Free Dead Lost (Kiera Hudson Series Two (Book 8)) by Tim O'Rourke

uncomfortable, so placing my cup onto the small table, I said, “If you don’t mind me saying so, this all seems a bit surreal.”
    “What does?” she asked me.
    “Us sitting here drinking tea together, it’s not quite how I imagined it to be when I met you again,” I explained.
    “Again?” she said with a slight frown. “We’ve never met before. How could we have? You were murdered. I wrote about it for the local newspaper.”
    “Then what am I doing sitting here drinking tea with you?” I said. “Should I be lying in the cemetery?”
    “Creatures like you don’t die,” she said back. “Vampires creep out of their graves, don’t they?”
    “And they drink blood and not tea,” I said, looking at her. “I’m not a vampire. I’m a Vampyrus. There is a difference.”
    “Vampyrus,” she said thoughtfully.
    Had that word struck some kind of hidden chord inside of her? I couldn’t help but wonder.
    “Do you recognise that word?” I asked, sitting forward in my seat.
    “No,” she said with a shake of her head, but I wasn’t so sure Melody was being honest about that. “I haven’t heard that word before.”
    “So what have you heard?” I asked her over the sound of the fire hissing and cracking in the grate. The room had started to warm up, making it feel snug and cosy.
    Melody sat in the armchair opposite me, and over her shoulder I could see snow pelting against the windowpane. “I’ve heard the stories – the legends – about these Dead Angels that are going to come and destroy the wolves. They will be led by one – a female. She will be called Kiera Hudson. She will be this great warrior who will slay the wolves and leave them dead.”
    “Is that what you’ve been told?” I said, thinking of my friend Kiera. She was nothing like the person Melody described.
    “I’ve spent my life investigating – researching these stories,” Melody said. “There have been hundreds of rumoured sightings of this Kiera Hudson and the Dead Angels she travels with. I’ve spoken to humans who believe that they were once winged creatures – just like your father believed you to be. Other humans claim to remember past lives they lived in a world not to dissimilar to this one.”
    “Why have you spent so much of your life investigating these stories?” I was interested to know. “Do you remember a past life, just like some of these humans do?”
    She shook her head again.
    “Why then?” I asked.
    “Because if there is a Dead Angel out there who is coming to kill the wolves, then I want to know about it,” Melody said. “It’s important to me.”
    “Why?” I frowned.
    “Because I want to protect my species,” she said. “I’m a wolf.” 
     

         Chapter Thirteen
     
    Kayla
     
    Potter sat behind the wheel of the car with a sulky look pulled down over his face. He didn’t like hearing the truth. We sat in silence until we drew close to where Kiera had lived. The rain had eased a little, but Potter still kept the windscreen wipers sliding back and forth as he peered up at the houses we passed.
    “Lost?” I asked, breaking the silence that had grown between us.
    “The houses all look so much alike,” he said. “I’ve got to be careful, because I broke into the wrong house once and got accused of sniffing some old woman’s knickers.”
    “What the fuck?” I glanced at him.
    He shot me a look.
    “On second thought, don’t tell me any more,” I said, feeling suddenly sick. “I don’t want to know what you got up to with some old woman.”
    “I didn’t get up to anything,” he grimaced. “I broke into the wrong house and this old girl starts hollering and screaming…”
    “I’m surprised you haven’t been locked up, Potter,” I said. “Was she a wolf, too?”
    “I’m not even going to discuss this with you anymore,” Potter snapped, staring out of the window and back up at the houses.
    “Good,” I said. “Listening to you boast about your arthritic sex antics