On the night Katrina rescued the man that was being beat up, the men supernaturally escaped—amidst the fatal blows she dealt on them. The blood moon helped them regenerate and escape. They hurriedly returned back to the Vampire Queen, Sophia, whose original intention was for Tyler to be brought to her dead, so she resurrects him. . . and makes him indebted to her, leaving him the choice of being her mate. “We were attacked”, one of the men said, standing in a dark room with his other acolytes. The room had a few candles, none of which they lit. “We were knocked unconscious, and we could not summon you. We left, but we cannot get rid of the smell that lingers”. There wasn’t much to it, really—the smell was only in their minds. They were already vampires, which meant they couldn’t actually smell anything. It didn’t smell like blood. It smelled like... well, blood. And that was what kept them from turning into vampiric animals during the daytime, but there was no mistaking

Katrina couldn’t make much sense of the conversation, but she knew she had troubled a certain group of people. She knew they were vampires, but she didn’t realize she was in the presence of the Queen. She wasn’t sure what it meant, exactly. But as soon as she heard it, she felt her entire body grow cold, and she realized that she couldn’t stay. There were too many unknown variables. She couldn’t keep playing games against people who wanted to do bad things to humans, or maybe even worse. Katrina didn’t want to know any more about those people, so if they wanted to find her, they would just have to go through her. The only problem with it being dark was that she couldn’t see where she was going without activating her werewolf powers without alerting the vampires of the presence of another supernatural bring, or how far away from them she had to go before . Her hearing was good enough to tell that they were the only ones on the east side of town, so the alleyways shouldn’t be s

The pack leaders had completely forgotten about the new alpha, but then he arrived. At the exact moment the pack leaders had all begun to grow impatient, ready to hear the new leader speak. The pack leader came riding on horseback, his long dark brown hair blowing in the wind. He rode directly toward the front line of the pack—the wolves who were ready to do battle—and stopped right beside the old pack alpha, staring at him with an expressionless face. Then, without saying a word or looking at anyone else in the pack, he pulled out a dagger and sliced open his palm. Blood immediately gushed out of his wound. And he threw his hand in the air, letting his arm fall at his side, as if it weighed nothing. And then he said something to the old pack alpha. “I hereby swear to fight for the new pack until my last breath. I will fight and bleed for you. Because of my oath, my life means something. Because of your death, my own life will mean nothing. Your pack will live for me. Your people

       Anger had become their way of dealing with the fear and pain and hatred they felt. But that anger hadn’t helped them survive. It hadn’t changed the fact that they were still hurting, still scarred. It didn’t make them forget their pain or ease the pain of their memories. Anger and hatred and pain, however, were the only things that helped them cope in those times. The only thing that made them feel alive. And they wanted those emotions to be there for them. But in order to feel alive and happy, they needed to suppress them. So they suppressed them. And that’s why they had learned to bury their feelings. They learnt to hide it in a small space in their mind. So when they wanted to feel something, they buried them deep down within their soul. They tried to forget those feelings that they couldn’t help but remember. They tried to repress those painful memories that they couldn’t bear to remember

   She hated it. Hated feeling trapped and helpless and confused. Hated being trapped and powerless and uncertain. Hated being a prisoner to the whims of fate and its manipulations. Hated everything about it, because it meant that nothing ever would change. That her pain would last forever, that she would spend her days here evading possible vampires on her trail while waiting for the human to get completely healed. He wasn’t a wolf yet, so his healing took a lot of time, and she would spend most of her nights planning. She hated it all, because the truth was undeniable: she could not stand being trapped in a situation where she was not free to move or express herself or completely understand the situation she was wrapped up in that she so desperately desired answers to.         And yet, it seemed as though she had no choice. There was no escape. No hope to be found anywhere. She'd already tol