Chapter 20

Derek

"Son of a Bitch!" I swore painfully under my breath.

The past few minutes with Roxanne had been so intense that I had lost all consciousness of my immediate environment. For a moment, I blamed myself for losing my guard. A werewolf shouldn’t be caught so easily off guard, I said to myself.

I couldn't believe they had been able to trace me down here. I realized I had really underestimated the situation. There was more to the matter than the dog fight that Jason got himself into the other day. And my father was probably right to be paranoid about seeing vampires in our territory. Something big was going on, and now that they were here for me, I was inevitably right in the middle of it. I wish I had anticipated this.

But I knew there was no time for regrets. Vampires were all over me and I needed to take quick action. I retreated towards the other edge of the bed and pulled Roxanne with me. Through my own design, the room was poorly lit but I could see the vampires lurking in the dark, their shadows giving them off.

Trying to know what I'm dealing with, I scanned around to get a number. I counted five, six, then seven. And after observing more than a couple of movements by the window and entrance, I realized I was in for a battle. There were many of them!

I tried to stay calm. Though I was outnumbered, I knew I had one slight advantage, I knew the house more than they did and I planned to capitalize heavily on that. The vampires seemed to be taking their time, the five of them within eyesight kept their distance a few yards away from the bed. I could see the impatience breeding within one of them as he panted heavily. I figured he was the one that attacked me earlier.

Momentarily, a sharp pain shot out from my side where he had attacked me. Without hesitation, I concluded I was going to kill that vampire first. I took a quick glance at Roxanne. She had gotten behind me, cowering into a crouch. For her sake, I was glad I'd transformed in her presence and told her who I was before now. It was the only reason she would probably not slip into a shock after what she was going to see go down in this house tonight.

I got to the other edge of the bed, away from Roxanne. If I could help it, she wouldn't need to be involved in this. It was I whom the vampires had come for. And I intended to keep it that way. No one else was allowed to touch Roxanne except me. At that moment, a strong sense of ownership came over me. Roxanne was mine, and mine alone.

I turned to examine where the pain was coming from. There were roughened scratches by the side of my belly. I hissed with irritation and anger rose in me. I was still naked, with my body covered in sweat from the hot lovemaking session that the vampires had distastefully broken.

I patiently waited for the first vampire to attack. It was the first one again. He barged onto me and tried to pin me against the wall. I met him with a blow to the face. He yelled out in pain. I knew I had broken his jaw. I took the opportunity and snapped his neck with a quick movement of my hands around it. He fell to the ground. One down, several to go.

Though they were certainly not as much as this, it wasn't my first encounter with vampires. I knew how smart they were and I knew they would try to measure up my abilities before they launched a full attack against me. I saw that the only strategy I was left with was to unnerve them as much as I can. So I planned to do just that.

Two of them came forward with speed. The kind that only vampires could pull off. It was an adjustment to the previous vampire's reliance on strength. I stumbled on the bed from the impact. But I was up again in no time. I heard a low whimpering sound from the edge of the bed. It was Roxanne. I had almost forgotten that she was in the room.

The vampires turned their eyes toward her direction for a brief moment. I drew them away towards the entrance of the toilet. If they wanted to fight this way, I needed to match up with them. There was only one way to do that, I needed to transform into my werewolf self.

I arched my back and let out a loud scream as I initiated the transformation. The vampires didn't look surprised. They knew exactly what I was before they came here tonight. In fact, the look on their faces suggested that they had expected the transformation earlier.

After the transformation, my senses were sharper. I became more aware of other presences in the house, including the vampires that were still in hiding. I realized the vampires were taking a precaution. In the case that I wasn't alone, or that other werewolves showed up, they didn't want to be caught off guard. It was a nice move, but only if that were the case and I wasn't alone.

But I was alone. And as it stood, all they were doing was helping me to hold off while I attempted to even the odds. The two vampires tried their previous tactics and ran onto me with speed, each on either side. This time, I matched their speed. I ran around one of them, it was a female vampire. Before she could get closer enough to me, I dug my claws into her and held her as I bit off her skin.

I ran towards the second and grabbed at his head before he got a chance to launch an attack. He was also down after a short moment.

The other vampires were shocked by that move. None of them had anticipated it. Immediately, I realized that these vampires might be more inexperienced than I thought. I wondered who among the vampire clams ordered the hit against me tonight. There was a lot going on that I didn't have answers for.

Now, the vampires looked more sensitive than they had been earlier. I had become more of a threat after what they had just seen me do to their mates. A signal came off from them and more of the vampires trooped into the room.

I evened my breathing as I tried to come up with a plan. As I prepared for a hit from the vampires, I began to see a change in their plan. The first set of vampires that were before me had their eyes on where Roxanne curled herself down by the edge of the bed. They were going for her!

Before any of them could get her, I rushed in her direction and put myself between her and the vampires. The vampires ran towards us in numbers. I fought them off one after the other, making sure to keep a distance away from Roxanne. I couldn't allow any harm to come to her. Not in a way that wasn't intended by me.

The vampires knew their new plan of getting at me by trying to get to Roxanne was working, so they continued to attack in her direction in numbers. They seemed endless as I tried to fight them off. It seemed as though eliminating one vampire brought out three more of them. They just kept coming.

Roxanne knew they were coming for her. And she became even more scared than she was when she saw the first vampires. Yet, she didn't move away from her position. I was grateful she made that decision.

After about a quarter of an hour fighting off the vampires as they tried to reach her. The balance was finally tilting towards their side. I was becoming tired and I had taken several hits which were hastening their fatigue.

A fight with a vampire drew me away. It was done intentionally but I had no other choice but to keep fighting him off. The vampire was good, and quick. He anticipated all my moves and just when I was about to get something on him, I saw one vampire getting close to Roxanne.

"Please, don't hurt me!" Roxanne screamed.

The vampire grabbed her aggressively and pulled her to her feet.

A sudden rush of something I couldn't quite explain filled up my head at the sight of the vampire's hand on Roxanne. There was a vibration within me that rumbled every inch of my body. It was unsettling. There was an urgent need to hold Roxanne and pull her away from danger. She was all that mattered to me at that moment.

The thought of her in danger went against every fiber of my body. A sudden realization came to me at that moment. There was more to my relationship with Roxanne Bent than being sexually attracted to her. It was why I always wanted to be with her. And why I still wanted as much as I did the very first day I saw her even after learning about her background.

There was a bond that ran deeper than any of us both understood and despite everything I had done to turn Roxanne against me. It was why she was still with me up till this moment. We were fated to be together.

Now transformed back to my human self, I was renewed with a fresh stream of energy. Long werewolf-length hair grew on my body as I had never seen before. It felt as if I was being controlled by an external entity. Within a split second, I had taken out the stubborn vampire.

I walked towards the vampire with the worn-out face that held Roxanne. As he was about to get a bite on her neck, I pulled him away and threw him at an incoming vampire. I pulled Roxanne closer to me. The feel of her skin against mine was all I needed. I felt better equipped to take on the rest of the vampires. I matched their speed and began to kill them off one by one.

After a fierce round of a battle that lasted for another half hour, I had killed all the vampires and the last of them ran away before I could get to him. I turned to see Roxanne, save and free from danger. Then I dropped down to my knees.

Roxanne ran to me and held me in her arms before I collapsed to the ground.

"Derek!" She whispered softly between sobs.