Getting through the passage was easy… in fact it had been suspiciously too easy.
Stepping out finally at the other side of the passage door, which was a small circular brick space on one of the sides of the high walls of the usually highly guarded Castle, Zezi was left stunned to see that George had been really accurate about the ritual that was going on.
She hadn’t expected this degree of accuracy.
The streets were filled with vampires in different robes, mostly red, roaming about. George was quick to pull his family into the crowd and maneuver their way down to the cave with a speed of absolute urgency, which Zezi matched without a second thought.
Her heart was racing, almost like it would burst out of her chest at any moment and explode on the floor.
What if her absence had been noticed? What if the vampire doctor had come for his regular check up of her and realized that they had gone missing? What if he had told the King? What if the King was coming after her with his clouded senses?
Oh goodness. She really hoped not.
What if Laura had been the one to notice? Laura hated her. What if she was coming to hunt her down right now? What if they were coming after them right now?
Ahhhh!
Her paranoid mind was starting to get the better of her by the second.
She looked around as they speed across to see if anyone would notice them, or if anyone was after them, but the vampires looked dazed and a little disoriented, yet the fear of being caught that she felt was highly consuming.
If they were caught what would happen to her? What would happen to her family?
She could feel her body shaking slightly and this wasn’t because of the speed with which she was running, but the fear.
An absolute wreaking fear.
It was clamping her throat and making it go dry.
She needed a distraction and she needed it fast.
She looked to her husband, as he led their escape path with Mira as he firmly held her to his chest with one hand, while with the other was firmly around her wrist.
She thought about what could be going through his mind as his hand held tightly unto the only two people he had in this world.
Oh her husband!
He was the bravest werewolf she knew. Always ready to fight through risk to save his own.
Just like he had saved her on the day these bloodthirsty monsters had attacked their pack. Just like he had always been saving her ever since then.
He was always saving her.
She wished she could protect him from all of these just as he always protected her.
Her eyes went misty but she blinked her tears away quickly. Now more than ever, she needed her clear sight.
She smiled faintly at the sight of her daughter’s shut eyes.
A happy sad smile.
It was a good thing she wasn’t the one carrying Mira. If she was to be carrying her at this moment, her hold on her might be a death grip and got a child that was already sick, holding her that tight might let to something else.
Mira was just like that.
Delicate.
Sometimes the most unexpected things made her sickness worse.
The fact that she wasn’t already bedridden by now with everything that had been going on lately was a miracle.
She felt a jerk, pulling her backwards, her weight swayed, her boots hitting the ground before she held her position.
Right in front of her was the mouth of the cave.
“We are here,” George said to her and she could fight the smile that stretched across her lips.
She couldn’t believe it.
“We have no time to stop and stare, my Love.” George said with an underlaying chuckle.
He was finding all these exciting and as much as she was happy about this, there was something she remembered about this cave that didn’t put her at ease.
“It has magic,” she whispered hurriedly. “The vampires but something here. My link with the pack got–”
“I know, it happened to me too. But this is our only chance.”
“What if something happens to us in there?”
“Whatever happens to us in there, my Love, will be better that whatever our fate will be if those bloodsucking monsters were to capture us again.”
“I don’t like monsters,” Mira pitched in, in her childlike voice, at the recognition of that word that now seemed to have twice as much fear grip on her than before.
She must have been listening to George a lot lately, while he absentmindedly complained about her being here, away from them. She could already feel the effect of her absence in the lives of these two people she loved the most.
“My Love. We have to go. Now.” He pulled her gently along with him and she had no choice but to suppress her worry.
She flashed them both a smile.
“Let’s go.”
They stepped into the mouth of the darkness, awaiting any form of doom that loomed within the shadow of this cave, ready to fight it with every last strength they had.
They carefully maneuvered their way through the echoing darkness, careful not to fall into any trap that the vampires might placed there.
The cave was like a maze, a couple of times, they had ended right back at the place they started.
This increased how tensed Zezi felt, claiming that it was some sought of magic the vampires had placed there that was rendering their efforts furtile.
She didn’t say it out loud not to scare her daughter, but George knew that what her claims implied.
It meant that they might never be able to escape because the vampires had the cave spelled.
As much as George wanted to stay calm and positive, the situation and Zezi’s uneasiness was starting to get to him and his growing agitation was starting to bringbhis wolf to the surface.
After an frustrating maneuvering around the cave, they had once again needed up right where they started.
“By the Moon, this Cave is spelled, George.” Zezi cried out frustrated, and Mira grew a little tense in George’s arms.
She didn’t know the consequences of the cave been spelled but she knew that if her Mother was sounding like that, whatever was happening, wasn’t something good.
“Maybe there is a way we can trick the spell.” George answered in a forceful calm tone.
It was taking a lot to suppress his wolf.
This would be a bad time for his beast to take control. That would only cause them more problems.
“I don’t think that’s possible. I feel like they are coming after us right now. I feel like–”
“Shut up, you little pesky wolf!” George snapped at her, his eyes wild red in the darkness.
Zezi gulped, hitching backwards, away from him as he growled at her threatening.
His wolf was here again.
The beast that lived in him but hated her.