Tonight is the night: the night when Noah would bring out the feral wolf within and become a member of the pack. The week of his trial had gone quite well. Almost too well. He had assimilated quite naturally into the gypsy family. Obviously fate had predestined this appointment when it had been so unkind to curse him so cruelly from the start. He had found another family, a place to be accepted and live among his kind. At least that was what Willie thought considering how easily he adapted to the people and they took to him in return.
The young ladies of the gypsy troupe intent on finding a handsome, virile mate approved of him becoming a full-fledged member without hesitation. The elders embraced Noah based on his consistent attitude of respect and kindness in addition to his assisting with any chore without complaining. The children loved him because he took the time to play with them when most of the adults did not. In turn, his willingness to spend time with the rambunctious young, keeping them entertained and out of trouble, won over the parents. Young and old, male and female, there was not a single member of the gypsy tribe whose vote he did not acquire.
However, the immediate family, her sons and daughters by blood or by marriage, were a bit more obstinate. Some tested his wits while others tried his patience in an attempt to get him to show his 'true colors' should he be harboring any evil intent or hiding a secret agenda. Willie was convinced the priest would be the only one guilty of those two crimes. When stubborn attitudes and unfounded biases remained, Willie reminded them that once she and their father were outsiders to this world they held so dear. Also, she was a vampire, the ultimate outcast, but they had willingly adopted her anyway. Not to mention, Gannon was still a human for a time until his full acceptance into the pack. After much deliberation on their part and excellent debating on their mother's, each one of the royal family gave their consent to recognize Noah as an official member of the gypsy tribe and werewolf pack.
Willie walked through the kitchen where final preparations for the feast were being made. Chicken, duck, and venison roasted on spits over open fires. Breads, both sweet and savory, had been baked in copious amounts, their mouth watering, yeasty aroma flooding the air of the castle. Though the smell should be delightful, it sickened her. She preferred blood; raw, rich, and warm straight from the vein. Her eyes drifted over the trays full of dried fruits arranged like works of art. Weaving her way through the myriad of diligently working people, she rushed out the door to the fresh air free of the food aromas that nauseated her.
Several burly men passed by her carrying barrels of wine to be broken open and drained into decanters for ceremonial toasts and general celebratory purposes. A nostalgic smile graced her lips upon recalling how the gypsies loved a celebration. They always found numerous reason to indulge in joyous revelry. An engagement, a wedding, the birth of a child, the death of a loved one; any and every occasion to bring out the food and wine, to laugh and sing and dance. Life was a party. It had to be during the good times. Because when the bad times come, and they always come, they were really bad. Tonight, was a coming out ritual, the most anticipated reason to celebrate: the ceremony when a human experiences their first transformation into a werewolf, reconciling both the nature of man and beast harbored inside of him.
Willie glanced at the group of shirtless men sweating in the sun while chopping wood for the single massive bonfire that would serve as the centerpoint where the ceremony to take place. Noah and Father Anderson were among those men, each one standing at a large stump where a chord of wood stood on one end. With every downward swing of the ax, the men would release a loud grunt of effort, increasing the power of his strike, cleanly slicing the wood into two pieces.
Her eyes lingered over the bulging, flexing muscles in Noah's shoulders and back. How many times had she watched her husband do this same chore? She had appreciated his fine physique, slick with sweat from his labor, shining in the sun like a god. For a moment, time turned back, and she saw the man to whome she had given her life and heart when she thought she had forfeited both because of Vlad. Her hand raised to her chest, flattening over her rapidly beating heart. Ogling the handsome blonde, his resemblance to her dead husband almost made her forget his true identity.
When Noah turned to look at her, his arctic blue eyes latching onto hers, she was immediately thrust back into the present. His eyes were different than Gannon's. Gannon's lupine orbs had lightened to a nearly colorless, striking shade of silver. Those eyes had been able to cut right through her to the deepest part of her being, seizing her heart to hold on tight. This man's eyes, were a shade of blue akin to the ice harbored in the bowels of a great iceberg. They looked cold yet were so warm, so kind. Rather than taking hold of her heart by force, his eyes stroked her emotions tenderly, cajoling her to feel something for him, begging her to love him.
I can't. I can't, her mind replied, taking over where her heart threatened to fail her. She shook her head, backing away slowly.
"Willie? Are you all right?" Noah asked, taking one step toward her.
Willie nodded in response to his question but did not speak. After offering him a self-conscious smile on quivering lips, she spun on her heel, her wide orange skirt flaring like an umbrella around her.
"No," Father Anderson murmured, putting out his arm as a physical barricade to stop his apprentice from giving chase when she ran away. "Let her go."
Those three words held a meaning than reached further than allowing her to leave without following.
"Kill those useless feelings, or she will be the end of you, boy," he warned, lowering his arm.
"Yeah, so you've told me before," he rejoined, sliding the man a sidelong glance full of hate and fury.
"When you look at her, you may see a young beautiful woman but that is only a lovely facade to hide the evil, murderous creature lurking beneath. She's a centuries old vampire. A being who is by all rights dead but still lives. She's not a twenty one year old woman. Look at her children if you need further proof to remind yourself."
Noah cast a furtive glimpse at the man standing nearby, her youngest son, who appeared to be a normal man in his early thirties. But he wasn't a normal man. Zev was the product of two supernatural creatures. He was also a werewolf. He must be at least two centuries old himself yet appeared no older than thirty-two, but he still looked older than his mother.
"She's not a monster," Noah muttered under his breath.
"Make no mistake about it," the priest said in a low voice so no one else would hear. "They're monsters. All of them. She is the worst of all of them. You'll see. Just wait, you'll see."
~\..'../~
Father Alexander Anderson casually sipped his wine as if relaxing in his study at home rather than being in the middle of a raucous celebration. His keen eyes observed the activity around him while he silently and harshly judged the participants. Heathens. Degenerates. Positively revolting. Worse yet, they were animals, monsters from children's nightmares, masquerading as humans. Being witness to this event was like attending a ball in hell.
They drank and danced like they did not expect to live to see tomorrow. Lewdness abounded. They kissed openly, not caring that others were watching. Their dancing consisted of much gyrating and flagrant humping, a repulsive show of sex despite being fully clothed.
Thankfully the children were not allowed at this ceremony. All youngsters were asleep in the castle under the watchful eyes of caregivers to make sure none of them awoke and snuck out to take a peek at the drunken, lust infused revelry.
In the center of it all, the guest of honor, Noah sat between the King of debauchery and the former Queen of all things unholy. Father Anderson would be loathe to admit that she looked particularly fetching in her multi colored skirt made of scarves and a top that was nothing more than several of the scarves twisted together and wound around her neck and breasts. Her braided hair hung thick and heavy down her back with small white flowers weaved throughout. A gorgeous pagan goddess.
He gulped the wine until the liquid filled his cheeks. To keep from spitting any of the inebriating elixir out, he swallowed hard pushing the fluid down his esophagus in one painful swallow. A preemptive prayer of forgiveness followed when a pretty, young, half naked maiden knelt in front of him to refill his cup. Tonight he fully intended to get stinking drunk, willfully committing one trepass of his religious moral code to prevent himself from indulging in another trangression violating his vow of chastity. Why did unrighteous temptations have to be so pretty and sinful acts feel so damn good?
Father Anderson drank heartily, swilling half of his recently refreshed wine supply. The people in his vision swayed in impossible ways, their bodies contorting and shifting. He could not be sure if it was the wine or if they were really going through some of transmogrification. The flames of the singular, humungous bonfire pulsed, its yellow and orange arms reaching higher toward the sky. In that black velvet sky, the white disc of the moon pocked with gray spots shimmied, undulating as if it were a reflection on the ocean. His eyes drifted closed when the ground under his behind pitched and rolled. Earthquake? No. Quicker than expected, he had reached that blessed state of intoxication he had purposely been seeking. All he had to do now was go to sleep. While unconscious, his vow and his scruples would remain safe and inviolate. His selfish desire to escape a sinful snare prevented him from being suspicious that he had been drugged.
~..'..~
Willie watched passively when her sons Rafe and Zev hefted the large, sleeping priest from the ground. She returned her son-in-law Felix's nod when he preceded them while walking to the castle. She noted that in his hand he held the keys to the dungeon cells and the shackles that waited for the priest. Her attention reverted to the nervous young man sitting beside her. Anticipation mixed with anxiety made her belly skitter and jump like something crawled under her skin.
A howl penetrated the festive air fraught with jubilant expectation. Another howl followed. People around them dropped to all fours, raising their faces and voices to the moon. They cried to their lunar goddess floating in the sky, singing her praises and seeking her favor. They implored her blessings to be bestowed upon the man to be initiated into their ranks of the werewolf.
"Do not be afraid," Willie said, laying her hand over his that clutched his knee in his cross legged sitting position.
"I've seen a few things. I can handle this," he assured her. His hand trembled under hers, but his eyes stared straight ahead to watch the transmutation of the humans into werewolves.
The change appeared to be painful. Grunts and whines punctuated the air among the piercing chorus of howls. Their noses lengthened and their jaws enlarged, jutting forward to form a canine muzzle. Their skin changed color, some a raw pink while others darkened to the gray of wood ashes or darker, even black, depending on the color of the fur that sprouted from the follicles. Pointed ears protruded from the fur on their heads and tails extended from the tip of what used to be a human tailbone that no longer bore a tail.
Noah witnessed their otherworldly change in gape mouthed, awestruck wonder. He had never observed the morphing of man to beast. In his limited experience with werewolves, he had only seen the finished product of the transformation, battled the animals with gnashing teeth and murder in their inhuman eyes. Not seeing them as people had made it easy to kill them without feeling guilt. But now...now he would never be able to kill another werewolf without having more justification than a command from Father Anderson. He knew with certainty that his ties with the priest would be severed tonight, that he would begin a new life - the life he was meant to lead all along.
He glanced over at the woman sitting beside him, squeezing his hand tightly to reassure him. At the moment, her strained face and clenched jaw showed that she needed reassurance. Taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger, he turned her face so that she would look at him. An ambient green light glimmered under the surface of her hazel irises.
"It's time," she told him. She pulled her hand from his, leaning forward onto her hands until she was on all fours. "Noah, there's something I need to show you."
Noah's jaw tensed when her back arched and terrible black claws grew from her fingers stabbing the soft earth. Astonished and a bit fearful, he stared while a patchwork of black veins appeared under her lovely pale skin. The beautiful woman he knew transformed into a huge, hulking black dog, her eyes red as the blood she required to sustain herself.
"Oh, dear God," he murmured in shock.
"God has nothing to do with this," she growled, her voice barely human; deep, masculine, resonant.
As swiftly as she had shape shifted into the hell hound, she dissolved into a flurry of leathery wings and high pitched shrieks of a thousand bats. The bats formed a whirlwind of noise and activity around him, drawing him to his feet. Her appearance quickly altered again, and she returned to a her normal human visage. For a moment there remained a large set of membranous black wings on her back, then they disappeared to make her fully human again.
"Well, that was something," he murmured, blinking at her.
"I've shown you mine. Now," she said, advancing toward him. Her hands slipped inside the open collar of his shirt, gliding over his smooth youthful skin. "Show me yours."
"What are you doing?" he inquired when she ripped open his shirt revealing his chest.
"You're going to lose the clothes anyway. I'm helping you."
"Are you sure?" His hand brushed over her head, knocking free some of the flowers when his fingers strayed over her braid. Loosing the gardenia blossoms released their fragrance, sweet and heady, overwhelming his senses.
His entire body vibrated with an unusual spiritual energy imparted to him by the lupine brethren surrounding him and strengthened by the sexual arousal being stirred up by the woman in front of him. She confounded and frustrated him. She had insisted on being friends but friends did not act this way. In a way, Father Anderson was right about her. She was evil, but not in the way he had been expecting.
Willie lifted his hands, placing them on her hips. She pressed her body to his, flattening her barely covered breasts to his chest. Turning her head, she allowed her lips to graze his chest. Her tongue protruded slightly, licking over the edge of the brown nipple against the canvas of golden tanned flesh hard with muscle.
"Why?" he whispered, his body shuddering when she pressed a kiss to his chest over his heart.
"I'm helping you," she repeated, placing her hand on the back of his neck. Her eyes locked with his that gleamed in the silver light of the full moon. "Trust me. Trust yourself."
An ethereal heat filled his body as if he were on the verge of spontaneously bursting into flames. He burned and ached, his heated blood rushing through his body. His extremities tingled, prickling with the sensation of being pierced with countless needles. A dull rumble started in his chest, rising, growing stronger, until he opened his mouth to expel a feral growl.
The ritual of urging the first transformation is an intimate encounter involving an elevated state of sexual arousal. Stirring up carnal desire worked better for heightening the senses than instilling fear, the first most basic instinct common in animals and humans. The fight or flight mechanism activated by fear had a tendency to dull some senses while intensifying others. Stimulating the sex drive, however, enhanced all senses; sight, sound, smell, taste, hearing, and touch perked up in unison. Stimulus to these senses in this situation brings physical enjoyment which inevitably deepens the desire for more pleasurable input in turn requiring one to give in completely to that need. Basically, being distracted and horny enabled one to give themselves over to the savage wolf lurking inside. This technique worked for males and females alike.
"Now that I've shown you what I truly am, what do you think of me?" she inquired, her lips sliding back from her teeth to reveal her sharp fangs on top and bottom like those of a wolf. "I warned you that I'm a monster."
"You're like nothing I've ever seen before," he admitted, his eyes holding fast to her face. "But you're not a monster. Why are you doing this?"
"I am a monster. And so are you," she whispered, pulling his mouth down to hers. She kissed him: a tender, innocent, close mouthed kiss, her lips pressing squarely to his. "Bring forth what is inside of you." She kissed him again, this time catching his upper lip between hers. "Release everything."
"I-I c-can't," he stuttered, his fingers pressing into her skin with bruising strength while he fought to restrain himself. Her merciless teasing, gliding her cool velvety fingertips over his chest while suckling at his lower lip chipped away at his resolve like a pickax at an unyielding boulder. Bit by bit, he broke, allowing the animal inside to rise to the surface.
Willie cried out in agony when his nails, sharp and long, pierced her skin. His skin roughened, tiny bumps rising over him, while the color changed from a healthy bronze to a grotesque shade of dark gray. He would be a white wolf, evidenced by the snow colored fur sprouting from his gray skin. Her arms enclosed his body, holding onto him when they fell to the ground, trapping her under him. He lay on top of her, a heavy crushing weight, writhing from the excruciating torture of his transformation. She held on to him despite the suffering he imposed upon her, whispering encouragement to him so he would keep going no matter how the pain increased for both of them.
Eventually the transformation completed. Noah stood above her on all fours, a handsome white wolf with mesmerizing blue eyes. His long pink tongue lolled out of his mouth, and he panted heavily from the struggle of morphing from man to animal.
Willie scooted from under him, moving past the wolves who encircled him. She stood on the outskirts of the clan to allow them to proceed with their official welcome.
A deafening cacophony of howls rose from them announcing and celebrating the arrival of their newest member. Yips and chuffs of approval followed from the wolves who approached him. Head butting and nuzzling along with nips or licks administered to the cheeks showed the new werewolf expressed how proud they were of him.
Willie walked away, feeling the need to distance herself. She did not belong here at the moment. This time belonged to the werewolves, and she had no place here.
~..'..~
Alucard had been searching for her for days. His head ached from the relentless endeavor to track her down by using telepathy. There was something blocking him making him feel as if he was butting his head against a wall. He needed to know that she was all right. He also wanted to make sure she had not gotten any closer to the young man who bore a disturbing likeness to her dead husband.
Her second husband. The husband who failed her because in the end he was still woefully human. Half werewolf, half human but that lingering bit of humanity had been his ultimate undoing. However, that lucky bastard had been able to spend a few hundred uninterrupted years of marital bliss with her, a happy marriage that included children. Despite its relative brevity in light of immortality, Gannon Lupei had been afforded a blissful life with Willie. The life Alucard dreamed of but would never have with her. A long, happy life together would never be a blessing bestowed upon him and his precious Willene.
"Alucard, what's wrong with you?" Arthur Hellsing questioned the vampire sitting in the wing backed chair across from him.
They had adjourned to the study after dinner where the vampire had dropped into one of his trances, retreating to his own inner world to do only he knew what. Arthur had observed him many times before in this state of sending himself to a separate plane of existence while still maintaining his physical presence at the Hellsing manner. Every time he pondered such questions as where did Alucard go, what was he doing, and who was he seeing. Sometimes he wondered what the vampire was feeling because wherever these freaky mind trips took him, they were definitely a full sensory experience.
Lately, Alucard seemed troubled and preoccupied by a goal that eluded him. Each night he searched for something, someone, he could not find. That woman? Perhaps Alucard searched for the mysterious and beautiful Willene who Arthur had seen once in his life when he was young. The vampire loved her obsessively.
Presently, Alucard sat in the chair, groaning and sweating with the apparent physical strain. His thin eyebrows drew together over his pointed nose, his forehead folding into numerous wrinkles like an accordion. The endeavor appeared to be draining him body and mind. If he had a soul, that would be taxed as well.
"Alucard? Stop it!" Arthur commanded him when a thin ribbon of blood began to trickle from his nose.
The vampire could not afford to lose any life sustaining blood. He barely subsisted off of blood taken by needles from the few willing donors they found.
"Stop it this instant!" Arthur bellowed, slamming the palm of his hand down on his desk.
"No! I won't!" Alucard answered, opening his eyes. His eyes were like two red glowing coals taken straight from the fires of hell. "I've almost - "
The words died in his throat when he suddenly broke through that invisible wall shielding her presence. The comforting familiarity of touching her psyche instantly soothed his troubled mind before seeping into his tense body. The outline of her body drew itself on his brain. He knew her curves so well. His fingers twitched with the memory of tracing those curves with his hands. Their separation had not been a long but every minute had seemed like an eternity.
"I found her," he breathed, afraid to speak much louder because he did not want the tenuous connection he had fought so hard to make to be broken.
Alucard sighed when her form became a darkened silhouette. The details of her face filled in next like a picture being drawn by an invisible hand. Her familiar features gradually appeared hazy, dream-like at first as if he were viewing her through a filmy screen then coming into sharp focus with vivid color. She stood in a forest, leaning against a tree. Her clothing looked like that of an Arabian belly dancer rather than the layered, body concealing raiment of the gypsies. The ambient green light of her hazel eyes glimmered in the darkness reflecting the light of the moon. She looked sad. Unfortunately, she always looked sad. Her perpetual forlorn state actually enhanced her beauty to him. Mostly because her sorrow arose from her desire to be with him and missing him so desperately.
"Beautiful," he murmured.
"Alucard, don't - " Before Arthur could issue the complete order, the impetuous vampire disappeared so quickly and completely it would be easy to believe he had been a figment of the imagination all along. Arthur sighed in frustration, rubbing his temples in an effort to stave off the headache that exploded behind his eyes. What an infuriatingly disobedient creature. "Dammit, Alucard."
~..'..~
"Miss me?" Alucard asked, taking his corporeal shape in front of her after teleporting across the miles that separated them.
Willie did not act surprised or frightened. Her arms enveloped his slim waist, her face pressing into the white ruffles of his fancy white silk shirt. Perhaps she knew she had gone beyond the borders of the protective enchantment that had hidden her from him.
"Don't ask such a stupidly obvious question," she chastised him, in no mood for his derisive humor.
Alucard used his forefinger to tip up her chin in order to ravage her lips. He kissed her hungrily with violent intensity to convey the depth of his longing. He had missed her terribly. Unaware of his nosebleed, the blood smeared across their lips and penetrated their mouths when his tongue sought hers.
A wildfire of wanton desire raged through Willie's body upon tasting his coppery blood. Her mouth pulled away from his so she could suck in a noisy, wheezing breath.
"Willene," he exhaled in an excited rush upon seeing her eyes. They were positively scintillating, agleam with an inner light that sparked a fire in his cold, dead heart making it beat faster - and it beat just for her.
Her parted lips revealed her needle like fangs designed for blood letting. She was gorgeous; a dark creature of his making and the woman he had loved for centuries. His first vampire, his second wife, his eternal lover, his everything.
"I will never be free of you, will I?" Her words were more of a statement rather than a question.
Alucard chuckled lightly, more out of irony rather than mirth. The question had to be purely rhetorical, but he answered her regardless. "Of course not. You're mine. You've always been mine. You will always be mine."
Willie took hold of his thin but muscular upper arms, the intense gaze from his smoldering eyes burning into her. He still held her prisoner. An ache, pulsating waves of dull agony began in her heart, growing bigger like ever widening circles in water after a pebble has been dropped in. A series of images of the man who put Helena's nail there flowed through her mind. The young friendly priest, his kind green eyes, his sympathetic words, his gentle touched that assisted through her worst sorrows. The stony-hearted religious fanatic, hellbent on pursuing heavenly endeavors to rid the world of his personally perceived evil using his holy blades inscribed with scripture and sanctified with Christian sentiment. Those swords could carve away all things unrighteous and demonic from its human host. He could kill her, severing her immortality. He could set her free from the man standing in front of her. Only one path to freedom lay before her, but that route remained inconceivable.
"Why are you thinking that? Stop it," Alucard hissed, pushing her away.
"You should leave," she told him, turning her back to him.
"What has happened to you?! Who has poisoned your mind this way?!" he demanded to know, yelling at her back while she strode from him with slow, plodding steps.
"You've changed. Is it so impossible for me to change too?"
"I thought you loved me." He hated the own sound of his voice when he said those words. The fretful, imploring tone annoyed him. Only she could make him weak. Perhaps he would be better off without her. However, his heart wanted what it wanted and it had always been set on her. Dozens of other women had had come and gone in his life, wandering through his mind and his bed like stray dreams. But she always remained in his heart.
"I do love you. But a heart can only take so much before it breaks and breaks for good. I've told you this," she sighed like the long-suffering lover she is.
"Is this about Noah? Or your children?"
"Both. Losing Gannon was difficult enough. I can't imagine the pain of what it will be like to watch my children die one by one. And Noah, it's like - "
"It's like Gannon has come back into your life. Seeing him die will be like experiencing Gannon's death all over again. I understand."
"Do you?" she challenged, whirling around to look at him.
"I do. There was a woman named Mina Harker," he confessed, studying Willie for an adverse reaction. When she did not react negatively, or in an any way whatsoever, her face remaining passive, emotionless, disappointment blossomed in his chest making it contract around his lungs. He cleared his throat before continuing to speak. "Mina was the spitting image of you. I viewed her as my second chance at the happiness I would never have with you."
Willie visibly flinched, the verbal arrow carefully aimed at her heart striking its mark. Vlad's ability to issue hateful, emotionally damaging comments had carried over to Alucard in spades. She refused to be petty, not reminding him that he had forsaken her for another woman many times before. She had almost been killed while he dallied with another woman which was how she wound up in Gannon's arms in the first place.
Taking a deep breath, she calmly responded, "I suppose you do understand."
Then she smiled; a gracious, tragic smile that perfectly expressed her mixed emotions of eternal love and enduring melancholy. She walked back to him, placing a gentle kiss on his lips.
"Just like with you, my love, there may be others, but there will always, always, be you. I am yours for an eternity. No matter what."
"Willene," he mumbled, stunned by her conditional pledge. He placed his hand on the back of her neck, pulling her toward him for another savage kiss.
"I love you," she exhaled when their mouths broke apart. She peeled his hand away from the back of her neck and shook out of his loose one armed grip of her shoulders. "Leave. Hurry. Before they know you're here."
She feared there would be a war if he stayed much longer. The wolves would arrive and a dreadful confrontation would be inevitable.
"Until next time, Willene, my love." Alucard vanished without further adieu. He never had been one for long good-byes.
"Until next time," Willie whispered to the empty forest, unsure if there would be a next time.
Thank you for reading! I must have rewritten this a dozen times. I apologize if I missed any typos or errors. I really struggled with this particular chapter. I hope you enjoyed it!