Page 7 of Her Eternal Mate

What do they think they’re going to do? It’s not as if there’s anywhere they can go from there,Will resounded in my mind.

Be that as it may, we have to finish them, or this epidemic will turn into a pandemic within no time.

Will concurred. He dove into the water, and I followed. The rest of the werewolves also jumped into the shallow bay water behind us, all of us swimming towards that giant ship wreckage. In another life, this ship used to be one of the biggest freight containers that carried cargo from Europe to America. Now it was a haunted ruin host to the remaining vampires.

We saw right away why it was that the vampires had chosen to retreat here with such haste. As I swam nearer to the wreck, I discovered that it was more than just an empty husk of a once-functional ship. It was armed to the teeth with guns and turrets installed on every nook and surface that hadn’t gone underwater. The vampires, even though they were without a leader, had decided that they would not go down without one final fight.

A fight that we wouldn’t give them.

Under Will’s direction, the wolves swam underwater and, instead of approaching the ship from the front, bypassed it and swam under it to where the submerged part was. Here, I swam up the long vessel’s length and came above water inside an undefended part of the ship, a part that the vampires had overlooked. They were all still standing facing the bayside, hoping that we’d emerge and they’d rain fire upon us.

Will climbed up behind me, and following him, all the remaining werewolves did so too. We still had the element of surprise on our side. The inside of this ship was as long as it was broad. There were beams of moonlight coming from where the metal had chipped off and from where the windows once used to be. In this moonlight, we headed up the desolated wreckage and came up behind the vampires stealthily.

They realized we were there a bit too late. Before they could turn their turrets and guns around, the wolves were upon them. I took charge and dismantled the most prominent turret in front of me so that no vampire would get behind it and unleash fire upon the wolves. I could spot Vincent and Will doing the same to the other guns on the deck.

As for the werewolves, they broke upon the vampires like a tsunami wave, killing the vampires where they stood, not giving them a chance to fight back. I joined the fray and broke the remaining ranks of the vampires, tackling them and snatching away their guns from them. I could not afford any vampires shooting at the wolves. Now more than ever, the werewolves felt like family to me—a family united by a common cause and a strong patriarch who is also destined to be my mate.

Now that the vampires were being taken care of, I slipped to the side and shifted back into my human form for one final task. The most important task, perhaps. Vampires, I had learned, were a lot like vermin or other pests. They operated out of a base. Take away the base, and they were left with nothing. For this to work, I’d have to destroy their ship. This very ship that we were all standing on. Inside it, I had spotted tons of caches that were undoubtedly filled with drugs, weapons, and smuggled blood. This was their last reserve. I could tell from the way they had defended this shipwreck with weaponry.

As the final vampire fell, I headed down to the cache and found a crate containing TNT. I began placing the TNT equidistantly everywhere, heading from room to room, discovering that this ship was more than just their smuggling hotspot. There were labs within this ship, labs where they were testing on blood and drugs. Also within this derelict ship were the remnants of Ralph’s legacy. One room had been built into a shrine with his paintings, clothes, and memorabilia. Presumably, the vampires came here to pay their respects to him.

After tonight, there would be no more fond remembrance of Ralph by any vampire.

Once I had strung TNT across the entire floor, I headed back to the top, where the wolves were waiting for me. They had all shifted back into their human forms. As had Will. Upon approaching them, I shifted back as well.

“We’re going to blow this ship up,” I said, addressing the wolves.

“Why? It’s a perfectly good structure that we can put to our use,” someone said from the crowd.

“Because,” Will spoke on my behalf. “This is the vampire’s lair. As long as it stands, the vampires can spawn nearby and come back to this place. This is not just their lair; this is their last resort for smuggling. Would any of you want to see more vampires running around Fiddler’s Green? No? Then I suggest we do what Alexis has suggested. We’re going to evacuate this ship, and Alexis will blow it up. This is the way.”

Murmurs of agreement traveled through the crowd as I lit the long end of the wire that had the dynamite connected to it.

“This ship is going to blow in five minutes,” I said, calculating the time it’d take for the spark to reach the first stick of TNT below.

“Well, ladies and gents, I suggest we make a run for it,” Vince said, and then, without waiting for anyone, he jumped headfirst into the water and swam towards the shore. When the rest of the pack saw him, they promptly jumped in behind him, all swimming behind each other, headed for the bay. Only Will and I remained on the ship.

“Did we do something rather extreme?” Will asked. “They had retreated. Was it fair that we killed them all?”

“Fair had nothing to do with it. They were vile creatures capable of extreme villainy. With his mouth, Griswold made the promise to surrender and retreat, while with his hand, he sought to strike you from behind. Ralph ran circles around the Grimm Abode for decades, trying to kill the wolves once and for all. They’re vicious and malignant. Well, not anymore. Now they’re all dead. We haven’t done anything extreme,” I said, reassuring Will.

“I concur,” Will said, nodding. “If it weren’t for the vampires, Fiddler’s Green would have thrived long ago. Here’s to hoping that now the city can flourish under the new mayor.”

“I’d really love to continue this talk, my love, but we’ve got to jump because, in less than two minutes, this ship is going to blow to kingdom come,” I said, breaking into a run, headed for the edge.

“Let’s see who swims faster,” Will said and then jumped off the boat.

“You’re on!” I shouted and jumped into the clear blue water.

We raced each other as we swam, passing the swimming pack members on either side. In the end, Will and I both reached the shore just a minute apart. He won, but that was expected. He was the alpha. The strongest of us all.

We all made it back to the shore in time to see the ship explode. By the time the last of the pack members had made it to land, the ship erupted into one humongous explosion that rose into the night sky, enveloping the clouds, the stars, and the moon in a plume of smoke, shadow, and flames.

“There it is, the end of the vampires as we know it,” Will said, holding my waist.

“The end of our longstanding foes,” I said.

All around us, the werewolves cheered as the explosion sank the ship to the bottom of the bay. The smoke dispersed eventually, leaving clear blue water in its wake. We could see the shipwreck at the bottom of the bay.