Chapter 0113
Chapter 0113
“No, but I’ve heard of you through reputation,” she replies, setting her book down. “I’m Willow.” She smiles, and I return the gesture.
“It’s nice to meet you. I need your help looking for some books in the library.”
“What topic would that be?”
“I’m looking for folktales, particularly about wolf shifters.”
She gets to her feet and signals for me to follow her. We go up the stairs to the second floor of the library. She leads us to a particular section and starts pulling books off the shelves, handing them to me. Soon, I have a tall pile of books in my arms that I need to split with Nellie so I don’t drop them.
“We have a limited collection when it comes to wolf shifters due to the enmity between our species and wolf shifters‘ aversion to documenting much about themselves.” Willow explains. “I’m not sure how much information you can glean from those books as they are mostly written for children.”
“I can work with this. Thank you for your help, Willow.”
“I’ll be at my desk if you need anything.”
The brunette vampire returns to her desk, and we claim a table nearby. Lola and Nellie help me research about shifter and vampire hybrids. Neither of them know why I’m so interested in the topic beyond simple curiosity. The faster I can find answers, the faster I can get peace of mind over my pregnancy and my
unborn child.
We read quietly for an hour, skimming through every book and finding old folktales about wolves terrorizing villages and slaughtering random townsfolk who make the bad choice to enter the forest on their own. They all have the similar themes of not trusting wolves and keeping away from the forest. Nellie finds a promising story about a she–wolf that nurses twin boys who have lost their mother. The twins go on to find two separate wolf packs, both of which are still around. One of them is my own.
Lola reads through a book of fairy tales she shows me a story about a woman that’s impregnated by a wolf. The story is written in a language I don’t recognize. I can only try to guess through the illustrations in the book what the story is about. All I can put together is that a woman gives birth to a baby that could shift into a monstrous, bloodthirsty beast. It slaughters entire villages on its own, insatiable for blood and
carnage.
“What does this mean, Nellie?” I ask.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know that language.”
At the sound of familiar footsteps, I look up to see Rainer’s smiling face. He makes a beeline toward us. Hey, Em. Nellie. Em’s sister.”
Lola goes pink, looking more shy than afraid as Rainier gives her a charming grin. “Hi.”
My sister could barely look at Kane without being scared. Rainier is the first vampire besides my maids that Lola doesn’t try to hide from. It couldn’t be because she has a crush on him. Lola is way too young for crushes. But he is charming, and everyone seems to like him.
“What are you looking at?” Rainier asks, as he looks down at the book I’m reading. “The Curse of the
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Chapter 0113
Blood Wolf.”
I look at him in surprise. “You know this language?”
“It’s a dead language. People stopped using it a hundred years ago or so.”
“What is a blood wolf?”
There are notes in that dead language that might give me more clues. Rainier reads through them and translates it for me.
“The blood wolf is a hybrid, made from two different monsters, both violent and bloodthirsty, the loup- garou and the vampyr. It craves blood constantly and can never be appeased. It’s a being so powerful that the native tribes start worshiping it as a god. It’s not until a coven of witches stand up against the blood wolf and put it down with a spell that the land is freed of its evil.”
He looks up at me, and I swallow hard. What have we done?
Chapter 0114
