Novel Square
Chapter 32
Chapter 32
Chapter 32: Mary
The further I entered into the forest, the more quiet it got. It made me nervous, I wasn’t naive, I knew there were monsters in these woods, monsters more evil than the ones who pretended to be in touch with their humanity. These monsters were rouges, they’d lost all traces of their humanity to the beasts inside of them. I walked stealthily through the woods, hoping to not attract to much attention. I cursed when my foot landed on a stick, making a loud cracking sound. The birds in the trees took off, flying through the skies. I glanced around at my surroundings, holding my breath, hoping that no other animal had heard the sound. Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.
I let out a sigh of relief, no one had discovered my presence, at least not yet. I continued to trek through the forest, the trees getting denser, making the forest darker. I knew that soon I would have to stop and make camp somewhere, unlike the supernatural creatures that roamed this forest, I couldn’t see at night. I knew that I would need to find somewhere relatively safe to camp through the night. I looked at the trees around me, trying to find one that I could climb into, the further away I was from the forest floor the safer I would be. While looking up at the trees a rancid smell assaulted my nose. I grimaced, trying not to vomit, the smell growing stronger with each step I took. I turned and looked behind me, thinking about the safety of Nikolai’s castle, but I knew that if I headed back and didn’t revenge my family, that I would never forgive myself, and I would grow to resent Nikolai, for doing nothing to stop their deaths. While Nikolai hadn’t taken part in their killings, he was as guiltily as the hunters. Everyone knew hunters existed and that they ransacked human villages, taking the young and the woman; murdering the men. Nikolai had the power to stop them, but he didn’t instead he turned a blind eye to it all, allowing the slaughtering of my kind to continue through out the years. But somehow through our connection, I had forgiven Nikolai for the part he had played in the deaths of my family, he had showed me his kind and loving side, he had one me over, and I could feel myself falling…No, I knew that I had fallen in love with.
As I continued walking, my thoughts still on Nikolai, I tripped over a large uprooted tree branch, falling forward, and rolling down a cliff, I hadn’t noticed, how I was able to fall without hitting a rock or a tree, I didn’t know, perhaps the Gods had finally decided to watch out for me, it was about damn time. “Fuck.” I hiss as I try to get up, my ankle throbbing with pain. It hurt to put any pressure on it, I looked down at my ankle, it was swollen, and already turning a bluish shade of purple, the rest of my body, surprisingly ache free. I took in my surroundings to see how safe I’d be if and noticed that I was standing in the middle of a clearing, there were no trees in sight. “Perfect,” I thought to myself, “Just fucking perfect.”
I stood up and hobbled further into clearing, hoping by some miracle, there would be an old underground bunker somewhere that I could hide in. Before the humans were captured and made into slaves, we would hide as best as we could from the predators. Underground bunkers were common in wooded areas, being under the ground kept you relatively safe, and they were easier for people for families to live in. As I approached the middle of the clearing, I was once again assaulted by the rancid smell, except for it was stronger now. I tried to hold my breath as I felt the urge to puke, looking everywhere around me to see where the smell was coming from. It didn’t take me long to locate it. Less than a hundred feet ahead of me there was a corpse, rotten and decaying, the body swollen from how long it had been left in the sun. The corpse was that of a bear shifter, halfway through their shift.
I could just barely make out the the snout in place of where a nose would have been, and their hands that had long sharp claws. What being was quick and strong enough to kill a bear shifter mid shift. Shifters shifted quickly, it was very rare to ever find the body of one that was partially shifted, unless they died from old age. I walked closer to the body, needed to inspect it to see just exactly what I would be up against. The first thing I noticed as I approached the body, was that the chest cavity had been torn open, where the heart should be, there was nothing. Next I noticed the shriveled skin, like he had been lying there in the sun to long, and the sun had absorbed all of the liquid in his body. The body didn’t look like it had been there very long, maybe a week at most. I grabbed a jagged rock from
und, wanting to see if my suspicions about what the killer was, was correct. I shivered, terrified that I would be right. I sliced into the man’s body arm, my heart skipping a beat, there was no blood coming from the wound. I sliced further through the skin, hoping that the blood wasn’t flowing because his heart had stopped beating. I sliced all the way down past the subcutaneous tissue, through the muscle, and down to the bone, there was still no blood. The killer was a ghoul, a rouge vampire, who had lost their humanity. A creature that didn’t hesitate to kill on sight, draining its victim completely, ripping the heart from the victim’s chest, and chomping into it like it was the best cut of steak that they had ever had. I felt myself starting to panic, my vision going in and out. I couldn’t afford to pass out now; if I did I would never wake up again.
NIKOLAI
We had been searching all night through the woods, with no luck on finding Mary. The trackers couldn’t scent her anywhere. The forest was semi safe during the day, at night a human didn’t have a chance of surviving.
“Your majesty,” Gregor called, approaching me with caution. “We haven’t found any trace of Lady Mary in these woods, are you sure she went this way?”
I felt myself losing control, my vampire side becoming more and more unstable. He didn’t want to hide anymore, he wanted to come to the surface and show the entire world how much of a monster we
“I don’t fucking know where she went!” I roared at Gregor, “I entrusted her safety to you! You were suppose to be watching her, you should know where she went.” I growled out, flashing my fangs.
Gregory’s legs began to shake, I could scent his fear. It was like a bright light beckoning my monster out. He wanted to crush every single person that stood in the way of him and his mate. I took deep calming breaths as I calmed my monster down, knowing that if I lost control now that I would never find Mary.
Gregor was stammering some sort of apology but I wasn’t listening. The wind had picked up, and I inhaled the sweet intoxicating scent of my mate
“She’s here, she’s in these woods, No one leaves these woods until she is found.” I bellowed letting my voice echo out, so my men could hear my command. Shortly after scenting her, I felt something through the mate bound, a feeling that made my heart stop beating. Mary was terrified, I could feel her panic, I could feel her fighting her instinct to panic about whatever it was that had scared her.
“I’m coming love,” I whispered hoping she could hear me through the link. “I’ll protect you always,