He was smiling and the smile was reflected in his eyes. It was when he looked like this, truly happy that she was reminded what she had seen in him and why she had chosen to be turned to this life of undeath. Constantly feeding, constantly needing, but with Kenneth, when he was happy, with that look in his eyes, made it so much easier to live. When she was with him, and he was like this, her new life was a blessing, not the curse that some people had condemned.
She stepped up to him and let him hold her close. His strong arms enveloped her and she was content to just watch the bright orange glow to the north. Being with him was wonderful. She hoped that she could make him this happy again and many more times in the future.
“My mate?” Kenneth asked softly
She turned her head upwards to meet his eyes. “Yes, Kenneth?” she replied.
“I wish I didn’t have to do this.” He moved her away from him a few inches so she could look at him face to face. “But, you let yourself be Dominated by someone besides me.”
He didn’t look angry or sad. His eyes held no emotion at all. His cool hands gripped her neck. She felt a crushing sensation against her throat and she tried to pry his hands away from her. His hands were vices and she couldn’t pull them away. She opened her eyes wide with fear, silently pleading for him to stop.
“I can’t have any loose ends or potential threats in my own House,” he said flatly. He twisted, a loud cracking pop was heard, and he dropped her lifeless body to the ground.
“Goodnight, my mate.” He hung his head for a moment or two then stepped away from the corpse.
“What do you want?” a voice asked from behind him.
Kenneth turned with a smile on his face. “Alexander! So good of you to have survived all this! I was hoping that you would have.” He started walking toward the larger vampire. “Too bad I haven’t seen too many other vampires from House Brandt. Have you?”
“We were mostly wiped out, thanks to you!” Alexander was flushed and his hands tightened into fists. “You knew! Somehow you had to have known that the werewolves would send the bulk of their people up north to kill us.” Alexander closed the distance between the two of them. “Give me one good reason why…”
A loud gunshot rang out in the street.
Alexander looked down at his gut. There was a large wound there and blood was pouring out of it. “Wha?...why?...” Alexander slipped to his knees in the street.
Kenneth walked up to him and yanked his head back by his black hair. “For the same reason I just killed my mate. I can’t have any loose ends. Ansuya got to you, didn’t she?”
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Alexander couldn’t speak. He was gasping in a reflexive manner, as if his mind knew he was dying and was trying to fight the inevitable by making his dead lungs inhale useless air.
Kenneth scoffed, “Pathetic.” He fired another round into the vampire’s forehead at point blank range. The Brandtian vampire’s head almost exploded.
Kenneth threw the practically headless corpse down on the ground.
“Are you going to stay up there forever, Brian?” Kenneth asked not looking up.
The younger light brown haired vampire jumped down off the roof and did a few flips before landing softly on the street. “That was pretty brutal, even for you.”
“I can’t afford loose ends Brian. This was only the first part. Have you forgotten?”
Brian shook his head, “No, I haven’t. You want me to grab my team now? There may still be dogs out there to kill.”
“Yes, there probably are and I intend on killing every last one of them.” He turned to meet the younger vampire’s eyes. “I will kill them all, but you have another task. Get your team and start moving. You know what you have to do.”
Brian smiled, “Sure thing, Boss. Good thing we prepped before we left. This is gonna be fun.”
“Just do it,” Kenneth said darkly.
Brian gave him a limp wristed salute. Then he disappeared as he jumped back to the rooftop level.
Kenneth stared down the street. The dogs had been falling back northward. Did that mean anything specific? The dogs couldn’t outrun them. If there was anyone else left in the city he would find them. But until then, they would burn and destroy this place building by building if he had to. This city and the werewolves living in it were well and truly dead. He was a man of his word, and he had werewolves to kill.
* * * * *
They ran quickly down the gentle slope of Mount Shasta. The shadows of the trees reaching up the slope were long as the late afternoon sun dipped lower on the horizon. Keva was moving with her pack, keeping the rescued wolves and their pups in front of them.
They had been taught, a long time ago, that the fall back point from the city was on the north side of the mountain. They had found the exit and were moving the wolves to safety.
She tried not to think about what was still happening in the city behind them. She still felt snubbed being sent to be a babysitter and escort when there was still fighting to be done, but this was her task and she would do it to the best of ability, every life from the Mountain was precious.
The sun in the sky made her nervous too. She could smell it in her pack mates as well. Bad enough that they were in werewolf form outside of the city in the daylight, but the thought that the sun would retire soon as well, gave a new level of danger to what had just happened.
What had just happened? She thought it was a normal day. Her pack had increased their training, preparing for another raid into the Whyte Plain. She had just finished breakfast and they were on their way to one of the training dojos. Then that flare shot up into the sky and their world had been put on its head.
They reached the relative safety of the tree line. The wolves kept running north. They seemed to know where to go. Keva and her pack had done their job well. The wolves at least would be safe.
The Alpha Enforcer led them deeper through the trees, around to a small clearing deep inside a dense piece of the forest. Keva could barely make out the volcano to the south of them through the branches. She leaned up against a nearby tree and let her eyes close for a moment.
“Would someone mind telling me what the hell that was all about?” Javier blurted out.
Keva opened her eyes and pushed herself away from the tree she was leaning up against. She looked over at her pack Enforcer.
“Javier, you know what that was all about. So, please sit down, we’ll figure this out. The Elders have to have a plan, don’t they, Keva?” Michelle asked.