Becoming Whole

London, U.K.

October, 2012

The music was loud, but up in the executive loft over the club it was muted just enough to have a conversation.

Welcome to the jungle, we got fun and games

We got everything you want, honey, we know the names

We are the people that can find whatever you may need

If you got the money, honey, we got your disease… **

What Alex couldn’t escape, however, was the multiple strobes of dizzying lights gyrating in the dark.

“You’re leaving us?” Anja said again.

Alex had ignored her the first time after he announced his imminent departure, but her voice sounded broken this time.

His sister looked beautiful in a silver go-go dress and very little makeup. Wearing a long platinum blonde wig, she was a sparkly star in the darkness surrounding them.

Alex couldn’t bear to look into Anja’s tearful blue eyes, so he looked down into the crowd of vampires dancing wildly to Donovan’s favorite dance music from the 1980s.

“If there’s a decade of music worth reliving, it would be the 80’s,” Donovan often said. He sometimes carried a walkman from that era; such was his devotion to the big hair bands.

Donovan had decided to celebrate his 282nd birthday in true Donovan grandeur this year. He reserved one of his family’s nightclubs in London for an entire night to celebrate with his family and the small militia of his surviving Children. Transporting them all to Camden had cost a fortune, but every Blutburg attended.

Even through the rising smoke and psychedelic lights, Alex glanced at his Mother, who stared at him with unblinking eyes. He wasn’t sure what made her look so out of place in the club. Was it the white blouse with the neckline that brushed her chin? Or was it that, next to everyone else, Astrid looked like a wide-eyed, innocent sixteen-year-old girl despite being over five hundred years old?

“I’m leaving, yes,” he said, “For a little while. It’s for the best.”

“Where will you go?” his Mother asked, adjusting a wig. Her real hair had not grown back, “I know you haven’t been happy lately, but surely you know that no one will take as good care of you as your family. We love you, and we try very hard to take care of you. You just have to—” she paused, “--follow the rules.”

Alex clenched his jaw. “I know, Mother, but—”

“Is it because of—me?” Tears ran down Anja’s cheeks.

What was he supposed to say? Yes, I’m leaving because you can’t bear to be alone with me for a minute, much less go out and hold my hand for an hour while we talk, dance, or do anything else. Meanwhile, Donovan has been sleeping with at least two of his Daughters, and Hans, too, will take advantage of the celebrations tonight to screw whoever makes themselves available to him.

Alex pursed his lips and looked down in time to watch Donovan shove his tongue down the throat of one of the females by his side. She was a young vampire, a recent addition to Donovan’s militia and one of his own.

“That,” his Mother said, following his line of sight, “doesn’t matter. It’s not the same, Alexander. Those girls aren’t Family.”

“He’s their Father,” he whispered, knowing Astrid didn’t hear in all the noise.

Fucking double standard, Blade would say if she knew what Alex was confronting, and he’d wholeheartedly agree.

Hans and Donovan had come down hard on Alex after he asked Anja for a date. Perhaps Alex’s timing was off, but after waiting for her for two decades, he thought he could hardly be blamed. Donovan not letting Alex train with his militia had not done anyone any favors, either. Alex couldn’t work out his frustrations and aggressions. His family, it seemed, still thought of Alex as a helpless and immature vampire who needed to be coddled. His Mother still made him her herbal soup for good digestion every evening, appalled that he hadn’t had any since she left.

Alex had discussed leaving with Juan Felipe, his only brother who he could trust to treat him as an equal.

“If you’re going to go,” Juan Felipe had advised earlier, “do it during Donovan’s party. Hans and Donovan will be distracted and won’t stop you, and Mother will be too distraught to do anything. Anja will think about stopping you, but she won’t. It’ll be much harder later.”

“When I leave, I’ll be…okay?”

“You’ll be safe if you’re not alone for too long. Go to the wolves. They see you as their own; they’ll protect you.”

“And the family will be–”

“We’ll be fine while you’re gone. Go. Find your peace, little brother…”

Astrid and Anja’s attention was soon taken as a massive red cake entered the dance floor. Three layers tall and full of black birthday candles, six vampires carried the confection and placed it on a table that a female set in the middle. Donovan soon stood before the cake with two voluptuous females on either side, fawning up at him.

Alex skimmed through the crowd and found Hans making out with a shirtless black male in a dark corner. He pulled back his lips in distaste.

It’s not that Alex had not had his trysts in the past. But he at least had sought company outside the Family’s boundaries, sometimes with overzealous human women who had no idea why they were so helplessly attracted to him. He would then take what he wanted from that evening’s blue-eyed blonde before leaving her unconscious, almost intact but undoubtedly alive.

Donovan stopped kissing one of the girls as the crowd broke out into chorus…

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you…

Alex had seen enough. He slipped away into the night.

Two days and two hotel stays by day later, with the last of his savings, Alex bought a motorcycle in the city where he finally landed. It was already dark when he rode into Azul Springs on a Kawasaki Ninja much like Blade’s, proud of himself for severing ties with his family and buying a vehicle his Mother had prohibited them from ever purchasing.

If there was one thing he admired about Blade, Rex, and wolves, it was their ability to share their knowledge and belongings as if it were the most straightforward and logical thing to do. He attributed this to their pack mentality. Although Alex was not as adept on the motorcycle as Blade, he was grateful that she had taught him the basics and instilled in him the confidence to disobey his Mother outright.

Later that night, after the initial greetings and welcome back from the pack, Alex sat in front of Blade’s desk, a glass of his favorite Chardonnay in his hand.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, sitting at her desk. “It took you long enough to come back. We have work to do.”

Alex raised his eyebrows, pleased at the prospect of keeping busy to forget his family problems.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m sending you out into the field.”

Alex gulped. “Spy?”

She nodded.

“Alone?”

She grinned. "It's about time you took on a mission by yourself."

“Where?” Alex sipped his wine to control his nerves. Blade had always accompanied him on missions—or rather, he had accompanied her. She was always lead.

“The Nightshade Valley Packs.” She said with a nod.

He stared at her, not sure if he had heard correctly.

“Does your father know?”

She shook her head.

“You want me, an untried vampire operative who’s never worked alone, to go to a large pack and spy on the Alpha, who happens to be your father, on behalf of your mate, who also happens to be an Alpha?”

Her grin widened.

“How am I supposed to blend in? And your father knows me!”

She shrugged. “You’ll figure it out.”

“What am I looking for?” Alex took another sip of wine.

Blade pulled down her legs, sat forward in her chair, and put her hands in a steeple formation on her desk.

“I’m worried,” she said, “My father has been unable to get rid of the demons and witches that roam throughout his packs despite telling them to leave. We need to find out what’s keeping them there. What did Magno do to make them feel entitled to stay? Until we eliminate them all, those pack lands are as good as cursed. More and more pack members are leaving and coming to Azul Valley out of fear.”

Alex set down his glass on her desk. “Here? To your packs? What do they do here?”

“What else? Pledge themselves to Rex and become pack members.”

“And you and Rex don’t want that because…”

Blade sighed. “Too many pack members would overwhelm our resources. The new distillery in Azure Falls is nowhere near completion, and Cobalt Lake is barely making ends meet while still recovering from years of Magno's abuse. It takes a long time and a lot of money to create jobs for people, and many of these new members want to move to Azul packs because they've been stable for years. But it's getting crowded, and housing will soon become scarce. See what I mean? Not to mention that the Nightshade Valley is no longer our enemy or rival. We must ensure they thrive and leave us alone, but they won’t if people keep moving out.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Snoop around and see what you learn. Get a pulse on the valley. I know some of Magno’s daughters are still around, in hiding. See if they’re a threat and bring in any that are or seem to be. If I were them, I’d want revenge, and I don’t want them to take revenge on my father.”

“What are you going to do with them?”

“Good question. I don’t know,” Blade said with a heavy sigh. “Rex says that executions today avoid insurgencies later, but I’m not going to go around killing people who are family.” She rubbed her temples and looked up at him. “Do you think it’s delusional to hope they’ll accept my father and eventually Andy as their new alpha?”

Alex shrugged. “Depends on what their father told them to expect, but we’ll figure it out.”

** Lyrics from Guns N Roses’s “Welcome to the Jungle”

Dear Reader,

Thank you for reading this first chapter and trying Alex's story. I must caution you that this is the third book of a series. The first book is Another Half, followed by Missing Half, which constitute Blade’s and Rex’s origin story. Alex’s story actually begins in Missing Half.

This said, you’ll be fine if you choose not start at the beginning,

Enjoy Alex’s journey with his friends!

Love,

Rio