CHAPTER 40: JOURNEY TO THE LODGE

After my conversation with Isabella ended, I decided to check my system notifications, which I hadn’t paid any attention to while I was in my wolf form. My level had increased by 5, bringing me to level 19. I had gained one new skill and had leveled up a few of my current skills.

[You have gained the Level 1 skill Heat Manipulation:

Description: Allows the user to increase the surrounding temperature by 10°C.

Your skill HellFire has been leveled up to Level 3:

Description: The user can now cover 15% of his body in hellfire.]

While reading my stats and new skills, I glanced up at Liora and saw she had a wild look in her eyes. She stared at me, practically drooling. Her eyes were glowing a deep shade of orange but before I could even ask her what was wrong, she pounced on me and sank her sharp fangs into my neck.

She latched onto my neck, sucking like a newborn and moaning wildly as she drained my blood.

’She couldn’t even wait until I was fully healed.’

Vampires were creatures with little control over their urges. I imagined it would be worse for a hybrid. Soon, she pulled away gasping for air, blood trailing down her chin.

"I’m sorry. I’m still learning how to control myself. My body and mind are still changing. I’ve been feeling this mixture of emotions I haven’t felt before," she said, her face flushed with a red blush. "Usually, it takes a week for a newborn’s body to fully develop after they have been turned. For a hybrid like me, I don’t know how long it will take. I really don’t... please forgive me~"

Suddenly, tears formed in the corners of her eyes and started streaming down her face.

’What the hell!’

I knew vampires were emotional creatures, but this was something else. With a sigh, I drew her closer and patted her head, which caused her to start breathing erratically before plunging her fangs back into my neck again.

The two of us slept like this, side by side, latched onto each other as she sucked my blood. My body was so weak that even if I wanted to, I couldn’t resist her. The next morning, her attitude had completely changed to one of coldness, as if I had committed a grave sin.

She must’ve felt embarrassed over her action and for whatever reason, blamed it on me.

She didn’t speak to me for the whole day until at night she snuck up on me again. She pinned me down with the eyes of a wild beast and sunk her fangs into my neck. I tried my best to ignore her and slept while she gulped down nonstop.

There wasn’t much to do during the day as we traveled out of the city. All the highways were congested with traffic, so we had to take the longer way out.

With the supplies Derrick and I had gathered beforehand, we didn’t have to worry about much. The lodge where we would meet our parents was far outside the city and deep in the woods. The road was littered with zombies, making it impossible to drive through certain sections of the city.

It was just the fourth day since the world went to hell, and already there were no signs of people at all. We drove until we finally exited the city. It was roughly a three-day drive until we reached the lodge.

During this time, I decided to teach Isabella the proper way to fight even though she was clearly not happy with what I was trying to do.

"You do realize that I was trained by the strongest vampire assassin who could single-handedly topple an entire city," she argued, folding her arms.

"If you’re going to be a werewolf, then fight like one. Your claws are much more reliable than the daggers you keep using. Let me teach you the proper way to use them."

She sighed exhaustedly and shook her head. We spent the entire day training. Her movements were sloppy, as expected. Though she had experience fighting and was trained by the best, she found my fighting style difficult.

That was because she was too used to fighting like a human. Her movements were smooth and graceful, showing a lot of practice. On the other hand, fighting with claws was more erratic and relied mostly on movements that seemed wild.

The beauty of this style was its unpredictability. I knew from experience it was much harder to predict your opponent’s moves when they were fighting like this. For example, with Isabella’s fighting style, her movements followed a pattern. She fought within a set rhythm and tempo, and if I wanted to win against her, all I had to do was throw her off. A fighting style that relied on movements that were hard to predict would be best.

We sparred for hours. The best way to learn was the same way I learned, through pain. Only by feeling the pain that comes with making a mistake would she learn the proper way to fight.

As the sun was setting, creating a beautiful orange glow in the sky, we all sat together for dinner. We had made camp at a building we found along the way. When we found it, it was infested with the dead. We had to clear them out before we could settle. The place looked like an old workshop.

Lily promptly took a seat in Allison’s lap, expecting to be spoon-fed what she was eating. Allison smiled at her, knowing what she wanted, and began feeding her.

The rest of us also began eating our meal, but as we ate, Liora raised an unexpected question.

"How long until we get to the lodge?"

"We should get there by tomorrow, so just a few more miles left to go," Allison said with a smile, but it quickly faded as she remembered something. "Though we should be careful; I remember this is not the friendliest place to be."

"You used to live with Mom and Dad at the lodge before they moved, right, Allison? What was it like?"

Allison placed her finger on her lower lip as she tried to recall her experiences.

"I can hardly remember. I was just a little girl when we lived there. I remember Mom and Dad being very strict about me going outside. I also remember I had to hide whenever we had a guest. It was truly awful; I remember hating living there."

"Didn’t we visit there a few times when we were younger? I think Liam and Liora were about Lily’s age at the time," Derrick said.

"Oh yeah, you’re right. Mom wanted to make amends with her old pack. It was around the time her brother took over as the new alpha."

Honestly, I didn’t really remember much about being at the lodge. Since I was so young, it was all a fog. When we finished eating, we went to sleep shortly after, and in the morning, we woke up and continued our journey.

About an hour in, we came to the entrance of a deep forest. It was impossible for the van to make it through, so we were forced to traverse to foot. Lily, of course, latched herself around my neck when she realized we had to walk.

Allison took the lead since she was the one who actually knew where we were going. For some reason, being in the forest felt a bit like home to us. The scent of the earth, grasses, and trees felt nostalgic, even for Lily, who had never been here. But that feeling was broken when I caught a whiff of something.

I immediately activated my thermal vision skill and realized we were being encircled on all sides. I spotted five of them in total, and something told me they were experienced, as they all stood at such a far distance that it would be difficult for someone with a heightened sense of smell to pick up on them.

Derrick was the first to notice my change of expression and asked,

"What’s wrong?"

"We’re surrounded... by werewolves."