Chapter 26

TEN YEARS AGO

NOEL~~~~

I listened attentively as Royce narrated the events that played out when he got home leading up to my brother, Jack's forced turning and his mother's eventual death. He was sobbing at the end of his narration and I gave him my Vodka as a bit of consolation.

"I'm sorry about your mother's death, bro," I consoled.

"Don't call me your bro," he said as he sobbed. "I'm still not okay with the fact that you are a vampire and I definitely don't trust you."

"Give it a rest, bro," I sighed. This kid is becoming unbearable. "You wouldn't get anything from being so racist, believe me. I've lived in that world and I've seen the carnage it led to. That's why I left all of that behind me and decided to live as a human."

"You are a vampire. You killed my race, slaughtered them," he said, chugging down my liquor. Imagine the nerve.

"You talk like you were there," I said, rubbing my temple. "Your race killed a lot of my people too. Compared to you who wasn't even born then, I should be the one with a serious racial complex."

"Fine, just let me take this all in," he said, laying back on the chair. "My race killed my mother anyway."

"About that," I said. "You mean Dariuskilled your mother and is prolly holding Jack hostage somewhere after making him a werewolf, right?"

"Exactly," he sobbed. "I dragged Jack into all of this mess."

"Can you stop with the waterworks and let us think of a plan?" I asked. "Be a man."

He jolted back up to glare at me threateningly. Look at this kid. He's actually trying to intimidate me?

"What are you gonna do?" I asked as he glared at me. "Fight me? I'm pretty sure even you are not that stupid."

"What do you suggest I do then?" he asked coldly. "And don't you fucking tell me to be a man when you never had a parent to lose."

"Hey, don't cross the line," I warned. "I sincerely advise you don't."

"Is that a threat?" he asked, leaning forward.

I laughed hard at his behaviour. "A threat? You think I'll threaten you?" I asked. "Kids these days are a pain in the ass. It was a piece of advice and not a threat. You aren't worthy of being threatened by me. You should fear me."

"I'm shaking in my boots," he said sarcastically.

I really wanted to punch his face in and teach him some manners but I had to calm myself down for now. Jack comes first.

I took a deep breath. "Let's forget about our egos for now and focus on Jack and Jimmy, shall we?"

He mulled it over for some time before wiping away his tears. "Yeah, let's do that."

"So what do we do plan on doing?" I asked.

"Well I'm thinking of rallying whatever remains of my pack after the fight and hitting hard at the Northern Pack," he said. "I'll try to whittle down their numbers little by little until I can confront Darius personally."

"I'm afraid that plan isn't going to work," I said after thinking it over. "First we need to know Jack's exact location and any attack on the pack right now would be obviously done by you and Darius would search for you to the ends of the Earth."

"What would you have me do?" he asked. "I am itching to kill that bastard with my hands."

I scoffed at his words. "You are a hundred years too early to do that, kid."

"What?"

"You are a hundred years too early to hurt Jimmy, talk more about killing him," I repeated. "You must have realized it the night your mother was killed, but you can't even touch him."

"First, the next time you call me kid, this truce is off," he stated. "Now, how do you know that and why are you so sure?"

"Because Darius would beat my ass to a pulp if I went against him and I'm a hybrid," I said. "I'm a lot more stronger than you and as a hybrid, I should be significantly stronger than a werewolf Alpha. But that doesn't apply to Darius. He destroys all in his path. During the war, he killed a whole lot of my fellow hybrids and I barely escaped death at his hands. Fighting Darius is out of the question."

"What do I do then?" he asked. "I have to kill Darius."

I stood up and strolled to the fridge. I took out a cold beer and some cocaine. I poured the beer into a glass and mixed the cocaine with it. Royce just watched as I continued with my routine.

Once I was done mixing, I emptied the contents of the glass in one gulp and let out a long sigh. "That's the stuff."

"What's that supposed to do?" I asked. "You can't get high even if you try."

"True," I said. "But what I'm about to suggest is something that's gonna stress the living darkness out of me. I suggest you do the same, it's gonna stress you out too."

"If you are talking about some sort of training, I...."

"Training?" I asked, interrupting him. "There's no amount of training that would help you match up to Darius so don't even waste your time trying."

"Then what the fuck are you gonna suggest?!" he flared up, smashing the bottle of Vodka with him on the wall.

"Let's lay some ground rules first, brat," I snapped. I've had enough. "You listen to me and keep your stupid temper in check or we're done with this conversation. You can go have your revenge and get your ass killed while I work out a way to rescue Jack from the trouble you put him."

"Good," I said. "About the plan, we need the power to fight Royce. One that neither of us has. An overwhelming power that if we teamed up with, the probability of us taking Royce down decreases. I'm significantly weaker right now because I haven't fed on fresh human blood for a while and even if I do feed, I wouldn't be able to match Jimmy. But I do have a friend who's almost on par with Jimmy. With him in the vanguard, three of us can take on Jimmy together and I'm sure we will win. That is if he agrees."

"Where is he?" Royce asked. "Is he somewhere around?"

"Not too fast," I said. "I must warn you first. He's a hybrid like me."

"I'm already working with you so I don't see anything wrong with that."

"A vampire-demon hybrid."

He fell silent at that. I assumed he was thinking about it since he wasn't flaring up. He kept the silence for a good five minutes until it became unnerving for me.

"Dude, say something," I said trying to get him to talk but he ignored me.