Smoke and Mirrors (Smoke and Mirrors Series Book 1)

by S. N. Nair

  I stood where I was, unmovable, Damien slightly jerked back when he realised I was not letting myself be led forward. I would have ignored this whisper as common gossip if it had not come from one of the soldiers who bared the intricate two lines on his arm that marked him a scout. He would have known about the fate of my pack.

  I had been played for a fool.

  I should have known better, I should have known that Damien was lying through his very teeth, he would never have left my pack alive. Damien was much too prideful to let any of the pack, that he hated so much, live. He had planned all this since the start and like a gullible rodent, I walked right after the dangled bait and into his trap... unable to escape. These thoughts ran through my mind before one hit me like a wall of bricks.

  What have I done?

  I had bound myself to him and there was no way of going back, our bond had been set in stone. Never in our history has a bond between mates ever been broken, no matter how much one suffered. The ceremony was a ruse to get what he wanted, what he truly wanted: Power.

  He wanted more than just my body, he wanted something that I could readily supply him. He wanted my blood, the blood of Lycans, and I had been the fool to give it up to him. I cursed the Moon Goddess and her sister, he would have never found me if it was not for their game. Damien always lusted for power and they sent him the perfect source... right to his doorstep. He took advantage of the fact that we were mates and strategically planned the ceremony so that he could take my power.

  Yes, he may have given me some of his strength, but that was nothing compared to what I had given him. He may not have the full strength of a Pure Lycan, but he did have half of mine and that in itself is more power than he will ever have in his entire life. For years I had been experimented on in hopes that my abilities could be replicated in those not of direct Lycan descent...years. He did it in a matter of a month, with just a single sentence.

  It would have been the best decision for me to have escaped right this second and run off to some far off place where he would never find me, this might have been the best and wisest choice but to me, it was not the right one. He had to pay dearly for what he has done, for what he did to not only my family but to all the other families he had ripped apart, and for all the lives he so recklessly took away, I could not leave till I made him pay. I could not let him use my power to tear apart more families than those already torn. What I was about to do might kill me, but I was fine with that as long as I took him down with me.

  A scream pierced through the hall as Damien cradled his now bloody hand, it had been sliced open and blood gushed from it, staining my dress red.

  I ran out of the hall into the clearing that laid right in front of the main building. The bride running away and leaving her ‘husband’, I had become just like the characters in Lia’s stories. If that was not enough, it was also raining, and not just any light drizzle, it was as if the floodgates of Heaven had opened. Each raindrop that fell onto my skin felt like a stone but that did not bother me now, I turned around to face the main building, I wanted them to run out of that building to try and catch me so that I could pick them off one by one without any distractions. There were too many of them, and not enough space in the hall. I would have ambushed and held down before I could even bare my fangs... I now had enough space to tear them limb from limb.

  Let them come to me, and come to me they did. Men and women swarmed out of the main building, like an army of ants, charging towards me. It felt as though I had become a totally different person as I tore into them. I felt more rage than I had ever felt before, it even surpassed the rage I felt when Damien showed me the heads of my family. I had been in countless battles, but had never felt a bloodlust so strong, in my head I did not even think of just incapacitating them all I could think was to kill, and I would slaughter the whole pack if I had to. All I wanted was their warm wet blood dripping from my teeth, and down to my chin.

  "Get the chains!"

  "Surround her!"

  I could feel my bones crack as I started to shift.

  This was the beast that the human’s feared, an uncontrollable killing machine with more strength and power than fifty men, I was letting the monster, the Lycan, take over. I could just imagine how much more powerful I would be if I didn’t fail for Damien’s trap. My vision was hazed by red and everything was a blur to me. One moment I was grappling with a pack member and the next, I was ripping the throat out of another.

  “Bring her down!”

  I flinched as I felt an excruciating pain in my shoulder and looked down to see an arrowhead sticking out of my shoulder with its end sticking out from the back. I growled as I saw the pack member who held the crossbow that fired the projectile. He froze as I walked right up to him. I broke off the end of the arrow, sliding the arrowhead from my flesh with my other hand. One fluid movement of my hand brought him to his knees as he choked on his own blood.

  My head jerked back, droplets of blood from my maw flying into the air, as a rope coiled around my neck. I snarled as I grabbed the rope with one hand, ignoring the burning pain it was causing me, before pulling on it causing the pack member to come flying in my direction. I held my hand out and a small snap was heard when my fist came into contact with her throat. Again and again I was hit with various projectiles, some made with silver, some tinged with wolfsbane, some both, but for the first time in my life the silver did not hurt, it did not burn like it did when I fought with Karen, in fact I would only describe it as mildly annoying if anything. All I could think about was blood and death, I hungered for it.

  Amidst the fighting the pack members started to part, revealing the Son of the Devil himself in the centre smiling at me. I made a move to go forward when I felt a sharp prick at my neck, I pulled it out to see a dart with a small capsule inside, great, they are trying to knock me out with silver again. Dart after dart was shot at me but that did not seem to slow me down, it just made me feel as though I had been hitting my head against a brick wall. I had just managed Damien by the collar before a looped rope was thrown around neck, jerking me backwards, the last thing I remembered was Damien walking up to me with a syringe filled with iridescent silver liquid. A woven bag was thrown over my head, I thrashed and kicked as the world slowly turned black... again.

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Unmatchable

  Sapphire Nightborne

  I woke up feeling like death, my head was pounding as if someone had been going at it with a hammer. I got out of the small cot I was on before realising that I had yet again been stripped down, but this time with slightly more clothing. At least I was out of that god awful dress. I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration and winced in discomfort as my fingers caught against the dried blood my hair was caked in.

  I felt someone watching me before turning around to see Damien, flanked by two guards, standing right in front of me. However, the only thing that could truly protect him was the thick slab of glass that separated the two of us. I punched the glass expecting it to fall apart and shatter, but nothing happened, I had not been able to even put a crack in it. In fact, my hands burned by merely touching it.

  “I wouldn’t bother, sweetheart, the glass had been coated with a layer of silver so I would not waste my energy and time?”

  “You bastard!”

  That coward, he could not even face me one-to-one, but instead had to have one of his minions poison me with silver. And now here he was, smiling smugly at me like a cat that had gotten all the cream. A frustrated scream left my lips, I began to pace up and down the room, running my hands through my caked hair without a care of some left my scalp.

  “I have to thank you, my darling. I never quite believed in the power that Lycans were rumoured to possess but today, you proved me wrong. You, have made me a believer in your legends.”

  He smiled as he showed me the scar where he had cut his hand during the ceremony, I looked at the matching one on my palm before scowling. It sickened me that my power was now coursing th
rough his very being, and would remain there forever.

  “It is like having an adrenaline rush all the time, my senses are always on the alert and my reflexes are faster than ever. I had to grit my teeth and slog for years to build up my power, and now with you... I can take whatever I want, whenever I want. It is hard to believe, for me at least, that so much power was just kept in one person... and she was content to be a dog for others.”

  He winked at me before continuing.

  “A person like you does not deserve a gift such as this one, it made it so that you are as powerful or even more powerful than most of the Alphas right now, and what do you do with it? You use your abilities to guard and protect an Alpha and his pack that could not care less whether you died doing so. You could have usurped his position a long time ago but no, you watched from the side-lines as he took credit for the battles that you won for your pack.”

  How dare he, I reigned in my emotions before letting my face fall into a blank expression.

  “Then who pray tell me deserves such power? You? Don’t make me laugh. A coward like you could not even take such power without the use of lies and deception.”

  I scoffed before I continued, his smug expression falling with each word I said.

  “Let us go through some of your greatest achievements, and I use that term generously. You slaughter the old, injured and young just because you can… you tortured a girl just because of your unresolved daddy issues… you deliver the parts of your enemies to their families just to show your power, and the most cowardly thing of all, you send your pack to the front lines of battle while you stay far away watching. You force them to lay their lies down for you when you would not even consider doing the same for a second. So tell me, why would a coward like you deserve such power.”

  I smiled as his face turned into an ugly sneer. The truth hurts, doesn’t it Damien? I started to once again pace up and down in the small room I was given. I did not feel any anger, but I wanted my words to hurt because if I could not be outside hitting him with my fists, my words were my next best weapons I had. After all, my father said that even if our claws and fangs failed us, our words would not. He continued to keep silent which made me want to explode.

  “Let me tell you, dearest, why I deserve this power. I don’t parade my ability, like you do now, and use it to lord over people as I believe that it does not make me superior to them, I was just born different and that is all. I don’t care if I am side-lined while someone like Ryder takes the credit because I as well as my pack know who truly won the battle. I don't need the glory as long as I know that the people who swore to protect, so that no one has to set the loved ones pyre's aflame. True, I could have usurped his position at any time I wanted and would have most probably won but I didn’t, you know why? Because I simply don’t want to be Alpha, I don’t crave the recognition that you do. I don’t need to be the centre of attention like you and especially unlike you, I don’t crave the love of every single person on Earth which I know you do even though you deny it, because deep down you crave it. You are still the scared little boy whose mommy hurt him because she ran away, so, he decided to become the big scary Alpha so that no one could hurt him again. Let me give some advice, Damien. Grow up and live. Life never treats us fairly, but we have to suck it up and move on as the world will not wait for us to wallow in our little pity party.”

  With that last sentence I banged my fist against the glass panel and watched as it trembled beneath my touch, the shocked look on their face was priceless as the glass splintered with spider web-like cracks appearing. Looks of horror masked their faces as more cracks appeared just a push from my finger. My hand started to smoke and blister due to the silver but I masked my pain, this was nothing compared to what I was going to do to them. I felt the familiar rush and smiled.

  “Just because I hold back does not mean I am weak.”

  The guards and Damien moved back as I gave the glass panel one last punch causing it to completely shatter. I jumped through the hole and into the room where they were in, both guards swung at me at the same time, but I easily grabbed their hands and twisted them. They howled like babies as I let their hands go before grabbing both their throats and crushing their windpipe simultaneously, they fell to the floor like sandbags as I released my grip on their throats.

  Damien, the coward, ran to the door to try and call for help but not before I grabbed his leg, pulling him down so he fell to the ground.

  "You said you deserved my power, use it against me!"

  He kicked me in the face causing me to falter, giving him time to get to his feet. He raised his leg and brought it down upon my skull, I just managed to roll away and gain my bearings. A punch came my way which I blocked with both my arms, he was indeed stronger than before. My footing became unstable as he rained hell on me, I took advantage of his blind focus on hitting me to look for a weak spot. I took the time he used to pull back his punches to go under and upwards to land one right under his chin, bringing him to his knees. I swung my leg under his hunched form , knocking him flat on his back.

  I took his disorientation as a blessing and straddled his chest before raising a clawed hand, he screamed as I brought it down again and again on his chest, blood sprayed against my face, but that did not stop me. I had become the thing my pack tried to suppress, he tried to push me off but I did not budge.

  This was it, this was the end, I would finally avenge my family as well as all those that Damien had wronged. I lifted my hand ready to deliver the killing blow, Damien pleaded with me to stop so that we could start over, but they fell on deaf ears, now he would finally experience what all those people felt during those last moments before their lives were taken.

  “The Moon Goddess must be cruel to make you my mate.”

  His eyes widened at the familiar phrase before I let out a how of triumph. I brought my hand down, everything I had been through in the forsaken place would be worth it in a second. It barely scraped his neck before Damien disappeared from underneath me.

  The familiar smell of honeysuckle filled my nose as I looked down at the lush grass that I was kneeling on, it was stained with the blood dripping off my clawed hand which was still raised to deal the killing blow, it had been an inch away from Damien’s neck. I let out a scream as I brought my claws down onto the Earth, dirt spraying everywhere. A faint breeze blew against my matted hair causing it to part from my face. I took a deep breath and I growled as I registered the scent that came with the wind, it increased in intensity as I looked up. Of all the times she could have picked she chose now, there are things I could forget, but this was not one of them.

  “Hello, Child.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Flawed Judgement

  Selene

  I could not help but sigh as I watched the scene unfold before me. How did a love so pure change so much to become so hateful? It seemed as though I wasted my breath and power trying to get Sapphire and Damien to see reason. Small ripples formed in the water as Sapphire banged her fist against the glass, screaming at Damien. An equally loud bang startled me causing me to run my hand through the water, disrupting the horrible image in front of me. I caught sight of the figure storming in and sighed, here we go again.

  “The amount of power I wasted trying to get these two the perfect life, every time I meticulously created the perfect scenario for them to fall in love, they butchered it! I made sure that Damien became an Alpha so that he would feel closer to how Xander would feel as a king, and as for Sapphire... well, there are things that even I do not have power over.”

  I shut my eyes and took a deep breath as my sister paced up and down pulling at her hair, it seemed as though the Goddess of Love was not much of a happy cherub today...I wonder why.

  “Everything had been planned out for centuries, the day they each would be born, where they would be born even to the smallest detail of what time they were born. Everything we did and planned was supposed to ensure that they would find each other and fall in love li
ke they did centuries ago! This whole werewolf thing was just supposed to be an added bonus! What could have possibly gone wrong!”

  She went around kicking furniture and having her little temper tantrum, while I took a deep breath. Take care of your younger sister, mother said, she will help you in the future, mother said. Now look where we are, my children are in pain and are going to most probably kill each other.

  “We even made sure that the closest descendants of Rose and Xander either got bitten by Lycans or even married Lycans, for goodness sake! Maybe something went wrong, but it is nothing a little persuasion from love won’t fix… something that you so relentlessly denied me—”

  “Enough, Cytherea! We have done enough. We planned this wrongly, we forced them together and now Sapphire is suffering, we took everything away from her and gave nothing back. Even Damien’s life was tampered so that his life played out in the way we deemed it should.”

  Cytherea, at least, had the decency to look ashamed. I gestured for her to come to my side to look at the images being shown in the water now. Sapphire was on top of Damien slashing at him with her claws, she looked more wolf than human at the moment. This is what we have made her to become, we drove her to this.