The Vampire's Harvest

156

You clench your hand around the stem of the glass before smashing the cup against the floor. Crystal shards scatter across the marble while you swing the viciously sharp remainder of the glass up towards your sister. With a swift thrust, you stab the pointed crystal into her neck, causing a spurt of blood to speckle your arm. However, that and a soft growl, is the only recognition you get of your attack. She shakes it off as her inhuman healing ability closes the wound in an instant.

Unable to fend off your sister, she manages to sink her teeth into your arm, forcing you to drop your weapon as you cry out in pain. Ell, now recovered from Gianette's blow, leaps up to confront her. Ell manages to pull Gianette off your arm, but your sister quickly turns her fangs on Ell. With Ell's attention concentrated on protecting you, she appears to lack the focus needed to contest your sister. Gianette handles Ell easily, tearing her to shreds as you feel tears well up in your eyes.

You expect Gianette to turn her anger back on you, but instead she faces any vamp that dares to spring upon her. Though, she has many opportunities to run out and join her pack, where she'd be better protected, she instead hangs close to you. She receives plenty of blows, but your sister is a true prodigy of lycanthropy. Her skill as a huntress is without competitor amongst the vamps that remain in the ballroom. Not that it matters. You feel a dark emptiness pushing in on your vision as your head grows light.

You look to your arm, which lays limp in an ever widening pool of blood. You aren't sure you have much left in you. You look at Ell and wonder if you'll see her in the afterlife, but before you can let that comfort you, you feel a fire burn from somewhere within your gut. It pulls at your muscles, licking at your nerves. You strain and tense, your bones grinding together as your body contorts. With madness around you — and now inside you — you pass out, unable to withstand the chaos.

When you awake, you find yourself lying on the forest floor. You look up to find Gianette, human again. Behind her are several others, none of which look particularly happy to see you.

"She's up, can we go?" snarls someone you can't see.

"I don't see why we're bothering with a vamp lover anyway," groans another.

"Because," snapped a burly man who stood not far from Gianette, "she is one of us now, no matter what her history. The pack never leaves a wolf behind." As grateful as you are to him for supporting you, you can see the disgust in his eyes as he glances back at you. His lips curl and he turns away for good. "Let's go, we're heading out."

The others leave while Gianette stands over you.

"Just go without me," you say.

"Get up," she commands, grabbing your arm and lurching you to your feet. "The pack never leaves a wolf behind."

You discover that that mantra is not what kept you safe that day. Instead, you find it's the alpha's love for Gianette and the pack's belief that she was the hero of that fateful night, that kept you alive. Otherwise they would have torn you to shreds as they did Ell. As you spend your years in the back of the pack, hated and trapped inside your sister's shadow, you wish that maybe they could have done just that.

***

You've found one of the unsuccessful endings for this branch of the story... Why not go back and see what will stop Gianette?