Discovery

Chapter 1

The cold winter breeze blew through my fur as I looked around the forest. It hadn't been that long since we escaped the vampires and gained Robert into our ranks only because his mother didn't want him any longer. It was only a few hours ago that we had escaped the vampires, and everyone seemed distraught. The fact that it was night and there were shadows everywhere didn't help. We had found a Motel to sleep in tonight, but after what happened last time we had spent the night in a motel, we had agreed to two people keeping watch.

I glanced back to the motel where Jason stood on the balcony with a worried look. We had heard screaming coming from the forest and I decided to go investigate in my tiger form; With a flick of my ear, I padded slowly into the forest. My senses were on high alert, and I could smell the stench of fresh spilt blood. It wasn't animal blood, but actual human blood. My gut was telling me that I had entered a very dangerous situation alone while my ears couldn't detect the slightest hint of movement.

As I pushed my way through a few of the overgrown bushes, I stared in horror at the sight before me. A young girl laid in a pile of blood. Her brown hair was spread around her face and the blood was ruining her white shirt and black skirt. Her skirt was long enough to hide her calves from people, but the fact she reeked of fear and blood alarmed me.

I looked around in search of this girl's murderer as another scream came from the motel. This scream was very familiar and my heart skipped a beat as I realized it was Mabel screaming. I turned to leave, but the second I did, the girl who had been laying dead in her own pool of blood grabbed my tail. I whipped around to see her eyes were void of any emotion and seemed to be empty brown pits.

"Hello April. I hear that you are most likely the strongest of the Tiger-human now. Care to prove it against our small brigade of Tiger-humans that you might know?" A voice spoke from the shadows said.

As I glared at the shadows, the three girls from the Secluded Forest University walked out of the shadows with a fourth girl who looked awfully familiar. Kaitlin, Becky, and Jane all wore some sort of glowing white pearl that hung on their forehead. All four of them had one on a necklace around their necks, but only the fourth girl's one was glowing.

"Kaitlin, may we send the others after her? I would love to see her face when she sees them..." Jane said with a chuckle and a cold glare directed towards me.

"Of course but send him first. She'd love to see him again." Kaitlin chuckled as there was a shuffling of feet from the shadows.

The man that stepped out of the shadows caused my eyes to widen as I changed into my human form out of pure shock. He shouldn't be walking around, especially with the sword still in his stomach. The black shirt he was wearing when I had driven the sword into him still was on and covered in dried up blood. His blue eyes had that ominous blank look, but his blue eyes were glowing slightly even without their pupils. He had a bracelet on his wrist that contained the glowing pearl that the fourth girl wore around her neck.

"L-Luke..." His name seemed so foreign on my tongue as I spoke it.

"April..." Luke's voice spoke, but it sounded so disoriented and broken.

"Let's bring out the others..." Kaitlin snickered as the white glow of pearls started popping up.

As I watched the people who wore pearls step out, my mind was swallowed by my fears and terrors. Luke moved towards me with his lips pulled back to reveal his teeth as if he was baring his teeth at me. The last time he bared his teeth at me was during the fight that took his life. I gritted my teeth as I took a deep breath. They were dead and Kaitlin had brought them back to be used as her weapons against me.

I stood and walked towards Kaitlin only to be intercepted by twenty-four other Tiger-humans who all wore a bracelet or a necklace that held a glowing pearl. Their eyes were glowing as well, and I couldn't understand why Kaitlin, Jane, and Becky had brought all of them back. They were all Tiger-humans I knew, but there was one I didn't know. Her skin was burned and her glowing light blue eyes were visible behind her charcoal black hair.