Page 9 of Meeting Her Mate
“Maurice, take a good look at the man lying in my bed. Can’t you recognize Wilhelm Grimm, the original alpha of the Grimm pack?” I said defensively, standing between Maurice and Will’s unconscious body.
Maurice’s face broke into a series of confused expressions as he bent and observed Will’s face. Then he got up and faced me, eyeing me with glaring anger.
“This bearded, dirty man is not Will Grimm. Will Grimm died some seventy years ago. Perhaps your delusions of grandeur have finally cracked your brain,” he said.
“We can prove it. We’ll call Fred. He’s the only living member of the original pack. And Fred’s bound to recognize his brother,” Vincent said.
“Very well,” Maurice said, regaining his composure. “Go and get your grandpa.”
Vince cast me a worried look as he left the house. I blinked at him reassuringly to let him know that I was capable of holding my own against Maurice.
Vincent had barely left my house when Maurice, who had so far been holding his thinly veiled rage, snarled at me with madness dripping from his eyes and pinned me against the wall with his hand closed around my throat.
“I have heard what you’ve done. My sources tell me that you were deep in the forest in the middle of the night. You know what the penalty is for breaking the curfew, for disobeying the alpha…and now you bring some random mutt to the Abode?”
I could not breathe, and I had no fight left in me to defend myself. Maurice’s grip around my neck tightened, lifting me up in the air. My hands closed around his grip but to no avail. With legs flailing in the air and the vision getting blurrier and blurrier by the second, I struggled to breathe as Maurice’s hand tightened around my throat.
“This isn’t the first time you have been insolent to me, but this may be the last,” Maurice spat.
The last remnants of conscious began escaping from my body the harder Maurice choked me. My arms fell limply to my sides, and my feet stopped thrashing. The only sound in the room was the hoarse gurgling issuing from my throat.
And despite this violence that I was experiencing, the only thought that was coherent in my mind was this: Why had I even bothered to come back?
Chapter 4: Will
Iwoke up to the sensation of great pain in the back of my head. For a second, gripped with panic, I thought I was back in that great dark prison where I had been kept for who knows how long. But when I opened my eyes and adjusted to this new reality, I saw that I was lying in a warm and soft bed. I had forgotten the sensation of sleeping in a bed.
It was not soon after that I heard the grating sounds coming from my right. To my horror, I saw my savior, the girl Alexis, being choked to within an inch of her life by a man.
I strode across the room just in time to pry this man’s fingers free from Alexis’s neck. Then I grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him across the room.
“Have I been gone for so long that the Grimms have abandoned chivalry for madness?” I roared as I advanced on this man.
“I will not be spoken to by some common…” this man began, but I had no intention of letting him live, not after what I had just seen him do. I recoiled my arm to strike a killing blow to this foe.
But before I could do that, I heard someone approach through the doorway. It was upon seeing this person that I lowered my hand and stood there in utter silence, shocked senseless. So, the girl had not been lying.
“Wilhelm?” the withered old face, covered in white beard and wrinkles, stared at me with cataract eyes. “Is it really you?”
It was none other than my younger brother, Fredrick Grimm, standing before me. Though, he looked nothing like I had last seen him. Fred had aged, and terribly so. He stood there with his weight supported by a walking cane. He wore the garb of an old man. His hair had thinned, and what remained of it looked like white cotton candy.
“Time has not been kind to you, younger brother,” I said as I walked up to him.
“And it has seemingly spared you entirely, brother mine,” Fred said as he threw away his cane and grasped me in a fierce hug. To feel my own flesh and blood hugging me like this, it broke me down completely.
“Father, you can’t trust the words of this girl,” the man whom I had pried off Alexis spat from behind.
“Maurice, I should think that I can recognize my brother when I see him with my own eyes,” Fred said. “And Alexis has done our pack a great service bringing the long-lost Grimm back to his home.”
“Alexis saved my life, dear brother,” I said to smooth over whatever confusion prevailed in the room. “Had she not been there to save me, I would have been outnumbered by the vampires, left for dead. I am eternally in her debt.”
“As are we all, Maurice,” the greasy little man who had moments ago attacked Alexis quickly changed his tone and his stance. He got up and cowered before me, holding his hands together apologetically. I ignored him and looked at Alexis instead.
She was helping herself to her feet, massaging her neck. I walked up to her and helped her as she steadied herself.
“I don’t understand,” the young boy standing behind Fred spoke for the first time. He bore a remarkable resemblance to both Fred and Maurice. “How are you still alive?”
“Will, I want you to meet my grandson, Vincent,” Fred waved his arm. “And that man over there, well, you’ve met him already. He’s Maurice, the present alpha of the pack.”