Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Alexis

“This is a nightmare.”

Those words had only just left Will’s mouth when I saw the scene for what it really was—a herald of doom. A crimson moon was suspended low in the sky with many sepulchral clouds enveloping it. Against this red light, the shadows that lay claim to the sky flew from the direction of the cove toward the commune.

I had known that Ralph could fly. But the fact that every vampire possessed the capability to do so was new to me. It was a terrible sight to behold, all of them with their flapping coats looking like giant wingspans of bats descending upon the commune as if they were airborne soldiers coming here to lay siege.

“Brace yourselves!” Will screamed as he headed out the door and into the street. Suddenly, I could see him as the man who had led the charge of his pack during the second world war. He looked so sure, so adamant, unflinching in the face of fear.

Around us, streamers, balloons, flowers, and decorations that Vince had arranged for the party lay in tatters all around as the pack members ran about, trampling them. But when Will came into the fray, the pack members quickly regained their confidence now that their alpha was here. They gathered around him as he stared his enemy down.

At that exact moment, the night boomed with thunder, and lightning shone across the black canvas of the sky, revealing rain clouds across the horizon. The first raindrops fell on my face as the thunder growled loudly overhead. It was a scene to behold, Will and the pack behind him bracing for the fight ahead as the vampires descended into the clearing.

I knew this would happen. I had always understood that the vampires would never accept a defeat so submissively. When Ralph fell, the vampires ran away. Their swiftness had suggested that they had, in fact, retreated instead of running away. Biding their time in the shadows, they sought a new leader who could reassemble them and help them get their vengeance. From the looks of it, they had found their leader. Unlike the clothes the vampires wore back when they were under Ralph’s leadership, they were wearing garbs that resembled bloodthirsty barbarians.

Ralph’s style had been along the lines of Count Dracula meets the modern world, complete with black leather coats and black pants with black shirts. Very suburban gothic. However, now they were wearing wolf furs, and their faces had red handprints on them, signaling their bloodlust.

As someone who had lost a lot to the vampires, I knew them for the terrible ordeal that they were. They had killed my parents. For years after that, they barred the way leading out of the town, preventing me from escaping. Even after the vampires fell for the first time, back when Will killed Ralph, I knew it deep in my heart that sometime later, they would come back. Whether for vengeance or to reclaim their land, they would come back. They were not so easy to get rid of.

And now they had come back.

“Alexis! After me!” Will screamed at me from afar. I could barely make out what he was saying over the sound of the screams of the pack members, the thunder, the rain, and the shouts coming from the vampires as they landed on the field. It was battle-mayhem, all of it.

But the battle had not yet begun. None of the wolves had shifted so far, nor had any of the vampires drawn any blood. They stood on the other end of the field in a line, waiting for an emissary to come forth.

I joined Will along the ranks of the werewolves. We stood on the far end of the field, also in a line, waiting for their emissary. No one had ever written these rules down, but they had been passed down through the ages. Before a battle began, two messengers came bearing conditions from each side and relayed that information to each other.

A muscular, broad, tall, and bulky vampire, easily a foot and a half taller than the tallest of the vampires around him, came forward from the ranks wearing a wolf skull on his head and two gauntlets on these forearms made from bones. Even from afar, I could see his pointed teeth jutting out of his mouth as he sneered. As far as I knew, none of us had ever seen this vampire before. He wasn’t built like a vampire. The more I looked at him, the more he resembled a bloodthirsty giant.

This vampire stomped his feet as he traversed the field and came to a standstill at the center. Will looked at me, then nodded silently as he headed out into the field. For a second, I considered staying behind and watching it all unfold in front of me. But that was not me. Ever since I had come into my own, I had taken charge of things. I had never been behind Will, and he wouldn’t have wanted me to be. He had seen that I was always alongside him, matching his stride.

So I joined him as he walked out into the field.

“What are you doing?” Will whispered.

“Two heads and all that,” I said, squeezing his hand. He gently squeezed it back.

“I’ve never seen this guy before. Do we even know who he is?” Will asked.

“I’ve crossed paths with plenty of vampires in this town. But I’ve never seen him before either. Even for a vampire, he seems unnatural,” I concurred.

“You are right. Vampires, by their nature, are thin, bleak, shadowy creatures, lithe on their feet and nimble in their moves. This agility serves them a singular purpose—to pounce upon their prey and suck them dry of their blood. But this vampire, he’s humongous in size, taller than even I am,” Will said as we approached the goliath vampire standing smugly at the center of the field. This was the same field where all the werewolves trained and ran laps.

“He’s just a big brute,” I said.

“I’m not worried about that at all. In fact, it would be exciting for me to face him in battle. I haven’t had a real challenge in so long,” Will said. There was the Will I knew, the brave Will I loved with all my heart.

“Quite an awful night you picked for an ambush,” Will said. We stood just inches away from the tall vampire.

“This is not an ambush, little wolf,” the vampire said in a deep and growling voice. “We have come for vengeance and to lay claim to this land as ours. For hundreds of years, the vampires have been using these shores for their business and travel. Until the wolves came. And now word has reached me that you have killed Ralph, the vampire assigned to this area. I have only come to make things right. An eye for an eye. You killed their leader. I kill you.”

“And who do you think you are that you can just come and kill Will without facing any resistance whatsoever? Do not take us wolves lightly. We smote down Ralph. You are nothing more than a hindrance,” I said.

“Do you let your woman speak for you?” the vampires spat.

“That is no mere woman. She is my mate and as strong a wolf as any. You should fear her if you know what’s good for you,” Will said.

“Tonight, all the fear that exists in this world falls in your share. Look at our numbers. Tonight, Griswold the Blood-Maddened will end this reign of wolves once and for all,” he said.

“Reign? What reign? This is about all the drugs you were smuggling, isn’t it?” Will asked.

“Correct. You wiped out merchandise worth millions. A loss this severe is not suffered passively. You must meet the consequences.”

“Very well, then,” Will said.

“And after I’m done with the wolves, I will lay siege to Fiddler’s Green and plunder the town dry. Tonight, there will not remain a single living soul in that festering dump of a town,” Griswold said.

“You will find your way barred. You shall not pass. You thought you came here for vengeance. You’ve come here for your doom,” I said. “Too long have we suffered under the shadow of fear cast by the vampires. For too long, they have controlled this town, its avenues, and its resources. You shall never harm a single soul in Fiddler’s Green again. If it’s a war you want, it’s a war you will have,” I said, turning around to head back to the pack.

“A war it is,” Griswold said and then howled in a shrill manner that raised all the hair on my arms. Behind me, I could hear the ground rumbling with the footsteps of stampeding vampires.

Will shifted into a wolf, staying at the center of the field, and met Griswold in battle. I headed back to the pack and addressed them all.

“The vampires think they can kill us and lay claim to our land. Let us show them how wrong they are!” I yelled. With my yell, all the werewolves cried their battle cries in unison and began shifting one by one. I waited for them to shift, then I shifted as well and led the charge on the vampires.

At the center of the field, Griswold clashed with Will, who was a force to be reckoned with in his feral form. The two lurched and pounced at each other, slashing, clawing, and tackling. Griswold was holding his own very well in the battle, blocking several of Will’s hits and inflicting some serious blows. But now that I was at the head of the charge, Griswold saw the werewolves approaching and backed away to the ranks of his vampires. Will joined us as we raced forward to meet the vampires head-on.

He is powerful, Will said.

It does not matter. He is fighting for hate. We are fighting for our family. No power is stronger than the bond of love, I said.

For a still moment, the vampires came at us, and we came at them, but none collided with each other. It was just the rain, the thunder, and the stampeding steps on the field.

And then chaos ensued as the werewolves clashed with the vampires. I was at the forefront with Will and Vince. We fell upon the vampires with our claws extended and our maws gaping. The first vampires fell under my blows and gave way for the werewolves to penetrate their defenses.

Wolves howled around me, vampires hissed, and the night contributed its fair share of a maddening din as the battle raged on. Will was once again engaged with Griswold, the two of them gripped in a fierce battle. I could see that Griswold was about to dominate Will, but at that ripe moment, Will re-emerged from under him and pinned him to the ground, tearing into his flesh. Griswold howled as Will tore into his torso, ripping apart his barbarian clothing and rending his skin.

Now that Will was upon him, Griswold did not seem intimidating at all. It was Will, with his domineering size and his feral posture, that seemed more fearsome. I focused my attention on the group of vampires who had suddenly surrounded me from all sides. I cast one more look around me to see what was happening before plunging into the fight myself. The werewolves were fewer in number, but they fought much more aggressively. And yet, despite that, vampires seemed to be coming out of the forest in an unending horde. For every vampire that fell, more took its place.

To level the playing field, I pounced upon the group that had surrounded me and brought them all down with one large swing of my claws. As my claws traveled their wide trajectory, they tore open the vampires, ripping out their entrails. There was so much blood on the battlefield, and the battle had only just begun. And to think that merely an hour ago, I was enjoying a good night’s sleep in the arms of my mate.

Just as I had suspected, more vampires took the place of the ones that had fallen, and now I found myself surrounded by fifteen vampires, all of whom thought they had me cornered. I was never one for monotony, so I decided to take them out in a different way. Instead of backing myself into a corner, I leaped on the nearest vampire and landed with my nimble feet on his shoulders. Then I bit down on his head and yanked it off as if it was nothing. From there, I pounced onto the next vampire, repeating the same routine till they were none left.

But this drew the attention of the rest of the vampires as they saw their brethren being beheaded by one lone wolf. Out came spears and their pistols on the battlefield, all of them pointed at me.

From atop my vantage point in the field, I could see that Will was still winning against Griswold, even though now five vampires were assisting Griswold. Vincent was charging into a group of vampires with ferocity. As for the rest of the wolves, this was their battlefield, a familiar ground where they had trained all their lives. They knew the lay of the land and were confident here more than they’d ever be anywhere else. It showed in their prowess in the battle as they overcame the vampires.

What had the vampires thought when they came here? That they’d find the wolves sleeping in their beds and silently assassinate them all? If so, they had severely underestimated the werewolves, and in doing so, they had affirmed their doom.

I spotted a group of five vampires who had gotten free from the main battle and were furtively heading to the undefended commune. The women and children were still in the commune.

I shot like a dart across the field and overcut the vampires in their steps, coming between them and the commune. I knelt and growled, preparing myself for a jumping attack, when these vampires took out assault rifles from under their clothes.

In just a split moment, I ducked to my right as gunfire unleashed around me. As the bullets landed on the wet ground, dirt loosened and flew everywhere. In that haze, I arced around the vampires and came up behind them, more furious than ever. They had intended to go into the commune with these guns and kill the unarmed women and children. I dug my claws deep into their bodies before they’d even had a chance to turn around. It felt satisfying when I felt their hearts come to a dreadful halt as my claws clenched them. Of the five, only one survived, and he lay on the floor on his back, his assault rifle aimed at me.

I shifted into my human form and approached him, my face aglow with rage.

“Go ahead. Pull the trigger, you coward,” I said, walking up to him.

Perhaps it was that he’d seen what I’d done to his friends, or perhaps it was that he was now the last one standing; the vampire was frozen with fear, his fingers barely able to hold the gun steady.

Before he could pull the trigger, I grabbed the rifle and pulled it free from his grip.

“Only the spineless attack innocent women and children who aren’t able to fend for themselves,” I said, pointing his gun at him. “But you will not find undefended women and children at the commune. Not while I still draw breath.”

And with that, I pulled the trigger and emptied the magazine into the vampire’s chest, relishing the feeling of the bullets meeting his body, rendering it lifeless.

The battle was getting fiercer in the distance. A new swarm of vampires had just landed on the back of the field and were now joining their brethren, outnumbering the wolves. From afar, I could see that Griswold was no longer subdued. Now, he was gaining an advantage over Will with his reinforcements. It was clear that the vampires were not fighting fair.

But war was never fair.

I rejoined the fight after shifting into my wolf form once again. I knew where I had to go. To Will’s side. Once I traversed the sea of wolves and vampires and reached the other side to where Will was, I stood by his side, snarling at Griswold.

He is relentless, Will said. I have been attacking him nonstop, but he seems to have an affinity for pain. He welcomes it instead of reeling from it.

Then let’s give him some more of that pain that he loves so much, I said, and without warning, leaped on top of Griswold, digging my claws into his skull. To my surprise, his skull was thicker than the vampires that I’d beaten in battle earlier. My claws barely penetrated his skin before he grabbed me by the throat and threw me to the ground.

Griswold roared as he thrashed his fists to his chest and broke into a run toward me. Will intercepted him midway and caused him to trip over his feet. Once again, Will overpowered Griswold by pinning him to the ground.

I recovered back to my feet and defended Will by driving away the vampires who had gathered around us. They clawed from afar, never daring to come nearer. There were too many of them to take on by myself. I counted at least twenty.

Suddenly, there was a fierce howl behind me, and I saw Vince, with a couple of werewolves, coming to our aid.

Together, Vince and the werewolves lunged at the vampires surrounding Will and me and evened the odds on the battlefield.