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Haventon Born

Chapter Ten Part Two

Once Ragnar reached his home, he circled a few times trying to sense if the werewolves were still in pursuit. Once he was satisfied that they were not he circled down and entered his home through a slightly open window. Reforming at the base of the stairs. Even the wolves should not be able to follow him now, but damn he was hungry and Caroline would still have garlic in her blood, and even if she did not he wanted to leave her a few more days to recover. He reached out and touched George’s mind hopefully, but his slave psychic was at work and would not be back before dawn. That left only one alternative. He went into the kitchen and retrieved one of his bottles of blood wine. It tasted bland at best and bad at worst but the ancient recipe would sustain him for a time. He grabbed a glass and stomped down to Caroline’s cell in the cellar.

She was awake, lying on her bed reading one of the romance novels he had bought for her. She was getting used to a night schedule it seemed. She looked up at him with a smile which faded to a concerned frown when she saw the still healing wounds on his face. “What happened to you, Master?”

He gave her a smile which was meant to look reassuring but with his facial injuries probably looked more horrifying than anything. Caroline did not flinch but she did look more worried. He poured himself a glass of the blood wine and sank in to a chair.

“It’s nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about, my Caroline,” he said. “I just had a run in with a vampire hunter, he is responsible for the facial wound, and before I could kill him some of the moon-cursed got in the way.”

“Moon-cursed?” she asked blankly.

“Those cursed by the moon to become animals beneath his light,” he said. “Werewolves.”

“Werewolves are real as well?” she asked incredulously.

“Oh yes, and all sorts of other things as well. There is a whole world out there which you never dreamed of.” He downed the glass and poured another one. “This,” he gestured to his face. “Is nothing. It’ll be gone by dawn. Did George feed you?”

“Liver and Onions with potatoes and vegetables, master. I ate it all.”

“Good girl.” He nodded approvingly. “Now you carry on with your book, I have some thinking to do.”

“Yes, master,” she said.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Why had the moon-cursed interfered? Had they just been there and decided to play? Or was there something more? He could not see them caring about anyone or anything, so it could not have been to protect the hunter boy or his protector. They seemed to have come from the park, so perhaps he had just disturbed their pack as it met. That was possible. The moon-cursed had always tended to meet up when the moon showed his displeasure with them by forcing them into the form of ravening animals. Perhaps the park was their meeting ground. Still their timing was very coincidental and he did not trust coincidences. If werewolves had some interest in that boy then they must have plans to use him for something. That made killing him even more imperative. It was no longer his safety or plans that were at stake, werewolves were a threat to everyone. He shuddered slightly. He really hated them. The only good thing about the thrice-damned Order was that it killed werewolves as well. Yes, he would have to deal with the boy soon. Perhaps he could even manipulate the Order in to cleaning up that particular mess for him, if they happened to find out werewolves were protecting him they would surely have an interest. But that left Anna to deal with.

He reached out for Anna’s mind and was startled to discover that she was still awake even though it was well past 1 am. She was hitting a punch bag that her superior had purchased for her earlier. The girl was tougher than he had realised, she should still be incapatacitated by his mind bomb. It should have been a miracle she made it home, but she had been well enough to go shopping and to be awake at this time? He was going to have to push her harder than he had intended.

He reached into her mind as hard as he could. She obviously felt it because she stopped her punching, sat down and began to rub her temples. Surprise made him hiss. At that level of contact she should have been on her knees in agony. After a moment he reached for his controls and found some sort of barrier. At first he thought that the psychic boy must be responsible, but it was surely beyond that imept child and it was devoid of anyone’s mental fingerprints. This was an artifact of her own mind – it seemed to be changing shape. A continuation of what he had noticed last night. How strange. He poked around and found an opening in the barrier through which he slipped to check his controls.

Even as he investigated she began punching the bag again and her mind changed even more. Somehow channelling her aggression into the bag was catalysing the transformation. This was baffling and Ragnar did not like being baffled. And the controls were largely wrecked, especially the ones involving anger towards the Order and enforcing her silence. The dream was still intact but he intended to transform it into a nightmare anyway. Let the threat of what he could do to her force her cooperation. But for that he needed her to sleep. So he used what controls he had left to nudge her towards sleep.

Once she succumbed and settled down to sleep Ragnar began twisting the dream he had made for her into a nightmare. His dream self drained her slowly and painfully, whispering over and over again that she should not have fought him, that cooperating would have made this as pleasurable as fighting had made it painful. When it was finished he released it and watched with anticipation.

She should not have know that she was dreaming, but somehow she did and in that moment of lucidity she managed to break out of the role of helpless victim that he had put her in and seize enough control to spit in his face.

Ragnar pulled back and opened his eyes. What a remarkable girl, how could she have such strength? It occurred to him that perhaps she was too dangerous to live, but he wanted to get to the bottom of this and she had such great potential. And he had sensed the moon’s blessing in her just like it had been in his dear sweet Rowena before the moon-cursed had killed her so many centuries before. And like Rowena she was a wild soul who would not brook any controlling, but might accept careful and gentle taming, and for that he would need to bring her here.

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