She was right though. I wasn’t very sharp.
“That’s enough out of you, Daisy,” Sam said from beside me.
I turned to look at him and smiled, leaning over to bump him with my shoulder. He always stood up for me.
“Stop defending him, Sam,” Daisy said. “We all see how you sniff around his tail all the time.” The others began to laugh at her vitriol but everyone stopped when Floyd bellowed.
“Shut up! Every eye up here, wolves!”
I turned to look at our tall alpha who was silhouetted by the fire that crackled behind him, shooting sparks high into the air. The wide clearing on pack lands was the only place we felt safe to gather. At one time, our pack had been large, occupying not only Frederick but also Prosper Woods. These days, we lived in only Frederick, having severely reduced numbers.
Tales passed down from sire to pup told of a time almost a hundred years ago when our pack had been attacked by hoards of vampires who killed off most of the men and drove away the rest, leaving our females and pups to starve. Little by little the few families left had moved out of Prosper Woods to Frederick which was smaller and more secluded in the backcountry. As wolves with other packs passed through town, they were offered land or businesses and encouraged to stay and breed. They’d eventually mated and started families of their own but our pack was nowhere near the size it had once had been when the Frederick pack had numbered in the hundreds.
“We need to kill this vampire before he kills us!” Floyd shouted. “Do you understand the danger he is to us? Do any of you understand?”
“He’s only one vampire, Alpha,” I said, speaking up. When all the wolves turned toward me and snarled in my direction, I shrank back on my bench.
“One vampire will bring more vampires,” old Clancy said. “You may not know it, Greg, but my grandfather and grandmother were slaughtered by only one vampire. No! Floyd’s right. We need to kill him before he kills us.”
A twig snapped in the tree line behind us. I raised my nose to the air and took a long sniff. I was surprised when the scent of a human male, sweaty, filled with fear and alcohol, hit my nostrils. Almost immediately, I felt Sam stiffen beside me.
“Human,” he said, under his breath as the rest of the pack began to stand up.
“Alpha?” Renaldo asked.
I turned to glance at the large wolf who was Floyd’s second. He was a massive Hispanic man with tattoos all over his body. I’d never liked him or the way he drove his Harley Davidson down the road at a hundred miles per hour, weaving in and out of lanes and scaring human families on vacation in their RVs just for the laughs it gave him and the two other wolves who were his best friends, Rudy and Mike. Every time they came into the saloon, it drove tourists out because the three of them were a scary-looking bunch. They always ordered drinks and demanded that they be free, telling me that Floyd had no problem with it because they were the enforcers of our pack.
The truth was Renaldo and his friends were nothing more than vicious thugs.
“Take care of it, Renaldo,” Floyd said, nodding to the woods. “And leave a message for the vampire while you’re at it.”
I knew what that meant and I hated the very thought of it. One inebriated human was no match for three wolves. Not only that, killing anyone was a dangerous business. Surely there could have been another way to handle the man’s trespass. Floyd could have talked to the man to see what he’d heard. Maybe he was so drunk he wouldn’t remember anything about stumbling onto the bonfire the next morning. Drunks did have blackouts. Working in the saloon—I saw it all the time. If the man could be reasoned with… but I was only a beta and a downright stupid one at that. I had no say in these things. Nor should I.
Seconds later, I watched Renaldo and his two friends strip and go through their change as they dropped onto all fours and fur sprouted from their skin, viscous claws from their fingers. In less than a minute all three were wolves. Their eyes glowed bright yellow and in moments they’d run out of the clearing heading for the trees. The pack was silent, listening to the crackle of the fire. I felt Sam practically vibrating beside me and when he leaned over to put his arm around my shoulders, I was comforted. I looked up into the sky, awash with stars, breathtaking in shades of blue and purple as I listened to the heartbeats of my pack. After two minutes, I heard a bloodcurdling scream from the trees. My heart did a flip-flop and Sam tightened his grip around my shoulders. I felt a single tear trail down my cheek before I brushed it away, disgusted—for the first time in my life—to be a wolf.
Romeo
I tried to brace myself for what was coming but when Vincent’s fangs sank into my neck, all I could do was gasp. Pain roared through my veins for a few seconds and I felt like I was going to black out. I struggled to get free before realizing that I was caught in the vampire’s viselike grip. For several seconds I was certain that what I was feeling was the beginning of the end of my life. When the pain suddenly began to ebb,
