Even now, even like this, she refuses to give me that. As if even now, she believes I’ll regret my actions.
“I… still… l-love you…” she chokes out as her broken body collapses to the ground, shaking uncontrollably as her hands scrape uselessly at the dirt, blood pooling beneath her, her eyes never leaving my face, still searching desperately for a trace of the child she loves.
“I… f-for…give… you…”
I scoff, as if I need it; I feel nothing. I hear wolves roaring in the distance, feel the echo of it in my bones, as one sound tears through the sky. The sound of a wolf in agony.
Dad has felt her pain, but it’s too late.
I crouch beside her and lean in closer as her breathing deteriorates into broken, gargling sounds. Her chest is barely moving, her dying eyes fixed on me.
Silently asking me – why? Why am I doing this?
“Hopefully…” I whisper into her ear. “You can make it to Selene.”
With a flick of my hand, I rip her head ruthlessly from her pathetic body. I chuckle softly, watching as it hits the ground hard, her nose smashing with a satisfying crunch before it comes to a stop, her lifeless eyes still open, staring emptily right back at me.
I tilt my head, satisfied, before I turn and scan my surroundings. I’m still alone. Good.
The battle is still ongoing in the distance, and I recognise Dad’s aura as it splits the sky like a blue beacon.
That wasn’t hard at all. She really didn’t put up a fight. Well, she didn’t resist at all, as if she truly believed I wasn’tcapable of ending her.
But she doesn’t know me, the real me, or what I am.
Before this world, before the gods, before any of it, there were the primordials.
And our power is far superior to any gods.
Theo
Dad’s roar ripsthrough the forest and straight through me, a sound so raw and broken that it makes my blood run cold. I have never heard such a sound from him before, never heard him break like that, never heard the kind of anguish that only comes from losing the one thing you were never supposed to lose.
His aura burns through the trees like a flare, and my legs falter beneath me as terror claws its way up my spine, knowing what it means.
“Ma,” I whisper, my heart slamming so hard against my ribcage it fucking hurts.
Ma!
I shift, picking up her scent, panic blurring everything else into noise as I follow it.
THE LUNA IS DEAD!someone screams through themind-link, and the world lurches violently beneath my feet as my heart seems to stop altogether.Alpha, the Luna! We failed her! Help!
No.
No, she isn’t.
She’s not dead!I shout back, my voice cracking as I lock onto her scent. It’s in the direction of the bunker; there shouldn’t have been anything that far out!
I run as fast as I can, my paws barely touching the ground, my lungs burning, my ears ringing. The mind-link dissolves into incoherent noise because I can’t process anything right now. Of all the people in this world, she didn’t deserve this, not at all. Not Ma. Anyone but Ma.
Her scent grows stronger, and then suddenly I’m bursting out of the trees, the clearing before the bunker coming into view. Several warriors are fighting off a morghul, chaos still alive and breathing around us, and then I see Renji.
On his knees, sobbing.
My body stops before my mind can catch up, and I shift back, staring at her.
Her body lies crumpled on the ground in front of him. My stomach churns as I realise she’s been decapitated, and Renji is holding her head in his arms protectively. His gut-wrenching sobs are all I can hear, his tears soaking into her hair as he begs her to wake up.
