"Do you want to go to the theatre tonight?"
Alex opened her eyes and turned her head on the pillow. Next to her, Michael had a beaming face and a satisfied look on his face. They had just made love. Alex could not help but take pleasure in her lover's beauty and talent.
"At the theatre?"
Michael raised himself up on one elbow and brought his face close to hers. "I'm a bit old-fashioned about certain things: let me woo you," he told her in a sensual whisper and giving her time to think before responding, closing her mouth with a soft kiss.
"Will you also start giving me flowers?" she asked, furrowing her brow.
"Would that be too much?"
She nodded.
"OK, no flowers."
"It's OK for tonight, for the theatre."
"Good," he said, resuming kissing her. He glanced at the alarm clock, then his eyes settled on her with a sly smile. "We still have some time left..."
***
Alex bit into the slice of pizza and chewed it with great satisfaction. She had not realised her appetite until the smell of the food had reached her nostrils tantalisingly. Michael smiled. They were early for the start of the musical; The Phantom of the Opera would not start for half an hour. They ate in relaxed silence, enjoying the evening in the open air. It had not rained that day and the air was cold but not humid. They finished eating their pizzas and drinking their beers, then headed towards the city centre. They walked past St. James Park and the square of the same name and into Ashford Street. The Red Theatre was already in sight when Michael's mobile phone began to ring.
His expression suddenly changed. "I'll go immediately," he said, ending the communication. When he turned to Alex his face expressed concern and regret. "I'm sorry. Raeg has been injured and we are the closest."
Alex squeezed his arm and smiled at him. "Let's go."
***
Raeg was sitting on the ground with his back against the wall in an alley. In his right hand he held his Sig Saur, his left was clutching his injured side. Michael reached him and helped him up, then loaded him into the car.
"Damn strays! Ever since Nereus disappeared they are beasts without control!" Raeg let his head go back and closed his eyes. Cleaning up the streets of Oldgrove was taking quite an effort.
When they arrived at Fredrik's villa, the men on guard verified their identity, then let them into the gravel driveway. The doctor was waiting for them on the porch. Michael joined him holding Raeg and together they headed for the surgery. Alex followed behind them.
The doctor's wife joined them. "Come with me, dear," he told her. "I'll buy you a drink." Alex looked at Michael, who nodded, then followed the woman down the wide corridor. Her very blond hair was pulled back into an austere bun, and the long light-coloured dress she wore made her complexion even more diaphanous. "I was just making myself some tea; would you like a cup?"
"Gladly, thank you," he replied with a polite smile.
The kitchen was huge, brickwork, with a large hearth.
"I am glad that Michael has finally found his companion," the old woman exclaimed.
Alex nearly choked on his tea... he coughed, trying to pull himself together. "I think he misunderstood..."
"My dear, you carry his scent."
Alex opened her eyes wide and felt her cheeks become hot.
Mrs Fredrik smiled at her. "Didn't Michael explain to you how these things go?"
"I'm afraid he left out some details..."
"When werewolves meet their mate and mate, they brand her with their scent, so that every other werewolf knows that female is already engaged and with whom."
Oh, my God! Alex felt himself dying of shame. It was basically the equivalent of walking around with a tag stuck on you that read: I am the property of Michael Barclay. It was terribly degrading. "How long is this... er... this thing going to last?"
Mrs Fredrik tilted her head slightly at the slender, elegant neck. "I am afraid I have not explained myself well, my dear. Males only mark their mates, not the females they are occasionally with."
"Oh." Alex did not know whether this was good or bad.
"Henry and I have been companions for four hundred and twenty-three years." She smiled and sipped her tea. Alex noticed that her eyes had lit up and were looking far into the distance, to a past she did not know. "In those days," the woman continued, "it was the family who decided who their children would marry. And when it was arranged that my partner would be Henry Fredrik, I was terrified: I did not know him, I had only seen him in church. But he was very gentle and patient with me. He courted me for a long time, until he had won my heart, and only then did we perform the marriage ritual."
Alex tried to picture that story more than four hundred years earlier. Four hundred! That was an eternity! At that moment, her life seemed fragile and ephemeral. Michael would survive her for another... how many centuries? More than she could have imagined. He would be a small spark in the arc of her long life. This made her sad. Whatever there would be between them would be so brief for him that it would perhaps count for very little. She would grow old while he would remain young for many centuries…
***
Raeg was sitting up after Fredrik's treatment when the alarm began to sound. The doctor and the other two werewolves froze as they listened.
"They attacked the villa!" growled Michael. "Alex!" His thoughts immediately went to her. He had to reach her and get her to safety.
"Go!" Raeg told him, pulling out the Sig Saur.
"You take care of the doctor!"
"I must look for my wife!"
"I'll take care of it. You do not leave Raeg's side." So saying, Michael opened the door with the Glock in his fist.
***
The sound of the alarm put an end to the lady's tale. The two women exchanged a doubtful glance. "Someone must have broken in," Mrs Fredrik finally said.
Alex meanwhile had already leapt to his feet and was looking at the French window behind him. Beyond the glass, however, the darkness did not allow anything to be discerned. "We'd better join your husband and the boys," she said and walked around the table to reach the woman. Then she heard the first shots.
***
Michael entered the kitchen as the machine guns mowed down the two women. He saw the blood splashing through the air and smearing the floors and walls with carmine red. He saw Mrs Fredrik crash into the display case, breaking its glass and the china inside, and slump to the floor. And she saw Alex's surprised expression turn into a grimace of pain as the bullets riddled her.
With a scream of pain he lunged forward, shooting the man holding the weapon, just beyond what remained of the glass window. The man fell to the ground as the last volley reached the walls and ceiling of the kitchen uncontrollably. Michael was already at Alex's side. Her eyes sought his and her mouth opened without letting out a word.
"Stay with me!" he said. It was an order. And an entreaty.
Through the kitchen door Raeg and Fredrik entered. The doctor reached his wife's body and knelt by her side. "Valery!" In that call was all his grief. Then tears appeared in his eyes as they reached the woman's lifeless face.
"We have to go!" Michael held Alex's body in his arms.
Raeg reached Fredrik and helped him up, then motioned his friend to move.
They arrived in the dark parlour from which they could reach the car more easily.
"No one can be seen," Raeg said, looking out of the window.
"There could not be only one." Michael's eyes scanned the dark garden. "We need to get to the car.... Doctor, have you ever used a gun?" he then said, turning to Fredrick. With Alex in his arms he could not have used both Glocks.
The doctor lifted his gaze from the girl and brought it to Michael. "He can't make it."
He felt his heart skip a beat and his legs go limp. "Yes you do."
"His only hope is for me to turn her." So saying, Fredrick reached out a hand and took the gun.
Michael felt suffocated and insane. He could not lose her. His eyes were burning and his head was about to burst. 'Let's go,' he said. He had to get her out of there. Then everything would work out. He was going to make it. Alex was strong.
Raeg opened the French window and stepped out with both guns pointed towards the darkness ahead. Then he started running towards the car. Fredrik followed him and Michael closed the group. The shots began when they were halfway down the street. Raeg fired and a scream confirmed that he had hit the mark. Fredrik also fired and Michael killed a second. Then the doctor fell to the ground. Raeg came back and helped him to his feet, dragging him behind him. With the last bullet he managed to kill another.
When they finally reached the car Raeg put the doctor down on the passenger seat, opened the back door for Michael and got behind the wheel.
***
Michael held Alex in his arms. He felt her skin grow colder and colder as blood soaked her clothes. Transforming her. Fredrik had told him it was the only way to try and save her. What if she did not survive the transformation? Her heart was stopping beating. He was going to lose her anyway. He shook out her blood-encrusted hair and looked at her pale face. He cradled her gently in his arms and held her close, trying to hold back the life that was slipping out of her. Then he tilted her head to the side, so that he had access to her neck. He watched the vein throbbing slightly and finally decided. He sank his teeth into the jugular. As he let the venom of his canines penetrate Alex's blood he closed his eyes. Now he could only wait.
***
The car stopped in the back car park and Christopher was already there waiting for them along with Andy, Lucian, Ty and Markus. They took the two wounded men to the infirmary and laid them on the beds.
"He is dead," Lucian said. "One of the bullets severed his femoral artery." In the special forces he had served as a nurse.
Christopher nodded. It was a great loss for the pack. Not only because Fredrik was their doctor, but, above all, because he was a valuable lycanthrope.
Lucian approached Alex. The girl's body was battered by wounds, and the red of the blood with which she was strewn stood out gruesomely against the white of the sheets. 'She has lost a lot of blood,' he said.
Michael nodded. He could not speak. Not even to think. His brain was stuck on a single thought, a single prayer: stay with me! "I bit her," he finally said. "Fredrik told me it was the only way to save her."
Christopher reached out and squeezed his shoulder. 'And he will make it,' he said. He could not bear for his brother to suffer like this.
Lucian had meanwhile set to work and had begun to extract the bullets Alex still had in his body. To Michael it seemed an infinite time. Every time he heard the metallic sound of a bullet falling into the container, that sound echoed in his chest, where it felt as if he had nothing left. When he finished dressing her, Lucian took off his latex gloves. "I'm sorry, brother, but that's all I can do."
Michael nodded. "Now it's your turn. I'd like to be alone, if you don't mind."
Andy and Ty had already left, taking Fredrik's body with them; together with Leon they would then go to the doctor's villa to clean it up. Christopher, Lucian and Raeg nodded and left in silence.
Michael sat there, holding Alex's hand between his own. She was warm now. Her temperature had risen because of the poison. He did not know if that poison, however, would save her... or kill her.
***
The hours passed slowly. Fever, delirium took possession of her, her jaws clenched and her muscles stiffened with pain. Michael remained there, at her side, sharing every moment, every pain. For he was the cause of it all, and even if Alex had survived, she would never have been the same again. Michael did not know if she would forgive him this umpteenth upheaval in her life. He had chosen for her this time as well. First by involving her in the life of the pack, now by forcing her to become a member. But he didn't care if she hated him afterwards, as long as she survived. The rest was worth nothing. He would give her up, let her go if she wanted him to. Everything, her every wish, he would have fulfilled. His, the only one, was for her to go on living. He could not bear the thought that she might die.
With her heart clenched in a vice, she watched Alex's body struggling and rebelling against the poison that could either heal her or kill her. Her skin became hot and smeared with sweat. Every moan that escaped her tightly clenched lips was a stab to her chest. Michael, however, never looked away.
Then Alex's body lay inert. Her chest stopped rising and falling. Michael remained breathless until, with a sigh, she breathed again.
The tension left Michael's muscles, along with his strength. He let himself go against the back of the chair, finally light. She was alive. She had made it.
Her hand moved in his. Alex's eyelids blinked once, twice, then her eyes sought him and finally stopped in his. He smiled at her, relieved, and at the same time terrified.
"What happened?" She felt confused, light-headed and hot in the body. She tried to move, but even her bones seemed to ache.
"They hurt you, but you are OK now." She nodded, too tired to speak. "Sleep."
Alex did not know if he was using his powers on her, but at that moment she had neither the strength nor the will to oppose him. She only wished to sleep, to sink into oblivion and forget the excruciating pain that she felt still coursing through her limbs like an echo of what she had just been through. But already her thoughts escaped her like threads of smoke between her fingers, and the darkness welcomed her softly and protectively.
***
Christopher intercepted his brother in the corridor. "So?" he asked.
"He did it."
"How did he take it?"
"I haven't spoken to her yet. She is sleeping."
"You go and rest too."
"At the villa?"
"We will talk about it later."
Michael nodded and started up the stairs.
***
"You didn't tell him?" Christopher did not turn to look at Markus. He shook his head. "He already has too many worries. I'll talk to him about it as soon as he's sorted it out with Alex."
"Did she survive?"
The Packmaster nodded. Then he turned to his friend. "Call the others. We have to get organised."
Markus nodded and headed for the meeting room.