t h i r t e e n
i n f e r n o
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"OH MY GOD," Eretria gasped as the four by four pulled into the winding drive of the Fang Pack house. Branches shook overhead, silhouetted against the glowing orange sky. The pigment roared against the clouds in the murkiness.

As soon as the car stopped, Tia and Connor were quick to jump out. The building ahead of them was a blazing inferno. Flames hungrily devoured the inside of the huge apartment block, gathering outside the empty window panels in yellow tipped spikes. People had gathered around the blaze, but not all were standing. A few were lying on the ground, coughing relentlessly. Tia spotted the body of a young boy meters away from the flames. The scent of charred flesh captivated the polluted air.

Connor rushed over to the closest person, who was crouched on the ground coughing into their hand. Tia followed closely behind him, leaving the door of Connor's black car wide open. The headlights provided much needed light for the she-wolf, whose eyesight lacked the ability to see clearly in the dark.

Jared hadn't come, and Tia felt as though a weight had been lifted off her chest. He was trying to get to know her - trying to pry into her past, which she had purposely sealed shut. Yet, out of her sight, the woman was nervous he couldn't be trusted.

"What happened?" Connor asked the coughing man. He squatted down so that he was eye level with the Omega.

The man coughed once more, but as soon as he opened his mouth to speak, the sound of ripping flesh intruded Tia's ears. A moment later, the male wolf was slumped on the ground, definitely and completely dead.

Tia placed a hand over her mouth, raising her head to stare at a young faced man holding the werewolf's heart. He smirked, mouth twitching into the perfect evil snarl. His copper eyes ran over Connor's chiselled face as the Alpha stood up, pulling at his suit to prepare for battle.

"What are you doing?" Connor asked all too calmly.

The vampire raised his head, veins popping out of his throat like purple rivers. "What do you think I'm doing?" He jeered. Tia's hand hovered over her knife, overcome by fear for Connor.  She couldn't lose him. Not after she had lost Colton.  "I'm-"

But Tia's knife was already in the vampire's chest.

Connor whirled around, a look of surprise contorting his sharp features. "You-"

"Can fight," Tia finished, striding over to retrieve her blade from the vampire, who had now turned a pasty grey. "Don't act so surprised." She wiped the blood staining the metal on her red dress until the metal reflected her striking face. She had been lucky with her beauty. It was one of her many weapons.

"You were right," Connor sighed. He ran a hand through his hair, cursing as soon as he realised he had admitted what had been on his mind the whole time. "The vampires want to start a war."

Tia crossed her arms over her chest, but she didn't have time to revel in Connor's admittance. The area around her was a crime scene, and many of her kind had died. Plus, with the arrival of the unwelcome vampire, Tia knew who was to blame for the tragedy.

A shadow flickered behind Connor. The brunette's hand tightened on the smooth handle of the silver blade as she readied herself the throw it. It was her father's, and had been made when she was merely a baby. She remembered her father's tanned hands stiff on the blade, showing her how to use them when she was too young to understand.

"Connor, move," Tia hissed through clenched teeth when yet another shadow stirred.

The man looked dazed, but sidestepped just in time as Tia's knife sailed through the air once more, inches away from Connor's pointed nose.

Unlike last time, the shadow was prepared. It ducked in the blink of an eye, and Tia barely had time to compensate the action until a hand clasped itself around her throat. It squeezed hard.

Air squeezed itself out of Tia's lungs as she struggled. She opened her mouth to inhale, but the hand crushing her windpipe didn't allow any oxygen to pass. The tanned skin on her face started to filtrate into blue.

As Tia struggled to reach for the knife in her boot, the pressure around her oesophagus loosened. She blinked. Once. Twice.

The vampire who had attacked her fell. Connor stood behind the corpse, holding his heart like a trophy.

Eretria gasped for breath, and grabbed her second knife before another vampire could attack. Connor, on the other hand, methodically pulled out the handkerchief from the chest pocket of his suit, and wiped the sticky ruby residue from his hand.

"What, no thank you?" Connor muttered. His brown tresses refracted the light of the fire, presenting an orange halo above his head. A halo meant for the devil, and the beast residing inside the pair of werewolves.

Tia crossed her arms, accidentally grazing her skin and creating a small gash. "For what?"

"Saving your life."

Eretria scoffed, fluttering her eyelashes unintentionally. "You didn't say thank you either, arsehole."

Connor raised both eyebrows. "Ok, then." he acted surprised, but he had anticipated the words. Suddenly, his eyes grew wide. "Tia-"

But Tia heard the rush of air parting before Connor needed to finish his sentence. The metal chimed in the wind - a noise so subtle, only a wolf's ears were able to pick it up. Tia crouched down onto her haunches as the knife sailed over her head and embedded itself in a tree five meters away from her.

"Just great," Tia stated as she wiped her muddy palms on her legs and prepared herself for yet another attack. "More vamp-"

A hand grappled for Eretria's shoulder from behind. It clasped at the hem of her shirt, and latched onto the material. In on swift movement, it yanked her onto the ground. The she-wolf's head made contact with the grass with an ear-shuddering thump. All the oxygen Tia had been saving in her lungs was pushed out, leaving her gasping on the floor as the vampire clambered on top of her.

The vampire's pale face was masked by a cascade of platinum blonde tresses. They tickled Tia's face and found their way into her throat as she writhed her body under the vampire's iron grip. She tried to bend her elbow, meaning to impale her attacker, but the female vampire pried the blade from Tia's hand and threw it across the pack field.

"Get," Tia grunted, shoving her hand up into the vampire's nose. "The fuck off me!"

Blood sprayed from the woman's nose, but with a crack it was back in the correct position. Tia gasped at the sight, having forgotten just how quickly the supernatural creature healed. Infuriated at her weakness, the Mexican thrust her leg into her attacker's stomach. The vampire groaned, and gave Eretria the leverage she needed to roll out from under the vampire's murderous cage.

Sharp pyres of smoke and orange fire caught Tia's peripheral vision. She only had one second to assess the objects around her feet that had broken off from the house which was now a pile of ash and rubble. The second was enough to locate a spike of wood.

With trembling hands, Tia took the stake in her hands, and turned to face the nightmare raging behind her. Figures danced on the gravel to her left, whilst three other shadows lurked among the darkness like a disease. After all, vampires were an accident. Much like the myth of zombies, vampirism spread through the sharing of bodily fluids - primarily blood. It was a virus, and a curse. It stopped your heart, and your body shut down. The only way to stay alive was by gaining oxygen from the blood of living humans and an animals.

The vampire came at her before Tia could bat an eyelash. Eretria thrashed, and brought up her arm to stab the stake into the woman's back. The wood struck flesh, and Tia sighed with relief as the vampire's grasp on her shoulders slackened.

"What do you do to me," the female rasped, clawing wildly at her back.

Tia snarled furiously as the growl of a feral animal tore at her vocal chords. Claws sprouted from her fingertips, and the world brightened as they morphed from brown to silver. She took the white strands of the vampires hair, and broke her neck in one motion. Refusing to waste time while the vampire was unconscious, Tia took the stake that had missed the woman's heart and pushed it through her breast plate. The vampire's skin drained of colour.

"Connor," the she-wolf shouted as she pushed her loose hair from her eyes. Her ruby dress was no longer red, and the palms of her hands were sweating profusely under the layer of brown mud.

A hand touched the small of Tia's back. Despite the bite of the glacial winter air, warmth enveloped the woman's body as she turned to gaze into the mesmerising eyes of an alpha she admitted she knew too well.

"I'm here," He murmured, appearing as though he had barely been scratched. "Are you ok?"

Tia rolled her eyes as Connor's own roamed her body. "You seem genuinely concerned."

"That's because I am," Connor replied immediately.

"Cut the crap," Tia retorted, waving her hands in the air before bringing them down to rest on her dress pocket. Her mind flickered back to the ball, and the piece of paper she had stolen. "Oh my God."

"What?" Connor raised his eyebrows.

Tia reached into her pocket. Sure enough, her fingertips were greeted with the rough material of crumpled paper. She pulled it out, flashing it at Connor before opening it. Her eyes landed on the white material, the writing so tiny she could barely read it.

"I found this at Daniel's," Eretria muttered. She read the lines slowly to take in the information. When she had finished, she drew in a sharp breath. Then she read it again.

Connor rushed over, attempting to take the letter from Tia's grasp. Instead, the Mexican wolf moved it from the reach of the Alpha's prying hands. "What does it say?"

"It's an order for wolf's bane powder," Tia uttered too calmly for the severity of the situation. "Signed by Daniel."

"That son of bitch!" Connor cursed. "I'm going to rip his head off!"

A sinister chuckle rose from behind the pair, who had been completely unaware of the company that had gathered around them. Tia whipped around her head to see five figures scar the horizon, black against the blaze of the fire. She tucked the letter back into her pocket, hoping no one had seen.

"I'm afraid," one spoke in a chilling tone that made Tia's heart skip a beat. "That you're not going anywhere."

sorry for the late update! hope you all enjoyed <33