The cheap wooden slats of the balcony creaked with every shift of weight. Spencer leaned onto the railing, one arm across the wooden beam top. His elbow pressed against the wet and worn wood, dented with too many people standing in similar positions, enjoying a final smoke before returning to their unimpressive rooms.

The smoke filled his lungs. He inhaled until it burned in his throat, and he left the cigarette clinging to his lips as he sent out a stream of smoke coils. Even before being turned, he'd rarely gone to bed before dawn, and now it was only necessity that forced him inside when the sun showed its face. When others were waking and getting ready for the day, Spencer had been falling into bed, sometimes not alone. After being turned, it became his favourite part of the day for a different reason.

He was sure he'd felt it earlier the day before, the pangs of intimacy he had so relished. For a mere moment, August could have been standing next to him, chastising him with that smirk that let him know he would pay for his indiscretions later. And then again in the later hours, he'd felt the burn of familiarity through the voices swirling in his head. August was whispering to him and couldn't be heard over the roar, but he wasn't alone. There was a voice as warm and welcome as his own within him, calling in a voice much too soft. Spencer had left the bar immediately and hadn't stopped moving until those voices faded into the rest of the background noise.

"I do not see the point of your little habit, Spencer."

"It won't kill me."

"The fact it is not lethal is not a reason to continue."

"It's a habit, August, nothing more."

"A habit you could just as easily discard. The nicotine has no hold on you."

"And now, neither do you," he whispered to the rising smoke.

He watched the end of his cigarette, letting the embers burn through the paper and tobacco. When it was almost at the filter, he took a final drag of it before flicking the butt over the side of the balcony to the parking lot below. Pulling out the key card from his pocket, Spencer turned away from the railing and walked the last few steps. He slotted the card into the reader, drawing it out in a slow whip. It buzzed red. Groaning, he tried it again. Red. The sky behind him was already pink, the sun so close to peeking over the horizon that just the thought of it felt like a burn. He jammed the card into the reader and yanked it out.

It gave a monotonous tone and flashed green.

Pushing down on the handle, Spencer stepped into the dark twin room. He closed the door behind him softly, but as his eyes adjusted, he realised that he needn't have been so careful about not waking sleeping occupants. The bed closest the door, the one Vince used in every new motel room, was empty. In fact, it was still made perfectly. Spencer frowned deeply.

A heavy chain snaked from the bed against the plain back wall to the pipe of the radiator. It climbed the end of the bed to a padlocked head around a slim ankle. A limb of metal stretched out, coiling around the opposing arm of its captive. She lay perfectly still, curled on her side facing the wall. The dim dawn light filtering through the paper thin curtains picked the colours from her skin. A trail of red freckles started just below her ear, half hidden by her dark hair, and led the gaze down her neck, out across her shoulder, and all the way down to her wrist, where they gathered like constellations. Two of the marks were swollen, small openings crusted with blood.

"Where's Vince?"

She didn't answer as he shrugged off his jacket and tossed it on the end of the vacant bed.

"You can stop pretending," he said, throwing open the wardrobe and searching for an extra blanket. "I know you're awake."

She didn't move. In fact, if she could have stopped her pulse from beating to not give her away, Spencer thought she probably would have. Spencer shoved the wardrobe doors closed and pulled open a drawer. Bingo! Pulling out a scratchy brown blanket, he went back to the window and draped it over the curtain rail, smoothing it out until every bit of light was blocked out.

He crossed the room, taking a seat on her bed. To her credit, she didn't flinch. Leaning over her, he closed the gap until his lips brushed over two of the marks.

"You held your breath when I opened the door, Edie."

"Don't," she whispered.

"Don't? Don't what?" he asked. "Don't bite you again? Don't dance a samba? Don't become King of the Universe?"

"Just don't."

Spencer rolled his eyes and sat up straight. He patted her shoulder and got to his feet, walking through to the bathroom. He left the door open as he turned on the taps and splashed his face.

"Don't you forget, Edie, that I've heard what you think. You want to be home about as much as I do. This is a good arrangement. I get to have fun, and I keep you safe and fed. I've protected you. We both know how your father would have used you, sucked you dry far more than I have."

Coiling in on herself, Edeline moaned softly as the chain used up the last of its slack, tugging back on her ankle. Spencer leaned around the edge of the doorframe and patted his face with the towel.

"You see new places, don't you? You have company with me and Vince," he said. He threw the towel into the bath. "Where is our dark little wolf boy, anyway?"

She didn't answer him.

"Edie..." he sang. "Where is Vince?"

Edeline remained silent. Spencer huffed and slumped onto the unused bed.

"Great conversationalist you are," he muttered. He twisted on the bed and looked over at her. "Would you prefer I have a taster and let you tell me that way?"

A mouse squeak and a flinch made him grin.

"Out," she said.

"Out where?"

"I don't know. He just said 'out'."

Spencer huffed and fell back to lying on the bed.

"I told him to be careful and to stay hidden," he grumbled to the ceiling. "Seriously, does no one listen anymore?"

Edeline gave a bitter laugh, pulled the blankets up over her shoulder, and didn't speak again.

Spencer stared at the ceiling, rolling his shoulders and waving his feet from side to side off the end of the bed. He could have simply gone to sleep, ignored the fact that Vince had gone out and left Edeline alone, but it wasn't just the bitter voice of anger that kept him alert. Other voices of conversations long gone played out in his head. Playful conversations in the late morning hours, the argument before he had left. Spencer closed his eyes and rolled onto his side. The faces were still there, peering at him, talking to him, even as he nuzzled his face into the pillow as deep as the thin and pathetic padding would allow.

The door opened a crack and, quick as a whip, Spencer yanked his feet up onto the bed, not caring about the fact he was still wearing his boots. He rolled onto his back and then his other side, watching the hulking form attempt to slink unnoticed into the room. Spencer didn't pretend as Edeline had done, though Vince made the same attempt at quiet as he closed the door. He sat up, glaring.

"Where have you been?"

Vince turned and stared at him. He glanced to Edeline, once again playing dead, and shrugged off his jacket, tossing it onto the scrap of wood the motel called a desk.

"Out."

"Yes, Edie was just as forthcoming," Spencer said. "You see, I was under the impression that you were here to help with her, not to leave her alone in a room where she could scream her head off all night until someone came and found her."

Vince's nose wrinkled as he sneered. He crossed his arms over his chest.

"You were gone all night... again!"

"I'm a vampire. What did you expect? That I would sit in with you and play Rummy?"

"I expected you to treat me like—"

Spencer rolled his eyes and got to his feet.

"We're moving tonight, so I hope you did whatever you wanted to do while you were 'out'."

Vince looked up from undoing his boots.

"What? We've been here two nights. We've not moved this fast before."

"We've not been back here before. It's time to go."

Growling under his breath, Vince gazed over at Edeline. He let out a few heavy breaths, loud enough with Spencer's sensitive senses to rattle through the room. Spencer shook his head and crouched, tugging out the low cot from underneath the bed. It was a horrid and uncomfortable thing, but at least it was better than sleeping in the bathtub. Vince watched him and made no effort to help.

"When are you going to turn me?" he asked suddenly. "It's been months."

Spencer kicked at the cot leg lightly, checking it wouldn't buckle beneath him before he sat down.

"Why don't I just kill you or give you back to the pound where the other rejected wolves go? You'd be just as useful as you are now."

Vince stared at him, his mouth open in a gormless and completely unattractive fish expression. Maybe the boy could be a werefish, Spencer thought to himself with a grin he had to subdue.

"Our deal was that you turn me. You can't—"

"Let us be very clear, Vince, that what I can do and can't do is not up to you. Our agreement was I would turn you in exchange for you helping me. Right now, I would want to be shackled to you for eternity as much as I want to jump on a sunbed and improve my tan."

Vince could do nothing but keep staring at him, though thankfully the fish part of him had gone back into hiding. It left him with a murderous expression, and Spencer was once again reminded of Edeline's impressions of him. Dark Wolf.

Spencer reached across, stole one of Vince's pillows, and dumped it on the end of the cot. He lay down and rolled onto his side away from Vince and his furious glare.

"Find a new place, we'll move after sunset."

AUTHOR'S NOTE
Sorry guys, I missed a week. I've recently moved to Sweden, and I was in the process of getting a new job. (I found one, I now narrate talking books and audiobooks. Woo! There are gonna be some very British vampires running about. Lol.)

Anyway, hopefully back on track now.
I hope you've enjoyed this one. Spencer is back, baby!
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Chele