The Pack Survives

Small province on the border of New Jersey. What will become Tinicum Township, Pennsylvania.  1502 AD. *     "Thomas! Wake up! The barriers have been broken through! We are being attacked!" Amelia screamed at her mate and her husband. She is the High Priestess of the Witches.      Thomas jumped out of bed, shifting immediately. With his wolf, Lucas, taking over he reached down to his pup, Celeste. He has a brief second to lick her face, that beautiful face. She was his pride and joy. One of the last of the pure blood lines of the Wolf and Witch clans. They have been hunted down to just a few. He stole one last glance at his wife, and he ran through the door of their cabin.      The pack is being attacked. They are being over taken, he can hear his pack, wolves and witches, dying through the mind link. Brothers and sisters falling. He jumps into the fray, ripping and shredding apart his enemies one- sometimes two at a time. He is doing all he can but they came prepared with silver and Warlocks. Their black magic consuming the village. Mind linking his mate Amelia, he tells her to run with Celeste and get as far away as possible. There is no time left. Their home is the last in the village and the biggest. It will certainly be a target for them.     Amelia receives the mind link. She barely has half a mind to register it before she hears the cabin next to hers being raided. It is the Beta house. It sounds like humans but they are armed with magic. Warlocks have been using humans as shields to destroy covens and packs alike, this one being the stronghold on the East Coast, they knew they'd be a target.      She escapes down the side of the mountain, little Celeste beginning to wake. She cradles her tightly and continues down, slipping on roots and loose dirt. The smell of torn earth beginning to surround her. The force of the magic being used in the fight behind her is too much, so much that she can see the sky being lit up by fire. She knows her home is being destroyed, her village, her people. They had built that from the ground up and bringing refuge to those seeking it. Their marriage had brought upon a union so strong. A wolf and a witch. Unheard of.      Her mate, the love of her life. Where was he?     That is when she felt it. Like a lightening bolt through the heart. Her step faltered. She regained balance and felt the strike again. She wasn't being attacked but she knew it was her mate. The mind like came through, "I love you, my dear Amelia. My Celeste. I will meet you with the Moon Goddess. You are the light of my life."     He was gone.      The breath was taken out of her lungs.      The fire in her heart burning. Tears brimming her eyes.      She looked down at her daughter, innocent and gentile. One blue and one green eye. A perfect blend of her witch and her father's wolf. She would shift when she became of age, and she could already cast plenty spells. The future they had envisioned for her was endless, possibilities unimaginable. She knew she had limited time with her mate being defeated. Bonded pairs and mates only last minutes after their other half passed on.      She saw a nearby home, one light on in the house. She ran to the front porch and whispered a spell over her daughter. The spell would hide her powers until she found her mate. Celeste would forget where she came from, who her parents were, until she was mated. It was all she could do to protect her. There was no one left in the coven or the pack and it was too late to port her to another Coven. She had to trust that this home, whatever human was inside, would care for her child.      "My dearest Celeste. I am so sorry. I love you." she said, her voice shaking as she choked back sobs. "I will see you with the Moon Goddess. You will be the strongest creature to walk this earth. Your destiny was set forth by the Moon Goddess herself, your powers are limitless. I love you."     With that, she knocked on the door, spared her daughter one last glance, and fled to the woods. With the mate bond broken, she had only minutes to spare. She made it only a few hundred yards when she heard the front door open.      "Hello? Hello?? Oh! Joseph, come quick! A child!!" the woman calling to someone in the house.      She fell to her knees, arms to the stars, and the Moon Goddess took her home to her mate.  * * *     It had been almost a decade from the night this sweet child arrived on her doorstep. Susan and Joseph had taken her in and cared for her. Never knowing where she came from, they did all they could to raise her, though the poverty they lived in was at times, daunting. They were very old when the child arrived. They knew her name was Celeste because of the embroidered blanket she arrived in. Tinicum was the surname of most of the locals, so they assumed it safe to allow that name to remain.      Celeste was a joy of a child, adventuring through the woods with Joseph, gardening with Susan. The dinners they shared as a family were always entertaining, describing the interesting things Celeste encountered that day or the pranks she played on the neighbors. She loved to walk down to the river and watch in awe as the raging water billowed past. She sometimes would take a swim when the current was weakened, always careful of the eddy's and rapids. Joseph and Susan looked on. Always concerned as they aged. They had no family and hoped they would live long enough for Celeste to be an adult, to be able to care for herself.      As the years went by, they noticed the child speaking to herself. They asked her about it and she said she heard a voice in her mind. They tried to ignore it but they could not provide the help she required, if she was truly ill of the mind. They reached out to healers in the town, doctors, no one knew how to help.      The local hospital agreed to see to her health temporarily, to see if there was truly an illness. Susan and Joseph thought they were doing what was best for her, but unbeknownst to the couple, the hospital was run by a monster. He abused the patients, neglecting them all to filth. Once she was admitted, Susan and Joseph never returned. They had succumbed to old age, and Celeste was orphaned for the second time in her life.      She endured abuse at the hands of the head doctor until finally she was put in a catatonic state. No one knew that the voice inside of her head was her wolf, breaking free from the spell, trying to save her. * * *     Edmond Benevenetti and his wife Isabella are 2 vampires living in the Labertville Coven. They do not have children of their own, though they desperately wish they could. They are hunting when they stumble upon a building. It is worn down, desolate, but occupied. They are drawn to the building by an aura. It is almost screaming to them. Telling them to come in.      "My love, what is that? What is in there?" Isabella asks her husband warily. He looks around the property, observing no security. No horses. Nothing. He just hears moans from inside the building. He can sense a lot of lost souls inside. He is on high alert.      "I don't know dear, lets go in." he responds.             They enter the building, hearing the wails of the sick patients. The aura is getting stronger, leading them closer. They come up to a door with a name on the wall. "CELESTE TINICUM". They peek in and see a young girl no older than 17. She is strapped to the bed, dirty and covered in filth.      "Celeste? Tinicum? As in the Tinicum Coven? I thought there were no survivors! Could that be her? Edmond, we have to get her!" she begs.     "I don't know, dear. What if it's not her!" he questions her. He knows in his heart, it has to be her, but why is she in here? He shakes off his concerns and enters the room. He reaches the side of her bed and with the swipe of his nails, frees her from her straps.      They ran all the way back to the coven, Edmond cradling the poor child. The other vampires in the home greet them when they arrive and see the girl. The women assist Isabell in bathing and dressing her. Isabell, or Isa as Edmond lovingly calls her, just knows this girl will be her daughter. She looks to Edmond, "I am going to change her. She will be our daughter."     "I know dear. Come, let us take her to our room. We will do it there." He takes her hand gently in his, bringing it to his lips and laying a sweet kiss on the top. He would do anything for this woman, but he can't help but be scared about what could come of turning a possible survivor of the Tinicum Coven m******e.     That night, unbeknownst to all who were present, the first witch/wolf hybrid was successfully turned into a vampire. Her witch and wolf powers would not see the light of day until she found her mate. Until then, she will remain Celeste Benevenetti.