章 157: TO BE THE BRAVER ONE
I woke up with the sound of banging on my door... What? And why did my door sounded like it was made of metal?
I tried to roll over but I realized I was being cradled, and my pillow was rumbling in a low growl. It was almost a purring sound.
Instinctively, I pulled out and wriggled free, only to find myself sitting on a cold hard metal floor. I sat upright. I would have stood up except that there was a very low ceiling above me.
It was pretty dark. We were in some kind of cage but...
{Mate! Mate! Mate!}
I beamed stupidly at the grouchy guy bound hand and foot. He moved to stretch his legs now that I wasn't sleeping on his lap. His long legs were chained up and cuffed at the ankles, the same as when Harvey and I had found Killion.
More banging, and the cage swerved. Woah... What? Where? Oh. That's right. I was dreaming! Hahaha!
Gunshots.
Oh not cool. I didn't like guns.
{Betas approach}
{Deltas approach}
Yes! I was right on time. I even caught a little nap. More swerving and bumping, some yelling and loud cussing up front, and another round of gunshots. The van stopped abruptly. I tumbled over. Luckily it was only from sitting position. I rolled back upright.
Wow, we were in a dangerous position.
"Princess, it's not safe here. Wake up." Rebel tried to boss me. But I was getting tired of being kept out of the action.
"Don't worry, Bell. It's just my guys." I told him.
"Your guys." Rebel snarled back, "should have told you to stay at home."
"They did." I growled back, my hair flaring, "That's why I went to sleep!"
Rebel growled. I growled.
I hope the other guys come soon. It seemed like we just end up fighting whenever we were alone.
Something smashed at the backdoor quite hard and then pried it opened. Eh, I should have told them it was probably unlocked. But brute strength worked too and my werewolf sight could make out the four familiar figures outside.
Harvey and Killion were first to climb up into the truck, "Luna? Are you alright?"
"We're breaking you free, Bell." Killion jingled the keys.
They took a while more for their eyes to adjust to the darkened van interior before they realized my scentless presence.
Hahahaha. Their faces were priceless.
"Oh goddess, no popping way." Killion said.
Harvey looked somewhat perplexed.
"What?" I heard Flynn outside the truck, he craned his neck till he caught sight of me, "What the hell?"
I grinned, "This is just a dream..."
Harvey sighed, but he had his usual wry smile, "I should have seen this coming." He berated himself.
"Well, since you're here goddess, care to do the honors?" Killion passed the keys to me.
I gave them the key number and luckily it still worked.
Flynn was in the truck now. He read the name tag on the cage, "Rebel." And then he smirked, "Well, I did think our Luna looked vaguely familiar."
Rebel rubbed his wrists where the cuffs fell off, "What now?"
Hank came back, "I've set up the scene. We have to go."
"Time to go home, Luna." Killion smirked.
Rebel shook his head, "No."
What?
"No." Rebel repeated, "You guys go on. I've still got things to do."
"Pop." Killion said at that.
"Princess, you too. The vamps reinforcements are on their way. Wake up." Bossy mate ordered, but his voice was gentler now, "I'll be back when I'm done."
"I'm not going back." I sulked.
"Go back, Princess." Rebel growled.
Dumbbell.
"I'll stay with you till the vamps come collect you." I said.
"I'll stay too." Harvey decided.
"No way! I'll just wake up and disappear back home. You guys would just get caught." I argued.
Killion had been very still, but now he spoke, "Understood. Princess, you go back. Harvey will go back with the Deltas. I'll stay with the Luna."
"NO!!!" Rebel and I pretty much shouted at the same time.
"No no no!" I argued.
"You'd just get in my way." Rebel snarled.
"No no no!" I continued.
I won't let Killion get hurt again. No.
I won't let anyone get captured.
"Just go guys." I was half pleading, half alpha commanding.
"You too princess, you'd be even worse than Ki." Rebel told me.
What? How dare he!
"I'll wake up when I wake up." I growled back.
"They're coming. My vamp master is with them. He is centuries old and very powerful. You must leave." Rebel said.
Harvey nodded in acknowledgement, "Princess, please."
"No." I will stay with Rebel, "I'll wake up when I'm sure he's safe. You guys go."
"Princess, there are men more evil and depraved than you would ever know." Rebel said to me.
Of course I knew! I just met Beta Lorent didn't I? Now that was a stinker.
"Someone mindlink her mum or sis to wake her." Dumbbell noted my expression and must have realized there was no reasoning with me.
"No!" I countered. The other guys looked from their Alpha to their Luna. They want to obey they Luna. I could tell from their faces, but were too loyal to disobey their Alpha.
{Vampires are near}
Oh boy. They need to get out of here.
"Okay, just go. I'll wake up soon too. Go already!" The last part was a full alpha command. And with full reluctance, the betas bowed their submission and left.
"Don't get caught!" I yelled after them.
"You go too." Rebel said, "Go now."
It was a full alpha command but lalala. I'm his mate. It didn't work, even though it made my hair flare up.
{Vampires approach}
Wolfie was crouching, all my hairs were standing on its end. Something bad was coming.
"Princess, go back." Rebel said again. His large hand stroked my hair down and he put me behind him.
I was supposed to be protecting him.
At this point whatever that approached us was making my insides scream to run, so I didn't push Mate away.
I had always followed my guts, my lucky sense of direction had never led me wrong. Right now, it was screaming quite clearly, "Run away!" But for the first time I held my ground. The worse the situation seemed, the more I couldn't leave my mate to face it alone.
And then it appeared, slipping in from the darkness, red eyes and a black flame that made my skin crawl. There were more outside. I knew this for a fact. But for the ones outside, maybe the challenge wouldn't be taking them down but severing off their heads cleanly since I had not sword with me.
For the one who stepped into the truck... He was like a whole army on his own and I was frozen to the spot.
I heard a whimpering sound, and I realized it was from me. Something cold was pressing hard on my mind, I had to actually focus to slam it out. Like a cold fog slowly pressing in. Rebel stepped in front of me suddenly, and I could no longer see the red eyes, the cold fog slowly released. I tightened my mind shield. Damn, I got careless.
Rebel said nothing, but if he did, I knew it would be, "Why are you so stupid?"
"Rebel." If a voice could cut... This one was the sound like a guillotine sliding down, "What a pleasant surprise. Were you waiting for me?"
"You would have caught up to me anyway." Rebel said.
"How unlike you." The vampire drawled.
And then as if my faculty was returning to me, I realized that if the vampire was talking, it meant it could not access Rebel's mind. But even so, Rebel could not possibly stray too much from the truth or else I felt sure the vamp would sense it.
"Rogues are out to kill me anyway. I'm safer in a fight cage now." Rebel explained.
"I do wonder what you did for even your own kind to put a bounty on you." The vampire looked creepily happy, like Maria when she found something she liked, but much, much creepier.
This vampire was nothing like Maria. He was in a league of its own. I wanted to go home so bad.
"And where did you pick up that pretty thing from?" The vampire asked.
I felt my stomach drop. Rebel growled lowly but did not move.
"Fascinating." The vampire continued as if he was accustomed to talking to himself.
He took a step to take a better look. I pretty much shrank back to hide behind Rebel.
I had never hid like this behind anyone in my life. I had never felt the need to. But this vamp was terrifying my wolf, making my blood curdle like a really bad dream.
As I hid my face in Bell's back, I realized I should have listened to him. He obviously knew what we were up against. And I was obviously being nothing but a burden.
I didn't want to be, but I was useless, even my legs were starting to tremble.
The cold fog crept over my mind again. Eeeekkk... He was trying to pry. I couldn't keep him out much longer, and I couldn't let this monster learn of my pack, "I'm sorry, Bell."
The tears fell. I let go of him and let myself disappear.
I sat up with a jolt in my bed.
Savy was sitting next too me yelling, "Mum! Dad! She woke up!"
They were both in the room within seconds. Mum sliding into the bed next to me, so that I was sandwiched between her and Savy.
"Oh, thank Goddess." Mum hugged me.
"I couldn't help him. I couldn't help him at all." I bawled.
"Who?" Savy asked, "Bell? Was it Bell?"
"Are the guys back?" I asked.
"They are on the way back." Dad told me. He was on mindlink.
"All of them?" I asked, "Even Killion? Tell Killion he can't go back there."
"Yes. Don't worry about them." Dad said. His mouth was pressed in a grim line, his face drawn with worry, "Are you alright?"
I nodded.
"What about Bell?" Savy asked.
I pressed my lips together, I couldn't talk about it.
Mum hugged me and stroked my hair, "It's okay. It's going to be okay."
"He wouldn't come back." I said eventually and the tears fell again.
"Don't scare me like that ever again!" Mum scolded as she grabbed me into a tight hug. She was twisting my body at a weird angle, but I didn't move away.
That was officially the scariest dream I had ever had. If I didn't know about dream travelling... I would have thought it was a prophetic dream.
And if I had consulted Mrs Beta about it, she would have said it was a testing dream. To choose my loyalty between my mate and my pack.
And I had chosen my pack. Of course I had chosen my pack. I was the Alpha. I could not risk exposing our pack, not even for my mate. This was my responsibility.
I calmed down quickly after that. Mum let me eat ice-cream, even though it was 3am in the morning.
Savy helped me eat.
She told me that she had gone to bed but was woken up when she heard me whimpering. (How embarrassing.) When she touched me, she felt this icy fear. Then I started trembling and my hair flared up. She all but thought I was about to shift in my sleep.
"You were like a possessed movie scene." Savy told me.
So she did the most sensible thing she knew. She screamed for Mum and Dad who pretty much freaked out and mindlinked Harvey only to find that they had left me alone with Rebel to face the vampires.
Short of pouring water over me, they tried everything else to wake me. No one could reach me on mindlink. And the guys nearly turned back to the ambush scene for fear I needed rescuing, except that I woke up and Dad had instructed them to carry on as planned.
So the guys hit a few bars along the train line and got back to the pack safe, Killion and Harvey returned to the penthouse. They had the deltas go straight home to their mates.
Killion was grinning like Loki himself, "Let's see how they explain why their clothes stink of alcohol, cigarettes, and women."
Apparently, Killion had made sure they met many, many, women. Harvey's face reddened but he refrained from any comment.
I continued eating my ice-cream, the new tub was about three quarters down by now.
I'm drowning my failure in vanilla.
"What happened to Bell?" Killion asked after they finished reporting what I suspected was a somewhat censored version of their night out.
If they could self censor, so could I.
"Vampire came. I left." I said.
"That's it?" Killion asked.
"Yeah." I said. I stood up, "I'm going to go take a shower."
And I ran away... Not so much from Harvey and Killion, or Savy who took over the ice-cream tub, but just from remembering that feeling of being terrified out of my mind, and being a complete burden to Mate.
Why was I so stupid?
What was I thinking anyway?
I stripped in the bathroom and turned on the shower to full blast.
I hate being weak. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.
And I hate that if I had to face the vampire again, it would play out exactly the same way. Not because there wasn't a lack of other things I wish I did, but because I would have been just as powerless to do them.
When I was weak, I had no options. Even my own body would not act.
And I hated that.
I'm weak, I'm weak, I'm weak.
I abandoned my mate to deal with that monster vamp all on his own.
I'm weak, I'm weak, I'm weak.
I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.
Hot water, hot tears, so angry.
I hate vampires.
I hate the weak and stupid ones.
I hate the old and powerful ones.
I don't really hate Maria at all. I guess she was different. For one thing, I just realized I hadn't referred to her as an 'it' for the longest time.
Maria wasn't weak, or stupid, or old.
She was powerful, but she was also young and in comparison to the monster who scared the c*** out of me just now, we were equally strong.
So was it just a matter of experience?
I must be unlucky tonight, first to meet Beta Lorent and then to meet that vamp. It's like meeting two really bad guys in one night. Who does that?
Usually in TV or movies, don't I get to defeat one first, find happily ever after... Until season two or the next movie introduced boss baddie number 2?
But popular entertainment aside, was it just a matter of experience? Rebel could face the vamp. Why couldn't I? He was not that much stronger than I was. Was he?
So it was just a matter of experience? I just need more experience?
This was beginning to sound like a computer game. I need to level up more, a lot more. The next time we meet, evil creepy old vamp, I'm going to trash you!
And the next time we meet, mate, I'm going to be the braver one!
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