20

"We have to transform and get out of here immediately!", Aymo warned me slightly hysterically and kept turning around himself. He probably hoped to spot the attacker like this, but unfortunately I knew better than him.

I had already killed enough vampires, seen enough of them attacking and I was already aware that this vampire wasn't alone and that he had probably been watching us for a long time.

Escape would bring us nothing more...

"We keep running. He won't attack us as long as we don't separate," I tried to calm Aymo and was about to touch his shoulder when he suddenly yelped loudly, looked up at the sky and tensed his entire body.

I watched in fascination as he transformed, for I had never had the pleasure of watching another wolf do it.

Dark fur spread from his dark hair down to his bare chest while the heat he was suddenly radiating consumed everything around us and then, very quickly, he bent over and became a really absolutely beautiful werewolf, the shiny brown fur and deep black eyes.

He growled menacingly, walking around me and not taking his eyes off the forest, which seemed really gloomy and menacing, taken over by the rain and the dark clouds.

"You did great," I murmured when I felt that I couldn't communicate with him anymore, but Aymo didn't pay any attention to me and was just caught in fight mode.

When I then simply wanted to continue walking towards home, he quickly got in my way and scared me so much with this action that I reflexively hit his nose with my fist and he whined in agony.

His shocked look was too delicious, but he was just annoying me with his stubborn demeanor... Again!

"Get out of my way," I admonished, raising an eyebrow, but he gave me an ice-cold growl, staring into my eyes so menacingly that I didn't even recognize the grinning, goofy Aymo in that big wolf .

And then, when he suddenly seemed frozen, I wiped the rain from my face and widened my eyes as I realized he must be communicating with Keno.

"Stop it!" I yelled at him and just wanted to push him aside, but he yelped and slammed into a tree trunk way too hard, which made my heart skip and my breathing quicken instantly.

I stared wide-eyed at him as he slowly got to his feet and then turned my gaze to my trembling hands, which really shouldn't have been able to throw such a big wolf aside like a bouncy ball.

When I thought about this strange situation and listened to the rain around me, I also heard Aymo coming towards me again, but I continued to run without paying attention to him and didn't turn around anymore.

The branches under my shoes snapped as lightning and thunder roared above me, but I concentrated only on my breathing, deftly dodging a few obstacles and running faster and faster through the gloomy forest. The surroundings became more and more blurred, because the rain was constantly lashing my face and yet I only stopped again when I heard Aymo's loud howling far away behind me.

He didn't call for help. This was not a call to battle. This howl, which resounded again and again in the forest, was a call for its alpha and a werewolf only made such a sound if he was aware that the alpha could hear him.

"Shit," I cursed, leaning against a wet tree for a moment to consider what my best option would be.

Running on as a human made no sense at all. I was too slow in this form and had hardly any stamina left...

However, as a wolf, Keno would find me anywhere. The animal scent of his mate could be recognized by an alpha across lands...

"Hello," a childish voice suddenly snapped me out of my thoughts and, startled, I turned around to gaze at a girl so pretty next to the tree, her hair falling down her round face in beautifully curly golden hues that I thought it had to be an illusion. "Don't worry. I won't hurt you."

She giggled in embarrassment while I looked at her yellow sundress, which lit up this gray, wet forest in a way that almost took my breath away.

Only then, when I let my gaze wander to her face again, did I notice the bright red eyes and also recognized from the smell that it was she who seemed to be following us.

"Who are you?" I demanded, tense and curious at the same time, and even though she was only a little girl, I braced myself to transform at any time.

"Rachel," she whispered, taking a step closer to me. "I'm here with my sister. Izzy. She's hiding up in the tree because she's scared of you."

With her dainty hands she pointed over me to the branches and when I then turned my face up and the rain was pattering on me, I immediately recognized a girl on one of the branches who looked exactly like the one in front of me.

"You are twins," I stated and turned my gaze back to the one in front of me.

"Yep, unfortunately," she replied with a biting undertone and threw an annoyed look up at her sister. "I just wanted to get her back... But then we got lost. We can't find our parents anymore."

"And how long ago was that?" I asked immediately, afraid that there would soon be a whole family of them.

"ten years."

I stopped breathing for a moment, wide-eyed at her in disbelief, thinking she must be joking, but the sadness in her eyes was hard to miss. Such a broken girl... It hurt me even though she was my natural enemy...

She probably didn't even know what I really was... Maybe her parents had never told her about us werewolves... Who knew if ten years ago they were just transformed and left behind... Vampires were sick creatures... Destined for purgatory. Some found it amusing to transform little children and then leave them to their own devices.

"Can you help us? You're the first one I've dared to speak to."

I looked at her and didn't quite understand.

"You haven't spoken to anyone but your sister in ten years?" I asked, and after she nodded, I glanced up and then into the dark forest, already sensing Keno's aura around me. "And why me? Why do you want my help?"

"You beat up the werewolf, so you must be someone good," she explained, shrugging her shoulders before pacing playfully around me.

"You know werewolf stories?"

"Yes, they stink and are evil," suddenly this Izzy called down to me from upstairs and I wondered if they couldn't sense that I was one too...

"So would you-"

As Rachel was interrupted behind me, I turned around with bated breath and saw a black wolf trying to snap at her, but Rachel dodged it in a flash and ran towards me so fast that a human wouldn't have seen her.

She clung anxiously and trembling to my thick, wet jacket and I glanced to my side, where I recognized Aymo in the wolf on my right, while a second one appeared on the left and the girl growled menacingly.

And then, I looked straight into the dark eyes of the one across from me and knew by the scent, as well as by his size and grace, that it was Keno, who didn't look like he was going to spare the girls..