Page 2 of Meeting Her Mate

The vampires ran the town, despite it looking every bit the idyllic paradise it was named after. This wasn’t news. This wasn’t even some conspiracy that I was solely burdened with. All the wolves of the Grimm pack knew that the vampires used Fiddler’s Green for its strategic seaside position as a port for their smuggling business. And yet, no one did anything about it. And worst of all was our pack’s alpha, Maurice, who feigned ignorance and pretended everything was peachy keen.

The frustration at this last realization was just the incentive I needed to figure out a way out of this trap. It would be a risky maneuver. My focus was fixed on the vampire approaching me, his finger dallying around the trigger dangerously. I lowered my body in preparation for a pounce and howled at him as he got just close enough to me.

This worked, as he was startled and did exactly what I wanted him to do. His finger pulled the trigger, unleashing a flurry of bullets. At that exact moment, I leaped to his side and bit on the gun’s blistering hot barrel, yanking it away from me and in the direction of the vampires behind me.

A mad tirade of bullets whizzed through the air, hitting several of the vampires, creating a cacophonic domino effect where the bullet-grazed vampires began shooting their rifles as well. And now, the whole area was lit with haphazard muzzle flashes. In this chaos, I sought shelter from the bullets by climbing on the tree behind me, leaving the vampires to deal with the mess of their own creation. I could not help but admire my work as I leaped atop the tree. None of them were lethally injured, but they weren’t in shape enough to pursue me anymore. At least for now. They were holding their wounded bodies, looking about dazedly, confused as to where I had disappeared.

“It’s one freaking wolf!” One of them screamed from below. “How hard is it to catch one wolf?”

Except it wasn’t just one freaking wolf. It was a wolf that you bloodsuckers had driven to the point of scorn and desperation.

Atop the tree, my head piercing the canopy of leaves, I could now feel the moonlight serenading my face—sweet, gentle moonlight with its rejuvenating powers. My sore body could already feel the lunar glow tending to my wounds. But I had not peeked my head above the canopy to seek the moon out. I needed to know the direction in which I was to head to escape this cursed forest. From below, there was no way of knowing that.

Here, atop the tree, I could see that I had traveled a few miles away from the town. Its faint neon lights and sodium vapor lamps shone in the distance like faraway fireflies. I had never seen the town and its adjoining areas from such a vantage point. From here, I could make out the sea, the wharf, and Fiddler’s Cove. In the far distance, I could make out the outline of Greyback Mountain. Were it not that my life was in danger, I might have enjoyed this sublime scenery. From here, it made sense that someone would name this place Fiddler’s Green. I calculated my position relative to the forest and charted a direction. I would have to head another mile in the opposite direction to be free of the forest.

With my new bearings in mind, I crept below the canopy and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark.

Thankfully, the vampires that I had evaded weren’t there anymore. As far as I saw, there was no sign of them. It was too risky to make my way down there and risk getting seen. From ancient oak to ancient fir, I leaped from tree to tree as I traversed the remaining length of the forest. But there came the point when the trees turned convoluted, their branches curling far too snidely for me to perch atop them.

I hopped back on the ground, and once I had scouted my immediate surroundings, I shifted back into human form. My wounds might not have felt painful when I was a wolf, but now that I was back to being me, I could feel each slash that had cut across my skin, each deep bruise swelling purple on my body, and the throbbing issuing from my bones.

I crept along the snaking path, keeping true to my direction. With the vampires no longer in the vicinity, the forest resumed its nocturnal humming. Crickets chirping, owls hooting, leaves shivering. An unnatural fog permeated through every trunk, bush, and rock. The mossy earth was so slippery and wet that the dampness was drenching my sneakers.

That last mile seemed to stretch and stretch into a never-ending labyrinth. I did not mind the distance. I was just glad that I had evaded those who hunted me. It wasn’t just on this night that they were so bold and brash as to be out roaming the forest; they did this every night, ensuring that their smuggling passage out of Fiddler’s Green was secure. That was the reason why I hadn’t opted for the only road heading out of the town. At this time of the night, the only vehicles that traveled that road were trucks carrying smuggled blood, drugs, and God knows what else.

It was only after I had lost count of the minutes and was pretty sure they had turned into hours that I could finally see the signs of a clearing ahead of me. No more trees in that direction. Had I really waded through the entire forest? Was this the end of the road for me? A start of a new life somewhere else? In my excitement, I began running towards the clearing. I had never felt this happy before, or if it had, it was in some distant past that I could no longer recall.

In hindsight, I should not have run. In my excitement, I completely overlooked the fact that the vampires had lain traps for exactly such an occasion. When the exit was merely a few inches away from me, my foot got caught in a bear trap. It clanged shut around my ankle, digging deep into skin, muscle, and tissue, drawing blood.

I yelped aloud in pain and collapsed on my face. As I hurriedly tried to free myself from the trap, I helplessly realized that hot blood was tricking down my foot. The immense pain was blackening my vision, making me go into a state of shock.

This is not how you die,I told myself and strained the last bit of my strength to free myself from the snare. I tried to get up on my feet to estimate how badly I’d been hurt. I could stand and walk, but every movement sent sharp signals of pain running up my leg.

“There she is! I heard her scream!” A ghoulish voice yelled from not far behind. In my agony, I looked around and saw a horde of vampires with torches and guns stampeding through the forest. It strongly called to mind the image of a medieval mob chasing a heretic.

“Follow her blood, boys,” The same voice gnarled. “She’s bleeding like a stuck pig!”

I hobbled along the path, using trees as support, but it was a doomed cause. No matter how fast I’d hop, they would catch up to me. I could shift into my wolf form, but it would only provide the vampires with a bigger target to shoot at. Not to mention that one of my legs would be bleeding and engorged.

I decided to shift. At least when I’d die this way, I would do so while fighting. I would go out in my feral form.

Maybe there’s an afterlife for werewolves who die in battle, such as the one Vikings had for their warriors—a werewolf Valhalla of sorts. Maybe I’d end up dining with the great wolf lords in banquet halls of divine splendor.

This was just my blood loss talking, making me feel lightheaded, numbing the sensations from my extremities. They say if you die of blood loss, you don’t feel the pain of death’s final draw. Maybe I wouldn’t feel it when the vampires riddled my body with bullets and tore away at my skin with their fangs.

As I was about to shift for my final confrontation, the undergrowth of wildflowers started rustling frenziedly. I shot a confused look to my right, where the commotion was coming from, and saw a gaunt figure emerge from the thicket.

It could not be.

The man I was looking at had died more than seventy years ago. I had only ever heard of him in tales and seen him in some blurry, black-and-white pictures. He resembled a skeleton more than he did a person, dark shadows hanging under his eyes, his eyes looking haunted and menaced. He was dressed in tattered rags, and whatever part of his body was visible was covered in bruises. His unkempt beard and long hair were matted with dirt.

It was none other than Will Grimm, the original alpha of the Grimm pack, said to have died long ago. How in the blazes was he still alive? Was this just a hallucination?

First, he shot a look at me, then at the approaching mob of vampires. He walked up to me, his lips quivering.

“Ariana…” He whispered hoarsely.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I wasn’t Ariana. That Ariana, my grandmother, had been dead for half a century.