Fated Mate

Ash, Joe and Billy got out of the car and walked up the driveway of the cream-colored house with red and white roses bordering the path. Joe had tracked them here, to Dave’s house.

Billy reached to ring the doorbell when Ash stopped him. “Don’t bother no one’s home. They left; I hope for good.” Ash was relieved. He could now go back to hunting Baku without worrying about the humans. “Let’s go. We have a bigger fish to fry.”

“Ash, could we get some pizza on the way?” Joe said sounding relaxed, “Too bad we can’t go back to that place, the sauce smelled pretty good.”

Ash turned and looked at him, a perplexed look on his face. “What?”

“Only Joe can think of food at the oddest of times,” Billy said flatly as he walked back to the car.

“Joe, when I first met you, you were a pretty serious guy, what happened?” Ash asked Joe who was staring at him with an amused look on his face.

“I’ve been alive for over a century, being carefree is a better way to live.”

“Women, booze and carefree, the three essentials for an immortal life,” Billy called out from the car.

“So, what’s the difference between you and me?” Joe asked Billy walking back to the car.

Ash looked at the two guys as they squabbled over something nonsensical as they usually did. He envied the stride the two had taken with their immortal lives. They had easily gotten over watching their families die while they stayed alive.

But it was different with them. Their families had died from old age or disease. Ash’s family was murdered. They were brutally killed out of spite and jealousy. Ash was constantly tormented by the memory of his dead family.

Rosa’s pale, bloody, pregnant body, her arms wrapped around Kiowa’s blue body.

Ash felt a tight squeeze around his heart. The pain was still there, a constant reminder of his punishment-his slow, lonely painful death. Once Baku was dead, he would finally end his misery. Five hundred years was already too long to keep suffering like this.

Baku would pay for what he did, and Ash intended to make it a slow painful death.

* * * *

Dave was a bit relaxed now. He had put quite a distance between his nightmare and his family. He would have driven past Miami if he hadn’t felt guilty for dragging his family across the country. He collapsed on the king size bed and closed his eyes. He could finally get some shuteye.

He rented a cottage on the beach, on top of the rocks where water crashed into at high tide. It also had a spectacular view of the sunset. He intended to make sure that his family had a wonderful time during their three-week vacation. He also hoped that in three weeks he wouldn’t be so scared anymore.

As he came out of his long-deserved sleep, he could hear his children’s laughter in the background. The sun was setting with its yellow-orange glow looked so beautiful over the ocean. Cool breeze made its way into the cottage; it tickled his skin as he rose from the bed. He had been asleep for nearly eight hours.

He walked out onto the patio. He smiled as he watched his children build sandcastles under the watchful eye of their mother. She had one of her mesmerizing smiles running across her face.

“Daddy!” Alice shrieked as she stood up and ran toward Dave. The other two kids were also on their feet now. They passed Alice with ease. Jayson jumped on him as Merilee wrapped her arms around his knees and hugged them tight. Dave held onto the pole for support.

“Take it easy on your dad,” Martha shouted as she pulled up the rear.

“You were asleep for a long time. We wanted to wake you up so that you could play with us,” Jayson said as Dave put him down to pick up his baby sister.

Alice had come running with her arms extended up. She didn’t appreciate the fact that her brother was comfortable in a place she considered being only hers. If Dave had held him for five more seconds, she would have erupted like a volcano.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Mommy said that you were very tired and that she’ll pull our ears out if we did,” Merilee’s squeaky voice came in response.

“How about we play now?” Dave could barely manage to utter the words past his heavy laugh. The kids took off happily back to their sandcastle. Martha went to him and hugged him. She drew back without letting him go and looked up at him with concern.

“How are you doing?”

“I’m okay now, and before you say anything else, I really want to enjoy this time with my family without thinking about it.” Reluctantly he added, “I’ll tell you…just…not now.”

He held his wife close as he watched his children throw sand at each other. How did I get so lucky, and yet so unlucky?

* * * *

Ash had been searching for close to three weeks for Baku and his pack. He was getting frustrated and impatient. They had held off feeding for a week when he thought they were close to finding him, but they’d been duped again. Baku disappeared every time they seemed to get close, now it just felt like a wild goose chase.

“We’ve been searching for weeks; there is no sign of him. I’m hungry, tired and getting angrier by the day!” Billy groaned as he paced in the living room of their bungalow house.

“Does Baku have some magical powers we don’t know about, because he reminds me of that guy…Houdini? I mean there is no one else he could have learned these disappearing acts from, unless he is a magician too.” Joe collapsed in the seat. “Ash since he’s yin and you’re yang, do you also have magical superpowers we don’t know about, apart from your hundred times more power than what we have? Because if you do, you could just telepathically track him down…wait…you would have tried that already…unless you didn’t…”

“Joe…” Billy hissed and took a step closer to him. “Now is not the time to be funny!”

Joe jumped behind Ash and held his hands up in surrender. He wasn’t about to take on a frustrated Billy, especially when he was sober.

Ash was close to hitting Joe himself if Billy hadn’t stopped Joe’s foolish ranting, but he was also not going to let Billy attack him for his stupidity. They needed the little strength they had to hunt and feed, and that meant getting out of the city and into the country. Did he really have the strength to even drive?

“Sabrina, I need you to drive us into the country. I don’t think any of us are up to driving or running.”

“Why don’t you just feed on the humans? It’s much easier, and plus I won’t have to drive you anywhere. I’m tired and…” She looked up and caught Ash glaring at her with murder in his eyes.

“Have you…” Ash hissed out, too angry to finish his words.

Sabrina, sensing danger, replied hurriedly as she stood and headed toward the door. “No. I haven’t been feeding on humans! I drank the stash you left in the freezer. And I don’t mind driving. Meet you at the car.” She ran out the door, she wasn’t giving Ash a chance to pounce on her.

Billy looked at Ash amused and yet annoyed. “Couldn’t you have lost control on a mute or a less annoying prostitute?”

“We should have just fed on her before she changed. Saved ourselves years of torment,” Joe added. It was becoming a dialogue between Billy and Joe.

“It’s kept him from sleeping with another human, I can’t imagine being monogamous for eternity. I wonder if the constant angry sex is what’s making her more irritating.”

“Well, it is turning him into more of a sour puss every day.”

“Not. Now,” Ash growled so loud it made them quicken their pace to the car. He knew the mistake he had made and he cursed himself every time he saw her. He regretted having the annoying bitch around, but she would cause less havoc with him around and he had no one else to relieve his sexual frustration on. That, and the fact he was too scared to bed another human.