My Second Chance Mate

5

Go to work, come home. Go to work, come home. Go to work, come home.

​On the weekends, I would happily follow Christie to whatever neighborhood she wanted to romp around in. Saturday, maybe we’d start our day with a job in Central Park, and then we’d have lunch at some cutesy café in Midtown, and then we’d spend the rest of our day shopping. Sunday, maybe we’d take a ferry out to Coney Island. And then, if he was lucky, maybe I’d partake in some adult activities with Glenn when I arrived back home for the night, before preparing to return to work on Monday morning.

​On Monday morning, it started all over again.

​Go to work, come home. Go to work, come home. Go to work, come home.

​I loved it. I adored the simplicity and the predictability of the mundane, boring life that I’d created for myself.

​But tonight, after leaving Christie’s place and settling down for bed, I only slept for a few hours before my Wolf woke me. She was restless, and she couldn’t pinpoint why. I dragged myself out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen for a 3am snack while she whimpered and paced in the back of my mind. I sat down heavily on the sofa in the living room with a party-sized bag of nacho cheese Doritos, and busied myself with social media. Before I knew it, it was 6am and it was almost time for me to get ready for work.

​I was tired, but so be it. Time to go to work.

​When I arrived at the office a couple hours later, I took the elevator up to the third floor, walked past cubicles, and smiled at my employees, returning polite, “Good morning”s, until I reached my private office. There was a large window on the left wall, overlooking the lively, bustling streets of Manhattan. In the corner to my right sat a tall filing cabinet. Directly in front of me was my desk, a heavy, oak L-shaped piece, with a hutch against the wall. There were two chairs in front of my desk, where clients would sit when I held meetings in here.

I sat down in my own chair, booted up my computer, and caught sight of the date on the lock screen. It was April 15th. My birthday was in exactly 30 days.

My birthday was hard to celebrate. It was made worse knowing that the anniversary of my departure from my pack was not far behind it. My Wolf was homesick. A slight pang of homesickness had struck her about a year ago, and it never went away. It just grew and grew and grew, stronger and stronger every day. I felt it, too, but the emotion wasn’t mine. It was hers. She wanted to go home, back to Maine and to our own kind. I wasn’t ready. I was so comfortable, that I wasn’t sure I’d ever be.

Sometimes I would go out into the woods in New Jersey to let my Wolf out—to Shift and be free and tap into my werewolf roots. I hadn’t gone in a while. Too long.

In 30 days, I would turn 23, but that didn’t matter. I had been living among the humans for just under three entire years. I stared at my computer screen blankly for a moment as the realization sunk in, till the phone rang, making me jump. I shook my head, flustered, and logged in to my computer as I answered the call.

I continued my day in a sad haze. I felt a mixture of my own homesickness, and of my Wolf’s, constantly lingering. It wasn’t a good feeling. I missed my parents and my brother. I missed Kate. I wondered if I was ready to face Callum again. If I ever returned home, I’d definitely run into him, which was one of the reasons I left in the first place. He was unavoidable back home.

I mulled over it, as I went through the motions at my desk. I considered possible scenarios and imagined terrible, embarrassing, painful situations in my head, but then it occurred to me: I no longer felt anything for Callum. Literally nothing. I was ready to face him. I felt no connection to him at all; if I walked past him on the streets of the city today, I wouldn’t even give him a second glance. I no longer felt a twinge of hurt inside my chest at the mere thought of him. When I realized this, I brightened up a bit.

Leaving must’ve worked.

I was standing at a filing cabinet in the hallway, shuffling things around with a stack of documents in the crook of my arm that needed to be sorted, when my Wolf’s voice rang out in my head. Can we go home? Back to where we belong? She sounded meek, and I immediately felt guilt wash over me.

I piled all the papers on top of the filing cabinet and retreated to my office, closing the door behind me. I sat down at my desk, my arms limp and my hands resting in my lap, as I stared out the window.

Well? my Wolf pressed.

I don’t know about that. I’m not ready, I replied.

Why?

I’m just not. I really wasn’t. I was too comfortable.

I could feel her irritation building. But why? The entire reason we came out here in the first place was to get over Callum, and we have. We did a long time ago, whether you acknowledged it or not. It’s time to go home.

I didn’t answer her.

With a frustrated snarl, she put up a mental block so I couldn’t answer her. I was taken aback, but I couldn’t fault her. I’d spent almost three years in a blissful, stress-free fairytale, pretending to be human. Was I rejecting my true identity? At first, it was thrilling to make up stories to cover up who I was, but eventually the novelty wore off, and it became my new, boring, everyday normal. I loved my boring normal, but I did miss home.

I glanced at my computer screen. It was locked again. It was like the date was taunting me—April 15th.

The morning after I arrived in Augusta, way back in June of 2018, I awoke in my hotel room to a phone call from my father. He knew I planned to leave—my mother had seen it. That was why he didn’t send anyone after me when I fled from the group. I could still recall what he had said to me before I hung up on him in an angsty rage.

“We’re not meant to live away from our kind. Anyone who’s ever done what you’re doing always comes home,” he told me.

Sometimes I still thought about that—but it was only ever intrusive and unpleasant and left a bad taste in my mouth. It only ever reared its ugly head when I was feeling down, and these intrusive thoughts always surfaced at this time of year.

I didn’t want to be at work anymore. I only had an hour left before I was scheduled to leave anyway. I let my assistant, Jill, know that I was taking off early, and then I left. I stepped out into the city. The air was chilly. I pulled my jacket tighter around me and adjusted my purse on my shoulder. I didn’t have plans to have dinner with Christine tonight. I didn’t have anywhere to be. Nobody would expect anything from me till tomorrow morning, when I was due back at work. I could take a leisurely walk and decompress. I smiled slightly, reveling in my lack of responsibilities. The novelty of the laid-back nature of this lifestyle never wore off. Not even a little bit.

I decided I wanted to go to Central Park instead of home. I wanted to sit on a bench and people-watch.

But then, I caught a whiff of something that made my stomach flip. With my heightened sense of smell, it was impossible to miss.

Blood. Lots of it.

My Wolf leapt up in the back of my mind, immediately dropping her mental block, while I stood rooted in place in the middle of the sidewalk, unsure of what to do next.

Don’t be a coward. Go, Natalie! she snapped.

I obeyed, and I felt a surge of confidence and determination at her tone. My pace and my heart rate were both fast. I glanced incredulously at people ambling along, completely unaware that there was something very, very wrong. How could they be so oblivious?

Cross the street.

I veered left without a second thought, directly into traffic, albeit slow-moving. I ignored the angry shouts and blaring car horns.

It’s coming from the alley, right up there.

I could see it. There was a break in the buildings, about 30 feet ahead. I broke into a light job, as adrenaline pumped through my veins, and I found myself standing in front of a totally empty alleyway, save for a dumpster and some debris on the ground. My brow furrowed in confusion. The metallic smell was so strong here that I couldn’t even detect the stench of garbage that was undoubtedly radiating from the dumpster.

The alley forked about midway down, and then continued straight back, to end at a tall chain-link fence.

On the right.

As if on cue, over the sounds of the city behind me, I heard scuffling and grunting, and then it was quiet again. I quickly kicked off my high-heels, unfazed by the chilly pavement under my bare feet. I dropped my purse on the sidewalk, and darted silently towards the source of the stench. As I got nearer to the fork, the smell was overpowering.

I turned the corner, and what I saw made my breath catch in my throat. I froze, tuning out the frantic yipping and howling in the back of my head.

A body was sprawled out on the dirty ground, limp and unmoving in a massive puddle of deep red blood. Blood spatters and smaller puddles were everywhere, staining the dirt and the weathered brick walls. There was a man crouched down in front of a woman, with his back to me. He had one hand on the back of her head, holding her upright awkwardly, while he held his other wrist to her mouth. I could see the upper half of her face. Her eyes darted around erratically. She was panicking. Here clothes were dirty and bloody, and there were no shoes on her feet.

Vampire! Move, Natalie! Move now! my Wolf cried.

I was snapped back to reality, and I barreled into the vile bloodsucker’s side without hesitation.

How is this possible? It’s still daylight.

The vampire lost his grip on the woman upon impact, and he tumbled onto the ground, dazed. The woman fell flat on her back and gasped for air.

“He drugged me!” she yelled. “I can’t move!”

The vampire quickly got to his feet and lunged for me, but I was much faster than him. I grabbed the woman by the arm and flung her behind me. She hit the wall and screamed, but I didn’t have time to tend to her right now. I backhanded the monster and lifted my leg to kick him hard in the chest, with a grunt of effort. He flew backwards and slammed against the wall on the opposite side of the alley, but got right back up and charged me again.

“Where the f**k did you come from?” he demanded, his voice raspy.

I guess it’s dark enough back here, my Wolf continued.

I dropped into a low crouch, coiled my body, and sprung at the bloodsucker. He fell backwards, and we struggled in the dirt, rolling over and over each other, snarling and throwing punches. I managed to pin him down with my knees on his shoulders, while he thrashed and hissed and clawed at my legs and arms. I grabbed him by the face, and roughly jerked his head to the side, effectively breaking his neck. He stilled, eyes rolling back in his head.

A broken neck was not enough to kill a vampire. I knew I couldn’t decapitate him in an alleyway in the middle of Manhattan. I pushed off of him and stood over his incapacitated body, surveying the situation as I tried to catch my breath. Across the way, on the left side of the fork in the alley, sunlight poured over the roof of the building. I wondered why and how this creature could be so careless.

I turned my attention to the woman, realizing she’d gone silent. I could still hear her heartbeat, if I strained my ears, and I could still see her chest rising and falling with every labored breath, so I busied myself with disposing of the disgusting thing that was beginning to stir at my feet.

I took ahold of his shirt, fisting it tightly in both hands, and dragged him out of the shadows. He awoke, of course, and I grimaced as he turned his head and bones loudly snapped and cracked back into place. He realized what was happening, and immediately began to fight me, shouting obscenities and calling me names. He was weak. He knew that my strength coupled with my speed meant that he was a goner, I was sure.

I mustered up all the strength I had, and threw him into the patch of light, his body hurtling through the air. He made contact with the wall again, and another loud crack sounded through the alleyway. His body crumpled in the sunlight, and yet again, he was silent. His neck was twisted in a strange way, and even though he was unconscious, he began to gurgle as his skin burned, blistered, and smoked. I wrinkled my nose at the stink, and cautiously peered around the corner of the wall. Nobody was there. Nobody had noticed the brutality and the blood and the screams.

Why would they? Humans were too oblivious for their own good, clearly, and the sounds of the city must have drowned this mess out.

I glanced back at the vampire as he burst into flames, and wasted away into nothing but a pile of ashes and tattered, charred clothes. I rushed to the woman’s side and pressed my fingers to her throat, searching for her pulse. It was faint, but it was there.

He turned her. It’ll start soon. Leave her, and the body, my Wolf said. I could tell she was trying to stifle the sense of urgency in her voice, but I could still detect it, and it unnerved me.

I hurried across the alley to scoop up the vampire’s burnt clothes, tossing them in the dumpster on my way back out onto the street. I put my shoes back on and picked up my purse, surprised that they were still there, and seemingly untouched. I straightened my skirt and smoothed my hair. I supposed, as a feeling of unease settled into the pit of my belly, that I should just continue on like normal. It wasn’t like I could go to the police to report what had just happened. I knew that the humans would discover the bodies sooner or later. It was better I didn’t concern myself.

So, I resumed my walk to Central Park.

You need to call your dad, my Wolf said.

I know.

I definitely would need to contact Dad. It had been a while since the last time we spoke, and he couldn’t do anything about the attack, but he’d want to know. He’d probably notify the Alphas of packs in the area, just so all of our kind knew to be vigilant. Vampires typically didn’t operate like this. They stayed hidden and kept to themselves. Sometimes they travelled together in very small covens, but more often than not, they were solitary creatures. They hunted at night, and didn’t draw attention. Our species didn’t like each other, but as long as they didn’t bother us, we didn’t bother them.

Yes, what I just witnessed was out of the ordinary, to say the least. It most certainly warranted a phone call home.