Chapter 34

~Derek POV~

I heard Natalie's shrieking before I even got down the stairs good.

"I will avenge what you stole from me!" Her witch-like tone made me want to rip her head off, and that's exactly what I planned to do regardless. "Isaac! Ethan! Front row and center! NOW!" Several of my wolves had yet to make it down yet, but I was relieved to see Jared coming in from the den, until he opened his mouth anyway.

"Ding dong, the bitch is here." He said, flashing me his hotshot smile. "No time for jokes!" I growled, frustrated by his lack of care for the situation.

"Derek," Farren's voice came from right over my left shoulder. I turned, looking into her worry colored eyes. "There's an entire army outside that door. When she realizes we're not playing her game, she's going to break down that door."

I knew what it meant. This fight would mean a lot of bloodshed, and there weren't a whole lot of us right now. For almost a year now, we'd been making hair-raising runs, acquiring people for our cause, but we still only amounted to a handful. Altogether, my pack came to twenty, seven of which were younger than twenty-one. So many young lives…

The vampires reached a count of thirty-five, and rarely did they come out into the light to speak, so sometimes you forgot they were here. But still, fifty-five people, not adding Spencer, Aaden and myself, amounted to nothing considering the King's army. My bets were that he'd harbor at least two hundred. We were outnumbered three to one in that equation. And he probably had spent time recruiting more.

The scream of a young vampire girl startled me out of my thoughts. Looking back, the door was beginning to crumble under the fight of the enemy to get in. "Ruth, get away from the door!" I yelled, and she listened just in time, as the hulkish man Natalie had found completely dismantled the entrance door. "Everybody get ready!"

"Oh, you don't have to get ready," Natalie purred, grinning evilly upon laying eyes on me, "we're already here. NOW!" She yelled, and from her command, what looked like hundreds of vampires and wolves flooded around her.

I braced myself as the biggest guy came at me, slamming into me. It felt like I'd been thrown into a concrete wall, but I steadied myself quickly, regaining my stance and unsheathed my claws. My eyes went red, focusing in on my enemy. "Where's your little Luna?" Natalie's voice came over the big guy's breathing. "Nowhere you'll find her!" I yelled, jumping forward and delivering a strong blow to the guy's chest, claws first. He heaved, turned and slammed his fist into my temple, making me dizzy.

To my left, Farren struggled to fight off two vampire women, Jared to her side, attempting to help, but falling under the pressure of another wolf that leapt on his back. The guy came at me again when he thought I was out of it, but I redirected his upcoming blow, using his heaviness against him, and thrust out my foot, catching his own and causing him to fall through the wall. He left a gaping hole, but was undeterred, and he came at me again.

"Do you ever give up?" I asked, jumping out of his way again as he barreled towards me. A scream erupted from my right, and I turned, watching one of my young wolves collapse to the floor, drowning in her own blood. "Shit!" I hissed, caught off guard by the big guy again.

He pushed me through the hole in the wall he'd created, then followed, burying a heavy fist in my stomach. I lost my breath, as well as my grounding, and fell to the floor. "Natalie told me to draw it out, so here we go." With his words, his foot struck out, landing across my face. Blood spurted from my mouth, and I felt my neck pop. That can't be good.

It hurt like all hell, but I remembered something my father once told me. "If your attacker believes that he's got you, it will never be enough to just kill you. Give him the advantage…then go for the fucking throat." I felt power race through my veins, and I curled into myself, allowing him to think I was down. I drove my claws into my thigh, causing the healing process to kick into overdrive.

"Not much to you for being the Alpha of Alphas." There was his annoying voice again. That was alright, because in about twelve seconds, he'd be missing his vocal cords. Permanently.

He landed an extra blow to my back before making his last, huge mistake: He turned, thinking he'd broken my neck, and began to walk away. In one perfect movement, I was back on my feet, and he had just comprehended that he hadn't gained the Alpha status, when I tore his trachea from his throat.

His hands reached up, clasping over the ragged hole as he slid to the ground. "Next time, make sure I'm really down for the count." With that, I walked out, leaving him in an ever growing puddle of red.

I flew from the sheetrock cave, landing a blow to the back of someone's head before they caught their target, which happened to be Vlad. Vlad! He couldn't be back already!

"Why the hell aren't you with Aaden?!" I growled, my eyes going red again. "She's fine, I had to come back. You need every able, available pair of hands you can get!"

I heard another commotion from the side room, and rushed in, finding three more people who were not ours. They were beating the hell out of Amy, and Vlad and I caught two of them off guard, breaking their necks, as Amy delivered a dangerous blow to the chest with her heeled boot. Just to make sure, once the guy was down, I crushed his throat with my foot.

After mere seconds, I called for Farren. She came from another side room and approached slowly, listening for more people. "Was that all of them?"

"We believe so, body count has already reached twenty-five. She had a lot of people for such a short notice trip."

I sighed, then sullenly leaned down to pick up Belinda's body. "I'm sorry Derek," Farren said. "She was only seventeen…" My thoughts immediately shifted to the child Aaden was carrying. Staring into Belinda's vacant, cold eyes made my spine freeze. Eventually, if we didn't win, this would be my son or daughter, and they'd be even younger.

Angrily, I pushed those thoughts aside, and laid her small body onto some tarp someone had brought in. "Give her a proper burial…right beside Erica and Boyd."

"Derek, I just got a report." "Go on," I said, not taking my eyes from Belinda's body. "Body count just went to thirty-three, and that was the last of them." "Good."

"But Derek?" I turned to look at Farren.

"Natalie was not one of them."

~Aaden POV~

I tried to stay still in the little hut that Vlad had left me in. But in all the excitement, the baby was kicking up a storm, sending a new spike of dull pain through me every few seconds. I rubbed my belly, trying to sooth my little one without making a lot of sound. Vlad had been very insistent on my quietness.

I went to worrying about Spencer again. Vlad had said that when they went to retrieve him from his room, he wasn't there. As far as I knew, he'd not been found since. I watched the rain falling through the tiny window in the far corner of the room, the darkness of the night beginning to give way to the first signs of dawn.

It was about forty-five minutes later, and I had been drifting off when I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up. I stopped breathing for a few seconds, trying to detect what or who was around.

Leaves rustled in the wind, rain pelted the roof, thunder sounded in the distance. Something wasn't right though. I didn't dare speak out, for fear that this guest wasn't welcome. I very quietly crept to the darkest corner of the hut, breathing silently and waited.

To my horror, I saw an approaching shadow appear in the doorway as lightning flashed. "Come out, come out little Luna." Came Natalie's purr.

I'd remember that voice until the day I died. She knew I was in here, so there was no use in trying to hide, but I couldn't make myself go out into her line of sight. I knew if she got the chance, she'd pounce on me. With a hand on my belly, I prayed that Derek would find us quickly.

"I know you're in there little Luna. Little human Luna." She snickered at her own cleverness, and a surge of anger filled me. She'd better be glad I wasn't a wolf and was pregnant, otherwise I would have flown out and kicked her ass. "Come out, or I'm coming in. There's no use in hiding, I could smell you from the house. I at least like to give my prey a little leeway in running." I gulped, but decided it was time to face her with dignity.

Carefully and slowly, I appeared in the doorway. "Ah, there we go. See? That wasn't so-" Her angry eyes flew to my risen belly. In response, she began to cackle. "You don't even need me to kill you!" She laughed, "You've already done it to yourself! I knew you were stupid, but goodness." She drew closer to me, her eyes expressing the want to tear into me. "I'm not as stupid as you," I attempted to reel in my rage, but it was coming out anyway. "Come again?" She said, looking as though she wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch my stomach. "I know I will make it through this." "You know nothing! You're an idiot! If you'd known at all what not to do, you wouldn't be in this situation. This is even better than the gruesome death I'd planned out for you! I don't have to kill you, I can just sit back and watch as Derek loses his mate because of something he created. I should thank you."

White hot fury shot through me, and I spoke through the onslaught of the baby's kicks, leaning almost entirely into her. She didn't budge, but looked me in the eye when I spoke. "When this baby is here," my limbs were shaking in my anger, "I will become the Luna wolf. And once my husband, pack, friends and I have completely wiped out your defense, I will be coming for you."

Her face remained emotionless, but her eyes sparked for a second.

"We'll see about that."

With those words, she rocketed into the woods. All of my breath left me, and the adrenaline that had been keeping me standing vanished. I spun around and sat on the closest thing I could, for fear that I would fall down.

It wasn't three minutes later when Derek's arms surrounded me. "I smell her all over this place, what happened?" "Just a friendly chat," I said irritably. "She did nothing to you?" "Nothing physically, she just bullshitted. Talking about 'my gruesome death' and whatnot." "But she didn't kill you…" "It was the baby," I finally said. "The baby?" "Yes! The baby!" I shouted, "She didn't kill me, because she thinks she's already got it figured out. She thinks the baby will take care of the job. We'll show her." I growled.

I was taken aback by Derek's laughter. "You scare me sometimes." "What?" He looked down into my face. "Of all the things you could be pissed with her over, you're upset because she spoke badly of your pregnancy?" "Well sorry," I said, "been getting a lot of hell here too about it. Guess it was the last straw."

With that, we hugged and laughed over it. "Where is Spencer by the way?"

"That dumbass?" I sighed, "What now?"

"He hid under his bed and read a book until it was over." "Are you shitting me?" "Not in the least."

**Hey everyone! What a chapter this was to write! Stayed on up into the early morning doing so, and I hope you all enjoyed! We'll really find out what happens with Natalie eventually, promise! Until then, please R&R and have a good day!**