Author's Note: I'd like to thank Rick for his contribution to this installment. The first two segments of this chapter were written entirely by him. Thanks!
January, 2013
'Gone.'
He had trouble even
thinking the word.
He sat outside in the driveway for the longest time, trying to will his body to move, to get out of the Land Rover. He’d been gone for three months on a wild goose chase, trying to find the beautiful young woman he realized – too late – that he loved more than anyone or anything else in the world.
“Kara…” Dylan Vorcla muttered brokenly.
She’d left him. The post it note on the ‘fridge had read, “Just gone.” He had foolishly waited a couple of days before setting out after her, hoping she would return. It was time he wouldn’t gain back.
How hard could it be, he had thought. A drop-dead gorgeous girl riding a Ducati, a killer bike. Kara would turn heads everywhere she went.
Easy to find…
He’d been fooling himself.
The closest he came was a small town north of Paris. The bodies of an elderly couple had been found savagely mauled to death in a seedy hotel room. Yes, there had been a beautiful young girl with a sleek motorcycle. But the old people had been torn apart by some kind of large, vicious animal. Hopefully the girl had not been killed as well and carried away…
Vorcla knew better. She had miscalculated the lunar cycle and had gone on a rampage under the full moon. She had killed. Twice. And now…
He didn’t even know if she was alive or dead, and he was going out of his mind with worry.
He glanced at himself in the rear view mirror. No one he knew would recognize him. He hadn’t cut his hair or shaved in five months. He didn’t care about himself. All he could think about was Kara – and getting her back. His eyes stared back hollowly at him.
He took a deep breath. This wasn’t solving anything. He got out of the vehicle and shuffled up the driveway like a sleepwalker.
Dylan Vorcla paused at the door, unsure if he could enter the house again. The furnishings, the knickknacks, the decorations--all had been carefully designed and overseen by Kara. She'd made the place a home, a place to return to. Now--
Gritting his teeth, he entered.
Empty.
“Kara?” he called cursing the tremor in his voice, hoping against hope she had returned and was waiting for him.
Nothing.
One last hope. Sometimes she would surprise him and would be waiting in their bed for him, naked, under the covers. He made his way up the stairs to their bedroom, holding his breath.
“Kara?”
No. She was gone.
Just gone.
His gaze swept the bedroom as tears filled his eyes. Their bedroom. The scene of many nights and days of wild, passionate, devoted love.
Now it was an empty room, devoid of character. She was no longer there to bring it to life.
He had nowhere to go, and no one to share his life with. Not anymore, anyway.
Vorcla closed his eyes, willing himself not to think about her. If he thought about something--anything--else, it didn't hurt so much. He needed to give his mind something to do besides dwell on the past. Dwelling there would only destroy him.
He caught a reflection from the corner of his eye. Turning, he saw a picture on the corner of the nightstand.
Kara’s sultry smile, her dark hair flying in the wind, her luminous eyes dancing. Her pentagram medallion glinting against the tawny buckskin shirt she wore. The image seemed to grow out of the photo until it filled his entire vision.
Shakily, Vorcla reached out and touched the photo gently. His vision blurred. He inhaled sharply, feeling a pain deep in his chest as hot tears streamed down his face. Then he crushed the photo close to him as he sobbed uncontrollably. All the pain that he'd been holding back since Kara had left him surfaced and billowed out. He tried to sit on the edge of the bed and missed, and landed unceremoniously on the floor. Too wracked with anguish to move, he wept.
“Oh, God, K-Kara!” he sobbed. “Please come back! I…I’m
suffocating…”
When he finally couldn't cry any longer, he forced himself to get up and went into the bathroom and washed his face, letting the cool water shrink the puffiness around his eyes.
Then, as he had so many times while out on the road, he headed downstairs to the bar to blunt his awful pain with alcohol, still clutching Kara’s photo in a trembling hand
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Bri chewed her lower lip, wondering if she could go inside. The Land Rover sat next to her car in the driveway of the big “A” frame. Dylan was back. She wondered how he was.
The last time she had seen him, he’d been a wild man, nearly insane with worry over Kara. He had thrown several suitcases into the back of the Land Rover and had torn off down the driveway, spattering gravel in all directions, unwilling – and unable – to listen to anyone.
And she hadn’t seen him since.
She screwed up her courage and walked to the door. It stood open. She eased in cautiously.
“Dylan?”
Bri heard a sound she didn’t recognize at first. When she did, it froze her blood.
Sobbing. He was
weeping!
“D-Dylan?” she quavered.
She found him by the bar, and she wanted to scream. He was lying on the floor, curled up in a fetal position, clutching a framed photo of Kara to his chest. An empty bottle of Merlot lay nearby.
She didn’t recognize him; he looked like a homeless derelict. His blonde hair hung past his shoulders, and his face was obscured by a thick, full beard. His eyes were haunted, streaming tears. They were empty, hollow.
Dead.
It scared her to death. She had known him for over five years, and he was a good friend, a special friend. He had always been so centered, so serene. Fearless, too. She had never seen him laid low like this. It was… unnerving in the extreme.
It was hard to see him like this. He was a fascinating, multifaceted character. Dylan was many things – a poet, a musician, a businessman.
A
Werewolf.
Bri stiffened. When was the next cycle of the full moon? If it came while he was in this condition…
She crouched down next to him.
“Dylan? Dylan, honey – it’s Bri.”
The vacant, streaming eyes focused, and a glint of recognition flickered in their alcohol-fogged depths.
“B-B-Bri?” He was still sobbing. She watched him try to pull himself together with an supreme effort. “I’m s-sorry y-you have t-to see me like this…I’m n-not myself…”
“It’s all right, baby,” she crooned, fighting back tears herself. “Can you get up?”
He shook his head. “No. Don’t want t-to, either. Gonna just s-stay here ‘til I d-die…”
“Don’t talk like that, Dylan!” she cried, alarmed. She sat down on the floor with her back against the bar, and wrestled him into a sitting position. Vorcla immediately flopped down and buried his face against her shoulder, and his body shook with wracking, hiccupping sobs. He cried out hoarsely, and Bri cringed at the note of raw anguish in his voice. Slowly he subsided, although he still trembled like an aspen leaf.
“G-God, Bri…what am I going t-to
d-do?” His voice was little more than a whimper. “I c-can’t live without her. I don’t
w-want to. Why did she leave m-me?”
“I really don’t know, honey,” she replied. “Sometimes women…they like to fix things when they’re broken. If they see something they can’t fix, or something they don’t think they can fix…sometimes they get confused – and sometimes they run.”
“I love her so m-much,” he murmured. “I can’t go on like this. If she would just c-call and tell m-me she’s okay. I don’t even know if she’s alive or…” He couldn’t finish
She stroked his hair. It was soft and silky and smelled like sandalwood.
Whatever else he had neglected, he had at least been bathing regularly. She could see the dark, isometric smudges under his eyes, and the pouches of fatigue. He was beyond exhaustion. She wondered how much he had slept in the past five months.
She wondered if he had slept
at all.
The Wolf inside him could drive him far beyond the limits of mere human endurance. But even the Wolf had a breaking point. Back home again, the adrenaline that had been driving him had deserted him and left him like this – an empty shell, shattered, defeated.
Heartbroken.
“Dylan, listen to me,” Bri said. “You’ve got to get some sleep. You’ve got to help me get you upstairs. You’d be more comfortable in your own bed.”
He jerked as if he had been shocked by a high tension power line.
“
Our bed,” he corrected. “Kara and me. B-Bri, I can’t…”
Tears trickled down Bri’s face now. “I understand. Let’s get you to the couch then. It’s better than nothing.”
It took her nearly ten minutes to get him settled in. Vorcla did his best to help her, but he had drunk an entire bottle of Merlot, and it had gone straight to his brain. So she half carried and half dragged him across the room. It must have been quite a sight: the petite, pretty woman struggling with the tall, lanky man. Bri reflected that it probably would have qualified as a “funniest home video.”
Except that it wasn’t funny at all – not in the least.
She finally got him tucked in, pulled the afghan up to his chin and sat in the chair next to the couch to catch her breath. She heard him call her name.
“Bri?”
“Mhmm?”
“Thank you. I love you.”
“Love you too, baby.”
Then she heard a choked sob, and one word:
“Kara?”
She stroked his head until he cried himself to sleep…
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Tucked away in the back corner of Munich’s ‘Wolf Ghetto hostel, Firmin LeClerc kept his dark brown eyes locked on the pale brunette across the room. Cacophonous clamor and lewd behavior of every ‘Wolf in the darkened and rotting bar failed to distract her from the cheap paperback she’d buried her nose in.
A half-empty glass of merlot rested not far from reach as she idly turned the pages to her book and yawned. The Change would consume all who resided in the ramshackle Ghetto in less than a few hours, and while the rest of the room seemed to be consumed in a frantic verve of questionable legality, she sat as calmly and unphased by the ruckus as if she were completely oblivious.
Firmin closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He could hear Lunette’s voice nagging in the back of his mind. Their reunion in Merthyr Tywyn had been all but harmonious. He’d shared Vorcla’s present condition with her and listened to her tell of Kara’s new residency. Evidently she was working for a couple who ran an inn and tavern in Weissenberg for half-pay and the use of a small apartment attached to the place. It hadn’t been the news of her new employment that drove Firmin to hunt her down in Germany, but rather that of her present company.
Lunette may have trusted the oath of a notorious murderer, but Firmin was all but convinced. He intended to either bring her back to Wales or kill LaGory. Only Lunette seemed to express the reasonable concern,
“And what if he kills you first?”
Firmin pushed the thought from his mind. LaGory was dangerous, he knew better than to underestimate the powers of the Vampire Master, but unresolved rage and a resolution to end the indiscriminate killings drove him to intervene. If LaGory wanted to settle the score with Dylan Vorcla, he was going to have to find another way to do so.
Firmin looked back up just as Kara lowered her now empty wine glass. Her cheeks were flushed with a hue of pink from the alcohol and her eyes were starting to droop as she stared at the pages of her book. Propping her head upon her hand she continued to read and twirled a strand of her brown hair along a slender finger. From a distance, Firmin couldn’t help but notice the resemblance.
Just like, Marie.
“Just like Marie.” Lunette had thrown those angry words at him as they stood beneath the light of a broken streetlamp. Tears streamed down his sister’s cheeks as he fought back the welling rage that compelled him to leave for Germany. She had been right. Kara was just like Marie. And that was exactly why Firmin LeClerc refused to see her destroyed.
The eerie ghost that was Dylan Vorcla bothered him enough as was. He’d stalked all throughout his chase through Europe, and now that he was back in Wales, he was consumed in a rapid session of deterioration. He’d been in a similar position years before, but unlike Firmin, Vorcla lacked the support of someone like Lunette to pull him out of the downward spiral. Bri may have been there to help him, but nothing would help him until he was willing to help himself.
Firmin cracked his neck from side to side before pushing up from the table. He walked up to the bar, ordered a glass of merlot and another pint of beer then pushed through the riotous crowd, stopping just short of her table. She looked up at him and raised her eyebrows curiously.
“Looks like you were running low.” He placed the wine glass in front of her gingerly. “Mind if I sit down?”
“It would be pretty heartless of me to deny you that after you just went and bought me a drink, now wouldn’t it?” she questioned, taking a sip from the new glass.
“Not from around here, are you?”
Kara chuckled. “Original.”
“Honest question.”
She placed the book down and leaned back in her chair, folding her arms delicately across her chest. Staring hard, she barely heard him as he continued to elaborate on the honesty of the question. She’d seen some interesting attempts at flirting before, but this one took the cake. She was surprised by how much his chocolate eyes moved her. The entire time he spoke she couldn't look away from them. They were entrancing, captivating even. For the first time in three months a tingle of warmth ran down her spine and something deeper stirred in the pit of her stomach.
“You know?"
She blinked. "Sorry?"
He smiled charismatically at her. "You were that lost, eh?"
She could smell him very well from across the table and the noxious pheromones were driving her up the wall. For some queer reason he reminded her so much of Dylan. She couldn't spot it physically and it certainly wasn't in his personality. This man knew what he wanted and knew how to take it. Next to him, Dylan was a confused and pitiful fool.
"What's your name?" he asked her, still grinning.
"Does it matter?" she smirked. She leaned forward across the table, teetering on her folded forearms and, noticeably, his gaze drifted south of her neck.
"I typically like to know what name to shout when I-"
"Bit ahead of ourselves, aren't we Jean?"
"Jean?"
"You're French. The accent was a dead give away."
He could only grin at her. He liked the woman. He liked her more than he anticipated liking her. Kara only stared at him, her brow scrutinizing his every feature.
"Is something wrong?"
"You remind me of someone, someone I knew fairly well."
"How well?"
She paused for a moment, then leaned back and retreated to her glass of merlot. "Not well enough."
He nodded in understanding then crossed his arms and retreated to mirror her. "So what do you want?"
"What do you mean?" She watched as the firelight from the hearth danced across his jaw. It wasn't wholly unlike Dylan's, but without the cleft in the chin. She shuddered self-consciously. Was she actually comparing this perfect stranger to him?
His knee brushed hers beneath the table and he didn't bother to move it. "You look like you could use a good romp."
She bid her tongue. She could use several good romps and she knew it. Admitting so much to this callous and evidently rather self-assured stranger was not her ideal style…even if she was secretly considering nailing him on the table right then and there.
"I'll pass, thanks though."
"You sure?" he asked, his voice hinting a bit of play. She wasn't sure. She wasn't sure in the least and he knew it. He leaned forward again, his thigh moving further up along hers and he felt her muscles tighten in recoil as he did so. Still, she did not pull away.
"I—"
"You what?"
"It's a bad time for me."
He grinned then jerked his head to the left. The countless trysts that ensued around them fell into the spotlight, the next less decent than the one before it. "Does it look like good time for any of us?"
The full moon and Change drove the wolves into a ramped cycle of lust. They couldn't control it half the time. Those who could had the patience of saints. Kara had never been known for her patience.
"I just-"
"C'mon," he stood up then grabbed her hand, jerking her to her feet. She opened her mouth to protest but an arm slid around her waist and pulled her close and his lips descended upon hers hungrily. Her palms remained flat against his chest, pushing him away half heartedly until she finally gave in and allowed them to slither up his neck and cup his face. He tried to pull away but noticed the pressure she applied to keeping him there. She let go with her hands but still held on to his lips, her eyes welled shut tightly. Finally she let go and covered her mouth with her hands in shock. He grinned down at her. "So, I'm assuming that this is going to be consensual?"
Eyes wide, she nodded and he pulled her hands away from her mouth and took her again. Her arms coiled around his shoulders and she stood on tip toes to reach him. He held her small waist tightly and thought about pushing everything off of their table and laying her down upon it. Her small fists that gripped his rich dark hair tightly from behind suggested that somewhere else might be better.
"What's—" he pulled away but only for a second before she lifted herself to meet him, "—your room number?"
Kara didn't answer, she just kept kissing him, her mouth never detouring from its objective. She leaned forward and they staggered backwards. He realized she had no intention of telling him. Showing was always better than telling.
As they stumbled, she jumped up into the air, coiling her arms around his neck and wrapping her legs around his waist. He was surprised with out deliberate she was in her kissing. He kept walking down the long corridor, faithful that she would make some sort of deterrent gesture when they reached her room.
A throaty growl escaped her lips and inch long talons began to slip from the tips of her feminine fingers, slicing holes though the material of his black tee-shirt. He had never been a fan of sexual mutilation but tonight he seemed to enjoy it. He squeezed her buttocks and she gasped then looked down at him with a wicked grin and glowing amber eyes before consuming his mouth once more.
Abruptly she stuck out her arm and firmly grasped hold of the door frame to her secured room. The sound of talons scraping across metal as he let her down echoed throughout the empty hallway. He buried his face in the nape of her neck from behind and began kissing the flesh as she entered her PIN with shaky hands.
"Stop that," she crooned, barely able to think.
"Why?" he smiled with chagrin, knowing she didn't mean it at all.
"I can't remember my PIN."
He laughed then removed all hands from her. He watched as she pushed back a stray strand of hair then entered her PIN into the key pad and scanned her thumb for access. The door opened slowly, and she stepped inside the cell.
He took a step forward then stopped inside the frame. "Last chance to say no," he told her. As much as he wanted it, he refused to pressure her into anything.
She smiled at him devilishly and extended her hand across the door. Grabbing a fistful of his shirt she jerked him across the threshold before the heavy metal door slammed shut.
"Congratulations, Monsieur," she laughed, motioning towards the doors that would not open for at least another seventy-two hours. With her mouth tantalizingly close to his ear she whispered. "You've reached the point of no return."
) at the end when Firmin and Kara lock themselves in the security cell for the entire cycle of the full moon. 
Why isn't this more widely commented on???!?!?! It's an amazing piece - enough information to capture the reader, but not too much to turn them away. 
Re: Vorcla's Quest Three: Reconciliation (Four)
will eat you!
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