by Unknown
I don't know how he knows them, or how they know him. In all honesty, I'm not sure if I even want to find that out, and I don't ask. I'm frozen in place as I watch the shorter wildling struggle for words, his eyes heeding the Moon's help as if She's somehow going to hint him for the right words.
"Alpha wants you back, Cole," the name is spat out like it is a curse or an equally distasteful term. "He wants his brother by his side instead of having you cowering and casting yourself with human filth or one of these mutts."
"Brooothaaa," the Alpha gurgles, flickering a serpent-like tongue over his lips, what's left of them.
Stealing a glance at the others, curious to gauge their reaction to the news that Cole is related to these creatures, they look afraid, but not surprised. Faces pale, struck in horror expressions, their eyes flicker to the woods, probing into the shadows even if there is nothing to see there.
The woods are too quiet. The minutes keep ticking by in numb terror.
"On my signal, run," Cole breathes out, the words a foggy whisper meant just for us. They hear us, the low rumble tumbling from his chest says that much.
"don't worry, Scar. We will protect you," Micah says softly, her warm hand squeezing mine, its grip tight, hurting me but letting me go, it feels like she's left me.
"Ready... Now!"
So many of them, just a heartbeat later, like reapers come to take the last breath of life, they are clustering around us with a speed that's far from what normal beasts are capable of.
Coming here was a mistake.
One last look at the pack of monsters rushing toward us, I bolt, falling in step with the others. Not questioning the order. Never questioning the reasoning behind it. I don't hold back on instinct. I do not go slow or gentle into the night.
With a lightening speed, as fast as my feet would carry me, I trust them to lead me away from the danger.
The rustle of steps from behind, the wheezing of air as they move, bodies chase after us. Not falling behind.
They move airborne through the trees, feet not even close to scratching the forest ground.
Not chancing a backward glance, "Faster! Don't let them catch you!" Cole shouts.
Listening to his urgent cries, to the sizzling of air and the rustle of our own foot, we keep running until muscles start screaming with exhaustion gaining on flesh and there's no breath our lungs can keep inside.
Panic. Fear. Trees swirling past me, blurred in my vision as I try to keep up, I'm not as fast as they are. Turning in the opposite direction of the house, "Where are we going?" I call out.
"Leaving." Slowing down his pace a notch, stretching out his hand, fingers closing around mine, Adam tugs me after him.
Body crumbling from exertion, it's sheer will making me put one foot in front of the other.
"Faster. Faster. Faster." The cadence is repeating like a mantra.
(26)The Last Resort
|Scarlet's POV|
For someone like me, this is the only thing that really matters. Family is everything. Not the ones who watched me grow up and nurtured that little girl - they are long gone now, but the people who helped me in the moment of need.
Mom died eight years ago, never managed to live up the shame of having me. My stepdad, my former pack's late Alpha, he did as much as he could. He tried. But soon after his mate's untimely demise, he broke down too.
It is a common belief amongst the moon children that mates are salvation, medicine to old wounds and new, however, I've watched the bond failing to heal and instead only wounds my mother further as she withered away. She was loved. She was being forgiven her mistakes. Yet, she could never forgive herself. Even when she tried to love those who loved her in return she loathed everything, herself included.
Bonds and blood are not magic. They fail you even if you tell yourself you won't be brought down. For eighteen years they failed me, time and again.
Those who never did are not of my flesh and blood. We do not share any other connection than simple friendship, but we care for each other as if we are, in fact, related. Love, this is what never fails you. Never will and, in a way, what we feel for each other is love, even if it's not the passionate, greedy kind of love. It is better. It is sharing, giving, trusting...
They trust me to save us. I never thought I will be the one to wield that power but today I am. A two edged blade that will save them but hurt me. I do not wish to be hurt but I will let it happen if that means saving what I cherish the most.
The people I love despite what they are.
I've dreamed about it. That other kind of love, not the one I am supposed to accept just because She wills it so, not because of fate I am unable to control... Because of a person who makes my heart flutter faster and my knees go weak every time I see him, breathe the same air.
Dreams are not real. Thick wood, a door behind which every nightmare lives, this is real.
The number of his suite glaring back at me in the dimly lit up hall, the bond's screaming deafening in the silence of the place, my body is numb, my breath is shaking with the feelings wreaking havoc in once a peaceful chest.
Hesitant to bring my fist up, slowly grasping the lack of other choices, my hand trembling on approach, I rap my knuckles on the door.
To take and hide us within his pack or send us away - it will be his decision in the end.
No sound coming from inside, my selfish hope raising its ugly head to stare back at me, I can't stop myself but think.
"Perhaps he's not here," I voice the thought softly, that same hope audible despite my effort to hide it. Not looking at me as if it's their own, they know that shame is lacing vines through my every cell.
"Let me do it." Gently pushing me off the way, Adam bangs on the door several times, sheltering me from my guilt even now.
A loud groan sounds from inside, followed by a grumpy, "Who the fuck is it?"
Turning to me, grinning deviously, he arches a challenging brow my way and winks. "See? This is how it's done." My indecision is already forgotten.
"Rise and shine, lover boy! Your girl won't be playing sitting duck for much longer," he hollers to the man on the other side.
Another groan and then shuffle of clothes, at last, followed by his approaching steps. A few seconds later, the door is flung open and a very irritated Alpha is standing in front of us, only wearing a pair of running shorts hanging low on his otherwise perfectly naked body. His dark flocks of hair are messier than usual and his forest greens are rimmed with sleep. Sexy as hell, I admit, troubled to contain my own bodily reaction to the sight of him. I need to remind myself it's just the connection between us. Nothing I feel towards this man is real.
He takes a few moments to inspect the scene presented to his still sleepy eyes, surprise etched on his face when he sets those spring colored orbs on my sweaty and exhausted form. I'm sure I must look like someone has chewed me down and then spat me out. I certainly feel like it after what we've been through.
The shock melts into a slow, lazy smile and his tongue flickers over those lips once his attention settles down upon me. My body responding with a violent shiver, my insides decide to do a somersault from the butterflies going crazy somewhere in the vicinity of my stomach or, well, yes, lower. This can't be happening to me. It's not real.
To my utter and complete mortification, my knees decide that this is just the right moment to go jelly on me. Traitors.
Before I can get a grip on myself, a hand grasps my elbow, preventing one very embarrassing collision with the ground. A growl erupts from the direction of the nearly naked male standing at the doorstep.
I take a deep breath, opting to feed my oxygen starved brain with much-needed air which, hopefully, is going to do the trick and rid me of the bizarre sensations, but, instead I only manage to catch on his scent. Heaven.
Choking down the unwelcome thought, I jerk myself off Adam's steadying grip.
"I'm alright," I assure him, straightening up on shaky feet, my gaze darting towards the other male who seems
to be watching us with narrowed in suspicion eyes. He is jealous or, at least, disapproving of Adam's proximity to me.
"So...hmm," Alpha clears his throat, an unexpected blush coloring his cheeks when he notices me watching. "What brings you here this early? Don't misunderstand, I have no objection to my mate dropping off for a surprise visit but it makes one wonder after yesterday's welcome."
"We need a favor," Cole is the one who speaks up, breaking the awkward silence as we all watch Alpha for a reaction to those words. I observe him quietly as he looks at one, then another one of my friends, at last, his inquiring stare stopping on me.
Swallowing back the last bit of pride I have left and squashing down my ingrained disgust towards this person who has caused me more pain than any other, haunted my nightmares for years long, I say the words I never thought I will. "We need your help, Alpha."
It takes him a moment to gauge the meaning of that statement, his own to befall us still when a guileful smile blemishes his flawless facade as the wheels in his head turn, counting the possibilities.
"And what do I get in return for my help?" he inquires.
All eyes turn on me in expectation. Stifling a heavy sigh, I bellow in nothing but a whisper, "A chance."
Not sparing a heartbeat to think it through and consider that there is still a story we need to tell and explain what that request implements, "You got yourself a deal," Alpha concludes.
"A deal," I echo back, offering him a hand to shake.
A deal with the devil, his fingers curling around mine, he's never been one to miss on an opportunity.
(27) Sand Castles
|Regan's POV|
Like a beggar, I'm asking for her spare love. A chance she's agreed to give me just to save others. People she needs to be saved from.
For now, it is enough. The beast is content that she's finally coming back where she belongs, purring inside me like a sated kitten, drinking her scent that's spraying the air inside the car.
Silently, sneaking secret glances at her, I inch closer to her warmth, the deals I've made falling to the back of my intoxicated by her presence mind.
Finding peace during the drive back home even if I'm bringing a traitor inside my lair.
"Why, Regan?" she says softly, startling me out of my thoughts.
We've been on the road for days and, besides the few clipped out words, this is the first time she's spoken to me.
"Why what, baby girl?" I ask her to elaborate, peering up at her from my seat next to her.
Her innocent face is shadowed by dark thoughts lurking from the corners of her stormy gray eyes. Oh, how I wish those eyes were filled with a warmer emotion now. One day perhaps they will be.
Today is not that day. Today, she's cold, chasing after ghosts only she can see just like I battle against my own demons. Some dead, others, much to my chagrin, alive and substantial.
"Why did you kill them back then? Why did you attack us?" a shaky whisper steals past her lips, a question I've been afraid she'd ask and now she has.
I sigh under her wary and observing eyes. Frozen in unnatural stillness, I can almost feel her body buzzing in anticipation as I contemplate my answer. Her hands staying curled on her lap, the expression on her face one of focus and caution, the bond is as quiet as she is.
She's expecting me to lie, convinced that I will and a weaker man probably would have lied under her silent scrutiny, but I am not that man. Never been that man.
"You had the land I needed and you were weak, a pack that couldn't protect what was theirs and, at the time, I was someone who took everything he could take," I give her the truth about my motivation back then.
"We became homeless after we lost our land. My wolves needed a new territory to settle down and then we found yours," I go on, noting the hurt look on her face as a wave of emotion permeates into the bond we share, shaking me to my bones.
"You could have just asked us to take you in. You could have-"
"Was your father going to step down as an Alpha? Or would you have given up your position as the next-in-line and handled me your pack, Scarlet?"
Shaking her head. "No."
"Do you see now why we couldn't ask, why we needed to take it by force?"
"Then why didn't you just kill us all? You needed the territory, you didn't need us." Logical even in her pain, I can help but admire her yet she doesn't understand.
Her pack hasn't been as weak as I've thought. Many of my wolves died in the fight that night, forced me to spare the survivors so we could compensate for the ones we lost.
"We lost many of our wolves that night, Scarlet. We needed fresh blood to fill in for those wolves, otherwise, we were going to be as vulnerable to threats as your pack was when we attacked. I couldn't risk anyone taking chances on us."
With victory came losses. With mercy came complications. Consequences.
She closes her eyes, letting the breath she's been holding out in a shaky, soft whimper of agony. "We were a replacement for the ones you lost."
Nodding, it hurts me more than it hurts her, but she doesn't realize that. She won't see the man behind the monster yet.
"What I did... I had to do it to protect my own and I'll do it again if I have to," I say and move my gaze from her, hiding the pain her every heartbeat causes me, hoping for a future we need to have but doubt we will achieve. Remembering the past that I've been trying to forget, I know I'm hoping for the impossible.
"You are a monster, Alpha." Softly spoken words, like arrows piercing my heart, truth is ringing in her voice.
I can't deny it.
Glimpsing through the window, the packhouse is looming in the distance as big as a palace. A place so marvelous yet filled with so much misery it makes my chest constrict just by looking at its lost innocence.
Two years ago, coming to this land to claim what I wanted as mine, I never suspected that my conquest to rebuild my rule will be cut short. The same wildlings who chased us off our home, who threatened and extorted me are threatening my mate and my pack now. Not just them but also a man who once claimed to be my friend.
Micheal had left me to fight his own battles. Collen had taken his brother and turned him against me. Only his demands came after he defeated me so many years ago. Demands I fulfilled to prevent another disaster but still failed to do.
There's no going back now. The damage is already done.
In a few minutes, we'll be back inside our castle, the wolves waiting for their Alpha and ready to welcome the Luna they don't want, unaware of the fact that their wishes no longer matter.
As unsuspecting as the girl next to me seems to be. Illusions that life is a net of choices we make, she believes in them, viewing it all in black and white when it's always gray.
This place will probably stand longer than any of us - this town, this pack or our sand castle...
It took just a few past mistakes and a mate to bring it crumbling down. My own.
(28) Burns And Bruises
"There's something beautiful to find in every form, shape and color and, most of all, in the person next to you."
|Scarlet's POV|
I feel like I've been running in circles, running from something I do not want but it keeps catching up to me. He does. Regan Greene, Alpha of ShadowFang, doesn't stop his persecution of me. Originating from a long line of Alphas, it is who he is, who his ancestors have been too.
Only a very few have been able to keep the Alpha's title in the family since Alphas are born and not a hereditary occurrence in a pack, his line, however, is one of these few, chosen ones even.
Born and bred for the task of managing a pack, now he's probably the last one left who has both the birth and the blood right. Many failed to keep their position after the claim. Falling under the constant challenges presented or simply giving their right up and choosing another life for themselves, they broke the chain. But not him. He is a different kind of wolf, one who does not give up or allow his subjects to run amok. His rule is one of iron w
ill. His word is the law.
He has taken Jason, his third-in-command, and several other pack warriors to this trip, leaving his Beta, Hayden, govern the pack in his absence. It is the norm for the Alpha to bring other members of the pack along, even when dealing with private matters such as looking for his mate, yet the presence of so many of them does not bode well about his intentions.
Normally, there are two or three others traveling with the Alpha whereas he's brought an army with himself this time.
Insisting he came to ask for my forgiveness, he took all precautions in case that plan failed.
Suspicion nested into my mind, I know that, if not for this development which none of us really expected, Alpha would have most likely started a war against my family. He would have taken me one way or another.
After a brief discussion of the terms of the deal, his and his pack's future co-operation in protecting us from the wildlings and my involvement in this whole thing, he has sent a few of his people to retrieve our belongings from our home. We couldn't be the ones to go back there since certain wildlings were likely already waiting for our return, so they went instead. It took less than a few hours and once the pack warriors made their way back, we set on the road.
It's been a few days since then, our trek across the country a constant motion in the procession of wheels. They took turns in driving, never stopping for anything but to buy food or take a toilet break and now we are almost back to civilization, whatever civilization one may seek into my former pack's grounds.
Fallon's Grove is a small town, just a tiny dot on the map you will find only if you are looking for it. You'll be searching for days before you locate it and navigate your way there. However, this town has been my home for sixteen years before it turned into a prison. My own chamber of torture.
Letting me keep a semblance of dignity, he exerted every punishment he could. A lesson in obedience that, if not for his discovery, would have never ended.
And now, I am back. He's the one bringing me back as I am selling myself to aid my family. Will he renew my education, or will he let it go?