by D. Brumbley
Aura was watching from her position on the ground, but she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Orlando with the power that Candra could provide for him was terrifying. He was a force that nothing could go up against and live, and she didn’t even know how to feel or react at the sight of him.
Candra squeezed a little tighter against him when she heard the yells of surviving Council fighters as they ran, but they were quickly silenced by the storm Orlando had ignited. Slowly, she stood up on her toes and kissed the back of Orlando’s neck once before she whispered against his skin. “They’re running.” Candra didn’t understand what was going on any more than anyone else, but she could feel him. Orlando. They were inextricably connected.
Something in him listened to her. As he felt her draw on him, her whisper at the skin of his neck, the lightning slowly died around them, though it still sparked uncontrollably along his hands and his clothing. It was a huge effort to stop the flow of power running through him, it felt so good just to let it loose. Once he finally had it under control, the sight of the fleeing enemies wasn’t even the first thing to register on his mind. It was the fact that, unlike the fight on the road to Spain, he didn’t feel tired in the slightest. He felt alive. Strong. So strong that even the sight of all the fighters he destroyed didn’t faze him.
It seemed like forever before he stopped, but when he did, Aura was one of the first to stand up. She saw all of the surviving Council fighters band together, but they were retreating. They stayed together in hopes that they would be able to protect each other, but they all knew that it would take much more to go up against a Shadowborn and a Lightborn together. Once their own fighters could see that their enemies were fleeing, everyone else stood up. Aura wasn’t the commander of anything, but she knew one thing that everyone would agree with. “I think it’s time to go back home.”
The Ironborn fighters gathered and waited for their command from Nick. Even though Aura made the statement that they should go back home, it was ultimately his decision. Lea was the one who spoke up for the entire group of Iron Guard. “What is your command, Alpha?”
Nick nodded to her, the weight of responsibility falling back on his shoulders like a mountain after the enormousness of everything that happened that night. “Gather everyone, and set crews to gathering the dead. They’ll be buried in Spain where they belong, not here. When everyone and everything is assembled, we’ll go, not before.”
With his order given, he went to lean against one of the many vans gathered to take his pack home, and sighed heavily. Aura was nearby, and there were wounded and dying around him that were tended to, but he needed to be alone for a moment. He was vaguely aware of someone coming up and telling him she was going to tend to his cuts and obvious injuries, but he shooed her away and leaned his head against the cool metal side of the van with his eyes closed.
Aura sat on the back bumper of the van, since no one would let her help or tend to the wounded. It wasn’t that they didn’t want her help, it was just that there were people better trained to do the task than a tattoo artist. “She called you Alpha.” Aura asked softly, but she knew that he could still hear her.
“That’s because I am.” Nick responded quietly, then coughed a few times before he turned around and leaned back against the van with a sigh. “After you were kidnapped, the Council sent a representative to offer terms for your release. My father thought your kidnapping was the best thing that could have happened. Thought it would give our people a reason to go to war, to fight for him.”
“You fought him.” It was a statement rather than a question, since she knew that was the only way that he could become Alpha without his father giving him the power and authority. His father never would have given up his power freely.
“I almost killed him.” Nick explained in a tone void of emotion and regret. “I challenged him and beat him within an inch of his life. He still couldn’t even speak or walk when I left him behind with my mother.” His voice seemed far away, as if he was, for the first time, registering shock at what he had done.
“You’ve earned the place you always deserved.” Aura looked at the ground, since she didn’t want to look around and see faces. Faces that died to save her. Ones that fought to save her. “Thank you.” Aura said weakly. “For saving me.”
“You knew I would.” He said just as softly, his heart breaking just a little more at the momentary softness in her voice.
“Knowing anything doesn’t make me any less grateful for your sacrifice for me.” When her eyes finally flicked up from the ground, she saw Orlando and Candra standing together, holding each other. Her hazel eyes burned with tears. “And I’m sorry for hurting you the way that I did.” Too many people had died because of that choice. A choice that had led her out into the woods where she shouldn’t have been.
“You could have told me.” Nick said as the anger started to bubble back to the surface in his voice. “I would’ve hated it, and I would’ve tried to convince you out of it, but you still could’ve told me. You could’ve done me at least that much of a courtesy if you felt the way you said you did about us.” By the time he was finished speaking he was growling, and Aura knew him well enough to recognize the tone in his voice. It was a slow, abiding kind of anger. The same kind he had felt toward the Council all their lives, and the kind which now, on a much, much more personal level, he was directing at her.
“I was on my way to tell you.” Aura reasoned, still calm. He would only get more angry if she fed his anger with her own. “I didn’t plan for anything to happen. After that night, I wanted you. I just wanted to be with you. But I couldn’t deny what I felt for Orlando.” Even though every drop of that emotion didn’t matter anymore. “I was going to tell you, talk to you.”
“Well, a lot of things were going to happen that aren’t going to happen anymore, it seems.” He looked back at the field of bodies where their people were picking through to find their fallen comrades and separate them from the mass of Council fighters. “We’re certainly not going to be a part of the Council. Not after all this.” He looked back at her with a sad expression on his face. “And maybe you should’ve stayed in England after all.”
Aura nodded and stood up as she crossed her arms and her vision blurred with fresh tears. There were no seats on the Council for them, and no reason for her to stay with the pack. Especially not after everything she’d caused. “I suppose I should have.”
“This isn’t over.” Nick said as he looked around one more time and then glanced back at Aura before looking away, unable to bring himself to watch her cry the tears he’d caused. “They’ll keep coming. Now that this has started, they won’t leave us alone.” He looked back at her with another sigh. “And I need people around me that I have a reason to trust.” It wasn’t clear if he included Aura as someone he could trust, or someone he didn’t. Someone called his name at a distance and he nodded to them before looking back at her. “We’ll talk when we get back to Spain.” Nick said without waiting for further conversation, and headed off to see to his duties.
Aura watched as he walked away, more tears fell from the tone that he had left ringing in her ears. He wanted people he could trust, and she knew he didn’t count her as one of them. She deserved his bitterness and anger, but that didn’t mean it hurt any less.
II
Orlando and Candra filed into the back of one of the vans, keeping to the back seats where the windows were most heavily tinted. When the other wolves saw them get into the van in question, everyone left it alone, leaving the two of them on the very back seat with two more rows between them and the driver, one other Guard member in the passenger seat.
Orlando wanted to talk to Aura, to explain what was happening, but she was nowhere to be found. He couldn’t leave Candra alone in the middle of all the rest of the wolves who were all just as terrified of her as she was of them, but it didn’t stop him from looking around fruitlessly for where she had gone as the convoy got under way.
When Can
dra sat next to Orlando, she wouldn’t even look at him since her eyes were glued to the window. For a long time she didn’t talk, but as the sky got lighter and lighter, her body shook with visible fear of the sunrise. “You have to make them stop and let me out.” Candra said in a whisper so as not to alarm anyone. “I have to shift. I can’t stay like this.” Candra was almost begging to be let out so that she could get away from the brightening sky.
He held her a little closer and tried to take more power from her, though the temptation to use it only grew the more he took from her. Even so, he knew she knew what she was talking about, and he shouted up to the driver. “Pull over. Just for a minute.”
Candra got out of the van quickly as it coasted to a stop, then looked up at the sky as though it was going to fall down on her. She whimpered a little, but she was more concerned about shifting, and so she pulled off her shirt quickly to do so. When she heard Orlando come out of the van as well, she covered herself up and the sky was momentarily forgotten to the superior anxiety of Orlando being near when she was undressing. “What are you doing?”
“You said you had to shift.” He took off his own shirt, and threw it back through the open door of the van. “I didn’t figure you wanted to be alone for the whole ride home with nobody to talk to.” He had kicked off his shoes and was working on the zipper of his pants as he finished speaking, heedless of any trace of modesty.
Candra squeaked and then turned so that her back was facing him. “But you’re undressing in front of me!”
He actually laughed once. “Well, I’m behind you now, but that’s more or less right.”
She didn’t understand why he was laughing, but the light was starting to become more urgent than nudity. “You don’t shift alone?”
“You’re naked in your fur. What’s the difference between being naked in your skin too?”
“There’s a difference!” Candra said as she turned back around with her arms still crossed over her chest. Candra peered up at the sky and then back at him. “You’re a male.”
He was naked by the time she looked back at him, standing there behind a tree with the highway a stone’s throw away behind him. He glanced down once at the obvious evidence of what she’d said, then looked back up at Candra. “And?”
“And I’m a female and it’s dangerous to be naked, because then we might act inappropriately.” She was told that if anyone ever attempted to act in the way that she read about in her health books that she should protect herself from him. In all reality, none of her masters ever wanted to give anyone the satisfaction of taking their Lightborn slave in quite that way.
He actually snorted once as he laughed, but held up a hand in apology. “Okay, not a problem. I’ll…be over here. So as not to act inappropriately.” He shifted, buzzing with the power that she had given him, into a large but emaciated black wolf, and turned around to face the van, even putting up a paw to put it across his eyes for good measure.
She undressed with a speed that she had never otherwise accomplished and then shifted quickly into a thin, dark-brown wolf. Okay. You can look now.
He turned around and went to her clothes to help her take them back to the van. Are you alright?
Candra was still kind of trembling as she stood behind him. I’m okay now. I’m sorry that they had to stop for me.
It’s fine. As long as you’re alright. He jumped back up into the van and pushed the door shut with a front paw before heading back to the back seat with her again. I just never realized the sunlight would be that hard for you.
My masters told me it was because I’m not strong enough to handle it.
Your masters? So you served them by choice?
For some reason his question seemed to confuse her. It wasn’t by choice, but it wasn’t by force either. Well, I was born to serve them. I serve them and they keep me safe from the light. Kept me safe, I guess, now. My mother gave me to my first master so that I would be safe. Ever since, they’ve given me a lot to learn and opportunities to grow. I’ve never been harmed.
Now it was his turn to be confused. Never been harmed, maybe, but…you were living in a prison cell. In a dungeon. With guards. And bars on your door.
There was no light there. That was the best place for me to be. And the guards were there to protect me, to stop people from getting to me.
It’s protection if you’re the one holding the key to the cell. If you’re not, that’s not protection, that’s prison.
Isn’t prison for people being punished?
Or people you want to hold onto so they won’t go anywhere.
She let out a sigh and then moved away from him a little. That was my life. You’re making it sound like I was tortured. Nothing was wrong.
Didn’t you ever want to get out? See something else besides your cell? Room? Cage? Whatever it was?
I did go out sometimes. Candra looked toward the window with a slight whimper at the sunlight coming through. Even in her wolf form, the sunlight was there to torture her. But that always comes.
He moved to close the distance between them, nuzzling his face at her fur, even though while they were wolves, he couldn’t take power from her or give her any of his own. It still felt good to be near her. You’re glowing.
It felt good to have him near, too, and while she was a little offended by his criticism of the only life she had ever known, it all kind of melted away when he nuzzled his face into her fur. I do that a lot. She moved closer to him so that more of their fur was pressed together. I’ve met a lot of people. A lot of wolves. No one has ever been like you.
I get that a lot. But not as much as you do, I’m guessing.
No, I don’t mean it like that. I mean that…I don’t ever want you to go away. I want to stay close to you. Candra didn’t really understand the draw between them, reading about it and feeling it were two entirely different things. It felt like they belonged together, near each other, on an instinctual level.
He knew the feeling, and he nodded against her fur, since he felt the same way. Did anyone ever warn you? About this, I mean?
I read about it in books. She turned her face so that she could lick the side of his muzzle. But my masters told me that you didn’t exist anymore.
Funny, I heard the same thing about you. Not from books, since I never have had much of a chance to do any reading, but from…pretty much everybody.
I also read that once a Shadowborn and a Lightborn have met, there’s nothing that can alter the connection. That they’re partners. For their entire lives.
He didn’t answer that for a long time, but eventually nuzzled the side of her neck again. It was hard to believe she was real. What did it say in your book about the people they loved before they met?
It didn’t. She looked over at him, confused as to why he would ask. Candra wasn’t in love with someone she just met, even though the attraction to Orlando was multifaceted for her. How can you be with someone and not harm them? Everyone who touches me for longer than a moment has too much. Sometimes my masters couldn’t even handle it.
Well…he shrugged a little. I’m kind of the opposite. And Aura is very strong for her kind.
Oh. I see. She shouldn’t have felt jealous of Aura, but the thought of sharing him with anyone really bothered her. If you love her, you should be with her. She said simply, matter-of-factly, even though the thought that he would be away from her was physically painful.
My brothers used to tell me that there was nothing stronger in the world than love. He laid his head down on the seat beside hers, not looking at her, but still close by. I’m starting to think they were wrong.
Maybe I can find someone who will love me too. Candra reasoned. They could be partners, friends, without being romantically involved. Right? She barely understood the concept anyway, other than what she read in books.
The thought was somehow painful for him as well, though he knew it shouldn’t be. There was something between the two of them that went beyond rational or even conscious thou
ght. It was pure instinct, and he knew even if he tried, there was very little he would be able to do to fight against it. You’ve been alone down there your whole life? I mean, you never had anybody to be with?
Candra shook her head. It wasn’t safe. For me or for them.
Why not for you?
They might just want to use me. She sighed as she remembered the day when her most recent master told her that no one would ever love her the way she read about because her power would always be too great a temptation.
Is that what you think I’m doing? Using you? Orlando’s dark eyes were curious, but he seemed genuine at least.
I don’t know. Her response was honest, though she hoped that it wasn’t true. She hoped he wouldn’t use her. I barely know you. I don’t know if you’re good or bad, and I don’t know what you want.
If it’s any comfort, that makes two of us. He looked over at her, his dark eyes drinking in the hazy light as fast as it reached them in the back of the van away from the windows. I’m still trying to figure that out myself.
Now Candra was starting to feel bad for what happened, even though being close to Orlando felt so good. You don’t have to be with me. You should be with Aura. I know she loves you, and you just told me you love her so you should be with her. She worried about you and Nick all the time. Loudly.
He sighed heavily once, and licked the side of her face. Once more like you mean it.
She turned her face into his again. Apparently she wasn’t convincing anyone, Orlando or herself. Do you think you could love me?
I don’t know what I think right now. Orlando said honestly, having no real reason to lie to the girl who obviously led an incredibly sheltered life. Right now, I would much rather just not think. He moved so that he was laying next to her, and put a paw over her shoulder to hold her back against him. His face laid alongside hers with his eyes closed and he held her between him and the back of the seat.