Smoke and Mirrors (Smoke and Mirrors Series Book 1)

by S. N. Nair

  “Chloe, I have told you a thousand times, I will not stay and try to love your brother, I--”

  “Take me with you!”

  I thought that there would be nothing that could possibly shock me anymore. What with the past lives, the soul switch, the puppeteering, but yet here, it was, one of the biggest bombshells that had been dropped on me during my lovely stay here. She was the one who wanted me to stay and change her brother, now, she wanted to join me and escape him.

  “Let me make sure that I heard you correctly. You, want me to ‘kidnap’ you and take you away from here. Knowing that if I take you, Damien, who is already going to try and chase me to the ends of the Earth to reclaim, in his words his ‘property’, will hunt us down twice as hard as you are, in case you forgot, his sister.”

  I spoke slowly to emphasise the gravity of the situation I was already in, just in case she did not grasp it. I took a clear good look at her for the first time in quite awhile and sighed, this was really not going to work out. Yes she was a slim little thing, but there was a difference between being slim and being fit, her body did not have excess fat, but it did not have the muscles that came with years of training. She would not survive the distance I was going to go and the pace I was going to take to reach there as fast as possible. She was going to slow me down, she was not going to be totured if she stayed here, I was. I was about to deny her request when she covered my mouth with her hand.

  “I know that you are in a hurry, but please Sapphire, this could be my only chance to leave this place and live my life without having Damien control every aspect of it.”

  Her eyes sparkled with tears as she clung to my arm, her nails digging in with desperation as though she would not let me go unless I bring her along with me. I could not help but sigh as I saw the utter desperation in her eyes, she was practically begging me to take me with her but I could not let my guard down so easily. I had been played one too many times to trust the claims spouted by any person.

  “This better not be some kind of ploy that you cooked up with your brother. If I bring you with me only to find out that you have been sending my location to Damien I promise you that death would be the easy way out.”

  She clung onto my arm even harder as her body wracked with sobs as she frantically shook her head from up and down like a spring toy. I heard footsteps outside the door of the room we were in causing me to clamp my hand over Chloe’s mouth, her lips still trembled under it causing my hand to shake with it. I glared at her with enough intensity that she immediately sobered up with the occasional hiccup here and there. The footsteps outside our door thankfully stopped but unfortunately, they stopped right in front of the door. My whole body stilled as I heard voices, my ear pressed against the crack of the door.

  “Where do you think she could have gone?”

  “Probably not far enough to cross our borders yet.”

  He was right, I have not even gone far enough to cross the threshold. If they just turned and opened the door, they would find their prey.

  “We had better find her fast or Alpha Damien will have our heads. He is in no mood to accept any failure.”

  Poor things.

  They proceeded to sniff the air in hopes of catching my scent and I thank the stars for all the clothes hanging in this little room, they masked my scent and from the smell of them, they could mask a whole pack’s scent. Their voices began to trail further and further till they were barely audible. I turned to Chloe and placed a finger to my lips before using it to tap the hand that was covering her mouth, she nodded her head and I hoped that meant she got my message to keep quiet. Cautiously, I lowered my hand and thankfully she stayed quiet with the exception of a sniff as she rubbed her red eyes. Repeating my gesture of the finger against my lips I turned the door handle to open it by a small crack before checking the surroundings, the coast was clear.

  I turned back to Chloe.

  “You had better be sure of this decision right now because once I start running I am not going to stop until I go pass your pack’s borders, and remember, once you cross those borders you will be labelled as packless like me meaning that you are no longer protected under the same laws that your pack members are. I am will tell you the plan after we pass the borders, you need to keep your head down and do as I say no matter what.”

  She nodded her head before gesturing to the door.

  We bolted right out of the room and ran towards the door as if the hounds of Hell were chasing us, we had just managed to clear the front doors when the shouting of multiple people caught our ears. Will I ever get a break?

  Pretty soon we were chased by at least half of Damien’s pack, some were chasing us as humans while some chased as wolves, either way, they still could not catch us, Chloe was surprisingly fast for someone that had not undergone military training.

  We dodged branch after branch and jumped root over root till the howls were only a soft sound in the wind. We stopped near a humongous Oaktree as Chloe collapsed against it to catch her breath, her ragged breathing the only sound against the eerie silence of the forest.

  “Don’t get too comfortable, we have to start running again soon.”

  A small whine left her mouth as she began to slowly regain her ability to speak again.

  “Run now? We are almost at the Northern Border, can’t we take a short break.”

  I snorted at her statement.

  “Exactly. We are almost at the Northern Border not passed it, we are not truly safe till we cross that border. For as long as we remain on your brother’s land the chances of us getting caught is astronomically high. The only thing that could really slow him down is if we cross the border as he cannot risk going into another Alpha’s territory without starting a war. Besides, it is written that Alpha’s have to give any packless wolves asylum till they are proven guilty of whatever crime they had supposedly ‘committed’, a law that your brother forgot. We might not be seeking asylum from them, but Damien will be thinking we are and that will lead him down a wild goose chase. He will start searching the packs under his authority, which would give us ample time to escape to a far away human settlement.”

  My jaw clenched as I heard a howl in the distance, they were gaining on us. Chloe quirked an eyebrow as I stripped myself of my shirt before tearing it into strips, I ignored her question of my reason for doing so before tying a strip to a low-hanging branch before hooking another strip on a young tree. This was how we were trained to throw off our pursuers, it bought me a little time when Damien first sent out a search party looking for Antony and I.

  “This might not distract them for long, but any delay now is good enough for us to take a decent lead.”

  I gestured at her to follow before picking up speed and running again.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Heart-to-Heart

  Sapphire Nightborne

  “I can’t do this anymore!”

  I rolled my eyes as Chloe collapsed to the ground next to me. We had just crossed the borderline which was just a small little brook running through the forest. I turned around to see the numerous humanoid figures among the foliage, they were not breaching the boundary line... this was a good sign. This meant that this was another Alpha's territory and he had not shown his belly to Damien, this would buy the time I needed to go further, and worse case scenario, we could seek asylum for a few days to rest.

  Snarls and growls filled the air as the wolves passed up and down the brook. One tried to put his paw in the water only to get his ear bit by another, this Alpha must be strong if they did not even dare toe the line. It was almost laughable, the big bad wolves were thwarted from their prey by a small little river, growls could be heard as they retreated to most probably tell Damien of the situation now. I waited till each and every single one of them disappeared till I turned my back to the other side of the brook, I would not put it past any of Damien’s pack to try something rash and break centuries’ old law. He has shown before that he cares not for the Laws that were set centuries ago
. Alphas were only allowed to send their pack members into other pack lands if they were coming under the flag of diplomacy to seek alliances, or if they were invited in by the land's Alpha. Damien definitely did not come to my home under the flag of diplomacy, but who knows? Maybe Ryder broke under pressure and gave him his permission for Damien to invade our land.

  “Ow!”

  I took a deep breath as I looked towards the ground to see the heap at the base of a tree, that heap was Chloe who had so carelessly tripped over an exposed tree root and most probably sprained her ankle. At least we had the time now. She looked up at me with a sheepish smile on her face, I snorted before wordlessly picking her up and walking on.

  “How much further?”

  That question caused my heart to ache as I remembered a similar situation in the past when someone had asked me that question, someone who I had loved very much... someone who I failed. Now, another person had placed their trust in me to keep them safe.

  “Not much further, I just need to find a good place to camp for the night where we can rest and you can have enough time to heal. We need to find a place that gives us enough cover from the pack that currently lives on this land. They might not have surrendered to Damien, but I cannot risk them finding us when you are injured and vulnerable. We will play by ear for now, you should heal in two days. If we need to, we will seek asylum for a few days before moving towards the human settlement.”

  She silently nodded before her eyes wandered through the rest of the forest and we began our silent journey.

  ***************************************************************************

  “Why do you keep doing that?”

  My question visibly shocked Chloe as munched on her piece of rabbit that I killed, nervously taking small bites and chewing on them for a ridiculously long period of time. The crackling of the fire between us was the only noise in the awkward silence that blanketed us. She began to pick at the dead leaves that lay at our feet with one hand, waiting for me to drop my question.

  “Why do you keep looking around the forest like it is the first time you’ve been in one? I don’t know if you noticed, but you have been jumping at every sound the forest makes, natural sounds that usually comes with such a place.”

  She looked down and bit at her lip before looking back up at me, she swallowed the rabbit in her mouth as she saw me quirk my eyebrow at her body language. Wolves were supposed to feel the most at home in the forest, regardless if it was their forest or not. She moved as if she was in a unfamiliar environment.

  “Well, it might sound weird as wolves…but…I have never been so deep in a forest before much more this far from home.”

  My eyebrows were in danger of escaping into my hairline as I processed her response. How could she not have explored the forest within her borders? Although, seeing who her brother is, I could understand her situation, but still puzzled me. She was the sister of an Alpha, they were almost always present wherever the Alpha went, she should have gone with him for various negotiations.

  “Does your pack not have mandatory training exercises in the forest or go out to other packs to source for alliances?”

  The forest became our second home as we were often blindfolded and left to find our own way out in the dead of the night with traps laid everywhere so as to test our senses.

  *The blindfold scratched against my eyelids as my teacher continued to wrap the rope around me, binding me tightly to the trunk of the tree.*

  *“Sapphire, I am going to untie your blindfold, but I want you to count to ten out-loud. I promise that you will be fine as long as you remember everything I have taught you, just trust your senses and you will be fine. You have two hours to find your way back to the stronghold, if you come back after that time, you will be kicked out of training. Prove to the everyone that you deserve your place amongst the warriors.”*

  My pack might not have been pro-women in the warrior department, but Ryder’s father still made sure that all wolves in his pack, no matter what gender, had at least the basic defence training in case of a fight. Hence why most of my pack besides the pregnant, young, old and sick was on the battlefield that day. If not for Alpha Edan, our pack would have fallen much sooner as his son belived that women should not be on the battlefield at all which was why he always carried resentment towards me as his father went against him to make me Head Warrior Commander.

  Moreover, I had been brought from pack to pack as the Alpha family sourced for allies as I was their main bodyguard and had to fulfil my oath of guarding them. Besides that, we often had exchanges between different packs to train together to better each other, thus this improved our relations and allowed for many of our pack to find their mates.

  “I know it sounds weird and awful, but that has been my life for the last twenty years. Damien had kept me locked up like some princess in that house and he barred me from military training, I was trained just enough so that I would not be a bother during a fight. And about visiting other packs, I am sure you could tell that my brother is not much of a people person so we never visited any packs other than to slaughter and conquer them.”

  Poor girl. She suffered, not physically like I did at the hands of Damien, but she suffered mentally and emotionally as well, but unlike me who made a huge fuss out of it, she suffered in silence for years. That almost seemed worst, to allow another to control your life and not having the courage or means to stand up to them to take back they life that you were given, that only you should have the right to control.

  “That is just sad, so is that why you wanted to leave? To be free of Damien? And why now? You had many years to escape, and no one would have tailed you around the stronghold."

  I was curious, to say the least, I could not imagine being cooped up in a house for so long, not being able to run or even interact with other wolves besides my own pack. There were times when I had been locked up away from everyone, but I had the freedom after to run and train. She did not even get to taste this freedom, save for traveling to spill blood.

  “To be free of Damien was one of the reasons I left, the other was to find my mate. I know that you don’t find that a very empowering reason to leave, but it's just that despite being in such a big house so full of people, I had just always felt like I was alone. Nobody actually cared for me there, they just tolerated me because I was the Alpha’s sister, so I just want to find someone who would make me feel whole and loved, I know it may sound stupid to you but it’s what I want.”

  She looked up to gauge my reaction and I simply responded with a shrug, finding her mate was her desire so who was I to stop her. It was her life so she could do whatever she wanted with it. It was good to believe in something, to have a goal that gave you the drive to move forward. For her, it was love. For me, it was revenge.

  “And to answer your question, I guessed I never left because I still, like you said, forced myself to live in my own little fairy tale. I could not bring myself to believe that Damien was the monster that everyone said he was, you know that when we were young he would make me cakes when I cried and would go into the forest just to pick me flowers because I wanted them for my hair. Our father was always traveling, and our mother spent a lot of time in her room.... he was all I had.”

  She gave a watery chuckle as she reminisced memories of her childhood.

  “It all changed when our mother left, our father took him aside and soon it seemed as though he changed overnight, it was like he was a whole different person.”

  I looked up to the moon above us, I hope that the goddesses could feel the pain they caused so many people for their own selfish decision. They took a brother away from a sister, when she had no one but him.

  “I bet he was.”

  “He barely talked to me and then the torturing began, he started from someone who hated watching people get tortured by our father to someone who enjoyed doing the torturing. He started to follow our father around, learning all is heinous methods of conquest. I thought that m
aybe having you in the picture could change him, bring things back to the way they were. But after the Bloodbath, when I saw how he gave Karmen that knife, that was when I realised that I had lost my brother and I am so sorry Sapphire, that due to my blindness I could not help you escape sooner.”

  She looked so small as she brought her knees to her chest, sniffling as she used the end of her shirt to wipe her tears.

  “I forgive you.”

  Her head snapped up from the shock of my words and I could not help but chuckle. I did not think I still had the capacity to forgive.

  “You seem sincere in your actions and tried to help me besides, we are all a little blind when it comes to family.”

  I had turned a blind eye to all the warning sign that Ryder gave of because Lia loved him. I wanted her to be happy, and Antiny adored him. If I was not so blind, maybe they would still be alive. Her lips trembled at my words, she was an emotional one, now wasn’t she?

  “I am so sorry that I just stood there when Damien…when Damien…”