*Bonus Ch 265: Not Him

[This is the end of their story.]

In the dense brown woods, Ian ran at a fast rate.

"LILY!" he yelled when he stopped for a breather. His hearing focuses on every little sound. Up high, a gentle breeze emitted into these drying leaves on the overhanging limbs that resembled if a forest fire had scorched them to death. Ravens caw eerily then they fly off the branches above his head. He turns in a full circle, trying to hear Lily. Suddenly, he heard a susurrating sound of dry leaves far ahead from his right. He took off in that direction as his heartbeat pounds against his speed. Up ahead, he saw that gray-white wolf, leaping over bumpy dirt, rocks, lifted roots, and around these burnt-looking trees.

"Lily, stop!" Ian yelled, increasing his momentum.

Ahead of him, Lily was in her sprint. The chilly breeze was gliding along her fur coat. She heard Ian, but her excitement arose too high to care.

"Come to me." Her blood pumped faster when she heard that gentle voice again. Directly ahead on her pathway, the woods were nearing the end. Lily dashed onward while Ian did the same from farther behind her trail, yet he was gaining in.

On maximum adrenaline, she leaped out of the woods. Her front two paws touched the grassy straw field just when Ian dashed out and tackled her body. Lily whimpered as they rolled a few times. Ian locked his arms tightly around her wolf frame. She wrestled, wormed, and wiggled to break free from his grip.

"He isn't your dad!" Ian manages to say during their struggle from her trying to break loose.

Hearing him, she growls before she bites his right forearm through his hoodie.

"Ouch!" Ian outcries, releasing her.

He held his injured arm as Lily's bones snapped and popped before she changed back into a vampiress form.

In full anger, she yelled, "What is your problem? You said you'd help me find my dad! Now you're trying to stop me!"

"He's not your dad!" Ian argued, standing up.

"Whatever, Ian!" Lily curtly retorted.

She turned to walk away as a large group of vampires appeared barely ten feet away.

"Dad?" Lily smiled as her eyes sparkle brightly.

"It's me, Lily." The one vampire revealed himself in the center of his group.

Without any hesitation, she hustled her feet to reach him as Ian yelled. "No!"

Lily growled without looking back. "Stop lying, I know my dad's call!" She only wanted her dad. His smiling face was all she saw past her frustration.

Unlike Lily, Ian caught a whiff of their scent, "They're the vampires that were hunting us!" he shouted clearly.

As his voice entered her ears, she stopped her stride as a sinister grin twisted on the vampire's smile.

"Dad?" she whispered behind her breath as that wonderful feeling was replaced with a nerve-wrecking chill.

"Nope." The vampire replied broadly as his voice reverted from sounding like her father. Her memory jolted in a flash from realizing he was the same vampire who nearly found her and Ian hiding behind the dumpster in that parking lot.

Lily swerved to reach Ian. Hardly gaining acceleration, she was snatched before sharp fangs pierced her neck.

"Lily!'

All in slow motion, Ian watched the vampire bite Lily like she was nothing more than a fragile doll in his grasp. Bones crunch over her crying. Blood spilled and poured a considerable amount, which saturated her pink hoodie. Her neck was getting lacerated, and she fell weaker by the second. Just as her skin tone was suffusing a dull sallow, the vice vampire withdrew his fangs. Lily's blood covered his entire mouth, so he licked it clean. Too enfeebled to hold her stance, she leans limply in his arms.

Watching the whole occurrence, Ian snorted. Fumes from his anger charred his eye sockets. In full wrath, he charged the vampire who had Lily. The fact that there were over twenty vampires no longer crossed his mind. That vampire who had Lily sneered his mouth to watch Ian's heroism unfold.

Without seeing it coming, Ian was flipped off his feet. His body somersaulted in mid-air before his back plummeted to the grassy ground. He groaned in pain, and his vision was slightly blurry. Before Ian knew what had him, a stronghold clutched his throat. His entire body was hoisted off the ground with ease. Baleful red eyes meet Ian's sight with a mockery glint glistening across them.

The vampire's grip squeezed Ian's windpipe. "Sorry youngster, but you are no match for some of the oldest generations born from our Kind," he jeered, belittling him.

Ian's eyes rolled in the back of his head. He kicked his dangling feet, gritting in pain. All eight fingers and two thumbs on Ian's hands dug into the vampire's wrist. But the vampire snickered at Ian's disposition in his undermining failure to defeat him.

Standing within the group, alpha Tyler ordered, "Detain him, and let's get out of here."

Still, in the arms of the mimicking vampire, Lily's voice drifted. "Ian..."

Ian slightly heard her until a harsh pain punctured his neck whenever the vampire bit him. His stamina deteriorates weaker and weaker by the millisecond. All the blood was being emptied from his veins.

Firstly, his arm felt like a stiff muscle before he felt it deflate into a shriveled piece of fruit. That dry stiffness crossed his chest as Ian cried out from such horrendous pain.

Lily weakly cried as Ian's eyes felt extremely heavy like he wanted to sleep.

Just before his eyes shut, he caught a glimpse of another vampire flying in from out of the blue. Sharp fangs dug into Ian's attacker's neck. Ian was dropped flat onto the ground as he weakly peered up from all the howling.

With hardly any effort, his attacker's neck was spewing blood like a fountain. His head is ripped off as if a sword cut through him. Then Ian's rescuer flung the headless body away like a ragdoll to the left. Next, his mysterious rescuer kicked the head away like a soccer ball to his right.

Not wasting time, the vampire kneeled to support Ian's head in his arms. Ian feebly looked around to see bears, wolves, and other vampires come out of the woods attacking. Then he turned his head toward Lily and saw a different vampire was caring for her.

"Dad..." Ian feebly called, making eye contact with this vampire that had saved him.

He watched as he bit his wrist with a loud crunch that sounded like cracking ice. Heavy amounts of blood gushed from his wrist, and Ian's nose sniffed in response to it.

"My name is Jack, and yes, Ian, I am your dad," Jack concluded. "Now drink."