"Oh, really?"
The voice didn't come from the entrance, but as if seeping through the rusty cracks in the walls. Dominic spun around, his shoulders tensing like a barricade, but all I saw was a sickly neon blue glow gliding through the darkness.
"What a sweet story of friendship." the voice said. Smooth, sarcastic, and every word as sharp as a scalpel. "I almost cried. But you know, darling, a vampire's tears are like dried-up riverbeds. There is only dust and death inside."
Rita emerged from the heart of the darkness. Her short-cropped, electric blue hair glowed like a flare in the moonlight. Her flawless leather jacket was spotless, in stark contrast to the mud and blood covering my friends. Her pupils had dilated with the excitement of a predator watching its prey's final struggle.
"Rita!" Chloe screamed.
Her voice shook with a fear deeper than the pain of her flayed hands. She hid behind me, her teeth chattering. "It's her... The heartless b*tch who pulls out nails!"
Rita approached another step, twirling a silver-handled knife between her fingers with hypnotic speed. "You didn't really think they escaped on their own, did you, darling?" she said with a cruel, blood-red smile.
"Oh Vespera... How naive they are. They were such perfect bait to pull you from that wolf's safe embrace, from that warm but coarse bed! Why do you think we kept them alive in those dungeons?"
Rita pointed the tip of the knife at Dominic. "We let those fools go on purpose. Because breaking into a wolf's fortress is hard; dealing with stone walls and savage claws is boring. But watching a prey run into the woods, following its own friends... now that is real entertainment. Varg thought he was protecting you when he locked you in your room. But you, you came here to be dinner on your own two feet."
Rita spat on the ground and bit her lip aggressively. Her gaze swept over my mud-covered silhouette with pure disgust. "You're as stupid as a wolf, Vespera. Even more helpless than they are."
The fear within me, combined with that foreign power in my veins, caused my eyes to glow once more. But this time, the glow was weak, trembling. "Leave them!" I moaned. "Do whatever you want with me, but don't touch them. They're just humans!"
"I don't have a problem with you, darling," Rita said, tossing her blue hair. "I just want to take back the most precious toy in Varg's hand. And to soothe my Lady's endless grief. Oh, and now... it's time to polish the silver under that mud. But first, let's make this scene a bit more dramatic."
Within seconds, the damp darkness of the mine was filled with the sterile and lethal coldness of the vampires. The other shadows gliding behind Rita tossed Dominic and the girls aside like paper dolls.
Dominic tried to be a shield, but he was no match for a vampire's speed. Punches that would crack bones flew through the air. The shadows threw Chloe and Melanie onto old, rusty ore carts. When Melanie's nail-less hands hit the rusty metal, her shrill scream brought dust down from the ceiling. The fresh blood seeping from their foreheads mixed with the mud on their faces, making them unrecognizable.
"How tragic that they are so pathetic and stupid," Rita said with malice, stepping on the ribs of the slumped Dominic with the tip of her boot. "We shrouded heroes ten times stronger than you in a single night! And do you know what's worse? We turned them and made them kill their own friends. Tell me, Vespera, which one should we have killed first? Should Chloe tear Melanie apart? Or should both of them throttle Dominic at the same time? For whom shall we spend your last breath?"
I fell to my knees amidst the agonized screams of my friends. The unknown hybrid power within me tried to awaken once more in the face of this horror. But this time, the awakening wasn't a grand explosion; it was like a flickering candle flame. The milky-white-blue light emanating from my skin had given way to an uncanny, purple-blue shiver.
I looked at my hands and saw that this weak glow flickering from my fingertips was useless. I couldn't form a shield, nor could I stop Rita's mocking laughter. I was just trembling, like a porcelain doll about to break in the middle of a storm.
Rita bit her lip as she looked at this meager light; there was pure, unadulterated disgust in her eyes. "I can't believe they deemed this stupid girl worthy of the Prince..." she said, her voice echoing off the rusty walls. "Is this dim glow all that your so-called sacred blood amounts to? You're truly a disappointment. Not a wolf, not a vampire. You're just too stupid even to be a freak."
I struggled to breathe, looking at Rita through the mud, sweat, and the smell of my friends' blood. Rita took another step, a sadistic glint appearing in her eyes as she pulled back her silver-handled knife.
"I'll tell the Lady that the wolves beat her. It's obvious what state you've fallen into in the hands of that coarse Alpha... If I rough you up a bit, the Lady and the Prince won't be angry with me. They might even thank me," she said, raising her hand swiftly.
She swung an insulting, heavy slap at my face, intended to sting both my pride and my flesh.
But the expected sound of the slap was never heard.
The only thing heard was a bone-chilling roar, powerful enough to shift the very boulders at the mine entrance and shake the tunnels. This wasn't the sound of an animal; it was the howl of Alberta itself in rage.
Before Rita's upraised left arm could touch my cheek, a massive, pitch-black shadow leaped from the darkness, tearing through the air. In that split second, a pair of massive claws and teeth like steel caught Rita's arm.
With a single movement, he ripped Rita's arm off from the elbow, as easily as tearing a piece of paper.
As Rita's ear-piercing scream echoed through the mine, I was jolted by the warm, dark, and stale-smelling vampire blood splashing over me. The mud on my face was now soaked with the blood of my enemy.
The massive silhouette emerged from the darkness. His eyes burned like two embers in the heart of a storm. His breath formed huge clouds of steam in the freezing air. As the blood dripping from his claws stained the snow, every vampire in the mine froze.
Varg was there.
And this time, he stood before us not just as a husband or an Alpha, but as a catastrophe come to reclaim what was stolen from his hearth.