This story is fictional, I'm sorry (actually I'm jelous) if it resembles your life in any way shape or form. Constructive criticism is welcome. If gay relationships offend you, then "How did I manage to start reading this story?" is a good question to be asking yourself. However you're still welcome to read it!
This story is owned solely by Gaco and may not be copied by any means by any unlicensed individuals, groups, or organizations.
Copyright 2020 Gaco. All Rights Reserved.
=============================================
Chapter 20
I awoke the next morning still laying on top of Bryce, my head hadn't moved from his chest. My stomach growled loudly as my eyes slowly blinked away the haze of sleep.
"Morning." Bryce rumbled softly as he rubbed his hand along my back.
"Nnngh." I groaned out sleepily, throwing my arm over my face to block out the bright sunlight bouncing through the blinds. My stomach growled again after a couple minutes causing Bryce's chuckle to shake me awake more.
"You sound really hungry today." He observed as his fingers ran through my hair.
"Forgot to eat last night." I murmured as I finally lifted my head from his chest and rolled onto my back to stretch the kinks of the night out of my body.
"That's not good." Bryce said, his amber eyes turning to me, raking my body. "You're a growing wolf."
"Is that a short joke?" I asked, glaring at him in return.
Bryce smirked at me and laughed softly.
"I love your height. You're the perfect size for me to pick up and hold against the wall and fuck." His smirk turned to a full on grin. "But no, I meant it literally. You are still within your first moon as a wolf and you will need more food than you have in the past to sustain your higher metabolism. You also used a lot of energy yesterday fighting Justin and healing afterwards."
"Oh. Right." I said just remembering the previous day, a twinge of guilt over nearly killing Justin still niggling at me.
"And while you may be short right now, your were form is one of the largest I have ever seen. Definitely at least as tall and big as my own." Bryce added softly. "I knew stopping you with brute force would never work yesterday. I was terrified you were going to kill Justin."
"He did it on purpose I think, to see what would happen." I said, ashamed of my actions. "I couldn't think of anything but killing him and getting revenge until you touched me. The second you touched me it was like my head was clear and I could think again."
I took Bryce's hand in mine and interlaced our fingers as I continued.
"He knew talking about Seth would piss me off. He said he was coming to take my pack and hurt our friends. He said Seth was here to kill my mate." I said, remembering the previous day's events. "My wolf just snapped at the thought of you being hurt. I guess I knew you were my mate even before our conversation last night even though I didn't truly know what it meant."
"Yeah..." Bryce said. "Our wolves get extremely protective over our mates. He should have known better than to say that."
"I'm still ashamed that I hurt him so much." I said softly, regret weighing me down. "I came so extremely close to killing him."
"But you didn't." Bryce said quickly as he pulled me out of the bed. "And now we know more than we did before. Overall, it's a good thing and you'll just have to let it go... I bet he has already."
"He's afraid of me." I said sadly as we got dressed. "All of them are."
"Not Zeke." Bryce said before kissing me softly and taking my hand, leading me towards the door.
"If the weakest and most innocent of us can trust you the rest will come around as well." He added while opening the bedroom door and leading me down the stairs and into the kitchen.
The house was still quiet as we started breakfast. Bryce cooked bacon and eggs while I made some toast and slathered it with far too much butter.
"Where is everyone?" I asked as we sat down to eat. "Usually when food starts cooking the guys swarm the kitchen."
Bryce checked his phone before setting it back down on the countertop.
"Justin took John and Alexi to the shooting range before we woke up." Bryce said after swallowing his mouthful of bacon.
As we finished eating there was a loud thunk at the door followed by the sound of a truck cranking and driving off. I looked up to Bryce who just sniffed the air before walking to the front door and opening it cautiously. After a moment he returned with several packages.
"These are probably the cameras you and Justin suggested I order after the attack." Bryce said, bringing the packages into the kitchen.
Bryce turned to get a knife but before he could return with it I shifted one hand into a paw, using my sharp claws to cut through the packaging tape.
"You've gotten good at that." Bryce observed as I quickly opened all the boxes before shifting my hand back to normal. "It usually takes a couple years for shifters to get that level of control."
I just shrugged as I began unpacking the ten cameras from their boxes. I left the spool of network cable on the ground as I separated out the individual parts of the network we would need to build to operate them all.
Throughout the day Bryce and I worked to set up the small network rack that had arrived a few days prior in the entertainment room. I set up the switch, patch panel, and created a small bundle of patch cables to go between the two before working on the small business server I had suggested we order to save the camera data locally, so as to not rely on an outside source to keep our secrets. While I worked on the network hardware the house was filled with the sounds of drilling and cutting as Bryce had Jackson and Zeke help him run the network cables and mount cameras.
Around lunchtime Zeke brought me a sandwich that I didn't even notice until he was already leaving the room. I was in my element for once as I set up the small network to operate our cameras. By nightfall I had a small mountain of trash and cable clippings around me, but the cameras were working and able to be accessed live by any TV in the house, and the history reviewed from any computer.
I looked up from my work to notice the entire pack was in the room watching a movie.
"When did you guys get here?" I asked with a confused laugh.
"Hours ago, man. This is the second movie." Jackson said with his own smirk. "You were in your own little world and just grunted when anyone tried to speak to you."
"Guess it was nice to be able to do something I know again." I said with a smile. "I'm starving now though."
"Pizza's right here." Bryce said pointing to the coffee table.
I grabbed a plate, a couple slices of pizza, and a drink as I looked around the room for somewhere to sit. Every seat was taken, however, and when I glanced back to Bryce he just patted his lap with a grin. Shrugging, I sat down in his lap and got comfortable, leaning back against his chest as I ate and watched the superhero movie. It was nice spending time with everyone in the same room. It felt right. It felt like we were a family. We were Pack.
Just as the movie was about to end all of our phones began to vibrate and ring at the same time.
"What the hell?" Justin said as we all checked our phones.
Looking at mine and watching the small video clip that came with the alert image I grimaced.
"Sorry." I said looking around the room at everyone. "I set up motion alerts on the cameras to notify everyone when the cameras detected motion. Looks like the settings still need to be tweaked since the wind blowing in the trees set off one of the cameras. I'll disable the alerts for everyone except myself until I get it fixed."
"Leave them on for me too." Justin said after a moment.
I nodded before getting up and going back to the computer to begin tweaking the motion sensitivity settings on the camera alerts. After a few minutes Justin came over to see what I was doing.
"I've decreased the sensitivity some for that camera, in the zone around the trees. Hopefully it's enough to keep the wind moving the trees from triggering the alerts." I said to him as he looked over my shoulder.
"Show me how all of this works." Hs said after a moment.
Over the next thirty minutes I described the process for setting up the cameras on the server, how to access them from any computer, and how to modify the settings on the software to create alerts, modify the sensitivity, and create custom schedules for recording.
After helping Justin get the software set up on his phone as well so that he could monitor the cameras live from anywhere in the world I climbed the stairs to the bedroom and collapsed into the bed, exhausted from the day of work setting up the network.
Just as I was falling asleep Bryce climbed into the bed and curled up behind me, his arms around me instantly relaxed me and helped me drift off to very peaceful sleep.
The shrill noise of the alert tone I set up for the cameras woke us several hours later.
"Fuck that's loud." Bryce groaned into my ear.
"I wanted to make sure it would wake me up." I said as I flailed at the phone sitting on the nightstand in an attempt to shut it up.
I grabbed the phone and turned on the screen, the suddenly bright light was nearly blinding in the darkness of the room.
"Fucking hell man." Bryce shielded his eyes for a few moments.
I opened the camera app on my phone to watch the full clip that triggered the alert and let out a disgusted moan.
"A fucking cat." I said as my finger tapped the `delete clip' button after watching the animal run across the back yard.
Bryce's hand grabbed mine roughly before I could hit `OK' on the confirmation popup.
"What is that?" He said softly, pointing to an area in the neighbors back yard.
I set the clip to play on repeat and zoomed into the area Bryce pointed out. In the shadows of the neighbor's house two pairs of glowing lights sat unmoving in the darkness. Just as I thought it was an artifact or maybe some random decoration in their yard the four glowing orbs moved.
"Eyes." Bryce whispered softly.
I quickly pulled up the live feed. Only one pair of eyes were still in the position where there had been two moments before.
"Human eyes don't reflect the light like that." Bryce said, analyzing the area I had once again zoomed into. "Only animals, shifters, and vampire eyes catch light like that."
There was a soft tap at the door making us both jump.
"Bryce." Justin's hushed whisper could barely be heard through the door.
Bryce got out of bed and headed to the door, not bothering to get dressed. The two whispered back and forth too quietly for me to hear for a few moments before Bryce turned to me and spoke.
"We're going to check it out. Don't leave the house." He ordered as he and Justin left.
I got up to follow them to the back door. They didn't turn on any lights as we softly walked down the stairs attempting to make as little sound as possible. When we arrived at the back door Justin quickly shucked his clothes and quietly cracked the door to peek out.
"No matter what happens you stay inside." Bryce said to me again.
"I can..." I attempted to argue.
Bryce put his hand over my mouth, his eyes pleading with me to obey. John came downstairs, sleepily rubbing at his face and yawning before noticing us standing in the dark by the door.
"What's going on?" He asked, confusion clear in his voice.
Bryce made a shushing motion and waved him over.
"We saw something on the cameras and are going to go check it out. No one leaves until we get back." Bryce whispered the command.
"Okay..." John replied as the two slipped out the back door naked and immediately shifted to their wolves after the door was shut.
I pulled up the feed on my phone again and watched as the two glowing eyes vanished, a shadowy blur moving away from the house, causing Bryce and Justin's wolf to give chase.
"John, go downstairs and grab a couple rifles." I said not taking my eyes from my phone as I attempted to find anything on the other cameras.
John didn't argue and silently went down into the basement. I heard the beeping of the code lock on the safe before the bolts unlatched as he opened the door. A few moments later he was back at my side with an unloaded rifle in one hand and two magazines clipped together in the other. Setting the phone down on the counter so I could continue to watch the rotating feeds I took the rifle in my right hand and slammed the magazine into the gun with my left. No longer caring about being quiet I quickly racked the charging handle. The resounding click of a bullet sliding into the chamber and bolt locking forward somehow calmed my nerves for a few moments.
We waited several minutes in tense silence before snarling and growling could barely be heard from one of the feeds.
"Get everyone up and armed." I ordered John without hesitation.
"Now." I added when he looked up at me in confusion. "Make sure they know what's happening."
I reached for the door and he quickly pushed his hand against it to block me from leaving.
"For one thing, you're stark naked dude." He said, as he looked me up and down. He was wearing only his boxers and I was standing there naked with one of our recently acquired automatic rifles in my hands.
"For another, your alpha told you to stay..." His words were cut off when a loud wolfish yelp could be heard without the help of the cameras.
"Go!" I ordered in a growl as I pushed past him and yanked the door open.
As I pulled the door shut behind me I stopped to listen. The neighborhood was completely silent, the only sound I could hear was the distant sound of traffic on the freeway. Even the normally loud insects were silent. Suddenly there was a crash of noise, hissing and snarling was interspersed with the sound of objects being smashed or thrown. I ran towards the front yard and turned past the corner of the house when a sword came flying past my face. Instinct to dodge backwards was the only thing that kept my head attached.
Before I could even snarl the sword wielding vampire swung at me again, this time in an overhead slash from right to left. I blocked the swing with the barrel of my rifle just before it reached my shoulder. The metal on metal screeched and grated on my ears until his sword caught on the rifle's forward iron sight. I swung the stock of the rifle out, catching him in the face and forced him back a few steps. I flicked the safety off but before I could get the rifle to my shoulder another all black clad figure came out of the shadows to my left, swinging at me as well, forcing me back and unable to take aim.
It was only in that moment, as the sword barely missed my face for a second time that I picked up an acrid scent and noticed the swords were coated in something. `Poison.' My wolf whispered into my mind. I growled and flicked the safety back on my gun before using two hands to throw it at one of the vampires. The unexpected maneuver only distracted them for a second, but I had learned the pervious day it only took a second for me to shift, I was much faster than other shifters. My huge were form sprung at the closest vampire before he could bring his sword up to defend himself and I grabbed his head in my massive jaws, twisting and yanking it off his body in a quick jerking motion. The other vampire swung his sword at me and I found that while much stronger in this form I wasn't much faster than as a human. Rather than try to dodge I grabbed the vampire's wrist to stop the swing, my other clawed hand grabbed his throat on instinct. The vampire was strong. It was taking everything I could do to prevent his hand from coming any further down and digging the poisoned katana into my shoulder.
I dug my claws into his throat with my other hand as his own claws slashed at my face and tried to gouge out my eyes. Then I remembered my training with Justin and lashed out with a kick to the vampires left knee, hyper extending it with a loud crack. The moment of distraction was enough for me to break his wrist, forcing him to drop his sword which quietly fell into the grass.
With the threat of the sword eliminated and the vampire only having one good leg I yanked back my hand that was no longer needed to hold the sword away from my body and slammed it claws first into his chest, quickly yanking out the vampires heart in a bloody wet splatter. I tossed his body to the ground and before I could consider the fact that he didn't immediately turn to ash I heard Bryce's wolf yelp loudly around front. I saw red at the sound, my vision and hearing instantly supercharged from the adrenaline caused by the noise of his pained call.
I barreled around the house and found Bryce standing protectively over Justin who was bleeding profusely on the front lawn. Without thinking I quickly came up behind the vampire whose hands were covered in Bryce's blood. Fortunately for me, the vampire was focused solely on getting to Bryce. I grabbed his head in both hands and used my huge clawed foot to push against his back as I twisted and ripped his head off with a loud snarling roar.
Bryce looked around for a few seconds, listening to the sounds of the night before shifting back to human. I quickly followed suit, shivering in the cold night air now that I was no longer covered in fur.
"Let's get him inside." Bryce said softly before picking Justin up and carrying him to the front door.
Alexi was waiting for us with the font door open when we arrived. The entire pack was in the living room, armored and geared for battle.
"I decided we shouldn't start shooting unless we had no choice. That would only guarantee the neighbors woke up and cops to be called." Alexi said to us as Bryce carried Justin into the basement. "I was just about to shoot the one that had you and Justin cornered when Tom showed up."
"I would have been there sooner but I was dealing with the two in the back yard." I said, keeping an eye on Bryce and Justin.
Bryce laid Justin on the cold basement floor before putting his hands over the large gash in Justin's side which was still bleeding profusely. Bryce focused on the wound, the concentration evident on his face.
"Why isn't he healing?" Jackson asked from where he stood nearby. The entire pack was in the basement with us now.
"Their swords were poisoned." I said softly. "My wolf warned me it was dangerous."
Justin's wolf whimpered on the floor, his breathing and pulse clearly labored from the blood loss.
"I can't heal him." Bryce whispered sadly, his eyes coming to me with panic and anguish. "He's going to die."
=========================
PLEASE send feedback to gaco200608@gmail.com! Feedback is the only way I know if you like the story, hate it, or want it to change.
Remember to include the title of the story in the subject so that I don't delete it as spam.
Encouragement from readers goes a very long way towards giving me the energy to continue writing the next chapter.
Finally, please donate to Nifty! We wouldn't have any of the incredible stories on the site to read without support from readers like you. Please help keep this service available and make a donation at http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html.