I just exited the forest, with Eli and one of the soldiers right behind me. I had made a promise the past night, not to touch Connor today. We arrived in the town a few minutes later, Eli came to walk beside me.
‘I love you,’ I told him.
He took my hand and squeezed it, I always loved it when he gave me these small tokens of his affection. We walked towards the other side of the town and I knocked on Connor’s door. Alpha Scott, I mean.. Mr. Scott, had a lot of research and surveillance to see if Connor had killed anyone in the town. The only person that had died in the time that Connor lived here, was an old man in the nursing home. I wasn’t sure however, where he was getting his blood from, it had been playing in my thoughts for a while and decided to ask him today. He opened his door, dressed in a dark cloak, like he was just getting ready to leave.
‘Where were you going?’ I asked him, intrigued.
‘Nowhere.. lets sit down? Would any of you like a drink?’ he asked.
I shook my head and so did Eli. The soldier never reacted to what he referred as “The bloodsucker”.
‘No thank you, but it does make me wonder, what do you eat?’ I asked.
‘Well blood of course, but I haven’t had any since I came to live here.’
‘Doesn’t that weaken you?’ the soldier asked, a little smug.
I was very surprised that he opened his mouth, but I understood his question. Connor looked down, genuinely ashamed.
‘Yes, it does. Either one of you could defeat me within seconds,’ he mumbled, clearly this was very hard for him to admit. The soldier giggled softly, but with our enhanced hearing, we all heard it like he was laughing very loudly, even Connor. Eli looked at the soldier with a dark glance, he had crossed a line.
‘I’m sorry Connor, we’re still werewolves, and some of us can’t control themselves,’ I said. ‘Why haven’t you eaten anything? Couldn’t you get some blood from the blood bank?’
‘I didn’t want to stand out, but soon I will have the opportunity to get some fresh blood,’ he said, looking straight at the soldier.
I got to my feet.
‘Don’t you even think you will kill any of my pack or any human in this village,’ I said sternly.
‘I won’t, I promise. It’s time for me to leave. A friend left me a message that a woman in the mountains knows where I might find a cure for this horrible curse.’
‘When will you be leaving?’ I asked, looking at his cloak. ‘You were on your way just now, weren’t you?’
‘No. I was getting ready to get some supplies I might need, I was expecting you to come by before the end of the day. Without my cloak, my skin would burn. I can’t stay outside for long with or without it.’
‘Would you like me to come with you?’ I asked.
I heard the soldier gasp behind me.
‘Ma’am, I think we’d better discuss that with Alpha Evans,’ he said distraught.
‘Yes, you are right. Besides we still have something we’d have to wait for,’ Eli mumbled.
I hadn’t thought of that, we would have another ceremony, but we weren’t yet sure when.
‘According to Annabell it would take place probably two days from now,’ I said, but that could change any moment.
‘I’ll wait for your reply,’ he said.
We had to leave straight after our conversation, because Eli and I still had to do our schoolwork. It was sunday and tomorrow we’d still have to go to school. The holiday had been over for a few weeks now and Eli had gotten himself a job. Straight after school he’d work in a warehouse lifting boxes and hauling pallets of goods. Mostly it was an acting job, because wolves were very strong, so whenever he had to lift a box, he had to act like it weighed more, even though he had absolutely no problem with the weight. We walked home calmly, neither of us wanted to work on school, but we had to. As we arrived at the territory and the soldier immediately went to his own business.
‘I’ll go talk with Wouter.. ehm.. Alpha Evans,’ Eli said, using the link.
‘I bet he doesn’t mind, you still calling him Wouter,’ I replied out loud.
It would be strange, the entire pack always had a deep sense of respect for whomever was the Alpha. Even though nothing really happened at the ceremony, the strong respect had just crossed to Wouter instead of Mr. Scott. I went to our home, of which we had made truly our own place. I sat down at our table and started on my homework.
Eli came home hours after, he had a heated discussion with Wouter about going on this quest with Connor. We had told him all about Connor before he became Alpha, but of course he had to take care of his pack, he couldn’t just let us go with a vampire, even though he was showing us how kind he could be. Eli had pleaded with Wouter, mostly because of his sense of obligation. Connor had saved us from the hunters and Eli wanted to repay him as much as me. I helped him with his homework and we went for dinner. After dinner we were called outside.
