Mia's Path
The fucker

DRAKE

I was pacing in my office for over an hour by now. I was anxious and there was nothing I could do to distract myself. I guess I could have gone for a run, but then I could miss them arriving back, so it was best to be here. Kyle was sitting on my couch and gazing out the window. After Raina called me a few days ago, telling me they had found Mia and they were bringing her back, I called him right away. He was at the packhouse the next morning. Apparently, he talked with Zoe and Philip about coming back for a few days and they allowed it, as long as the rest of our warriors stayed there to assure he would come back and that I wouldn’t try to attack them or something. The guy was really paranoid.

“I think I see them.” Kyle said and jumped to his feet.

My heart was beating so fast right now that I thought I would have a heart attack. I saw Kyle making his way out of my office in a blink of an eye and for some reason I was frozen in place. Raina said they had a problem and that I wouldn’t like it. So, I imagined the worst, Mia being kept as a vampire’s blood bag for a month must have taken a toll on her. And even if Mel and Lilly went with them, I knew they wouldn’t have all the things needed to bring Mia back to a good health so quickly. Even with my blood to help.

So, I took a deep breath in and out, trying to calm my racing heart and prepare myself to see the worst. Silver was trying to get control and run after them, he couldn’t wait anymore to make sure she was back safely. Over the last month he was obsessed with Mia and could only think about her, about seeing her safe in our arms again. He didn’t care anymore if she was destined to us or not, he made his mind that he wanted her and that was it. I went out of my office, making my way out of the packhouse, but what I saw I was not prepared for.

My eyes landed on Mia the second I was outside. She looked at me and in that instant, I knew something was off. She should have that defiant sparkle in her eyes, one that she always reserved for me. My eyes ran down her body and again I was caught off guard. She wasn’t hurt, starved or even dirty. She looked perfectly fine and healthy, so why the hell had Raina warned me. That’s when my eyes caught movement and a hand snaked around Mia’s waist, pulling her against a strange man’s chest. One look it was all it took for me to know he was a vampire.

Wait, is he the one that caused the crash?

Now Silver was enraged. How dare he touch her in a so intimate way. Was the son of a bitch smirking at me right now? I saw red. Silver had no problem taking over control and in a fracture of a second, we leaped in the bastard’s direction and shifted. He had no chance to react and even if he had, I was stronger. And right now, with how much fury Silver was fueled with, I didn’t think anyone would be able to stop us. I landed on the vampire’s chest, making him hit the ground hard and wince in pain.

He could rest assured that pain would be his new constant state of life. I was going to make him suffer for what he did to my family and Mia. The crashed hadn’t only allowed him to get her, he had hurt my sister and her friends. Raina was even bitten by a damn vampire and had to receive a blood transfusion for loss of blood. This fucker had caused too many problems and now he was going to pay for them. I’d start easy though, since I wanted him to suffer for a very long time, at least twice as much as he had Mia away from us.

My big white paw was on his chest, and I pressed it hard, reveling in the feeling of his ribs breaking under my weight. He groaned in pain and tried to get away from me, but I was not going to let that happen. That’s when I noticed I was the only one around him and nobody else was helping me take this motherfucker down.

Suddenly I felt a hard kick to my flank and that made me loose balance, which gave the vampire enough space and time to get away. I looked at my attacker and my mouth hit the floor. Mia. Raina was trying to hold her off while screaming at me to back off. What the hell was going on? Silver growled at Raina, we could see she was hurting Mia and it didn’t bode well with us. With all that going on, the vampire was on his feet now and by Mia’s side again. She was still looking furiously at me, but he whispered something in her ear, and she relaxed a little.

I was confused as fuck and had no idea what the hell was going on. Looking around I noticed that Tom was holding Kyle back and saying something to him. At least Kyle was still on my side, because sure as hell it didn’t seem like anybody else was.

“Stay the fuck away from him, you jerk!” Mia hissed at me and caught my attention again.

She was still pissed off and shaking a little. The fucker was holding her by the shoulders, running his hands up and down her arms in a comforting manner while glaring at me. Raina was pissed off as well and was trying to calm Mia down, reassuring her that I wouldn’t hurt Seth. SETH? Was she calling him by his name and dare I say it, protecting him from me? I looked over my sister and she had a sad expression on her face, she wouldn’t meet my eyes. Lilly was now with Raina softly talking Mia down from hitting me again.

Sam was struggling to keep her wolf down, I could tell. But she was by Kyle’s side and wouldn’t look at me too. I took control again and shifted back to my human form. Silver might be stronger, faster and deadlier, but now I needed to use my mouth and ask what the fuck was going on and why were they protecting the enemy.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MEANING OF THIS?” I roared, incapable of controlling all my anger. Everybody flinched with my Alpha tone. Even Seth, the douche vampire that would still pay with his life. Well, except for Mia. She didn’t even blink. She was still glaring at me and now had put herself in front of the fucker, blocking my way. My body started to tremble again.

“Calm the fuck down, Drake.” Raina said annoyed.

Oh, she was annoyed, wasn’t she? I was going to show her annoyance.

“If you touch him again, I’ll hurt you.” Mia sneered at me. Now I was stunned.

“Red, I...” I tried to say, but she cut me off.

“Don’t call me that, you jerk. ARGH! And for the love of the Gods, put on some clothes.” She spat at me, looking away like I was the one hurting her.

For a second, I thought I saw that defiant sparkle on her beautiful emerald, green eyes. It was gone too fast though, making me doubt myself.

“Lilly, Mel, why don’t you guys show Mia and Seth to my place. They can settle down there. I need to have a talk with Drake and Kyle.” Raina commanded them and to my utter surprise my sister and Lilly obliged.

“There’s no way in hell I’ll let that fucker in-” I started, clenching my fists ready to hit that straight nose of his.

“Drake, that’s enough.” Raina barked at my face. She was now by my side and before I could react, she touched my arm. I hated when she did that, that damn trick that would keep me in place for a few minutes. A few minutes too long, that was more than enough for the fucker and the girls to disappear into the packhouse.

“You better have a good explanation, Raina, or I swear to the Moon Goddess th–”

“Mia will die if you kill Seth.”

My eyes flew to Sam. What the fuck had she just said? That couldn’t be possible.

We were back in my office now and everyone was here, well, almost everyone, Lilly was with Mia and the fucker. I refused to use his name or any other word to refer to his sorry excuse of an existence. Kyle was by my side close to the window behind my desk. Tom was blocking the door while brooding and clearly having a discussion with his wolf. Mel and Raina were sat on the couch and Sam was pacing the room. She had dropped a bomb at us but hadn’t said a word after that, which only made me and Kyle all that more enraged and frustrated.

“Okay, we have privacy. Now explain.” I ordered. I didn’t care who, but someone better explained it to me right the fuck now.

“Seth got her hooked.” Sam started and it wasn’t a good start. It made my claws come out again and I had to fight to keep my human form.

“I’m sorry, what?” I hissed through gritted teeth.

“Vampire blood, Drake.” Mel sighed tiredly. She still couldn’t look me in the eye. “She’s not herself right now, it’s the addiction acting through her mind.”

“I thought vampire blood was only addictive to humans.” I said trying to understand how she could be hooked if she wasn’t human. Unless Raina and I were wrong all along. Were we?

“Yeah, it is. But for all the effects right now, she is human.” Raina explained.

“Wait, what do you mean by ‘for all the effects right now’? Mia is human, period. Right?” Kyle asked.

Hm, I guess I forgot to talk to him about my suspicions. My bad.

“No Kyle, she’s not. We don’t know what she is and how exactly her powers are bound, but she is not human.” Raina said, already tired of all this conversation.

“What the fuck? Since when?” Kyle asked angrily.

“Since always, you dumbwit.” I snapped at him.

“You know this since you saw her?” He asked suspiciously.

“No, I had my doubts about her then, but after Ray confirmed she had sensed the same when she got here, I knew I was right.”

“You knew about this and you two kept quiet?” Kyle looked hurt now, glaring at Raina with such venom in his eyes that even I looked away.

“We didn’t know what she was, so what was the point about saying something?” I shrugged my shoulders.

“Kyle, she didn’t want anyone to know anything until she knew it herself. But we couldn’t figure it out.” Raina softly explained to him.

“And what the fuck all that shit has to do with the damn vampire blood right now?” He exploded, breathing heavily and glaring at all of us, one by one.

“Don’t ask me, brother, I have no idea.” I said honestly.

“Look, what’s important right now is that we can’t kill Seth. Not yet anyway. Mia took too much of his blood and I’m afraid that she would have a very bad withdrawal. I don’t think she would survive if we took his blood away cold turkey.”

“Fine, Mel, go get that fucker’s blood. You can drain him for all I care.” I snapped at my sister. Why the fuck wasn’t she doing that right now?

“It’s not that simple, Drake.” Raina sighed exhausted. “She needs fresh vampire blood.”

“Okay, we can get other vampires an-” Kyle started but Raina cut him off with a wave of her hand.

“No, Ky, it has to be his blood.”

“What then? Are we stuck with him?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“Yeah, we are. And while she’s under his blood influence, she won’t be herself. She will protect him, protect the source of her addiction.” Raina took in a deep breath and continued. “And it’s not all. Seth is a gifted vampire.”

“How can you be sure?” Kyle dropped himself on the chair by the fireplace.

“He tried to use it on me, but his powers don’t work against my witchy ones.”

“What’s the gift?” I asked lowly.

I had a hunch about it, but I was wishing that Raina would tell me I was wrong, and it wasn’t as gross and cruel as I was thinking it was.

“Well, he can make people... Sort of... fall in love with him.”

Fuck.

“There’s more.” Sam hissed.

“What?” me and Kyle asked at the same time, both of us annoyed as hell.

“Apparently there’s someone hunting him, and he needs our help to stop them. He convinced Mia that he reached out to us and when we found them, we were there to help him out and keep them safe.”

I wanted to kill that fucker so badly.

“How are we gonna get Mia sober again?” Mel asked the million-dollar question.

“Well, in here he can’t escape, but we can get them separated, so his gift can’t work on her anymore.” Raina started to tell us her plan to get Mia clean of his blood and off his influence as well.