We walked out the small house situated a good distance from the river. The crimson colored sky accentuated the setting sun as it slowly lowered into the horizon. It took a good twenty minute drive to get back into the small town. I didn’t expect Shelby’s house to be so far away from civilization. Maybe it was because she likes to live by herself or she just hate contact with others, but her land wasn’t any swamp or some kind of scary looking house that Disney’s tend to draw up the stereotypical witches.

Instead her house were quite homey like every normal American citizen minus the crazy cellar of herbs and bones. Other than that, she had a perfect cover up of a lady with a metaphysical shop out in the middle of nowhere. I guess that was the strange part, I can’t tell her what she can and cannot do with her shop/house anyways.

We all got into a minivan, squishing in all eight of us in: one vampire, one dragon, and the rest werewolves. It was quite a mix match of magical creatures in one car. The worst part of the trip was that Adam had turned on classical music. I had to tune out majority of the songs as much as I can. I have nothing against classical, it just way to boring for me. Three-fourth of the people in the car was already knocked out, snoring from the music. The only one awake was Ken that was driving, Adam who was tapping his fingers on the armrest, and me. Ken seem to struggle with wanting to change the radio, but somehow almost all the channels were classical and country. Don’t ask how, it just was.

I couldn’t help but stare out the window with a lot more interest than before, something about this small town was very special. The sun was setting, casting a magical glow around the whole town. I didn’t know what it was but there were an ancient energy that made my both Seline and I antsy. Something about the town that we were heading to called out to us to be wary.

Seline. I called out to her. It was now or never, I needed a bit of answer about this land and maybe she knew something about it.

She stirred, turning her attention towards me. I could tell that she was still upset about the whole life threatening fight that we had by the tone of voice that she gave me. What?

Do you know anything about this land? It feels weird.

Why do you care? I thought you want me dead.

I went silent as guilt riddled my conscious.

I…..i’m sorry. It was so much difficult to say those words. I didn’t know how difficult to say those two syllables word, but it did made everything that was stopped up in my heart flood out in waves, hitting her in full blast. My emotions were raw and primal. It was in shame and fear that really got the ahold of me that I couldn’t speak to her properly. I was going to talk to her later, but it was impossible.

Seline was shocked at the emotions that came through her as she synched with me. Her thoughts and my thoughts were connected for that brief moment. I understood her emotions just as I understood mine. We were both scared and feared each other. It didn’t hit me until now on how fragile we both were, we were an exact mirror of each other, but we were different.

It seems you have just the same fear as me. Seline chuckled. The usual attitude of Seline that I knew came back that I actually missed. I didn’t realize until now that Seline was just as big as part of me as her to myself.

Yea. I felt a bit embarrassed. I’m sorry that I lock you away. I was….sacred.

You and me both. I did the same to you, but you could call it force sleep instead.

I noticed. I felt angry she did that, but understood I did the same by not letting her come out. We need to make a compromise.

Yes, we do.

I can’t let you go all goo goo eyed on Ken. You know just as well as I that I don’t love him like you.

I know.

Especially this whole force mate bond thing. I noticed that I don’t have a draw to him like you do.

You should allow it to happen.

No. If I have to fall in love, it won’t be by mate bond, but by my own accords.

Love isn’t something that you can control.

I know, but I don’t want to be feeling your mate bond crap when I’m dealing with Ken. For all I know, I could possibly fall in love with someone else entirely. So cut me a break and quit linking with me whenever you see Ken. It’s distracting. Plus we have more important duty than finding love right now, our world will go into a full out war.

Seline was silent. She knew what I meant. I know, but love comes in the most unexpected times.

I sighed. Fine how about this. I’ll give Ken a chance. Get to know him a bit more, have a couple of dates. At the same time, I’ll be looking around and date or maybe get to know another person too, just to see what the difference is. You just can’t use that mate bond crap on me to influence me or pray to god I’ll lock you away forever.

Seline grunted in disapproval in what I had just said. Fine. I won’t link up to you, but you have to let me go on a couple dates with Ken.

The thought of going out on a date with Ken made me cringe. I just didn’t understand how she could just up and forgive him so easily just because he accepted her back.The whole mate pull was seriously degrading in my opinion, but what can I say when two soul mates are attracted to each other. It wasn’t easily stopped, especially if the world was going to go against me. I had to pull all the stops if I wanted to survive.

Fine. We’ll talk about when, but you can’t freakin put me to sleep.

Then you can’t shove me in a bubble.

I was protecting you.

Not the last couple weeks. She huffed.

Okay then fine. I won’t shove you in a bubble.

Deal, though I’m still angry at you for trying to kill me.

Touche.

With that solve, who exactly were you going to talk to compare the mate bond and regular love? You know just as well as I that the mate bond will prevail.

Her words struck me. Who was I going to talk to? There really wasn’t anyone that caught my interest in the past six years and so far the new people that came on board didn’t even make my heart throb nor did I find any interest in them. I honestly didn’t have anything to go off on.

Suddenly Adam’s memorable cologne swept through the air from the wind that blew through the window. I couldn’t help but jerk my head towards him unconsciously.

You’re not thinking about Adam are you?

Her words slapped me across the face, making me completely red. I had to literally stare out the window intensely so no one would see me red. Even though majority of the people were sleeping it didn’t mean that they wouldn’t wake up soon and possibly see my red face.

W-w-what are you talking about? Hell no.

Uh huh. Sure~ From the way she spoke, I could see her rolling her eyes at me as if I was some kind of idiot.

I told you I’ll think about it.

Quit your denying and instead choose Ken. He’s the right one for us.

You can’t just make the decision for me.

I’m not making any decision at all. Instead I’m telling you the best coarse of action towards our love life.

Best coarse of action to your love life. I grumbled.

Let’s just put this on hold for now and focus on what we need to do now. When we have time or when this is all over we’ll try, okay?

Sure, but you better keep to your word.

I will. I then imagine the bubble around her unfurl, letting her be able to hear a bit more of my thoughts, but I still kept the deeper thoughts to myself. Suddenly I felt a harsh jerk of the car, causing me to tumble towards the right. My face smacked hard on the window, my vision turned white and my head throb in pain.

Samantha and Jaz was literally flung towards me, but was stopped by their belt. Everyone woke up in a start at the sudden sharp jolt with the added bonus of pain that riddled their body.

High screeching like sound could be heard as the van skidded to the side. A sudden thump and a large dent was created overhead. I snapped upwards to see what was going on, a very bad gut wrenching promotion twisted in my stomach. Something was wrong, and I knew we were in trouble.

“Hold on tight!” Ken shouted at everyone, he was countersteering to get the van under control.

“Bloody hell, keep your eyes on the road! You almost hit the side of the rail!” Adam shouted, holding on for his dear life.

“Shut it vamp. I’m doing the best as I could do!” Ken snarled. He yank the car again, swiveling out of oncoming traffic. “Quit being a damn backseat driver!”

“Mutt I have every right to when my life is in jeopardy.” Adam angrily shot back, all of a sudden the window smashed to smithereens and a hairy wolf arm snatched his claws towards Adam’s neck. “Werewolves!” His nail started to grow long and black with a swift horizontal cut, he completely chopped off the werewolves hand.

Adam reached over and grabbed the bloody hand, he pulled down at the stump, causing the Werewolf to fall off the van with a yelp. A high pitch screech could be heard, followed by a crash.

I looked over towards the back and saw the werewolf get run over by a car, and even dragged a couple feet before it stopped.

“Not just any kind!” Ted was fully awake. A snarl erupted out his throat. “It’s a damn Roguet that’s been turned!”

A flash of bright light slammed into the back of the van, causing the van to spin out of control. We tumbled, flipped, and even rolled a couple of times. My senses were haywired and pain shot through me till finally we stopped.

High pitch ringing like sound erupted in my ears, blood dripped down my face as what I saw was chaos before me. Pieces of glass remains shattered all around us, I struggled out of the van with effort ounce of muscle that I got. I could tell I broke a couple of ribs from that rough tumble that we just went through.

A sharp gasp erupted my lips as pain shot through my chest. Large cuts and scraps could be seen riddle all over my body, making me look like shredded paper. Luckily the others weren’t badly injured. Honestly it was a miracle no one died, but I guessed it was because of our body constitution on what we are that we weren’t so bad. Small cuts were already quickly healing on my body, lessening the pain.

The others started to stumble out of the van. Ted was dangling to the side, till I heard him shout in pain as he popped his shoulder back in place. Jaz, Rose, and Ray were more bruised and riddled with cuts. Ken had a bleeding wound on his head as he stumbled out, while Adam didn’t seem hurt, but I could tell that he had a strange gait when he walked.

Samantha was the only one out of the whole group that didn’t seem injured, scratch, or have anything bleeding out of her. All I could think of was that she must have a sturdier body than anyone of us to go unscathed.

Not to far away from us, I saw the car that reared us from the back. Stepping out of the car was two ugly looking bipedal werewolves straight out of the horror movies come at us with deranged look on their face.

We were smack in the middle of an intersection with the lights green. So far, an unearthly quietness shot through the whole place. Not a single car passed by nor anyone stepped out of their houses. Cookie cutter houses lined up on all sides of the street, but not a single stir could be seen. It was as if the whole town was enchanted, giving it a desolate ghost town feel and we were the only ones there.

“We got company!” I yelled followed by a short gasp of air. The pain from that yell made my side hurt really badly.

The others shot there head towards the oncoming werewolves. Ted was the first one to shift into his wolf form. He was a gray colored wolf that was a lot larger than my wolf form when I changed. He bolted into a full out sprint as he tackled into the first.

Jaz and Ray both shifted, and ran to support Ted. They both mauled the second one to death. A sudden sharp howl rang out in the air, causing myself to feel goosebumps. From the howl I could tell that they were over twenty that answered back.

Ken cursed under his breath, he whizzed and shifted into his golden wolf form. One after the other, Rogue Werewolves shot out from all sides. Wolf against werewolves, it was a battle for survival.

Rose and Ray fought together after they took out the first one with Jaz. They tore through bodies as if it was some kind of wolf tug-of-war. For a pair, they were a perfect match for each other, there coordination was considered exceptional for someone who had met for a week. While Ted and Ken was literally single handedly taking five of them by themselves. For they were Alpha’s and this wasn’t to much of a problem.

On the other hand, this was my first time ever seeing Adam truly fight. His fingers were black dyed in the Rogues blood. Scarlet red eyes emotionlessly stared down at the Rogues who tried to attack him head on. Black hair was replaced by Silver hair that seem to glisten underneath the moonlight. Most of them were impaled through the heart, effortlessly as if he was strolling down the park. White fangs erupted out of his teeth as he hissed at the three that surrounded all around him.

With only a couple steps, he moved gracefully around them like water. His hand dug through each Rogue with one fluid motion, destroying their heart. Not even a single spec of blood could be seen on his suit except at the hem of his white shirt. For a vampire, he was immaculately clean when he fought. I could tell that he didn’t like to get blood on himself from the way he seem to scowl when his white shirt got dirty.

I on the other hand, dodged out of harm’s way from the sweeping claws that came to my side. Shifting was something that I didn’t want to do right now. The numerous pain that would cause from the bone cracking and rearranging from my side could cause me to black out. Right now, I needed to be awake instead of being unconscious.

A loud shrill of Samantha screaming could be heard from behind me. My body whipped towards her direction, I sprinted towards her in full speed. One of the Rogues picked her up and threw her on his shoulder like a sack of potato. Samantha thrashed around, trying to break free, but failed.

Willing up my Alpha’s power through my muscles and into my body, I charged forward. My hands shot forward as I punched the Rogue squarely in the face. With a lurch, the Rogue stumbled backward dazed. Quickly, I did a roundhouse kick, followed closely by a series of punches. Elbow strikes, fist punch, palm heel strike, and even jabbing my hand into his throat. Samantha slipped out of his grasp, giving me more space to hit him.

Every time I threw my punches, I could feel the sharp pain from my side. I ignored it with the best of my ability, and instead beated the Rogue down till he went unconscious. Not even a second later, another Rogue popped out from behind the house. He ran straight towards me with open claws and a snarling mouth.

“Samantha! Hide behind the car!” I yelled, while I tackled the Rogue head on. My teeth snapped forward, biting down upon the Rogue neck. A howl of pain could be heard from the Rogue, his claw dugged into my shoulder, causing me to cringe in pain. With a twist of my body, I yanked off a chunk of his neck, and my hand snaked across neck. With a harsh twist, his neck snapped, and he slumped dead.

“For crying out loud! Where are these Rogues coming from!?” I was breathing heavy, while pain on my side throbbed.

“Tila!” Adam hissed. He stopped a Rogue from gutting me from behind.

“Thanks.” I huffed. Strength wasn’t coming through my body as quickly as I wanted in human form than in wolf, especially because I was injured so my body sent out at least half of its power to healing my side in rapid pace, cutting down on the strength that I had.

“Anytime angel. Anytime.” He winked. “Though I thought you were stronger than this.”

“I have my moments.” I ducked at a swing from the Rogue.

Adam backhand the Rogue, causing it to stumble backwards in a daze. I just couldn’t help myself at being amazed on how easily Adam just tore through these Rogues without much effort. Compared to him, I was moving around a lot on my feet, dodging and ducking, while Adam on the other hand was taking causal steps to the side and barely missing out of harm’s way by hairbreath. The fight were quickly over and we all had some kind of moment to take a breather.

Just watching him fight made my heart flutter up to my throat unconsciously, giving me a couple of heart attacks here and there form the sudden thought that he would get impaled. But always at the last minute he would come out unscathed, and instead return the power back at the attacker in three folds.

Truly watching from an martial arts standpoint, he was considered an master from the way he moved and how effortlessly he fought back. It put shame to my fights. Still it did the job and I didn’t complain. Instead I look towards Adam with a newfound respect that I didn’t really have in the beginning.

Yes, I knew he was powerful, but I didn’t know he was skilled. I noticed majority of the vampires and werewolves that I had met only knew how to street brawl and using unnecessary power to deal with the whole situation. Nine of the ten time it would work against other fighters who didn’t know how to fight, but people like me, it was just a whole different level.

They were only three times, when I fought out of my six years as a werewolves where I had quite a difficult in winning the fight. They were all high level martial artist that knew how to fight without breaking too much a sweat. Two out of three in my bounty hunting career, I was able to bring him down without much effort, but the third one. It took Jaz, Ray, and I to take down that monster down.

It wasn’t easy. We had quite a lot of broken bones and badly bruised body after the capture. Though the pay was great when we brought him to our client. A million dollar bounty didn’t even cut it. It was about six and we were the only ones able to bring him in half beaten without anyone of us dying. Honestly it was truly a miracle that we survive that onslaught, while majority of the hunters who went after him died.

“What’s our status? Is everyone okay?” I leaned over, catching my breathe.

Samantha came out of her hiding space and walked over towards me to grasp onto my arm. I look over my shoulder, and gave her a partial smile.

“You alright?”

She nodded her head up and down. Her hand snaked over towards my finger, entwining it together.

“Just fucken fablous.” Grunted Ray, he was searching for some clothes in our smashed up car. A few jeans and shirts were brought out as the others walked up towards him to take their share for themselves. “I swear if another damn Rogue comes out. I’m going to bash it into the ground!”

Rose changed and came over to rest her hand on hss shoulder. “Calm down.” Her voice was soft, causing Ray to take in a deep breath and look towards her with a genuine smile.

“Thanks babe. I needed that.”

This whole mate business was truly extraordinary. I mean just a couple of words and Ray was back to his usual self. Just seeing this happen was kind of scary. She was like his tranquilizer without the actually tranquilizer itself. If I knew better, I felt myself look towards them with a slight jealously at the amount of love and care they were shooting at each other.

I wondered what it was like to feel such love, but I shook my head. To me a mate’s bond was forced and I didn’t like it at all.

“We need to move.” Adam voice cut in. Everyone was finally had some form of clothes on without being stark naked in the middle of the road. “There been an enchantment cast on this whole town. Getting to the ship is our priority now.”

“Which way though?” Ted asked.

“A couple miles walk down this road and we’ll make it to the ship. The moment we get on, this strange enchantment done on this area will wear off.”

“Wait, what kind of enchantment is it?” Ted curiously asked.

“Not the kind what you want sticking on you anytime soon. Its an area wide location spell for any rogue werewolves to come running towards us in a fifty mile radius. I haven’t seen one of these spells used in a century.”

Jaz gasped. “Is it the witch? Did she turn her back on you?”

Adam shook his head. “No. She doesn’t do these kind of magic. Its possibly another witch that casted this or maybe a warlock. I don’t know, but this isn’t going to go well for us anytime soon.”

“You think it’s the enemy?”

“I’m sure it’s the enemy. I saw them try to take Samantha from us while we battled.” I replied. I wasn’t liking where this was going and things were getting bad fast.

Adam scowled. “That’s even worse. We need to move out quickly. You all can run right?”

“We don’t have a choice do we?” Ted asked, crossing his hand in front of him.

“No. Either that or we get surrounded by more monstrous Rogues that chew on you like a bone.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go.” Ted ushered, hurrying the party to move.

We quickly followed Adam, who directed us through the winding streets and houses to the fastest way possible to the ship.

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