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“Thank you.” I wanted to kiss her forehead, to wish her good luck, but I could practically hear her in my head retorting that luck wasn’t exactly her thing. I also knew she didn’t really want us to be lovey-dovey in front of the others, even if they were all keenly aware of what was going on, and I respected that.
One day, though, I hoped we could be openly affectionate with each other, all gentle touches and appropriate PDA. It wasn’t like I wanted to mount her in public, but I wanted to be able to hold her hand, tell her how amazing she was, kiss her cheek when she was being especially beguiling.
In time, in time. For the moment, we had a born vampire to wrangle.
Sneaking into the camp was far easier than it should’ve been, and that alone had my hackles raised. Darla was powerful, and Ayla was also helping, yet we should’ve had more trouble sneaking past the large, wooden walls surrounding the camp. The guards were all either hypnotized into dutifully shining their equipment, or dozing happily on the ground, making the path quite clear to us.
Too easy. Too easy. Too easy.
My wolf chanted it within, keeping me on my toes. My instincts turned out to be correct, too, because just as we slipped behind what looked like a warehouse, there was chaos.
Shifters seemed to drop from the sky itself, landing around us, already prepared to attack. They weren’t alone, either. Fae zipped out of the top of the warehouse, where there had to be hatches, or they’d cut an impromptu skylight. We were completely and totally surrounded, our backs to each other as we were suddenly faced with an ambush of at least twenty, maybe thirty other cryptids.
“Fuck.”
Suddenly, they swarmed forward, and everything happened at once. Mad Dog, Tristan, and I all burst into our wolf forms, rapidly shifting so quickly that we were bound to be in pain later.
Though my first instinct was to lunge forward, I’d be snatched up and hauled away from the group before I could blink. It was a standard ambush tactic, one meant to break up our group when that was our biggest strength, with three of us wolves and one vampire forming a protective and rather toothy barrier around Darla and Ayla.
I could feel the magic and psychic ability swirling around us, covering the gaps that our physical attacks and defense missed. I wasn’t quite sure exactly what spells were being used, but it didn’t matter. The only thing I needed to worry about was fending off whatever attacks I needed to.
There was a reason for the incredibly old adage about cornered animals being the most dangerous, and that went triple for cornered shifters. These were impossible odds, but my drive to defeat my enemies and defend my pack, defend mymate,fueled me more than any fear could slow me down.
I tore out throats. I slashed and kicked my legs. I slid out of my full wolf form into my hulking, in-between state where I was bipedal with thumbs and had claws longer than any fingers. I knew that was going to wreak havoc with me, and I'd rapidly burn through my energy, but I didn’t have much of a choice. Wehadto survive. Ayla couldn’t get hurt.
We held up surprisingly well, but it only took one slip up. One moment Tristian was in the corner by me, fending off another shifter, the next a couple of vampires were descending upon him, yanking him out of the protection of our cluster. I tried to grab at him, but they were just so fast, dragging him rapidly away and into the warehouse.
He was screaming and snarling, fighting as hard as he could, and I wanted nothing more than to chase after him. I couldn’t. Doing so would doom anyone I was standing with.
I could only watch and keep fighting as Irina, Mad Dog, and I shrank our circle down. Tristan was dragged into the warehouse, the doors slamming closed behind him, his screams cutting off just as abruptly.
Gods damn it.
It wasn’t much later that a scream sounded from Irina behind me. This time I couldn’t even turn, my jaws snapping at a human-looking enemy armed with a shining spear that I didn’t have to guess was tipped in something poisonous.
We were losing ground, and fast. It wouldn’t be long before we were overrun completely, and even with those we were taking down, there were just too many of the enemy.
We have to retreat!
But the vampire—
It won’t matter if we’re dead! Retreat!
It wasn’t that easy, of course. We still had to fight our way through until we could use the side of the warehouse to protect ourselves and then, finally, make a break for the tree line.
That wouldn’t normally work when running from a group of enemy cryptids, but between Darla’s psychic confusion and Ayla’s no doubt multiple glamours, misdirection, and other useful spells, we managed to get to a small creek and throw ourselves into it, swimming as fast as we could downstream. Itwouldn’t take us toward our land, but it would cover our scent and get us farther than we could travel by foot.
Between our own speed and the current, we made it at least several miles down, but there was no rest as we pulled ourselves onto the bank. We hadn’t put nearly enough distance between us and our attackers.
So we ran. We ran far longer than we probably should’ve had the energy for, eventually collapsing in a cave that we had to chase a bear out of. She wasn’t happy about it, but thankfully she’d recognized that even when exhausted, our lot was more of a danger to her than the shelter was worth. Besides, we'd only stay there a few hours, then she could come take the space back and mark it up to her heart’s content.
“Dammit!” Ayla cried as she lay on the floor, her voice laced with just as much fury as there was sorrow. “This is my fault. It’sallmy fault.”
As bone-weary as I was, I couldn’t just lay there and let my mate be in pain. Pulling her to me, I tried my best to comfort her, though I was grateful for the privacy from Darla and Mad Dog. It wasn’t like they could find another cave, but they did turn the other way toward the entrance. My people were good people, that was for sure.
“Hey, hey, Ayla. It’s gonna be okay.”
“How can you say that? They’re dead because of my curse! Irina and Tristian would still be alive if it weren’t for me!”
