Good evening loves.
I'm really sad my last day is Thursday. The school year went by quickly and I'm kind of not ready for it to be over yet. New teachers, different classmates, being a junior, wow.
Are you graduating this year? If not, what grade are you going into?
Hope:
"Hey, it's so great to see you again," Julia smiled.
"Thank you, you too."
"You ready?" Yvette asked me.
"Let's go."
She led us down a narrow forest path through the woods, away from the clearing where we had parked our vehicles. There was a dirt road that ran through the back of the territory, and that's what we had taken to avoid detection. I had taken this trail many times, and it brought back memories. Memories that were very painful and that I wanted to forget.
"Is something wrong?" Edward asked me quietly.
"This was the trail I was on when Liana and I were attacked."
I stopped when we got to the spot. I realized I was standing on dried blood, that the pool had never fully disappeared. Over one hundred years, and it's still here.
I gasped. "Oh my god."
"Hope. Hope, are you okay?" I looked at Edward and nodded, taking a deep breath.
"I'm fine." I wasn't. I felt like I was going to vomit, but I kept going. It was so long ago but it still haunts me. Knowing that the Volturi, the creators of vampire law, accept me, makes me feel at ease with my situation. However, the wolves won't, at least some of them.
"Here we are," Henri says. We came out of the woods to the large clear area that contained houses and training sites and a little ways away led to the pack house.
Wolves all around turned towards us and children and women were ushered back into their houses by the men of the families. Pack warriors gathered in front of us, and another stood beside the Luna as she made her way towards us from a small group of little children.
"Who are you? And why are you on our land?" She asked.
"Luna Dakota, I and Henri are here on official business. Important business, might I add." The woman who I now know as Dakota looked intrigued, but cautious. Understandable, there are six vampires and one seemingly human here.
"Who's the human?"
"That's why we're here," Henri responded.
"A wolf? She looks too... small."
"That's why we're here."
"You drink tea hun?" Dakota asks me as she comes into the living room from the kitchen. The pack warriors stood around, fierce and on guard.
"Yes, thank you." I sipped the tea and then put the cup on the coffee table.
"So, what 'business' have you brought here, vamps?"
"We are aware of the arising problem you are facing within the Allaire-Monet pack. Your husband has passed, and you have been left widowed. Our condolences, by the way. We are also aware of your inability to provide a child, which I know can be hard. Trust me, that's how vampires feel." Yvette talked sadly of the inability female vampires have to get pregnant, since their organs have shut down and don't function. She continued, "This is Hope Cullen, her name was changed from Nadja. Nadja Aveline Monet, one of the daughters, the eldest, of Alpha Damien and Luna Camille."
Their jaws dropped.
"No. She's dead, this isn't possible."
"Oh but it is. She was turned. She's a hybrid," Yvette smiled proudly.
"She's the solution to your problem."
"I can prove that I'm their daughter."
"How?" She asked, leaning forward intrigued.
"Clementine was my sister, the day of her funeral I was there and met her daughter, Nadia. The only sibling alive at the time was Bastien, so I'm guessing you would've married his son, because Genevieve had two daughters."
Dakota's a little older than most outside of the pack would think, she looked to be in her sixties.
"You're a legend around here, you have been for two generations down from your parents. I met Nadia years ago when I shifted at seventeen and began dating Chris. We both lived past all of them sadly. Chris was distraught to watch all three of his cousins die before him. He was scared I'd fall before him as well," she said, sniffling.
"I know what you're here for now."
"And? What do you decide Dakota?" I ask her.
"You can take over. I'm ill Hope, I've fallen sick with a disease that I've been hiding from the pack, and it's time I back away. I can't rule anyway, only guide and care for those I have sworn to protect. I quite literally have no other choice, as it is your right."
"Thank you, Dakota."
"Would you want me to call you great aunt?"
I laughed, "Please, no. Hope is fine, don't make me feel old."
"The ceremony will be held tomorrow night at seven in the evening, wear white. Would you like to look around?"
"That would be nice, yes."
"Rooms have been changed over the two generations, but one always remained the same. Yours." She said as she led me and everyone else upstairs. She opened a door with my name on it and it indeed looked the same as it had when I returned home years ago.
"Wow, Hope. Didn't know you were into girly colors," Edward chuckled.
"They gave me a normal teenage room, okay? When I left at seventeen for the army, my tastebuds changed. Especially when I became a vampire and met Xavier. I didn't stay long enough when I returned from the army to be able to change it."
My room was a purple, white, and blue theme because those were my favorite colors as a kid.
Dakota then showed us how my siblings' rooms have changed as their kids began redecorating and my father's old study. And then she took us into my parents' bedroom, where she sleeps.
It was so different. My parents room was all dark brown oak wood furniture and had grey bedsheets and covers. Now the furniture was white, completely different than how my parents had their room set up, with dark blue and white covers.
"Dakota?"
"Yes dear?"
"Do you know where my parents are buried?"
"Yes. The same cemetery as Clementine's. Your entire family has their own area in the cemetery. The other wolves are scattered." Our pack has had its own cemetery since the Allaire and Monet bloodlines were crossed, aka, since my parents married.
"Can you take me?"
"Of course," she says as she holds her hand out. I walk out of my parents room and she follows. We were about to leave out when I heard the others walking out behind us.
"Please," I said holding my hand out to stop them. "I want to go alone."
"Okay, be safe. I'll wait here for you," Edward says. I nod, and we kissed. Dakota walked me to a dark Honda and we both got in. The pack's cemetery is on our land, but is on another side of it. There are roads that run through here, so the wolves can get groceries and other essential things. Most vampires believe wolves live like back in the days, but really they live modernly.
"So who's the vampire you're with?" Dakota asked as we drove through the territory.
"Edward. My mate and husband. We're actually here in Paris on our honeymoon, staying in a place my three vampire friends built for me."
"Well congratulations newlywed. I remember when Chris and I first got married. He was twenty-three and I was twenty. For years we tried to get pregnant. Tried almost everything in the handbook, and even considered adopting some of the orphaned wolves but it never happened. And then it was too late."
"I'm so sorry," I said to her. "I know not having children is hard. I always wanted to have kids. But I have a stepdaughter. Edward has a child named Renesmee, with someone he believed was his mate before me. That's how I met him, it's a long and funny story actually. Apparently vampire males can get human females pregnant, but it kills them and Bella was lucky enough to be turned."
"Wow, I never thought that was possible. I never even thought about it at all, a vampire having any kids. And it's alright, I'm already too old. That and you're taking over. This pack will see a lot of you Hope, considering you can't die."
"I can die, just not by old age. It's hard to kill me since I'm part vampire, but the wolf in me still feels. I can bruise, and bleed."
"It's pretty odd, you being a hybrid. No ones ever seen anything like you before. What was it like? You know, changing and all."
"Excruciating. My death was very painful, and I was pale when I awoke. I definitely looked like a vampire. When I drank blood it got my skin to return to its original color, and I didn't look so lifeless," I responded.
"Do you live solely off blood?" Dakota asked.
"No."
We pulled in through gates that opened automatically and a whole bunch of headstones lied around with names on them and flowers beside them. Some graves were old, and had cracks and broken pieces, and some of the names were wearing off. She stopped the car beside a short-gated area and a large monument looking thingy stood in the middle. When we got closer I was able to read the names of my parents, and the years of their births and deaths. Below were usual words you'd find on any grave, like beloved mother and father and stuff like that. All around were headstones labeled with names of members of my family, branching down from my parents.
Clementine and her husband, Nadia, Genevieve and her husband and their two daughters, Bastien and his wife, Christian and..... Nadja Aveline Monet.
A tear slid down my cheek as I stared at the graves. I had only been to Clementine's funeral, and I sort of felt guilty for not attending the others. I didn't know Clementine had died when I came to Paris that day. I was visiting the pack lands and all of a sudden I'm hearing news of Clementine's death. Clementine didn't die of old age though, since her daughter was a toddler. A car accident killed her, I learned.
Tears fell harder and faster and I found myself falling to my knees. Dakota kneeled, and wrapped her arms around me.
I know the pain of losing the love of your life is hard, so I understood her, but it hurt me more because I didn't get to spend any time with them before their deaths because they believed I was dead. I felt like I let them down, like this was a betrayal to them because I'm half of their worst enemy. I'm still part vampire, no matter how much wolf remained in me. It doesn't matter that I breathe, bleed, feel, sense, taste, smell. None of it matters because I'm still part vampire at the end of the day.
"Shh now child, it's alright."
"They hate me," I sobbed.
"No. Their blood still runs through your veins. You're not evil, and you're still loved by them."
"I'm everything they despise Dakota."
"Look at me child," she held my face in her hands as I looked at her.
"You are a Monet, you are a queen. They would be proud of the young, well, woman you've become Hope."
"Thank you."
"Cheer up, let's get you back to Edward now, it'll be dark soon."
We drove back, and Edward came outside and I ran into his arms.
"Is everything alright?" He asked.
"Everything is perfect."
When I was ready to pull away, I was surprised to see Yvette and Henri still here.
"We told the other three to go on and leave without us. Hope, it took courage to come back here today and do what you've done. You're brave, setting all your fears and shame aside to do what's right," Yvette smiled. "You're exactly what this pack needed."
"Thank you so much."
The moment was lived short by yelling.
"Stay back!!"
"Get off our land leech!"
"Go back to hell!"
"You're a spawn of Satan!"
"Hey!" I yelled, running towards all the pack warriors. Women were gripping their children and holding them close as I got closer. I pushed through the pack warriors to see a group of vampires, holding women and children. "What's going on here?!"
"These vampires are crossing onto our territory and have wolves hostage," one of the pack warriors said to me.
"We'll only talk to Luna Dakota," one of the vampires said. He had red hair and blood red eyes.
"Well, sorry to break the news to you but I'm the living, breathing daughter of Damien and Camille Monet, and I am the alpha now. Dakota Monet has resigned."
"Well, well," another vampire said with a sinister voice. "Isn't this a surprise? Miss Widow can't rule so she finds a replacement who's been so-called 'dead' for years."
"It is my birthright, so yes."
"You don't smell like a wolf. You smell human."
"I'm a hybrid."
"What?"
"Vampires turned me years ago. I'm a hybrid."
"Impossible."
"Totally possible. Now tell me what you want with these women and children, and why you're on my territory."
"We want your wolves to stop attacking our coven."
Oh no.
I'm working on chapter 28 right now and it will probably be published tomorrow when I get back from running errands with my uncle.
Have a wonderful night and thank you for reading.