Vanessa locked eyes with Aretha as James stood in the doorway of the fire escape. I could hear a cold laugh coming from behind her and saw Aretha slowly turning into a mist like form. Vanessa’s eyes had rolled into her head and all you could see was white. Aretha’s laughter stopped for a moment and she somehow came into greater clarity as no one had been able to grab hold of her.
“You see, I told you she wanted to be a Huntress. The power of playing God, choosing who lives and who dies, is to intoxicating for a simple girl like her to ignore. She was ours the moment she stepped foot inside the training facility the day her best friend turned. Its why she secretly wanted to be out alone where I could get her. She didn’t even realize it herself at first, but she knew. Why else would she have advocated to keep Aramina alive when she would’ve known that she never would have given you the Grand Master’s name. I bet Vanessa knows the name already and just didn’t know how to tell you she rejects you.” Aretha’s laughter came back before I could try and strangle her, but as I lunged for her throat, I toppled into the men behind her. She wasn’t really there anymore and Vanessa was shaking. I didn’t know how she could’ve betrayed me like that, but it also made me wonder why she didn’t tell where the pack house was hidden since she had been there. It would’ve been the first thing I would do in her situation if I really did want to be a Huntress.
I ran to Vanessa and tried to shake her out of her trance as she yelled out a few more nonsense words then she already had, but nothing happened. Aretha was completely gone now and I could smell the Huntress on her. Vanessa’s eyes came back for a moment before I heard to loud cracks. Her legs fell out from beneath her and I caught her, cradling what was left of my mate before I had to let her go for good. Her breath was caught in her mouth and I could see pain written across her face. My pack was yelling at me to kill her before she could do any damage, but my wolf was lying in wait, he could feel something happening. The Huntresses around the room knew something wasn’t right so I called out to them. “Is this normal? Is this supposed to happen when a Huntress joins together?” a girl with blond hair came over, her hands in the air as if she was surrendering. I recognized her as one of the girls who had become mate to one of my top fighters. She was in a traditional Huntress fighting armor herself and I knew she was a few years older then my Van.
“This is abnormal. She should have come out of the trance fighting if there were any werewolves around. No Heir has fallen after the trance. If there weren’t any werewolves about she would’ve fought the Grand Master for the Title unless the Grand Master had already fallen in which she would fight the General of the armies, which would have been me soon after Vanessa taking on her role as Grand Master. Either way she should have come out of this fighting so that she didn’t look weak.” Another audible crack was heard and I felt Vanessa’s arms go slack against my side, only her torso and legs were shaking as she slipped into unconciousness. Her breath finally let out and there was an ear piercing shriek coming from her. It suddenly dawned on me what was going on.
“She is going through the transformation. I need a large blanket and I need some fresh deer meat here yesterday! Men I want you to keep all of the Huntresses in the cafeteria and away from here and I need it now. I don’t need Vanessa going after her new friends or our new pack members let alone the others.” everyone seemed stunned for a second before people moved around in a rush trying to get out of the way of each other as they prepared for Vanessa’s first shift. Only the blond Huntress remained still and by our side as this started.
“I had a fear she might do something like this.” She said, holding tightly onto Vanessa’s hand as the bones in it broke slowly.
“What did she do? Didn’t she choose Huntress?” the girl looked into my eyes as if looking at something she couldn’t solve.
“Isn’t it obvious what she did, Caleb?”
“How do you know my name?” I growled out. The girl laughed a little before moving some hair off of Vanessa’s sweaty forehead.
“I was going to be the head of the Armies of the Huntress. My current job is getting everyone off their asses and out to a war zone from everywhere in the country. I think I know the names of every alpha in the United States even the rouge alpha’s. I’ve known your name for years now.” As she spoke I felt stupid for not realizing that sooner and just scratched the back of my head as I laughed awkwardly.
“I guess that’s true. How did you know Vanessa?”
“We met today actually. I was supposed to keep guard on her to make sure she didn’t escape the office, but she talked me into helping with her escape plan. When we opened the fire escape though your pack was already there to charge into the place. We stood in the back corner in surrender as people growled at us. Slowly each of us were found by our mates, some of your great fighters.” She said with a smile. “Vanessa has a way of making you believe she can do anything just by her sheer will power.”
“That she does, I just wish she would have sat back and let us handle this for her so she wouldn’t be in this pain right now.” I took a damp rag someone offered me and wiped her forehead and face to cool her down. It was getting close to where I would have to have this Huntress Girl strip her down to her underwear to help with the transformation.
“Caleb, you do realize what she did, didn’t you?” I looked at her, waiting for her to continue. “She never once stopped fighting to be with you this whole time. Most of our new initiates give up after a week of beatings. She found a simple lighter and waited for the right time to start a fire after she had everything planned and she never lost hope of getting back to you. The only time she lost even a shred of hope was when she had to choose. It was either you die, or you both die. There was no way she could win, but she managed to keep a level head and come up with a plan to keep you both alive for another hour or so. She knew that if there was enough confusion you had a still slim chance of surviving, but more so then you had before.”
“But what did she do!” I ended up yelling at the girl, barely following along knowing it was getting close to Vanessa’s full transformation. The girl took a moment before a small giggle escaped her mouth.
“She opened both boxes of course! She is a Huntress and a Werewolf. When the hatch opened she was exposed to enough moonlight while the Grand Master was reciting an incantation from where ever she was and she joined with Aretha just as the hour was ending on her time limit to becoming a werewolf. She is the only hybrid of her kind and she did this just to give you guys a better chance even if it still meant death.” I could feel Vanessa’s shaking getting worse as I sat there stunned. My pack acted for me when they forced the girl away as well as myself leaving a blanket over Vanessa. All that could be heard in the hallway as pack members looked between themselves to some other meaning behind Vanessa’s new status was the final screams as larger bones in her legs and arms broke and refused into that of a wolf.
I went back and forth between watching the blond girl be lead down the hallway by my beta and my mate lying on the floor writhing in pain. Something within me clicked into place and I was in Alpha mode taking charge of the transformation to perform the proper ceremony to allow her into the pack immediately upon transformation. As I spoke the old words I walked slowly up to Vanessa and touched her shoulder with my finger, drawing the pack symbol. The brown trunk, the green leaves, the black background and the white moon. Vanessa contorted one last time as fur the color of her hair spread across her extremities and morphed into a wolf. She lay there motionless for a minute before opening her eyes and looking around for the deer meat I knew she could smell. When she came out from under the blanket she seemed smaller the a Luna should be, as if she was a lower member of my pack. She quietly ate the meat before coming to sit by my side.
“Vanessa?” I asked, looking into the mismatched eyes of my mate. I could see a slight recognition, but her wolf had taken over for this part and was in charge of her for right now. Her eyes had changed and I knew why at this point. One was the blue I had come to know over the past decade and the other was a deep brown that I had only seen once before today. Aretha was inside Vanessa as well as her wolf. She blinked her eyes closed for a few seconds and when she opened them again both eyes were the traditional color of black that most werewolves have when in wolf form. I grabbed the blanket that was just within my reach and placed it over her shoulders so that she could transform back, but her wolf shook her head.
“No Caleb.” I heard a familiar voice say in my head. I realized it to be the voice of Vanessa’s wolf when I looked into her eyes again. “I need to go. I am a danger to everyone here until I can get myself under control. I can take care of Vanessa needs wise while Aretha can do what ever needs to be done to protect Vanessa. She still hasn’t woken up and Aretha and I are having to fight for dominance on who controls her for right now. We will be back someday.” She ran away from me before I could react and she was out the fire escape before I could turn around.
I chased after Vanessa for three days, but I lost her scent each time I was getting close. She was not going to be found unless she wanted to. My pack mates soon learned not to be around me unless it was an emergency.The most I hear from Vanessa is ‘Good Morning,’ ‘Good Night’ and ‘I am doing fine’ through our mind link. That little bit of communication kept me sane enough to not send every pack member I had after her. I knew her Huntress side was fighting with her and any pack member I sent would be in danger of being killed if she wasn’t herself. The only person brave enough to go after her, was her wolf, Nymeria.
The Grand Master proved to be more of a problem to find. Any member that wasn’t in the underground headquarters at the time went into hiding, supposedly in another place only known to members who lived normal lives on the side, and are biding their time until they can build up enough strength to wage a war against us. For the past month since the raid Arthur had been looking for who the Grand Master could be as his main goal since he couldn’t be with Vanessa.
“Its hard to tell seeing as we don’t know what she would look like since the transformation that Vanessa went through would have made the GM look younger if not a little older then what we saw. Thanks to Julietta’s help we’ve been able to learn more about the Huntresses, but the Grand Master was always careful to never show her real face. If she showed her face around others then she was sure that they wouldn’t know her personal life, or that the meeting promised enough pain and torment to not remember her after the ordeal was over. Even if the Grand Master and her Huntress side aren’t together, just being in the same room with each other gives them more strength then apart.”
“We have been able to confirm some possible locations through my knowledge of codes and some maps we were able to recover from Headquarters along with most of the weapons that they were trying to develop along with some of the research on what would harm or heal a Huntress the most.” Julietta piped in from a computer nearby. “All of the locations are within twenty miles of this place so using a geographical map, kind of like the ones on my favorite cop show, I was able to pinpoint the center being our city. Now a lot of people within our little town here have gone missing or moved within the past month and all from the south part of town away from the most werewolf activity that is around due to your pack. In a large enough number we can create a smell that werewolves may detect as a threat without knowing what it is.” She turned her chair around to face us and I could see that she had just been marked recently.
“Congratulations are in order I presume?” I asked her, happy my beta was no longer moping around the place without his mate, yet not as happy that now she was all he ever thought about. She blushed and looked down at her lap before starting to talk again.
“Nah, James and I are happy enough as your Beta’s to need congratulations. I always knew acting like they had successfully retrained me would come in handy one day. I learned a lot more when I stopped fighting.”
“Which is good for us, because now I have a lot more information for Betti.” Arthur said, lovingly petting his computer.
“Oh god here we go again.” Julietta said, turning back around to face her computer and shaking her head. “Can’t believe I have to hear this again because I know you’re going to ask, Alpha.” I laughed at her response and knew she was probably ready to throw something at Arthur if she was kept in this room any longer.
“Okay, I know I’m going to regret it, but who the hell is Betti?”
“Big, Enormous, Top-of-the-line, Technical, Informant.” I looked at him and suddenly felt sorry for his mate before thinking that maybe the computer was his mate.
“You’re lucky you’ve got a big brain,but I have no idea how Van ever put up with you Art.” He started to say something back but I just started laughing and went to walk away, only stopping to tell Julietta to take a break from Arthur before she hurt him. I mind linked with James who was out on patrol next.
“How is everything?” I asked when I had gotten a hold of him.
“Vanessa is within our borders for now, but about half an hour ago it was reported that she tried to cross on foot before she changed into a wolf and charged off to another wooded area of our lands. I think Aretha had tried to take over and get out. We have smelled some human travelers near where she keeps trying to go and we are increasing patrols there while keeping them hidden in case we are outnumbered.” I could tell he was running the border since even in his mind he was breathing a little heavier.
“Very good. Make sure you try and follow Vanessa if you ever catch her again and increase patrols along the closest pack line to where she is in case of danger.” I said, making sure he knew his main priority was still my mate if he wasn’t focusing on the border.
“Yes Alpha. How is Julie?” I almost laughed in my head at his intense need to know his mate was okay, but I knew even I was like that at the beginning and even into now. As far as I knew my father was still that way so it would probably lessen over time, but never fully go away.
“She’s probably ready to start throwing stuff at our resident technical genius, but she is enjoying herself overall.” I heard him laugh and knew he was happier at just that knowledge
“Good, I know she was missing her job from when she was a huntress because she kept wanting to get dirt on pack members who she disliked to find the best way to defeat them, in a social way not permanent of course.” He spoke, worried his words might cause her trouble. I knew it was risky, but right now I needed as much edge as I could against the Huntresses to where I was willing to skip over distrust. Her relationship with James only made it easier.
“I know, I think she secretly likes working with Arthur and Betti.”
“Betti who? Did Art find his mate?” I knew he was confused, but I couldn’t help laughing at his questions knowing that it was too far above our heads and more then a little weird.
“Maybe, I’m not entirely sure.”
“You know what, tell me later.” I laughed at his attitude knowing he probably wouldn’t want to find out at any point because he would forget.
“Will do. Keep me updated and I will see you in the morning.”
“Goodnight, Alpha.” I opened the door to my room, sad Vanessa never stepped inside here while she was here and suddenly very sad to not have her scent anywhere nearby. I changed clothes and laid down, ready for the fight ahead. I was getting my mate back and getting rid of the person who caused her so much pain; and I don’t care how long it takes.
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The dedication goes to purafire for having guessed my little twist so easily! Congrats on being smart! Your prize is a cookie :P