Chapter 22: A Surprise Attack

A dark and moonless evening had fallen, and the manor was deafeningly quiet as Lord Alaric and his men prepared to depart into the night. Upon orders from Alpha Callum, half of his soldiers, including Lachlan and his young general and son, Ares, went to escort the lord and his family to the railway station, where their express train was waiting to take them back to The Capitol. 
By the time the lord's final entourage had gone through the massive manor gate, it had already been midnight. 
Sprawked on her bed, Vanya convinced herself she couldn't be concerned if Cassian didn't even bother to say goodbye to her before leaving. Though, the knight was most likely preoccupied with making sure Lord Alaric and his family were secure enough to worry about anything else. However, she couldn't help but be annoyed. She was, after all, his mate.
But was she really?
Or maybe the vampire knight made it up to get under her pants. But wasn't the reason he bit her was to show his bond with her? Furthermore, she couldn't deny how much being in such close proximity to the vampire knight roused her wolf. 
And now she was becoming increasingly irritated with Cassian for leaving without even a brief farewell, as well as with herself for being angry that Cassian had departed without saying goodbye.
Again, why should she care? Whether they were mates or not, she and the knight were still strangers to one another. And, if she were to be practical about the entire thing, he may actually be her other mate, but they didn't have that much involvement in each other.
But he was the boy from her dreams.
But did those dreams even have any significance at all?
But what about Ares?
Vanya sighed and reflected on her current predicament in the silence of the night in her room when, slowly, her attention was drawn to the manor's seeming silence. It was far too quiet for her comfort. Even in her thoughts as she sought to pick up on anything.
There was nothing.
Then, all of a sudden, the mansion began to tremble and an explosion could be heard in the distance. It didn't take long for a few screams to break out.
Vanya knew this could only mean one thing.
"Rotters! Rotters!" cried someone close.
Vanya jumped out of bed on instinct, and from her open window, she could see figures leaping over the manor's high high and massive locked gate. Despite the moonless sky, she worked out what those figures were by squinting her eyes and using her sharp eyesight.
Rogues in their wolf forms, Vanya thought immediately. No rogues had ever dared to attack their pack ever before, and looking down at them, trewn over the manor's enormous frontyard, she couldn’t help the panic rising inside her.
"Rotters!" yelled someone from the east wing.
"Alpha Callum!"
"Where's Lachlan?
"Ares! Where is General Ares?"
"Rotters! We're being attacked!"
The moment Vanya allowed her senses to expand to take in what was going on, she was met with a barrage of cries and her heart pounded with all the fears she could feel from the young pack members.
"Shit!" She rushed over to her closet, where she quickly retrieved her semi-automatic handgun without taking the time to double-check that it was loaded and pointed it at her closed door.
Vanya immediately thought of rogues in wolf shapes. Until now, no rogues had dared to attack their pack, and as she glanced down at them, strewn across the manor's vast frontyard, she couldn't help but feel a pang of panic well up inside her.
She heard footsteps fast approaching, followed by a loud thud immediately outside her door. Her ears perked up and she heard a loud growl before someone said, "Find her!"
She heard a softer footstep, followed by a more dark and familiar voice saying, "She's in that room." It felt as though he was staring directly at her through the walls.
Vanya’s wolf stirred inside her.
*Shoot those motherfuckers, then shift*, she ordered herself.
She held her breath as the footsteps got closer and closer. 
Pause.
Silence.
*Bam!*
She was startled when her door burst open and two huge and furry rotters barged in, roaring with a savage roar. She wasted no time and opened fire on the two creatures. They were, however, too fast for Vanya to make a clean shot. Rogues seldom moved this quickly in her experience. However, it's likely that she hadn't actually battled that many rogues in her wolf life, thus their agility had taken her by surprise.
But it didn't take long before she ran out of ammo.
She tried to escape from the raging beasts, jumping to her feet as quickly as she could.  She let out a growl, and her body began to twist and shift, but before her wolf could fully take shape and her nightgown ripped to shreds, a hood was thrown over her head, and her wrists were bound behind her back with a coarse rope. Her insides squirmed as a distinct scent assaulted her nostrils. Fatigue devoured her entire body in no time, and her connection to her wolf was blocked.
She was carried away after being raised onto a man's back and placed on his shoulders. She tried valiantly, but she was unable to break free.
Vanya eventually lost consciousness.
The next time Vanya opened her eyes, she was lying on a nice bed in a cabin, down on what appeared to be the ship's deck, with the hood pulled over her face. When her eyes adjusted to the low lantern light, she immediately noticed a pair of black eyes staring back at her.
"Where am I?" 
"Isn’t it obvious? You’re on a ship, hunter," an old man in black said, and it wasn’t his deep and rich voice that made Vanya realize he wasn’t from the west. His hard accent that Vanya couldn’t place told the hunter that the man was from some place else.
"Isn't it obvious? You're aboard a ship.= hunter," The guy in black said, and it wasn't his deep and rich voice that made Vanya realize he wasn't from the West, but his hard accent that Vanya couldn't identify that suggested the hunter the man was from somewhere else.
She took in her new surroundings. It was a huge ship.
"Who are you? Her voice rose as she sat up, demanding, "Answer me!" she bellowed. The man, on the other hand, gave no response and didn't even budge an inch from where he stood. "The attack. Those rotters. You’re with them!"
"Rotters." The man growled in disdain. "You have no idea how much they despise that name," he said, raising his finger to the ceiling. "So, never call them that in front of their faces."
"I'm not scared of them. Whoever the hell they are, Or even you! Why am I here? What have you done to my pack?!"
"Your pack? Didn't it ever occur to you that, as a human-born, you never fully belong to Callum's pack, or any pack for that matter?"
Vanya pressed her lips together. "How? What made you think that?"
"Thar you're not a natural shifter?" The man's lips formed a faint smile. "I've been around for a while, hunter. I know more than you can imagine."
"Who the fuck are you, old man?" She clenched her teeth.
"I don't normally give out my name since I don't want people knowing anything about me, but since we'll be seeing each other more as soon as we dock," he grunted, "call me Aurelius."
Vanya sucked in a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. "What happened to my pack, Aurelius? Please. And where’s my father?"
"It's interesting how you've grown to care for Randall."
She found it intriguing and alarming at the same time, how much Aurelius knew about her pack and her private life.
"What did you do to him?"
"Nothing. We just wanted you, hunter."
"What?"
"What we executed wasn't an attack, but rather an extraction," Aurelius explained. "However, due to the fact that you and the young general are involved in each other, we had to be a bit inventive in order to－"
"－kidnap me?"
He cracked a grin.
"What exactly did you do to my pack? My family?!"
"And your mates? Don’t worry. We only created a distraction. Though the young general wounded quite a number of our fighters, he is not seriously hurt."
Vanya gasped, "Ares."
"The same goes to the vampire knight."
"Cassian?"
"See what I mean? I know more than you can imagine...and I know a lot about you."
Driven by her need to escape and to return to her pack, Vanya slid from the bed and dashed to a corner where she attempted to shift. Regardless of how old the man appeared, she was prepared to fight. But his sudden attack caught her off guard, and in an instant, she was pinned against the wall with the tip of the blade at her neck.
"I suggest you don't try to shift, hunter, or I'll have to extract that beast from you in the most agonizing way you could imagine," the old man hissed.
Vanya nodded once. "What do you want from me?"
Aurelius quickly let go of her. "There's nothing I need from you, hunter."
"Fine! Let me rephrase my question. What does he want from me? "What does the man who brought me here want from me?"
"Well, you're going to meet him, so you'll find out soon enough." We haven't yet perfected the potion we gave you to put you to sleep and temporarily lock down your wolf. "I just wanted to make sure you're breathing normally again."  A minute later, he stepped back and out the door, without waiting for her reply.
Vanya heard the door lock click. Quickly, she fumbled with the shutters and flung them open, revealing the view through the large round window. A cloudless sky and the bluest ocean she'd ever seen were in front of her eyes.
She pressed her forehead against the glass to see as much of the horizon as she could, but all she saw was ocean and sky.
*"Shit!"*