by Jones, L. A.
In spite of his best efforts, Melina had gotten close to him. So close that he had almost killed her one night when he had transformed. He had thought at that point there was no way in hell she would ever be with him again. This was true because after that Melina had avoided him like the plague. Yet on occasion he would catch her glimpsing at him and he had still felt himself drawn to her. However, after what happened in the woods... how could Roy be so insensitive as to pretend it didn't happen?
Naturally, he tried going back to his first love but by that time it was obvious Aradia had fallen for Dax. There had been a few dalliances though where Roy thought Aradia might actually choose someone else besides him or Dax. Then there came the night where Melina had been almost abducted...
Roy gritted his teeth because to this day he still felt like hunting down the creeps that tried to hurt her. He knew Aradia had saved her life by risking her own but when he saw Melina running in fright in the middle of the cold streets... He remembered how afraid he was for her, how worried, and most especially how angry. It had all turned out alright with both Aradia and Melina being safe but still Roy tried to deny his feelings for Melina. She was, after all, still a human and although it was tried several times a human and werewolf pairing was never encouraged. Therefore, he tried putting distance between her and him. He had even tried insisting that Aradia was his mate-for-life. In the end, he realized he only been fooling himself. Aradia didn't love him and he didn't love Aradia. There was an attraction between them but there really wasn't anything else. Their personalities were too different in addition to their own desires and ambitions.
Melina wasn't though, she was the type of woman who could depend on Roy. Wherever he went, she was by his side and that was the way he liked it. Melina would cook him meals, massage his shoulders, help him into his cage on the nights of the full moon, and more. She was also more passionate than Aradia had ever been.
He knew it was disrespectful, being in his sick uncle's house, but he couldn't help but think of all the times he and Melina had made out passionately. Places from the back of his truck, to the girl's locker room, the library in the school, hell even the bathroom in the diner. Most of all, he remembered the first time they had ever made love. He gripped Melina tighter against his body when he remembered their first love making. It had been in his room, when his father and brothers were out. Melina had come over to help him with a school project so to speak. Although it had been awkward since it was his first time the experience had been thoroughly enjoyable. Melina, who wasn't a virgin, had known exactly what to do. She knew where he would like to be touched and how he would like to be touched. She guided him like a teacher would a student and Roy had been an apt pupil. The second experience had been absolutely delicious and ever since then the two of them had acted like a pair of junkies. Roy couldn't get enough of Melina and Melina couldn't get enough of Roy. Whenever they had the time, Roy and Melina would find some secluded spot and consummate their love again and again.
Their relationship had become more than Roy could have ever hoped for. He loved Melina and she loved him. Furthermore, his family loved Melina too. In fact, according to one of their Aunts the family was a lot more impressed with Melina than Aradia. It was no big deal to see Melina with Roy wherever he went. Therefore, bringing her to see a sick family member was no big thing.
Besides, Roy thought grimly, my alpha may not last that long. The least I can do before I lose him is get his blessing.
Roy wanted to be optimistic about his alpha getting better but that was like giving himself false hopes.
Melina had only seen Roy's alpha once before and that was during Aradia's coronation. Roy had tried to introduce her but things had been so busy that day that the opportunity never arose. It had only been one year ago, and Melina remembered what the man looked like. She had expected to see a sickly version of Roy lying in the bed. She didn't expect to see a ghostly pale, wizened, blood shot eyed, and gauntly old man.
His head lolled to the right and his tongue was hanging out of his mouth. Flecks of drool was dried upon his mouth and lips. His dark hair had been laced with sliver like one would lace food with arsenic. A horrid dying smell was thick in the room which made Melina wonder what the hell it was that kept the others from fleeing. A quick glance to the left answered her question intimately. There in the corner of the room stood a tall young woman with her arms around three young children. The young woman was trying hard to restrain her sobs while the children wept openly. Two of them even murmuring "Papa, Papa," in between their crying. Melina tried to hold back her own tears and looked away. Only to see a woman on her right murmuring Spanish prayers under her breath and slowly counting on her rosary beads.
Chapter Eighteen
Later that night there was a meeting in the middle of the Salem woods. The meeting was usually a bonfire in a specially reserved secret place known only to the werewolves of Salem. There were three major werewolf packs living in Salem: the Silver Moon pack, the Dark Moon Pack, and the Crescent Moon pack. The Silver Moon pack was Roy's entire family, from his intimate to his extended, and since it was their family experiencing a crisis they were the only ones invited. The meeting would consist of the Alphas from the other packs coming to see all of them and discuss what would happen in the future. Melina came along because according to Roy she was already part of his family at least in his eyes. Al, at the time Roy had said this, had turned his head to mime gagging. Their father had no objection so there was Melina being helped out of the truck by her boyfriend. As they made their way to the bonfire, hand in hand, Melina thought back to what she had seen earlier on that day.
"How is his wife handling it?" Melina asked him
Roy sighed deeply. "Badly."
Al had been listening and ran up beside them. "Elena had drinking problems before she hooked up with our Uncle."
"He was the reason she got sober," Robbie interrupted as he joined up at Roy's side and earning him a mean glare from Al.
Regardless, Al went on to say, "anyway with Adrian getting sick and all...well it should be no surprise that she would turn back to the drink."
He snorted disdainfully. "Nowadays, she stays up all night boozing and leaving the kids to fend for themselves. Her boss is threatening to fire her, the kids' grades are slipping, and social services have been by twice."
"They have asked us for character references," Roy grumbled.
Al laughed harshly. "It's hilarious that they would expect to hear lovely praise of her from us."
Melina raised her eyebrow at that but Al didn't seem to notice. "They have already discussed taking the children away. Phil and Lupe are thinking about taking them in which does make sense. They are family after all and Phil and Lupe have no children."
Jose looked over his shoulder at his sons walking by Melina. "It would satisfy a lot of people. The kids would be able to stay in school, and finish their education."
"Why don't Phil and Lupe have children?" Melina couldn't help but ask.
It was as if an f-bomb had been dropped by an Evangelical preacher during the Sunday ceremony. The whole group went eerily quiet and the air seemed to fill up with awkward tension. No one glared at her which made Melina very thankful but also none of them looked up and none of them moved.
"What?" Melina finally asked.
Jose sighed deeply but it was Al who spoke, "Lupe had an affair and then a couple of nights after she confessed to it Phil got loose from his cage and attacked Lupe."
Melina gasped.
"That's why Lupe has the scars," Jose with his son, "that's why she is a werewolf."
"They have gotten over it," D said as if he was trying to defend their marriage. "But things haven't been the same between them. We kind of hoped that once Aradia healed Lupe things would get better but..."
D trailed away.
The whole group went silent once again not even Melina said anything as they went onto where the bonfire had already been lit.
Melina easily
recognized the other two Alphas standing in front of the bonfire. They looked like two lethal guards, the way they surveyed the crowd and glanced from left to right so sharply. She also saw Roy's other relatives, standing nearby or sitting on the various logs that were laid around the bonfire. What really struck her was how miserable they all looked. They were usually a very happy bunch but now of all of them shuffled their feet and stared at the ground. Melina could easily guess what they were really worried about.
Roy clutched on to her hand tighter and pulled her to a log where his brothers had already taken seats. A few of the werewolves raised their eyebrows at the human in their midst but none of them said anything. Mysteriously, once Roy sat down so did everyone else. The crowd fell into a hushed silence.
A momentary dramatic pause passed before Adolfo, the Alpha of the Dark Moon pack, who stood in front of fire spoke. He was the one who stood on the left. He cleared his throat dramatically and then said in a very bold and imperious tone, "as we do with every meeting we begin this one by telling the story of the werewolf."
Castel, the Alpha of the Crescent Moon pack who stood on the right, then spoke. "The story of how the first werewolf was born and how we came to be a people living right here in Salem."
Melina's eyes grew wide.
"The story of our people's origin began two thousand and seven hundred years ago in Italy. A wolf took pity on two human babies that had been abandoned in the wilderness. The wolf saved them by giving them her milk. The babies names were Romulus and Remus: two twin boys. Although the she-wolf cared for them deeply she knew she could not raised them properly so she brought them to a shepherd and his wife. Years passed and the boys grew as the foster sons to the shepherd and his wife but the boys knew they were destined for something much more. Romulus knew that he especially was destined for something great. He was the eldest of the twins and the one who suckled the most of the she-wolf's milk. By doing that, Romulus had inherited most of the powers of the wolf. As he grew, his powers developed until he was able to take on the form of the wolf itself. Although he was still a man, he could transform into a wolf as well. Romulus was the first werewolf."
Romulus, Melina thought, why does that name sound so familiar?
She racked her brain as much as she could but for the life of her Melina couldn't figure it out.
Dammit! She swore inwardly, I shouldn't have skipped school so much.
"However," Castel said,"the times that Romulus was living in was filled with chaos and bloodshed. There was no political stability anywhere. Several tribes existed but there was no leader who could unite them. One day a Warlord tried to change that. He conquered all the other tribes and spread his violent campaign everywhere. Eventually, his army reached Romulus and Remus's home. The Warlord's soldiers killed their parents and attempted to take the boys as slaves. Romulus helped Remus to escape but Romulus himself was captured. He proved too independent to be a solider so he was sold to the gladiator games."
"Ironically," Adolfo said, "Romulus being sold into the games was the beginning of the end for the Warlord. He was able to listen to the pleas of the people and stir insurrection among them. He created followers and devised a plot to take over the Warlord's kingdom."
"When Remus reappeared," Castel said, "he too had created a group of followers. He plotted not just to overthrow the Warlord but to create a brand new kingdom. A kingdom made up of the seven small nations that surrounded the twins' home."
"Eventually they did," said Adolfo, "once they launched their coup and took vengeance upon the Warlord. The brothers created an empire so great that no other empire would be able to rival its importance in history. Romulus would used his brother's political ideas about democracy to organize their people and make the empire last for decades. He became the first of a long line of rulers. Romulus, our ancestor, was the first Roman emperor."
"Oh my god!" Melina gasped.
Everyone turned to stare at her. Roy still gripped her hand even though he looked kind of embarrassed.
"You guys are descendants of Roman emperors?" Melina inquired.
"Yes," the Alphas both said at the same time.
"That's..." Melina began, "that's incredible!"
The Alphas tried to hide their smiles as they continued with their story. It was Castel who went on to say, "Romulus married and helped give birth to the first naturally born werewolves. He had numerous wives and concubines so he was able to create many children with the ability to shift into a wolf. This is how he created a people: ours. Centuries passed with the existence of werewolves remaining a secret. After the Roman empire fell, as all empires do, our people moved on from Rome to settle in other places. Hence why our people are from Guatemala. Several of the Spanish conquistadors carried the ability of being a werewolf to the new world so when they settled in Guatemala and took native wives the legacy was able to pass on genetically."
"We were not naturally an aggressive people," Adolfo stated, "but like with every race of people there have been good ones and bad ones. Some who became warlords themselves."
"However," Castel interrupted in a very dark tone, "the warlords were the least of our worries. The enemy we truly learned to hate were the vampires."
"The vampires?" Melina repeated in a hushed tone.
"Yes the vampires," Castel repeated, "they were the people who were to be our first enemies."
"Naturally aggressive and deceitful," Adolfo remarked, "they were a people who lived eternally and were consumed with a lust for power. These were creatures that had descended from the first true demon ever existed. The succubus was the first fabled hidden creature written in human history."
Castel slowly inhaled and exhaled. "In folklore traced back to medieval times, a succubus is a female demon or supernatural entity that appears in dreams, in order to seduce men, usually through sexual intercourse. The male counterpart is the incubus. Religious traditions hold that repeated intercourse with a succubus may result in the deterioration of health or even death. All succubi and incubi were bred from Agrat Bat Mahlat, one of the first four Succubus to exist. Agrat Bat Mahlat’s name is thought to translate roughly from Hebrew into ‘the daughter of illusion’, and she is also known as ‘the bringer of deception." After Agrat Bat Mahlat mated with King David she bore him a son Asmodeus who soon became the first king of demons. Agrat Bat Mahlat fed her son her blood, after an assassination attempt was made on him. For three nights, she fed him her blood. Upon the third night Asmodeus completed his transformation and gained numerous abilities different from his demon brethren. He could reverse aging by drinking blood, he could communicate with wives and other nocturnal animals, and take their form. He also gained telepathy, levitation, control over the weather, the ability to change into mist. He found himself the very first of a brand new species. Once he discovered he too could create other creatures such as himself the vampire race came to be."
Adolfo cleared his throat. "Eventually, it was discovered that the vampire was weaker during the day and by shoving a wooden stake into a vampire's chest it could be slain. Numerous other weaknesses were discovered and the creatures were hunted down. Until all but Agrat Bat Mahlat remained."
"She wandered for many centuries until finally she came upon the two brothers. They were just beginning to carve out their own empire and their own beliefs. Romulus and Remus were planning on being joint rulers but power breeds discord. Remus teased his brother during an argument about one of the palaces being built. In a fit of rage, Romulus pushed him and the stone that Remus stood on gave way. Agrat Bat Mahlat showed up as Remus lay dying in Romulus's arms, and offered to save him. Romulus agreed and so Agrat Bat Mahlat made the second vampire in the world. Romulus at first was thrilled to have his brother be alive until he began to realize that his brother had changed. Remus began to wander the nearby territories to devour innocent people by the hundreds. In desperation, Romulus transformed into a werewolf and fought his brother. Eventually, Romulus was victorious when he bit his brother while
in the form of a wolf. A bite from a werewolf in wolf form is one of the few things that can kill a vampire. "
Castel was the one who continued with the story. "Before Romulus was able to do this, Remus had managed to turn a Carthaginian general into a vampire. A fallen general who had sworn vengeance on Rome. His name was Hannibal. An ambitious man who had dreamed of conquering Rome but was thwarted. However, becoming a vampire did not lessen his ambitions."
"He helped the vampires to become an organized people and became the first Sovereign of all vampires," Adolfo said bitterly, "however, establishing his own hierarchy was not enough for him. He dreamed of conquering another race of people so, in place of the Romans, he would have the werewolves."
"The next thousand years that passed were like a nightmare," said Castel, "as the vampires waged a war upon us. A war that we could not afford to lose."
Melina clutched Roy's hand tighter. "Slaves? They tried to make you their slaves?" she whispered to him.
Roy nodded solemnly.
"There were many battles but since our enemy was immortal the war seemed impossible to end," Adolfo said in a forlorn voice.
"Yet," Castel remarked, "we as a people were able to organize ourselves and create an army. We took on the vampires and finally forced them into a stalemate. Although we were tempted to destroy them, we chose not to and drew up a treaty. In exchange for our freedom, the vampires pledged to leave us alone."
"Years passed," Adolfo concluded, "and although we now live side by side with vampires the treaty still stands. Not just to prove how much power we have, but that that the vampires cannot and will not conquer us."