Fierce Awakenings Page 2
“Armando DeWitt.”
Victoria blanched at the mention of the name. “Isn’t he a maneater?”
“Well, yes, he is, but—”
“And you want me to be mated to one such as him?” Victoria was outraged.
A maneater had an appetite for human flesh and blood, which was what made them different from werewolves that did not have the same urges. They were considered to be from a separate branch than those who were immune to the bloodlust. Their presence was only tolerated if they proved to be no threat to humans and other werewolves. Victoria was unwilling to have children that would carry such a defect.
“This alpha is in full control of his bloodlust and he hasn’t ever killed any humans. We trust him for he has shown that he is fully capable of living amongst our kind and humans and not lose his head. We trust that he will make you a good mate, provider, and above all, a great father for your future offspring.”
Victoria couldn’t understand how her parents could be so convinced of this alpha’s so-called control. How much did they actually know about him? Were they a hundred percent certain he had never raised a hand—claw to kill an innocent human being?
“How can you be so sure? What if he’s killed and no one knows about it?”
“This discussion is over, daughter,” her father stated, dismissing her. “There’s nothing more to say.”
“But—”
Victor cut her off with a wave of his hand. “I have more important matters to discuss with the elders. This conversation has come to an end.”
Victoria jerked up and stood, glaring into her father’s eyes. Without another word, she stormed out of the dining room with her mother following closely behind.
“Wait, Victoria.”
“It’s so unfair!” she said, holding back tears. “Why would you do this to me?”
Surprised by her daughter’s outburst, Rene eyed Victoria with a mixture of uncaring and regret. “It is best for everyone, daughter.”
“No. It’s not. How can my mating be better for everyone?” Like most princesses, she should have taken the news of the mating quietly and accepted her fate, but to Victoria this was taking things too far. She could live with being ruled by a dictator for a father, but to be forced to subdue to another male for breeding purposes was just too much, even for her.
“It’s best not to take any chances, sweetheart. Every alpha’s daughter is being mated with an unmated alpha from another pack. It is the way things are being done for all our sakes. Do you want us to disappear off the face of the earth?” Swaying her hips from side to side, Rene started up the narrow corridor, leaving a bemused Victoria staring after her.
“No! But I don’t want to be mated, either. I’m not ready!” Victoria stalked off after her mother, trying to hold back the anger simmering underneath.
“Of course you are, sweetheart,” Rene insisted. “You’re mature enough to mate.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Victoria growled as she struggled to keep pace next to her mother. “I’m not ready because it’s not what I want. I want other things before I’m mated.”
Visibly annoyed, Rene spun around to face her daughter. “Like what? What could you possibly want aside from having a mate?”
Free will, she thought. “Oh, I don’t know. I want to travel the world. Visit other countries, visit other packs, get to know a male that I could even consider being mated to.”
“You are daughter to an alpha. You will never be allowed to mate any wolf that is beneath that status.” Her mother sighed. “And when it comes with the rest of your statement, perhaps your mate can take you sightseeing once the mating is done.”
“Like my father takes you!” Victoria spat before she could stop herself.
“Your father is alpha and with that position comes great responsibilities.”
“That doesn’t stop him from spending time with you.”
“Don’t you think three hundred and fifty years is more than enough time together?” Rene squared her shoulders and lifted her chin.
“And how many times during those years has my father taken you to explore other cities, other towns, and other countries? When has he taken time off his duties as Alpha to see to you?”
“Such things are trivial,” Rene remarked with a shrug of the shoulder.
“For you, maybe.” Victoria took several steps forward. “I want something more out of a lifelong commitment.”
Shaking her head, Rene simply stated, “You will set yourself up for heartbreak, honey.”
Victoria sighed heavily. No one could possibly understand her, especially not her mother. Rene Bonvalet was used to being second in command after her husband, and as far as Victoria could see, the woman had no intention of even trying to understand what she felt.
“I have to go, Mother.”
Angry, irritated, and discouraged, Victoria headed for the one place she expected to get at least some form of support, Tyrone’s and Sasha’s house.
Strolling out of the main house, Victoria hiked toward the cabin at the far side of the property Sasha and Tyrone called home. She marched straight to the small house without acknowledging anyone as she passed by, and knocked on the door. Within moments, Sasha opened the door and ushered Victoria inside.
“Come on in.” Sasha gave her a hug as soon as she stepped inside her home.
“Thank you.” Victoria returned the embrace, feeling the need to be comforted by her makeshift mother. “I really need to talk.”
“I had a feeling you would stop by.”
Pulling back, Victoria gazed into Sasha’s eyes. “So you know?”
“Yes. We all know.”
Shaking her head, Victoria stifled back a sob. She wasn’t so much saddened as she was angry. After twenty years of living under her father’s strict reign she half expected him to be a little more considerate toward her for once. She expected him to allow her to show that her true value wasn’t exclusive to who sired her, but to what she could contribute to the pack. She expected him to challenge her into proving she was a valuable asset to the pack, but it was obvious to her he cared very little for her feelings.
“I’m very frustrated,” Victoria stated.
“Come on into the kitchen. Tyrone is there.”
Both women sauntered toward the other room where they found Tyrone, cooking what smelled to Victoria like mashed potatoes, gravy, and steak. Her voracious stomach growled as she sniffed the air, catching a whiff of the delicious smelling meal. When she entered the kitchen however, Victoria couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of the huge black man wearing a pink and white apron.
“What are you doing, Tyrone?” Victoria asked the second her gaze rested on Tyrone.
“I’m cooking your favorite meal,” he said, returning the smile.
“You’re cooking a cheer-me-up meal?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“What makes you think that?”
“Because you used to do this when I was a little girl and I was upset over something.”
“Am I that obvious?”
“Of course you are, honey.” Sasha handed a glass of orange juice to Victoria and then gestured for her to sit on one of the empty wooden chairs. “You do this for our daughter all the time.”
“I could use some cheering up, though.” Taking the glass of orange juice, Victoria sat and took a long swig of fluid.
“I know you’re not accustomed to the old ways because you’re fairly young, but this was very common back in the day,” Sasha said as she joined Victoria, sitting on the chair opposite.
“We live in the twenty-first century. The old ways should be changed. Why not let me pick my own mate?”
“Sometimes the old ways are maintained because they are the most efficient.”
“I know our numbers are decreasing, but…I just can’t picture myself sacrificing so much for…” Victoria couldn’t continue. She sounded like a selfish princess and she knew it.
“I understand how you feel,” Sasha ad
ded.
“Do you?” Victoria asked skeptically.
“Yes. When Tyrone and I were mated, we didn’t exactly love each other.”
This was something new to Victoria. She couldn’t believe that Sasha and Tyrone weren’t in love when they first joined, especially considering the fact that they always acted like a newlyweds.
“You’re kidding?”
“No. We were forced to mate under similar circumstances you’re facing now.”
“Then how is it that you—”
“When you mate, you become bonded, and the emotional connection between mates rapidly grows after that.”
“It doesn’t always happen that way.” Victoria had heard about couples who had mated and although there was an intense physical attraction between them and enough passion to sustain the relationship, there was no love. And that’s exactly what she feared would happen to her. What if she mated only to be stuck with a werewolf that could arouse passion within her and nothing more?
Victoria glanced over to Tyrone who nodded in confirmation.
“Even if the emotional connection between the both of you doesn’t develop, you’ll at least be bonded and you’ll never have to worry about him straying.”
That wasn’t exactly comforting, but Sasha was right. She might have to worry about many things, but never about her mate being unfaithful.
Chapter Two
Life, as a vampire knew it, was a long, boring, and solitary affair. There was nothing to do but watch the world change into something nearly unrecognizable. In his one thousand years of being a vampire, Tristan had pursued many adventures, met many immortals like himself, fought in countless wars, and made love to many female vampires. But that was as much of a normal life as he could master, if there was such a thing as having a normal life.
Once one dies and becomes a vampire, life is never the same. The word life even sounds wrong when used in reference to a vampire. Vampires are literally the living dead. Even though the human body dies, it is still up and moving not long after death occurs. However, the human in a person changes with time, and if a newly born vampire wasn’t careful, he/she could most definitely lose his/her humanity.
A few years ago Tristan encountered several elders engrossed in a heated discussion and he remembered well how they argued back and forth over what they thought made vampires immortals, the living dead, the undead. Though these vampires were elders, they still debated their existence and what—aside from the obvious—made them different from many other immortals. However, they did agree on one thing at least.
According to them, the human soul somehow became trapped inside the body once it died instead of moving on as it should have. It had to be the only logical explanation as to why vampires awoke to a dead body but their feelings, emotions, sentiments, and even their reactions were the same as when the body lived. It was proven that if a person was evil before death, once he/she became a vampire, they were just as perverse as they were in life. If the person was good and kind-hearted when alive, he/she remained the same once the vampire process took over. And just like in a normal human existence, a good vampire could be persuaded or influenced to change their ways and turn evil given the right circumstances, or the right vampires.
They agreed that existing as a vampire was a curse, and depending on what a vampire did during his immortality, it determined whether or not his/her soul would definitely have a chance to enter heaven or be zapped straight to hell.
Tristan wasn’t sure whether or not he believed in the elders’ theories or even if he believed heaven or hell to be real, but he supposed that if it did exist, his soul had been tainted a long time ago, so the chances of him entering heaven were slim to none.
He had been a hard worker all of his human life. He worked hard alongside his father and younger brother to make their small farm prosper into something that could support a family of five. In the end, all the effort would be for naught. Not far away resided a man that hated his father and whose hatred knew no boundaries. Eventually, that powerful sentiment became their undoing. The Garlands never expected an attack by the deviously evil man until it was too late.
Even though he fought hard, he was still no match for the many warriors that invaded his poor father’s farm and took whatever they wanted. What they didn’t want, they destroyed. Everything they owned, and worked so hard to make flourish, was burned to the ground. At the end of the day his father, mother, brother, and baby sister were dead, and he was taken away to an unknown destination. At twenty-five, his life ended abruptly when he was taken captive and sold into slavery by his father’s bitter enemy.
Tristan was sold to what appeared to be an old man and his young wife, who were captivated by his unique physical characteristics. They, like most people, had never seen a young man with long white hair and eyes so light in coloring they appeared almost silver. Later on he’d determined that the only reason he was kept alive was because of his appearance. It had brought the man who sold him a ridiculous amount of gold coins, and although he had come to despise his fate many times over, he had to admit that thanks to where he ended up, his life changed.
At the time Tristan didn’t know the man and his wife were really demons disguised as people. Vampires, to be exact. However, he came to find what he was in for sooner rather than later. Within a day or so, he found himself being tortured on a daily basis in order to feed both hungry fiends.
A cut was more merciful than a bite since a bite would mean certain death. Vampires couldn’t bite a human without killing them, at least that was the case in the past. Nevertheless, they fed on him constantly, which meant he was cut often. Some cuts were worse than others since they ran deep into his skin and muscle. For weeks they kept cutting and feeding on him until he was nearly bled dry. His body couldn’t heal the wounds properly because of the malnutrition and lack of sufficient hemoglobin in his system and soon he found himself on the verge of death. So, in a sense, they actually were killing him, but they were doing it slowly, agonizingly so. There came a time when he wanted to die, the torture he was forced to endure for months had all but drained him of what little sanity he had left after witnessing his family being killed.
Unfortunately, or, fortunately for him, the woman finally decided to end his life by means of a quick bite to the neck. What she failed to consider was the possibility of what that bite would do to him. Tristan died all right, but he didn’t stay dead. After two days of never-ending pain, he awoke to a body that was ten times stronger than it had been when he was just human. All his senses were intensified and the hunger he felt was so powerful it doubled him over in pain. He used the hunger, anger, and new strength to achieve revenge. He started with the two devils that, despite the years of immortality ahead of him, were no match for his newfound strength. He bled them both dry, decapitated them, and then burned their bodies to hide the evidence.
The man that killed his family was next on his list of victims. The old man and his two sons were easy prey. Possessed by the power gifted to him, Tristan gorged himself with the blood of every living human within the village that night. Afterwards, he set out to burn every house, barn, cottage, and corral he could find. His retaliation was bittersweet considering that despite his revenge, nothing would bring his family or his mortal life back.
The very next morning, Tristan set out to find a place to call home. He hadn’t been back to his homeland since.
Ever since that fateful day, Tristan had kept mostly to himself. He watched the world slowly change, people as well. However, with the arrival of the new millennium he noticed the world seemed to have a new appeal to it that he found alluring. Perhaps it was time for him to go out into the world as he used to and had not done in eighty years, except for once a year when he traveled to his estate in Paris. Bored with eternal life, immortals and mortals alike, he decided to go into seclusion one day and remained so for nearly a century; the lone rock walls of the cavern converted into a home had been his only companion since.
Tristan Garland paced around his makeshift bedroom in long, impatient strides that carried him from one end to the other in less than a second. His mind, completely preoccupied with the monotonous existence he was forced to endure, wouldn’t allow him to think about anything else.
Although he visited Paris once a year, twice if he got really lonely, he still spent most of his days locked away in his cave, reading, writing, researching anything he could find on vampires. He was convinced there was something more to vampires in general than living—existing as he did, but so far he hadn’t found out anything he didn’t already know.
As if his brain didn’t have enough with over a thousand years of memories clogging his memory box, he insisted on adding material to it with his endless studies, which did nothing but frustrate his already restless spirit. And that was exactly his problem, he realized. He was utterly, undeniably, unequivocally restless. Maybe locking himself in his cave added to his restlessness but he hated interacting with others, vampires especially. They were all the same. Nothing new ever happened. The world even rotated in the same exact way each and every day.
Huffing and puffing, Tristan turned his head to the side as his keen sense of hearing picked up a faint thud, thud, thud of a strong beating heart. Although whoever or whatever was at least a couple of miles downwind, there was no mistaking that something was out there, roaming, prowling, hunting, and he was a hundred percent sure it wasn’t even human.