the man who had deceived Jack and left him all alone to fend for himself and his brother, Nik?

More importantly, had my father really been the man who had mixed with a Lycanthrope and was I the result of that mixing? If it were true, then both Jack and I had been deceived by my father. I couldn’t hate him, though, not like Jack hated him.

But didn’t he have reason to? If what Jack had said was true, then my father had murdered Joshua Seth to keep my birth a secret.

Then, still kneeling beside my father’s corpse, I looked up at Jack and said, “Who else knows about me? Who else knows what I am and where I came from?”

“The people who are still living, you mean?” Jack smiled back at me.

“Yes,” I nodded.

“Just me and your friend, Murphy,” Jack said over the sound of the wind blowing hard outside in the dark.

“Do the Elders know?” I asked, wondering if that was the true reason I was being punished. After all, I was the result of a forbidden act, carried out by a Lycanthrope and Vampyrus.

Wouldn’t they hate me – despise me? Didn’t I go against all of their natural laws, just like the half-breeds? But weren’t the relationship between Vampyrus and humans forbidden, too? Hadn’t those relationships been outlawed by the Elders because none of the children lived past the age of sixteen? Didn’t that make Murphy a hypocrite?

He had refused to help and support Father Paul, my father, because of his relationship with Kathy Seth, but he had mixed with a human and had two daughters. They had both been half-breeds, murdered at Hallowed Manor by Sparky and Luke.

Jack sat quietly and watched me from the shadows. “Do the Elders know about me?” I asked again.

“I don’t know,” he said with a casual shrug.

“Did they know that Murphy had mixed with a human and had two half-breed daughters?”

I said, standing up and wiping the tears from my cheeks.

“You catch on fast, sister,” Jack grinned.

“What do you mean?” I asked, moving across the room towards him.

“You already see the double standards set by your friends,” he said. “Murphy wouldn’t help our mother because her relationship was forbidden by the Elders. Or perhaps it was more because he just didn’t approve.”

“What do you mean, Murphy didn’t approve?” I asked, standing before Jack, and looking down at him.

“Maybe if Murphy’s brother, your father, had been mixing it up with a human, then he would have helped,” Jack said, looking up at me. “But our mother wasn’t human, she was a wolf and we all know how much Murphy and your other friends hate the wolves. They treat us like some inferior species to them. It’s like we are not fit to be their equal. It’s only now that I know the true reason why I hated that holding house. We were kept there like animals, waiting for the Vampyrus to find us homes. They weren’t finding us homes; they were spreading our numbers, diluting us. In such small numbers, we were no threat to them.

We were weak. Only together are the Lycanthrope strong. Who put the Vampyrus in charge? Who gave your friend, Murphy the right to police us? What makes the Vampyrus more superior to me or you?”

“But you’re a murderous race,” I said back, wondering if Jack were not speaking some truth or just screwing with my mind again.

“The Vampyrus have done their fair share of bloodletting throughout history,” Jack sneered.

“It wasn’t the Lycanthrope who was running around feeding off humans and turning them into vampires. It wasn’t a Lycanthrope who was trying to kill off all of humankind so he could have the Earth as his own – it was Elias Munn – a Vampyrus. They are in no position to dictate to us how we live our lives.”

“There is no us,” I insisted. “I’m not like you.”

“It makes no difference what you believe,” Jack said with a casual shrug. “I haven’t lied to you, Kiera. There is a part of you that is very much like me. Whether you like it or not, you are half Lycanthrope.”

“Even if what you say is true, I will never be like you,” I hissed. “I refuse to be. You say I have a choice, Jack. Well, I make my choice. I choose the Vampyrus side of me – not the wolf.”

“We’ll see,” Jack smiled straight back at me. “We’ll see.”

“See what?” I snapped at him, fighting the urge to wipe that knowing grin from his face.

“When Potter arrives, which he will,”