Free Rancor: Vampyre Hunter (Rancor Chronicles) by James McCann Page B

stranger noticed the two of them still standing inside the alcove, he sank into another bow, this time for only them. Alix grabbed Betty firmly by the arm and dragged her away, noticing that Rellik was entering the alcove.
    The tall stranger, still deep in his bow after the two girls had left, did not rise in Rellik’s presence.
    “Give it a rest, Shay,” Rellik said in an ancient Gaelic tongue. Then he said with a deep throaty growl, “I wondered when you’d come.”
    “How kind of you to think of me, my friend!” Shay responded in the same language, rising to stand at his full height. Rellik turned to fiddle with his lock as Shay marched up and down the alcove, studying each locker as though the one he chose would be the most important decision of his life. Then, opening the one beside Rellik’s, he studied its interior.
    “It’s her second life.” The vamp’s voice echoed from inside the locker. “I would not risk losing her twice.”
    Shay poked his head out to face Rellik, who had turned crimson.
    “You don’t love her! When I left my clan, she was my whole world.”
    “Then it was your mistake to think that no one else would compete for her love.”
    “Love? Was it love that–”
    The tall stranger laughed, cutting Rellik short. He remained calm, took out a red binder from his knapsack, and, placing his bag in the locker, closed the door. He then took out a lock and secured it, taking his time to turn to Rellik, who stood right up against him. Shay looked down to meet the angry glare and spoke so his voice would also sound like a deep growl. But, unlike Rellik, he never lost his hint of charm.
    “When last I saw her, she was still alive.”
    “You partook in evil.”
    “And you have to catch me before you can convict me. Or have you not yet accepted the burden of being a werewolf? You are not without hardship, nor are you without commandments. Commandments separate your kind from mine. Obtain her love freely and you will be given mortality. I call that a curse, but what do you call it? Would you give up living forever for love?”
    “You do not love her. You do not understand.”
    “Was it love that made you kill her, Rancor the Wulfsign?”
    Rellik grabbed the vamp, slammed him against the wall, and puffed out his impressive muscular form.
    “I will win her ’eart. Just as I won it a millennium ago.”
    The tall stranger rolled his head back in a fit of laughter. He brought his gaze to meet Rellik’s glare and made clear his intent to dominate the shorter man with his height.
    “Watch that accent, friend. You are no longer ‘Rancor the Wulfsign, once o’ the clan Alsandair.’ Do not forget the rules pertaining to gaining the love of those in their second life. She does not remember you, nor can you help her recall her first life.”
    “There will be no need. She will know my soul.”
    “Soul?”
    “Once she gets to know me, she will remember.”
    “Get to know you? How do you expect to remember sociability when you have spent so long in solitude?”
    Rellik’s eyes flashed crimson. “I have not been alone these past thousand years. I have been among your kind! Learning to defeat you.”
    “You are so unnerving! Help me, someone, I am so helpless!” Shay laughed. “You were not with my kind. You have been among Whittaker’s renegade sect of weak vampyres. You learned nothing.”
    “I suppose Pyre followed you,” Rellik said, and turned his attention to his locker.
    Shay rolled his head back in another fit of laughter, wiping away non-existent tears to emphasize the joke he had found in Rellik’s question.
    “The boy the vampyres created to hunt you? He would be here had I led him or not.”
    Rellik grabbed his notebook from the locker’s shelf and slammed the door shut. Though he had turned to meet Shay’s stare, he did so this time so deeply that his voice bellowed into the vamp’s mind: He shot up my car!
    “And you say nothing of the wound you took?”
    Rellik was about