Elias realized they had seen me standing there, and he stepped between us, telling me to get back inside


    the cave.


    Vampires and werewolves had always been enemies. They’d been fighting each other for hundreds of


    years, and when they weren’t in battle, they were plotting how to wipe each other out. But as I stood there <fn5ee9> Readplete version only at find[f]ovel</fn5ee9>


    in front of these vampires, I could tell something about them didn’t feel right.


    I didn’t listen to Elias’smand. Instead, I walked out of the cave and stood behind him. I could see the


    worry on his face. He clearly thought this was going to end with me getting hurt–or worse. But the


    vampires weren’t attacking. They were only staring at me.


    “You’re not here to kill us,” I said.


    “What are you talking about? They’re vampires. Of course they’re going to kill us,” Elias snapped.


    “No. They’re not,” I said firmly. And I noticed how the vampires‘ tense posture eased a bit.


    “You really are the princess,” one of them said. Elias looked at them, wary. He shifted back into human


    form, and I tossed him a pair of shorts.


    “What do you want?” Elias growled at them.


    “We want her. We need her,” the other one said, pointing at me.


    “That’s never going to happen,” Elias said.


    “We heard she’s mated to an Alpha. You finally escaped from your father’s hold,” the first one said.


    “How do you even know that? Everyone believed I died during childbirth,” I said.


    “News travels,” he replied.


    “What do you want her for?” Elias asked.


    “We don’t know. Our leader just told us toe and get her. He needs her for something, but he didn’t say what,” the vampire said.


    “He’s going to hurt me,” I said.


    “That’s not the feeling we got,” he replied.


    “I know he will. I can feel it. He didn’t tell you on purpose<b>–</b>so I’d trust you. But he is going to hurt me,” I said, clutching Elias’s arms.


    Elias raised his arms protectively in front of me, and I heard a growl rising in his chest.


    “We’re not here to fight,” one of them said.


    “Well, you’re getting one,” Elias said, his voice low as his fangs began to grow.


    TEA.


    < CHAPTER 32


    More Rewards


    “We’ve been watching you, princess. You helped bring down a werebear. And you survived everything that witch threw at you. Do you understand how strong you have to be to do that?” the vampire asked.


    “I’m not going with you,” I said again.


    “We have to take you. I mean it. If we don’t bring you back, our leader will kill us,” he said.


    “If you try to take her, I will kill you,” Elias growled, fur already sprouting along his arms. He was about to


    shift again, but I knew he wouldn’t fully change while I was right beside him.


    “I said no,” I repeated.


    “You don’t have a choice,” one of them yelled, lunging at us. Elias shoved me back into the cave and transformed fully,unching himself at the vampires.


    The vampires were fast–scarily fast–but werewolves weren’t exactly weak. We weren’t created just to destroy vampires, but we were the only kind of supernatural being fast and strong enough to actually kill


    them.


    Elias being an Alpha gave him an edge. He wasrger than most wolves. He got hold of one vampire while


    the other tried to slip past him to reach me. He was fighting both at once, and they both came at him


    together. I could tell he was struggling. Two against one was tough. But he was strong, and he was holding


    them back. Still, I could see they were doing real damage to him.


    Panic overtook me, and I dropped my head, shaking it from side to side. This was all because of me, all of <ol><li>it. They were after me, not him. They’re going to kill him because of me. They’re going to kill him. They’re </li></ol>


    going to kill him. Then I suddenly shouted “NO!” and a st of glowing blue light shot from my body,


    knocking all three of them to the ground.


    The force threw me backward too, and Inded t on my back, but I got up much quicker than the others


    and ran straight toward Elias. He was slowly rising, and one of the vampires was barely moving on the


    ground while the other stayedpletely still.


    I cautiously walked over to check, and the one who wasn’t moving had already died. A tree branch had pierced straight through his heart. The other wasn’t able to get up because he’d been pinned down by


    another branch. The wood itself was weakening him.


    I heard Elias shift back into his human form, and when I saw the wounds on him, he looked furious seeing


    the vampires lying there. He grabbed a thick branch from the ground, walked over to the vampire who was


    still alive, and drove it straight into his chest. His body shriveled, turned gray, and then he died.


    “Holy s**t,” I muttered. Elias turned to face me. I was standing there, trembling. I couldn’t make sense of what had just happened. I had no idea what I had just done. My mind was a mess, still trying to piece


    together what just urred.


    Elias took hold of my arms and looked me straight in the eyes. He tried to speak to me, but everything


    came through muffled and distant, like echoes. So he led me back to the cave.


    He slipped into a pair of shorts, packed all of my belongings into a bag, and we left the cave again. I wasn’t


    223


    reacting to anything, so he had to drag me along through the woods.


    More Rewards


    I was inplete shock. I couldn’tprehend what was going on. I knew something had changed in me on my sixteenth birthday. My body had changed, and I knew somehow I belonged <i>to </i>the royal family. But now everything felt too real. No one ever said the royals had powers. No one ever told me they could


    defeat enemies with abilities like that.


    Somehow, I had sted away two vampires who were trying to kill Elias. Somehow<i>, </i>I had grown to the same size as a werebear. Nothing about this made sense, and it was all happening too quickly. I didn’t


    know what to believe anymore–my mind was spinning with confusion.


    Elias looked at me with deep concern while pulling me through the trees. He could tell I wasn’t dealing


    with any of this well. Then he suddenly stopped, pulled a shirt out of the bag, and pressed it against my


    face. That snapped me out of the fog.


    “What are you doing?” I asked.


    “Your nose is bleeding. I think you pushed yourself too hard back there. You’re not used to using that kind


    of energy, that’s all,” he said. I took the shirt and held it to my nose.


    “I don’t know what the hell happened back there,” I said.


    “I know<i>,” </i>he replied. “But now I’m starting to understand why your father is so determined to get you back.”


    “Who the hell were those vampires working for?” I asked.


    “Probably the vampire council. I’ve never seen them before, so I can’t say for certain. They might belong to a different vampire coven. It’s hard to tell. There are so many of them out there,” he said.


    “I wouldn’t know,” I replied.


    “Alright. Don’t worry about it right now. We just need to get back to our pack. Then you’ll be safe,” he said,


    looking at me with such concern it made me uneasy.


    “You still want me? Why? I’m too much trouble,” I said. He scoffed at that.


    “You’re not too much trouble. Right now, I know I need to protect you more than anything. More and more


    people are discovering who you are. If you were out there alone right now, you’d be dead,” he said.


    “No, I wouldn’t. I’d still be a ve,” I corrected him. He nodded. He knew that no one would kill me


    because they wanted my powers. They would break me until I used my powers however they wanted.


    “Our new location isn’t far from here. If we keep moving, we’ll get there in a couple of hours,” Elias said. I nodded and we started walking again.


    “Elias. They said they saw us take down that werebear. How could vampires have seen that? It was broad daylight and we were out in the open. There wasn’t even any shade from the woods to hide them,” I said,


    confused.


    “Daywalkers,” he said.


    < CHAPTER 32


    “What?” I asked.


    More Rewards


    “Some vampires can walk in the daytime. We don’t know how, but they can,” he said. I realized we needed


    to get back to the pack even faster now.


    We moved much more carefully this time, in case there were more vampires lurking nearby, or more


    people hanging around. But we didn’t stop.


    We finally arrived at a small town that seemed to have only a few hundred people. The houses looked nice, and one house at the top of the town stood out–it was much fancier than all the others.


    But I noticed there were no shops or stores. Just houses.


    “Wee home,” Elias said.


    “This is the new location?” I asked,pletely shocked.


    “Yeah. Why? Were you expecting another camp out in the woods?” he asked.


    “Yeah, kind of,” I admitted.


    “Well, we have this ce because no one would expect us to live somewhere like this. People think we live simple lives in the woods. So instead, we built this as a backup. No one will find us here,” he said.


    Soon, we were surrounded by the rest of the pack, all happy we had arrived in one piece–even though I


    wasn’t sure we would.


    2


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