53

Juniper was about to put her hands forward and close her eyes when she was interrupted by Sandrino, who glared at me angrily while my heart almost stopped with excitement.

"Stop!" he warned, looking around the stinking room. "If everything catches fire here, we'll die too!", he said and immediately afterwards the other vampires seemed to be looking at the paintings and the wooden facade around us, but Juniper knew how to calm them down.

Apparently they weren't that stupid after all!

"Oh, sweetheart," she winked at him, pointing at all the vampires in front of her with her hands. There were 6 of them, along with Sandrino and Gloria, and they all seemed just as tense as me now. "I'm not a dwarf, I'm a witch. Fire can't harm me, and if you wish, I'll encase you in a protective bubble. You won't be harmed. You can watch her decay up close."

"Oh yeah," Gloria said happily and took a seat on one of the chairs in front of the table to clasp her hands excitedly. "Do it!"

Juniper smiled and I had to bite back a laugh. Exactly that was the plan and I was more than just glad that they had apparently taken the fullest trust in her through the witch's magic.

"With pleasure," Juniper smirked, closing her eyes as she whispered something very softly into the silence, the red eyes of the vampires watching her intently.

I, too, took my eyes off the disgusting creatures and looked beside me at Juniper, who was rubbing her hands together in focus until sparks formed between them and a small flame blossomed.

"There we have the spark we were missing for our celebratory fireworks," Juniper murmured, looking at me, which made me realize how bright her eyes suddenly shone.

Without warning, she left the table with slow steps and put her hands on the walls at the edge of the room to get the alcohol burning.

Like a fiery devil she laughed again and again, but all of a sudden, when small flames started to appear around us, Gloria got up, freed from her rigidity, and looked at the witch with wide eyes.

"Stop it! My whole castle is going to burn!" she cried out loudly and wanted to approach Juniper, but what she didn't know was that magic works best when you've given your consent to it.

By agreeing with everyone on the shield, Juniper was able to create it fully around them. Made to never get out of it.

"Oh, too late," Juniper pouted and ran ahead of the flames towards Gloria, who eyed her with a grin. "You should have thought about that before."

The other vampires tried to move as well, but they couldn't, and as the room slowly filled with smoke and the fire around us seemed to get bigger and bigger, I smiled triumphantly and hopped off the table to hug my former aunt to target maliciously.

"You may be the queen of these disgusting creatures, but I'm the mother of the next alpha!" I told her, noticing how all the red eyes were on me. It was an exhilarating feeling to have won, even if we weren't free yet.

"You're pregnant!?" she demanded with huge eyes and seemed to choke on her anger, but I didn't answer her at all, instead turning to the male creeps behind her, who were desperately trying to move, but they were they stood there almost frozen and killed me with their eyes.

"Have fun in Hell," I smiled, waving like the Queen herself, until I noticed Juniper's hand on mine and she gave me a serious look.

"We still have something to do, let's go!"

I turned to her and suddenly saw the fire that seemed much bigger than I had imagined. The paintings burned on the walls and the wooden floor cracked from the sparks flying everywhere.

"Aria! Wait!" Gloria drew my attention, but I turned my back to walk toward the door with Juniper.

"ARIA PLEASE!!!" I heard her deafening scream that I'm sure every vampire and wolf could hear far and wide, but I stepped through the door into the hallway and looked gratefully at Juniper.

"This woman shouldn't ask for anything more," Juniper agreed, closing the door behind us. Now they were trapped and in the next few minutes the fire would have completely surrounded them, allowing Juniper to break the protective bubble spell and they would all go up miserably in smoke.

"Now for something you don't know," Juniper explained, putting her hand on the doorknob, using her magic to lock it while I eyed her expectantly. "She's nothing special, Aria. There are many kings and queens and they're just waiting to kill wolves like you and Keno."

"Keno is the last alpha," I disagreed with Juniper, walking ahead of her down the hallway while enjoying hearing the vampires scream behind me.

"That's not true!" Juniper suddenly spoke seriously, gripping my wrist a little tighter. "I know enough like you and I also know that there are still enough female werewolves in this world, but they are kept like pets by these creatures just like you were!"

I was startled by her words and it hurt my heart to know that there were probably hundreds of my kind suffering in dungeons or even being raped by these creeps.

But what should I do... I was pregnant and didn't have the strength to help them all as much as I wanted to.

I took my wistful gaze from Juniper, grabbed my groin and ran with her down the hallway into the huge entrance hall, where Hagen was about to disappear, but before he could escape, Juniper kicked up a fireball between her hands and threw it right in his direction, where I watched wide-eyed as he cried out loudly and disappeared into ash and smoke.

"I always thought you wolves were the weaker ones, but that they are so vulnerable to fire is almost ridiculous," she giggled and was just about to say something, but then she fell silent and looked just like me at the entrance gate, through which one at that moment Yasha, Keno and Jamal came storming.

"Oh my god," I breathed, almost fainting at the sight of him.