Untamed - Chapter One

It is better to be hated for what you are,

Than loved for what you are not

-André Gide

Chapter one: Vendetta

London, Present day

Lyra and Dominicq sat at a table, outside a small coffee shop in the heart of London. Time hadn’t touched either of them. An air of suspense hung about them, an almost visual amount of static passing between the pair. Lyra had been staring at the cathedral across the road for most of the morning, in fact, since they had settled down in the chairs in which they still sat.

A rich, aromatic scent prickled at her nose, and she turned to watch the waitress stroll towards them with their orders. ‘Humans,’ began Lyra’s mind. ‘A disgrace to the natural tranquility of nature, yet so vital to our survival.’ When the waitress had set down their orders, Lyra gingerly took hers and glanced up. Cold, pale-blue eyes stared into the shy brown eyes of the waitress. Lyra could hear the seductive beating of the waitress’ heart, could smell the intoxicating scent of her prey’s fresh, warm blood. Dominicq carefully placed his hand on his companion’s wrist, and with a small amount of pressure, broke the intricate, age-old spell. Lyra shot her mentor a look of suppressed boredom. His wizened, steel grey eyes looked directly back at her, daring to bore a hole through her skull. Their waitress stood frozen in place. “Thank you, but you may go now," Dominicq’s Romanian accented voice made the waitress jump. She hastily handed them their change, before sprinting inside. Her body showed fear, but her heaving chest showed her heated arousal.

Lyra tentatively took her cup, purposefully keeping her eyes from her mentor's darkly cold ones. "You shouldn't do that, Little Viper," Dominicq’s voice was barely a whisper.

"Do what?" Lyra didn't look at her mentor, but kept sipping her coffee, letting her eyes dart around, noticing everything... from the random cars on the road to the subtle change in the dark storm clouds that filled the sky.

"You know what I'm talking-"

"Wait..." Lyra interrupted her mentor. A movement on one of the church spires caught her attention. "He's here," she said, her voice barely a whisper. Setting their coffees down, both vampires stood up and walked across the road. Lyra could smell the rain in the air, soon she thought, soon the storm would be upon them.

Dominicq lead Lyra through a small side gate into the church's courtyard. "Remember the rules Lyra...," he said, placing his hands on Lyra's shoulders. "Don't be seen by anyone, especially the priests. This is your mission, I trained you for it. Unfortunately I can't go with you. But please come home afterwards."

"I will Neriineh(father)," said Lyra, bending her head forward. She felt Dominicq’s hands leave her shoulders, and by the time she looked up, he had vanished into thin air, leaving her to her own intentions. Lyra pulled her cloak around her, slipped on its hood and finally glanced around. On her left, a row of dense evergreens blocked her from the ever watchful eyes of the public. On her right the majestic church building. Turning towards it, she lightly kicked off from the ground.

Even time couldn't age the tingling touch of the wind, as it caressed her face and ruffled her raven black hair under its soft confinement. Lyra soared to the roof, her midnight-black cloak billowing out behind her, and the slight sliver of a smile lit her face... for only a moment, before it vanished again. She gently landed in a predatory crouch, and let her eyes roam around, zooming in on the finer details. A sharp, some-what familiar scent passed her nose, and the smile returned to her pale pink lips. Her eyes lit up in excitement. ‘Allistir’, thought Lyra. ‘The hunt is on.’

The vampiress closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. Yes it was Allistir, the tool of her loss…. And he was alone.

Lyra followed the dry, dog-like scent, letting it lead her around the majestic, yet decrepit rooftop. Up in the heavens above, the last flock of birds encircled the church, looking for a place to roost. The rain hadn’t fallen yet, but with each waking second the storm drew nearer, and she could feel it. The vampiress stopped and looked around…. Strange, she thought. She had been here before. Her own scent still lingered where she crouched. Something was definitely wrong.

She carried on searching. And she was stressing, she knew it. Calming down was essential. She circled the cathedral once more, this time the sent lead her to the bell tower. Here Allistir's scent grew stronger, like death itself awakened. Lyra neatly leapt in trough the bell tower window, landing in a crouched position, in the center of the tower, just under the bells that stood sentient. None of her training of the past 160 years could prepare her for what she saw next. Allistir stood at the end of the room, his latest victim hanging limp in his hand. Even though he had his back to her, she could still see his psychotic smile. Crimson matted his silver fur in fresh patches. How many had he killed?' thought Lyra.

Allistir tossed the dead body of his newest victim casually over his shoulder. With a dull thud it hit the floor at Lyra’s feet. She glanced down at the face of the corpse. It was a girl of about sixteen, with rich auburn hair and a pale complexion. Her midnight blue eyes stared blankly at ceiling- dull, silent and gone. Lyra bent down and gently closed the girl’s eyes.

“She looks just like you did, all those many years ago- well except for the broken bones and dried blood,” Allistir still stood with his crimson matted back to her, his rough, deadly voice trying to send chills down her spine. “You, too, were innocent, young and scared.”

Lyra ignored Allistir’s words and let her eyes quickly roam the room. There was one door, and it stood just to the right of her greatest enemy. A balcony-like floor that ringed the walls stood between her and the four sentient bells of the tower. They stood like spectators with anxiety for the fight to come. Almost as if they could tell that one was going to die today. And the concrete walls of the cylindrical tower threw them into semi-darkness, knowing that soon, something was going to happen.

Allistir slowly turned to face Lyra. From where he stood, Lyra could see that the blood hadn’t just matted his fur. It was completely drenched in crimson. His face, more human than it should be, smiled at her. His beady black eyes showed no sign of life. The werewolf awkwardly limped forward, his bowed legs desperately trying to stabilize.

“You should be happy; you’re the only one that got away. But today you finally die, by my hand!”

In that small space of time, before Allistir attacked, everything slowed down for Lyra. Her natural instinct was to retaliate, but her training taught her differently. And her mind saw everything her eyes didn’t.

The grey werewolf rushed towards her, his animalistic features distorted, his fur soaked. But his inhuman muscles still pushed him forward, at a speed too fast for human eyes to see. Yet Lyra could see what humans could not, and thus she bent her knees just a bit and kicked off from the ground and in an instant she stood crouching on the second floor ledge.

Allistir missed her by a hair’s breadth, and before he knew it she was perched on the second floor ledge, like a magnificent bird of prey before it went in for the kill. Only one thought raced through Allistir’s mind. She was fast, but he could become faster. He had just passed the place where Lyra had been standing, when he lunged for her again. His aim was deadly accurate, but she had already disappeared from her wooden perch. Allistir slid right into the wall, nearly shattering it.

“Over here, Allistir,” Lyra stood on the other side of the balcony floor, taunting the evil that had destroyed her family.

Allistir’s fur was dull with dust and stood on end. Shivers of anger rippled through his entire body and his deep red claws extended to their full length.

“You sly little minx, when I lay my claws on you I’ll rip you apart, piece by fucking piece. Then I’ll burn you out. Too bad you won’t be able to go like the rest of your family did.”

Again Allistir lunged, straight for Lyra’s throat, his inhuman mouth wide open with a growl in his throat. The Vampiress took one step back and waited for the crimson and silver beast. In the blink of an eye Lyra sent her tormentor sailing back into the air. Her feet had connected with his chest and the force sent him straight through the lowest of the four gigantic bells, ripping it clear from its support beam. Like a magnificent drop of liquid gold it fell to the bottom floor and with an ear splitting wrench it melted into a single solid mass. Allistir howled in pain from under a pile of rock on the other side of the room. His body felt crushed, shattered into a million tiny pieces. But he knew that that could never happen. Not to him. His bones could withstand so much more. The impact had felt like a thousand bullets of water had sped through his body all at once.

Slowly he got up from beneath the rubble- for the second time. His fur was no longer matted with blood; instead it was grey in color. The now the light grey werewolf straightened up from where he was lying and let out another howl. His own blood slowly ran down his spine.

Shocking realization awoke within him. He had underestimated her. She was stronger than he had initially thought. He knew he couldn’t allow her to escape him again.

Allistir glanced around, waiting for death… her death of course.

“What are you looking for, Allistir,” Lyra no longer sounded like the scared, lonely child, neither did she have the subtle French accent. Her voice was cold, loveless and pain filled. Allistir turned and glanced up. Lyra crouched on the next bell beam, her eyes glinting with excitement and desire… a desire for blood.

“Ha! Dominicq's little pet... wait till I get my hands on you,” Allistir growled as he pounced straight at her. In the split second before the werewolf could get his claws around her, Lyra had him by his throat and launched him straight through a second bell. Rage flowed freely through her, like the falling waters of a deadly waterfall. She no longer cared about who saw her or what happened, all she cared about was ripping Allistir limb from limb, till all that was left, was a small pile of ash.

Allistir didn’t just fly through the second bell, but flattened it, before force wrenched him through it, and flung him into the wall with the sound of bones breaking.

Lyra moved like a deadly liquid, dark, toxic and poisonous. When she stood in front of the half dead werewolf, she watched his blood drip from more than one fatal wound. Again she gripped him by his throat and held him there.

“Dear, old Allistir,” Lyra’ voice dripped with the cold essence of murder. “You took my family from me, to feed your own hunger. But you never killed me. You see, I kept asking myself why you didn’t kill me all those god-forsaken years ago. But then I came to realize after a while that I really didn't give a shit about the answer. You should have killed me back then, while you had the chance Allistir, because today I’m not going to die. But I’ll tell you this. Someone is going to die, and that person is you,” Lyra flung him once more, but this time he didn’t hit a bell. This time Allistir flew straight through the support beam of the top most bell and got caught in the spire-like ceiling beams. The bell dropped from its own beam and fell down, destroying the beam of the remaining bell. Both bells now toppled to the bottom floor, falling faster and faster. The sound of the crash reverberated through the walls of the bell tower, as the two bells became one.

Lyra clutched at her ears as the din echoed inside her head, tempting to tear her head apart. Allistir still hung in the rafters of the tower, filled with more pain than he had ever felt in his whole entire life.

She’s mad, thought Allistir, completely mad.

Inside Lyra’s head, her mentor’s voice rang clear. ‘Clear your mind Little Viper, block out the pestilence of sound. Concentrate… open your eyes, let them see what shouldn’t be, open your mind; let it clear you. But hold on to your purpose.’ Slowly but surely the ringing of the bell dissipated, and eventually she could only hear Allistir’s rapidly beating heart. When she next opened her eyes, it was to a grey scene. Dust and stone flakes littered everything. None of the four bells remained standing. No golden pendulums gently rocking to and fro. The bell tower still remained intact, at least for now.

At the bottom of the bell tower, inside the church, chaos reigned. The full clergy stood outside the entrance to the bell tower, confused and scared, praying for salvation. All of them too frightened to find out what was going on inside the tower itself, yet all too scared to find their way. Outside the church, bystanders stood, confused by the din of the bells. Half of the city stood stock still, their fear clear to the vampires among them, like a low hanging grey mist. Only they knew what was going on inside the bell tower, and it wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t pretty at all.

Allistir hung in the ceiling spires for what felt like hours. He watched as Lyra tried to find herself at the bottom of the tower. Slowly he lifted himself off the beams of the ceiling and let his birth right consume him. Only werewolves of pure blood could change at will. And he, Allistir the Grey, was one of the few left who could. He let the fire inside his chest cascade through his veins like molten lava, his wounds stinging as they healed. But it was nothing compared to the next stage of his transformation. Every muscle in his body burned as they grew, every bone cracked as it went through the transition. His skin crawled as though it had been injected with a triple dose of morphine, as his grey fur completely covered him and his claws scraped the stone floor beneath him. Allistir shut his eyes and let loose a guttural howl as he made a complete transformation.

Bad thoughts floated around Lyra's head, as she looked up at her prey. The sound of the bells no longer rang in her ears, but it was too late, Allistir had already changed. There was no other option left, no time to play. She would have to kill him fast, before he gutted her.

Lyra acted quick and lunged for her opponent’s throat, but the now pure transformed werewolf heard her coming. Allistir ran when he felt her coming and just nearly dodged the brute force of the vampire’s assault. When Lyra stood up straight, there was an even bigger crater than the hole left by Allistir, and it left the whole tower unstable.

A blue grey blur flickered past Lyra’s eyes, and before she could react, Allistir gripped her arm between his jaws. His teeth tore into her skin, like Moses’ parting of the Red sea. The werewolf snapped his head back, slinging her towards the ground. And before Lyra knew it, Allistir pushed off from the spires and crashed into her.

'Oh, Nehrü(Goddess),' thought Lyra as both of them crashed into the ground of the tower. The already flattened remains of the bells dented and cracked from the impact of the two fighters. Allistir staggered as he climbed off from Lyra. It had been almost a century since he had last been in a proper fight, thought Allistir, and how ironic that it had been against her mentor.

Lyra saw Allistir’s fist come home for more, and like the flowing waters of a river she disappeared. She wound around his arm, and when her feet caught his back, she pulled his arm towards her, snapping it clean in half. The werewolf let out a deep, frightening howl as his final prey let go of his arm. It fell limply at his side. The vampiress landed a few meters away from Allistir. Her arm stung, but she paid no attention to it. Allistir rounded on her and what she saw in his eyes then shocked her. The intense, fiery rage had been replaced by the cold eyes of a warrior that knew he was about to die. She stuttered for but a moment, and suddenly saw how he had butchered her family. Instantaneously she closed up again. She would do the same to him as he did to them. She would show him no mercy. She would butcher him without remorse.

Lyra side stepped to the left as Allistir rushed towards her, and just before he was past her, she shot her hand up and locked her fingers around his neck. She used the werewolf’s own momentum to lift him, and in a flash, brought him back down hard on his back in front of her. Allistir hit the floor with a bone shattering crash, howling out in pain. Finally he looked up into Lyra’s eyes, into her soul. It was a scene of utter darkness. Her soul was filled with hatred; hatred for him, only him. Her eyes burnt into his, and her aura made the temperature in the bell tower drop drastically.

The vampiress grabbed Allistir by the arm she had broken. The half dead werewolf muttered something incoherent through his haze of pain, but Lyra had stop caring more than a hundred years ago. She tossed Allistir to the far wall of the bell tower with all of her strength, using the arm that he had bitten.

Allistir hit the wall with the brute force of Lyra’s strength. Slipping in and out of consciousness he watched as she checked the arm he had bitten. The bite was healing, rapidly. Blue veins ran like webs across her arm as the torn flesh started knitting itself back together. It was an impossibility. Vampires couldn’t heal that quickly from werewolf venom. And yet here stood a vampire whose arm was sealing itself, minutes after being nearly torn off by his own teeth. Impossible, thought Allistir. She can’t be a hybrid, she was half human, and he hadn’t even left that much venom in her all those years ago.

The werewolf didn’t even see Lyra move, till she was already in front of him, holding him to the wall with her left hand. She felt every muscle in her arm tense, waiting to snap the werewolf’s neck. But before she could act upon her instincts, Allistir made the reverse transition, returning back into his human form. Tears ran down his scared cheeks, tremors ran through his chest and blood oozed from more than one fatal wound. His broken arm hung limp by his side in an odd fashion, the bones protruding through the skin

Lyra looked into Allistir’s dimming eyes, while he looked back into her cold blue ones. He knew that look, it was the look of every warriors fears. It was that look that said, “Hey, Asshole, Death’s here for your sorry ass, so you better pay up.”

“Don’t do this Lyra,” Allistir’s voice was hoarse but she could still hear the fear in it. “You’re not a killer, I beg you…. Please don’t do this….”

Something stirred inside her, and for a moment she wanted to give him his life back-

“Have mercy on me Lyra, have mercy.”

Instantly Allistir knew he had spoken the wrong words. He watched as Lyra’s eyes became colder than before; colder than they had ever been. At that moment he wished he could turn back time; not just to save himself but also to never have saved her. It was then that everything fell into place, the prophecies, and his mother’s curse. It was coming true. This was his destiny, his final moments in the hands of fate, or in this case; Lyra.

“Have mercy, Allistir,” Lyra asked him softly, her voice colder than ice. “Have mercy on you, like you gave my family, all those years ago? Like you gave my father, when you crushed him with the carriage, or like you showed my mother when you tore her limb from limb and my brother when you ripped his head from his body? If that’s the mercy you so desperately talk about, then you can have it!”

Lyra roared the last word as she clawed her hand and forced it through Allistir's chest. The werewolf screamed out in total agony. Never before had anyone come this close to killing him. But now his death was inevitable. He looked up Lyra for the last time, staring straight into the eyes of his killer….

Lyra grabbed hold of the dying werewolf’s heart, feeling the beat it so feebly tried to regain. She felt his warm blood spray against her arm. It was thinner than human blood and a lot darker. To Lyra it smelled pungent. Then she pulled back, and without a second thought ripped his heart straight from his chest.

For a few seconds Allistir screamed, while his heart pumped out in Lyra’s hand. Simultaneously they stopped, becoming cold and grey. And slowly they broke down and dispersed with the wind. All of Allistir turned to dust and was borne away by the soft breeze. Even his blood; like snowflakes in the air… slowly, simply just floating away….