The Cursed Shifters - Mateless

She Will Come

Vareese kicked open the doors of his cabin, wood splintered, and the hinges broke in two, the doors crashed to the ground. “You!” He growled pointing at a male vampire that had jumped up off the couch at the sound of impact. “Fix that door before sunup or you’ll burn.” He stormed through the large cabin to his room. Anger was alive, he had lost the warehouse, he had lost his pet, and what he sought had been out of reach. Attacking the Dark Crescent pack would have to wait, the cabin was too far away to mount a proper attack from, it would take planning to keep his legions out of the sunlight during travel. “How to proceed?” He asked himself. That redheaded wolf is turning out to be more of a hassle than anything, I need to get her off the playing field, dead or bound to me it doesn’t matter but she can not continue to disrupt my plans or kill my people. A light hesitant knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. “Come in.” He growled at the interruption, a small woman with jet black hair and large green eyes stepped in. “What is it Porcha?” Porcha was his, he had made her, when he had seen the tiny woman starving on the streets of London, eyes full of defiance and ready to fight to her last breath he had decided she was worth saving. Vareese did not take their lives lightly, his bloodline was small and each vampire he had sired had inspired something when he saw them. Porcha was his favorite though and they all knew it. “Did they send you to try and calm me?”

                                “No sire, they did not send me at all.” She closed the door gently behind her and took a few more steps into the room. “I came on my own, you are out of sorts?”

                                “Angry Porcha, I am raging and ready to wipe the wolves from this earth, to bathe in rivers of their blood.”

                                “Tell me.” She said softly as she sat on the sofa before the fireplace. Porcha was unnaturally kind for a vampire, she never killed her prey, did not relish the feeling of their terror. Her meals tended to be small and taken willingly from men she seduced. Vareese had no idea why she was so different from the rest of them but where their hearts had frozen hers was still warm and caring. An anomaly he had once sought to unravel but there were no answers to be found, she had no family to question about her bloodline and no obvious indicators of it. Whatever made her different had to be in her blood or divine, but he had not found it. He gazed at her, calming the raging storm inside him.

                                “That redheaded wolf everyone whispers of, she is real.” Porcha gasped but said nothing. “She killed Claudette’s men then came for the warehouse.” She hung her head for Claudette. “The warehouse is gone, if anyone survived it they should arrive here in the next couple of days. I believe she killed Claudette in that warehouse, I had to leave Kira behind to escape. The wolf has cost me much and I must decide how to handle her.”

                                “Will she come for you?”

                                “That does seem to be her intention. They have probably figured out that I am systematically wiping out their species and wish to stop me.”

                                Porcha thought for a moment, “Will she find you here?”

                                “Perhaps, if she has Kira then most likely.”

                                “Then, wait for her here, prepare for her. How many men did she bring to the warehouse? How many should we prepare for?”

                                “Counting herself and the two I saw stationed outside, there were only five of them Porcha.” She gasped, hand flying to her throat and paled visibly.

                                “She, she took down the entire warehouse with only five people?”

                                “Two of them wiped out almost everyone inside, the two outside picked off anyone that made it out. She was fighting Claudette.”

                                “We must increase our numbers before she comes, she will wipe us out.” Fear was setting into Porcha, he could taste it on the air.

                                “She has a half breed, I injured him badly, it gives us time. Do not fear daughter, you will be safe. When she comes you will not fight, you will hide, flee if you need to.” Porcha puffed up a bit, ready to object. “If she killed Claudette, you will not even slow her down, everyone else here will deal with her group and I will handle her. You will find somewhere safe to be. Send Caste in so I can fill him in and get him started preparing, I do not know how long it will take her to find us.” Porcha left to find Caste, Vareese turned back to the fireplace, hands on the mantel, head down and waited.

                                Vareese did not straighten until he heard heavy footfalls outside his door, as they vibrated across the wood his door opened and Caste stepped in. Caste was shocking to say the least, the man stood six foot six and was as broad as a barn, Vareese had never learned who thought it was a good idea to make a vampire that could eat as much as a football team, but the man was useful. He served as the general of Vareese’s legion and he was good at it. “Did Porcha tell you anything?”

                                “Only that you wanted to see me sir.”

                                “Ill get to the point then. The redheaded wolf from the rumors is real, she wiped out Claudette’s nest and took down the warehouse with only herself and four others. Claudette is likely dead. She will be coming for me; we have to be prepared.”

                                “What preparations are we to make sir?”

                                “I want her separated from her group when she get’s here, the four she brings are to be killed immediately, they are dangerous and not to be toyed with. As for the redhead, once she is separated, I want her herded to me, I will either kill her or claim her but either way the threat will be neutralized.” At the words ‘claim her’ Claste’s eyes shot to Vareese in shock, he said nothing. Porcha had been listening at the door and strolled back into the room.

                                “What do you mean claim her?” She questioned, shocked and outraged.

                                Vareese cast a wicked smile, “I need a bride do I not? What better way to put the wolves in their place then to take their greatest hope as such?” Porcha was shocked, she was not violent or bloodthirsty as the others but to let their attacker live?

                                “You would let the woman who tore so many of our people apart live?”

                                “If you could call the life, I would give her living, bound to me, a creature she detests for the term of an immortal life, beaten and broken again and again to satisfy my sadistic nature. Yes, I would let her live.” Caste was still silent, but he did smirk slightly, imagining how fitting the punishment was. Porcha was still unsure.

                                “And should she escape or get the upper hand one day?”

                                “Wolves don’t work like us daughter, once they are bound to a mate it is almost impossible for them to so much as hurt their feelings, she would be harmless to me.”

                                “To you but not the rest of us.”

                                “I suppose I’ll just have to keep the little mutt chained then. It is a moot point; I have not yet decided if I will bind her or kill her.” Vareese dismissed waving his hand. Porcha sighed and left he room, seeking the company of her cat.

                                Caste finally spoke again, “How many men will we need for this sir?”

                                “We will see who made it out of the warehouse, with the addition of those numbers we may not need to call in anyone else as long as we are prepared. She caught us unaware at the warehouse, the surprise was our undoing. I am sure now that she had been watching us for weeks before the attack, most likely waiting for me to leave so she could deal with me alone instead of going in, but she got everything she needed to know to mount her attack. One of her group is a woman, then there is a half breed and two other males. What I glimpsed of the woman fighting I would suggest you assign a female for her, she’s fast, agile, and flexible, the males here may not be able to keep up with her movements. The half breed is fast, the added speed from our blood no doubt, I did not see the redhead or the other two in her group fight. She was in my loft and the other two were left outside, on the one hand if they were selected to pick off our people with guns from the trees, they are likely less lethal then the ones that went in but it also seems unlikely that they would not have been as thoroughly trained as the rest of her little unit. I caught a glimpse of the men outside, one is quite large, he is yours. We will have a few days to prepare, I injured the half breed significantly and they will not leave him behind when they attack, they will wait for him to heal.”

                                Caste nodded understanding to everything Vareese had said and exited at his wave of dismissal. Vareese dropped to the sofa, once occupied by Porcha and rubbed his temples, he had not seen this coming. The little wolf and her group were a terrible inconvenience and setback to his plans. The Dark Crescent pack was one of only a handful of packs left keeping things together, most were being led by children playing alpha with nothing more then women defending the boarders, easy to annihilate. Dark Crescent though, they were still strong, the alpha was leading them well, they had money and food and combat training started as children, every member was trained to defend the pack. Taking them down was key in his plans. He would have to push the attack back regardless, perhaps he should target another of the stronger packs next, take time to deal with the redhead before attacking the Dark Crescent. There was much to decide, and he was too thirsty to think, the thirst clawed at him. As if on cue a full-figured woman in her mid-thirties sashayed into his room.

                                “Hungry sire?” She purred as she approached him.

                                “Starving.” Vareese growled out, smiling wickedly, fangs in full view he was in front of the woman in the blink of an, arms around her waist in a rough lovers embrace he wrapped his fingers into the lower section of her long hair and pulled her head back. She realized then that this was not going to be a typical light feeding and began to struggle, crying out for help that would not come. Vareese opened his mouth, flexing his jaw and sank into her throat, her cries of terror muffled and gargled as the blood flooded her throat and his. Vareese savored ever moment of struggle, the taste of feat and adrenaline drenched blood on his tongue was ecstasy. Finally satiated he dropped the woman to the floor, she landed with a thud, eyes still open, her mouth opened in a silent plea for life, once, twice, then she stopped her shallow breathing and her eyes stared unseeing at the room before her. “Perhaps this shall be the fate of the redheaded wolf pup.” Vareese mused as he nudged the body with his foot. Stepping over her to the door he took the handle and opened it, calling down the hall, “One of you useless leaches come get this corpse out of my room!”