Chapter 57

Daphne urged the horses to run faster around another bend in the road and her heart lurched as a large, fallen tree trunk came into view. She might have been able to clear it if she were riding the horse alone, but the cart wouldn’t be able to make the jump.

She looked for some reason to drop the cart and found nothing when she heard Arthur call out.

“Daphne! Turn back!”

Daphne heard his voice, relieved, and urged the horse to slow down. She stopped and looked back down the path as Arthur trotted to her. The creatures were gone, likely dead or escaped. He was covered with injuries, blood, and dirt, but he wasn’t bleeding profusely.

It was a small comfort.

Again, those creatures had tried to kidnap her, seemingly determined to take her to wherever they had planned, but they didn’t seem to want to harm her. It was nothing like when Owen kidnapped her, but it only made her more anxious.

What could they possibly want with her? She gasped as a thought crossed her mind.

Was it about what her blood could do? How had they found out? Only Arthur knew and he would never tell anyone. It was the only explanation she could think of.

“Are you okay?” Arthur asked, his gaze dropped to her arm, but she nodded.

“I-I’m okay.”

Arthur nodded and stepped aside as she turned the horse and cart around. Blade and the others were dragging the pale bodies together. Daphne slipped off the horse drawing nearer to the pile of bodies.

“What are they?”

“Vampires,” Blade said, his voice tense. “Probably a part of the same forces that attacked Sharp Armor.”

Were they related to the vampires that had attacked them on the way back or some other faction with a different agenda? What did they want? Arthur glanced at Daphne, but she seemed pale and nervous. He approached her until he was stopped by the sound of a flint being struck.

Arthur looked at Blade, “What are you doing?”

“Burning the bodies,” Blade said and looked back down the path where other wolves were dragging the bodies forward. “We’ll have to make sure they’re all dead. It’s the only way.”

It takes a few hours to find and burn all of the bodies. Arthur had wondered if it was overkill at first until one of the bodies began to move and groan, twisting as he piled another body on top of it. He recognized him as one of the vampires who had chased him and Daphne down the waterfall. He’d fallen to the rock bank below.

No werewolf would have ever survived a fall like that, let alone recovered from it within a few days.

As the smoke climbed high over the trees, Arthur ordered them to reform formation around the cart and let Daphne ride the horse down the road towards Sharp Armor.

Should we tell them about the other vampires? Daphne asked through their bond.

Arthur considered it as a little thrill of happiness went through him. She’d gotten better at using it and every time she did, he felt a little rush of joy.

No. We still don’t know how they got to Brown Valley or why.

I agree. Daphne shifted in the saddle with a little huff. Being on your back is much more comfortable.

Arthur chuckled to himself as they came over the last hill that led into Sharp Armor. Smoke rose over the summit and a sense of trepidation filled him as they approached. The smoke smelled strong enough that he guessed they had been burning something for at least a few hours. The forest near them was quiet as if the smoke had cleared out all the wildlife. How many vampires had attacked Sharp Armor to need so much fire?

At the distance, he could smell blood and the smoke coming from the training pitch.

“When I was a kid,” Blade started. “My father would tell me about the vampire wars and how long the werewolves fought with them.”

His father said that they were led by a fearsome woman, the vampire queen, who died sometime near the end of the war. Without her leadership, the werewolves were able to gain the upper hand, led by the general at the time, Duke Osborn.

“He used to tell me that even though the werewolf kingdom had fallen, the vampires would never be a threat again as the vampire queen died without an heir and the vampires that survived retreated into their territory never to be heard again.”

Daphne swallowed listening to his grave words.

“I’m glad he’s not alive to know that he was wrong.”

“We don’t know that,” one of the werewolves said. “This could be just a random band of vampires that crossed the border looking to make trouble. Sharp Armor is the pack closest to the border after all.”

Daphne swallowed her words and lowered her gaze. Guilt turned in her heart. Sharp Armor was the closest to the border, she knew that, but Brown Valley was too far in to be just a fluke. They had been in the area of Brown Valley and her cabin for a reason.

Had they slaughtered the human village in the area?

“Whatever their agenda, it would be best to be prepared,” Arthur said. “The werewolves managed to win against them before; someone has to know some special techniques to fight vampires.”

Blade nodded gravely, “Tom would know if no one else.”

Arthur was grateful. He wondered if there were some training texts in the castle somewhere. They would need every bit of information they could manage to deal with this new danger.

He sighed. He had never thought that Tom’s worries about future threats to the werewolf kingdom had any merit until now. Everyone would need training on how to deal with vampires. The smaller packs who had been dragging their feet on expanding their patrol forces and monitoring the areas around them would have no choice but to obey now.

Arthur wouldn’t give them a choice.

For whatever reason, the vampires wanted Daphne and that made them an enemy he could not afford to underestimate or allow the upper hand. As he pondered the path ahead, the scent of smoke and blood grew stronger. He could hear wood burning.

Daphne gasped at the plumes of smoke drifting from a collapsed building. Sharp Armor’s walls had fallen in large, singed sheets around the city.

The guard tower had collapsed to the north and the east. The south and west towers looked to barely be intact. Blade stopped and looked at the ruins as Daphne let out a little, frightened gasp of grief.

Arthur clenched his jaw, “The werewolves were able to defeat them before, and we can do it again.”

Blade nodded sharply and continued forward. Arthur could feel his anxiety through their pack bond as they passed through the outer edges of the city. No one greeted them as they walked through the ruins.

A snarling sound came from nearby. Arthur turned to see a vampire hissing and struggling to pull a spear out of her chest. The werewolves grew tense around Arthur. If she hadn’t been making so much noise, they may have walked right past her without ever noticing her. She pulled it out with a roar and fell to the ground.

She pressed a hand to her chest and rocked forward, crouching before taking a deep breath. Her head shot up and her gaze focused on Daphne. Daphne drew back as Arthur stepped between her and the woman.

She sniffed again and bared her fangs at Arthur. He growled at her in warning as the other werewolves blocked the path of escape. She didn’t glance to the half-fallen wall near but darted forward. Arthur leaped forward to block her, but she twisted in the air, avoiding him, kicked the next wolf in the muzzle, and leaped over them to Daphne.

Daphne screamed and threw herself back towards the cart.

“Daphne!” Arthur yelled.

The woman grabbed Daphne by the shoulder and hauled her off the cart, ignoring Daphne’s efforts to escape. Arthur followed, prowling with furious red eyes after them as the woman pulled her quickly along, gaining speed as she seemed to recover from her injuries. It was incredible and horrifying. Arthur took at least a

The other werewolves tried to impede her, but the best they could do was block off her escape.

“Let me go!” Daphne screamed. The woman flinched and Daphne took the opportunity to pull away from her as a long gleaming spear shot through the air and impaled the woman, throwing her back into the far wall and pinning her there. She fell limp, choking on her blood.

Daphne’s stomach turned violently, dry heaving as the werewolves turned and looked at the man leaning against a half-destroyed stall, clutching his side and glaring across the distance with blood dripping out of his mouth

“Rex?”