strength of the wolf is the pack

The familiar scent of Max’s blood soon flooded Madi’s senses and her gums ached as her fangs threatened to protrude. No matter how intently she fought to control it, she could never seem to prevent it as the veins appeared beneath her eyes and her hues darkened considerably. 

“Max!” she strained, almost as if she was begging for him to act before she did, and her digits plucked impatiently at the material of his shirt as she lifted him so that they were eye to eye. Her lips parted, revealing fangs as she drew back and a soft grown urged from her lungs, as she intended to lunge for the male’s throat. 

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When Max saw the veins beneath Madi’s eyes his own began to glow brightly, “Madi don’t..” He pleaded, his voice just as strained as he moved to grab her arm as she lifted him. He didn’t want to hurt her. He desperately wanted to end this before it could resort to anymore violence. Max was tired of fighting the ones he loved. 

When her lips finally parted, revealing her fangs as she drew back, the soft growl hissing from her lungs. He could tell she was about to lunge and his own wolf felt too close to the surface for comfort. 

Feeling like he was going to lose control Max acted before he could do something he’d fully regret, first he used his own arm to grab hold of Madi’s twisting it around as he twisted his own body, using her arm as momentum to pull her into his chest, gripping at her neck. 

Squeezing his eyes shut as she continued to thrash in his grasp and his own fangs protruding from his gums he twisted her head quickly to the side, snapping it before he could lose control. As she went still in his grasp he began to sob violently, his body heaving as he clung to her. He couldn’t look at her, instead keeping his eyes tightly shut, he couldn’t see her like this. Because if he did, that’s all he would see. Just like now all he could see was Hailie. 

Desperately he tried to calm himself down, pulling Madi even closer burying his face in her hair as he tried to focus on her. She would be okay, she would heal. She’d wake up. That’s what he had to keep telling himself.

Madi hadn’t noticed the shattering of glass, all she could hear was the laugh that escaped Max’s lips and despite that not being the case, she felt as though he was mocking her. The vampire shook her head, her hand colliding with his features as she pushed him to the ground and held him there, “that isn’t the point” she hissed, “we were supposed to help each other.” 

As Madi stood over Max, her digits enclosed around the material of his shirt as she forced for him to look at her, “you couldn’t even let me in.” Another hit followed as Madi’s chest tightened at his words and for a split second, there was an emptiness in her hues, “so what if it gets me killed anything has to be better than feeling like this.” 

As Max attempted to gain the upper hand, Madi held her own, forcing him back to the ground once again, as she straddled his frame and held him there. “Just fight back.”

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The punch wasn’t unexpected after the first one had been thrown, he grunted softly as he was forced down.

“You did help me! You helped me move on, you helped me start to fall in love again.” Max whispered, his voice breaking ever so slightly as he stared up at Madi from where he lay on the ground, broken glass digging into his skin, turning away ever so slightly.

Suddenly he felt fingers enclose around his shirt, forcing his gaze back to Madi’s just as her fist met his face again. He could taste blood as it stained his teeth. 

Glancing up at her he could see how empty her eyes were, her next words causing the blood in his body to freeze, his body growing colder before he was forced back to the ground again with Madi straddling his frame. “No, Madi. I won’t fight you.” He spat the words at her, staring up at her. “Don’t make me do it. Please” 

“Its really not the best time for a lecture, Max.” The vampire’s words were an attempted warning. Through a combination of animal blood and now an interrupted feed, her mood had been thrown entirely out of whack. “Max!” She protested once again, her head shaking as her frame began to tense. 

Although she hadn’t wanted it to, she could feel the irritation burning beneath her flesh as her eyes widened. “I’m serious. Drop it.” 

However, despite her pleads, Max continued and Madi found her voice raising at the other, “stop talking down to me like you get it.” There was a surge of annoyance stirring within her as he ghosted herself forwards and her palms connected with his chest, “you think I don’t know that?” 

Her heightened emotions began acting upon her behalf as her palms connected with his chest again, this time more forceful, “you lied to me when I needed you. You don’t get to talk to me about this. You don’t get to take some fucking high ground, Max.”

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When Madi shoved him backwards, his back hit a glass pane behind him, the glass shattering under the force. As a hand wrapped around his throat he laughed, “You act as if I had a choice, I didn’t lie to you on a whim, Madi. What happened to me was traumatizing, I didn’t exactly want to tell the girl I have feelings for that I murdered my previous girlfriend!” 

“What happened in my past doesn’t have anything to do with this! I don’t want to see you get fucking killed because you had to feed!” 

When a fist suddenly connected with his face he bared his teeth in a snarl before shoving her back and flipping them around to try and get the upper hand before being shoved back again. He didn’t want to hurt Madi, that was the last thing he ever wanted to do. 

The arrival of the familiar scent caused for Madi’s chest to tighten as she drew blood from her own wrist, before offering it towards the now compelled individual and sending them away. 

Although she had anticipated that Max wouldn’t exactly have been thrilled with her decision, she thought after how cruel she had been to him, he wouldn’t care either way.  

“A girls gotta eat, Max. Even the dead ones.” The vampire had begun feeling detached from all of the things she had previously relied on to ground her. Max being the main thing, but her sister too. The more detached she felt, the harder it was to maintain her usual personality. It was as if she was fighting a continuous losing battle between the person she was and the person that vampirism was threatening to create. “I know what I’m doing. He’ll heal.”

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“I told you, if you need to feed, you do it on animals or you do it on me. It’s too dangerous to feed on anyone else, they could be a hunter or someone equally as dangerous. They could kill you.” He said as he took a step closer. 

“And what if he didn’t!? What if you went too far and killed him? What would you do then? Madi this is serious, this is your life. You can’t just hunt here, there’s consequences. They were stringing vampires up and burning them.”

All Bayley could was offer a shake of her head as she gave a shrug of her shoulders. “Don’t ask me,” she mused. “This map is saying that your biological parents are your Uncle Dan and this random lady. That’s all I can tell you. Not sure who the woman was, never seen her before in my life.”

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That couldn’t be right, his parents had never told him he was adopted, had never made any mention that he wasn’t biologically theirs. So why would they lie? What reason would they have? Shaking his head he swallowed hard, “That’s crazy... my parents have never even... given any hints that I’m not theirs. We’re wolves, we can literally sense a lie. It’s in your heartbeat and your smell. Your body gives a physical reaction to a lie..” 

haven looked back and offered a shy smile. “yeah, uhm i’m afraid i’ve gotten myself lost. still kind of unfamiliar with this whole…..fairy land,” she admitted, shifting awkwardly. 

“How can I help?” Max asked, looking around. “I could take you into town?”

Hearing his brother, the male exhaled the smoke from his lips  and watched as their dog run over to Max and sit by him. “Been there done that… figured I’d be okay for a while yet..” he chuckled at his brother. “You’re looking better.” he stated. 

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When Hunter made the comment of, “Been there done that...” it rubbed Max the wrong way, making him tense up as he looked away, focusing instead on Storm. He shrugged after a moment, “I’m doing okay.”

haven was confused. she wasn’t sure where she was anymore. the last thing she remembered was heading towards her car in the very populated new orleans after a day of work. and now, everything seemed to be different. where in the world was she and how did she get there? ( @theislesreblogs )

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“You alright?” Max called out to the stranger, she looked lost and scared. “Anything I can do to help?” He wasn’t sure what he could really do, but he knew what it was like to feel alone and lost. 

Taking up a job just seemed like the logical approach here. nothing made someone seemed more well blended into the community as them working beside the very people of said community. A bar just seemed like the best choice for a young looking man who had little experience in the working world. And given the type of world they were in, questions of his whereabouts, his past and such weren’t heavily invested in. “Chick down at the end sent this, I’m not one to tell someone not to shoot their shot but I do warn you, I caught a glimpse of a mouthful of sharp teeth. Do with that information what you will.”

@theislesreblogs​

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Looking down towards the end of the bar Max could see the girl at the end and sure enough the glint of sharp teeth, turning his head away again he shrugged. “Not interested.” He said with a shrug of his shoulders. 

Hunter sat along the banking watching Storm as she ran around. He was happy to have the chance to spend time with her, and hoped that his time with her put his mind off adopting another animal - if the had animals for adoption in Avalon. It was nice for him to have his thoughts to himself and to have time to process everything that had happened. Pulling a cigarette out, he placed it between his lips and lit it before removing it in between his fingers and exhaling a puff of smoke. 

@theislesreblogs​

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“Those’ll kill you, you know that?” Max called out as he approached, Storm immediately running over and sitting at his side, looking up at him with her tongue lulling out to the side. He reached down and stroked the top of her head before he looked back over at Hunter.

Since the discovery of the burned vampires, Madi had undergone a few adjustments necessary for survival. Meals had become scarce, but as much as she knew she should stick to animals, there was something unpleasant about their blood. It didn’t quite offer the sustenance that she needed. She had been cautious about who to feed from and now with a somewhat willing subject within her grasp, she retracted her fangs, her senses alerting her to another presence as she hissed, “someone’s coming.”

She soon returned her gaze towards her meal, ridding her lips of the blood as her onyx hues stared intently into the other’s and uttered the words she had rehearsed, “go. You’re going to leave and you’re going to forget this, forget me.”

@theislesreblogs​

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When Max had caught the familiar scent belonging to Madi he’d followed it, as he came upon her feeding on someone and then attempting to compel them he sighed, “What are you doing, Madi? I told you it would be dangerous to feed like that, what if someone sees the mark on his neck or saw you with him? There are people going around killing vampires and you’re feeding out in the open.” He said as he stared at her, “What are you thinking?” 

The voice was familiar, the exact one she had been looking for in fact as brown hues quickly glanced up at the male, a faint smile being offered in thanks for steadying her balance before nodding her head. “Max, yeah, hey,” she spoke, her words quick as she glanced around them before her hand slid into his and she pulled him into an alleyway. “I did that locator spell with your blood but it was weird.” Pulled the map down to show the other, Bayley’s hues remained trained on the male’s features for a moment before her own gaze fell to the map. Your blood began to branch off into two different ways,” Bayley explained quickly. “Which I thought was weird considering your parents almost always together, right? So I followed the map to both locations and it was some woman and the other was your Uncle Dan. I know I did the spell right, it’s one of the most basic spells. So either there’s something you haven’t told me or your ‘parents’ have been lying to you.”

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Being pulled into an alleyway wasn’t the strangest thing that had ever happened to him, so he didn’t really question it as Bayley pulled him aside. However when she said the spell had turned out weird he furrowed his brow, unsure how it could possibly be weird. Glancing down at the map he looked as she told him that she’d followed where the trail had lead her. At the mention of his Uncle Dan he shook his head. 

“I don’t understand, why would it lead you to my uncle? And who was the woman?” 

It didn’t make sense to Max, he was sure his parents would never lie to him. But then again why would the subject have ever come up? Had his uncle had him from some affair and then saddled his parents with the product?

“I’m as out of the loop as you are.”

It wasn’t the answers she had been expecting to find when Max had given her some of his blood, stating that something felt off lately and he needed answers, something she refused to fully question and instead indulged him in. She had done the spell correctly, she had no doubt about that but when she had followed it and found not Tara or Nic but had found that his blood split off into two different directions, one to some lady and the other to Max’s Uncle Dan, Bayley had become increasingly confused. Searching for the male had quickly become a chore, Madi not having been any help being as she wasn’t with him and didn’t know of his whereabouts  as she clutched the map to her chest just before colliding with another. A hand quickly reached out to grasp at the arm of the other. “Sorry, so sorry,” the witch mumbled. “I was looking for somebody. I wasn’t paying any attention.” 

@theislesreblogs​

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When someone collided with Max’s chest he’d been desperately searching for Madi, worried about her more than ever now that someone was going around killing vampires by leaving them out to burn. Looking down at Bayley he steadied her easily, “Careful... you looking for me?” He asked carefully. 

“Mom...” Max sighed as his mother fixed the collar of his jacket, she’d been fidgeting with it and his sleeves for the last five minutes. “My clothes are fine.” He said softly as he looked up at her. “I’m fine... I healed, I don’t even feel anymore pain. You don’t have to worry as much.”