Henri looked bored. He hadn’t contributed a thing since the meeting started with the council talking about the rapid increase in price of their goods. The last topic for the day was the recent sighting of a new creature. Henri sat up now and his gaze flicked around the hall. He nodded his head and a lady strutted out from the front row. “Rosetta.” Jaja said softly to himself. “The only female Elder Vampire and a mean bitch too.” “Rosetta here...” Henri said and gestured to the white lady. “...has something to tell us.” “Henri darling, not me.” Rosetta said in a husky drawl. “One of my little ones saw something I’d like us to hear.” There was a ripple of murmur that went round the room. “Come in, my dear.” Rosetta said, sweetly. A young man came in from the side door. He looked uncertain and a little scared as he stood in the presence of all the Elder Vampires and other powerful members too. “Bruce, tell them what you saw." “Em... Well,” He coughed, then continued “Me and the

I could not believe my ears. “Did you say a Centaur?” “Y-yes" I tried to gather my thoughts... what have I read about centaurs?Yes, they can be violent when provoked. They don’t speak much but when they do, they speak in riddles. They move in herds. But I can’t hear any other sound of hoofs. “Jake" I whispered to my trembling cousin beside me. “do you hear any other hoof beat?” “Other hoof beats? Are there supposed to be others?” “Just try and listen.” I whispered back. He kept quiet for a while and then said, “No. Nothing else.” That’s strange. Now, I couldn’t even hear the one coming any longer. Where was it? I stretched my neck around the trunk and saw that it had stopped moving. It was standing about 8 feet from where we hid. It’s tail swayed lightly from left to right. And occasionally it stamped its left hind leg. It’s upper body, the part that was man-like twisted and turned, as if it knew we were there but just couldn’t find us. “We are doomed! I heard they can kick

The sounds of birds chirping woke me up. I opened my eyes slowly and sat up. My back was stiff and cracked as I sat up and stretched. I turned and still saw Jake sleeping soundly. The sun was just rising. It had plenty of light but no heat, yet. I got to my feet and looked at where we were. There was not much to see. Just plenty of large, old looking trees. They were huge, I could hardly see their top branches. The ground space was covered with dead leaves, dry sticks, humus and little shrubs and bushes. I hard a sinking feeling in my chest that we might even be in London anymore. I turned when I heard Jake yawn. He was awake now and was getting to his feet. He looked at me with sleepy eyes and said, “You figured out where we are?”I shook my head. He groaned and dusted his robe. The watcher robe I had stolen for him. “You figured out how we’ll get home?” He asked again. I shook my head again. He groaned again. “Tonight is a full moon. I’ve never spent a full moon out of a pack

YOU’RE HUNGRY, aren’t you?” Jake said beside me. We’ve been walking and resting at intervals. We were following the flow of the stream this time. Hopefully, it would lead us to a bridge or a main road where we’ll see where we are. Because we even have no idea where we were at. “Here.” I handed him the bag I carried. “There are some pieces of meat I reserved there.” “Thanks Jas. You’re a life saver.” He collected the bag from my hand and stuffed his mouth with cold meat. “Where do you think we are?” He asked with a full mouth and in between biting.“I don’t know. Maybe Africa.” “Africa?” His mouth hung open in mock horror. “Maybe... Kenya. We should see some giraffes or elephants anytime soon.”“Stop lying to me.” Jake laughed.“I truthfully have no idea where we are.” I told him. “But we’re really far away...” “Yep.” I nodded in confirmation. “Wow... mad stuffs.” He kept on eating till the sun became too hot and we had to rest underneath a large tree. We still hadn’t seen any

WE STARED AT each other for close to a minute. I didn’t move a muscle except for eyes which were blinking. Then slowly, he backed away from me and I breathed a sigh of relief. He sat down on his hind limbs and bent his ears back. I glanced on the floor around and saw the torn clothes that he had been putting on before he shifted. I groaned. I suddenly heard a howl.From the tenor, length and strength, it was the howl of an alpha. But I was just imagining things, we were in the middle of nowhere. A werewolf pack can’t just appear out of – There it was, I heard again. Jake raised his nose to the moon and gave a deep and long howl. The howl from the alpha came again and Jake ears perked up. He gave a low whine and shot forward. I scrambled to pack our stuffs and ran after him. He didn’t slow down, He just kept the pace until I thought I could not talk it any longer and was prepared for him to leave me when we burst into a very large compound with a big mansion set far back behin