Derrick had parted ways with Fixer for the evening claiming the effects of the jet lag were too much and he was turning in early.
Fixer never responded but silently walked to his own room. Derrick was indeed feeling the effects of the jet lag, but he wanted to bring an end to any face-to-face time with Fixer. The man made his blood boil.
As he lay on his bed, he kept his mind busy with remembering exactly why he hated Fixer.
"I need to make a supply run." Derrick sighed as he closed the kitchen cupboard that was filling with dust.
"That would be good," said a tired voice.
Derrick turned and walked over to the bed in the corner of the one room cabin. "Viv, let me go catch something for you."
"Get the supplies first. You're hungrier than I am. It's been too long since you went into the town." Vivia smiled up at Derrick through dull eyes. She hadn't fed in days. She was trying to go longer and longer between feeds. It was a radical theory promoted by some of the fringe vampire doctors who swore a vampire could conquer their need for blood by spacing out their feedings.
Derrick had voiced his opinion about the quack doctors. Vivia, in an effort to be more pleasing to her Hunter lover, was open to any plan that helped her be less of a monster in his eyes. But Derrick didn't care anymore. He had already decided to leave the Hunter Society.
So in an effort to hide from the Society and to help facilitate Vivia's cleanse program, they moved to the depths of a forested mountain in the Swiss Alps. With a few words from Derrick, the cabin became hidden from the naked human eye.
Everything had gone well for some time. Derrick hunted their food, and made the occasional trip to the town for supplies that he couldn't hunt. Vivia was happily playing a human housewife to her Hunter man.
At night, in front of their fire, they would discuss what it was like to leave their respective lives. Vivia had never imagined leaving her closely-knit nest, but when the Society targeted her for elimination, she was forced out by family members who were more than fearful of being caught in the crosshairs of a Hunter.
If they had known she was already in love with the Hunter sent to dispatch her, they might have reacted more harshly.
Derrick hadn't expected to fall in love with Vivia, but as he watched her for several weeks on his assignment, he saw she was a genuinely loving person. She was someone who was the complete antithesis of every vampire stereotype he had been taught.
He fell in love and he fell hard. He finally showed himself to her and though it took some convincing, she finally decided to throw caution to the wind and give him a chance.
That chance had led to a deeply rooted love and a desire to spend their lives together, even if it had to be done in hiding.
"I don't think I am hungrier," said Derrick, his stomach choosing that moment to grumble and growl in protest.
Vivia laughed weakly and shook her head. "Go. I'll be fine, my love. You need food. I can wait until you get back. I will just sleep a bit."
Derrick frowned and passed his hand over her hair, smoothing it back from her dry forehead. Her skin had dulled and paled even more. Her fangs stayed protruded from her gums now, poking out over her bottom lip. The hungrier she got, the more they stuck out.
He sighed and tried to think of one more excuse to delay the trip, but after he received a firm look from her, he acquiesced to her wishes and packed up for the trek down the mountain to the town at the foot of it.
"Fine, I'll go. But you rest. Stay in bed. Sleep if you can. I'll put the barriers up, but if something gets through, don't open the door."
Vivia grinned and waved her hand. "I know the spiel, my darling. You give it to me every time you leave. I'm too weak to even to get out of this bed."
Derrick smiled grimly and turned, preparing to leave.
***
Dusk had fallen on the mountain as Derrick made the final push to the cabin. He was loaded with supplies and a small collection of rabbits and squirrels he had shot on the way home.
He came up over the last little ridge, smiling and anxious to get home to his lover. Soon, the cabin was in view, and he hurried his steps, only to slow them as he approached.
In the dim light, he saw a horrid scene laid out before him.
"About time you got home, Hunter Fenton." A fellow Hunter named Leon Aresenault sat on the steps, legs spread, and cleaning his nails with the tip of a large knife.
On the ground before him lay the body of Vivia, dissected into pieces and laid out neatly in a row.
Derrick almost threw up as he dropped his pack to the ground. He fell to his knees, tears streaming down his cheeks. The anger in his chest was slowly building.
"I'm sure you know why I am here. You committed a transgression, Hunter Fenton. The Society sent me to clean up your mess. This vamp was supposed to die five years ago. The Chairman wondered where you went. For what it's worth, you were not easy to find."
Leon stood to his feet in a lazy, swaggering move. He wiped the blood from the knife in his hand on the side of his pant leg. "I like to think of myself as the best tracker in the Society. I guess this proves me right. But, just for the record, your barriers were weak. So, thank you for lacking in that area."
Derrick couldn't tear his eyes from the severed head of his love. Her brown hair was tangled and messy where Leon had grabbed it with uncaring force. The jagged line edged with small tears across the neck area proved he had taken his time pushing the serrated knife through it. How much had Vivia suffered? It must have been a horrific death.
The more Derrick looked at her lifeless face, the more he became enraged.
"I thought you should know that her head was the last thing I severed," sneered Leon darkly.
That was the last straw on the back of a very strained camel. Derrick growled almost inhumanly, and charged at Leon, plowing into the Hunter's lithe body and knocking him into the dirt.
Punch after punch was plummeted into Leon's face, bones cracking under the force of the hits. He laughed like a maniac throughout the entire ordeal and finally, Derrick was exhausted.
He rolled off of Leon and onto the dirt, his chest heaving and gut-wrenching sobs coming from his throat.
Leon stood slowly, and staggering just a bit.
"I should kill you," he said, spitting some blood next to Derrick's face. "But I was not given permission for that. Rest assured, Hunter Fenton, you will never be out of the eye of the Society. We will always know where you are, what you're doing, and who you're doing it with."
With a wry laugh, Leon sauntered off into the darkness, never to be seen by Derrick again.
Until the day he walked into Derrick's office at the university.
Except now, he went by the label of Emissary, but in the bowels of the Hunter Society, everyone called him Fixer. Because he went around fixing all of the problems conjured up by the Society elites.
Derrick's eyes fluttered closed, the wet lashes sticking to his cheeks as tears streamed down to the pillow below his head. It had been over a hundred years since Fixer had killed Vivia. One hundred years for Derrick to nurse his pain.
One hundred years for him to develop a calloused grudge.
***
Jungkook had shifted and was standing patiently as Jimin strapped the special backpack over his back.
"Planning on staying there long, I guess?" Jimin stood back and stared into the wolffish face of his brother and friend.
Jungkook nodded his shaggy head. "I feel responsible somehow."
His voice was low and growly as he spoke.
Jimin nodded and folded his arms. "She's just a human, Kook. Don't get attached."
Jungkook rolled his eyes. "How old am I?"
"Old enough to know better, but still too young to care," said Jimin with a hint of snark.
Jungkook shook his head. "Tell Hyung I will be back as soon as I know she's okay and on the mend."
"Sure. But, Kook, just...nevermind."
Jungkook looked at Jimin with a tilted head.
"Pay me no attention. Just my old prejudices rearing their ugly head."
Jungkook nodded and moved to the door of his cabin. He looked at Jimin and whined.
"Dude, you need to do what the rest of us have done. Install a doggy door, man!" Jimin laughed as he flung open the door and watched as Jungkook bolted out into the dusky evening.
Jungkook looked back over his shoulder and snarled. Jimin laughed again at the wolf's rejection of anything associated with the word "dog."
With a short bark, Jungkook took off towards the river.
Jimin watched the last of the black fur disappear into the trees and his smile fell from his face. He couldn't help but be wary of the vampires. Despite all of their history together, he hadn't been able to shake his fears.
Now, as he watched Jungkook run towards them once again, he felt those fears bubbling up as they were prone to do. He took a deep breath. He needed to trust Jungkook. And he needed to trust Jungkook's friends.
***
Jungkook slowed his sprint as the Kim cabin came into view. The lights glowing from the windows made him smile at their familiarity.
This cabin would always be home to him.
He walked up the front steps and clawed at the front door. It added a few marks to the thousands of others on the door. Taehyung had said he would replace the door when he could see light through the place Jungkook had scratched. He then proceeded to lecture Jungkook on the manners of house living and the value of money.
Jungkook laughed to himself at the memory. He had a lot of good memories here with Taehyung.
His tail began to wag with anticipation when he heard footsteps coming towards the door. It opened and looking down at him was his old friend.
"Well, don't stand out there all day. Shake off the snow and come in," sighed Taehyung with mock annoyance.
Jungkook made sure his fur brushed against Taehyung's leg, leaving hair all over the material.
"Yah! This is why I hate dogs!" lamented Taehyung, knowing full-well the kind of reaction he would get.
Jungkook spun on his back feet and snarled and growled at Taehyung who was now laughing.
"Calm down, Kookie," said Sunny, walking up and laying her cool hand between Jungkook's ears.
"And you, stop instigating," she said, giving her husband a stern warning.
Taehyung rolled his eyes. "Must be nice to be seen as an angel."
Jungkook leaned his head against Sunny's thigh and sighed as she stroked his thick ears.
"You just hate sharing me with the kids," grinned Sunny.
Taehyung curled his lip and walked over and refilled his tea cup he had left sitting on the table.
"You better get dressed. Our patient needs your expertise." Sunny scratched along Jungkook's large head one more time and shooed him off to the bathroom.
Five minutes later he came out, fully shifted and dressed. He padded across the floor in his thick socks and sat down on the side of the bed next to Jaci, who was still deeply sleeping.
His nose twitched a bit as he caught a different smell wafting up from her. "Has she been asleep this entire time?"
"I've kept her asleep," said Taehyung, wrapping his hands around the warm tea cup. "Seemed better than letting her wrestle with the pain of an injury like that."
"Yeah, it's only gotten worse," said Sunny, pulling up a chair next to Jungkook. "Take a look."
She pulled the blanket down just a bit and Jungkook got a good look at the black lines emanating from the dark black bite wound. The lines resembled the crooked vines of a thorn bush. They were creeping up her neck and down across her chest and shoulder, trailing over her shoulder and presumably down her back.
He leaned back and stared at the wound, completely stumped. "I never knew a wolf bite could do this. I've never seen it."
Sunny sighed. "I was afraid you would say that. I don't want to have to take her to a hospital, but I'm getting worried, Kookie. Is she going to die?"
Jungkook's nose twitched again. No, that wasn't death he was smelling. "I don't think so. I don't smell death. Yet."
Both vampires shot him a look at the word "yet".
Jungkook chose to ignore them and instead went to his backpack, pulling out the package Ga-Eun had given him. "My Luna sent this to try and help her. She said her grandfather was a pack doctor and had a lot of tried and true remedies. She said that wolf bites can be nasty for humans. I didn't think it would be this nasty though."
Sunny took the package and removed several envelopes of dry herbs and a few bags of what looked to be tea leaves. A small paper with written instructions was included and as she read it, Taehyung poked his nose over her shoulder and read along as well.
"She says I can make a tea for her to drink and then lay the cooled bags on the wound for a few hours. She also included some herbs she said to make a compress with. She gave good instructions."
Jungkook smiled. "Ga-Eun-Noona is an amazing she-wolf. She's been so good for Hoseok-Hyung. And for the pack."
He looked back at Jaci and frowned. "I just hope she can help this one."
Taehyung watched Jungkook's shoulders square a bit as if he had said that to convince himself. He went and sat down in the chair Sunny had vacated. He took a sip of his tea and then crossed his legs. "What are you thinking?"
Jungkook glanced at Taehyung and then shook his head. "I don't know what to make of this."
Taehyung watched Jungkook's nose twitch again. "You noticed it too, hm?"
Jungkook looked over to him, eyes open and surprised. "Noticed what?"
Taehyung raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "Nothing."
But he knew Jungkook was bluffing. Jungkook had clearly noticed something different about Jaci's scent. Taehyung and Sunny had noticed it and their nose wasn't near as strong as a werewolf's. They had hoped Jungkook could give them some kind of an answer about it, but that wouldn't happen if he was going to play dumb.
He eyed Jungkook over the edge of his cup. This could be a very interesting development indeed.
***
The Kim's had gone to bed and Jungkook sat next to Jaci's bed, watching the blanket slowly rise and fall with each breath she took. Despite Taehyung's deep sleep trance, she would flinch and grimace every so often.
Jungkook leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, studying the face of the injured woman before him. Her scent occasionally wafted up to his nose and he found himself frowning at it more often than not.
It had changed. The difference was faint, but he could tell. He had picked up on it when he walked in this evening.
He wondered about everything Ga-Eun had said to him before he left. He wondered if this bite was going to lead to something that he had no life experience with whatsoever. But the bite could just be severely infected as well, which would vaguely explain its appearance.
At one point, Jaci began to whimper and her hand began to frantically wave around in the air. Jungkook instinctively reached out and took it into his own. As he did, a faint tingle raced up his arm. He frowned deeper but he couldn't bring himself to let her hand go. She was clearly in some kind of pain, be it from the wound or from the scary images left in her mind.
Regardless, as he held her hand, she calmed, and her grimace smoothed out into an expression of peacefulness.
If this simple gesture would help her relax and rest, Jungkook decided he would hold her hand all night.
And that's exactly what he did.
October 27, 2020
AN: Hi, reader! I apologize for the late update. I won't give you the list of excuses I have. All I can do is promise to try and update more frequently. Thank you for taking time to read this story! 💜