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"Carmen?" Valerie whispered, as Carmen jumped up and held out a hand for her friend to take.

"Come on, Valerie. We have to go, now!" Carmen told her. "We need to get you to safety right now before he tries to get you again."

"Carmen, what are you doing here?" Valerie demanded, grabbing her friends hand and pulling herself up.

"Trying to save you from my brother," Carmen explained, throwing an anxious glance over her shoulder. "I hope Peter can keep him at bay until we can get inside."

"No, stop you need to explain what's going on." Valerie said furiously as another scream erupted from Rose's home and both of them froze. "Rose,"

"What?" Carmen asked running towards her friend. "Valerie is that who's pregnant? A girl named rose?"

Valerie nodded.

"And do you know who the father is?" Carmen asked quickly.

Valerie shook her head.

"Mio dio," She said under her breath and walked over to the edge of the church circle, far enough from where the wolves were still trying to rip out each other's throats but close enough to see the distance towards Rose's home. "We'll never make it."

"Carmen?" Valerie asked, and papered at her friends shoulder. "Before we do anything, you need to tell me what is going on, and who that is." She gestured to the gray wolf that was biting Peter's flank.

Carmen looked over at the two wolves and nodded, grabbing her friend's hand. "Valerie, I'll tell you, and then we have to run, alright?"

Valerie gave her friend a swift nod.

"Alright," Carmen nodded to herself. "Valerie, that wolf over there is here because he's looking for something. Something that he believes belongs to him."

"How do you know?" Valerie asked, and Carmen bit her lip.

"Because," She said softly, tears streaking down her cheeks, "He's my brother."

. . .

"Your brother?" Valerie whispered, looking over at the gray wolf. "You mean-"

"If you want to understand it, I'll have to tell you everything." Carmen interrupted, and turned to face rose's house. "Follow me and I'll explain on the way."

"My father is a werewolf," Carmen whispered, running out of the church circle and ducking behind a small hut while Valerie followed. "And his father before him, and his father's father before him. It's a gift passed down the De Luna blood line, to the eldest male son."

"You mean he's a born werewolf?" Valerie asked, but Carmen shook her head.

"No," She replied softly. "No one is born a monster, but the eldest is always blessed with the curse."

Valerie shook her head, thinking how odd it was to hear someone speak about a curse in such away. The way Carmen said it made it sound like it was a gift, something beautiful and wonderful instead of something that nearly tore her life apart.

"We were a happy family," Carmen continued. "My father, my mother, and Daemon and I. we lived with the circus fantasy, but really we were scouting for others like ourselves, hoping to band together so we wouldn't truly be alone. That's how we met Peter.

"He was obviously a new werewolf, we could always tell. We told him how hard it was to be one, but how much it was worth it to be running through the woods, a free and untamed spirit that could never be caught. He used to smile at that, and he told us a little about you too. But that's when things got bad…."

They were closer to the house now, but Carmen kept her voice quiet. "It was Peter's first night, his very first full moon and Daemon and I wanted to see what it was like, so we climbed a tree, so far up that Peter would never be able to see it and watched his first change happen.

"It was beautiful and gruesome at the same time. One moment he was Peter, the next a strong proud wolf, prowling along the earth and sniffing the air for his prey. And while we watched, daemon told me how excited he was to be a wolf, and that's when he fell."

She stopped and clasped a hand over her mouth to stop her from sniffling. "I watched in horror as my brother lost his grip and fell down off the tree and finally hit the ground, and that's when Peter saw him…."

Carmen shook her head. "After that night, Peter disappeared and then as the full moon approached daemon began to change. My father and my mother were heart broken, it was customary for the father to change his son, but Daemon didn't care. He was a wolf now, and he changed too. He became more ruthless and evil; when he was a wolf he'd kill things without reason. He once brought me the body of a dead doe, and made me watch as the fawn wander aimlessly looking for the mother it didn't even know it lost."

Only a few more feet now, and Carmen turned to face Valerie. "I spoke with my mother one night, and she told me they were going to send him away, too be a wolf with other elder ones who could watch over him, and he heard us. He was furious and ran away from camp. I didn't see him for month.

I was picking berries in thee woods when I heard him approach behind me. He looked stronger and scarier then he had before, but all he did was smile at me like before he changed and told me it was done. Then went back to camp." She shook her head. "It wasn't until later I realized that he'd gone to a town far away and raped a women. He wanted a son that he could teach to be a real wolf, like his father hadn't taught him." She looked over t Rose's home. "And that's why he's here, to take the baby."

Valerie's mouth hung open in an open O as everything fell into place. All her questions answered, all of her doubts brought into the light and now she had to do something to save her own friend. "What do we do?"

Carmen grinned, and her wolfish yellow eyes gleamed in the moonlight. "We have to steal it first."

Well, now you're all caught up, but if they succeed is a different story entirely. Pun intended. Review!