Page 51 of Meeting Her Mate

“It’s nothing,” I said, feeling a bit dumb for being played like that. But that would change tonight. More importantly, I had to break the news to Alexis.

***

It was not a look that I had ever seen on her face before. I was suddenly apprehensive, thinking that I had made a huge mistake bringing her to where the two vampires hung around. This could get ugly. Alexis did not move nor scowl or quiver. She simply stared as a predator does while stalking its prey.

“All this time, I have been tortured with the recurring image of these two assholes killing my parents, and this is what they’ve been doing? Dealing drugs?” Alexis whispered. Then she stared at me, saying, “I am glad you brought me here. I needed to see this. It’s going to make killing them all the more satisfying.”

“Wait, kill them?”

But Alexis was not listening to me. In the bleakness of the forest, she shifted into her wolf form and crashed through the window, landing atop the two vampires and pinning them to the ground. She yawed at them, howling at the top of her voice.

I jumped in after her and yelled, “Wait!”

Alexis glared at me while still pinning the vampires under her.

“Before we do anything rash, shouldn’t we find out why they killed your parents?” I asked, gently approaching Alexis.

“Oi, bruv, what’s all this about, then?” The vampire with the scars on his face spat. “You can’t come barging in here, threatening to kill us like that!”

Alexis roared at him, making him cower and whimper in a fetal position, but then promptly stepped back.

I took charge before things could get out of hand, fishing the rope out of my backpack and tying the vampires together with their backs to each other.

“We’re innocent vampires, mate. We ain’t got no quarrel with you,” the other one said.

“I know that’s a lie,” I said, ensuring that their bounds would hold. Then I stepped back, waiting for Alexis to shift back into her form so she could do the interrogation herself.

“Remember me?” she asked once she had shifted back.

“Sorry, love, you’re going to have to be more specific,” the scarred-faced vampire said, then burst into giggles.

Alexis took a crowbar lying in the room and slammed it against the vampire’s head.

“Now, if I were sober, I’d have felt that and would have gone ‘ow!’ But we make the best meth around here. Not even Heisenberg can come close,” he said, spitting out a broken tooth.

“You killed my parents,” Alexis said, seething with fury. “That night, in the car, you and your friend here came out of nowhere and killed both my mom and dad. How can you forget something like that?”

“Oh,” Scarface sighed. “That. Well, we ain’t forgotten that, have we, Campbell?”

The other vampire said, “Right you are, Elliot. We’ve not forgotten that night. We don’t forget any nights. We’re vampires, for fuck’s sake. Hell, Elliot and I even remember when we came to the States from good old Great Britain by ferry almost a century ago. Budding young vampires, we were, aye.”

“I’m not interested in your life story,” Alexis spat, holding the crowbar threateningly in her grip. “Why did you kill my parents?

“It was nothing personal. I swear!” Elliot pleaded. “We were under orders.”

“Whose orders!?” I yelled. It wasn’t fair that she had to do this alone. I grabbed Elliot by the collar and shook him fiercely.

“Fine!” Elliot yelled. “It was Ralph, our leader. He said he wanted the alpha and his mate gone, and we were the ones who got picked to do that.”

“But there’s more,” Campbell said. “Which we’ll only tell you if you free us.”

Alexis knelt on her knee and faced Campbell, her eyes red. “Neither you nor your friend are going to make it out of here alive. I will kill you both for what you did to my parents. If you tell me who was behind it, I’ll make sure you get a swift death. Otherwise, your torture will be stretched from now till the end of eternity. You’ll wish you were dead, but you’ll be worse off.”

“Don’t kill us, please,” Campbell burst out crying. “If I remember correctly, we did let you live that night. Won’t you show us some mercy in return?”

“Tell me who gave the order!” Alexis said, ramming the crowbar into Campbell’s midriff.

I could hear the sound of bones breaking as the crowbar made contact with Campbell’s body.