Her Brother, Her Mate

Parker POV

I waited another 5 minutes before I started to freak out. She said she was going 20 yards away to see Simone and Casey, not all the way to the bathroom under the stands where I couldn’t see her.

“She’s still not back yet,” I tell her dad, “I’m going to go looking for her.”

“I’ll come too. The little s**t said she would stay with us. I’m putting my f*****g foot in her-”

“Thomas! We are at school. Watch your mouth,” Elena hissed at him.

“I don’t give a s**t. She should be more cautious!” he yells at her, “No f*****g self-preservation,” he mutters under his breath as we walk towards the bathrooms. He’s having an emotional day, with it being such an important day for Carli, and at the same time, there are people out there trying to kill her.

When we got to the bathroom area, I was surprised to find my dad frantically searching the area too.

“What are-”

“Have you seen Mary?” he asks before I can ask what he’s doing here. I told them this morning to leave Carli alone.Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

“No, and I shouldn’t be seeing you. I said-”

“I can’t find her!” he almost screamed, running his hand down his face, “I felt….it’s….I felt like she was trying to reach me in a panic and now I can’t find her.”

“Where was she?” Thomas asked.

“She went to talk to Carli. She never came back.”

My panic rises at the same time as Tommy’s does. I ran into the girls’ bathroom, ignoring the yells of protest from inside. She’s not here. Her scent is lingering, but she’s not here anymore. I ran back out and ran towards the field, to the emergency vehicle entrance. The sedan is gone. No!

Carli POV

I wake suspended in the air, my hands bound above me on a metal hook. My eyes burned, and I blinked crusty filth from their seal so I can get a look around. This looks like an old, abandoned meat processing facility. Conveyor belts and grids with hookes are covering the entire open room. I hear grunting beside me, look over, and I’m stunned to see Courtney and my mom there too. Courtney is beginning to wake, but my mom is still passed out.

These f*****g bastards. What the hell do they want with them? Why couldn’t they just take me?

I move my wrists, swinging my body slightly to assess the binding. My wrists are tied tightly, but they’re tied with normal rope. Vampires can’t touch silver and these idiots probably didn’t think of using it on us anyway. f*****g idiots.

Murmurs started reaching us from down a corridor off to the left. Courtney whimpers in fright, and I quickly look at her and mouthed, “Sleep”. She nods and hangs her head again, pretending to sleep, but I can still see the tremor in her face. She’s scared, but she can at least react logically. Good. I want all their focus to be on me until I can make a move.

“Parker? Parker?” I try to mind link him. I don’t get a response. I bet they used a witch’s potion on us, blocking our wolf’s side so we couldn’t put up much of a fight. I’m just as lethal in human form, so, the joke’s on them. I just have to bide my time, making sure it’s just the 3 of them so I can finish this now. I don’t want to prolong this fight. I want it finished today. Parker and my dad would never let me out to ride my birthday present by myself if there were still more vampires out there hunting me.

The voices grow louder and louder until 3 bodies finally enter the room. I recognized Satrina right away. Her haunted appearance looks much the same. Even her managed mouth hasn’t healed much in the past week. Good. The b***h deserves the scarring. The other woman is beautiful. She looks much like Vincent, but with long, glossy hair. The man, however, is balding, and I can tell by his sickly appearance that he is going rogue. I looked back at Vincent’s mom and noticed puncture wounds on her neck. That’s what Vincent meant. They were now corrupt with Satrina’s idealism. Instead of reforming her, Satrina pulled her brother into her corrupt world.

“I see our friend has woken,” the man’s eyes narrowed at me, making me smirk.

“Friend is a bit of a reach, don’t you think?” I huffed at him.

Satrina hisses at me, “That’s her. Nathan’s daughter! The one who killed my love.”

“Actually,” the other woman says, “We watched them all morning. I don’t believe she is his daughter. But do not worry, sister. The one next to her, I believe, is the one you seek. You will have your fill of revenge from all of them.”

Satrina’s eyes snap at Courtney, weighing her words, “Yes. That one looks much more like a wolf from the wilderness.”

“It didn’t make sense to me that the other one was Nathan’s daughter. Why would she be graduating from high school in Miami? I think my son fibbed slightly on that.”

“And the other one?” Satrina hisses and nods in the direction of my mom.

The man laughs a sinister laugh, “The Luna of the Crystal Moon Pack. The pack responsible for your torture. She is the mate of the man who whipped and mangled you.”

Satrina lets out a haunting laugh, “Well done, Sergi. Well done.”

“Well, I’m bored,” I state. I see a pile of pallets on the floor against the wall, broken and splintered. If I could swing myself off this hook, I know I could kill all three of them, even with my hands tied. The man is not much taller than the woman, and looks sickly and weak. The full effects of drinking the b***d from his own kind haven’t hit him yet. He is still in the first stage. The disease is spreading through his body, weakening it as everything becomes rotten and infected. Parker asked me to wait, but I couldn’t. I don’t even know if he’s coming here and I have no way to mind link him or ask.

“You’re bored?” Sergi asks in surprise. “Bored? Do you not understand the situation you are in?”

I rolled my eyes and laughed, “If it’s just you three, I don’t see a threat. Can you let us go now? I have a graduation and birthday to celebrate, and my arms are going numb.”

“Oh, child,” the woman purrs, sounding so much like her son with his speech, “3 vampires up against a wolfless pup and 2 unconscious wolfless women should terrify you.”

I snorted a laugh, “You’re funny. Vincent must get his smooth talk from you.”

Her eyes narrowed at me, “You know my son well?”

“Intimately,” I said in a bored tone, sighing loudly, “It’s too bad he will be an orphan soon.”

“Why, you little…”

The woman approaches me, fangs hissing and her claws extended. When she’s a foot away, rearing her hand back to attack, I swing forward, hook my legs around her neck and snap it, breaking it instantly.

“Vanessa!” Sergi screams, running to her. I swung back then forward, and kicked him in the face, making him fall back as I freed my bound wrist from the hook and landed on Vanessa’s face. Smashing it under my hard shoes. f**k. Elena bought me these. Now they have brain matter all over them.

Satrina lunges for me, but I duck and roll out of her way in the direction of the pallets. I pick up a broken board, and turned with it in my bound hands, lunging it into her heart right as she springs for me again, her snapping fangs inches from my throat.

A scream brought my focus back toward the man. Sergi has Courtney in his hold, his sickly bruised hand wrapped around her throat.

“You will pay for this,” he hisses a cry at me, “My Vanessa….”

Courtney still has the metal hook in her hand. He must have lifted the whole thing from the track when he brought her down. She whimpers, staining against his hold, then rears her hand back and stabs him in the leg with it, making him drop her. She ducks down, rolling like she just saw me do. I yank the wood from Satrina’s chest, lifting it above my head and throw it right when he frees the hook from his leg and straightens back up to hiss at me. It goes flying through the air and sinks into the center of his neck, making him sputter and fall towards the floor. He’s not dead. Not yet. I pick up another plank, breaking it in half using my foot as an anchor, and sink one piece back in Satrina’s chest, the other in Vanessa’s as I stride by, and then, when I get to Sergi, I pull the wood from his throat and stab it through his chest. Done. I knew this would be easy.

“You okay?” I asked Courtney. She nods frantically, tears streaming down her face. “Do you have your phone?”

She pats her pockets with shaky hands then shakes her head. Well, s**t. Hopefully, this is the address Vincent gave us yesterday. If it is, everyone should be on their way here.

I walked to a conveyor belt, and used its sharp edge to slice through the rope, then walked over to Courtney, untying her. She throws herself in my arms and starts crying frantically, relief gripping her.

“Shh, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

“I should have kept the stupid wig on,” she wails, making me laugh softly.

“I have a feeling they knew even without the wig. It’s okay. You’re safe now.”

After she calms down, she helps me lift my mom off the hook. I heaved mom over my shoulder, and we searched the building for a way outside. Right when we found the double doors, chained shut, I set my mom on the ground and roundhouse kicked the doors off their hinges. The rusty screws broke with a creak as the doors went falling to the ground.

Right on the other side, 10 pack SUVs come ripping up onto the curb. Parker jumps out of one before it’s even at a complete stop. I stood there triumphantly, a bright smile on my face.