Fangless: The Alpha's Vampire Mate
Chapter 196: Blame the Vampire, Always

Chapter 196: Blame the Vampire, Always

Zane was just about to agree with her... but then it hit him: Riona was the Blood Moon child. Right—vampire girl doesn’t need rescuing; she should probably be rescuing Wintertooth.

But then he thought about Thorin and what Thorin might do if he came back to find Riona missing. Yeah, that wouldn’t go well. So, he figured it was smarter to get her back to Wintertooth and avoid Thorin’s rage-fest.

Besides, the two lovebirds had just admitted they liked each other, which could mean Riona might actually become Thorin’s Luna someday. Plus, Zane didn’t have any beef with her personally.

Just because Zane didn’t have a personal vendetta against Riona didn’t mean the rest of Wintertooth was on board. Not even close.

"Are you out of your mind?" one werewolf yelled, practically foaming. "Save that vampire? No way! She killed our own!"

Now the whole pack was riled up, thanks to Morgan stirring the pot. A bunch of them had convinced themselves they’d lost friends and family because of that vampire.

"As if her psycho brother killing one of our pups wasn’t enough, she had to go and spill a few more pints of our blood herself!"

"If she’d never shown her fangs around here, we wouldn’t be neck-deep in Zachs!"

Of course, none of this was accurate.

Yes, Nina Zacharia had tried to order Thorin to hand over Riona. And yes, Nina wasn’t thrilled about Thorin setting foot in Eira in the first place. But in reality, the Zachs would’ve meddled with Thorin no matter what. Riona or no Riona.

Nina Zacharia had a grand vision of Alpha behavior, which she intended to drill into Thorin one way or another. Letting him believe he was a free Alpha was just Nina’s way of giving him enough rope to eventually hang himself.

As far as she was concerned, he’d come crawling back—preferably voluntarily, so she could ’forgive’ him in all her ruthless mercy.

"Technically, she’s fangless, but I get your point," Charna muttered.

"Oh, stop nitpicking useless details!" the werewolf groaned, exasperated.

This was a big deal since it was probably the first time anyone had dared show irritation with Charna—the so-called angel of the pack, the one everyone practically drooled over as future Luna material.

But he was done with Charna’s little habit of defending Riona.

Not that Charna was actually defending her—she was just dropping random facts. Not that it mattered, though; with the tension running high, even a neutral fact sounded like a battle cry to these werewolves.

"Oh, fine! We don’t need cowards like you anyway!" Trudy snapped. "Go ahead, go scurry off with your tails between your legs!"

She’d officially hit her limit. How these guys even called themselves werewolves was beyond her. Loyalty was supposed to be in their DNA!

Riona had risked everything to save the pups, yet here they were, acting like she was the villain. It was almost impressive how absurd their logic was.

"What did you just say?"

The werewolves’ jaws dropped in synchronized outrage, teeth grinding hard. They puffed out their chests like some kind of hairy bodybuilding contest, clearly ready to turn Trudy into a chew toy.

But Charna stepped in and glared at them. "Don’t!"

Honestly, Trudy had heard enough of their whining. She wasn’t about to understand the logic of these self-centered, blame-shifting wimps.

As someone who believed in loyalty and camaraderie, she couldn’t wrap her head around how they were making this all about their own fears.

They’d just dump the blame on Riona rather than admit they were too scared to even go.

"I’d rather know the real number of warriors coming with me now," she shouted, "than march out with a so-called ’army’ just waiting to ditch me at the first sign of danger!"

The other werewolves wanted to argue back, but they knew the truth: to win, they’d actually have to go on the rescue mission.

And, honestly, Trudy wasn’t wrong—they were terrified of whatever horrors might be lurking in the Zacharia mansion. Plus, they didn’t exactly feel like they owed Riona anything, certainly not enough to risk their precious fur.

Conveniently, they seemed to have forgotten that Riona had sacrificed herself to save their pups. She’d surrendered, hoping it would protect all of Wintertooth, pups included.

But these ungrateful mutts were too busy finding excuses to dodge Trudy’s accusations.

One of them piped up, clearly proud of his logic. "Hey, we let her live here, didn’t we? Our community’s all about pulling your weight. I’m not asking her to go hunting for us or anything, but if she wants to be part of Wintertooth, she should do something for us."

Another werewolf chimed in, eager to back him up. "Yeah, and don’t forget how she looked at us all judgy during the welcome feast!"

Never mind that the welcome feast was actually for Thorin and involved a pile of raw, gutted animals that Riona wasn’t exactly thrilled to see. She didn’t look at them in disgust—just the half-digested entrails they were all so proud of.

But these wolves weren’t about to let little things like facts ruin their excuses. They wanted to bail without looking like cowards, and they’d say whatever it took to get away with it.

"Are you for real right now?" Trudy’s eyes practically bugged out, and you could practically see the steam coming out of her ears. She was ready to give these trash-talkers a lesson they’d never forget.

"Enough, Trudy!" Zane interrupted, shutting down what he clearly thought was a pointless squabble. "If they’re too scared to come, let them stay behind."

Trudy shot him a look that could melt steel, not happy with how he handled things. "Oh, I’m all for leaving them here, but are we really just going to let them trash Riona like that?"

Zane sighed, shaking his head. "Doesn’t matter what they say. What matters is that time is ticking, and if we want to catch up to her, we’d better move now."

Unfortunately, he was right. Without Puck to sniff Riona out, they’d have to go old-school with the tracking—relying on their own noses.

While their noses were good, scent trails didn’t exactly stick around forever, especially with the wind picking up and the sky darkening in that ’rain’s-about-to-ruin-your-day’ kind of way.

And sure enough, it looked like Mother Nature herself was rooting for them to fail, with rain clouds rolling in to wash away the only clue they had left.

Trudy clicked her tongue, utterly exasperated. No time to waste scolding these ungrateful furballs—if they wanted to sit around being too scared to help, fine.

"Let’s go!" she snapped, taking off without another glance.

With that, she left Wintertooth behind, bringing only the tiny handful of werewolves who either actually cared about Riona or at least had enough of a conscience to remember she’d saved their hides.

The rest? Well, they could stay back and enjoy the view from the coward’s corner.

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