Your Blood: The Sweetest Delight

Death.

The one word that plagued my mind when I saw how badly we had underestimated the power of those pure-blooded monsters.

We, Direwyns, had been planning the coup for over a year. My dad, the clan head, had successfully gathered all the pack members to agree on the need to overthrow the Velmires. He filled them up with those absolutely useless positivities like courage, gallantry and bravery, egging them to fight this seemingly meaningless battle, and for what? Pride? Honour? Dignity?

And look what that got us!

We were nothing compared to them! They weren’t called the ‘creatures of the night’ for show! We were completely annihilated. And they weren’t even using their full power; something told me they weren’t.

Not to mention, it was only a handful of elite purebloods who had, in less than two hours, defeated one of the five major werewolf clans of the entire empire, without losing a single being from their ranks.

I was in charge of the rear detachment. Being the only son of the current alpha of the pack, they had made explicitly sure to keep me at the farthest position from the enemy, should anything unexpected were to happen.

Sure enough, when it was my turn to show and I reached the hallways, not only my blood boiled with anger, I felt like throwing my guts out at the sight that laid in front of me. Lex, Gary, Sam, Natasha, Emili... and everyone else... they were all lying in a pool of their blood, their eyes almost ripped out of their sockets, tongues hanging, nails gone... but most heinously, their hearts torn apart from their bodies.

Definitely the work of those vampires.

I stood frozen for a second, taking the brutal sight in front of me in, my anger flaring up but it was hard to tell whether it was mostly because of what the vampires did in retaliation to the attack we planned, or the fact that we immensely failed to grasp the strength of these blood-sucking monsters and acted on assumption. I didn’t know, nor did I want to find out.

I saw red.

Things went hazy after that; and I don’t remember if I took down any purebloods or not in my transformed form.

See, we wolves have a fatal flaw. When we transform, we lose ourselves. It’s not like the tales say — glorious and controlled. No, we become beasts, driven purely by instinct and rage. Only a rare handful have ever managed to hold onto their conscience during the shift — legends, really.

Not me. Not my father. Not even his father before him. Once transformed, we tend to lose our conscience. Only a select few are said to have control over their actions when they do turn into wolves, but the cases themselves are very rare. I, for one, didn’t have that power of consciousness during the transformed state, and I can’t recall if any member of our pack did.

But I must have caused some damage at least when I went feral, since every bone in my body ached and my muscles were sore and burning. When I came back to my senses, I noticed that there was blood on me! When I looked down, I realized that I was bleeding through my abdomen, a wound that wasn’t healing itself. Must’ve gotten hit by a silver bullet. Shit!

My knees already felt like they were going to give up, I had lost too much blood and my eyes were beginning to darken. My eyes wandered off to the sides to figure out where I was, but in this big a castle, I had no idea.

Maybe it was a hallway to somewhere? Basement probably? Not knowing where I was even headed, I knew I had to wait out my wounds to heal, till I can charge back in. But healing came first; being unable to move, I’d be pretty useless against the Purebloods. And I needed to look for my pack members that weren’t in the pile of those bodies I saw earlier.

Blood slaves. That’s what these god-awful vampires liked doing to us werewolves — turning us into something less than even livestock.

I hated them – with every last drop of blood they hadn’t yet taken. Treating us like food, and bestowing upon us conditions worse than slaves!

I hated them with all my guts, and yet…

… I felt so fuckin’ powerless!

I kept walking down those stairs; the deeper I’d go, the safer I’d be and the quicker I’d heal! And then all I had to do was rescue the remaining pack and retreat into the woods; though escaping the castle might give us some trouble. But if nothing else, it was worth trying.

I didn’t even care if it made us mere cowards, who abandoned the cause and ran away with our tails between our legs. Keeping the pack alive mattered to me more than anything.

After what felt like an eternity of walking, with my wound getting significantly worse and my body losing even more blood, I finally stumbled upon the dark corridor that those stairs had led me to. This was definitely the basement.

There was what seemed like prison cells on both sides of the walls. The corridor was too dark to make out anything actually; but I was pretty sure that there were grill bars on those walls. Jail cells. But for who? Prisoners? But vampires didn’t need to keep prisoners. They usually went for the kill.

And if it weren’t for prisoners, then it would only be the one other thing – again, blood slaves!

And although I couldn’t smell anyone from my own pack, the strong lingering scent no doubt belonged to wolves. And if I’m not too wrong, some other beings as well, elves maybe? But the wolf stench was stronger.

Of all places I could’ve wandered off to, I just had to reach the basement where those monsters caged their food.

It was disgusting.

I quickly went towards the extreme end of the corridor, ignoring all those voices from the cages – they were too sickening to hear, I wanted to help them out, let them escape, but my own situation wasn’t looking too good, I was already on my last legs. Leaning against the farthest corner, I fell down on my knees, supporting my head against the wall and hands pressing against my wound to lessen the amount of blood oozing out.

I had a shitload of things to do, I knew that! I had to save what’s left of my pack, find out if my dad was still alive or not, and if he was, in what condition, free the ones that had been taken in as blood-slaves, get revenge on these assholes! And even get these poor souls out of those miserable cells! Seriously a lot of things!

But... I looked down to see how bad the bullet wound was looking... and I knew...

This was it, wasn’t it...?

Even if I don’t die immediately, there was no way that anyone else would know where I am. And once the vampires notice my presence here, they’ll definitely finish me off. And if not anything, chances are I’d bleed to death.

I held my head in my hands, trembling with both fear and anger, all laced with sadness and this excruciating pain I couldn’t explain!

“Shit...!”

I felt my eyes glossing over... just how fuckin’ pathetic could I have been!? I couldn’t save anyone... I was the next-in-line alpha of our pack, and yet... I couldn’t protect anyone...

And now, I was going to die...

Just like that...

Not even in the woods or our clan’s homeland... but in a fuckin’ vampire basement!

Fuckin’ pathetic!

.

.

.

“Want me to slaughter those blood sucking bastards for you, wolfie? ~”

My eyes had immediately fluttered open and my head turned towards my right, my gaze immediately falling on the owner of the voice.

‘...those eyes...so pretty...’

And that was the first time I saw him.