Chapter 181
Meredith.
The low echoes of whispers were still crawling across the warehouse walls when, from somewhere near the centre, a young man stepped out. His voice was tight at first, then steadier as he faced Draven.
“Alpha… what if we use one of us as bait?” he suggested. “Let them take me. We can track where they’re taking us, find out what the humans are doing to our people.”
My breath caught. Around me, I felt the ripple of unease—the idea was reckless, terrifying, yet strangely brave.
Draven’s gaze landed on him, dark and unblinking. For a few heavy seconds, he didn’t speak. The air between them felt like it could snap.
“No,” Draven said at last, voice low but firm enough to cut through the crowd.
The young man’s throat bobbed, but he didn’t back down.
Draven’s tone hardened. “I will not sacrifice anyone unless we have no choice. The situation hasn’t called for it—yet.”
Silence pressed on us, the kind that made the warehouse feel colder than before. Draven’s gaze swept over everyone, his eyes shadowed under the harsh overhead light, unreadable.
Then he spoke again, softer this time, but each word carrying the weight of command. “Those of you who have faced near abduction recently—raise your hands.”
One by one, about ten hands lifted. I recognized a few: the woman whose child had nearly been taken, the man who had spoken earlier. Faces drawn tight with remembered fear.
“Step forward,” Draven ordered.
They did, moving as though each step cost them something.
“Jeffery,” Draven called, still watching them, “take their names. Get every detail: when, where, how.”
Jeffery nodded crisply and moved forward, drawing a slim notebook from inside his coat.
When they returned to the group, Draven’s voice dropped, rough around the edges. “I will put an end to this,” he promised. “And when I do, you will hear it from me first.”
The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was heavy with something sharper than fear: hope, stubborn and fragile, like a flame caught between winds.
Then, Draven turned his gaze to Dennis and Jeffery. “Row call,” he said. “Make sure everyone is accounted for.”
It took longer than I expected. Name after name echoed across the concrete and steel, the sound carried over rusted beams and into the shadows.
Each pause made my heart beat faster, until finally every voice had answered. No one was missing.
I let out a slow breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
Draven’s gaze swept the warehouse one last time. “Remember,” he said, voice clipped and commanding, “no one walks alone, day or night. If you see anything—anything that feels wrong, reach out to Dennis, or Beta Jeffery, or me immediately.”
A few heads bowed in understanding. Whispers flickered and died.
Finally, Draven lifted his chin slightly. “The meeting is dismissed.”
Feet shuffled, boots scraping against the cold concrete floor as people began to drift toward the exits. Around me, some faces looked pale, others tight with quiet resolve.
The weight of everything hung over us all: the fear, the coming war, the knowledge that soon, the vampires wouldn’t be our only threat.
I followed Draven as he turned away, the long black coat shifting around his legs, his shoulders squared as though the entire night sat there.
—
The drive home was colder than the night air pressing against the windows.
My heart still hadn’t settled from what I’d seen—the image of that pregnant woman fighting, the sheer terror in her eyes before she was forced into the black van. It replayed in my head over and over, each time stabbing deeper.
I turned sharply toward Draven, my voice breaking the heavy silence.
“Draven, we should have done something,” I said, the words tumbling out, raw and unpolished.
His eyes stayed fixed on the road ahead. “No, Meredith.” His tone was quiet, but it carried finality like iron.
I couldn’t stop. “But she was pregnant, Draven! She couldn’t have been part of whatever the humans are doing. She was innocent—”
His jaw tightened, muscles ticking under his skin. “You think I don’t know that?” His voice was lower now, rougher. “We stay out of human business. That is the rule.”
“The rule?” My words trembled, laced with disbelief. “Since when did we decide to stand by and watch when people are dragged off the street?”
He drew in a slow breath, heavy enough that I could see the rise and fall of his chest. “Since the humans decided to hunt us, Meredith. Since they chose to turn on us first.”
I felt the air catch in my lungs, my heartbeat loud and aching in my chest. “So now every human deserves to suffer?”
Ten minutes into our drive home, we had literally witnessed a pregnant woman get abducted by the roadside, right in front of our very eyes, yet Draven did nothing.
He hadn’t bothered to move a single muscle, and I was so mad at him right now.
Draven’s gaze flicked toward me, sharp and unflinching. “Not every human,” he said. “But we can’t afford to act like saviours. Not now. Not when it risks everything we’re fighting to protect.”
“But she was helpless!” My voice rose before I could stop it. “You’re powerful enough to stop them—you could have saved her, Draven!”
“And then what?” he snapped, his voice suddenly harder, colder. “Do you think that would stop the humans? That they’d thank me? Or would they see a monster interfering, confirming every fear they already have about us?”
I swallowed, my throat raw, words caught behind the sting of tears.
Outside, streetlights flickered past, each one lighting the pain on his face for just a breath before it vanished back into shadow.
I lowered my voice, softer now, almost pleading. “I just don’t understand how you can look away. How can you hear her scream and do nothing?”
For a moment, his face changed—just a flicker, as if something inside him pulled taut. His knuckles were white around the steering wheel.
“You think it’s easy for me?” he said, quieter than before, but there was something heavy in it. “It isn’t. But I can’t let myself be ruled by pity, Meredith. Not when my people need me to lead and protect them.”
A silence fell then, so thick it felt hard to breathe. I turned away to the window, my chest tight with helpless fury.
Outside, the city blurred past—dark roofs and silent streets swallowing the van that had disappeared minutes before.
I hated the humans as well, but that didn’t mean I would be too heartless to watch someone innocent, a pregnant woman, get abducted in the dead of the night and do nothing about it.
Somewhere deep inside, a part of me understood the Alpha in him—the weight he carried. But another part, stubborn and aching, couldn’t accept it. Couldn’t accept that the cost of survival meant leaving someone to suffer.
I stayed silent for the rest of the ride, my thoughts spiralling between anger and sorrow, unable to untangle them. And next to me, Draven’s silence felt like a wall I couldn’t climb.
Yet, beneath it all, I finally glimpsed just how far he’d go to keep his people safe—even if it meant sacrificing his own mercy.