First kill

AMBER’S POV

I was settling well into the vampire clan and although I didn’t have any friends yet I was starting to feel at home and a little welcome by some of the vampires. I wasn’t really bothered by the fact that some of the vampires were having a hard time accepting me and adjusting to my presence because I had been living my life as a reject ever since I was born. I was just happy to be in a place where I felt like my very existence was not an abomination, some may have been blatantly rejecting me but the few that were accepting me made me feel at home. Of course, I felt like I was living a lie to a certain extent, but I also felt like this was an opportunity for me to rewrite my life and get a fresh start. The fact that no one knew who I was meant that I could be anyone and anything that I wanted.

Cain had been very helpful and he was helping me with everything that I needed help with, he was helping me settle into the coven and was trying his best to keep the ones that were trying to bully me in check. He liked being my hero and feeling like he was rescuing me from something and I was merely allowing him to do that. It wasn’t as if I couldn’t defend myself, I was just trying to get used to the place before I started ruffling some feathers. However, it was now clear to me that I had already ruffled some feathers without even trying.

The main thing that had been worrying me was the fact that everyone would wonder why I wasn’t drinking the blood that they had been giving me if I was a vampire. However, it turned out that giving my explanation to Cain was enough for everyone and suddenly the blood stopped coming and I was now being served sandwiches. Although no one really understood this at first, they now seemed to come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t into drinking blood like they were and I had Cain to thank for all this. The explanation that I had given him as to why I didn’t drink blood seemed to be satisfactory to them and because of that, Cain and I had gone into the human settlements to get some food for me. Slowly but surely this was feeling like home to me and I was determined to not allow anything to ruin it for me.

“Come with me,” Cain said after watching me eat my dinner, he seemed to think that the food I was eating was disgusting just as I thought that him drinking blood was. I wasn’t offended by this I just found it amusing that he thought drinking human blood was normal but at the same time, I hated that they robbed another creature of an opportunity to live, all because they wanted to eat. He always countered this by telling me that they never killed babies but to me, it was all the same because those babies would only grow to be an adult and be killed by them for food. However, this was not something that I dared say because I didn’t want to come off as judgemental.

“Where are we going ?” I asked him as he looked at his watch, I hoped that he could see that it was already late and time for bed. Then again I had to remember that he didn’t really need sleep, I was the one who needed sleep because I still wants a vampire a hundred percent despite the spell that Iyana had put on me.

“We are invading a wolf settlement tonight” he announced as he got up and my eyes widened in a little fear and excitement

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier, do you think I am ready to do that?” I asked him nervously

”I am confident you are, have you seen yourself on the training fields. You are a ball of fire” he said as he caressed my arm and I moved a little farther away from him, I didn’t like being touched and I didn’t like the direction he seemed to want to take in our friendship.

“So get ready and let's go,” he said oblivious of the boundary he had just crossed

”Okay” I said as I put on my shoes and we headed out.

This was the moment that I found out that I was actually the only female hunter in the coven, the cars that we got in had males and all of them seemed to look down on me. It felt like none of them thought that I deserved to be here and they disapproved of the first-class treatment that Cain was giving to me. OI kind of shared the same sentiments as them although I did feel that I deserved to be here just like everyone else. I had been training with some female hunters but I wondered why they were not here, if their job was not to hunt for wolves and invade packs then what was their job?

 I guessed that the male vampires that I was with looked down on me because I was not only a woman but also because I had literally come out of nowhere and became something that none of them could ever measure up to, in short, they were just jealous, and their jealous reeked. I could understand that it would take some of these vampires some time to trust me, but I wasn’t about to allow anyone to look down on me or tone myself down just to make them a little more comfortable around me. I was just as good as them, if not better.

We drove into a small town that was said to be filled with rogue wolves and Cain wouldn’t stop emphasizing that this was not just an attack but it was also more like a trial run for me to see how I would handle being faced with an entire pack. I was excited and scared at the same time, what if the anger and the bitterness that I had against my own pack weren’t strong enough to motivate me to kill any wolf? At the end of the day, a part of me was still a wolf and I was afraid that in the presence of wolves I would break down and fail at the task given to me.

We had to lie in wait for the wolf pack to go to sleep and then Cain gave us a heads up to attack when he thought it was time.

“You stick with me” he commanded me “just do as I do,” he said and I nodded eagerly

Everyone spread out and started walking into huts and dragging out the wolves that were asleep inside of them, I just followed Cain’s lead and we both did just as the other hunters did. Once every wolf was gathered next to the large fire that the other hunters had lit up, everyone let loose a flood of silver bullets and Cain finally handed me his gun. I wondered why I hadn't been given a gun when we left the castle but I was just happy to finally be able to participate in what was happening.

“It's more therapeutic than you would think it is,” he said with a wink and I wondered if he thought this was our first date. I took the gun and without even thinking twice I started shooting. It was as if my eyes went blank and instead of seeing these wolves that were before me as innocent wolves I just saw my father's face plastered on all of their faces.

“And this is your new gun,” he said proudly and although I was grateful to have a piece that belonged to me, I wondered why he gave me his own gun

”You love this gun, why would you give it to me?” I asked him confused

“I did love it but you also need a gun and I am the only one here who doesn't mind sharing with you,” he said and when he noticed the skeptical look on my face he continued “just use it for now until you get your own personal weapon made for you,” he said and I was content with that, I wanted a gun that was mine and not passed down to me.

We joined the other hunters that were now gathering the dead wolves and I realized that Cain was right, taking aim and shooting at wolves was therapeutic and I didn’t feel an ounce of emotion as the hunters started throwing the dead bodies into the fire. Cain and I went around the huts that the now-dead wolves had been living in and set them on fire too. For some reason, I felt a sense of accomplishment when we were done doing everything that we had come here to do. My first kill, although t was not what I had imagined it to be, was a rush of adrenaline and I loved every minute of it.

After we left the little town and arrived back home, Cain walked me to my room and started schooling me on all the things that they always did when they invaded these small villages. He also spoke of how they wished that one day they would be able to invade bigger packs with even stronger alphas but they feared that they were just not strong enough. Invading a bigger pack would mean that the clan was waging war against the wolf kingdom and all of the wolves would gather in defense of the pack they would have invaded. I listened carefully at all the challenges they were facing and all the reasons why they wouldn’t invade a big pack just yet, as far as I was concerned the small rogue packs were irrelevant. It was the big dogs that we had to get rid of and if we got rid of the leader we could easily vanquish the rogues.

“A world free of wolves…” Cain said with a dreamy look on his face as he sat on the couch opposite my bed where I was lying. Going on the hunt was a lot more exhausting than I had expected it to be even though I had barely done anything.

“Now that is a dream that I would love to have tonight,” I said as I yawned hoping that he would get the message that I wanted to go to bed

“I wish I could read your mind,” he said “do you know that I can read everyone’s mind in the coven, well everyone except you,” he said and I was happy to know that he was an invader of privacy because now I knew that no matter who I got close to, I should never reveal my secrets to anyone because Cain would just read them like a book.

“Why would you want to read my mind?” I asked him

“You always drift away in thought and I would like to know what occupies that pretty head of yours,” he said getting up from his chair and walking toward me. I instantly tensed up fearing what he was about to do,  I had never been kissed by anyone before and I sure didn’t want this to be how I got my first kiss. He leaned in and pressed his lips onto my forehead and I breathed a sign of relief, was invading people’s space his thing too?

“Good night,” he said as he winked at me and walked out of the door.

I didn’t like the way Cain was behaving around me. I appreciated the fact that he was taking care of me and was going out of his way to make me feel at home but now I just felt like he was overstepping his boundaries. Why couldn’t he stick to business and stick to training me?

One good thing had come out of being his favorite though, I was let in on the coven secrets. Cain had told me things that he said no one else knew in the coven, I didn’t wonder why he was doing this but now I was realizing that was probably because he thought he could see a future with me.

I never thought I would say this but I could now see why the moon goddess had taken the task of choosing mates for herself. For some reason, I felt like if we were left to choose mates for ourselves disorder would surely ensue. I had no doubt in my mind that in this vampire coven everyone had slept with everyone because there were just no limits to mating. All these thoughts about mates made me wonder if my own mate was a vampire or a wolf, it didn’t matter though because whoever he was, he was going to wait for a lifetime for me to finally show up.