32: Forbidden Match

It was nearing dusk and darkness was gaining. It took Aaron hours to stabilize. Neither of them could feel hunger or thirst for hours. They had spent hours in each other’s arms. Aaron had desperately needed that and wondered if he could ever repay her. Sophie had helped him up and laid him on his bed. She went through his wardrobe and clothed him. She sat beside him on the bed, waiting for him to settle down.

“I am ordering Chinese”, she said, tapping on her phone as soon as he looked stable enough to eat. He didn’t respond. His response wasn’t even needed. Sophie was going to shove it into his mouth even if he didn’t want to eat. He needed to eat something. As she sat back down, she caught the bone amulet sitting on top of the table across the room. It made her realize that he had changed back to his human from before coming out of the hut.

“What is it exactly?”, she asked about the engraved bone. Aaron slowly sat up and gathered the energy to speak.

“An Alpha’s spine segment”, he responded. Sophie was ready to believe whatever he told her after what she had witnessed at the cemetery. “Who also happened to be my father”, he added. He was visibly sad. Sophie wanted to comfort him.
“I spent my childhood in an orphanage like I didn’t have anyone of my own. It was when I turned fifteen that I was told that I had a family that loves me but I can’t be with them until I get my powers”, he said with grief in his voice. “I survived like vagrants”, he added, almost breaking down in tears. Sophie wasn’t sure how to react to that.

“At the orphanage, did you know about your…?” she asked.

“Not precisely. I used to wake up from terrible nightmares and found the stuff in my room destroyed beyond repair”, he replied with a shake of the head. “The caretaker would get mad at me but never put her hand on me, which wasn’t the case with the other kids. They were whacked mercilessly”, he added. He caught the amulet sitting on the table and remembered what had happened the previous night.

“I cannot transform on command, yet. I can only turn under direct full moon and that takes a heavy toll on my body. It feels like laying in a bed full of red-hot coals. Full moon transformations are weaker than the on-command turns” he explained. Sophie remembered seeing the beast up close. It was not weak by any means. It was the strongest and the most ferocious beings she had ever seen, in fiction or in reality. She could only wonder in awe what the supposedly stronger one would look like. “The worst part about the full moon transformations is that they are not controllable. It’s like being stuck in a car with broken steering and see it run into stuff”, he continued. Sophie wondered if he remembered anything. “I remember you calling my name and I remember the despair on your face. It makes me hate myself. I am sorry”, he spoke as if he had read her mind. He was drowning in sorrow and guilt. He couldn’t look into her eyes. Sophie slid close to him and put her arm around him. It took some effort but he calmed down. She remembered his watchers.

“Did you hear from your elders lately?”, she softly asked. He shook his head. There had been no letters since the crap hit the fan. He had shared his address with Mr. Lawson, yet there were still no notes dispatched to his new home.

“No. And they won’t like you within ten miles with me. I don’t even know what they’ll do once they found out that I have shown you my other form”, he responded. She fell silent. “But I had to do it especially with what’s going on”, he continued. Hearing of bad things going on, Sophie was reminded of the private army on their trail. She knew what she wanted to know about. The man who was out for their blood. Rick Hudson, a powerful and resourceful billionaire, who had been accused of several heinous crimes in the past yet none were ever proved. Her lover had allegedly killed his son in self-defense. The question of ‘Why ‘remained.

“Sam Hudson…?”, she had just begun to ask and Aaron winced. “You said that he came at you. Why would he do that? What did he have to gain from your death?”, she asked. Aaron sighed and relived the fateful moment that destroyed his life and could have probably taken it. He remembered how much he loathed that moment and how much he wished to change it if he could. But the damage was done and lives were ruined. All for nothing. His breathing was back to normal.

“Respect. He’d have gained respect”, Aaron responded after the brief pause. “His family would have lifted him up on their shoulders and he’d have been hailed as a hero”, he added. Sophie was still confused. She wondered why a family of billionaires would want to kill a werewolf. Aaron noticed the puzzlement on her face.

“Werewolves are not the only species of undead that live among the ordinary humans. There is an entire ecosystem that is hidden in your plain sight. We werewolves have friends in some and enemies in some. Some are allies and some are foes”, Aaron continued. “All creatures are either inherently good or bad yet Werewolves and Vampires stand neutral. The two classes have had martyrs and mass murderers alike”, he added. He realized Sophie was staring at him horrified. It took him a moment to see what had caused it. She was stuck at the Vampires. Sophie couldn’t gather the strength to ask him if she had heard him correctly.

“Yes Soph. They are just as real as you and me. My people are more of middle and working class but they are mostly nobles and billionaires”, he explained. “We had been at war for several centuries until the elders from both the factions sat down and implemented a truce. We were fine with it because we were quickly losing ground. But some from the other side called it cowardly and accused their own elders to have taken bribes from us. There were attempts of assassination on the Elder Vampires so they had to disappear”, Aaron continued. “The resistance from the Vampires kept within the drawing rooms in the early days of the truce but it took a more hostile turn just recently”, he added. Sophie was trying to wrap her head around it.

“Ever heard of Dr Karl Eisenberg?”, he asked her, trying to make it easier for her. She promptly nodded.
“The German physician and philosopher. Probably the most hated guy among the high schoolers”, she responded.
“How old do you think he is?”, he asked.
“I don’t know! Looks eighty plus to me”, she shrugged as she replied. Aaron nodded slowly.
“He has been ‘Eighty plus’ for a while. He is actually eight hundred plus”, he revealed to her. She was speechless. “He is one of the Elder Vampires. He has been in hiding for a while”, he added.
“But I just saw him on the news like yesterday!”, she exclaimed, convinced that his information was off. Aaron shook his head.
“He recorded twenty years worth of material in case he had to disappear. His people vend them to news outlets every once in a while”, he responded. “Its not the first time he’s vanished. He was a Nazi General with another alias during the world war”, he added and immediately thought that maybe he should have kept it to himself.
“What? So Hitler was…?”, she inquired, bewildered. Aaron was on the defensive.
“No! No! Hitler was just a regular arsehat. Karl was a saboteur. He vanished as soon as Project Valkyrie went sideways and his cover was blown”, he said trying to deescalate it. He was convinced that he had given her more questions than answers. Sophie was in deep thought.
“Alright. Forget Eisenberg!”, he exclaimed, trying to purge her mind of the new confusions he had caused. She hesitantly nodded. He was trying to ascertain where he should start.

“What of Rick Hudson?”, she abruptly asked, making it easier for him get to the point.
“The Hudsons are Pureblood Vampires”, he revealed without beating around the bush. Sophie’s day was getting weirder and weirder. She half expected a dragon to break into the room with a pair of maracas and dance to mariachi music. “A High lord Vampire wields the power of a hundred vampires and has more abilities than regular one. We keep the Werewolf Alphas and the High lord Vampires a secret. The High lord has been from the Hudson family seven times in a row and there has never been a queen. So, I think Rick is the High lord and Sam was next in line”, he continued. Sophie was getting the gist of it.
“But why did he attack you?”, she inquired. Aaron sighed.
“Probably trying to make his old man happy. He didn’t even have his powers”, he shook his head as he spoke. “He ran at me with a gun and ….”, Aaron failed to complete his sentence.
“So that’s why Rick Hudson wants to kill me and now you are also in his cross hairs”, he concluded. Sophie stared at the ground, trying to process all the otherworldly information.

“How did he find you?”, she asked.
“I don’t know. As I said, we hide it with our lives. Poor guy probably worked too damn hard to find me”, he said, and shrugged.
“I was totally off the grid and relocated every other year just to be safe but things suddenly went south and I couldn’t escape the third time he cornered me”, Aaron spoke with a hint of disappointment. Sophie had too many questions but the ones that were just answered, were going to take a while to process. They sat silently on the bed for a while. Both lacked words and were completely depleted.

“What now?”, she asked after a long silence.
“I’m sure Mr. Lawson will figure something out”, he replied. He knew that she respected and trusted Mr. Lawson. But it was another dynamite of a news for Sophie.

“Does he know?”, she loudly asked.
“Bjorn Inc. was a safehouse for me and I was there under his protection”, he spoke. All the obscured meetings in the conference room between Aaron and Lawson were starting to make sense now to Sophie. “Now that shit has gone haywire, it’s only a matter of time the elders hit him up”, he explained.