I missed the journey home, thankfully. Not by intention, but because my body just passed out on me without my having a say on the matter. I intended to lay on the bed near Carmen for a while, in case she needed to talk to someone, give her some support for something I’ve experienced too. Somehow sleep took over and the last memory I had was gazing at her lonely figure across from me. Last night’s tension, the camping out in the open air, and no real shut eye, all the emotional heaviness of the past few days just kicked my ass, and my maybe the growing lives inside of me too. The next thing I know I’m waking to subtle thuds on the truck walls and jump awake, startled by the rattle as though something is caving in through the roof over my head.
Carmen is sat up on the other bed, her knees pulled into her chest, looking like she too slept the whole time and didn’t switch places with Meadow to drive at any point. She seems to be staring blankly at th
I make my way upstairs and head for Sierra’s wing, hearing the voices ahead of me before I get there and let myself into the open breakfast room where they are. Sierra, Leyanne, and Meadow are sat around the table while Sierra talks in an animated fashion, obviously excited and relief over our return. She’s clasping Leyanne’s hands and gushing her way like some weird fan girl. The adoration and respect oozing form every pore at seeing this witch.“I can’t believe you came, that you’re here. We can’t thank you enough. You have no idea how much this means to have a witch like you, grace us with your presence and help.” Sierra is laying it on thick but not in a dishonest way and I really have no clue why she seems to idolize her so much. The witch has a lukewarm personality that is grating most of the time.Leyanne looks moderately amused and slides her hands out of her overbearing grip confidently, making it clear she isn&r
It’s been four days since Leyanne got here and I still cannot get any kind of read on her. She’s annoyingly distant, still likes to play vague and although she gives us zero indication that we can’t trust her, it’s always there swirling around like an underlying coldness. I don’t know if it’s like Carmen, with her wall of explainable hostile to keep people at bay. Or if her magic somehow gives her this aura of power and distance, but I get severe lonely and empty vibes from her that I can’t quite decipher.Not much has happened while we go through the motions of current daily life and plod along. Carmen isn’t really showing face often, only in brief passing, and seems to stick to her room which is understandable. Given how much she now has to process while we have downtime. She asked for time, to grieve, to absorb, to be alone with the pangs of missing her newfound mate and the loss of her family and I let her alone. She needs t
“Has Leyanne said how much longer she needs?” I pull us back to our topic in hand, walking to her and kneeling down to meet her face and Meadow deflates completely.“She’s ready to go whenever we are. She’s as ready as she can be, and they’re just going over the same things until we say it’s happening.” That downward shuffle of her eyes tells me this is a confession of sorts. I eye her up and know with that admission that Meadow is the one who has delayed things. Knowing she didn’t want me to be a part of this, she’s made sure I thought there was still time to change the plan. Maybe she was holding out for the vampires to pull back and for the high lord to intervene… either way, I can tell she’s kept this close to her chest, so I won’t push us to just do it.This girl! Protecting me even by delaying reunion with her own mate. I can’t be mad at her for that.“So…. by
“Are you sure you want to do this” Meadow sidetracks me as I make my way to the podium of our new town hall that was only finished in recent weeks and is three times bigger than the hall of the house. Flanked by two temporary sentinels.“Yes. They need to know that by this time tomorrow they may not have a Luna, or Alpha, coming back. I need them to be prepared and to know what comes after. I owe them honesty to what’s happening after the patience for the last days.” I thought this through all night, tossing and turning once we set the plan in motion and decided tomorrow at dawn we are to move on the mountain. This will be our last night with the pack and with that fog surrounding us. Last night I watched my mate slide away in the darkness from me for the last time and said my goodbyes, just in case.Leyanne is certain she can protect us one by one from the effects of the green smog, with the casting of a spell on every wolf that we’
The cold wind from the mountain moves in across my skin and bites down at me, causing me to shiver despite wolves never really feeling the cold. My heart pounding, my nerves taut and my head in chaos as I stand on the boundary and stare into the darkness awaiting the sun to start to show hints of rising. The eerie silence despite rows and rows of assembled wolves unnerves me and Leyanne and Meadow to my right, Carmen and Sierra to my left, stand solidly still, waiting, we’re all just waiting.Tension high, the stillness is painful and the quiet is deafening. I’ve never been more scared in my life and it’s not just because we are on the dawn of the first war battle of my life. Asif that wasn’t bad enough. It’s that our enemy are our loved ones and death blows will be dealt today to forever change everything in our world. No matter what side wins, we all lose the ones we care about most.The plan is set…. We all know our place, our ro
I crawl backwards, trembling in instant fear, because I know this is a matter of fight or die and I need to be stronger than I was ten minutes ago. He almost ended me so easily with one swipe that it’s pathetic. Call myself Luna? I’m a complete failure.I need to get my head together and outsmart him while my body tries to heal, give myself time to power up. I steady my breathing, willing all the energy I can muster up to save me from him, and homing in on the part of me I rarely have to use. It just means he has to get really close for me to absorb what he has when I’m this low, to draw from his strength instead of my own and it may be more useful than energy balls which seem to be failing me.Colton’s fast, even by Lychan standards, and I get up in a dash, to backwards run an in attempt to coax him to me and almost get decapitated in the process as a new clawed paw tries to take my head off.I don’t think so, bitch!!
Colton comes at me, lifting his claws in the air for a final blow and as the sun glints on the red stained mess of his sharp talons I look at his face one last time. His human form, the face of the boy who devastates my soul with just a look and even now, it melts all my defenses away. I've missed this face, even if his mind is not behind it.That tanned perfection of a handsome male, the straight dark slash of eyebrows over unfamiliar soulless eyes. His squared jawline, his subtle etch of dimples, even though he's not smiling but scowling instead. Even like this, about to deliver a last blow, I can't hate him. My heart belongs to him and fills with the fresh ache of finally seeing him as his own face once again, after so many days, and I start to softly cry. Resigned to a goodbye and glad that it will be this sight I leave the world with.Colton makes his move, no hesitation in his purpose, and I squeeze my eyes shit tight as I tense and prepare for the piercing pain
I zoom past trees, skim over fallen logs and under overhanging debris, aware I’m slower once more and I tire faster, but I fight on anyway. I need to see this through and be there to lead my people home when victory is ours. I owe them so much and from what I can see as all remaining wolves head hard towards the mountain in one wave, our numbers vast. We didn’t seem to lose many to fighting our brothers. In fact, as I skim the faces around me, I can’t feel the sense of loss that I did earlier, and I wonder if it was merely their pain and not death.Not one single wolf death. We did what we set out to do. Break the spell without any losses. Carmen mind links me, seemingly understanding why I’m looking around as we run and I blanche, my heart rising in delirious happiness because I truly thought there would be an aftermath of grief and despair when the turned found out they killed some of our own. That our victory wou