Title: Inevitable Choice
Author: Kassfinol
All rights reserved
Genre: Paranormal Romance
“Daughter, you must listen to me; what we’re going to do is for your own good… for our good, and the pack’s!” Fabiana ignored her mother’s compassionate eyes.
“No, I won’t do it. I won’t marry or pair up with someone just because you want me to… I may be a young she-wolf with a lot left to learn, but I’m not going to let you tell me who to be with.” Fabiana left her room angrily. She stomped hard on the floor as she walked. She didn’t want to be near her pack; she needed some air.
Her kind was in danger: humans had created a technology that subdued wolves in order to force them to turn humans and thus gain immortality. Fabiana understood that they were in latent danger, that they couldn’t live as they had a hundred years ago, when they enjoyed full freedom to exist among humans without being detected.
The situation was critical; most wolves ended up dead trying to resist the electronic, oppressive impulses delivered by the devices placed on their necks… The device was terrible: it carried sedatives and a system capable of detaching their heads from their necks if the demands weren’t met.
The kinds lived in anguish, because it was more than proven that everything humans touched, they destroyed… and hundreds of packs around the world had been wiped out and replaced by converted humans… Pure wolves were nearly extinct… That’s where marriage, or forced unions, came in: they needed to keep the species alive, and according to rules set fifty years ago, the women were supposed to breed as much as they could while a strong male protected them and kept them from being found by a human by any means.
Fabiana headed out to the forest, since it was a safe zone. There were many traps for humans. She walked, frantic, fed up with so many rules; at only twenty-six, they already wanted to pair her with a male to give birth like an animal. That was unfair; she hated living under those conditions. Within seconds, the young woman detected two scents; one seemed familiar, but when she turned to smell the other, she felt a hard blow, and everything immediately went black.
When she woke up, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
She was sitting, unrestrained, facing a human — she had smelled him in the forest. The guy was an older man, disheveled, bleeding from one side. She guessed he had fallen into a trap in the forest, going in or out.
She moved and felt pain in her neck. The pain clouded her vision completely. She knew what was happening; now she understood that she had been kidnapped by this stranger, and that he would control her with that damn invention.
“You have to bite me and turn me. I risked a lot to reach one of you; today I won’t die,” he shouted in her face, clutching his aching waist.
“I think I’ll wait for you to bleed out,” she answered with a half-smile, sure it wouldn’t take long. His heart was beating slowly; the human was making a great effort to stay on his feet.
“If you don’t bite me, I’ll kill you; I just have to say the specific word and the device will close, and your head will roll on the floor…” Fabiana’s eyes went wide.
“If you bite me, you won’t survive the change; you’re too weak,” she lied, hoping he’d believe her.
The man’s reaction was to slap her across the face. The young woman had to concentrate to keep from lunging at him; she knew that if she made a sudden move, the device would activate, injecting her with a strong sedative.
“That wasn’t necessary… I’ll bite you, fine, but swear to me you’ll let me go.” The attempt to negotiate was in vain.
“Bite me once and for all, damn it, if you don’t want me to kill you! I already feel very weak,” he shouted hysterically.
“Yes, yes, bring me your arm.” If she bit him, Fabiana knew she’d be his whore for as long as he wanted — that was another trick the wretched humans used. He would never let her go, and in the end, the she-wolf herself would seek her own death by attacking her kidnapper, so the device would activate and she could free herself from all the agony and horrors he would put her through.
Slowly, she took his arm; she knew she couldn’t make quick movements, or that would be her end.
Without thinking much, she bit him, and immediately the man began to writhe on the floor. The process would take a few hours. And as far as she knew, she couldn’t get far from her attacker, or the result would be the same: she would die.
The guy screamed and writhed in pain while she watched him, feeling sad about the future that awaited her.
“I should have listened to my mother and not run off like a fool, fleeing the situation,” she complained. “From what I can see, it’s all a matter of perspective,” she said with a joyless smile, touching the cold collar that was tight against her neck. “I’d kill to be choosing a pretty outfit for my wedding.” A tear ran down her cheek.
In the blink of an eye, a tall, blond man with intense gray eyes appeared in front of her. Her first reaction was fear, but she ended up amazed when the newcomer shot the man who was turning in the head. Instantly, the collar opened and fell onto her legs.
“Who are you?” she asked, amazed; the young man seemed familiar. When she got closer to him, she noticed his scent — he was a wolf. The kidnapper’s blood smell had overwhelmed her sense of smell.
The young man smiled at her and walked toward her, saying:
“I’m the wolf you don’t want to marry.” His voice sent her a pleasant feeling; something told her she should lower her guard.
“Shit, this can’t be true,” she thought incredulously.
“How did you find me? How did you track me down?” she asked, embarrassed.
“It wasn’t hard to hear the shouting of your conversation with your mother. We were supposed to meet today; when I saw your attitude, I decided to follow you. I saw you leave for the forest, but this undesirable beat me to it… I just waited for you to turn him before showing up. If you’d let him die, he would have killed you first. You made a good decision.”
Fabiana wanted the earth to swallow her up.
“Look, I’m sorry, it was nothing personal. I just didn’t want them forcing me to sleep with someone.”
“But you chose me when we were seven years old. Remember? They separated us so I could become a great defender of our kind… I shoot well, as you’ve seen. Times change; it’s not all brute force and excessive regeneration.” He showed her the gun. “I arrived in Venezuela recently.”
Her heart raced. She couldn’t believe what was happening. Suddenly she felt great joy and uncontrolled excitement as she recognized who was standing before her.
“Raúl! I thought you were dead. It’s so good to see you! I didn’t know they wanted to marry me to the warrior who has saved the most wolves from human technology. I thought you were out of my reach,” she admitted, and then shut her mouth abruptly at her recent excess of sincerity.
“Ah, it’s not that big a deal. If you kill them, the device stops working — of course, as long as you kill whoever activated it. Thank the universe this man acted alone this time and didn’t complicate my life.” The young man fell silent, then continued: “I was worried about your volatile temper, and about the lack of time because of that wound and the bleeding. Let’s say today was a complicated day… Answering your last comment… I was the one who thought you were out of my reach; I thought you’d already been married off and had lots of little wolf pups running around you.”
Fabiana rolled her eyes and gave him a half-smile.
“And you’re telling me your day was complicated? And no… as you can see, I’ve been single since I was seven,” Fabiana answered.
“You’re stubborn; you’ve always been good at getting into trouble,” Raúl said, smiling, and pulled her toward his body to better take in her scent. The smell of blood was intense, but it didn’t stop him from kissing her passionately. “So, will you marry me? I came from very far away, I also saved your life, and besides, you chose me years ago… so take responsibility. It wouldn’t be good for you to break my heart,” he said in a melodramatic tone, bringing his cheek close to the young woman’s and giving her a short kiss. “I missed you… you don’t know how many times I imagined kissing you and holding you just like I’m holding you right now.”
“We’d better get out of here. Couldn’t you have waited to tell me all that until we were out of this godforsaken dump?” Fabiana smiled, pointing at the dead human.
“What woman doesn’t like drama? Besides, this will be an excellent story to tell our children and grandchildren.” They both started laughing.
“Let’s get out of here,” they said at the same time.
Kassfinol
Because there are certain events you will never be able to avoid.