The Warrior’s Broken Mate novel Chapter 32

“That’s a lot,” he said.

“I know. But I need to if I want to figure out what really happened to the royal family. I’m still going through the story part before I get to the family tree of all 172 great–grandkids,” I explained.

“Okay,” he said.

“By now, the King and Queen are already dead, and their oldest son has taken the throne. So after these great–grandkids, it moves on to the next King’s grandkids. That’s where it starts getting more complex. A lot of them don’t stay in the royal line and are basically cut off. It kind of restarts with the new King’s grandkids,” I said.

“Yeah. If they aren’t direct descendants of the King, they basically get pushed aside. That could explain how the family got so small. You might have more relatives out there than you think,” he said.

“I don’t know. But I’m going to keep looking into the whole family. I want to know if any are still out there,” I said.

“You should. Just follow everything from the original King and Queen. That should tell you what happened to everyone. Does it have full records?” he asked.

“Yeah. They just don’t show up on the actual family tree. So I’ve got a lot of reading ahead,” I replied.

“Yeah. It’s going to take some time,” he said.

Then we heard something outside. It sounded like a twig snapping, and Elias immediately turned his head toward the cave entrance. He moved toward it quietly, signaling for me to stay put.

He stepped outside, and only seconds passed before I heard the cracking of bones and Elias letting out a loud growl. I got up and went to the entrance, staying in the shadows, and I saw him standing face to face with three men. They were in human form, and right away, I could tell they weren’t werewolves. But Elias clearly didn’t like them.

They looked straight at me like they could see me even though I was in the shadows, and I noticed something strange about their faces. Black veins ran up their cheeks, and their eyes were glowing red. Long fangs hung from their upper jaws, and they stared at me with a threatening look.

“Princess,” they all said together.

“Vampires,” I gasped.

Ch. Slayer 32 Slayer 32

Elias realized they had seen me standing there, and he stepped between us, telling me to get back inside the cave.

Vampires and werewolves had always been enemies. They’d been fighting each other for hundreds of years, and when they weren’t in battle, they were plotting how to wipe each other out. But as I stood there in front of these vampires, I could tell something about them didn’t feel right.

I didn’t listen to Elias’s command. Instead, I walked out of the cave and stood behind him. I could see the worry on his face. He clearly thought this was going to end with me getting hurt–or worse. But the vampires weren’t attacking. They were only staring at me.

“You’re not here to kill us,” I said.

“What are you talking about? They’re vampires. Of course they’re going to kill us,” Elias snapped.

“No. They’re not,” I said firmly. And I noticed how the vampires‘ tense posture eased a bit.

“You really are the princess,” one of them said. Elias looked at them, wary. He shifted back into human form, and I tossed him a pair of shorts.

“What do you want?” Elias growled at them.

“We want her. We need her,” the other one said, pointing at me.

“That’s never going to happen,” Elias said.

“We heard she’s mated to an Alpha. You finally escaped from your father’s hold,” the first one said.

“How do you even know that? Everyone believed I died during childbirth,” I said.

“News travels,” he replied.

“What do you want her for?” Elias asked.

“We don’t know. Our leader just told us to come and get her. He needs her for something, but he didn’t say what,” the vampire said.

“He’s going to hurt me,” I said.

“That’s not the feeling we got,” he replied.

“I know he will. I can feel it. He didn’t tell you on purpose–so I’d trust you. But he is going to hurt me,” I said, clutching Elias’s arms.

Elias raised his arms protectively in front of me, and I heard a growl rising in his chest.

“We’re not here to fight,” one of them said.

“Well, you’re getting one,” Elias said, his voice low as his fangs began to grow.

“We’ve been watching you, princess. You helped bring down a werebear. And you survived everything that witch threw at you. Do you understand how strong you have to be to do that?” the vampire asked.

“I’m not going with you,” I said again.

“We have to take you. I mean it. If we don’t bring you back, our leader will kill us,” he said.

“If you try to take her, I will kill you,” Elias growled, fur already sprouting along his arms. He was about to shift again, but I knew he wouldn’t fully change while I was right beside him.

“I said no,” I repeated.

“You don’t have a choice,” one of them yelled, lunging at us. Elias shoved me back into the cave and transformed fully, launching himself at the vampires.

The vampires were fast–scarily fast–but werewolves weren’t exactly weak. We weren’t created just to destroy vampires, but we were the only kind of supernatural being fast and strong enough to actually kill them.

Elias being an Alpha gave him an edge. He was larger than most wolves. He got hold of one vampire while the other tried to slip past him to reach me. He was fighting both at once, and they both came at him together. I could tell he was struggling. Two against one was tough. But he was strong, and he was holding them back. Still, I could see they were doing real damage to him.

Panic overtook me, and I dropped my head, shaking it from side to side. This was all because of me, all of it. They were after me, not him. They’re going to kill him because of me. They’re going to kill him. They’re going to kill him. Then I suddenly shouted “NO!” and a blast of glowing blue light shot from my body, knocking all three of them to the ground.

The force threw me backward too, and I landed flat on my back, but I got up much quicker than the others and ran straight toward Elias. He was slowly rising, and one of the vampires was barely moving on the ground while the other stayed completely still.

I cautiously walked over to check, and the one who wasn’t moving had already died. A tree branch had pierced straight through his heart. The other wasn’t able to get up because he’d been pinned down by another branch. The wood itself was weakening him.

I heard Elias shift back into his human form, and when I saw the wounds on him, he looked furious seeing the vampires lying there. He grabbed a thick branch from the ground, walked over to the vampire who was still alive, and drove it straight into his chest. His body shriveled, turned gray, and then he died.

“Holy s**t,” I muttered. Elias turned to face me. I was standing there, trembling. I couldn’t make sense of what had just happened. I had no idea what I had just done. My mind was a mess, still trying to piece together what just occurred.

Elias took hold of my arms and looked me straight in the eyes. He tried to speak to me, but everything came through muffled and distant, like echoes. So he led me back to the cave.

He slipped into a pair of shorts, packed all of my belongings into a bag, and we left the cave again. I wasn’t reacting to anything, so he had to drag me along through the woods.

I was in complete shock. I couldn’t comprehend what was going on. I knew something had changed in me on my sixteenth birthday. My body had changed, and I knew somehow I belonged to the royal family. But now everything felt too real. No one ever said the royals had powers. No one ever told me they could defeat enemies with abilities like that.

Somehow, I had blasted away two vampires who were trying to kill Elias. Somehow, I had grown to the same size as a werebear. Nothing about this made sense, and it was all happening too quickly. I didn’t know what to believe anymore–my mind was spinning with confusion.

Elias looked at me with deep concern while pulling me through the trees. He could tell I wasn’t dealing with any of this well. Then he suddenly stopped, pulled a shirt out of the bag, and pressed it against my face. That snapped me out of the fog.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Your nose is bleeding. I think you pushed yourself too hard back there. You’re not used to using that kind of energy, that’s all,” he said. I took the shirt and held it to my nose.

“I don’t know what the hell happened back there,” I said.

“I know,” he replied. “But now I’m starting to understand why your father is so determined to get you back.”

“Who the hell were those vampires working for?” I asked.

“Probably the vampire council. I’ve never seen them before, so I can’t say for certain. They might belong to a different vampire coven. It’s hard to tell. There are so many of them out there,” he said.

“I wouldn’t know,” I replied.

“Alright. Don’t worry about it right now. We just need to get back to our pack. Then you’ll be safe,” he said, looking at me with such concern it made me uneasy.

“You still want me? Why? I’m too much trouble,” I said. He scoffed at that.

“You’re not too much trouble. Right now, I know I need to protect you more than anything. More and more people are discovering who you are. If you were out there alone right now, you’d be dead,” he said.

“No, I wouldn’t. I’d still be a slave,” I corrected him. He nodded. He knew that no one would kill me because they wanted my powers. They would break me until I used my powers however they wanted.

“Our new location isn’t far from here. If we keep moving, we’ll get there in a couple of hours,” Elias said. I nodded and we started walking again.

“Elias. They said they saw us take down that werebear. How could vampires have seen that? It was broad daylight and we were out in the open. There wasn’t even any shade from the woods to hide them,” I said, confused.

“Daywalkers,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“Some vampires can walk in the daytime. We don’t know how, but they can,” he said. I realized we needed to get back to the pack even faster now.

We moved much more carefully this time, in case there were more vampires lurking nearby, or more people hanging around. But we didn’t stop.

We finally arrived at a small town that seemed to have only a few hundred people. The houses looked nice, and one house at the top of the town stood out–it was much fancier than all the others.

But I noticed there were no shops or stores. Just houses.

“Welcome home,” Elias said.

“This is the new location?” I asked, completely shocked.

“Yeah. Why? Were you expecting another camp out in the woods?” he asked.

“Yeah, kind of,” I admitted.

“Well, we have this place because no one would expect us to live somewhere like this. People think we live simple lives in the woods. So instead, we built this as a backup. No one will find us here,” he said.

Soon, we were surrounded by the rest of the pack, all happy we had arrived in one piece–even though I wasn’t sure we would.