Page 35 of Her Eternal Mate

I watched as the men drove out in Will’s Jeep. Then I waited long enough for them to go down the sloping road and head into Fiddler’s Green. Once I was sure that they were gone, I assigned my place at the post to one of the guys who had remained back at the commune and then headed to my home.

It was a plan I’d been cooking for quite some time now. Blair was at the center of everything that had been happening. If I could find him, isolate him, and somehow overpower him, it would mean the end of all this nonsense. I just needed some special help from someone in doing so.

Just then, there was a knock at the door. I opened it discretely and found Maliha standing there with her laptop bag.

“I waited for them to leave first,” Maliha said.

“You did good,” I said, pulling her inside the house. It was very critical to our operation that no one knew what Maliha and I were up to.

“I did something even better,” Maliha said, grinning at me. “You know these soldiers are just dropping dead everywhere? I went and took a closer look at one body. The whole console on it was quite functional, allowing me to access the files more easily than before.”

“Let me get this straight. You went out of your way to find a dead soldier and then hacked his console? Do you fucking realize how dangerous that is?”

Maliha blinked at me vacantly, then rolled her eyes and said, “Danger? You’re one to speak of danger. I am surrounded by werewolves. The world that I live in is filled with vampires and mutated soldiers. How much more danger could there be? And what do I have to gain if I stay there quietly in my apartment, worried stiff for my life? I’m doing my part just as you’re doing yours. I might not be a werewolf, but at least I can help the good guys in this fight.”

Then Maliha revealed the console that she’d brought with her. It was plugged into her laptop. I could not understand all that technical mumbo-jumbo that was on the screen, so I looked at Maliha, hoping she’d provide an explanation.

“Blair’s got state-of-the-art cybersecurity now. I guess he’s learned from his mistake,” Maliha said. “I cannot hack into his system as swiftly as I could before. But I’m not unsuccessful. It’s just taking me a lot longer to do it than before. When I finally decrypt this console, I’ll be able to provide you with an accurate location of where Blair’s holed up.”

“And then this madness will end once and for all,” I said softly.

“What now?”

“It’s this place. It’s Fiddler’s Green. You must have realized it by now,” I said, deciding to trust Maliha with what was lying heavy in my heart. “This whole place is diseased. It draws chaos from all over.”

“I never thought about it like that,” Maliha said. “But then again, up until a while ago, I did not know that werewolves and vampires existed, so what the hell do I know about anything?”

“We’re battening down the hatches, bracing for impact, and preparing for a fight. Say we defeat Blair. There’s going to be someone after that and after that too. It’s like the perfect hell loop.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?” I looked at Maliha. I was surprised as to how surely she had said no.

“This entire thing has an air of finality to it. I may not know what’s been happening in this town. But look at everything that’s happening now. This feels like the end of things. I feel it in my bones. When Blair dies, this will be the end of it. And since you’re my best friend, I’m going to say something to you. Something that you’ve been wanting to say to me but are afraid of. Yes. When you defeat Blair, you and Will are going to leave this place and start your own lives. I don’t believe in superstition. I believe in intuition. And my intuition tells me that everything will be fine with you.”

I just wanted to hug my best friend at that moment. Her words comforted me in just the way that my heart needed. There was no way that she could know the outcome of our upcoming fight with Blair. But she had reassured me, consoled me, and in doing so, had done her duty as my friend.

It was more than anything that I’d ever done for her.

“Thank you, Maliha,” I said, hugging her tightly.

“Hey. No need to thank me. You saved my life. As far as I’m concerned, I’m forever in your debt,” Maliha said.

While Maliha hacked away on her laptop, I looked out the window and into the commune. It had been a week since we’d rescued Vince and restored him back to health, a week since the soldiers had started morphing and mutating. Other than that, things were pretty normal, giving Fiddler’s Green that façade of regularity.

It only meant that something seriously fucked up was about to happen soon, and I was not talking about the storm.

Chapter 16

Will

Eliminating the soldiers from the vicinity of the town was laborious work. As dull as it was, it was quite essential too. We could not risk anyone seeing these soldiers out and about, mutilating themselves, dying alone.

After clearing the lake area, I delegated the task of eliminating the remaining soldiers to the rest of the pack, clearing my schedule for something I’d planned earlier. With the way things had been, Alexis and I hadn’t had a chance to spend some quality time together with each other in the past week. The only thing that we’d done before that was in New York. It was high time for me to arrange something romantic for her.

“Knock, knock,” I said, tapping on the back of her head while she was in the kitchen making breakfast.

“Who’s there?” Alexis asked, chuckling.

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