Chapter Four

All Disclaimers Apply!!!

Even though I could hear all the sounds and voices around me, I could not open my eyes or speak. I felt paralyzed. No Matter how hard I tried to move or utter a sound, my body just would not cooperate.

"How much longer will she remain like this," I heard Shannon ask with a trimmer of fear in his voice.

"It's only been thirty minutes, Shannon," Matthew growled softly.

"She looks pretty bad," Jeffery added.

You think, I thought sarcastically at him. Let me torture you for days and then see how you look at the end of it.

I heard someone snicker to my right.

"What's so damned funny, Rhodes?" I could feel Matthew's harsh gaze on my right.

"She can hear us," Rhodes answered with a hint of laughter in his voice. "She is giving Jeffery hell."

"You can hear her," Shane asked.

"Yeah."

"How can you hear her but none of us can," Matthew inquired.

Rhodes did not answer right away. It seemed to me that he was contemplating how to answer, and that was driving me crazy.

Answer already!

"Let me start from the beginning," he said as he smoothed some hair out of my face. "I am sure that there are several questions you all have for me. Like, why do I smell different than a vampire and why Orton and Cena could be in the sun light?"

"And why they came after our pack and took Aiden," Matthew added.

"I am a shifter," Rhodes began. "I was taken from my home, when I was young, by Orton and Cena. They thought to use me as a day protector."

A shifter, I thought with confusion, aren't all shifters extinct?

"No," he answered softly. "My kind is in few of number but is not extinct. There are only about one hundred of us in the world. We all lived in a small village in Alaska, and that's where Orton and Cena got me.

"They had heard of a vampire coven that needed a leader there in Alaska. After tracking through the wilderness for a few days, they came across my village." He seemed to struggle with the horrible memory. "It was night when they attacked. Since my people draw our powers from the sun, we were helpless against them. Blood covered the ground from the many victims of their violence.

"They found me in a small hollow were my friends and I would play as younglings. Cena wanted my death, but Orton stopped him. He thought that I would be a useful tool."

I felt the sorrow radiate from him. It made my heart break.

"Were there any survivors," Shannon asked.

"Besides me, a few. I have heard stories from several of Orton's cohorts that a few of my people has escaped that night and that brings me to the other questions.

"After being the vampires' lapdog, so to speak, for a few years, I had gained a bit of their trust, and one night Orton confided in me a bit of information. An elder told him of a way to walk in the day light. If he was to drink the blood of a werewolf, and not just any werewolf but of a female virgin in heat, he would be able to step into the sun and not become ashes.

"Orton was curious about this. He had always been told that werewolf blood was poisonous to vampires."

"It is," Jeffery interjected. "Matthew was bitten by a vamp fifty years ago and that vampire died screaming."

"Matthew is a werewolf, but he isn't a female virgin wolf in heat, now is he? You see, wolf blood is poisonous to vamps except in a virgin heat wolf. Something is different about their blood. I don't know what it is about their blood, but it makes vampires have the ability to walk in the sun.

"Anyway, Orton wanted Cena to find a wolf that would be able to have the 'Daylight Blood', as they called it. I was surprised at how quickly he found one.

"She was so scared," he said with a heavy heart. "Her screams still echo in my ears to this day."

"Then, why did they want Aiden," Matthew asked. "I mean, they can already walk in the day, then why did they need her?"

"They thought to use her blood against their enemies. They planned to let their enemies bite her and be poisoned by her 'tainted blood'.

"However, it would not have worked."

"And why is that?"

Like Shannon said, why?

"Aiden isn't a werewolf. She is a shifter."

What? What!

"How is that possible," Matthew said. "She was in cub form when found her, and she smells like a wolf."

"Please, allow me to explain. A few years back, a shifter by the name of Marlena was captors by Orton. I had snuck down to the holding cell while the vampires were sleeping. I was going to try to help her escape, but she stopped me.

"'I have a daughter in Cameron.' She had told me. Apparently, Marlena was one of a handful who lived outside our village. At the time of the attack, her mate, a werewolf, helped her escape. Cena caught up to them, though, and killed her mate. Marlena ran to North Carolina, were his pack was from and gave birth to one cub.

"With Cena at her back, she took the cub to her mate's hometown of Cameron, hoping his former pack would care for the child. But before she got to the pack, Cena got to her."

"Who was the mate," Shane asked.

"She called him Christian."

Everyone in the room was silent for a moment. Even I couldn't think of a single word.

Christian had been a major part of the pack many years ago. He had run away for un-known reasons.

"That's why she was a child cub and smells like a wolf. She is half wolf."

"Why did the female shifter tell you this," Matthew asked.

"She wanted me to find her daughter and keep her safe."

Holy shit, I thought, not only am I a part werewolf, I am part shifter, too. What the hell?

My brain reeled from the news.

"Calm down, Aiden," Rhodes whispered.

Calm down? Calm down!

"That is what I said."

Asshole!

"That's why you can hear her," Matthew said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah."

"And that's why our healing tactics aren't working."

"I can heal her but not right now."

Why, I thought.

"Since you are so damaged, your body can go into shock if I try. You need to heal more."

A childish urge to stick my tongue out at him crossed my mind.

"Do you think, since Orton and Cena got away that they will be foolish enough to come back," Matthew asked.

"Without a doubt," Rhodes said. "They are more than likely pissed that I double crossed them and that this pack is still breathing."

"What would you recommend," Jeffery asked.

"Well, they won't attack anytime soon, because they know you'll be on high alert. They'll wait until sometime has past and think you have relaxed. So, I think we should train Aiden to fight. She will be very strong with her mixed blood."

"Is there any signs as to when they might attack," Matthew inquired.

"Generally, no, but they'll toy with you before they'll attack."

No more torture, I screamed in my head.

"I am going to say this as gently as I can," Rhodes began in a soft tone. "What you went through, Aiden, will be like a day in Six Flags compared to what they will do to all of us if they ever get their hands on us."

Oh crap, I thought as a mixture of fear and desperation filled my heart.

A TorturedTourniquet Beta