With the riches proved in Morganna designer clothing, Lila should've expected the size of her house and the acres of empty property surrounding it.
It took them over an hour to drive here in Morganna's equally impressive sports car. Lila's worry about Morganna holding Lila's own meager wealth in the bag earlier didn't quite measure up now.
After the gate opened from Morganna's code and the car came to a stop, Lila took a deep breath as she grappled with her sudden insecurity.
Having squeezed herself in the backseat, Lila took Adonis' helping hand when he offered it. He's warm to the touch as he lifts her from the tight space with little effort.
"Next time I won't be so nice and you'll be the one crunched in the back seat," she joked.
"Fair enough," Adonis replied with a smirk.
When she released his hand, he sticks both of his hands into the pockets of his coat. She watches him as he avoids her gaze, then abruptly turns from her.
He was acting weird. Not that she knew him for long, but she could see the nerves bunching up on his broad shoulders.
The welcoming committee didn't waste much time.
On the porch their family stood, staring at Lila as if she wasn't expected, or welcomed at all. They break, only when an old woman with grey streaks in her hair moved past them all and met them halfway up the drive.
"This is our grandmother, Grace." Morganna introduces. "She's one hell of a cook and, she's mute, so don't expect many conversations from her. Grandma Gracie, this is Lila."
The matriarch took Lila's arm into the hook of her own and lead her past the team of towering men that stared down at her. They had a similar, darker tone to their skin like Adonis, but the ranges in their age didn't seem to match his. Either they were at least a decade older in appearance or a decade younger.
Adonis is held up in the doorway with them, talking about something Lila couldn't hear in their pointed angry whispers.
Ahead, a man with muscles carved as if from marble sits shirtless on a throne of sorts. It matches the chandelier overhead encased in hundreds of overlapping deer antlers.
The furniture piece is overbearing but it fits with the man sitting in it. A throne of antlers harbors the beast of a man. His eyes glisten yellow in some eerie, unnatural color, through his long black strands hanging over his face. A shiver races down Lila's spine when his bearded chin moves ever-so-slightly to one side, while those yellow eyes narrow.
The large male is slow to rise, taking the presence that already belonged to him in the living space.
Grace moves to the side of the room, giving him the capacity he needed to take his calculating circle around Lila. Her breath is caught in her throat, bellowing uncomfortably there when his gruff, overpoweringly feral voice hisses, "You smell of the Fangers."
If she had half of herself remaining under the veil of fear, she might have laughed or joked in the awkward claim. Yet, all she became aware of was the dominant presence that, she felt, would crush her at any given moment.
"Back off, Benjamin." Another guttural voice spoke on her behalf. Adonis, undoubtedly.
She didn't have to peel her eyes off of this man, Benjamin, to know that. Lila had every intention of staying in her place at the center of the room as this feral man made his rounds. Afraid to move, afraid to breathe, Lila begins to wonder if she's trapped herself in another threat for her body...and for her very life.
"She has vampire blood running in her veins. If they come anywhere near here they'll find us. She's a flashlight in the dark to them. They will come and they will take more." Benjamin growls.
Adonis replies, "She hasn't been bitten. They healed her, for reasons I have yet to find out for myself. I think they've simply marked her, but it should fade soon, it's fading by the minute."
"A vampire has laid claim to her. Whether or not she's been bit is irrelevant!" Benjamin freezes in his stance too close for Lila's liking, as Adonis takes his place in front of her. Sandwiched between the two gargantuan men, Lila's hands begin to tremble. Her own flashbacks in the alley flood her.
With this stranger, Benjamin, brushing against her from behind, Lila takes a step toward the man she knows. She's pressed against Adonis' chest, as the disturbing memories flicker to encompass most of her surroundings.
"It's temporary. It was against her will." Adonis grits out, but he doesn't exactly know if that's the truth. For all he knew, Lila knowingly made a pact with the devil.
Therefore, making Adonis the worst Assassin in history to endanger his own kind for the sake of a human...
No matter how lovely she was to look at, to smell, to have pressed against his chest. He wanted nothing more than to hold her, to wrap his arms around her and shield her from the memories, he could only guess that this triggered. She smelled now of that fear, the same fear she held in the alleyway.
Yet, as one of the chosen, Adonis couldn't act against the alpha in his own territory. So, Adonis let her cling to him, but his stoicism remained.
Behind her, Benjamin glares at the pair up and down.
Disgusted, yet unsure what to do with this new, complicated situation, Benjamin grunts. In the crux of the living space and the foyer, the family has gathered. Morganna, in the forefront, as her mate and alpha confronts their latest problem head-on.
"She must be destroyed!" Benjamin shouts from behind her, a bark escaping with his decision. Her fate decided, Benjamin grabs at her violently, pulling her away from the temporary shelter of Adonis.
Growls fill the room.
Growls, Lila swears she's heard before in the alley, but in her state of utter terror, she has no mind of her own. All she can perceive in the present are the glowing yellow eyes of Benjamin. Then, his mouth breaking outward, stretching into an unnatural contortion. His teeth expand into a wall of fangs, expanding with his mouth simultaneously.
The entire form of Benjamin changes into something not of this world.
Her life and the short amount of time she's come to live it, become sadly realized. Lila cries out in the face of the giant wolf-beast. A wolf meant for nightmares, Lila screams as the mouth of the colossus black canine lashes toward her face.
YOU ARE READING
Fang War
Mystery / Thriller[2x Wattpad featured author!] Werewolves are enslaved by elite vampire clans in Seattle and one teenage runaway is caught in their ancient bloodbath. Only the strongest will survive in an underworld that profits millions from wolf fights in the ring...
