“Murderer.” The girl’s voice came from behind him. He span round quickly.
“Yes, I am.”
“You killed me?” she asked
“I broke your neck when I shook you in my jaws,” he replied.
“You’re the devil amongst the angels,” she retorted to test him further.
“I’m the abomination they fight against.”
The girl shifted to Teagan.
“This is what you want?” Ghostly Teagan held her hands out and showed him that another ten packets of the drug rested in them.
“Yes,” he answered
“You’ll break me.”
“What?” He didn’t understand.
“You’ll destroy me. I see it. My heart’s breaking because of you. You’re a cold blooded killer.” Ghostly Teagan’s chest ripped open and inside rested her heart. It was beating slowly. The life giving muscle pumping blood around her body. He opened his mouth to speak, but she held her finger up to her lips.
“Just watch.” He did. There was nothing else he could do. He wanted the drugs. He could smell them, and he needed to be under their magical power again to rid himself of the pain. Teagan’s heart left her body. He noticed it had Tyler written on it. He watched as the muscle tore apart and fluttered to the ground. It bled into the white of the snow. Tarring it with his shame.
“The drugs will cure me of hurting you,” he blurted out. He was no longer thinking straight.
“You killed me. You’ll kill them. It’ll happen just the way you did to me. That’s inevitable now.”
“No,” he cried.
“Take it.” Ghostly Teagan, minus her heart, changed back into the girl he’d killed. The drugs flew over to his hands and he shoved them into his pockets. His heart slowed down. He had his fix. He was addicted, and he would be safe again with these drugs on him. The air crackled again, and the girl disappeared. He slumped to the ground and took one of the packets out of his pocket.
He’d have a little bit now, and then he better talk to Teagan. The thought that she’d seen him earlier hit him. She would be so worried. What had he said to her? Did she realize what he was? Oh God, what if he’d hurt her. He hadn’t been able to focus on anything other than getting more drugs. He’d taken the last packet the previous evening and had run for hours. He knew his feet and hands were bleeding and cut, but he didn’t feel it. All that he felt was the gut twisting need within his stomach to get more of the catnip. He placed a little on his tongue and swallowed down the mellow goodness. It was bliss. His head fell back against a rock behind him, and he shut his eyes. The ghostly girl was gone. He was free. His inner wolf was running and jumping for joy, even if his human body was too exhausted to do it any longer. He would let the human part recover for an hour and then run further up into the mountain. Being in the Southern quadrant had been foolish and dangerous. Maybe he’d taken too much of the drug this week. He needed to slow down so he could maintain some control, and keep it from the others. He’d put the packets away and only take a little bit a day. His legs started fidgeting of their own accord. Maybe he would take just a little bit more. He opened his eyes, blinked a few times, and then rubbed them for good measure because the mind fuck in front of him was like a nightmare.
“Hello, Tyler.” Kas stood in front of him. Jessica was at his side and they were in the Glacial Blood dungeon. Bars of a cage separated them. He was the one inside the cage.
“I think I’ll take that.” Jessica looked at the drug packet in his hands and with a flick of her hand it levitated out of his palm. He got to his feet and tried to snatch it back, but she removed it from the bars before he could reach it.
“That’s mine,” he snarled.
“Now it’s mine,” she retorted, her lips pursed together in a thin line of anger. The packet rested just above the open hand that she’d used to draw it to her. With her other hand she then pointed at the packet, and it burst into flames.
“No,” he cried, and violently shook the bars. “Bitch!”
“Mind your mouth in front of Jessica,” Kas growled. He hadn’t moved during the entire exchange with Jessica. He had his arms folded across his broad chest and the line of a worried frown bore deep into his forehead.
“Fuck you,” Tyler snarled and rattled the bars again. Then, he remembered the drugs that were in his pocket. He scrambled to pull them out and then shoved the packet and its entire contents into his mouth. His arms were thrown back, and he was lifted into the air and suspended. He tried to swallow but his tongue was dragged from his mouth so he couldn’t. The drugs flowed out of his mouth and his pockets. He desperately tried to move his body to re-capture them, but he was bound too tightly within a magical prison. The packets spontaneously combusted, and he felt the defeat throughout his whole body. It was so painful. Everything was on fire and burning for the catnip. He was dying. He needed it now. Jessica let him go, and he fell to the floor.
“I hate you,” he growled. “Let me out.”
“Not until your body is clear of the poison you have been filling it with, and you tell me why you’ve been doing so.” Kas still hadn’t changed his position.
“I’ll kill you.” He was up on his feet again and pulling at the bars.
“Unlikely in your current situation. If you’re able to break these bars you’ll more likely kill yourself with an overdose. I won’t allow that to happen to one of the best members of my pack.”
Tyler’s skin was covered in a fine sheen of sweat. He needed more drugs and now. Pain. He was in so much pain.
“Jessica, please.” He changed direction and tried to plead with the witch. “It’s just a little bit to see me through the stress of trying to find Nuka. Kas is overreacting. Please. You’ll help me, won’t you?” She didn’t reply to him but turned away and looked at the ground. Even the tears streaming down her cheeks had no effect on him. “No,” he howled out this time. “Let me out. I will fucking kill you all, if you don’t let me go now.” He was rattling the bars and could feel the metal crushing under his grip. He was going to get out. He would destroy Kas for this. What fucking right did the polar bear think he had to do this to him. He was only trying to protect Teagan. He needed to take the drugs to protect her. If the girl knew he wasn’t, then she would come for Teagan and kill her.
“Let me out! You don’t understand. She’ll kill her.”
“Kill who?” Kas unfolded his arms and stepped forward so that he was inches from the bars. If Tyler kept up the pressure on the bars, he would be able to break them and snap Kas’ neck in an instant. He could then go and apologize to the girl and try to get some more drugs. If he told her what had happened, surely she would understand. She wouldn’t hurt Teagan for what Kas was doing to him. It wasn’t his fault. He was trying to take the drugs. He was doing as he was told. Shit, his whole body was shaking now. It hurt. It hurt so much. He licked his lips hoping that maybe there was a remnant of the catnip on them. Nothing. He howled again and again. The blood curdling call of agony rumbled around the buried room. He wouldn’t survive this. Teagan wouldn’t.
“Kas, let me go.”
“Who will kill who?”
“Let me, the fuck go!” The bar snapped under his pressure, but before he could reach for Kas he was magically restrained.
“Tyler?” Everyone’s heads turned to the voice of the angel that came from the door. An angel with vibrant red hair.
“Run, Teagan,” he ordered, but she just stepped closer to him.
“Don’t get too close to him,” Kas ordered.
“What’s wrong with him?” She ignored his pleas for her to run.
“He’s addicted to drugs,” Kas replied
“Drugs.” Her face went white. Why was she ignoring him? She needed to find somewhere to hide.
“Go to the Council. Tell them to hide you,” he shouted out again. “Please, Teagan. Kas is wrong. She’ll get you.”
“Who’ll get me?” She tried to reach out for him but Kas stepped in between them.
“Teagan, go back to your room. That isn’t Tyler at the moment.”
“I don’t understand.” She had tears falling down her cheeks now.
“I’ll come to you soon when we’ve calmed him. He’ll be in a lot of pain for a while.” Kas pushed her towards the door.
“Too fucking right,” Tyler shouted after them. “But not as much as you’ll be in, if anything happens to her.”
“Kas?” Teagan looked up at the polar bear and he whispered something in her ear.
“Run!” Tyler shouted at her. His entire body was in so much agony, but all he could see was Teagan’s heart being ripped from her chest and her dying. He had to save her. “Run, Teagan.” She was going to die. He was going to be the reason she died. “Run, Teagan, please.” He calmed in the magical bindings.
She turned and looked at him, but he didn’t see Teagan standing there anymore. It was the girl that he’d killed. He was too late.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Teagan wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting in her bedroom waiting for Kas to come to her. Various members of the pack had come and sat by her side during that time. They had reassured her that everything would be alright, but she’d not really been listening. She couldn’t get rid of the sight of Tyler, in magical chains, strung out before her. She’d heard the pained howls and instantly recognized them. She’d run straight down to the dungeon to be met with the sight of a man she’d once known. Not any longer. The things he’d said? He was like a completely different person. What had happened to him?
A knock came to her door. Zain, who’d been sitting with her for the last hour and feeding her spoonfuls of honey, every now and then, got up and lumbered over to the door. He opened it and Kas walked in. The two of them exchanged a hushed conversation and Zain left. Teagan jumped to her feet from the edge of her bed where she’d been sitting.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
Kas led her back to the bed and sat down on it next to her. It creaked under his bulky weight.
“When Jessica connected with Tyler she felt the confusion in his mind. A confusion that I knew straight away had to come from drug addiction. When he first came here, Tyler was recovering from a previous addiction to the same drug.” Teagan noticed that Kas looked tired. She took his hand and pulled it into her lap.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Catnip.”
“Seriously?” she exclaimed
“The most potent drug to wolves and dogs.”
She placed her other hand in her hair and ran her fingers through the tangled strands of vibrant red tresses.
“Why?”
“We don’t know.” Kas shrugged.
“Me?” Had she turned the man she loved to drugs. Was she that bad?
“Get that thought out of your head. Something else is going on. I don’t know why he’s taking them. At the moment he isn’t making much sense, so we’re not able to try and find out why.”
“Run? He kept telling me to run?” He’d been so terrified for her, when he’d been screaming at her. It curdled her blood with the fear that he displayed.
“Until we can get him off the drugs I don’t think we’ll know. At the moment, he’s insistent on needing them. Jessica’s built a magical cage around him because he broke the metal one. I’ve never seen that before. Even with a bear.”
“I want to see him.” She stood up.
“I don’t think that is wise, just now.”
“I love him. Maybe I can get through to him?” she offered.
“You have the election for the Council in a few hours.” Kas was so weary. She could see it in the bags under his eyes. He had the weight of the world on his shoulders and was also dealing with the loss of his twin brother. But this was the man she loved. She couldn’t even think about anything else now
“I’m not going. Not when Tyler’s in trouble.” She stomped her foot down.
“He’ll be alright. There’s a bigger picture here and I’m sure it’s to do with the coming fight.” Kas was also on his feet now and towering over her. She wasn’t intimidated, though.
“No. I want to be here for him.”
“He won’t even know if you’re here or there in his present state.”
“He will. Our auras are entwined. One soul knows when the other is there.” She repeated to him what Jessica had told her.
“I really need to get Jessica to lay off the magic stuff when around you lot. It always ends up backfiring on me,” he grumbled.
“Let me see him, please. Then I’ll go to the election. Jessica can take me and bring me back if anything is happening.” She gave Kas a compromise and a sweet, but pleading, smile.
“Five minutes. I think we all need some sleep.” The polar bear knew he was defeated by her tenacity to get what she wanted, when it came to Tyler.
“Thank you.” She opened the door and followed Kas through the house and down to the dungeon. Jessica was still there talking with Selene. She looked over to her wolf lover. He was curled up in a ball on the floor with magical bars surrounding him. He was covered in sweat. His clothes were sodden, and he was mumbling about pain and protection.
Jessica and Selene both came over to her.
“How is he?” she asked.
“His body’s detoxifying. Because of our faster metabolisms it can happen quickly, but that often makes it more painful.”
She looked at him again. He jerked. His legs and arms kicking out. And he let out a pained groan. She swallowed back the sob that threatened to flow from her mouth in compassion for the agony he was feeling.
“Is there nothing that you can do to help him through it?”
Jessica shook her head.
“You cannot treat it with magic. Only Tyler can pull himself away from the addiction. It’s unfortunately just like the human world.”
“You two go to bed. I’ll sit with him until morning.” Kas motioned towards Selene and Jessica.
“You need to sleep as well. Brayden has had a few hours. I’ll send him down to take over.” Selene placed her hand on Kas’ arm.
“There’s no need,” Kas replied
“No arguments.” Selene gave Teagan a kiss on the cheek and disappeared off to find Brayden. Jessica did the same, leaving her alone with Kas and Tyler.
“I’m going to go sit in the corner and read some papers I received earlier. Don’t get too near to the bars. They’ll hold until Jessica pulls them down.”
“He won’t hurt me,” she replied in shock at being told she shouldn’t get too near to him.
“At the moment, Teagan, no one can be sure of what he’ll do. We have to be careful.”
Her heart thumped with a painful ache. She’d hoped that she would have been able to hold him, and tell him that everything would be ok.
“I will. You have my word.”
“Call if you need me.” Kas disappeared into his corner, and she noted that he immediately shut his eyes.
She approached the bars slowly. She kept her promise and did not go too close, even though her wild dog was calling her to wrap herself around her mate and make him better.
Tyler jerked and sat up when she was a meter away. He stared at her. His eyes were red rimmed and sunken. His hair was greasy and matted. The sores on his hands and feet reopened where he’d been struggling to escape. Her compassion was screaming at her to break down the bars to help him and to take him to her room. If she smothered him with kisses that would make him better. Thankfully, on this occasion and probably for the first time in her life, her brain took over though.
“You have to run.” He spoke softly, but the edge of panic in his words wasn’t missed.
“Why?” She got down onto her knees, and despite the hard stone floor knelt before him.
“She’ll come for you?”
“Who?” she asked.
“The girl.” Tyler’s lips trembled with terror for her.
“What girl?” she questioned again.
“The girl, the g
irl...” He spoke a little louder this time but abruptly stopped. It was if he was seeing something that wasn’t her. His eyes widened. “No.”
“Tyler?”
“I’m the abomination that walks amongst the angels.” He started to repeat it slowly and rocked where he sat. “I’m the abomination that walks amongst the angels.”
“You’re not an abomination,” she stated.
“You don’t know what I did.” Clarity flooded into his eyes for a moment. He was seeing her. “Teagan.”
“Yes.”
“I love you,” he whispered and scrambled closer to the bars.
“I love you, too.” Her reply was completely involuntary because of the truth within it.
“You can’t.” He put his head down.
“Why not?” she asked.
“I’m a monster?” He didn’t look up.
“Because of the drugs. That doesn’t make you a monster. You’ve made a mistake. You’ll get clean, and I’ll help you. Everything’ll go back to normal.” Her hand slid along the floor. She could touch him if she just reached a little further. She knew that she mustn’t. Tyler looked at it and reached his own towards her. Their fingertips were millimeters from each other. Neither taking that courage to touch the other.
“I can’t stop the drugs.” His voice was breaking. He looked up at her.
“You can.” She gave him reassurance.
“I can’t. I have to take them.”
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