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Chapter 14
Once our old camp is cleaned up of the dead and the wounded are treated, our trek starts. We morph. Then we run for miles, our muscles working together tirelessly, using the pack link to show each other obstacles, working like one huge, oiled robot. Sabrina leads, her piercing yellow eyes narrowed.
Something coming up ahead, thinks a younger member of the pack, Jaclyn. We slow down. Smells like vampires. What do I do?
Suddenly, something leaps out of the branches, which rustle. It's a vampire, no older than a teenager, snarling, her bright, vivid crimson eyes swiveling around. She attempts to grab me and crush my ribs, but I outmaneuver her easily. I've pinned her to the ground in seconds, and I hear her cry out in pain as her back slaps against the dirt. I lean down and hear her ragged breath, see her wide eyes for one short second, before snapping her neck with a satisfying crunch.
A battle cry goes up--a vampire battle cry. Dozens charge out of the forest. Why dozens again? I think, as I kill the first vampire--but even more are surging out of the trees. We're hopelessly outnumbered. I transform into my human form and unsheathe my blade. Black Flame pulses with dark energy, radiating it across the battlefield and making the enemy take a step back, distracted, giving the werewolves a second to destroy them and sink their fangs into the vampires' necks. Then they unfreeze and continue to fight. I, on the other hand, use Black Flame like it was custom-designed for me. My fingers fit around the wooden hilt in a natural way, like the manufacturer had studied my hands for years. The blade feels so good in my hands, so natural, like a second half of me.
The other half.
I slice through my enemies as easily as one would slice through butter with a steak knife. Vampires erupt into dark, black flames. For once, I'm smiling. I don't remember the last time I've smiled. Spitting ash out of my mouth and continuing to grin like a crazy person, I annihilate my enemies.
Then the ground erupts underneath me, and I hear a bellow, one of a huge creature, and immediately recognize the sound as the beast that had chased me so many years ago, the day me and Emma split up.
My fighting becomes subdued as I hear the beast thundering closer. Finally, it bursts out of the trees.
The beast looks like a hunched-over thing, like a cross between a hairless monkey and a T-Rex. It's hunched forward, with mottled green skin and acid green eyes with slits down the middle. Its arms and legs are short and stubby, and it looks large and powerful. It has a wide, slavering mouth, with two rows of dagger-like teeth. It roars, and the ground vibrates.
For some weird reason, I'm not scared. I'm furious. I'm furious and it's clouding everything else out. I'm shaking with suppressed rage. I charge forward, slicing any enemy that dares to get in my way, and jump straight at the beast.
The blade sinks deeply into its arm. It roars in pain. I hang there, gripping my sword, being swung wildly around, until it manages to throw me off. I go sailing through the air. I transform in midair, and land on its back, my claws digging into its inch-thick skin.
Since my claws are several inches long, they pierce its body, though only barely. It makes a strange sound, like a cross between a strangled yelp and a teeny roar. It's almost comical.
I bite down on my neck with my thin, needlelike, razor-sharp teeth, and it makes the same strangled yelp. Then I claw my way down its back, cutting and digging my way down on my way. It roars in pain and rage and tries to turn and snap at me. I dodge its teeth and jump off its back, morphing in midair again and grabbing my sword, cutting my way down. It roars again and goes flying off into the woods. Dozens of vampires dispatch and follow us as I desperately try to remove Black Flame from the monster's thick hide. Succeeding, I drop to the ground, holding a bloodstained, dark black dagger in my right hand. I'm met by a terrible sight. About thirty or forty vampires are cutting me off from the pack.
Amari! I scream through the pack link, but she seems strangely cut off.
As one, they charge. I try to slice my way through, but eventually they pin me to the ground by sheer numbers. I scream in anger and frustration and try to claw my way towards the pack, but something hard hits my head and I'm knocked out.
* * *
I wake up on some sort of mattress. It's thin and lumpy and uncomfortable. I open my eyes. I'm in a large, marble room the size of a normal-sized house, with sunlight flooding through huge stained-glass windows and a large oak door. I'm on a mattress pushed up against the wall, in the corner. I scan my surroundings, my eyes narrowed, but see nothing else besides a pitcher and a platter of slop. My werewolf has been ignoring my human mind, which means I haven't eaten or drank anything in days. How is that possible? I have no idea. Wolves can do that to you sometimes. It's an old myth. If they get too caught up in something, you temporarily lose the need to eat or drink. I shovel down the slop and wash it down with the water, disgusted but satisfied. Then I wait. My wold helps me wait by bringing me into a Droma. They call them Dromas because your wolf causes a cross between a day dream and a coma, where your mind simply goes blank until there is something to entertain it. I wait out my Droma until there is a knock on the wooden oak door. My muscles tense and my back snaps up straight. I jump straight out of bed and get into a defensive crouch.
"Wolf," says a deep, gruff voice from outside. "Open the door or I do. Your choice."
I don't answer. I stare at the door in disgust. I decide not to pounce; I'll save that for my escape, which I decide will be tonight.
The door is kicked down. A man stands there, wearing a leather jacket and jeans. His hear is slicked back like an Elvis Presley do, and his eyes are a blazing, intense crimson. His face is pale, unnaturally so, and he wears a cruel smile, his eyes glittering malevolently.
He radiates the power of a leader.
"Stop being so defensive, Drama Queen," he says, getting closer to me. A snarl rises up my throat and out through my clenched teeth. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! You don't gimme a damn, do you?"
"Go to hell!" I spit through my gritted teeth, my eyes narrowed into slits.
In half a second, his face is level with mine, inches away. He moves very fast for a damned vampire. I flinch backwards, glaring at him, and his responsive laugh is deep and rough.
"Ah, I forgot your spirit," he muses, a cruel gleam in his eyes. "You werewolves are always so...feisty."
"Get out!" I snarl.
"Oh, but this is my room," he responds, the corners of his lips pulling up into a smile. "I believe you are in here out of my hospitality. I can have you executed, yes, but what fun would that be? It's much easier like this, to slowly torment you, to make you go insane. We'll bring you the corpses of the ones in your pack, don't worry. You'll be able to mourn over them."
I'm pressed up against the cold wall, breathing in his sick, awful scent of blood, the metallic, rusty smell filling my nostrils. In human form, it smells a lot more revolting. I feel his hot breath on my neck, which sends prickles down my back. I've never been so close to anyone in my life besides my parents and Emma. I'm about to snap, I know it--I'm about to morph and snap his neck. I'm shaking with suppressed rage. This man is the kind that killed my parents. I've been on the run for two years because of his damn race.
"Go to hell!" I repeat, venom layering my voice.
"Ah, but again...what fun would that be?"
"I hate you!" I scream, losing it. I've snapped. I bring my feet up and kick my feet against his chest. He goes sailing twenty feet backwards.
"Oh no you didn't!" he roars, getting to his feet. I immediately return to my defensive stance. "I'll have you beat for that!"
"I'd rather be beaten than be stuck in here with you!" I shriek angrily. Black Flame is missing. I only have an empty scabbard. "Give me my sword and maybe I'll kill you faster, instead of a slow, painful death!"
He presses something on the wall. Alarms blare. I morph and charge towards him, and he cowers in fear. Then I'm caught and pushed back, and Black Flame is almost used against me by one of the guards, who unsheathes it and brandishes it at me. Then I charge. He swings the sword, but I transform right before my body makes contact with it, swinging under it and twisting the man's arm. He screams in pain, a high, girlish shriek, and I wrench the sword from his clutching fingers and stab his heart. Then I slice the other guard's neck. The man who was trying to torture me screams. My arm shakes as the fury takes over. I pin him against the wall with one hand and with the other I hold the blade over his heart. It hovers there for a full two seconds while he struggles vainly to twist out of my steel grip, but then the sword plunges into his heart. I stay there like that, Black Flame plunged into his heart, my sword arm shaking as my vision is washed in red, anger taking over my heart. I sheathe Black Flame and morph into my wolf form, using my razor-sharp claws to quickly claw my way up the wall until I shut my eyes and run straight through the window. Multicolored glass sprays into the room, and I jump into open air. My paws touch the dirt with a th-thud, and I go racing off into the forest, vampires snarling and growling behind me, sprinting, trying desperately to catch the girl that just escaped and killed their leader.
Okay, so I tried to make this chapter longer than usual. Hope you liked it!!!