THE CURSED VAMPIRE

Keira

Otter werewolves hunt by using their noses to smell or their ears to hear, but I stopped needing either a long time ago.

A rogue Alpha named Vane had his claws around the throat of a small border village of weak wolves, the kind predators like him treated as sport.

He was huge, covered in thick fur, and full of a mean anger that had made him lose his mind.

Five years ago, if I had seen a wolf like him, I would have cried and run away.

I was the girl who cried when her fated mate, Alpha Theron, told her she was a "mistake." He had told me I was too weak to be part of his family.

But that girl was gone. I had buried her in the cold mud near my old home. From her grave, a scary Witch had helped me become something else.

Kill him, Keira, a cold voice whispers inside my chest. It is not a wolf's voice. It is a vampire's hunger. It feels sharp, like a piece of ice.

I did not change into a wolf the way other people do. There is no sound of bones breaking or skin tearing. Instead, shadows started coming out of my skin.

They look like thick, black oil. My bones did not just move; they grew long and very hard. A strange "Stillness" moves over the forest.

The wind stopped blowing. The bugs stopped making noise. I became like a hole in the air that no one could see or hear.

I jumped down from the high rock.

I did not land with a loud noise. I landed as quiet as a puff of smoke. Vane, the big wolf, turned around fast.

His mouth was covered in blood from the people he had hurt. He tried to smell the air, his yellow eyes looking everywhere. He looked scared.

He could not smell me at all. To him, I was a ghost that he could almost see out of the corner of his eye.

"Who is there?" he growled. His voice sounded like a broken machine. "Come out and fight me, you coward!"

I stepped into the light of a small fire. I did not look like a girl, but I did not look like a wolf either. I was something in the middle. I was tall and thin, with long claws that shone like metal.

My eyes were a glowing mix of purple and red.

"I am the one who is going to take your head, Vane," I said. My voice sounded like rocks rubbing together.

He jumped at me. He was very fast for a big wolf. A long time ago, he would have caught me in a second. But now, he looked like he was moving underwater.

I stepped to the side very easily, like I was dancing. My claw scratched his side. It was not a deep cut, but it had a special vampire poison on it. I wanted him to feel it burn.

"You... you are not a wolf," Vane gasped. He fell down because the poison was making his body stop working. He changed back into a human.

He was shaking in the dirt and could not breathe well. He looked at me, trying to see through the blood in his eyes.

Suddenly, his face turned very white. He smelled the air again. "That smell... I know it. It smells like flowers... and wood."

He pushed himself away from me on his elbows, looking terrified.

"No. It cannot be you. You are the weak girl from the Blackwood Pack. The one Theron threw away. You are supposed to be dead in the river."

"The river did not want me," I said. I walked toward him slowly. Every step I took felt heavy and strong. "The darkness wanted me instead."

"You are a monster!" he screamed. His voice was shaking. "You are a freak! The Moon Mother has cursed you! Theron was right to say he did not want you. You are an embarrassment to everyone who is alive!"

When he said Theron's name, I usually felt a big pain in my heart. It was a reminder of the day Theron stood in front of everyone and told me I was nothing.

He had looked at me like I was a piece of trash. He had made me feel so sad that I wanted to die.

But now, I feel nothing. It was just a hollow feeling where my heart used to be.