Fuck... He'd bitten the Mayor... Oh no, no, no... This was bad...
“Go hide and sit,” she commanded, in panic. Shane dropped and abandoned his bloody feast very reluctantly. Judging by the vicious snarling look he gave her, as he shot away from the scene of blood and carnage, running fast along the shadows of the street. Her ears pricked up as another scream sounded into the night... Voices were shouting and a gun was fired...
She had a last desperate idea, before any other human fell victim to the pack of ravenous werewolves, and her family were shot and destroyed. She had no idea how many were already dead... human or wolf... Her stomach churned with fear and worry.
She looked around her. She could see no one. She stood mid street human and naked and shouted as loudly as she could, holding her arms up to the heavens, like Moses parting the waves of the Red Sea.
“All wolves, follow me, in the shadows, quietly and unseen.” To her shock, the whole pack of werewolves revealed themselves, gathering from all directions in front and behind her onto the road. With a quick, unpleasant, and very angry look at her, they made themselves scarce behind her, obediently, and without a sound.
She shifted and led them back, out of town, to the truck. She stood guard while they all piled inside it, one after the other. She counted them. All twelve were present. She shifted back to her human state and gathered up her ripped clothes, dressing as best she could.
“We must go. Drive us home, girl,” she ordered to herself. She got into the truck, in the driver's seat, her shaky hands on the steering wheel. She turned the engine on and drove them all home, slowly. She breathed a huge sigh of relief when she delivered them all safely to the ranch and she got out.
“Wolves inside and off to your beds, sleep until dawn,” she said loudly. They all trailed inside and she opened their doors. They jumped up, one by one, on their beds and fell instantly asleep.
She returned to the reception desk and took out a sheet of paper and a pen and wrote down the all important words she had heard that night.
“Cross of fire, water and earth, a holy union will end the moon's curse.”
Then, finally exhausted, she went to his room. The Alpha lair. She was curious about something.
“Change back to human form,” she said to his sleeping wolf. Nothing happened. That was one thing she couldn't control, their transformation was too ingrained in them. It was a physical part of their being. It seemed she could influence and control their actions and behavior only.
But thank God for that. She lay down next to the sleeping Aden and gave in to her tiredness, sleep overcoming her like a drug.
“All sleep until dawn...” she said once more with a final sleepy yawn. She didn't care who he was at that moment. She snuggled up, her small female human form against his sleeping inner raging beast. He was her raging beast anyhow, and seemingly, completely under her control.
Aden awoke with a start, the pale glimmer of dawn beginning to shine through his window. He closed his eyes and concentrated as he began his transformation back into becoming human again. Once that was complete, he turned over and found Maddy lying next to him, watching him silently.
“'Morning baby...” he said, dropping a soft and tender kiss on her mouth. “Did we all make it?” he asked her hesitantly, almost fearfully.
“We're all present and safely home, tucked up in our beds,” she replied with a beautiful smile. Then a deep sadness crossed her face.
“What...? What happened?” he asked her, his chest heaving, not really wanting to know, but desperately curious at the same time. He could be a mass murderer now. Any one of them could.
Maddy took a deep breath and began, “Sergeant Stevens is dead… And the Mayor was bitten, quite badly. Other people may have been hurt.”
“Oh fuck no... How did she die Maddy, was it you?” he asked her, feeling so badly for her as he remembered Cal's warning the morning before.
“What? No! I was the one who managed to stop it all... Oh my God Aden, if only... if only I'd known what I could do earlier...” Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at him, obviously overcome with emotion at the memory of the horrific trauma she'd witnessed the night before.
“Tell me everything, from the beginning... Everything you remember, no matter how bad, you must tell me,” he implored and coaxed her gently.
He sat listening in awe as her tale spilled forth. How she'd watched them transform and swarm off together. Her blind attempts to stop the murder spree in Heart and gather them all up again. How she had accidentally stumbled upon her gift. He was overjoyed for her, for them, and for the ability she possessed, but also saddened by the death of the Sergeant, which she had to bear witness to, and so very violently it would seem. She wouldn't tell him who it was... Who had killed and who had bitten. That was her secret, she said. They were all to blame for it in a sense. No one member of their pack should carry that burden alone.