by Unknown
Hands that are holding me in place, claws that are sticking in my flesh, he's the first and the last thing I see every time I blink. Trying to make sense of it all, trying to find reason where there is none, I don't know why - why I had to do the things I did, why I kept rejecting him, why I caved in...
Why am I now surrounded by my enemies? Why am I standing against my friends who turned into enemies? Why do I have nothing when I should have had it all?
Everything has changed so quick, in the split of a second, another has claimed the place and the mate that belonged to me and now he's back.
Giving me reasons to hate him and then throwing me reasons to love him.
Connecting the dots backwards, it's the only way for me to see the whole picture. I'm ready to see him for all that he is. A man and a monster both. My monster, the one person who has hurt me more than anyone else in this world but is now my only hope.
The need to feel the touch of his hand again, to feel him against me, it's more selfish than I care to admit but I can't let anyone take that from me.
Where we'll be in a moment? What will come of us when this storm ends?
He's the only thing that I have left and he may not even be mine.
"No!" a scream that comes from my lips, a girl fighting an internal battle, breaking away from that grasp, she will be caught but not now when the motion is unwavering.
Closing my eyes, forgetting that it's only a matter of time, running to him in my own desperation to save something that's lost, there's nothing but us when I reach him.
Offering a hand, helping him to his feet, eyes that stare back at me, guilt that's living beneath the color of spring, he's shaking. He's letting me hold him but trying to pull away.
Tears blurring his image in front of me, I will them back but they won't go. I wish the time will go back, that tonight will be just a dream and it will be yesterday still, that I will wake up in his arms after the most horrible nightmare has visited my dreams, that I will choose to love and not run.
Squeezing the material of his shirt between my fingers, pulling him closer to me, he's the only thing I have left now.
Pressing my lips to his, biting his, gliding my tongue over his, I will him to be that man from before who never cheated on my faith, who never betrayed our bond.
Loving and hating, forgiving and blaming, breaking the boundaries. Right. Now.
I can feel him blending with me, his soul with mine, his heart bleeding along. The kiss is anything but gentle. It's passion and pain mingled together to give me the most exquisite of sensations. Completion that I'm finally accepting the real him.
The lover and the cheater. The man... and the monster.
Everything I have left.
Lasting no longer than a flicker of a butterfly's wings, that moment is broken by Cole's hands clamped over my elbows. One Alpha drags me away from another.
I can see the light in those green eyes, the beast lurking underneath as the man watches me, his lips barely containing the screams. Missing my touch, my hands around him, his own embracing me.
Will he turn to her now? Will he plead for me again?
I struggle under the steel hold, crying out both in fear and disgust that he has his dirty paws on me, wishing I could rip them off.
You need to leave, Scarlet! Regan shouts into my mind, whatever spell he has been under - now broken as his voice carries the warmth into our bond.
A single light in a world of darkness.
Despair is all over his face, his body shaking with his suppressed anger to have the self-proclaimed Alpha's hands on me, like a rag doll ready to be thrown to the wolves.
I'm not leaving you, I tell him kicking my captor, nails scratching anywhere I can reach.
I can't let you do this, I say when what I want to tell him is, 'I can't let you go. You're the only one I have left now. I can't lose everything again. Mate or not, I can't lose you too.'
"Scarlet, be still!" It's Cole's voice that utters the command and it isn't. This is not my friend. He's not the man I thought he was.
Turning towards him, he doesn't look like my friend either. His face is unreadable but now I can see that darkness inside him. Hiving under his skin, how did I miss it for so long?
"Don't make this more difficult for you than it already is, Scarlet," he threatens. "Don't let Regan's sacrifice for you go to waste."
"Fuck you, Cole!" I spit out, ripping away from him and going back to stand next to Regan.
Tension is oozing out of him as he measures up the other man. Body shifting in a preparation for his attack, This is your chance, Scarlet. Be ready to run. On my signal, you run and never look back, you hear me, love? he says to me, placing a hand across my middle, trying to push me behind him.
Shaking my head, I don't want to. I can't.
Please, I don't want you here when all hell breaks loose. There are things I haven't told you. We can't win... I can't have you here, Scarlet. Please... Just go and never look back. I'll try to hold him for as long as I can. I can hear it in his voice. A conviction that's mirrored on his face.
It's hopeless.
"It's disrespectful of the two of you to have a private conversation when we're all here waiting for you," Cole chuckles but I ignore him.
We can fight him and the wildlings. We can try-
No, he's more dangerous than you think, Regan cuts me off, a look of regret crossing his face before he turns his vigilant gaze back to Cole.
We can fight together--
And then we will die together. I want... no, I need you to live, Scarlet. Do you understand what I'm telling you?
I close my eyes for just a second, thinking about his words, thinking about what they mean, thinking about all that has happened - why did it happen, and then I think of everything that could have been but never will.
On my signal, you run. Promise me!
Giving him the slightest nod, in that moment I hate myself more than ever before.
Now! he shouts, lunging at Cole, his war cry more feral than I've ever heard him as he shifts parts of his body mid-jump.
Captured by the terrifying sight of my mate turning into half-man and half-beast, I take a moment to admire the creature colliding with the other male before gathering all my strength to do what I know I have to do.
Cole has been right. This is a night of choices and, at last, I have to do mine.
Live and die on this night?
I should have never run away. I should have accepted it and never interfered with the Moon's workings. Never left this pack. Never defied him in the first place.
Live and die on this night?
Run, my love. Run and be safe. Desperation in his voice, war shifting his muscles, fur covering flesh and claws growing underneath the skin, he's fighting for life, just not his own.
Wolves that have been offered to betray their Alpha are finally taking a stand against what they deem to be wrong. Choosing love. Choosing trust. Choosing hope in place of the death he has offered.
Wolves that are more human than the monsters who never show their true faces beneath the fur, bodies colliding with bodies, greater in number but lesser in strength...
Why are they fighting a losing battle? Why are they hoping to change an outcome that has already been decided?
I move like I imagine the damned do, cursed. Distancing myself from the fight, trying to place one foot in front of another without stumbling, blocking the cries of the pack, blocking the bond that's vibrating like a played string every time he takes a hit.
Swirling back, all I can see in front of me is that path of darkness, feel nothing but the blood staining my skin, sticking to my palms.
Why is this happening to us?
I'm running into the fight instead of away from it, breaking a promise that was never spoken aloud and I feel like it's me. Bad luck. Poison.
Live or die on this night.
(55) Breathe No More
|Regan's POV|
Claws gashing through
air, the whisper of wind that is a product of our own hectic movements, it's not really there, it's not kissing the earth supporting our feet, it's born from the energy that flows through our bodies.
War in its purest form.
Airborne forms of beasts that clash with my wolves, bones that stick out through flesh, wounds bleeding out truth, it's our whole world now, nothing more and nothing less.
The pack that's finally united cannot survive this night. We will all die. Most of them will live.
Scarlet is splattering my face, my talons tearing through, his own sinking in, splintering the skin, sailing further inside the liquid blur my body has become, teeth eating down, my own jaws biting back.
The Moon is gone with the dawn, the time when the darkness is so thick it makes you blind has come.
We see. Monsters always do. Each one of us is one in his or her own way.
Howls echoing around me wounded and broken as my own take their final breath, defeat is breathing at our necks, biding its time only to clamp hungry teeth over that sensitive spot, snap it in half, take the life that has been left.
Sounds of steel meeting fur are coming to my ears, I can't even look away from him to see who has died, who is still alive.
It's all there, in the periphery of my vision, yet I never see it, never risk a glance away from the man blocking my path.
The worst knowledge there might be, nothing to stop it from permeating a mind that's being held in the grip of the battle, I know she's still here with us. Fighting alongside her pack.
A promise unfulfilled.
I want to scream. I want to stop death. I want to be the only one tonight.
'Help me change this cursed fate. Help me prevent them paying the price for my mistakes. Help me grow into my fur and become the Alpha I should have been from the very beginning,' I want to pray to her now but She's already gone.
Only the wild is here to give their twisted justice to this pack, just like his claws are taking chunks of my flesh where they connect, ripping it apart, baring what's laying underneath, his people are doing the same to my own.
Pain is enveloping my world, reflected on his face as he gives me more. A kind of torture that can't be prevented. Sinking in regret. Helpless. I can't bare it.
The mockery in his laughter is ringing in my ears, jaws that are neither human nor wolf snapping in anger back at him, he's enjoying this fight, my every effort to block his swings at me, to keep myself standing against him for as long as my body would allow.
"Weak! Worthless!" words tumbling out of his mouth in rhythm with his body movement. His face is no longer flawlessly perfect, his eyes are no longer dark like an abyss staring back but glowing with certainty.
Blood is trickling down my chest, saturating the fabric until it sticks to my skin. It's oozing out from the gashes he leaves behind every time he gets through. He snickers at me when he hits the mark and hisses back when I manage to wound him.
"Do you see how stupid you really are now? Do you see how out of your league you are now, Regan?" He's not even trying to block me now, instead holding himself open for my attacks.
Morphed hands stick their talons in his chest, ripping the shirt he's wearing to shreds, they leave blood trails.
Eyes flickering down for just a second, "Awww! That stings, Regan!" he says to me, corners of his lips turning up, fingers tracing down one of those marks to uncover healthy skin under the blood.
"How?" I ask, not believing my eyes as I watch the wounds close.
The last traces of my hope disappearing until he's whole again. A man that can't be wounded. A man that can't be defeated.
"Do you see now, Regan? You never stood a chance against me. Never!" he laughing at me, the sound collapsing into silence as again and again, I try. Fruitless efforts to find a weakness in him.
A new force carried into my punches, a new determination to break the healing sequence, to mess up with the cycle of his natural response of his body against the wounds mine is inflicting on him.
There is no weakness. He is untouchable. Something out of this world, unimaginable.
Hands falling to my sides, I chance a glance over his shoulder to where she's fighting her friends, Micah and Adam. I can see her lips moving but I don't hear her words over the shouts and battle cries. All I can see is her swinging, pushing one off herself and then the other.
Both of them keep coming. No longer standing on the same side of the line, they've crossed over to the enemy' side.
A dagger is flashing in the other girl's hands when she's come unarmed here. She never expected something like this to happen. I should have known better.
Following every move they make, their dance as lethally graceful as they come, she's my only focus now that I'm watching them close in on her. Every breath a new strike, every move closer to harming her, I want to pull her out of her fight and send her away from here to meet the day and keep living.
A life without me. A life that will be happier and carefree.
"What, cat got your tongue, wolf?" chuckling at his own joke, eyes probing at everything I've thought I was but am not, bodily shapes flickering all around us, my mate struggling to get her attackers off herself, the male holding her in place as the female swings her blade...
I see it, I watch it as if it's playing in slow motion in front of my eyes. I listen to the distorted sound of his laughter, to those of my own falling to their knees and meeting their end under the taloned hands of the wild... I notice the man against me raising his own, bringing them closer to me, bare, no need for a weapon when they are the only one he'd ever need.
The blade cuts, sticks into her chest. Those hands reach me. The wild rejoice in dying cries, nothing more than whispers that will be carried by the wind that's not really there.
Screaming and howling, both man and beast meet the claws tearing through our flesh, no longer fighting for another breath but welcoming the lack of one.
Nothing... there's nothing in this world that matters now when we can see her falling to her knees, body giving in. Death is coming, life is leaving with that sigh I can only see but never hear sizzling out of her lips.
The world is still. The place is quiet. Silent tears are raining on the ground, saturating my skin before they land. Body shaking, flesh being ripped apart, hands that are snuck inside my chest, holding my heart, still beating through the grief of losing her, those claws a hair short of digging into it, ending me like his people ended her, I long for that completion now.
"Do it!" gritting words out through the pain, looking at the abyss in these eyes of a monster, the inferno raging inside staring right back, he presses those claws making my heart bleed in the most physical of ways before he retrieves his hands.
That eery smile on his face, it's the last thing I see before darkness eats the world, swallowing down the day.
Epilogue
A figure hid behind the shadows of the treeline. The wind swatted at the curls falling down to his shoulders. The air carried the raw scent of fresh blood and death.
He hoped he wasn't too late.
He hadn't known why the Oracle had sent him here up till a few minutes ago but now, seeing what laid before his sight, he understood her urgency. What he couldn't figure out still was why those people were so important.
"Look for the moon-kissed girl," the woman had told him, then added, "Bring back everyone you can. Bring them all if you can."
Bodies laid scattered on the forest floor. Void shells that had housed life inside not so long ago. There were so many of them he couldn't find a spot on the earth that wasn't saturated with blood or supporting the heavy weight of the fallen.
This had been a furious battle. A battle to the death.
The first signs of the new day were glimpsing through the heavy clouds that hung in the sky. Slowly, the clouds were dispersing from sight to give way to the Sun that was a merciless master of the world. Nothing could stop him when he decided it was time to show his golden face.
&n
bsp; The man walked to the middle of the clearing, wrinkling his nose in disgust as his eyes fell on the mutilated bodies. He had a hard time imagining all that had happened here. He didn't feel inclined to imagine such horror at all, but then again, considering his line of work, it was something he usually found himself unable to prevent.
Looking from person to person, skin that had held a healthy glow was now nothing but deadly pale, he stopped in front of a girl with a face that was paler than the others. Her skin looked translucent when it should have been ghostly gray like the others'. There was something about her that gave him a pause, something that, even in death, drew him in towards her.
It was a feeling he had never experienced. A pull he didn't recognize as anything even remotely familiar.
Right then and there he knew. This was the one the Oracle had spoken about. The moon-kissed girl.
She was a beautiful young woman. So small, almost like a child, the fact that she was a grown-up woman was unmistakable in her well-defined curves even if her face was too innocent and misguiding.
Maybe when this was over he could try his luck with her. It was a well-known fact amongst his people that he enjoyed female company more than the average male and he was looking forward to the opportunity to conquer and explore this new-found pull towards this woman.
Letting out a shaky breath, he adjusted himself in his pants, aggravation beating against his chest that he would think in such way about the dead.
He kneeled down next to the girl and placed his hands on her forehead. Glancing briefly at the gaping hole in the middle of her chest, he closed his eyes, shooed away the thoughts of what he would do to her later and instead concentrated on what he had to do to her right here and now.
Feeling the fabric of his pants getting wet against his skin, he ignored the thought that he had gotten her blood on himself and searched deep into himself for that warmth only he could feel.
Soon, she was going to feel it too.
The place was cold despite the Sun that was pouring out his grace onto the earth. The lingering ghosts of the dead were struggling against the need to depart from here and go to the world beyond.