Frostbitten 3 Page 3

  “I wouldn’t allow that to happen,” Alexa said as calmly as she could.

  Taking on Alexa’s hostile emotions, I jumped on alert, feeling as if whatever fight we were going to have in the future was about to begin right now.

  “Neither would I,” Argus said sternly.

  Loren rolled her eyes. “But brother —”

  “Be quiet or leave the room,” Argus said. “What your suggesting goes against everything we stand for. We are who we are because we protect creatures of the night. Not give them away to make our lives easier, like cowards.”

  “We are who we are because we’re wolves,” Loren replied with an arched brow.

  When Argus growled, he seemed to shake the walls. It was low and deep, but powerful. “And I am your Alpha.”

  Everyone seemed to know what that meant. Even me. Argus wanted her to stop talking back and reminding her of his dominance would do just the trick.

  Argus turned back to everyone else. “Now, with the information that we have, we know that the trained soldiers are not much of a match for us unless they’re high in numbers. I’ll speak with other house leaders and establish teams that can go out and collect information. Most likely, while these soldiers are here, they’re hunting all other night-creatures, but their ultimate goal is to get to Alexa and Faith.”

  Loren rolled her eyes and shook her head. I found it odd at how she could look so much like Esha but be nowhere near as kind and sweet as she was. Loren was just a sweet-faced devil.

  Alexa sighed and combed her fingers through her hair. “I’m sorry, Argus. I didn’t mean for them to follow me all the way here.”

  Argus turned to Alexa. “It is alright. Why do you think I asked you to tell me so much about them all those years ago? I knew that they would make their way to this side of the earth eventually.”

  “This isn’t your fault, Princess,” Lor said with a softness in his eyes as if he were speaking to his baby sister.

  “Yeah.” Kastien crossed his legs beside Loren on the couch. “Besides, we can finally make those bastards pay for what they did to you.”

  Alexa only slightly frowned. “But you don’t have the strength.”

  “We have the numbers,” Lor said. “We each compensate for each other’s weaknesses. That’s why we are so heavily feared. You know that.”

  “Not to mention, our connections,” Argus interjected before turning to Kastien. “We can’t use the phones and risk being found out. I want you to visit the lead vampire homes and inform them that they are to send out scouts for the soldiers. Be sure to let them know that one of us will always be with them to keep things fair.”

  Kastien nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Are there no other werewolves to help?” I asked, suddenly feeling as if I’d overstepped when all eyes turned to me.

  Argus’ expression remained the same, but the tension was there. “We are what remain of the Alaskan Pack.”

  I wanted to know what happened to the rest of them but decided not to ask. Everyone, even Loren, seemed uncomfortable with the subject, and no one made eye contact. “Sorry.”

  Argus slightly tilted his head to the side, but then turned back to the others. His eyes scanned over the group before they stopped on Alexa. She held her usual blank expression, which I’d come to learn was just a way for her to hide her true emotions, but I could still feel her rising panic, and I was sure that the others could hear her heart thudding in her chest. All she ever did was run away from the men that captured her, and now Argus wanted to fight against them head on. She had to be terrified.

  “You all are dismissed,” he said, but as Alexa and I began to walk away with the others, he stopped us. “Alexa,” Argus said softly.

  Alexa and I turned to face him.

  Argus took a deep breath. “I will do everything in my power to make sure that they never hurt you again.”

  “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” she said blatantly.

  “That is why we need your help. Yours and Faith’s.” When he turned to me, I felt the need to look around for someone else with my name. No one had ever needed my help before. “She needs better control over her power so that she can fight as well.”

  Alexa frowned, her eyes flashing in defense. “No. I will not risk her being taken by those monsters. I agreed to go over your plans and tell you more of what I know, but she will not be involved.”

  “So then, the two of you will just keep running? This Bardelos doesn’t seem to give up, and now that they know about Faith, they will search to the end of the earth for her. She is at risk either way.”

  Alexa clenched her teeth and snapped her eyes to me, then back to Argus. She knew what he was saying was true, but I could sense the hope and denial stirring inside of her.

  I took a deep breath and turned to Alexa, then gently took her hand only for her to flinch away in aggravation. She knew what I was thinking.

  “No!” she snapped. “You don’t know —”

  “I know enough,” I said, giving her an apologetic look.

  Fear and worry finally came to Alexa’s expression. “But you don’t know. You haven’t experienced it for yourself.”

  “And I won’t. We have help now.” I tried to smile, but the amount of fear that I was taking on, mixed with my own, made it difficult.

  “Alexa,” Argus said, his voice calm. He stepped towards her, leaving a small gap as he gently placed his hand over her shoulder. “We need the both of you for us to win. You know what I am capable of, and you know that I keep my word. We will beat them, and I will punish him.”

  Alexa turned to me, her worry deepening before turning her attention towards the large window. She took a long moment to think, then pulled away from his grasp and turned back to him. Her eyes were hard again. Cold even. “If anything happens to her…” She couldn’t seem to finish her sentence, but we all knew what she was going to say next.

  When Argus’ eyelids lowered, the room felt as if it was filled with a dark and powerful energy. It was warm and yet, sent chills down my spine, and when I took a look at his aura, I found that it was a mixture of black and gold.

  Argus’ eyes glowed with a burning sun colored yellow. “I understand, and I will do everything in my power to make sure that that is a fight we will never have to come to.”

  Chapter Five

  Ever since our talk with Argus, it felt as if Alexa had grown somewhat distant. She was my sole trainer with some help from Kastien and Kahlien, and while doing so, she kept her mind closed to me. Every now and then I would get snippets of her thoughts, but over the past few weeks it had become rare.

  It was actually kind of lonely.

  I didn’t think that Alexa was upset with me, because when we were alone together, she was still her usual self, but I didn’t know what she was thinking or feeling. Being cut off from her made me unsure about almost everything. Especially when it came to the subject of fighting against Dr. Bardelos’ soldiers.

  I wondered if this would all end if we killed Dr. Bardelos, or if someone else would just fill his place in hunting us. Did the government actually know about him and his science experiments, or did he create a secret organization and recruit soldiers of his own? I figured that he did everything alone, because if the government knew about supernatural creatures, then the search for our kind would probably be a little less quiet. Besides, they would try and eradicate us, and Dr. Bardelos was just experimenting. Then again, the government could be paying him to do just that.

  Every night that I went to sleep beside Alexa, I hoped that my theory was wrong. A fight with the government was a fight that was beyond our small group of wolves and vampires. I wasn’t exactly sure how many recruits Argus was able to get on board, but no matter what the size, we all couldn’t take on the United States. I guessed that was what Argus’ scouts were for though, to gather intel and analyze exactly what we were up against.

  Until then, I was simply training with Alexa, getting my ass handed to
me, and then getting my ass handed to me some more.

  Alexa was not a fun trainer, and our new distant relationship wasn’t helping. As she’d slam me down into the dirt, against a tree, yank me into the air, and choke me until I nearly blacked out, I wondered if she was only blocking me off so that she could do all that meant necessary to train me properly.

  Sometimes, when I noticed her resolve of beating me into a pulp begin to break, I could sense her hesitation and the anxiety that came with striking me. I knew that she didn’t like the pain that she was inflicting, so she had to just be getting me as ready as I possibly could be for the fight to come.

  That realization was what helped me kick into gear. I still needed to perfect my basic abilities before I could get into freezing things with my new ice powers, but every now and then, my abilities would come out to play. Luckily, not on any of my trainers.

  I doubled over and took in a deep breath, then quickly stood upright and pushed my rain-soaked curls back and out of my face. Tonight, I was up against Kastien and Kahlien, who I tended to get mixed up together because of their close resemblance. From the look of it, twins ran heavily through the family and their genes were abnormally strong. Even Lor and Loren looked just alike when it came to their facial features, although it was obvious that they weren’t twins because of the age difference.

  Kastien gave a low growl as he sprang out his claws and bent his knees, then Kahlien did the same right beside him. In response, I gave a well-practiced hiss that echoed through the night before springing out my claws. With that, the two of them charged, and I charged right back.

  Once they were close enough, Kahlien leapt into the air and swiped down with his claws as he descended, but I was faster than him and zipped to my left, using speed. The moment I came to a stop, Kastien was in front of me with bright golden eyes, long canines, and a handsomely excited smile.

  My instincts told me to go on the immediate defense. Especially since he was the better offensive fighter between the three of us, and I found myself blocking a flurry of punches. When one landed against my chin and caused me to stumble back, I remembered why wolves were so feared.

  They were strong as hell.

  Kastien only used a small portion of his strength to deliver that blow, which would’ve taken a normal person’s head clean off. The only reason that we vampires were stronger than wolves was because our speed was a lot faster and useful when it came to using strength. Wolves on the other hand could move faster than the human eye could see, but not fast enough to throw off a vampire. It was their abnormal strength that we had to look out for since one serious blow could instantly kill us. It was frightening to even think about what a pack of wolves fighting at full strength could do.

  As I struggled to regain my footing, my eyes zoomed in on Kastien winding up to throw another blow. On alert, I flashed backwards to get some distance but was suddenly distracted by a growling sound coming from my right.

  Quickly glancing over, I dodged back just enough to miss Kahlien’s claws swiping downwards at my face. I thought that I was in the clear when he stepped in close, twisted his body, and slammed an uppercut into my chin.

  I grunted as my teeth rattled and stumbled backwards but remembered the consequences of falling, so I quickly caught my balance and was ready to block another blow from Kastien.

  Back and forth the men tag-teamed me, which gave me absolutely no time to recuperate. I was practically on my toes the entire time, only this was nowhere near as bad as it was with Alexa. She basically kicked my ass on full throttle each and every training session.

  Things didn’t finally start to slow down until I ducked a hook from Kastien, saw an opening, and rammed my fist into the center of his stomach. My vampire strength kicked in, driving my fist forward with more force than before, when I began to notice that he was in the air.

  A second later, he fell face first into the mud.

  Excitement overwhelmed me when I realized that I had finally gotten a clean shot at one of the wolves, and I made the mistake of smiling when he grabbed my ankle and yanked it forward, pulling me to my back.

  I landed in the mud beside him with a goopy splash and grimaced at the pain in the back of my head. Once the pain began to subside, my excitement resurfaced, and I turned to Kastien with a smile. “I knocked you down.”

  Kastien raised a brow, still flat on his stomach. “And you still lost.” He raised his head to look up at a tall black wolf with sun colored eyes.

  Kahlien’s wolf stared down at me before stepping forward and licking my forehead. After sniffing and sneezing, he turned and slowly walked back towards the mansion.

  “If this were a real fight, he would’ve eaten you,” Kastien chuckled as he got to his knees.

  “If this were a real fight, I would’ve frozen him,” I said with a smug grin.

  Kastien nodded and jumped to his feet. “Touche.”

  When I stood, Kastien began going over all the things that I did wrong and what I could fix. I tried to stay focused, but when I smelled Alexa’s sweet scent nearby, I couldn’t help but to get excited. He might as well had been speaking in another language since my mind was now on the vampire that turned me.

  It wasn’t until Kastien was finally done talking did I turn around to find Alexa speaking with Loren by the door. I had learned to control my heightened senses well enough that I wasn’t constantly aware of every single little thing around me, so I couldn’t hear them until I turned up the volume to my senses, but the moment that I did, they stopped speaking.

  I tensed, my territorial side instantly beginning to simmer. When we first arrived here, Loren was less than kind to Alexa, but over time she had been easing her way into starting small conversations and giving jokes here and there. Of course, Alexa never laughed at her jokes, but she did respond, and I could tell that she wasn’t as cold with Loren as she was before. The two of them were getting familiar with each other again, which was something my mind couldn’t seem to handle.

  Loren looked up at me and crossed her arms with a smug grin, then her sun eyes flashed, and she walked back inside. Alexa remained there a moment longer with her glowing blues on mine.

  “You did good,” she thought.

  Surprised, my eyebrows furrowed. “Thank you.”

  The softness of her thoughts could have melted me from the inside. Transferring thoughts and being let back in was the mental relief that I needed, but the moment that I felt myself sinking into her mind, her mental doors slammed shut.

  I frowned, hurt that Alexa had blocked me off again. She didn’t blink, move, or say a word, but through the mental silence I could hear the muffled sound of someone screaming, like someone was behind the doors Alexa had just closed.

  She’s blocking me from her memories, I thought.

  I frowned in concern and wanted to say something, but the moment that I opened my mouth to speak, Kastien patted down on my shoulder.

  “Big bro is calling,” he said.

  My eyebrows furrowed as I turned to him in confusion.

  Kastien chuckled and shook his head. “Vampires aren’t the only ones with mental connections.”

  Chapter Six

  Argus did want to talk, but as it turned out, he didn’t want me to be apart of the conversation. I was somewhat offended when he first told me, but then understood that I wasn’t supposed to be there because I wouldn’t be involved in whatever mission they were about to go on. It was for the kick ass fighters only, and I was only a kick ass trainee.

  The mission was simple. Apparently, there was some kind of attack on a vampire hang out, and the werewolves were called to check it out. Keeping everything in order was their job after all. Just in case it was some kind of trap though, some of the wolves had to stay behind and wait to be called as backup.

  The only people staying at the house were me, Argus, Alexa, and Lor while the others followed Agron to the scene.

  ~Frostbitten~

  I sat in bed with my back against the headb
oard and shut my eyes. I was exhausted from tonight’s training and couldn’t wait to get into bed. I only felt slightly left out at not being sent on the mission, but then realized that I was too burnt out to fight and would prefer sleeping anyways. The wolves could take care of things like they had apparently been doing for hundreds of years, and if anything popped off, I’d be well slept and ready.

  I was just drifting off when I began to imagine being burned by scorching hot water. I jolted upwards, waking Allie beside me, and wiped the sweat from my forehead. Once the initial shock was gone, I turned to find that Alexa still hadn’t made it to bed yet. I knew that it was going to be sunrise soon, so she should’ve been on her way back by now, but —

  A wave of emotions suddenly flooded my mind, causing my heart to race. I wasn’t sure what was going on but goosebumps began to rise from my skin and my hairs stood on end.

  At first the emotions were so overwhelming that I couldn’t focus on anything, but then I noticed that I was shaking and beginning to pant and remembered having reactions like this many times before, only they hadn’t stemmed from emotions. Back when I used to do heroin, when I couldn’t afford another fix, sometimes I would go straight into a panic attack.

  After realizing that my panic attack was being caused by Alexa, I jumped out of bed and flashed out of the room in less than a second. Her not being able to hide her fear as she’d done since I started training frightened me, and I worried that something had gone very wrong.

  “Alexa,” I called through our mental connection. I didn’t know exactly where she was but due to my sire bond, my body moved on auto pilot straight towards her.

  I found her in a dark bedroom in a part of the mansion that I had not yet explored, and from the look of it, it was a part that was uninhabited by the rest of the family.

  Where one side of the mansion looked luxurious and more homelike, this side of the mansion was made of old cracked wood that creaked as I walked over it. As I stepped into the room, I was actually afraid that I would fall through the floor and was relieved when it held my weight.