Once Bitten (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #1)(21)

Kale and I had vacated the hotel immediately after Lilah, though we never caught up to her. We’d come closer to hell tonight than either of us had realized. I’d never been so glad to be safe inside my own home. Give me a vampire to deal with any day, but keep the demons in hell where they belong.

The water was cool by the time I pulled the plug. The approaching sunrise cast my bedroom in a faint, cozy glow. I turned the television on to a station that played sitcoms from the 80s and was asleep before the sun broke the horizon.

I hadn’t dreamt about it for years, three at least. And yet, I recognized it as if I’d never left. I was right back inside my worst nightmare, the most horrifying moment of my life so far.

I was my sixteen-year-old self again. I stood at the top of the stairs in the house where I’d grown up. It hadn’t always been the happiest of homes, due to ongoing conflict between my parents, but I’d learned to feign ignorance early on.

I looked down at the scene of destruction and death on the floor below, and for a minute, I couldn’t breathe. The front door hung ominously on one hinge, and it was a mess of deep scratches. Bloody trails and crimson splatters adorned the white and taupe walls. My mother’s screams thundered through my ears. My heart raced, and my breath caught in my throat, as I watched the next few moments play out in a wide-eyed stupor.

The large black wolf quickly silenced the incessant shrieks. It pounced on her back and sunk its powerful fangs deep into the back of her neck. Her blood covered its furry muzzle, and its eyes were wild, beyond monstrous.

My father and younger sister lay dead in the kitchen. I couldn’t see them from where I stood, but I knew. I’d heard their dying cries as well.

My hand flew to my mouth in an attempt to muffle the sound of my loud, terrified gasping. Even as I told myself that, this time, it wasn’t real, the blood-hungry beast below fixed me with cold eyes and darted up the stairs.

I turned to run as I had so many times before, but with a snap of great jaws, he caught my ankle in a crushing grip and threw me tumbling head over heels down the stairs. When I hit the bottom, I jerked awake with a start.

Sweat had my t-shirt clinging to me, and I accepted my aching muscles as a sign that I’d really woken up. I looked around hesitantly, half expecting the wolf to come snarling out of the shadows of my room.

Some nights the dream went on longer. In the years right after the attack, I never woke up until his fangs were buried in my throat, tearing skin and muscle away from my esophagus. That had never happened though.

By the time the wolf had gotten to me, it’d already had its fill. After landing at the base of the stairway, I had curled myself into the fetal position to protect my face and throat. Its fangs sunk into my back just twice before it disappeared through the broken front door.

I lay there for hours, alone with the cooling corpses of my loved ones. The call to the police had been one of the most horrifying moments of my life. I knew the authorities would think I was crazy if I told them the truth. I instead told them that I’d been out and had come home in the middle of the attack. I lied. I said I was unable to get a good look at the murderer.

I shook off the remnants of the nightmare. It seemed to cling to the fabric of my mind like age-old cobwebs. The kind that had been there long enough that they could never truly be dusted away.

The digital clock on the nightstand informed me that it was just past noon. I opened my bedroom curtain wide and allowed the sun to bathe me in its comforting warmth. My body ached and stiffness had set into my muscles as I slept. I stretched and groaned though my back already felt better.

“You look about as good as I feel,” Kylarai said when I entered the kitchen.

“Thanks for that.” I shrugged and went for the freshly made pot of coffee. “I think more people tell me when I look like shit than when I actually look good.”

“Sorry, I’m not exactly at my best either. Didn’t sleep worth a damn.”

“I’d like to say I slept but I think I just went back in time.”

“Attack dream?” Ky raised a questioning eyebrow. I nodded. “I don’t think they ever really go away.” She spoke as if she knew all too well. “Of course I can’t imagine that it helps when you don’t know whatever came of him. It might make a big difference if you knew he was dead.”

Easy for her to say, I thought. She’d blown the head off of the werewolf who was stupid enough to attack her. It was the first and last time she had ever wielded one of the shotguns her husband kept around the house.

“Yeah. I suppose.” I stared numbly out the window into the backyard as I stirred sugar into my cup.

A squirrel ran across a tree branch and leapt from one to the next. I wasn’t fooled by their cuteness. My grandmother had once told me a story about finding squirrels in a bird’s nest eating the legs off the baby birds. I’ve hated the little monsters since.

“Have you ever thought to talk to Veryl about it? Maybe he would know something.” Ky suggested as I took a seat across from her at the table. “You’d think a werewolf like that wouldn’t go unnoticed by him.”

She had a point. Perhaps Veryl would have some information on the wolf that had attacked me. But, did it really matter now? And, what if he still lives? Would I be able to live my life carefree, or would I become obsessed with settling a score already a decade old? I debated giving Veryl a call, but as the sun would have it, I’d have to wait until dark. Pushing the thought from my mind, I sipped from the precious, steaming hot coffee.