To be frank, I didn’t know I would find Levi here let alone see Felicity with him. There was something I didn’t quite like about the duo, especially the young-looking beauty. I couldn’t exactly tell what it was but she had a bad aura around her. Now that I had seen them both, I confirmed something was going on between Rudolph and Levi. And for the girl to claim that she knew me had shown me that the relationship between the new families had far gone- deep than I imagined. I was hoping I would find out something because I know they were both up to something bad.
Felicity relaxed in Levi’s arms after he had opened the door for her to come out of the sedan. Levi crossed an arm over her shoulder, both smiling at each other. Rudolph came out from his hiding to welcome them. After they all had shaken their hands, they went back inside the house, chatting. I wanted to follow them but I wasn’t sure how far my luck would take me. I had to find another way, I thought.
I pushed forward, hunkering behind flowers until I found a door along the flare of the building walls. I pushed at it and it answered with a creaking and cracking sound that was quite a little bit disturbing. I looked through my phone once more trying to memorize as much information as I could.
According to the plan, there was another room at the top, ‘inaccessible’ according to the short details Thelma gave.
That could be it, I thought.
The whole house wasn’t even as guarded as I originally think it should be. I wondered why I hadn’t seen any security guards inside the house (or simply put, why I hadn’t seen many guards than I thought would be available.) I got up to the first floor, trying to find my way to the ‘inaccessible room’ Thelma detailed in the drawing. After I had spent a few seconds walking through lobbies with my hands on the wall, I budged into a room.
The room looked toyishly and girlishly decorated. There were no photo albums though; no images that spoke of who was occupying the room. I could only find cartoon posters, some K-star celebrities, empty makeup boxes hung on the table in front of the large mirror, and lots more I couldn’t stick around to check because of time. Even without Thelma’s scent hovering around my nose, I already knew that the room once belonged to her. But nobody was in there and it didn’t seem like somebody had been there recently. If there had been, I would not have easily picked up the scent as I did. There would have been difficulty finding her scent.
I closed the door and started moving forward. I heard noises coming from somewhere. I paid attention and then walked up toward the direction it came from. I followed the noise and it led me to an alley, still on the first floor.
After a few more steps, I busted at a dark corridor on the first floor that allowed me to see Rudolph, Levi, his girlfriend, and a few more guards sitting and talking. I watched the girl from there, her eyes had changed almost to the colour of her hair. She didn’t look normal like she looked in the convention center. Hunger and desire burned through her gaze in a feral manner that was quite nauseating.
“Bring him,” Levi commanded. “My baby is hungry.”
Rudolph looked at Felicity but didn’t say a word. He beckoned at the guard close to him to bring whoever it was Levi wanted. The guard left with the other guard that Rudolph had brought to the convention ground. Rudolph mentioned his name, right?
I hid tight. A single noise from me or my hiding place could bring an end to everything. A single beep could get me caught and delivered to those vicious-looking faces. That was certainly my last wish. And for the fact that I even harbored the thought inside my mind gave me goosebumps. The guards came back with Alpha Richards in the middle of their grip. He was held in both hands and dragged to the sitting room downstairs. I hunkered still, watching. I couldn’t even remember the Alpha’s face because he had been
beaten almost out of his senses and reduced to pulp. He looked like he was drugged too. The guards dropped him in front of the beauty queen. She sluggishly stood up and went close to the Alpha. At this point, I paid very close attention. She bared her teeth and in the next few seconds, four long canines sprouted out from both sides of her jaw. I almost puked when she chucked in those canines inside the Alpha’s neck, dip. She kept her mouth like that for a few seconds. Rudolph almost wanted to stand up from his chair to watch her. I wasn’t sure if the move had been out of curiosity or out of care for the dying Alpha.
“Relax, Rudolph,” Levi said. “She isn’t going to kill him.” He smiled. Levi seemed relaxed and unperturbed.
Jeez.
How could he? His girlfriend was a fucking vampire draining blood from the Alpha of the Octavian moon pack. This was so wrong to watch. Nothing looked normal here but it seemed like all of them enjoyed watching the Alpha lose blood to that useless lady vampire. I took my eyes away. I couldn’t continue watching anymore. If I continued watching, then there is a chance I might as well do something very stupid.
“Take him out,” Levi ordered. I didn’t understand why it was Levi that was ordering them around. He was just a fucking visitor, wasn’t he? The guards carried the Alpha back to where they brought him from. I followed them discreetly. They emerged into a room that seemed like it had a hidden step that led to a room at the topmost part of the fortress. I waited until the guards came out. I went in inside and followed his scent. I was able to distinguish his scent from the guards, thanks to the ring Thelma gave me.
I saw the Alpha, leashed, both hands tied with a rope and hung horizontally far from each other. He looked famished and when I touched him, he could barely open his eyes. He wasn’t putting on his cloth and the dirty trouser he was wearing was stained in blood.
“It is me, Alpha Drake,” I told him whispering. “The Alpha of the blood moon pack. Please, open your eyes.”
He managed to open his eyes and looked at me. “Are. . . are you-”
“Yes, I am Drake. Please wake up.”
“Do you work with them too?” he muttered angrily, coughing.
“Do I work with who?” I asked.
He couldn’t reply. He coughed again.
“No,” I said. “I don’t. I came to save you.”
“You expect me to believe that?” he coughed again and blood drooled from his lips.
His actions should be expected so I did thoroughly understand the bizarre reply from him. “Thelma, your daughter, she sent me. You have nothing to be afraid of.”
He studied me for a while, his expression unsure of what he was seeing. “Please, get out. I regret giving my daughter to you, snitch.” He tried to close his eyes, ignoring me totally.
At this point, I knew that there was nothing I could do to convince him to trust me. And even if there was something I could do, I needed to do it as soon as possible. “Wait,” I said quickly. “Look, I have your ring. Thelma said that it belonged to you.”
There was sudden energy that took over him and he opened his eyes wide to look at the ring I had on my finger. He studied it with his weak eyes but with an interested gaze. “She still has this?” he asked. He looked at the ring for almost one minute before he said the next shocking few words. “This was her mother’s only gift I left in her possession.”
That was sad. I think I had a lot in common with my mate. I never had a mother of my own. She was gone right before I could learn how to hold a pencil. I gave him the ring and made him hold it. “You can have it, Alpha. Your daughter would be more than happy to see you have it.”
Tears slowly started gathering up in his eyes. “Are you sure my daughter wouldn’t hate me if she sees me?” he asked.
“Until she sees you first,” I said. I think I regretted saying this. “For now, let us concentrate on getting ourselves the hell out of here.”
He closed both eyes, tears dropping away from them. I understood what the man was passing through. Having a daughter who you think would hate you for not giving her enough attention like a father should and also having your best of pals betray you to an enemy was just unacceptable. That was plain horrible.
He opened his eyes, all I saw were rage burning inside them. The colour of his eyes had changed, shining pure azure red. All the black and white part of his eyes were gone, replaced by the strength of an enraged Alpha’s power. An Alpha’s eyes would always turn like that when they are very angry- other werewolves could almost do the same but it is most prevalent in Alphas.
Alpha Richards stood up on his feet and looked me straight in the eyes. I shivered at the gaze he gave me. “Cut the rope,” he said.
“On it.”
I worked my way around the rope instead of cutting it and luckily, I untied it from his hands. The door behind me opened. I looked but found a guard already behind us. Before I could consider what I could do to the guard or the best move to make, Alpha Richards had already charged against him. He grabbed his neck, strangled it by wrapping his strong arms around his neck. The deadly move made breathing and even shouting very difficult for the guard. Before I could stand up to help the Alpha, he had already snapped the guard’s neck. The neck cracked and the guard’s eyes whitened, he died on the spot.
I watched in shock. I couldn’t believe that the Alpha who still looked famished could muster such strength under that prevailing circumstance. I didn’t know what to say. I just had to swallow down my spit to relieve myself of the tension I felt around my neck. The Alpha moved to a glass wardrobe at the adjacent corner of the room, opened it, and drew out a hidden file. He dipped his hand inside it and brought out a car key. He also changed into a cloth he saw. It was just a jacket, ash of colour and dark trousers. As though he knew how fast I wanted us to get out of that house, he didn’t bother to take a shower.
“Let’s go,” he said.
I followed him with the file crooked under his arm. He didn’t follow the path I followed when I came inside the house. He took another route that led to the same kitchen I had avoided like a plague initially.
The first cook we met, tall and fat, saw us and almost snapped out. “Alpha,” he said, wincing. “You are alive.” It was more of a question than a mere statement of surprise. The cook’s brown eyes widened.
“Do I look dead?” Alpha Richards asked.
The cook reached for a knife hung on one of the plate dishes. He didn’t look like a fighter anyway so the move didn’t strike me as someone who wanted to cause violence. It didn’t take Alpha Richards much time to send the cook to his early grave by digging in a fork dip inside the cook’s oesophagus. The big guy fell on the table and hit his head hard on it. It was certain at this point that the kitchen guy would either bleed to death because of his head injury or die of the fork hooked in his oesophagus. Richards scooped up the file he had left on a slab before the fight and then told me to follow him. I did. I didn’t ask questions. How could I? He knew his way around more than I do. We emerged into the garage through a door in the kitchen. This was the same garage I had been hiding in. Alpha Richards pressed a button on the car remote control in his hands and a beautiful dark truck squeaked in protest. We quickly boarded the truck and fired on the engine. He took the wheels. The Alpha reversed the vehicle, the tyres screeching in revolt. We moved through the main gate. Nobody had to tell me to fasten my seatbelt but I did that out of acute anxiety.
The truck was moving fast, burning lots of horsepowers, and had the propensity to damage and wreak havoc on any living thing that would block its way. We were just about in our game of luck when Felicity interfered in our business. She stood aright just between our truck and the road that led to the main gate, watching us with interlaced eyes. Though the sun was about to settle but I could still perfectly point out some necessary details from her body. Felicity’s eyes dimmed in such a way that her eyebrows knitted together in anguish assumption. Her almost inhuman eyes had been staring at us as though she had been a predator waiting viciously to catch her prey.
Are we the prey?
Her jaw had become more jaunty, ugly than it was in the convention ground. Her head was steadied and held firm without any slight movement.
Alpha Richards manhandled the vehicle, increasing the speed as he saw her on our way. Before we could crush her, she flinched, diving sideways, way too impossible for us to make unforgiving contact with her disgusting body. She was quick, that must be acknowledged. But if she had stayed, she would have been sent straight to hell with no apologies from Alpha Richards nor me. The security manning the main gate might have paid attention but we only got to find out when we had approached the gate.
The security guy aimed the assault rifle at us, and without a second thought, all hell was let loose. He shot sporadically at our truck. Bad news was, that the truck wasn’t armored. It was just as vulnerable as a newborn human baby was to the malaria parasite. Alpha Richards handled everything like a pro. He didn’t bother to stop the vehicle nor bother to turn it around. At least that would have been the best move to make if he was cautious. But no, he was stupid. Or should I call it braveness?