"I'm sorry, Son. But there is nothing you can do about it. She is your mate," Rourke sighed.
"I didn't know that staying around humans has made you this weak, Dad," Calhoun sneered. "Look at you, accepting that the next Alpha might be significantly weaker than me because of human blood coursing through their body. So fucking pathetic."
"Jaime, that's not what I mean—"
Beep.
—
Calhoun was fed up with his weak and cowardly father, who seemed to have no problem having the last surviving bloodline mate with a weak human, which could be the end for their pack.
"I don't understand. Why do I always get the short end of the stick?" Calhoun complained. He began to recall all the terrible things that happened in his life, and how humans had caused each of them.
Though he was protecting them from those pesky vampires, he still hated them to the bone.
"And now I'm stuck with a human as my mate," Calhoun scoffed bitterly. "What a joke."
*
Calhoun spent his noon near the lake, staring at it until he calmed down, then drove his bike towards his next destination when he had promised Celine to find her sister.
He disliked getting ordered by someone, but he needed to remove those sisters from his life. Maybe if Celine was far away from him, that mark would eventually disappear, and he could resume his daily life, possibly finding his true mate soon.
The young Alpha parked his bike near the deep woods with no dirt track. So he could only enter the deep woods by himself.
He frowned as his nose detected the disgusting smell of many undead gathered in one location, 'Man, those vampires's scent are fucking vile. If not because of her request, I wouldn't even step inside this place,' he complained.
Both the werewolves and vampires had their own territories, except for a few minor skirmishes, neither side wanted to launch a full-fledged attack on each other.
They had different hunting grounds and would try to minimize casualties on both sides, especially for the wolves. After all, they couldn't multiply easily like those vampires who could just find a suitable human willing to be turned into a vampire.
The wolves need to mate first to produce offspring, then raise the pups, who would eventually mature and become one of the functioning members of the pack.
It was even more difficult for an Alpha since they could only mate with their fated mate to produce an Alpha pup.
Thus, a pack tended to be very protective of their Alpha and his mate because their pack would die off without an Alpha.
Calhoun began to think of what he was doing right now, entering the dangerous territory of his enemy. He should call himself foolish for doing such a dangerous stunt for a woman.
'Maybe I should've called Seth,' he thought. But he dispelled the idea because he told Seth that he wouldn't call him unless it was an absolute necessity.
Unfortunately, he couldn't bring Andrew, as he was a brute that would get detected easily, or Marc, because he was inexperienced and somewhat clumsy.
So Calhoun was the only one capable of espionage for his pack.
He clicked his tongue, annoyed by how the Blood Moon pack, once one of the most powerful and fearsome werewolf packs, had been reduced to only four members, including him as the Alpha.
"Oh well, here goes nothing," Calhoun said before he easily leaped from one tree branch to another, slowly approaching the vampire's coven.
He didn't shift into his werewolf form because he would get detected easily due to his overwhelming aura. It was best to stay in his human form for a more silent approach.
He hopped into a tree branch and stopped once the scent of the undead overwhelmed his sensitive nose.
Calhoun could see a gothic mansion in the middle of the woods as he looked down. Unlike the wolf den, which had been modernized, this vampire nest looked old. Had it not been for a few vampires hiding in the shade, Calhoun would think that the mansion was abandoned.
Unlike the vampires whose weakness to sunlight was fatal, werewolves were not affected by it. So he took his chance to spy during broad daylight to give himself an upper hand in case he got ganged up by a horde of vampires.
He watched silently, waiting for someone other than those weak vampires to appear out of the mansion.
'I can smell the scent of a human in there,' Calhoun thought. Unfortunately, the stench coming from the undead masked the human scent. But, this should be a good omen; there's a big chance that Monica might be that human and possibly alive.
As to why those vampires still kept her alive, that was another question that he had no answer for.
Logically, they should've turned her into a vampire or simply drained her blood and turned her into a feast.
He also didn't detect any strong stench of blood, so Monica wasn't bleeding in misery inside.
'What are these vampires doing with her? And why didn't she run away after a while? Vampire hypnosis shouldn't last that long,' Calhoun wondered as he kept thinking of the possible reason for Monica's current condition.
He waited until the sun was set and the torches around the coven lit up.
Still, with all the activities around the coven, Calhoun couldn't find anything suspicious. These vampires would wait until the sun completely set, then they spread all around the area, searching for prey.
If they couldn't find any suitable one, they would just drink the animal's blood, even though it wasn't tasty. After all, kidnapping a human for a feast wasn't as easy as it sounded. There were also werewolf packs from other areas who would constantly guard their territory just like Calhoun.
Calhoun just happened to be notorious due to his strength and his refusal to give those vampires human sacrifices from Helen's creek, forcing the coven to live off animal blood. So he had a lot more fights against the vampires every month.
As time passed, Calhoun finally heard the faint sound of a horse trotting through the woods, followed by the sound of wheels on the smooth ground—something that shouldn't have been possible since the trees were tall and close to each other. There wasn't even a dirt track big enough for his bike, let alone for a carriage.