A Wolf's Heart, A vampire's Vow

he other staff. Her senses buzzed with tension. If someone or something had come to Ravenglade using ancient magic, she would have felt it. Should have. Unless they were masking themselves like

golden light. "Something's in the garden!" she gasped. "I saw..." He didn't ask questions. He let her go, turned, and stepped in front of her just as the thing burst from the hedges. It wasn't human. Not anymore. It looked like a man tall, gaunt, dressed in tattered clothing but its face was twisted. Its eyes glowed with hunger, and its mouth was smeared with blood. Its limbs were too long. Its voice,when it snarled was a gurgle of pain and madness. "Stay back!" Duncan shouted. The creature hissed and leapt. Duncan shifted in the blink of an eye bones cracking, muscles expanding his wolf form exploding forward in a blur of gray and gold. Lydia staggered back as the two collided. It was brutal. Violent. The wolf was faster, stronger. But the creature whatever it was fought like it had nothing to lose. Claws scraped fur. Teeth snapped. Blood hit the stone path. Lydia's hand clutched her necklace. She knew that kind of hunger. That smell. It was a turned vampire, a feral, mindless one. The kind that hadn't fed on blood alone, but on pain, on forbidden rituals. Something someone had made. Not born. Not like her. Duncan slammed the creature against a tree and snarled. The thing shrieked, twisted, and lunged again. Lydia couldn't just stand there. She ripped a shard of silver from a broken garden spade and flung it toward Duncan. He caught it mid-air. One strike, deep in the creature's heart and it collapsed in a wheezing heap. Silence. Duncan shifted back with a grunt, breath ragged, bare chest heaving, his arm streaked with blood. He turned to her slowly. His eyes were still glowing. "What was that?" he asked. Lydia swallowed hard. She could lie. Or she could edge closer to truth. "Something old," she said. "Something broken." Duncan stared at her for a long time. "You recognized it." Not a question. A fact. She didn't answer. A beat of silence passed between them. Finally, Duncan stepped forward, his voice low. "Who are you really, Lydia?" She looke