Frank

After nearly half an hour of trudging through the trees and getting covered in scratches and mud-well, on my part anyway-we’d finally made it.

We were heading towards a big clearing in the very centre of the huge forest. There were small fires burning all around the area and there were tents dotted around. There weren’t many people or wolves around anywhere. There were three wolves lying on the floor next to a fire on the far side of the camp and two women sat near a tent opposite them, but that was it.

We were lead over to a tent set up on our right and we followed the wolf who Gerard had been talking with inside of the tent, followed by another man.

Inside were four other people. There was woman who looked like she was in her thirties.
Underneath the claws and hair and fangs, she beautiful. Next to her was a boy who looked the same age as me. He looked similar to the woman. There were two other men in the tent. One was a giant, broad shouldered man with thick blonde hair and piercing blue eyes and sleeves of tattoos. The other was a smaller man with as much hair as the rest of them. He had grey eyes and mousy brown hair and bulging muscles.

“Ryan?”

The tall man with the blue eyes turned around and his face immediately twisted with disgust when he saw Gerard.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing Ben? You brought him into our camp?!” Ryan yelled.

Ben flinched and cast his eyes down to the ground. “I-I’m sorry. He… just hear what he has to say Ryan, please.”

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t rip to pieces you fucking leech!” Ryan hissed Gerard.

“I came because I want to offer you power,” Gerard out right said, not blinking or changing his expression.

And, just like Ben and the others had done, Ryan burst out laughing.

“You’re pretty fucked up kid, you know that?” Ryan snorted. “Like hell do you wanna offer me anything!”

“I’m not lying! Do you honestly think I’d come here if I didn’t have a damn good reason to?!”

“If you’re wasting my time then you’ll be sorry. I don’t care that you’re a prince Gerard. This better be good or you’re in the shit. We’re extremely busy tonight and I have things to do.”

“I want offer you power when I become King.”

“Why would you do that?” Ryan asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

“Why? Because I don’t want you to be constantly fighting for power all the time. I don’t want you and every other werewolf to have to feel the need to fight against us. I just want peace between us all. But it comes with a price.”

“Oh?” Ryan asked, raising an eyebrow and crossing his arms over his broad muscular chest.

“I need a favour. I need you to take in my friend. His name’s Ray. My brother bought him and I don’t want him to be in danger. I just want him to be safe and that’s pretty hard when he’s chained up in my brother’s bedroom all the time.”

Ryan chuckled at this.

“I just need you to let him stay with you until I turn eighteen and I become King. I just want to be able to know he’s safe and I can’t do anything myself until my birthday.”

“What, so you want us to look after a human for a few months in exchange for power when you become King?” Ryan asked, not sounding convinced.

“Yes.”

“You know you’re asking a big favour here. I’d be putting my entire pack in danger by taking him in. Once your brother realises he’s gone, I’m guessing he’ll throw a tantrum and try to get his toy back.”

“I doubt that. He’ll be… angry, yeah, but he won’t come looking for him. He’ll just forget about him and buy a new human. Mikey doesn’t have a problem with replacing people.”

“Makes me sick. All of you do,” Ryan muttered, his face turning grim. “It’s disgusting the way you just buy humans and throw them away when you’re done.”

“I know,” Gerard sighed. “That’s another thing I’m changing when I become King.”

“I don’t get you. You’re not like the rest of them. You’d put yourself in all of this danger just for a human,” Ryan mused.

“Ray means a lot to us. To Frank especially,” Gerard told him quietly, his eyes downcast on the floor.

“Frank?”

Gerard gestured to me. “This is Frank.”

“Hmm. Your toy, is he?” Ryan asked dryly, his eyes sweeping over me.

“No,” Gerard said immediately with a vicious hiss in his voice, stepping forwards closer to
Ryan. “Don’t call him that.”

“What? Are you gonna tell me you have some sort of tragic love story with a human Gerard?” Ryan smirked.

“Don’t make jokes about things you don’t know about Ryan,” Gerard warned him. “I didn’t come here for you to make fun of me.”

Ryan rolled his eyes and turned to the woman. “Claudia, go outside with Matthew. I won’t be long in here.”

“But dad-” the boy began but was cut off by Ryan.

“But nothing. Now go,” Ryan ordered him.

The boy hung his head and followed the woman out of the tent.

“Your wife?” Gerard asked, his eyes following Claudia and the boy.

Ryan grunted. “I didn’t want her to be here. I didn’t want either of them to be here tonight, but she insisted. I’d much rather she stayed at home.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Ryan said flatly. “I didn’t want there to be a chance of anything happening to them. We have plans for tonight.”

“Plans?” Gerard enquired, raising an eyebrow.

“Plans that are none of your business Gerard.”

“I think it’s my business when you’re planning on attacking my home, don’t you think?” Gerard asked bitterly, glaring at Ryan.

“If you aren’t here to discuss your offer then get the fuck out,” Ryan spat at him angrily.

Gerard just clenched his jaw and I shuffled nearer to him, staring at Ryan with wide eyes.

Gerard sighed. “I need an answer Ryan.”

Ryan rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t know right now. I have other things on my mind. But I’ll think about it.”

“You’ll think about it?” Gerard asked, sounding hopeful.

“I will. But I need to discuss this with the others and have time to decide what’s for the best.”

“How long will you take? I don’t want Ray to be in the palace for much longer.”

“We’ll have an answer by next week. Can’t you hide him away somewhere until then?”

Gerard shook his head. “It’s too risky. Mikey will be keeping an even closer eye on Ray if I do that and then it’ll be impossible to get him to you. I wish I could keep him safe by myself, but I can’t do it on my own and there aren’t any other vampires that will help me. That’s why I’m making you this offer.”

Ryan just sat in silence, watching Gerard. “Would you have made us an offer for power anyway? I mean, would you be willing to let us have power without doing something in return for you?”

Gerard paused. “I think so. I just… I know you think all vampires should be ripped to shreds and

I don’t blame you. I don’t agree with anything they say. But I just want all four species to live together without any problems.”

Ryan sighed, shaking his head. “You sure you’re a vampire?”

“Pretty sure. Just not one that’s fucked in the head,” Gerard replied.

Ryan smiled. “You do realise your ideas won’t go down all too well with vampires? They don’t want to live amongst werewolves and humans and ghosts as equals. You’ll have an uprising.”

Gerard bit his lip. “That’s kind of where I was hoping you’d help…”

“Help?”

“Yeah. I mean…I’m completely aware of how angry I’m going to make everyone. I already do make everyone angry. They all think I’m insane and need to be locked up. No one pays any attention to me, but it won’t be like that when I’m King. I don’t want to be King anyway, but it’s my chance to make things right. I want you to help me.”

“How?”

Gerard took a deep breath. “I… I kind of have an idea.”

“God, not another one of your ideas,” I groaned. ‹ Chapter 20