Chapter 26 - Rio

"Valentina!"

Alex, Astrid and I trudge along the snowy forest searching for the conniving vampiress who ran off on us as soon as we landed in town.

"We shouldn't have given her the ring nor invited her into our home in the first place," Alex complains. "What happens if we get to Bianca and she rejects her? Valentina will just run off with the free gift we've given her."

"Relax, Alex," I hold his tense shoulder. "It's just a daylight ring. She's not invincible."

But he's right. I hadn't really thought about the possibility of rejection. In fact, that's not something I thought about between Astrid and I either. Although the PG-13 night we spent together has more than solidified our destiny bond for now. Until I mark her. My fangs itch just thinking about it.

I look over behind me to see my destined all bundled up in several layers with a fur-trim black jacket, her hair hanging loosely around her face as she watches where she steps in the snow. Her nose and freckled cheeks are turning a bright shade of red from the cold. I hold out a hand to help her, which she accepts with a sweet smile, but her eyes widen in alarm as she spots the young woman approaching, walking in slow steps. The young woman's cheeks are pale and her lips are barely blue. She doesn't seem to notice us as she passes by.

And trailing some distance behind her is Valentina, wiping the corner of her lips with a thumb.

"You caught me," she says, arms raised in surrender, pretending to be coy about feeding on a human.

"We packed plenty of blood for you, Valentina," I tell her.

"Am I not allowed to try something new?" she shrugs. "Some authentic Bhutanese blood. That's all. I won't do it again. Promise." She draws an 'x' over her heart and winks.

"Alex, keep an eye on her while we're here," I order him.

Despite his very apparent dislike for Valentina, Alex knows better than to disobey an order. Valentina doesn't appear too happy about this either, and even though she may not be a wolf, the hybrid blood that runs through my veins is enough to have her keep quiet and merely roll her eyes at my Beta.

As we make our way back towards town, I start to notice a faint scent of some other thing following us and I keep my ears open despite Alex and Valentina's bickering, which Astrid seems to find quite amusing. It smells indistinctly like the general scent of a dog or a wolf, but I don't want to get Astrid's hopes up as we did come across a lot of stray mountain dogs in town.

A second alien scent introduces itself, this one clearer as he steps out in front of us from out of nowhere.

"I thought my eyes were deceiving me, but it is, indeed, a vampire," he says, looking dead straight at Valentina.

From the musk I caught off of Astrid's father in the short time we interacted, I can tell this long-haired man standing before us is a tiger. A ring of gold alights around his pupils and his brow twitches right where the long scar across his face begins. Astrid gasps, squeezing my hand tighter. I look at her eyes, glimmering with hope that perhaps this man may be the tiger in the identifying video that Demi sent me. He moves his gaze to study all of us, frowning at Astrid, then nodding in understanding when he settles on my mismatched eyes.

"Alpha," he nods. "What business have you in this small town? And with this undead, no less."

"We're looking for someone," I tell him candidly.

"A wolf," Astrid adds. "A white wolf."

"How does she walk in daylight?" the man asks, ignoring Astrid and I.

"Forget about her," Astrid exclaims, her voice trembling with a growing desperation to find her friend. "Please just tell us if you've seen a woman with long blonde hair and green eyes, about my height." He ignores Astrid's plea and snarls lowly at Valentina. "Just tell us where she is and we'll leave with the vampire."

"No," he snaps. "I cannot allow her to leave like this, walking around in broad daylight." He takes one step forward as his eyes glow brighter and addresses Valentina, who looks unbothered by this. "I saw how you lured that girl with your vampiric gaze. Who's to say you wouldn't do it again, blood sucker?"

"Oh, please," she scoffs. "I'm a lady, not a monster. I had my fill then I sent her along and closed up the bite marks, too. That's what I always do." Valentina adds a little French cuss at the end that starts with a 'p'; about the only one I know because it sounds the same in a few other Latin languages.

"Impossible," he growls. "You are all soulless monsters."

"I can break your neck easily with my pinky finger," Valentina hisses.

I look over to Alex, who seems to have no qualms with the growing tension. Whereas Astrid's eyes are now starting to turn golden as well in frustration at her ignored requests.

"Look, friend," I try to diffuse the situation. "Instead of wasting your energy taking on the four of us because, yes, we will defend this vampiress, why not point us in the direction of your comrades. If you don't know where this white wolf is, then perhaps someone else might."

He blusters at this and, for a small instance, I see his eyes shift slightly to my left at which his throat rumbles lowly. I instinctually look behind me to follow his gaze, wondering if perhaps that mysterious dog scent was a wolf.

And out from a rustling bush steps the white wolf.

"Bianca!" Astrid calls as she lets go of my hand and runs to embrace the wolf.

The wolf is more than accepting of the invasion of space as she closes her eyes and pants happily at the reunion. I can't help but feel a stir of jealousy knowing what I know of Bianca's true feelings. The wolf closes her eyes, melting into the embrace as Valentina watches silently, her lips parted. I expect her to reveal her intentions to Bianca, but she recedes a step back and looks down at her daylight ring, her brows furrowed over.

Astrid immediately begins to take off her jacket to offer it to her friend. At this, Bianca barks loudly and backs away, running back a few paces then turning back expectantly. Astrid follows.

"Don't!" the tiger shouts at her, but he is too late, for the rest of us are already afoot on this chase.

Bianca leads us up a steep and slippery road, occasionally yapping at us from the distance as if to tell us 'we're almost there', but never really reaching 'there' even after half an hour.

Around this mark, I hear a steady thudding approach behind us. Before I can turn, a flash of orange and black speeds ahead and stops before Astrid, its brash and coarse roar causing a bit of snow to fall off the mountain side. I rush to my destined, step in front of her and snarl, baring my fully elongated fangs out at he who dares threaten her. Alex follows a second later in support of his Alpha.

A white mass comes tumbling, knocking the tiger down to the ground. The white wolf gets right on top of the tiger and snaps at him to submit. But being that he isn't a wolf, he rejects the surrender and knocks her off easily with the strength from his larger build.

Astrid tries to step in front and help her friend but I tell her to stand down.

"We have to do something," she pleads.

"I'll stop this," I promise her and unzip my jacket.

As I strip down to one layer, the white wolf howls deafeningly and barks at me. She's telling me not to interfere and I scowl, sizing up her much bulkier opponent as the two of them circle each other.

"What are you waiting for?" Astrid asks.

And, of course, I listen to my destined as I undress and shift.

I huff heavily as my black wolf looms over the tiger. He turns around and flinches away at the full majesty of my height, hissing back cautiously. He backs away slowly then starts to trot off in surrender, avoiding the white wolf as he passes her by.

She ignores him back, for her green eyes are now set on me in disagreement of my meddling. She lets out a ferocious bark, chiding me for my action.

"Rio's only trying to help," Astrid attempts to reason with her, but the wolf only barks more.

In wolf form, we don't communicate in specific words but understand body language in depth. The way Bianca hunches over with her tail up high shows me that she's challenging me. I decline the challenge and stand firm as tall as I can, employing my Alpha gaze for her to quit it. In response, she mirrors me and my conviction, defiant in her resistance.

"Hmm," Alex observes behind me, for he notices the same thing I do.

"What?" Astrid sharply asks, then shouts to the white wolf, "B, what's the matter? The other guy's gone!"

"It's okay, Astrid," Alex remarks with a little chuckle. "They won't fight each other. But your friend has proven resistant to Rio's Alpha command."

"How? That's impossible. Any wolf, Alpha or otherwise, in the Mighty Five must submit to the Lycan Alpha," Astrid correctly notes.

"Not if she's a Sigma," Alex correctly counters.

I turn to see the stunned look of silence on Astrid's face and I don't know whether this is a good or a bad reaction. Whatever it is, it seems our initial mission to get Bianca back is falling apart. I have the feeling that this Sigma will not come back with us easily.

I curtly nod at Bianca, then retreat and shift back, the cold mountain gust hitting me like prickly icicles against my bare skin. Valentina, who has been quiet for a while, is stood a few paces away, contemplatively looking down at her hands and twisting the magical ring around her finger. I dress myself quickly.

On the second half of our trek upwards with Bianca leading us, we trudge along quietly. The tension in the group could be cut with a knife. Valentina still walks far behind us, looking down at her dragging feet as she does. I try to ask Astrid what's on her mind but she completely shuts me down. Alex purses his lips at me and shrugs.

"Did I do something wrong?" I ask him quietly in Greek.

"No, you did not," he replies in our native language. "I think she's just upset to find out her best friend has broken her ties to her pack. After all, Silver Bow is your beloved's home as well."

"Hmm, I suppose I, too, would be upset if you did anything stupid like that."

"Well, that's never going to happen," he smiles and nudges me with his elbow in an attempt to ease my worry.

"I wish you many happy returns when you meet your destined, Alex."

He snorts softly. "Maybe the Moon Goddess challenged you with this one the way great teachers challenge their best students."

"Maybe."

We reach a set of stairs the end of which disappears from view. I notice the shift in altitude now more than ever as my breathing tightens up a little, but barely affects me. Nor does it affect Alex. However, Valetina's breathing behind us becomes uncharacteristically labored while Astrid also seems a little winded by the treacherous altitude, though she slaps my hand away when I attempt to grab her elbow.

At long last, we reach the top after I lost count of the number around the 300th step. I was expecting to find the scarred tiger up here but he's nowhere to be found. I look around at the foggy view, only now noticing that the fog has thickened up and grown a shade darker. The white wolf goes towards a neatly stashed pile of clothes and yaps lightly at us to look away. We do so.

I lean over to Astrid, her face completely red as wisps of white escape her mouth, and offer her some water from my thermos. She nods and gulps it down.

"Valentina!" I hear Bianca cry out.

The vampiress has collapsed at the last step, her chest rising and falling heavily. Bianca, now appearing with shorter hair than I remember, hovers over Valentina and slaps her side to side to no avail. She picks her up in one swift motion and walks urgently towards the mountain face, addressing someone somewhere up in the fog to open up. The snow begins to shake as the solid rock opens up. Bianca rushes in with Valentina when the long-haired man from before appears to bar access to Valentina.

"Move!" Bianca growls, her voice becoming a mixture of human and beast.

He relents albeit reluctantly. Alex, Astrid and I, however, are not met with the same resistance.

Beyond the mountain walls is a village, sparsely populated, built right into this mountain as I notice the circular opening up above revealing the misty, white sky.

"A village in the mountain?" I question the long-haired man.

"Sanctuary," he says. "I brought Bianca here yesterday morning."

I sniff the cold air. "There are more of you."

"Yes."

I look over at Astrid to watch her face, a mixture of worried yet intrigued by the new surroundings.

"Look," the man continues, "I didn't mean to stop you three from entering. It's that vampire."

We watch across the way as Bianca rushes the unconscious Valentina towards the gazebo in the middle of the village. She disappears from view as she descends some steps.

"Goddess!" the man utters under his breath as he rushes towards them.

The three of us follow.