It is one of my first attempts at writing something like this and I am still learning.
Hope you like it.
Part One
Vampires hate werewolves, werewolves hate vampires. That seems to be the only constant between the two groups. For as long as either side can remember, that is the way it has been. Depending on if you talk to a vampire, and survive, or a werewolf, you’ll get a different story every time. Each side makes up a new reason to hate the other side every other century or so. The fact that both vamps and werewolves live for a very long time, is probably the reason there are so many different theories as to why they hate each other.
Throughout their varied histories, both vampires and werewolves have been known to feed on humans, but the need for human blood seems to be strictly a vampire thing. Werewolves are able to get by with just eating massive amounts of any kind of meat, though some werewolves have grown an affinity to human flesh, they are very few and normally destroyed by other werewolves when they are found. However, since the introduction of fast food and the famous, or for some people, ‘infamous’ hamburger, it had become easier and less intrusive for werewolves to feed their voracious appetites.
Vicki took another bite of her cheeseburger, thanking human’s for coming up with such a wonderful and easy to obtain meal. She looked at the four empty wrappers and the six remaining cheeseburgers and then thanked her werewolf metabolism for being able to eat so much and not balloon into a fat cow.
Finding out that Peter had been alive all these years, hadn’t made the difference in Vicki’s life as she thought something as enlightening as that would have. Her being a werewolf now, had something to do with it, but not everything. Over the many decades that had passed since their ‘deaths’, much had changed in both of their lives.
Peter seemed the same to her, mostly because once someone became a vampire, they no longer aged and they also retained most of the same looks and some of the same mannerisms they had when they were alive. At first, Peter embraced the impossible revelation that the love of his mortal life was still alive, like they had never been apart. Later his attitude toward his former love turned more into a mute acceptance of her existence. Vicki, on the other hand, hadn’t embraced anything. She only accepted that she was now a werewolf, and only thought of Peter as something new, something different, against the grain of the way things were supposed to be when it came to vampires and werewolves.
The two races were ‘supposed’ to hate each other, something that she had accepted a long time ago when she had first ‘changed’. It seemed to her like both sides used any reason as an excuse for making up rules to continue the struggles between them. She never liked playing by the rules, and any rule someone tried to enforce, Vicki took the extra effort to break.
Vicki took that non-conformist attitude and tried to make sure that everyone at least thought that she was dating Peter. Even if the truth was that she didn’t care about him anymore. Not long after they had learned each other was still alive, Vicki learned that her former love had moved on and found himself a new love, long ago. Despite that, it didn’t make much of a difference to her. Vicki was going to use their former relationship and manipulate him in order to keep things in chaos, which was more her nature now than the organized, submissive and nice woman she had been like in the past.
Peter, on the other hand, did his best to distance himself from Vicki, because the Clan was not very happy with his connection with a known werewolf, and besides the fact he had a new love in his life now. The only reason the entire Clan had not simply forbade him from seeing her, was because the leader of the Northern Vampire Clan, Abigail, knew Vicki was technically a member of the local werewolf pack and that she had become somewhat of a thorn in the ‘Alpha’ of the pack’s side which amused Abigail .
Nightfall had almost enveloped Seattle and Vicki was sitting at Bing’s Burger joint, on the corner across from Madison Park, waiting for Peter to show up. Peter was a Vampire. And until just over a year ago, Vicki had thought was dead.
Over a century ago, Peter and Victoria, the name she went by back then, had fallen in love. They had promised each other that they would get married, have children and spend the rest of their lives together. Just like most young couples that were blinded by love thought. Sadly, the love filled dreams they had planned, would never happen.
World War II happened instead. Just like many thousands of families that would have their hopes and dreams horribly changed forever, Peter’s and Victoria’s came to an end. On one fateful night, Peter and the rest of his family were killed when a bomb destroyed his home in upper east London during a German bombing raid. Leaving Victoria so grief stricken that she ran off when her family was still recovering from the shock.
She hadn’t known that Peter had survived the bombing, nor that the night before the German planes flew over to unleash their payload of destruction, he had been seduced and taken by a vampire. It was two weeks later, after he had risen as a vampire already, that he learned of Victoria’s disappearance. Though he searched for Victoria a very long time, he never found her. By that time, Victoria’s family had already claimed her as dead and Peter accepted that he would have to spend the rest of his undead life, without the woman he loved.
Victoria, on the other hand, had been so grief stricken by the loss of her love, that she wandered aimlessly through England and ended up huddled in a cave somewhere in Scotland. She was starving and near death by the time a pack of werewolves came across her,.
When the pack of wolves approached the distraught girl, they sensed no fear from her and no threat. Only relief and the expectation of death. Instead of killing her, as wolves that were on the hunt normally did to anything that foolishly entered their territory, they brought the cold, shivering girl to their den and their pack Alpha, Gavin Macmillan.
Just like vampires, werewolves lived a very long time and Gavin Macmillan was possibly one of the oldest of his kind, but no one knew for sure exactly how old he was, and Gavin never would say. But despite his unknown age, Gavin didn’t know what to do with the young woman his pack had brought to him. She refused to speak to him or let him touch her. She also refused to eat and tried everything she could to end her life.
Victoria Mayfield was tall for a woman. Much taller than the women Gavin had known in his long lifetime. He and most of the wolves in his pack were at least six feet tall, some were even taller, and yet even at six-foot two, his chin barely came up to the top of Victoria’s head. Her bearing told him that she was at least a well cultured and well mannered young woman and even as unkempt and dirty as it was, he could tell that she had long beautiful golden hair. Her pale, smooth and unblemished complexion was completed by a curvacious and well figured body. From the remnants of her dirt covered and tattered clothing, he imagined that she was someone who enjoyed summer dresses and lovely patterned clothes.
No matter what he thought about Victoria, unless he did something, Gavin knew that the young woman his pack had found would not survive long. To him and the rest of his pack, life was a very precious thing, and they did everything they could to keep her alive.
Gavin had her force fed intravenously and had to strap her down on a bed to prevent her from pulling the tubes out. But Victoria was determined to die. She had loved Peter with all of her heart and soul, but he was dead and to her distraught mind, so was she. Her heart felt like it was dead, and she wanted to be as well.
She almost got her wish. Having being restrained and having men, she thought were monsters watching over her, Victoria managed to convince Gavin that she was getting better, that the pain of her loss was less. He allowed her some freedom, but kept several of his pack to keep her company. Even as a mere human, Victoria somehow managed to hide her real motives from them, even Gavin.
In one quick move, she surprised the wolves that were watching her, broke a window with a chair and before they could stop her, Victoria threw herself onto the broken glass that remained in the window. She experienced the gruesome pain of what she’d done and felt the true horror while she watched through pain filled eyes as her life drained away into an ever expanding pool of her own blood.
The wound was very severe, blood gushed out of a slice in her neck that went from her throat around the side of her neck and down almost to her collar bone. If she had not stumbled over the chair she’d used to break the window, she could have died instantly. Even so, she did manage to completely sever one of the main arteries in the left side of her neck. Luckily for the werewolves, her stumble allowed them to react quickly enough so they could immobilize her and staunch the flow of blood before she died. Victoria was in no shape to stop the werewolves from saving her, and despite her meager protests, they took some of their own blood and injected it into her veins temporarily giving her the miraculous healing that werewolves had.
In the present, Vicki huffed sarcastically at the memories while she took another bite from a cheeseburger. “Poor Gavin.”, she mumbled between chews and let the memories of her past resume.
The werewolves had saved Victoria’s life against her wishes. The blinding pain she had inflicted on herself and the horror of feeling her life ebb, made her reconsider the poor judgment she’d made in trying to end her life. It was enough for them to know that she was alive, but the wrenching grief still had it’s icy grip on her heart and no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t shake the terrible loss she was going through.
Gavin and the pack recognized her pain. It was what any one of them would have felt with the loss of their own mate. The only option Gavin knew to do, was make her a werewolf and hope that she survived the change. He thought it would help her cope with the loss, and that she would eventually grow to someday find a mate in the pack.
It was a drastic step, and doing it against her wishes was something that Gavin didn’t want to do. During Victoria’s time with the pack, they had grown an affinity for the grieving woman. They had already accepted her as one of their own, and Gavin knew that he didn’t have a choice. If she survived, she would have a better chance of living and the pack would be there to help her and support her. If she didn’t survive, the pack would know that their Alpha did everything he could to save her.
The alternative to that was to do nothing, and Gavin knew he could possibly lose control of his pack if he did that. So without the grieving woman’s consent, Gavin bit her and began the painful process of turning Victoria.
Victoria’s change wasn’t exactly what Gavin had anticipated or expected. As with all changes, the individual was secured by heavy chains surrounded by a cage made with thick steel bars. Changes were terribly painful and were dangerous to everyone. As the pack Alpha, Gavin had the power to help control the change and provide a measure of comfort so that it would be a little less stressful. In all his many years of helping newly changes werewolves, Gavin had never witnessed a change as violent and destructive as Victoria’s.
Since werewolves had come to exist, it had been known that few human females ever survived the change into a werewolf. It had something to do with the balance of hormones within the humans. At first it was thought that the more Testosterone, the better chance a human would survive the change, which was why male humans had a better chance. However, even with high levels of the hormone, some men didn’t survive. It wasn’t until advances in modern medicine came, did werewolves understand more of how the change worked. For men, it required a little more production of the female hormone, Estrogen, than they normally produce, in order to survive the change, and for women, a little more Testosterone than their bodies normally created to help with their change. Even so, it was an uneven balance that had to occur naturally, and because of all the differences, women were less likely to survive the change.
Those that did were very different than they had been before the change. It usually took some time after the change, for the newly turned werewolf to react, but once her senses had returned, Victoria’s change turned very violent, very quickly. The experiences of her newly enhanced senses overwhelmed her. She broke free of the chains and destroyed the holding cell they had her in, badly injuring at least three of the pack members and almost escaped the castle that was the Alpha and his pack’s home.
It had taken almost every ounce of Gavin’s strength and that of several of the pack to contain the newly changed werewolf. After tending the wounded and making sure Victoria was under control, Gavin relaxed to ponder if he had made the right choice.
Eventually the effects of the change wore off and Victoria’s attitude and mannerisms were different. She was no longer the unsure, weak, grief stricken woman. Though differences were a part of the change, Gavin saw that Victoria had become a completely different woman.
After Victoria was released from the holding cell, Gavin spoke with her. But when he called her by her name, she cringed from him, in anger and in pain. That was when Victoria chose to be called by a nickname one of the pack had given her. Vicki.
Gavin offered her a place in the pack as was his duty for changing someone into a werewolf and as the Alpha of the pack. But he and Vicki both knew she could not stay. There would be too many of the unmated werewolves, fighting over her, and Gavin had felt that there was more to Victoria than her just being one of the few and rare female werewolves in the world.
Vicki put her memories aside and tossed yet another empty burger wrapper on the table in front of her just as Peter walked up to the table, then without showing any sign she noticed as she reached for another cheeseburger.
“I have come as you requested, Victoria”, he said curtly, giving her his trademark customary bow.
Okay, so Peter was her ‘former’ boyfriend and he still called her by “Victoria”, which she no longer went by. She didn’t like that name because it reminded her of the person she once was, the person whom she hated.
Vicki took another bite of the cheeseburger and slowly set it back down on the table.
“Sit down, Peter.”, she said with a mouthful of food, then added “Please” when she noticed Peter go rigid and had a look of indignation on his face.
Peter didn’t want to be here. The Clan had warned him several times to stay away from Vicki. So far, they had not made any attempt to directly involve themselves nor punish Peter for going against their warnings. Peter followed his instincts and the directions of his mistress, Abigail. Normally, any vampire that went against the wishes of the Clan, were punished for their insolence and disobedience. However, the North American Vampire Clan, the one he was in, was run by Abigail. She enjoyed the chaos that his former fiancee turned werewolf caused with the local Alpha and his pack. She knew Peter’s loyalty was to her, and would turn a blind eye to Victoria Mayfield’s amusing antics until she became a liability to them.
So long as Vicki kept herself from disrespecting the Clan, and especially Abigail, Peter would leave things as they were. It was hard for Peter to accept the person Vicki had become. Before he had died, Vicki has ‘died’, she was to have been his wife. Her compassion, love of everyone and her desire for Peter were some of the things he remembered about her. Now, while he watched her scarf down cheeseburger’s, she was a woman who had become the opposite of everything that he had known. She seemed bitter, disconnected and hateful now. She didn’t even look like the soft, gentle and beautiful woman he remembered.
She went by Vicki Rogers, now. The right side of her nose was pierced with a small white gold loop ring, and an identical loop was in her lower lip. The tattoo of a lightning bolt down started at the top of her shoulder and crisscrossing all the way down the length of her left arm to her wrist. Her honey blonde hair was cropped short with bluish-black highlights and long bangs she kept brushing from the front of her.
Vicki’s once soft and gentle alabaster skin was now, hard, tanned and trim. She had always been tall, but her old slightly curvacious and plump figure had been replaced by a very well fit and muscled body. Vicki Rogers was a very stark difference from the Victoria Mayfield he once knew.
He remembered she used to always wear soft modest dresses and light shoes. At the moment, she wore tight leather pants with a leather vest which opened in the front revealing the cleavage of her ample breasts and exposing a strong, tight, muscular midriff. Dark makeup adorned her face and she had lipstick the color of blood on her lips. Heavy mascara coated her thick, long eyelashes and dark eyeliner outlined her green, almost emerald eyes.
Vicki smiled at Peter’s look of disgust. He never did like the way she looked now and always made some comment about her heavy boots. She chuckled a little and wondered what her old friend would think if she showed him what she wore on the rare occasions when she wanted to be particularly lascivious
Peter let out a frustrated sigh and took a seat opposite from Vicki. She crumpled up the wrapper of the cheeseburger she had just finished and reached for another one. With a subtle motion of her wrist, she indicated to the remaining burgers on the table.
“Want one?”, she said with malicious sarcasm. Peter squinted his eyes with annoyance. She lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug. “Oh. That’s right, you don’t really eat, do you?”, she finished, squinting her own eyes and grinning mischievously.
Peter could eat if he desired, but he no longer require normal food. Despite his annoyance, he straightened himself and held back his retort.
“What is it that you want this time, Victoria?”, he asked, using her old first name to return the annoyance he felt, then glared at her.
“Oh, the usual.”, she said with a smile, ignoring his jab at her.
Peter stiffened slightly, barely noticeable to anyone else, but Vicki saw it.
“Remind me, what is ‘the usual’?”, he asked in an even tone, his lips pressed tightly together.
“Well, lets see.”, Vicki started, then took a bite of her sixth cheeseburger. “I need a loan.” she mumbled with her mouth full.
“Again?”, Peter replied disgustedly, rolling his eyes. “What makes you think I am going to give you any more money?”.
“Because, if you don’t, I’m going to reach across the table, grab you and kiss you to death in front of God and everyone else around here.”, she said licking her lips seductively.
Vicki knew that Peter, the one deep down inside the vampire sitting across the table, still loved the woman who she had once been. The woman that Vicki hated, but she would use that knowledge to get whatever she wanted from Peter. However, she knew that it could possibly lead to more problems than Peter was willing to handle. It wasn’t just because of his “Abigail”, the vamp bitch he was shacking up with now. The problem was going to be the Alpha of the local werewolf pack. Nicholas “Nick” Dawson.
Long before Vicki had learned that Peter was still alive, she had been roaming the streets of Seattle as a lone wolf, finding shelter and food wherever she could. Nick had found her trying to break into a parked bread truck looking for food. After a brief non-violent confrontation, he made it clear that no lone wolves were allowed to roam around in his territory without his knowledge or permission.
There were very few female werewolves in the world, so instead of killing her like he would any other rogue wolf that encroached on his territory, he offered to bring her into The Cascade Mountain pack. Vicki had been alone since she had left Scotland, and missed the feeling of being with others of her kind.
Nick’s offer to be a member of his pack meant Vicki wouldn’t have to be alone anymore. He was nice and polite, telling her about the pack and it’s members and a little about himself. Vicki felt relaxed for the first time since she left the pack in Scotland. Her control seemed a lot better the moment she met Nick and she looked forward to meeting the rest of the pack.
He brought Vicki to his home, which was an enormous private suite in one of the high towers of the city. It was where he and his werewolf pack had their den and where Nick would introduce the rest of the pack to Vicki. It felt very nice to be among her own kind, and there were a couple of other female werewolves there as well. The atmosphere felt almost like family to her. She felt like she belonged, and even as new member, Vicki was right at home with all of them.
Once she had been officially made a member of the pack, Nicholas Dawson stood before his gathered pack and made the claim that Vicki was to be his mate. He hadn’t asked her. She was immediately shocked and felt the pull of the power that his statement caused. The pack readily accepted it, but Vicki responded by throwing him through the window that was on the sixth floor of the building his suite was in.
Despite the obvious rebuke in front of the pack, Nick still claimed Vicki was his mate and his desire for her only seemed to grow every time she rebuked his continued and inaccurate claims on her. She made every attempt to dissuade Nick, even by making her unwanted advances on Peter quite blatant and public. It would infuriate Nick, making him think that Peter was trying to take what belonged to him.
Vicki’s mind drifted back to the present and watched as Peter reached into his jacket for his checkbook. “Okay. Fine, Victoria. How much this time?”, he huffed. His many years as a vampire and his attachment to his maker, gave Peter access to a good deal of money, something that Vicki was more than happy to exploit.
“Five-thousand would be peachy.”, she said before slurping down hard on the soft drink and batting her long eyelashes to increase Peter’s noticeable discomfort. Peter didn’t flinch. He just placed a pen to his checkbook and began scribbling away. After a few moments, he ripped the check out and handed it to Vicki.
“Here. Ten-thousand. That should keep us from meeting for a quite a while.”, he said without any emotion. Vicki took the check, but before she could look up to say something, Peter had gone.
“Just like a vampire.”, she said to the emptiness and placed the check in her pocket, chuckling softly while reaching for another cheeseburger.
“Well, I can smell that vampire was here”, came a gravelly voice that interrupted Vicki’s memories of the past. She focused her mind back to the present and looked at him.
“What are you doing here…… Nick?”, she spat with more than a little ire in her voice.
“I’m just looking out for what is ‘mine’.”, he said with emphasis looking right at Vicki.
Nicholas “Nick” Dawson, was the Alpha of the local werewolf pack, and to most people that knew him, was a really nice guy. Except when it came to Vicki. Nick firmly believed that Vicki was his mate, and without so much as asking her, had proclaimed her as his mate the night he introduced her to his pack.
The first time Vicki had met Nick, she liked him. However, she had never slept with him, never dated him or even kissed him. Yet no matter what Vicki did to try and discourage Nick, he kept calling her his mate.
It made every hair on Vicki’s neck stand out, causing her to scrunch up her nose and squint her eyes when he called on her without any thought of how she felt. Right now, she hated Nick for trying to make her submit to his demands and declaring her to be his mate by some right he thought all Alphas had. Which she knew they did, but Vicki never liked any kind of rule that tried to govern her to begin with.
“Fuck off, Nick. I’m not in the mood for your possessive bullshit..”, Vicki said with a growl.
Nick leaned forward and snatched one of Vicki’s remaining cheeseburgers. Getting a look of pure hate from her as well as a low growl.
“It doesn’t matter what your mood is, Vicki. I am here now, like I always have been and always will be.”
“Honestly, it does matter, Nick. Because I am not your mate, never have been and never will be.”, she said with a snarl. “And the next time you take one of my cheeseburgers, you’ll be pulling back a stub.”, she finished, grabbing the last cheeseburger angrily.
Nick chuckled softly. He took a large bite of the cheeseburger and stared at Vicki lustfully as he chewed it slowly.
Vicki started to unwrap her cheeseburger, saw his lustful gaze, then tossed it back on the table.
“I’ve lost my appetite. You can have it.”, she said in disgust, grabbing her drink and getting up from the table. “Do clean this shit up when you’re done, asshole.”, she said to Nick then turned to leave, leaving him with the garbage on her table.
Nick ignored what she said and just followed her out the door, tossing the empty burger wrapper in the trash and giving one of the scowling restaurant workers a ten dollar bill for the mess Vicki had left on the table.
“Don’t follow me Nick.”, Vicki said over her shoulder as she walked over to her motorcycle. “Unless you want me to toss you out of a twenty story window this time, I highly suggest you get the fuck away from me.”
“You can’t run from me Vicki, you are a member of the pack now and I have claimed y-”, before he could finish, Vicki grabbed her helmet, turned around and threw it at him. Nick barely ducked in time as it flew by, inches from his head.
The helmet slammed into a big metal mailbox with a loud bang, ricocheted off and thumped down the avenue in front of the burger joint.
“FUCK YOU!”, she yelled. “I may be in the pack.”, Vicki growled. “But I AM not yours!! NO!”, she fought down the urge to scream, but said it loud enough that passersby stopped and took notice. Vicki’s heart was racing, blood was pounding in her ears and her breathing was rapid. She had to contain the building rage inside of her or she would lose control. There were too many humans around that would witness a full blown werewolf go into a rage induced change.
“You can’t do anything about it Vicki, once I’ve made the claim of a mate, it is done.”, Nick said as he stood up and dusted himself off. “You are pack now, and I am your Alpha. And whether you like it or not, you ARE my mate.”
Back in Scotland, Gavin had told Vicki enough about werewolf society that what Nick was saying was the truth. She also knew that in that society, the females were expected to be submissive to their mate’s and were pretty much dominated by them.
To Vicki, it might not have been so bad, if Nick had gotten to know her first. The way Vicki was, how she felt about things, what she liked, what she hated. And, after that, if he had bothered to ask her to be his mate first, instead of simply announcing it as if she had no say, things might have been a little different between them.
But Nick was used to the ways of werewolf society, and hadn’t changed with human society like Vicki had. He was an Alpha, and wasn’t told “No”, a lot if ever.
“You made the claim, Nick. I didn’t accept it.”, she said in a measured tone, trying to keep her rage in check.
“There is nothing to accept, Vicki. It just is.”, he replied dusting his jeans off some more.
“I don’t care. I will not be your….. mate.”, she spat the last word out disgustedly.
Nick moved slowly to the side, keeping a good distance from Vicki, lowering his head a little as he looked at her with his clear blue eyes. It sent a small tremble through Vicki, her heartbeat slowed and she felt herself sway a little.
“I could make you accept it.”, his voice low and deep in her ears. Power filled his words, washing softly over her, coaxing Vicki forward. Suddenly, a car horn blared at someone crossing the street in front of it. The noise snapped Vicki out of the trance.
Slowly, Vicki shook her head to clear her mind, then glared at Nick. She balled her fists tightly, her knuckles cracking at the force of her anger. Lowering her head and looking up at Nick in the same way he had looked at her, she forced the power of his will back, growling with effort and the rising rage within her. “You ever do that again.”, she said in a very low growl that rumbled in her chest. “I promise, I will kill you.”
Nick didn’t flinch, but he had tensed a little at her words, his eyes reverted to normal and gazed at Vicki warily. He didn’t say a word and he didn’t move, just kept his eyes on her.
Vicki turned back toward her bike, but kept her blazing emerald eyes locked on Nick. Once she started it, she revved the engine a few times, letting the rumble of the bike sooth her. Nick stayed motionless. He just watched as Vicki put the bike in gear and roared away.
A smile crept across Peter’s face as he watched Vicki ride off. He glanced back at Nick, but the werewolf Alpha was already walking away. He wondered what Abigail would think about this evenings happenings. He wasn’t too sure she’d be happy about the ten grand he had just given Vicki, but he figured she’d be well amused to hear how Vicki had not only resisted the werewolf Alpha’s powers, but had thrown the same back at him. It intrigued Peter. Vicki was a member of the pack that Nick was Alpha over. She should not have been able to resist the powerful sway that an Alpha held over a pack. His mistress would be very interested in that, and might be able to explain it to him.
Peter looked toward the dark sky above and sighed to himself. Daylight would be here in a few hours. He looked again at the direction Vicki had gone. Peter knew that he still loved Victoria. But after what he had just seen, he knew that deep inside that the woman named Victoria Mayfield was gone. Only Vicki Rogers, the werewolf, existed now.
Peter took another glance at Nick, just before the werewolf Alpha rounded the corner and disappeared from view.
“Be careful, Nicholas Dawson. There’s one thing of Victoria Mayfield left inside her. She always keeps her promises.”, he said quietly.