Quinn Shalom...

I just set another pan of biscuits in the warmer when the smell of smoke and Ravers hit my nose and sent me running for the sink basin to vomit for the millionth time this week. I was well past today's lunch and breakfast and down past last night's dinner. Soon, I was sure I'd be seeing my toenails in the stainless-steel sink.

"Sorry, Luna... uh, Miss Shalom," one of the new wolves said. Trent had come looking for his sister who was mated into the Monarch Mountain pack. He knew I hated being called Luna, especially after I practically ate him alive. He begged for forgiveness saying his wolf recognized me as an alpha female and the term his generation used had come out on accident. We gained seven werewolves in our little group, all trying to find survivors of their packs, all were rescued from Ravers as Saul was.

The Vampire Luca's beloved, Amelia came in from helping Greyson and Lance with the wounded; her hand flew over her mouth. "Oh Jeez! Go shower before you come in here. Honestly, Gaulo, two pregnant women here!" The three humans and young wolf looked apologetic.

The dark-haired young man smiled sheepishly at his older sister, "Sorry Amelia, we're starved. We just finished burning the dead Ravers from the airport. There were six."

"Wash first, food after! Vámonos!" She made a shooing motion with her hand as I sipped chilled ginger tea. "Ay dios. Sorry, Shalom. Are you okay?"

I just nodded, croaking out one word, "Fine."

I wrote the number six under the word airport on a white board. Lance was trying to figure out their search and hunt pattern. The highway through town and the airport had the highest numbers, almost like the Ravers knew we would try to leave that way. I turned from the board and dry heaved again. I had never been as miserable as I was during this pregnancy. All I wanted to do was curl up in bed, but the constant waves of Ravers meant no one was getting any rest. Bump kicked me and turned so I rubbed his head.

Amelia giggled, and I looked at her. Her eyes were glazed, that meant Luca was speaking to her. It was a soulmate thing I hope to never experience. If Jake could feel my emotions and touch my mind he would know I felt nothing but hatred for him and fear of him. I thought I had something like it with Ken then I learned he lied to me and cheated on me for almost a decade. Soulmates were just another fairytale to me. Real love was built through common interest and hard work, and Luca and Amelia worked hard to build what they had been blessed with.

Amelia was one of the sweetest people I ever met, always thinking about others, like her mother Anita. Anita's father was a vampire. Anita's mother Herlinda had been changed after their five children were born. Amelia had an aunt, Anita's sister Vernita, and two cousins who changed successfully like Herlinda. Anita stayed human because her husband Juan was, and they feared he wouldn't survive the change. I really hoped that Amelia would turn when Luca bit her to turn her and not die.

They decided to start their family before she was turned like her grandfather and grandmother had, because nonhumans had much lower and slower reproduction rates than humans, once Amelia became a vampire, she would be lucky to get pregnant every few decades.

Amelia and Luca also made me smile because they so obviously adored each other, but if I had met Luca without her first, I think I would have been terrified and would have run away as fast as my wolf legs could carry me. Luca loved her with everything he was, enough to leave his coven and risk his life as a renegade or a rogue vampire.

He had been in Canada trying to secure a place with a Covenant Coven there when the Revelation Night came. He fought his way across Colorado to the remote riverside community near Greenhorn Mountain. He said he could feel she lived, even though she hadn't been turned yet. Nothing could separate them. It reminded me of the books Molly was so fond of, I learned that the author was a turned human. I missed Molly; she would have been enamored with their story.

"Luca says he hates eating with werewolves, dinner and an all-male bootie show isn't his thing," Amelia's voice bubbled with amusement, then she added with concern, "Shalom, maybe you should go lay down. You're so pale."

"I'm fine." I lied as I pulled a pan of bacon and hamburger patties out of the second oven and began forking them into a warming pan.

I was the best shot in town and could hit anything within half a mile, but I couldn't fight or run anymore so I kept everyone fed. All those years as a waitress and short-order cook were finally paying off. I shook my head in amusement at Luca's remark, naked wolves were something I was still getting used to.

"I just can't handle the smell of Ravers."

"Ohhh, mama," she cooed, rubbing my belly. "You are the strongest person I know. Greyson told me how hard it was for a female werewolf to carry a child alone, but I understand why you do not call that bastardo. I still cannot believe you let William live. I would have cut out his heart."

Her eyes held a mix of fierceness and sorrow for my losses. She and Luca both offered to 'handle' William if his beating heart offended me. Luca even offered to hunt down Jake for me, but the Alpha Commander's work with the survivors outside the quarantine zone was too important for me to have him killed because of our unfortunate one-night stand.

I hugged her, "Thank you Amelia, I just...."

The fire alarm went off. It was the signal that Ravers were in the building.

VvvvvV

Saul decided chaos was a good word for what was going on. For the last two days, wave after wave of Ravers wandered up the roads into their town. Will joked about a game called the Last of Us and Luca laughed. Both stared at Saul slack-jawed when he said he didn't know what that was. They tried to explain the zombie apocalypse fight-or-die video game, but Saul just looked at them blankly. Will and Gaulo, who was Amelia's brother, and Luca were gamer-bros.

In the last few weeks, they had become friends through hours spent playing Call of Duty and Halo. But Saul suspected that Luca and Gaulo had only gotten close to Will because Amelia hated Will and wanted him kept away from Shalom. As they talked about the game, Saul and Will finished eating the food Shalom packed in Luca's backpack while the vampire sipped from a thermos of warm liver and broth puree. Saul never realized how little blood vampires really needed, only a few ounces a week unless they were severely wounded.

They were about to shift back into their wolves for another patrol when the walkie talkie crackled. Will and Saul could communicate through their family pack link, and Luca could talk one-way through his bond with Amelia, but to communicate with everyone else, Gaulo and his father Juan rigged relay towers for the terrain, so they could reach each other on the radios in case of emergencies.

The signal was scratchy and broken as they heard Gaulo's voice and a popping sound, "Large group came up 96... thirty or fo-ty rav... school breached... evac to Buena..."

In the background was the screech of a hunting vampire Raver and more popping sounds that could only be gunfire. Saul could hear Shalom shouting something unintelligible. His wolf had his fur on before Saul realized he was shifting. Luca was already blurring ahead of them. He left the wolves behind with his vampire speed. It was the first time in Saul's life, he wished he was born a vampire and not a wolf. Will was at his shoulder as their silver wolves pushed their speed to its limits.

Looking toward the school, Saul realized there were far more than 30 or 40. It looked like every Raver from the cities was pouring up the two main roads into the town. He could feel Will's panic. They left Shalom alone because they thought the town was secure. They ran headlong into the battle, the sound of gunfire from the school kept their hope intact.

VvvvvV

Quinn Shalom...

I was cornered and almost out of ammo, I prayed the children would escape. Gaulo and I held one hall as the human cousins, Bill and Stan held the other. Herlinda pulled the alarm, then she and Juan sacrificed themselves to get the kids out of the gymnasium. Anita and Amelia were trying to get our eight children out through the side with Lance and Greyson. Even the wounded were fighting, dying, but we were being over-run. We heard the shrieks of Vampire Ravers and the howls of Werewolf Ravers echoing in the halls and knew...

We knew we would be lucky if anyone survived tonight.

Anita's scream cut off suddenly and was followed by shots and Amelia shouting curses in Spanish. Gaulo choked back a sob as he continued to target and shoot the oncoming horde. We had to hold this hall until the kids made it through the maintenance exit, but there were just too many Ravers. Looking over my shoulder, I saw the boys murdered, cousins who survived the Revelation Night because they were cave camping, died together now. It meant Gaulo and I had Ravers coming at us from two directions. He yanked down the gate between us and his sister's group, shooting while I padlocked it.

More came around the corner and charged us as Gaulo grabbed me by the arm and shoved me hard toward the side hall before he yanked down the metal chain gate between us, fumbling with something on his belt.

"Gaulo, No!"

"Run, Shalom!" he shouted at me, as he turned to fire into the dozen Ravers rushing toward him.

He slashed at them with a machete as they got closer. I ran from his dying screams. A vampire Raver tackled me into a wall and bit down hard onto my arm. I put my last bullet into his brain then locked myself in a faculty office. The pounding on the door started immediately. I grabbed the chair and raised it to smash the window, but the sight outside had me frozen.

Beyond the window stood a werewolf warform as large as the ones that attacked my family on the Revelation Night. The giant gray and silver beast with a horrifyingly familiar shoulder tattoo stared at me with white eyes. It stepped out of my nightmares of the Revelation Night into the nightmare this night had become.

VvvvvV

Saul desperately tried to catch Shalom's scent in the chaos, as he and Will killed Raver after Raver. Behind the school, they heard shouting and shooting. There was a brilliant flash of Fae Light. It had to be Greyson; he was the only Fae in their group. Will ran for the Track and Field area with Saul right behind. Dozens of dead Ravers littered the ground, some looked charred to death, others were decapitated. Luca's sword was sticking out of one's head.

A very wounded Greyson was standing in front of Lance who was holding two children, and Amelia was holding a badly injured Luca in her arms as he laid on the ground. She cut her wrist and was pressing it against his mouth. There were five more children cowering behind them against the chain-link fence.

Three Vampire Ravers were throwing themselves against a shimmering wall of golden white light. They could see Greyson weakening with each blow, so they howled in challenge and threw themselves at the Ravers. In moments, the three vampires were dead, and Saul shifted to his skin.

"Where's Shalom?" Saul demanded.

"She's still in the school with Gaulo," Amelia said tearfully as she wrapped her wrist. Luca was unconscious but breathing. "They were going to lock themselves in the administrative offices."

Saul and Will helped them carry Luca to a waiting van. Lance got in the driver seat while Greyson treated Luca's wounds.

Closing the door, Saul looked Lance in the eye, warning. "Don't stop for anything or anyone. Remember what I told you. If we miss the rendezvous in Buena, get out of the QZ and find the Fae called Galen Morganason, through my friend Bianca Lumin at the Mirror Mirror Club in New York. Trust no one else."

As they drove away, Will's wolf was already running toward the school. Saul followed, praying Shalom and Gaulo made it into the admin offices which had been set up as safe rooms after the Columbine school shooting. The heavy metal doors, concrete walls, and bullet proof glass were made to stop bullets. It should keep the Ravers out for a short while, or so they hoped.

Their paws slid on the smooth floors as their wolves snuck through the school following Shalom's scent. They found Gaulo, his belt clipped with a carabiner to a metal security drop gate. He had been half eaten, and his blood drained until there was none to drip from his ghastly wounds, but his remaining weight kept the gate down. They could see Shalom's pistol on the floor down the hall next to a dead vampire Raver.

Will shifted and unhooked Gaulo's belt lowering what was left of him to the floor before pulling up the gate. He pulled the gate back down behind them, so they couldn't be flanked. He didn't wipe the tears that dripped down his face. They crept down the hall toward the offices, one of the doors was ripped from the hinges. Inside, the room was splattered with the remains of at least two Vampire Ravers, maybe more. The bulletproof window was broken inward, and beyond it, they saw Shalom was on the ground in the middle of at least a dozen werewolf Ravers.

VvvvvV

Quinn Shalom...

The heavy security door bowed and buckled as it was being destroyed, but I was frozen in place. I wasn't sure if what I saw beyond the glass was real or a hallucination from being bitten.

'Our eldest father,' my wolf murmured in recognition, but I had no idea what she was talking about.

Sometimes I hated her cryptic voice. I put my hand on the cold pane and the monster mimicked me. The sound of tearing metal drew me out of my shock, and I looked over my shoulder in time to see the door ripped off its hinges. At the same moment, the window next to the one I was in front of, shattered inward.

The giant silver-gray werewolf Raver pounced on the vampire Ravers, tearing one in half and shaking the other until its body came apart. Blood and gore were everywhere, even dripping off the ceiling. I was backed into the corner between the wall and the window. He was as large as Jake with similar coloring and bore the same shoulder tattoo as Saul and Will had. A signet ring, like Jacob's ring around my neck, glinted on his right ring finger.

Hands over my stomach, I knew I was dead. The gray Raver approached me, making a whimpering sound in his throat. He put his cold nose on the spot where Jake marked me, then he sniffed my belly, pushing my hands aside gently with his enormous snout. His drool dripping on my blood splattered maternity shirt as he nipped at it in a surprisingly gentle way. My pup who had been perfectly still for the last hour decided to move and kick violently to greet the monster that was about to murder us. It rubbed its head against the kicks with a low growling noise. I couldn't stop the tears running down my face. I didn't care if I died, but I wanted my child to live.

"Please, let us go." I whispered out, as I foolishly prayed for grace. I decided that I must have lost my mind because I was pleading for mercy from a Raver, but my Aunt Judith always said the Lord protects children and fools.

The gray Raver suddenly turned away, snarling as two more vampire Ravers rushed into the room. While they fought, I climbed over the broken glass and ran for the parking lot. I needed to get away from it. A vampire Raver tackled me but was instantly ripped away by a rusty brown wolf Raver, who also bore a shoulder tattoo like Saul's. He paced around me snapping and growling in challenge. His giant warform was much broader than Saul and Will's. In moments, the Gray was standing over me, sniffing me from head to foot. He growled and howled, then a dozen wolves of many colors with the same tattoo, were killing everything around them, except me.

The giant Gray nosed my belly and my pup kicked him again. Its white eyes stared at me. I didn't blink or cry anymore; I was in shock. My wolf was yelling at me to stand up, and hold up my head, to show them I was their alpha female. So, I did what she said, as he nudged me forward. Slowly, I made my way toward my jeep, one hand over my son, the other hand held out for the Ravers to sniff and lick. My wolf told me to touch each one, but I couldn't stop trembling. Finally, I got to the jeep, and opened the door. The Gray Raver rubbed his head on my bump and my cheek again, then I got in. I was shaking so hard I could barely start the stupid thing or drive out of the parking lot. The Ravers followed. I had no idea what was going on, but of one thing I was certain, these werewolf Ravers were protecting me and my pup.

Saul and Will gaped at the giant silverback warform, it was standing over Shalom snarling while the others killed anything that approached her. It looked like they were protecting her. All of them had the Monarch Mountain tattoo scars visible through their fur. Saul knew who that giant gray wolf once was and who the ruddy brown next to him was too. The two last survivors of their family who were home at Monarch Mountain on the Revelation Night.

Will breathed out, "Fuuuuuuck. It's our grandfather and Richard."

Richard was his sister Julia's mate and was the current Alpha of Monarch Mountain until Will came of age or Jake stepped down from being the Alpha Commander.

Saul glanced over to see Will was holding out the cellphone he always had in a pouch around his neck, recording the surreal scene before them. They watched in the flickering glow of the solar lot-lights, as their grandfather urged Shalom to move to her jeep. Every Raver wolf she passed, whined and sniffed her belly as she placed a trembling hand on each one's head or shoulder. She looked terrified with one hand over her baby bump and the other outstretched to the last survivors of the Monarch Mountain pack. The Raver who had once been Joshua Vanguard, the third Monarch, rubbed his monstrous wolf head against her face and her belly before she got in the jeep.

Saul was proud that she did not cower or bend her neck to him or any of them, but Saul knew she had to be terrified. His grandfather's warform looked exactly like Jake's. She managed to get into the jeep and start it before driving out of the parking lot very slowly. The Monarch Mountain Ravers followed, killing anything that tried to chase her. Saul and Will followed them as their wolves.

Shalom stopped in the middle of the road at the edge of town, a large group of mixed Ravers were gathered ahead of her. The Gray Raver howled a war cry and they charged those Ravers ahead of her. Shalom sped through the group and away into the darkness as Saul and Will joined the last warrior wolves of their pack who were fighting to secure the escape of the Monarchy's heir.

When all the other Ravers were dead, the Monarch Mountain Ravers surrounded Will and Saul, sniffing and snarling. Saul took the chance to shift from his warform to his skin. He stood bravely, facing his worst fear, a family member who had become a Raver; the most powerful living alpha on the continent potentially reduced to a mindless killing machine was terrifying. But after seeing Joshua and Richard with Shalom, Saul tried to have hope that there was something more than the monster left. He swallowed as he said words he never thought he would say to someone living a fate worse than death. "Grandpa Joshua, it's Saul... and Jonah."

Will's warform growled slightly at his first name, but it was the only name their grandfather would ever call him by. While the Ravers circled them, Saul prayed to their Goddess that they would not get eaten alive tonight.

Their grandfather's gray Raver walked around Will and Saul sniffing them and whining then Joshua and Richard growled back and forth. Saul's wolf pressed the family link, but he couldn't speak to them. The gray Raver put his nose on Saul's tattoo and then his forehead against Saul's. He did the same to Will.

Saul was glad that at least part of his grandpa's mind remained, and he wondered if it were true of other Ravers. Saul knew all of these wolves, they were the most powerful warriors of the most powerful pack on the continent, all had alpha blood. All had been reduced to something less than a werewolf, but something far more dangerous. As they were sniffing Saul and Will, they seemed to know they were two werewolves of the Monarch pack.

Suddenly, their grandfather turned his head into the distance and whined. Shalom's wolf whimpered out to Saul's wolf for help then was gone. Grandpa Joshua and Richard turned and ran in the direction that Shalom drove off. Will and Saul dropped into their wolves and darted ahead.

Many miles down the road they found Shalom's jeep with the front end crushed and a dead elk in the road in front of it. The door was open and Shalom was gone. Will's wolf searched around frantically for her trail. But Saul knew he wouldn't find it. Her scent simply vanished. She never stepped out of the vehicle; someone had taken her from it. Someone who knew how to make it so a werewolf couldn't follow. Saul leaned back on the side of the jeep, rubbing his forehead.

Will shifted to his skin. "I can't find any trace of her scent."

"You won't. Can't you smell the scent of slippery elm and pepperwood bark?" Saul demanded.

Will shook his head as several of the Monarch Mountain Ravers began eating the elk.

Will asked, "What does tree bark have to do with anything?"

Saul growled, "It means whoever took Shalom used its dust to block her scent, and it was probably a dark fae."