The Alpha Killer
Withdrawal Symptoms

Day of Tania’s Rescue

Talia’s POV

We left after I made sure Tania had eaten all she could and had plenty of juice. I was still in shock over her appearance; she was thin and weak, while my body was solid muscle. The past four years had treated us far differently, and my heart broke every time I looked at her.

I was happy she had good clothes now; she had jeans, boots, a clean shirt and a leather jacket. I put my extra clothes in my storage on the bike, and she kept the backpack on as we got on my Harley. I fired it up and headed east towards Texarkana.

The road noise made more difficult to talk, especially since she didn’t have wolf hearing. When she was injected with an overdose of wolfsbane, it killed her wolf and prevented her from being able to shift again. The loss of her wolf affected everything we had in human form as well; the rapid healing, the strength, and the enhanced vision, smell and hearing. It rendered her as weak and desensitized as any human, and I’m sure she misses it greatly. I couldn’t imagine being apart from my wolf nature, my constant companion in my mind, and my powerful fur side.

We had ridden for a few hours and had taken off our jackets in the rising heat of the Texas day. The wind kept me cool, but Tania was not very comfortable behind me. She was sweating through her T-shirt and couldn’t seem to cool off. When we stopped for lunch, she was tired and couldn’t stop yawning. “Tania, what’s wrong?”

She ran her hands across her upper arms. “I need my shot,” she said. “After a night we’d get our shot, and we’d sleep until the next town.”

“Shot?”

“H,” she said. My anger spiked again, and I wished I would have captured them and made them suffer. They got my sister hooked on heroin. “I’m all right, I can ride,” she said.

“It’s only going to get worse. You let me know if it gets to be too much, and I’ll replace a place to stop for the night.”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” she said.

As soon as she was gone, I called Jerrod’s house. His day butler answered, he had been his familiar for years and ran the daytime staff that cleaned and maintained the historic mansion. “Malcolm, it’s Talia,” I said. “I may be later than I expected, and I’m going to need some help when I get there.”

“Of course, Ms. Talia. Master left me instructions to provide you with whatever you need.”

“My sister Tania was hooked on heroin while she was being held. I need a doctor to see her, and we need to plan ahead for her detox.” I’d heard horror stories about going cold turkey, and I wasn’t looking forward to the pain my sister would face.

“Of course, Madam. We have a doctor on retainer, she’s very discreet. I will inform her of the need and make sure the room is prepared for her.”

“Thank you, Malcolm. I look forward to seeing you again.”

“The staff is thrilled you are coming, as is the Coven. Dinner will be your favorite.”

“See you soon,” I said as I hung up. Tania was coming back out, she didn’t look good. I threw money on the table to cover the bill and went to the bathroom as she went out to sit by the bike. When I came back out, we got back on the road.

Tania’s symptoms got worse as the day went on, and she was barely awake as we pulled past the gates into the courtyard of the estate. Tania was awestruck as we walked in, me carrying my bags and her the backpack. The meticulously manicured formal gardens, the fountain and the cobblestone paths led to the deep and tall two-level porches in front. “Welcome to Mort De La Nuit,” Malcolm said as he opened the door and welcomed us in. Maids took our bags and walked up the grand staircase with them. “You must be tired, come, we have drinks and refreshments waiting in the salon.”

“Thank you, Malcolm.” We followed him towards the back of the large building, until we reached a sitting room overlooking the gardens and the pool. The ceilings inside were twelve feet tall, with huge windows that opened at the top to let the hottest air out. Air conditioning had tamed the heat and humidity, but large ceiling fans kept air moving. Antiques were everywhere, and maids we passed were scurrying about making sure everything was ready. He set us at a small table, bringing us pitchers of iced tea and lemonade.

Although he was as non-threatening a man as I’d ever met, I could see how Tania watched him and kept her distance. He allowed me to pour the glasses, staying farther away than normal. “I’ll inform the Master you have arrived,” he told me. “When you are done, the maids have taken your things to your room and will take your laundry from you. I assumed you would not want to be separated from your sister?”

“Never again,” I said. Tania looked relieved.

“I’ve taken the liberty of putting a second bed in your room,” he said.

“Thank you, Malcolm. It’s good to be back.” He smiled and left, and I made sure Tania drank plenty of lemonade and ate some pastries before we went upstairs. She was not feeling well, and it would only get worse.

Malcolm came back a few minutes later and whispered to me from across the room that Jarrod would like to see me as soon as Tania was settled. He had been informed of her treatment and that her wolf was gone, and no human could have heard that. I helped her stand, and we walked together up the main staircase to the second floor.

I walked down the familiar corridor to my room, which overlooked the pool and gardens on the back side. The room was large, as were all the guest rooms, since none were used by the Coven. The rooms along the front housed the Familiars, the trusted staff and willing blood donors for the vampires. Being familiars to vampires was a choice; the group was intensely loyal to Jarrod, and most had been with him for decades. After four years in hell, I couldn’t imagine what Tania thought of the four-poster bed, the antique armoire, or the huge marble-tiled bathroom. “Come on, let’s get you clean,” I said.

I helped her shower, getting in with her, then went to my armoire and found a sleeping shirt. As soon as I had her tucked into the smaller bed, she was out like a light. I dressed in a loose hunter-green dress and matching heels and went out of the room. Malcolm was waiting with one of the maids. “Louisa will stay with her and inform us if our guest awakens or is distress,” he said. “She should not be alone while undergoing this trial.”

“Thank you,” I said, nodding my head to the young maid as she entered and sat on a chair at the small desk by the window. I closed the door behind me and followed him down the back stairs, and through a keypad-locked door. The door closed before the next door in the vestibule opened, ensuring that sunlight could never reach inside. From there, we went down the stairs to the expansive basement, formed from poured concrete walls with no openings.

It was the perfect place for a coven.

“Talia,” the deep voice said as I came into view. Jarrod was standing at the base of the stairs, standing in tailored dress pants and a white shirt open at the collar. “Welcome home.”

I jumped off the fifth step from the bottom, and he caught me and spun me around. “Thank you for taking us in,” I said.

“You are family, even if you are more like the family dog,” he teased as he let me down. I smacked his arm lightly, then was caught up in hugs by Eduardo, Marceline and Anastasia. “Come, let us sit. Malcolm has informed me of your sister’s medical condition, but I need to know more.”

We spent an hour going through it all; they were very familiar with my story, but what I knew of Tania’s life in the past four years angered them all. I was considered family and had come to them in large part because of what had happened after my parents had been killed and my sister disappeared. “They need to be punished,” I said as I finished. “But my sister comes first.”

“Does she know about our true nature,” Eduardo asked.

“No, and I don’t know how she will react. Vampires were our enemy, and our upbringing was to gather all the warriors and attack them before they could get close.” That was one reason I had come to them when the Council went after me. No werewolf would ever approach a Coven unless they wanted an all-out war. Vampires were extremely dangerous to werewolves; incredibly fast, their venom bringing death in seconds, and their claws capable of shredding flesh into ribbons. They also healed almost instantly, and this made them very difficult to kill.

“We will keep her ignorant until the time is right,” Jarrod said. “She has enough to worry about. The doctor will be here after dinner to examine her. I’ve also arranged for a nurse with detox experience to stay with us for a week.”

“A week?”

“Yes, that should get us past the worst of the symptoms. I am informed that other symptoms may persist for weeks, even months. She would have a long road to recovery even if the drugs were the only thing she was dealing with.” He paused for a moment. “How did she seem to you?”

“She’s still processing she’s out of that hell,” I said. “She hasn’t raged yet, but it’s coming.”

“You have not either,” he said. “I know how much you want revenge, but there is plenty of time to plan and we will help however we can. Not just with Alpha Todd and his mate, but with the man who kept her like a brood mare,” he said.

“What do you want to do about her son,” Anastasia asked me.

I sighed. Her son would be three now and had no idea who she was or what her parents had done. “I want to know where he is, and I’ll give her the choice to get him back or leave him where he is,” I said. “I will NOT allow that piece of shit to continue breathing past the end of the month. He must pay for taking her, for taking a year from her life and her own child.”

“We will help you replace him. There can’t be many three-year-old Alpha children.” He stood and pulled off his shirt. “I can feel the anger boiling in you, Talia. Care for a spar?”

“I’d love it,” I said. I pulled my dress off and kicked off my heels before shifting to my intermediate form and following them to the gym and training room. The large area had packed sawdust on the floor and padded walls in the combat area.

Sawdust absorbed the blood, and there was going to be blood.

“Fight to yield, no claws to the face, throat or groin,” Eduardo said.

The fight started without a signal; I attacked, feinting a throat punch before dropping to sweep a leg. Jarrod easily avoided the fist, spinning into a kick that caught me on the shoulder and knocked me into the wall. I grabbed my shoulder, banging it into the wall to fix the dislocated shoulder, and turned and growled. “Use your anger,” he said.

I attacked without mercy, unleashing a furious combination of kicks and punches as Jarrod blocked or avoided each one. He would punch or kick to interrupt my rhythm or gain space, but it was only a few minutes later I realized what he was doing.

He allowed me to exhaust my anger in the fight. He could have taken me at any time; I was lightning fast after years of training against them, at least if I was going against a werewolf. Against a vampire with any training, I was only a challenging kill.

I felt better, and I shifted back to human form. Panting heavily and bleeding from several wounds, I walked up and hugged him. “Thank you, my friend,” I said.

“You are welcome. It’s been too long.” We both walked to the bathrooms, where I took a shower. The cuts had healed by the time I emerged, and my dress and shoes had been placed on the vanity.

There was a tone, and the sound of the door locks unlatching. It was now after sundown. I walked out where they were waiting for me. “Join us for dinner?”

“Let me check my sister first,” I said.

“She’s with the doctor now, she will be brought down as soon as the examination is done. Doctor Anders will join us as well.” He held out his arm, and I slid my hand onto it, allowing him to escort me up the stairs. The inside door was now open, and he keyed the combination for the outer door and we walked into the main hall.

The normal employees were gone, only the familiars were allowed in the house between dusk and dawn. We sat at the large table, eating shrimp cocktail and drinking wine while we waited. Vampires could eat and digest food just like us, in fact Jarrod prided himself on his palate and his kitchen staff’s skills. They required blood twice a week or so, more often if they were healing a lot.

All conversation stopped when a young black woman came down the stairs with a frightened Tania in her arms. Her eyes lit up when she saw me, and she looked warily at the people gathered. “Tania, welcome to my home,” Jarrod said as he stood from his chair. “I am Jarrod Valentine, and this is my family.” He walked behind the chairs, introducing Eduardo, Marceline and Anastasia. “Please join us for dinner.”

“Thank you,” she said nervously. Malcolm pulled out a chair for her next to me, and Doctor Nora Andrews sat across from us.

The soup course was brought out first, a seafood gumbo served with small hard rolls. I got her to eat some of both, though she didn’t participate in the conversation and no one forced things. A small salad followed, then the main course. Since they knew we were coming, it was a rare slab of prime rib with horseradish sauce. I had a thick slice, while Tania just asked for a small piece done medium. Dessert was Bananas Foster.

It was an excellent meal, but Tania was starting to feel the withdrawal more. “Thank you for the dinner,” she said quietly as we stood.

Over the next week, I held her hair out of her face as she threw up over and over. I held her as she shivered, held her back when she was desperate to leave and replace a fix, and sat up with her as she couldn’t sleep. The nurse and doctor were fantastic, but I felt like I had been through a wringer by the time things evened out.

In the meantime, we had found her son, alive and well in a Pack in Colorado.