The Alpha Killer
Hybrid Vigor

Talia’s POV

New Orleans, Four Years Earlier

Last night I had sold out my kind and cast my future with a vampire.

I had been woken from my nap and dressed for dinner, which was held just after sundown with Jarrod and his coven. Malcolm had sent one of the servants out as I slept with a list of my sizes, and she had returned with bags of clothes for my closet. As I was in the bathroom, Malcolm laid out an ice-blue dress and white heels, along with new lace lingerie and stockings. I felt like I was playing dress-up, a sixteen-year-old girl getting ready for Prom, but this was real. I checked my appearance in the mirror; the bruises and cuts were healing and were barely visible under the makeup I found on the vanity.

The food was excellent, as was the wine, and I quickly settled my nerves as the conversation flowed. Marceline had told me her story on the drive down, and the others were just as fascinating. Jarrod led off with his story.

“I was born in 701 AD in northern France; my father was a Knight in the service of his Duke, and I was brought up and trained by him to serve as well. It was a difficult time for France; the Muslim armies had taken Spain and were moving north into France, killing and plundering all who opposed them. It came to a head at the Battle of Tours in 732.”

“You were a knight,” I asked curiously.

“Not in the way you’re thinking of, we didn’t have cavalry then like they did. The Muslim army had stirrups, that let them fight from horseback in a way we couldn’t. Charles Martel united the north of France and gathered twenty thousand men to stop the advance northward. My father and I were both sent to fight, we had horses to ride but we would fight from the ground with our swords. It was bad; few had armor or training, and the invaders had both plus experience and numbers. They outnumbered us three or four to one, but we had the high ground. They attacked over and over, but we pushed them back. The first night, I and a few other riders were sent on a mission.”

He took another drink of wine, a far off look in his eyes. “Twenty of us fell back to where our horses were and rode all night until we came upon the support camp of the Muslim army. We weren’t many, but we raised a lot of hell; we burned food, slaughtered horses, killed the cooks and armorers. The fires were bright enough the invaders panicked, many of them rushing back to defend their supplies and their plunder. In the confusion, their leader was surrounded and killed, and our side ended up winning.”

“That doesn’t explain how you became a vampire.”

He laughed. “Back then, vampires loved the confusion of war. It made feeding on humans easy, and no one noticed another dead man who had bled out. Our group was burning food carts when the fighters returned on horseback. I fled into the woods, but I took two arrows, one to the leg and one in my lower back. I gave them the slip, but the wounds were severe. I made it to a burned-out church, where I dragged myself to the altar and waited to die.”

“I fell asleep, sure I would not wake, but was woken by a pale-skinned man dressed in black. He asked me if I wanted to live, if I would serve him forever if he saved me. I agreed immediately, I had a wife and child to return to. When his fangs descended and he bit into my neck, I was horrified. He drained me, I felt my heart stop, then he ripped open his wrist and forced the blood down my throat. I woke up three days later, completely healed and with a thirst for blood. I needed to go home, and he let me, knowing what would happen.”

“What did happen?”

“I found my family, and my lust for blood caused me to kill them. Pierre knew it would happen, newborn vampires are volatile and prone to bloodlust, and he didn’t want me to have anyone except him. I served Pierre for two centuries, learning how to hunt, how to control minds, and gaining in strength until he died in a battle with another Coven leader. I fled, moving throughout England and France, eventually forming my own coven here in New Orleans after I met and fell in love with Marceline.”

She took his hand on the table, smiling up at him. “Once we were in love, I agreed to change because the other option was to lose him as I aged. Now we have each other, and he’s just as handsome as he was when he rescued me from those men,” she said.

“Vampires have mates?” I was shocked, I’d never been taught that.

“It’s rare, and it isn’t the same as with werewolves where we recognize them by scent,” Jarrod said. “It’s more like human love, made more difficult by the isolation most vampires maintain for safety. Anastasia was a housekeeper and the first of our familiars, she became like family and agreed to the change. Eduardo is our most recent change, and his story is his own to tell.”

He took a drink of wine. “I was an orphan and learned from people I ran with how to steal,” he said. “I was a natural with computers and got a job with a security company that installed systems. I used it to case homes that I could rob later. Ten years ago, my company was installing alarms and cameras at this house.”

I started laughing. “You decided to rob Jarrod?”

“Yeah, and to make it even more funny, I decided to make my move in the middle of the night when now one was sleeping,” he said as everyone started laughing. “I had the access codes for the basement, with that kind of security I figured the real valuable stuff was down there.”

“It was,” Jarrod said with a smile. “He came down the stairs as Anastasia was feeding from one of our familiars. We couldn’t let him go, and our ability to cloud minds does not include the ability to remove memories. We held him for a few days, and eventually realized that his skills would translate well to our kind. He’s a whiz with technology and computers, something that we old people still struggle with.” I had to laugh at that. “He agreed to the change and has fit in well.”

“Do you change many?”

“No, it’s not a good idea,” Jarrod said as he sat back. “The more vampires in your Coven, the harder it is to hide your existence. It’s like a Pack hunting ground, but it’s a city you hunt in. Vampires don’t have a Pack link or Alpha command, so you only bring in people who will follow your leadership or it becomes a mess. Then there is logistics. Larger covens mean more feedings, more victims, more chances to get caught. I prefer to blend in and not attract attention, but that means using familiars. Same problem there; it’s not easy to find good ones, and there’s never enough. I bring servants in, building their loyalty first and finding those for whom our existence will be accepted. The rest are never here outside daylight hours.”

“It sounds like a lot,” I said.

“Our problems are like your own, we have to hide our nature while living amongst the humans.” I was familiar with those, my parents taught us all it was better to die than to let our secret out.

We finished the dinner and moved to dessert, a molten lava cake. “I have a question about our agreement, Jarrod,” I said as I finished. “I’m sixteen, and I just got my ass kicked by a man who’s not even an Alpha. Even with training, I’m never going to be able to go toe to toe with a male Alpha who outweighs me by a hundred pounds and has a decade of fighting experience. Are you just setting me up to die?”

He laughed, along with the others. “You think I’d bring you into my family and send you out to die?” It did sound silly. “You are correct in that you will not be as large or experienced as the Alphas you will be taking on. We are going to train you constantly, making you an expert in combat in human and wolf form. We’ll drill you until you are an expert shot with pistol and rifle. We’ll teach you knife fighting and knife throwing. A year from now, you’ll be the most lethal werewolf in the world.”

My head couldn’t accept it. “Even if I train constantly, how does that fix my weight disadvantage?”

“You are going to be more than a werewolf,” he said. “I’m going to change you.”

Alarm bells went off. “You can’t do that, vampire venom is certain death for a werewolf,” I said as I got ready to flee.

“We’ll use my blood to form the bond,” he said. “I’m not going to change you into a vampire, that won’t work since you are already a supernatural being. Instead, I will inject my blood into you. The vampire DNA will combine with your own, giving you some vampire characteristics that will mesh with your human and wolf genes.”

“Is that even possible?”

“It’s been done before. You will gain vampire speed and strength, even a little bit of our ability to influence human minds, but you won’t be a vampire. Just a werewolf who likes her steak bloody.”

“Anything else?”

“The change is painful, incredibly painful and lasts for days. Most of the werewolves who take the change die before it is complete. I’m hoping that with your youth and your motivation for revenge, you’ll have enough stubbornness to see it through. It is your choice, Talia, but you’ll never be strong enough to fight them without it.”

He didn’t change me that night; instead, I traveled into the swamps, away from any humans, and found a place I could see the moon rise high above me. Slicing my finger with a silver knife, I wrote my vow to avenge the ones who had taken my sister and stolen my Pack in my own blood before burning it. The sacred vow complete, I changed and ran.

The next evening, I asked Jarrod to change me. He used a large syringe, transferring his own blood to my veins, pushing in the plunger until it was all inside me.

It burned like fire as it flowed up my arm, then into my chest, and I screamed as it pumped into my brain.

Three days I spent in agony as the change tore through me. Jarrod and the Coven did all they could; when I was running a high fever, they covered me with ice. When I was curled up and shivering, they covered me with warm blankets. When I couldn’t move, they held my hand and talked to me.

When the fever finally broke, I was famished. I shifted into wolf form as they released a sheep into the garage, which had been emptied of vehicles. I tore into it, gorging myself on the warm, bloody flesh. The bloodlust exhausted itself an hour later, and I shifted back. I was covered in blood, and pieces of the sheep were scattered everywhere. “That wasn’t fun at all,” I said as Jarrod stood over me.

“You survived, Talia. We’re all proud of you.” He held out his hand an I pulled myself up, surprising myself as I ended up four feet in the air before landing on my feet. “You are much stronger than before, you will have to get used to everything again.” He was right, my body almost hummed with energy. It was like learning to walk again as I moved towards the outdoor shower. “Clean yourself off and we will start training,” he said.

It took a lot of soap and scrubbing to get the blood off, then I dried and dressed in shorts and a sports bra with a T-shirt. Jerrod drove me out of the city as we worked on my senses; my smell and hearing was more sensitive than before. When we reached the forested area, I was set free, and I was FAST. It took most of the night to get used to it, the two of us running together, first in my wolf form then in human. Vampire speed and four-paw drive was a killer combination, and I loved it.

I fell asleep on the way home.

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