Jake...

Late evening on the Revelation Night...

We were driving into the first snowstorm of the season. It was blowing down across the mountains and onto the plains. I dreaded driving in the city with the icy roads and careless urban drivers, and the highway up into the mountains wasn't going to be any better. I hoped going south to the Springs then into the mountains, would get us past the worst of the storm that was shutting down Denver. My hopes to be at my sister's by midnight were foiled by mother nature. Highway 24 traffic was very light because everyone with any sense was already home safe. Maybe, just maybe we could make it into the mountains and home by 2AM.

William, my youngest brother, was rambling on about some new conquest. I had stopped listening somewhere back around the state line. The stereo blared the emergency broadcast tone, which was odd because we had the satellite radio on. I almost ripped it out of the dash turning it off. That sound was made to annoy human ears; to werewolf ears, it was unbearable.

"Hey, I was listening to that station," Will complained.

"No, you weren't you were talking about Candy... still," I snarled back.

"Brandy, her name is Brandy. I haven't been talking about Candy for over an hour."

Rolling my eyes as I looked at him sideways, before reaching over to Gibbs slap the back of his head.

"Maannnnn," he whined, smoothing his hair.

"What happened to finding your mate, baby brother?" I taunted.

"I'm twenty and haven't even got a whiff, I am just having a little fun while I wait." He sounded grumpy that I brought it up." Besides, not everyone can be all stoic about it like you. If I haven't found my mate by the time I'm 50, just kill me."

I laughed at him; werewolves lived for hundreds of years so his impatience entertained me. "Sometimes there are more important things than mates. I believe there will be plenty of time to look for mine after we go public, and I still have hope that she might just wander into my life someday. Right place, right time."

"Yeah, whatever, somed... Look out!" Will exclaimed suddenly as the car ahead of us spun out trying to avoid something in the road.

In the horizontal blowing snow, I could just make out a wolf warform.

"WOAH! What is wrong with him?" Will gasped, turning in his seat to try to see where the wolf went.

"I don't know, but we have to get him out of sight before the humans realize what he is." I slammed the truck into park and undid my seatbelt in the next second. I was the third highest prestige wolf on this continent only after my older brother and grandfather. Humans did not yet know of our existence, and that wolf in the road had some explaining to do.

"Come on, Will."

We ran back down the empty road in human form. I couldn't see the wolf, but I could smell him. He smelled too aggressive; more than like he was hunting, protecting a mate, or challenging a rival. The smell was too strong to be normal and there was something else in the air and snow. Something like a female's heat, it was a sweet smell mixed with blood.

"Jake?" My brother sounded scared.

"I can smell him, Will. Be careful."

"No, not him, the air... it... I feel..." He was panting, trying to talk, then he blurted out in a rush of panic, "Jake, I'm losing control of my wolf."

"Fight it, Will." I couldn't help him. The same thing was happening to me. Dark emotions swirled in me like the snowflakes swirling around me. Predatory urges overwhelmed everything. The strange wolf jumped at me from the blinding snow, and I ripped him in half. My wolf growled enraged, how dare that pathetic theta challenge me. I was more than he ever would be. My fur rippled over my skin, as I fought to regain control. Since I first shifted almost a century ago, I hadn't lost control of my wolf until this night.

VvvvV

I was panting from running, I heard screams of hunting vampires and howls of mad wolves. I was barely in control of my wolf, as I fought to kill two vampires. We killed so many wolves and vampires tonight. All dominant males, all completely and homicidally insane.

Two teenage girls were cowering behind Will's wolf as he paced protectively in front of them. Vampires were faster than us, but warform wolves were stronger, it was usually a test of skill, but tonight none of that mattered, only the most vicious survived. When the two mad vampires were dead, I forced my skin over my fur. My mouth tasted like blood and chemicals... And something sickly sweet. My head was pounding like I went on a three-day bender. I knew I looked rough, I had been shot, clawed, bitten, and stabbed. I felt like I've been through a war in one night. A war I couldn't remember.

"It's okay," I said raggedly, "We're here to protect you." They stared at us wide-eyed. "Do you have a storm shelter or safe room in your house." I knew I needed to get them out of the open.

The older one shook her head.

"You're naked," the younger one pointed out.

I couldn't help the half-smile, "Well, our wolves don't like to wear clothes. We need to get you to a safe place; you can't stay here."

"Uh, our brother works at the bank on Meridian, they are trapped in the vault. He sent us a text. I have it on my phone. He said there were vampires attacking them. You're really real, vampires, werewolves, you're all real. Just like Twilight."

I didn't think I ever heard anyone talk as fast as the little red head.

"Yes, but something is wrong with the ones who are attacking everyone. They are sick. We need to get you to safety," I reminded.

"Wha... why c-can't h-he change? What h-happened t-to the others?" The older strawberry blonde stammered, pointing at Will's wolf.

"He can't change until he heals more, or he could lose his eye. I don't know what happened to the others, there is something in the air. It's making the males unnaturally aggressive. He won't hurt you. He just can't shift back yet."

Both nodded as if they understood, but I didn't understand it myself. I didn't tell them I lost at least four hours, maybe six hours, tonight. Even half an hour ago, I didn't know where I was or what I was doing. We heard howls and shouts to the west. The girls look panicked.

"Get inside, hide in a closet." I rushed them into the house, and into a closet "Stuff blankets around the door, I am going to make it so they can't smell you. Don't come out until we come back for you."

When I got back to the kitchen, Will, still in his fur, whined as I began pouring bleach and ammonia together in the sink. It's a dangerous combination that creates chlorine gas, but it would guarantee the girls weren't scented by the insane wolves or vampires. Without a word, we ran out the door and back into the storm, trying to save more.

VvvvV

Gathering the survivors, we added the two girls and three others from an elementary to those four who made it into the bank vault. The bodies of the brutally murdered were everywhere; humans, wolves, and vampires, pet dogs and cats, and even livestock.

Will and I both scented them at the same time and ran hard. We howled in challenge, trying to draw the mad wolves and vampires to us in hopes of saving more. The feeling of deja vu was not lost on me as we entered yet another house. The front window was shattered with blood everywhere, but this one had a dead man and a headless wolf in the living room. I could smell the sweetest aroma inside, a fertile human female, and I knew instantly who she was to me as my heart clenched in terror.

My mate lived here with this human male and two others, their children. On the wall, I looked at images of a close family. She was so beautiful with her dark hair and hazel eyes, and she looked happy. The image seemed so out of place here in the war zone of this night.

My heart was pounding in fear as I followed her scent through the house and out into the backyard. Blood was splattered across the walls, seeping up through the fresh white snow. Will howled like a lost soul as his wolf dug into one of the piles. He shifted into his skin tearing the healing wound on his face, his blood dripped into the snow. His eye may be forever blind, but I don't think he care

"No...no, no, no... NOOOOoooo!"

He found his mate, hours too late to save her. I turned my back on his grief as he rocked her frozen form back and forth, but I couldn't stop the sound of his sobbing from tearing at my soul. I dug into the other bloody snowbanks, another dead wolf, and a boy who was torn in half. A third dead wolf was decapitated by the fence. This family fought hard. My mate wasn't here, but her blood was, so much of it.

Bloody handprints on the outside of a greenhouse have me almost ripping the door from its hinges, but she wasn't in there either, only more of her blood. I don't want to think about what happened to her body, not with what happened to her family. I could smell too much of her blood to believe she survived, and something else, a strange musky scent that was somehow familiar mixed with the sickly sweetness that tainted all of us with madness.

My wolf and I just wanted to lay down on her blood stain and grieve our brave and beautiful mate. We finally found her, but we were in the right place at the wrong time. I don't know how long I stood there when I heard the shriek of hunting vampires. I was surprised that I could hear anything over the pounding of my heart. My hands hurt as I clutched them into a fist, I lost half of the left one tonight. I flexed my uninjured hand, then placed it on Will's shoulder. Our father taught us, duty before self. It was a lesson I hated at this moment.

"There's nothing we can do, little brother. Come on, we have more to rescue."

It killed me to take him away from her, then I noticed that she had a bullet hole in her temple and that there was a gun poking out of the snow nearby. She killed herself. I was glad she was given a quick death and did not die like her brother and parents.

We carried them inside. Will carefully laid her down inside and placed a chaste kiss on her gray lips. He looked at me with dead eyes, as I laid the boy next to the girl who was my brother's mate.

I promised myself and my mate that when this night was over, I would come back and bury her children and husband. Perhaps I could find her body too. It was the least I could do for the mate I never met, and for the many I failed to protect this night. We shifted back into our wolves and ran back out into the chaos in search of more survivors.

VvvvV

The vampire was in a fast-food restaurant. A cornered girl was screaming in terror. She sobbed her relief after we killed him, shifted and explained we were there to help. Several people and a teenage female werewolf were hidden there. We knew we needed to get the humans and the young shewolf somewhere safer than a walk-in freezer of a fast-food restaurant.

VvvvV

After gathering everyone we found alive, we made our way north to the hospital. We found eleven, including a pregnant woman in the walk-in-freezer of the place called Culver's. All needed medical attention and treatment for frostbite. A young shewolf was with them, she wrapped her wolf around the pregnant woman, who only had a thin pair of Pajamas and a light jacket, to keep her unborn baby warm.

The woman, Becky, had just come out to feed her before-bed craving and was sitting in the drive through when the attack happened. She made it inside and to safety, because the shewolf, Chelsey, dragged her and several others into the freezer. The clever young wolf knew the heavy door and cement shell would protect them. She was a high school student and worked at the restaurant part time.

As we made our way to the hospital, Chelsey told us, she and her mom always planned to go there if there was a tornado. That her mom shouted at her to go there before her death. While I drove a school bus through the icy, snow-covered roads, she softly told us what happened to her.

"I got off early because the storm was coming. The air smelled weird, like snow but sickly sweet, kinda like the smell mom gets when she goes into heat... But it was different. Dad and my brothers started fighting, yelling and growling at each other. It was crazy, because they never fight. I just went to my room, the next thing I know, my mom rushes in covered in blood and opens the window. She practically shoved me out it, screaming at me to run, to go to work and hide in the freezer. My dad broke the door down, he looked crazy, wild weird eyes, fangs dropped, and I fell into the snow when he attacked mom." She stopped to sob for a moment as Becky rubbed her back.

"Keep talking baby girl, get it out." Becky's voice had a soft motherly tone to it. She was going to college online to be a counselor.

"I... I could hear her screams and... and his growling. Daddy was doing something terrible to her. I looked in the living room window and... and my brothers were both dead, ripped to pieces, so I ran... There were wolf howls and vampire shrieks all around me, and I knew we were all in trouble. When I saw Miss Becky in the drive thru, I knew she was there for her usual Mint Chocolate chip and hot fudge. I just shifted back and dragged her inside with me. It's illegal for a wolf to shift in front of a human, but I couldn't leave you and your baby there to die, Miss Becky. I couldn't." Chelsey declared, crying.

"I know, baby girl, thank you for saving us." The woman patted her hair and encouraged her to keep talking. "Keep going, the commander needs to know the rest."

"We all hid in the cooler. Then the power went down. Ben went out and never came back, then Brianna went out and came back. She said the eating area was trashed and Ben... Ben was dead. She went to check again when you found us. Ben... Ben finally asked me out. W-We were supposed to go to the H-h-homecoming d-dance tomorrow night. Alpha, what happened? Why did they all go crazy? Why did my dad kill my brothers and mom?" Chelsey was reduced to sobs and I could feel the others looking at me expectantly.

"I don't know, Chelsey. Will and I were driving to visit our family when we saw a werewolf in the road. We stopped to try to help him. He attacked us and we got drawn into this madness. I have no idea how many I killed tonight, they all tried to challenge me instead of yielding. Something was in the air and snow, it affected the males, making them overly aggressive. We smelled it when we stopped and then we spent the rest of the night fighting those contaminated by it and rescuing all we could find," I explained.

"How come it didn't make you crazy like tha' others?" A man demanded angrily, his wife and child held close to him. There was a school play, and they hid in a maintenance closet at the elementary school when the attack came. They spent an hour listening to those around them dying. The wife knocked over a bottle of pungent cleaner, and it hid their scent. I could still smell it clinging to their clothes. Their survival was sheer luck.

"We are warrior wolves. We have spent our whole lives practicing overcoming blood-lust and blind rage, learning how to overcome it in the worst situation, like tonight." I answered. I didn't tell them that we too had fallen into the madness before recovering because they trusted me to keep them safe.

At the hospital, there were bodies of dead werewolves and vampires among the dead humans scattered across the parking area. All the dead nonhumans were male.

Suddenly, two female vampires with silver swords appeared, standing between us and the entrance. Behind them, several heavily armed human men and women took aim at our group as we got off the bus.

After getting off the bus, I could smell the sickly-sweet scent of the snow was much stronger here. I could barely fight it, but I knew if I lost control again, those in front of the hospital would kill us and everyone with us.

One of the vampiresses pointed her sword at me.
"Leave or die, wolves."