"Valentina!"
Alex, Astrid and I trudge along the snowy forest searching for the conniving vampiress who ran off on us as soon as we landed in town.
"We shouldn't have given her the ring nor invited her into our home in the first place," Alex complains. "What happens if we get to Bianca and she rejects her? Valentina will just run off with the free gift we've given her."
"Relax, Alex," I hold his tense shoulder. "It's just a daylight ring. She's not invincible."
But he's right. I hadn't really thought about the possibility of rejection. In fact, that's not something I thought about between Astrid and I either. Although the PG-13 night we spent together has more than solidified our destiny bond for now. Until I mark her. My fangs itch just thinking about it.
I look over behind me to see my destined all bundled up in several layers with a fur-trim black jacket, her hair hanging loosely around her face as she watches where she steps in the snow. Her nose and freckled cheeks are turning a bright shade of red from the cold. I hold out a hand to help her, which she accepts with a sweet smile, but her eyes widen in alarm as she spots the young woman approaching, walking in slow steps. The young woman's cheeks are pale and her lips are barely blue. She doesn't seem to notice us as she passes by.
And trailing some distance behind her is Valentina, wiping the corner of her lips with a thumb.
"You caught me," she says, arms raised in surrender, pretending to be coy about feeding on a human.
"We packed plenty of blood for you, Valentina," I tell her.
"Am I not allowed to try something new?" she shrugs. "Some authentic Bhutanese blood. That's all. I won't do it again. Promise." She draws an 'x' over her heart and winks.
"Alex, keep an eye on her while we're here," I order him.
Despite his very apparent dislike for Valentina, Alex knows better than to disobey an order. Valentina doesn't appear too happy about this either, and even though she may not be a wolf, the hybrid blood that runs through my veins is enough to have her keep quiet and merely roll her eyes at my Beta.
As we make our way back towards town, I start to notice a faint scent of some other thing following us and I keep my ears open despite Alex and Valentina's bickering, which Astrid seems to find quite amusing. It smells indistinctly like the general scent of a dog or a wolf, but I don't want to get Astrid's hopes up as we did come across a lot of stray mountain dogs in town.
A second alien scent introduces itself, this one clearer as he steps out in front of us from out of nowhere.
"I thought my eyes were deceiving me, but it is, indeed, a vampire," he says, looking dead straight at Valentina.
From the musk I caught off of Astrid's father in the short time we interacted, I can tell this long-haired man standing before us is a tiger. A ring of gold alights around his pupils and his brow twitches right where the long scar across his face begins. Astrid gasps, squeezing my hand tighter. I look at her eyes, glimmering with hope that perhaps this man may be the tiger in the identifying video that Demi sent me. He moves his gaze to study all of us, frowning at Astrid, then nodding in understanding when he settles on my mismatched eyes.
"Alpha," he nods. "What business have you in this small town? And with this undead, no less."
"We're looking for someone," I tell him candidly.
"A wolf," Astrid adds. "A white wolf."
"How does she walk in daylight?" the man asks, ignoring Astrid and I.
YOU ARE READING
Sun & Moon
ChickLit"I'll have a whiskey and the lady will have a shot." A very tall man appears right beside me with a curly dark lock of hair resting above his brow that reminds me of Superman. His nose slopes down straight like a Grecian sculpture. His voice is cool...
