Akira’s Point Of View
“This point, this point, and here,” Ace explained as he pointed to the coordinates on the country map. “Those areas reported at least seven similar cases to ours. First, they thought it was a wild animal.”
“After seeing two fang bites at the side of their necks?” Ace scoffed in disbelief.
“They are not to be blamed, Ace. These guys are being fed by the vamps. They have always believed the vampires to be their savior,” Riaz said.
“Or rather, had no other choice but to believe.” Ace chipped in. “I mean… these creatures know our weakness but we don’t know theirs.”
Riaz turned to me. “You should know their weakness, right? I mean…” He lowered his voice. “you have a part of them in you,”
Yeah, these two know about what I really am. Including my mother. The pack members don’t know. They just know I have more power than a regular werewolf and using this power, I protected them from predator packs. This made them not wary of my power but rather accept them. I don’t want to deceive them. I never wanted to deceive them. I planned to reveal what I truly was the moment I got here but mum stopped me.
“They would reject you,” she said, “show them they can trust you so when the time comes when you show them who you really are, they wouldn’t doubt your trust,”
And that is what I’m doing. I’ve shown them in many ways. I reconstructed the pack. Made it grow stronger. Protected the pack from outside forces. They grew to love and cherish me. I planned to tell them the moment I get mated to Alexa but then, these happenings chose this moment to surface.
Ace was the first to know about my true identity. It was the second year after reaching here. We were hunting for animals when a snake bit my arm. He saw the color of my blood. I was scared. Expecting a cry of terror, but instead, his face lit up in amusement. “Wow, your blood is so cool! It’s blue! Does it taste like blueberries?” Then he proceeds to try to have a taste.
Thank goodness I shifted my arm away in time. Ace might seem like a cool guy now but he was really dumb and weird in his teenage years.
“Come on, Riaz, don’t say that.” Ace cautioned.
“Ah, sorry,” Riaz apologized, bowing his head briskly. I chuckled at his cuteness. Riaz has always been an adorable cute ball. His ruffled white hair and ocean-blue eyes added to his cuteness. Resisting his cuteness takes a lot, which Ace doesn’t have.
We found Riaz in the woods. Ace and I were out hunting as usual when we heard a little boy’s cry. Curiously, we followed the sound and found a boy with chubby cheeks trapped in an antelope trap. His face was stained with tears and his hair stuck to his wet face. He was such a little boy.
He was just eleven years old when we found him. He was the cutest cubby lad I’ve ever seen. When we found out he was an orphan, I decided to take him to mum. She agreed to let him stay. So from then on, he began to live with us. He grew up so fast. He lost weight and became an adult. For some reason, he cut his originally long hair. When I asked him why he did, he only grinned sheepishly. He might seem like a baby but he’s more mature than Ace himself.
“Do you really not know anything?” He asked me again. Shaking my head, I replied, “as you said, I’m only part. And my weakness is of a werewolf. I can walk out in the sun but like a werewolf, I can be consumed by fire. The only things I took from my vampire side are the powers.”
“Gosh, if only those guys didn’t find a way to walk freely in daylight,” Ace said angrily.
Some tears back, news about a vampire burning to ashes in broad daylight spread like wildfire. We all thought, ‘finally! Something to keep them away during the day,’ but it wasn’t long before they began to walk around in daylight. No one knows how they are doing it.
“Why do they have to kill humans? Can’t they drink pig’s blood or something?” Riaz wondered.
They can.
But when the blood lust drives them crazy, they might run mad and kill anything they lay their hands upon.
I don’t know about other vampires but a blood lust session for me feels like a thousand needles on fire poking my skin. I could die if I don’t find a solution on time.
I never embraced my vampire side growing up. I would always run into the woods and bury myself in a hole where I wouldn’t run into any humans because I didn’t want to drink from them. It was hell! But I endured it.
Because of this, I was growing weaker. Until one day… when I ran into a peculiar human. She quenched my thirst.
“I’m back, alpha.” Xena’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts.
“Maribus was on the way to deliver bread to Yellowstone Pack. Unfortunately for him, he ran into the killer. Looking at the tracks, the killer seemed to be old.” She explained as she came to stand beside me.
“How old?”
“Two hundred?”
Riaz gasped. “That old?” He nodded in realization. “I forgot they live very old and most of them don’t die,”
“What are we going to do? What if they invade the pack? Who knows if they are even here already.” He panicked.
Shaking my head, I replied. “A vampire’s smell is strong. I’m able to smell them even from a mile away.”
“Ace, take the warriors and have them guard the West and East wings of the pack. The vampires are fond of coming in through the raven forest to the lower lands so make sure you station your men there day and night. If they catch a whim of them, report to me immediately,”
“Yes, alpha,”
“Riaz, this is where I’ll need your invisibility,”
His eyes widened. “Don’t tell me…”
“Yes, we are sneaking into Raven Pack tonight,”