Moving closer, I followed my nose to the scent. I knelt down and reached a hand out to a small pile of black ash. Dipping my fingers in the soot, I brought it to my nose and inhaled again. I didn’t know a lot about vampires, but I could guarantee the ash on my fingertips was vampire blood, turned to ash when the sun rose. I watched in astonishment as small flakes danced up off my fingers and disintegrated into the air. The supernatural was amazing that way, erasing all traces of itself from the human world. Worried about losing my evidence, I fisted my hands into the pile of soot and held fistfuls of it in hopes of a vision. It didn’t take long before the scenery before me disappeared and I was seeing the past of the vampire the blood belonged to.

I stood right next to a couple, a tall man with unruly brown hair and round hazel eyes and the woman from last night. From her dominance, I pieced together that she was in charge of the vampires. It was strange to be standing right next to their past selves. I half expected them to acknowledge me. I held my breath, remembering how ruthless the female vampire had been last night. She moved like the wind and hit like a wrecking ball. When their eyes didn’t fall on me, I released the breath.

“We go tonight,” the woman said. Her shoulder-length dark hair swayed to the side when she leaned over and zipped up her knee-high boot.

I looked around the space, realizing we stood in a hotel room. Two queen beds with floral comforters occupied most of the room. A boxy television sat atop a wooden dresser, and a bathroom was at the back of the room.

The man moved to the window. With his pointer finger, he drew the curtain back just enough to see a sliver of the outside world. Light filtered into the dark room, and the man hissed and let his hand drop from the drapes. I guess it was true that any amount of daylight was like acid to these bloodsuckers.

“I still don’t know why we’re doing this,” the man said with irritation. “Since when do we work for werewolves?”

“A payday is a payday,” the woman said. “I don’t discriminate.” She punctuated the sentence with a devilish smirk.

“She almost caught you the night of the ceremony,” the man said. “Plus, she’s a white wolf. Even I know the legends, and they don’t bode well for those who wish her harm.”

The woman scoffed. “You and your superstitions. That little bitch didn’t come close to catching me, and I won’t bat an eyelash at her being a white wolf when her own kind wants her dead. If they don’t respect the legends, then why should I?”

I could feel my lips peel open and my jaw drop. I remember how my pack reacted the first time I transformed into my wolf, and it was white. No one ever came out and said why they were so surprised, but whispers lingered around the mountain about it meaning something great. I had searched the book of our history for the answer, but nothing was written about white wolves. Hearing it was a legend, and that vampires had even heard of it, jarred me to my bones. From the moment my body accepted the werewolf virus, and I’d become one of the monsters that only stories are made of, I’d been different.

“Besides,” the woman said. “I’ve been hungry for a good fight.”

The man snorted as though he had heard the woman’s zeal for violence before. He walked over to the bed and sat, resting his arms on his bent up knees. The woman walked over to him straddled his lap, causing the man to sit back. He rested his hands on the mattress behind him and looked up at her. The admiration in his eyes was unmistakable. A sense of unease filled me at witnessing such a private moment. It quickly vanished as I remembered that these two weren’t two innocent lovers, they were plotting my death.

“Everything will be okay, Taren,” the woman said softer. “We’ll rip that bitch’s head from her shoulders and collect the six figure paycheck. After that, we’ll take our vacation to Europe, devour the townspeople, and fuck while bathed in their blood.”

A smile replaced the worried scowl on Taren’s face. His fingers curled around the woman’s behind as he pulled her tighter against his pelvis. She let out a small moan of pleasure, and a flash of fangs peeked out from under Taren’s lips.

Unadulterated fury singed me from the inside out. These two were every bit of the monster as their lore depicted them as. To talk so casually about murder caused my stomach to coil with nausea. My mind swam in dark waters as I contemplated all the ways I could kill them first. A small voice in the back of my mind whispered, How are you any better than them? I shooshed the voice—I was ten times better than these two. I would kill to protect my pack, and myself, and with their deaths countless innocent humans would be saved, too. These vampires weren’t innocent and killed for money, not necessity.

When I looked back at the couple, they were now laying back on the bed. The woman’s shirt was missing, and Taren was kissing a path down her stomach. Her mouth opened with a moan, twin fangs poking out.

I closed my eyes, wanting to be anywhere but in this hotel room. I did not want to witness these two having sex. Moans and hungry snarls filled my ears, and I clamped my eyes tighter shut, willing myself out of the vision. Only, it didn’t work. I was still standing in the hotel room, still subjected to their cries of pleasure. I whirled around and fumbled with the door handle, but it wouldn’t turn. I flipped the locks, thinking they must be switched, but no matter how many times I flipped them, the door still would not open.

I kept my back to the couple, bile rising to my throat when the bed started creaking. None of my visions had ever lasted this long. I never felt trapped in the past, or worried about escaping it. I was now. My heart raced in my chest while my mind grappled with what to do. I didn’t know how my visions worked, but surely this part wasn’t important.

I moved to the corner by the door and rested my forehead against the wall like a child being punished. That’s what it felt like—punishment. I kept my eyes closed and hummed a song to drown out the endless moaning, squeaking, and flesh against flesh sounds. I kept thinking that at any minute I would be back on the mountain and all of this would be over, but after what seemed like hours, my feet were still firmly planted on the hotel’s aging carpet.

The sounds stopped finally, and I stopped humming, listening for something other than the sounds of sex. A shuffle of clothes and footsteps caused me to turn around. Taren sat on the edge of the bed again in only a pair of jeans. His bare chest revealed a large tattoo on his back. I walked away from the door so that I could study the design. It seemed it was just a tribal design with no rhyme or reason. My lip curled up at the welts from fingernails, which lined parts of his back. The floral comforter and sheets were in disarray, and twin puncture wounds dotted the side of Taren’s shoulder. I thought about how these creatures had to drink blood to survive and the bile in my throat rose again. Then again, I ate raw, bloody meat while in wolf form. Still, it seemed different in my mind, even if just slightly.

A cell phone on the bedside table rang out through the room. Taren lifted the phone and pressed it to his ear.

“Yeah? She’s in the shower … She’s not going to like that … Tell Veronica yourself … Tough shit.” He pressed the end button on the phone and set it back on the table. Lowering himself, he lay on the bed and raked his fingers through his unruly hair as his eyes stared up at the ceiling.

“White wolf, white wolf,” Taren whispered, his eyes still on the ceiling. “Better than the rest of tooth and claw. Rise above, take control, it is your destiny to rule them all.” When he finished the rhyme, his head lolled to the side, and his eyes found mine. I gasped, going still except for the rapid beating of my heart.

The room began closing in on itself, white mist filtering in to cloud the space. My blonde hair flew around my face as my body began to move backward. It felt as though I was being sucked through a tunnel. The vacuum drew me back, and everything vanished. I squeezed my eyes shut and landed with a hard thump on my knees. Opening my eyes, I stared at the rough mountain ground with blurry eyes. I was panting, trying to catch my breath and slow the slamming of my heart. I fell back on my heels and threw my head back, closing my eyes again. I was nauseous and the spinning landscape wasn’t helping. Tiny specks of cold dotted my cheeks and forehead. Wind whipped around me, blanketing me in its icy chill.

“Looks like I made it just in time for the snow,” I mumbled to myself.

“Anna?”

My eyes snapped open, and I swiveled my head toward the owner of the voice. What was he doing here? Anthony stood just to my left, eight feet or so away. He wore faded blue jeans and a long sleeved green henley. His blond hair was brushed away from his light green eyes.

“What are you doing here?” I said, putting a voice to my thoughts.

Anthony made no move toward me. Instead, he held up his hands in surrender and watched me with clear interest.

“What are you holding?” He nodded toward my hands.

I looked down to find them still curled into fists. Panicked, I stretched out my fingers and rubbed my palms against each other to rid myself of the vampire ash. Standing, I backed away from the small pile as if it was a huge pile of wolfsbane. I noticed the pile was smaller than before, having disintegrated while I had my vision. The small flecks of pieces I brushed off my hands swirled with the snowflakes, disappearing from view as the daylight ate them up.

“I heard you had visions,” Anthony said, coming closer, “but to see it while it’s happening …”

My eyes cut to his and anger, disgust, and confusion swirled within me like the snowstorm surrounding me.

“What do you want, and why are you here? Did you follow me?” I didn’t hide the annoyance in my voice. I was still keyed up from the vision and the rhyme I’d heard Taren recite. Did it mean something, or did he just make it up? I wasn’t even sure if he was dead or not. Sure it’d been his blood I connected with, but was he just injured last night or killed? If he was alive, maybe I could track him down and ask him. I thought about the hotel room I’d been in. They had to be staying in town, and there were only a couple hotels. It wouldn’t be difficult to find them, though it would be dangerous. They were here to kill me, after all. My death meant a hefty paycheck, and if I showed up at their door, it’d be like serving myself up on a silver platter.