Page 16 of Meeting Her Mate

Maurice yelped one last time and ran out through the commune doors, fleeing as he had always intended to do so.

With one imminent danger gone and only one more remaining, I attended to Alexis, who was struggling to get to her feet.

“Are you all right?” I asked, extending my hand to her.

“I think I might have a terrible concussion,” she said. She took my hand and hoisted herself to her feet. “Thanks…I mean, for saving me just now.”

“Would I be fair in saying that we’re even?” This was me trying to extend some softness to her after all the times I had been needlessly harsh to her. I knew that I had been rude and part of me wanted to apologize, but part of me—the part that had prompted me to lash out—had a sick control over me, not allowing me to tap into my kind self. Even as I tried to make amends, every time that I saw her, I could not help but see the woman that I had loved so long ago, the woman who had died while I was imprisoned. The woman, who, according to Fred, had taken Kenneth—my best friend—as her husband. The woman who died tragically during childbirth.

With each glimpse that I caught of Alexis, Ariana’s image danced before my eyes, making it a psychological struggle to behave normally with her. It did not help that I had bonded with her. It only made things all the more complicated.

“Will?”

“Oh. Pardon me. I was caught up in my own thoughts.”

“I was saying we don’t have any more time left. With Maurice gone, the pack’s gonna wanna look to someone for leadership. Help us fight off the vampires?” she asked.

I nodded, not possessing the will to reply to her after she had just spoken in a dialect and inflection that was eerily identical to Ariana’s. Her voice was toying with me mentally, making me agitated with each syllable that she uttered.

After what Fred had told me of Ariana’s life, how she had found love in the man who had been my best friend, how she had bonded with him a couple of months after my disappearance, and how they had lived happily for many years until, of course, she died during childbirth, I felt left out. As if I was a leaf plucked from a tree in the middle of its bloom, cast away to float alone in the air while the rest of the tree flourished and bore fruits. My absence did not prompt her to mourn. Instead, she resumed her life and lived it as fully as she could.

My cacophonous and intrusive thoughts halted when the commotion from beyond the commune grew to an uproar of vampire screams and wolfish howls. The battle had begun. I raced alongside Alexis, heading out the gates, ready to take part in the fight and protect the commune.

“Any idea why they are attacking us like this?” I asked.

“I bet it’s their notion of retribution for what we did to them yesterday in the forest,” Alexis replied. She did not speak anymore. Instead, she shifted almost seamlessly and jumped into the fray.

The food and rest had rejuvenated me. I could feel myself coming back to my full strength, ready for battle. I yearned to shift into my true form and show my enemies that the pack was not defenseless. That their alpha had returned.

And so, when I shifted, I shifted into the wolf that I used to be so long ago, the spectral beast that loomed larger than life, with claws that looked like daggers and fangs that resembled swords.

Upon seeing me shift, the wolves howled, and their resolve strengthened, helping them push against the wave of the vampires that were advancing up to the commune-like rodents.

I dove into the fight headfirst, tearing away limbs, rending flesh from bone, clawing off appendages, and beheading the vampires who had so brazenly thought that they could simply come up to my abode and attack my people with no consequences. Their audacity fueled my rage further, allowing me to take on an oncoming swarm of vampires with their weapons held in front of them.

I never allowed them to unleash gunfire on me. Swiftly, like a shadow, I swooped upon them, dismembering them with no mercy, ripping their weapons free from their grips with the brute strength of my bite.

Despite all my efforts and my relentless offense, gunfire roared from somewhere behind me. I had not braved the horrors of captivity to return to find more death in my path. I could not let my pack members die. I shot like a dart through the air and advanced to where the shooting was coming from.

My heart sank upon seeing the sight of a horde of vampires overpowering Alexis, cornering her, and aiming their rifles at her. It baffled me that no one from the pack was defending her or fighting by her side. I would have to teach the pack about how to fight alongside each other later.

Ever since I had laid eyes on their rifles, a part of me had wanted to try them myself. They were so elegant and sleek, these long guns with their black glossy look and their smooth barrel—nothing like the guns used in the Second World War. In place of wood, there was only metal.

I shifted into my human form once again and grabbed one of the rifles of the fallen vampires. The horde that surrounded Alexis was too dense in numbers for me to take them on in my wolf form.

And so, donning the identity of the soldier I once was, I cocked the rifle to my shoulder and aimed it at the vampires. I pulled the trigger, feeling the surge of the force with which this automatic rifle spat out bullets in flurries. I advanced upon the vampires and swung the rifle in an arc to catch every one of them with my gunfire. Even amidst the flash of the fire and the fleeing of the vampires, I could see that Alexis had ducked behind a sturdy cover, safe from the whizzing bullets.

The vampires were struck fatally, many of them falling dead as gunfire tore through their bodies, crushed their bones, and pierced their vital organs. They had expected docility. They did not know that I’d be here to defend what was rightfully my legacy.

As I did not know the reloading mechanism for this rifle, I threw it once the magazine was empty and picked up another one, keeping my aim true to catch the running vampires. When the last of them had either fled or died, I threw away the rifle and went to Alexis.

“Are you hurt?”

“I would have been if you hadn’t interceded,” she said, climbing from behind the cover of the metallic trellis.

“What were you doing taking on such a huge number by yourself?” I scolded her. “Do you have that little regard for your life?”

She cast me a hurt look before shifting into a wolf and joining the rest of the pack in battle. Except, well, there was no longer a battle anymore. It was now the vampires who were outnumbered and outwitted.

---