Page 87 of Meeting Her Mate

Overhead, the moon shone brightly, now free of the clouds that had surrounded it earlier tonight. As I looked at the moon, I felt my body grow, my blood getting warmer, and my power increasing tenfold. There was a reason why wolves were fabled to be so treacherous on a full moon’s night. The longer I stayed out in the light of the moon, the more aggressive I became, till a time came that I was no longer avoiding the soldiers swarming through the rooftop maze but striking them as they came in my path. A slash here, a bite there, and a tackle every so often. Once or twice, a ricocheting bullet hit me in the shoulder, but instead of piercing past my skin, it merely grazed and went off in a different trajectory. I wondered as adrenaline took hold of my faculties if this newfound strength was due to the potion Vincent had gotten for me.

Now that the smoke was gradually clearing, the layout of the roof became more apparent, lending me a clear sight of where Blair stood. The roof had several levels. I had to strain my neck to be able to see Blair on the rim of the helipad. But there was no sight of any chopper there. Every glance I got of Blair made me more enraged, and I took out this rage on the hapless soldiers who were foolish enough to come my way.

At the same time, I felt like I was losing a little bit of control, relishing in doling out violence and torture on the soldiers, clawing deeper than I needed to claw, biting harder than was warranted. These were not some war-hardened soldiers. They had not seen real battles. They were private mercenaries trained merely in the theoretical practice sessions held in abandoned military complexes. They did not know war as intimately as I did. These soldiers were unaware of the fact that when you got knocked down in battle, you didn’t stay down but got back up and fought till your dying breath. And this was my advantage. It allowed me to barge through, slam past, and plummet into the ranks of soldiers in the maze. They did not know that I was not trapped in here with them. They were trapped in here with me.

In the background, sounds of flashbangs, bullets hitting metal, and the orders of inexperienced captains rang in an otherwise quiet night. As if they knew what hell was being unleashed on the roof, the clouds had moved away, lending the moon a clear sight into the action and madness.

There was no more smoke now, and I had already ascended two levels. There were fewer soldiers here, and most of them had seen what I had done to their comrades below. They were playing defensively, hiding behind cover, trying to cock their rifles to get a proper aim at the rapidly moving werewolf. In the midst of this, I managed to catch glimpses of Alexis below. To my surprise, she was doing remarkably well, leaving a pile of bodies in her wake. A more thorough glance at the bodies reaffirmed to me that she was not killing them, just knocking them unconscious as she had already been doing. And suddenly, she wasn’t there anymore. I sought her in shadow and sight but could not see where she had disappeared. It was a few seconds later that I realized what she was doing.

Why hadn’t I thought of this before? When a soldier had a lot of opponents to fend off, they turned to the techniques of stealth. That’s what Alexis was doing, by the looks of it.

The soldiers were on the lookout for a wolf. Most of them didn’t know what I looked like in my human form. This presented an opportunity for me to go the way of stealth as well. Behind the cover of a large electrical unit, I shifted back and snuck out the side. While still behind cover, I saw that the soldiers were aiming at my last seen location, not where I currently was.

Instead of confronting any of the soldiers, I swerved across the roof, avoiding all of them, and came to the stairs leading up to the third level of the roof. There were no soldiers stationed at the stairs. Once on the third level, I could see the helipad clearly. Blair stood there, and not too far behind him, Ralph sat, tending to his wounds. But Blair did not look like how I had last seen him.

He was wearing armor. There were gauntlets on his hands with pistons attached to them. As I looked from behind the cover, Blair put on a sturdy helmet. From what I could see from this far off, his armor was different from the one the soldiers were wearing. This was custom-made, tailored specifically to fight a strong foe. Did he mean to engage me in battle yet again?

It dawned on me why there weren’t any soldiers awaiting me on this sublevel. Instead of soldiers, vampires emerged from behind shadows. Their numbers were more than all the guards combined, and they stood in ranks, fangs bared, claws unfurled, slit-like red eyes.

There was no point in trying out stealth with these many vampires lying in wait. They would sense me within minutes.

I walked out from behind cover, one lone alpha against dozens of Ralph’s reinforcements.

“Come on then!” I yelled as they saw me. They fell upon me like bats, screeching, hissing, and clawing. For a brief moment, my entire body was covered with vampires bent on draining my blood, intent upon rending my skin. The next moment, I shifted, throwing vampires every which way in the air. Now that I knew that Blair intended to draw this out and fight me, I was in a much better mentality to fight these vampires. Throughout the night, I had lost count of the soldiers, guards, and vampires I had battled, but this battle, by far, was the most strenuous. Just as the night granted werewolves powers, it did so for vampires too. The lack of the sun made them bolder, turned their actions quicker, and made their bodies lither.

I could feel a few deep cuts within my fur as vampires latched themselves to my body with their claws. Some of them tried to bite me as I fought them, but I never let that happen. The cuts hurt initially, causing me to retract from the fight, but within moments they healed and allowed me to step back into the fray unhindered.

A vampire soared from above and attempted to strike my face. I bit down on his throat and dragged his body below, causing blood to spurt from his neck. This made the other vampires livid, causing them to become more frenzied in their attack.

I was outnumbered but not overpowered by any means. I took out my claws at full length and slashed lethally, intending to kill. Viscera and guts tore out from the torsos of the vampires standing in front of me as my slash carved their bodies open. Seeing this, the others recoiled. Making use of the way I had cleared for myself, I clamped my jaw shut around the face of the nearest vampire and tore it completely off. Two enterprising bloodsuckers decided to strike me from behind, which I dodged by rolling on my back and crushing them under my weight. Another vampire got trampled under my feet as I lunged at the remaining horde.

As many of them as there were, I had thinned out their numbers quickly. Now, the ones left standing were barely more than ten. As I collided with them in a fierce tackle, I skinned one alive with my sharp claws, decapitated another by tearing off his neck, and crushed two more under the full weight of my body. Out of nowhere, one of the surviving vampires wedged a stake into my snout.

Maddening pain took hold of my senses, paralyzing me momentarily as I struggled to take out the stake lodged in my mouth.Foolish creatures, the stakes don’t work on werewolves!I thought as I snatched it with my claws and slid it out.

During the time I needed to heal, I backstepped and took a gander at the level below, watching out for signs of Alexis.

I could use some help here;I sent her a message.

Close your eyes and duck your head behind your paws,she responded.

As the vampires ganged up on me, I obeyed Alexis’s instructions and protected my face. A distinct sound of hollow metal clanging on the floor rang in my ear, followed soon after by the loud bang of a flashbang. Upon looking up, I saw the vampires wincing, groaning, and holding their faces in their hands.

Prey, I thought, ripe for the taking.

I lifted my body on my hind legs and drew out my claws as I raced forward across the roof. As I passed each vampire, my claws tore through their bodies in a swift motion. When I had ended my charge, I turned around to see the results of my carnage.

A second ago, they were standing there, reeling from the effects of the flashbang, and a second later, they were all sprawled on the floor, writhing, dying, and bleeding.

Had I been unjust? Weren’t all of these vampires, soldiers, and their masters assembled here to do anything other than kill me? This was nothing more than self-defense.

Here I stood, upon the threshold of the final level. I crouched low as I climbed the stairs. My paws bloodied the steps as I made my way up. My body reeked of vampires. Above the final level, there was only the helipad.

From this topmost point, the whole of Fiddler’s Green looked like a miniature town, the kind they showed in museums. That tiny patch of lightwork to the left was Grimm Abode. The sea and its many waves resembled an abstract painting stretching into eternity. The moon looked like a bauble that kids hung on Christmas trees. The air was thin here.

I expected Ralph, Blair, and Maurice to stand there in wait for me at the topmost point on the roof, but they were not there. From my vantage point, I sighted Alexis, who had been following my steps. She was still two stories below, but her way was clear.

But mine wasn’t.

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