Chapter 2

“Amareux Kingstone! Oh my goodness!”

Amareux was just seven years old, but he had grown to know when his mum was angry. In such moments, she called his full name.

He had a ferocious appetite to destroy, as he was still learning to control his wolf, and so his entire household was in a frenzy trying to control him. Looking back, those were some of the times he ever felt his dad was proud of him.

His dad, Alpha Aragorn, was excited the first time he turned. It had been considered quite early, to shift at age five. He had been quite the little pup and whenever he shifted back, he would be sick for days. Alpha Aragorn was the Alpha of the Malraux Wolf pack, and Amareux was to become Alpha someday.

The little wolf still prancing about the house came and folded itself around his mother’s leg.

She picked him up with her hand by the scruff of his neck easily, like she did when she was in her wolf form, only this time it was strong hands and not strong jaws. Those are one of the peculiar things about his parents. They were remarkably strong. Although he liked that his mum was strong and still very compassionate, unlike his dad.

After she picked him up, she then said, “Bad wolf! Bad!” into his ears, which got him wincing.

“

Ouch!! Mommy stops screaming my ears hurt. I can hear you”, he shifted back to his human form holding his ears.

Luna Maia his mum, was having none of that. “You need to learn little wolf!”

He frowned playfully folding his arms while doing so.

“Go put on some clothes”

“No”, he replied.

Shapeshifting at a young age as he had, gave everyone the impression that he was going to be a strong Alpha to lead their pack. He had been receiving since he could walk but that only intensified after his first shift. Still trying to understand himself, Amareux had heightened aggression and when he couldn’t stand it, destroyed everything he saw, leaving a heap of mess in his wake.

“What am I to do with you dear?”

Anytime his mum called him like that, he knew his mum was no longer angry.

His dad, Alpha Aragorn, the head of the pack, witnessing all of this, smiled with so much pride in his heart and walked away. He had things to attend to now. He had a meeting with all the heads of families in the pack to discuss the food scarcity in the Malraux Wolf Pack. It was not an easy time. He didn’t enjoy such meetings, as he was a man of war. He would have preferred a meeting that discussed how they would go against the vampire clan that had taken his dear father. Killing the head and the whole of their clan would bring him great pleasure. But his adviser and right-hand man Beta Ross, who had stood loyal to him for years, had advised against it. The beta wolf had claimed the opportunity to do so would present itself. So for now he had to fend for his clan. But to him, these were measly worries to discuss as compared to war. The Draven Vampire clan and the Malraux Wolf Pack had been age-long rivals, for as long as the Alpha could remember, and he wasn’t ready to let them be until he killed every last one of them that killed his father.

Two years later

At the Malraux pack’s meeting, Beta Ross announced that a comet will be orbiting the sun in three days.

“What does that have to do with us?” Alpha Aragorn asked and the same was echoed by the other wolves in the room.

“It’s our chance to strike.” Beta Ross said. “According to history, the vampires get weak at the time of the comet. As we know, these blood-sucking demons are faster than us and might take every one of us down in a normal scenario, but on the night of the comet, we can easily conquer them with ease.” He paused, breathed through his nostrils, and continued, “As they are immortal, we can only kill them by ripping their hearts out of their chests, or beheading them as they are down and weak on that night. So that will be our means of getting our revenge against them. They would be too helpless to fight.” Everyone nodded and hummed in affirmation.

Alpha Aragorn was liking how this conversation was going and he had a huge smile on his face as Beta Ross made mention of how these vampires would be killed.

“Or we could just rip them to shreds,” he suggested.

“That too. Except…” Beta Ross continued.

“What!? Except what?” The impatient Alpha had to ask. He couldn’t wait to strike and he didn’t want to hear there would be something stopping them.

“Well, the royal family,” Beta began, “The leader of the vampire clan and his family…”

“Cut the crap. I know what a royal family is.” Aragorn cut in with an angry tone.

“I apologize, sir. As I was saying, he is for some reason that I am not sure of exactly... Uhm… immune to the comet. I’m not sure if it applies to the rest of the family too.”

“We can’t go there with uncertainties. You ought to have done your research better!” The Alpha roared. His face was red now and spittle flew out of his mouth as he yelled.

Ross bowed in form of an apology. He didn’t want to give an excuse, but he did not know because this was the first comet the mother and child would be experiencing. So his investigators could not tell.

“So, what is to be done about them?”

“There’s one thing they aren’t immune to … vervain.” Ross smiled maliciously.

“How do we get it?” Beta Zali the warrior general asked rubbing both his palms together.

“From a witch.”

Aragorn did not like the idea of witches but right now he didn’t care.

“Get it at once! No matter the cost.”

Dahlia played with her daughter’s hair as she lay with her on the bed.

She had spoiled the girl a little too much. And in her defense, so has everyone in the community. She was the only vampire child in their midst and they had not seen or handled one, some ever, while some in centuries. Most of the women in the community took turns every day to babysit the child. Dahlia sometimes never got to hold her baby and always waited till nighttime when everyone had gone back home.

Emmett brought home the weirdest gifts as he was too advanced in age to know what the little girl’s generation had as gifts. Of course, Arayah did not know any better as she was always happy with anything new she got. Dahlia was always the one who raised an alarm. She noticed how much he tried though and didn’t dispute the effort he put into the care of their child. Once he had brought back a tortoise as a pet and at another time a big rock. He said it was used to play a game back in the day. The gifts got more dangerous. One time he brought home a long knife for Arayah. Dahlia didn’t know it was a knife until Arayah started playing with it and pressed a button with her thumb. The little girl innocently, amazed at the sight, began making sounds of awe when a gleaming steel blade leaped out. Thankfully, Dahlia turned just then. She was astonished at the fact that the gift was a knife. For a child! She had confronted Emmett and he had replied simply with, “Come on. She is a vampire. It won’t hurt her.” And had continued with what he was doing.

Emmett had never dreamed of having a child and was happy at the birth of Arayah. He was 16 when he got turned by his best friend. He had had to live with the face of a 16-year-old for over 600 years. He stopped counting how old he was after he clocked four hundred and thirty. He never got the chance to have a family and thinking of having one, lest a child was a far-fetched desire.

Arayah had so many people dote on her and she was used to the care and attention she got from the whole clan. She also had many mothers/teachers and they wanted to teach her everything. She was very smart and learned everything she was taught and did it perfectly on her own next time. At the age of three, she was already very good at calligraphy and spelling. Her parents were not left out. They loved her and wanted to teach her everything. Her mum gave her an old grimoire she used to use as a witch and she knew some of the spells by heart. Although these spells never worked, her mum still gave them to her. She also learned baking from her mum who was an excellent baker and chef.

Her dad took her hunting when she was about four years old. He had wanted to test how fast she could run as a vampire at that age and it had turned out to be a hunting expenditure. When she raced and played hide and seek with her dad, she had come back with a little rabbit. They let it go that day, but the next time they came, Emmett took along with them a bow and some arrows for hunting. She became extremely skilled and even sometimes went on her own, which got her mum worried one day when she had been missing for hours.

They had gone into the forest in search of her.

Knowing that she had no heartbeat, they couldn’t trace her with that but used sound instead since she had supernatural hearing like the rest vampires.

“ARAYAH!” Dahlia had yelled. She was so distraught and she didn’t know what she would do if anything happened to her baby.

It was meant to be a small search party but almost everyone in the clan was there searching for her in the forest. Within minutes, she was found by one of the ladies that normally would babysit her and she was smiling from tooth to ear with the catch she had gotten.

When she was brought to her mum, her mum hugged her and cried for some minutes. Emmett felt guilty as he had been the one who taught her hunting. Arayah didn’t care that the whole village was there because of her but kept yelling at her dad. “Dad! Dad! I caught something !” This time she had killed an antelope. She was all covered in blood as she had been struggling to take it home for hours, which was why it took her a long time to get home.

Dahlia didn’t have it in her to scold the child as it was not the girl’s fault. She instead blamed Emmett.

From that day, her mum didn’t allow her to go hunting and had said she would only be allowed to when she was older.

Arayah also loved reading and studying and by the time she turned six, she had read all of the Shakespearean works with the help of her dad, who understood the old English language.

Life was simple and easy for the little one and there was no cause to worry until dread came knocking on the clan’s door.