With so much of my patience waning it was as if love had been consumed by flames and eternal hell fire, while my newly found objective was to make the alpha bend mercilessly against my willed.
Malignity was in the air and I would not allow it to cloud my judgment as it did torch my lungs and chain my mindfulness to greed and callousness.
"If I keep you, you'll be my demise."
What did he mean?
It doesn't matter.
I know now that the only way I'll survive is if I stop loving him. But I make this notion as if it were truly that easy when just thinking about it, is enough to send my nerves into overdrive, while my heart plummeted to a never-ending deceptive hell.
Catching my breath with intentions of confessing my new agenda; to stop loving my soulmate, in the blink of an eye, the bat of an eyelash, Alexander had disappeared from the clutches of my integrity leaving behind only the allusion of a scent to prove that he truly had been there at all.
He was no longer cradling my thigh with one hand as his knuckles skimmed the hinge of my jaw with the other. I couldn't taste the hummus, moist secrete he leaked from his being's pores. Wherefore leaving me flustered, alone with only my collective thoughts that had taken the shape of a ribbiting truce, his face, and everything he claimed to be.
I was a beast now. A mongrel that could feel everything to a crest with an entirety, and now I wish
I hadn't.
If only it could be so simple to turn my emotions off, forget about who he was and what he was to me. He's supposed to be my forever, my ultimate climax.
I took a deep sigh within before I left the imperial room that mingled with the aroma of old blood, sweat, and now my tears of condemned frustration.
I searched for Heidi throughout the manor going wherever my feet casted me until I made my way into the lobby where people I've never met before were running around, dropping things such as dish platters and clothes out of angst to which they moved hastily to grab and kept their strides forward. I observed the men and women around me, in hopes for a familiar face until I felt the grab at my shoulder, a rough hand tugging me around sharply on the balls of my feet.
Without a word muttered, instantly I pushed his hand away not liking how close he was out of shock, a little of distaste because I knew how he secretly felt about me. "Vera." He nodded in the action of greeting me but I only stared until finally, I brushed the discomfort away with the finding of my voice, "Hector." I retorted in the same whimsical way he had. I pointed at all the people who raced up flights of stairs and cleaned as much as they could. "What's all this?" I reluctantly asked.
Hector tousled his blonde locks that resided at the top of his head out of nervousness before he scratched his neck, taking more steps toward me. I barely noticed his beard had been clean-shaven while he sported a button-down tee with a brown jacket to match. "Just follow me and I'll explain everything as much as I possibly can." Despite hearing the sincerity in his voice I hesitantly debated if I should go with him after being a bit shaken up until I walked at his side, mimicking the way he paced because Hector always had this bold jolt to his movement like he ran the place.
I haven't seen Hector or Mavis in a long time, considering they were mates it would make sense that they had vanished on me — together. Probably eloping, having sex in all the ways they knew would strengthen their bond. Something I so desperately wanted to indulge in if it wasn't for that grim of a prince who neglected me. Or maybe that was the bond's fault. Or the sudden stamina that held hands with adrenaline that coursed through my bones.
Hector led me outside of the castle and as we exited the doors there were still random people carrying weaponry in their hands as few carried clothing and other cleaning supply. As much as I wanted to ask for the second time where were these people going, I pushed the inquiry aside as Hector continued our conquest to the battlegrounds where their pack members trained, fighting for hell knows what. But to me..this place has a little more personable meaning to me, than that. Such a demanding place it was and it aroused heat in my cheeks.
This was where I had met Julliard.
Boisterous, sunkissed, and he was so talented that it wasn't even funny. He had these big sharp eyes that were the greenest of florescent I've ever seen, he made my own set of green eyes resemble the trenches of a murky lake. The image of him lightly shoving me down into the forestry plane as we sparred shimmered its way into my head until all of my vision had been consumed of him, till I remembered who killed him, and I grimaced hearing the beta beside me calling out my name. "You asked what these people are doing," Hector nudged me forward until my feet were planted in front of all of these men who were fighting each other, giving the other lower-ranking wolves instructions, or shifting into their predacious beasts.
Glowering, "I did." but deep down I was regretting I ever asked in the first place. Hector furrowed his eyebrows upon my figure as a chilly wind skippered down my spine making me shudder. All he had to say was, "Assemble," and all fifty of these men were crouching down on their knees with their heads bowed below someone, I thought maybe it was their noble beta who suddenly wasn't standing at my side anymore but instead he joined the crowd of people, getting lost until I could only recognize him by the tresses of his sandy-colored hair. "Hector? why are you doing?" I even turned to look behind me in hopes Alexander appeared, their prince, and thats who they grew attentive to.
Oh how wrong I was.
"Our people have been preparing, Vera." Hector deemed it was necessary to arise to his feet taking consecutive steps in my direction as more people in the Prince's pack collectively aligned behind him. "For what?" I played with my fingernails a little bit longer before I decided to look forward into the sea of wolves who surrounded me. I saw judgment, curiosity even laced in their sight but no one dared to make a sound under the gaze of my soft inspection. "They're preparing to protect. Since the day you've arrived, they've trained aggressively in order to protect you with high intentions of keeping you and priorly you, safe."
A veil had been placed over my head as bricks and boulders weighed upon my shoulders. Just as easily as I gawked at them, my line of vision had fallen onto the one person I'd been dreading to see who was now taking slow, maybe hesitant strides towards me.
Her face held a smooth yet modest smile as her ponytail was secured tightly in its ponytail and yet it lolled with each step she anticipated, the beta female.
I could no longer recognize the girl who sassed just about anyone even as a mark glistened on her neck underneath the rays of a beating sun.
"Vera, How've you been?" Mavis asks while shyly her hands fell at her hips. I smile even harder because there wasn't any sense in hiding how much I've missed her. "I'm fine." I lied casually straight threw my teeth while pulling her in for a hug.
Her warm skin batted mine and our long-awaited embrace was cut short instantly with the beta, Hector clearing his throat, to which she pulled away simultaneously.
I frown at this, looking between them but I shrugged nonetheless, without commenting on it.
"You look a tad bit flushed." Mavis admits before skimming her hand down the length of my cheek, "Are you sure you're okay?" frantically I began to nod, not wanting to go into great detail about my mate whose second in command practically had a pointed look and a gun to my head.
"Yeah don't worry about me I'm.. Peachy." I assured.
I peeped my head around my best friend's shoulder to withstand the attention from all of these members of the prince's pack and yet my mind lingered toward their alpha who was missing this glorious moment of rivalry between honorable mentions.
"Beta Hector I still don't entirely know what's going on here." Turning to blondie beside me, Hector rolls his eyes at me which held a determined appeal with a hint of impatience in them. "Care to explain reasonably?" I chastise.
"Vera you seem to be asking all of the wrong questions." Mavis grasps my attention with the pulling of my hand. She brings me to stand at her side again while making a gesture to all of the people who were nameless, faceless even in my objection. "These are your people, your pack. Do you not appreciate them?" Well geez, did you have to place me on the spot like that? Cause when you put it like that...in a full articulate sentence,
The answer is no! I mean how could I?
I flinch, seeing as I've never been good with crowds nor public speaking and they all looked to me as if they waited for me to say something. "What is there to appreciate." I scoffed harshly under my breathe. Hell, I don't even know what's going on right now. Pushing Mavis's arm away, I glared at Hector once more who folded his veiny arms across his chest.
"Vera we are a family and I don't know if you've noticed around here but, " Hector flayed his arms around adding more base into his voice. I could tell I had offended him in some way and neither did I care, "You're kind of a threat around here."
I point at myself as my mouth fell into a gape, "Me?!" I shout questionably. "A threat? A threat to who?!"
Hector releases a frustrated growl that was building up inside his chest and he takes two dangerously more steps closer to me before Mavis swiftly ended his advances with a soft jab to his abdomen. "Look Vera, you're one of us now. You're no longer human and soon to be Luna; A princess and you haven't even been initiated into Prince Alexander's amass yet." Mavis reprimanded.
"Amass?" I inquired with a look on my face that just about anyone could guess was does it look like I give a shat?
"Amass. Every royal child has one. A courtship of people who fall under their supervision or who succumb to their dedication." I shrug more to myself while still in question :where do I align in with all this.
Hector sighs again snapping my attention from Mavis, "They've wanted to kill you every time your humanely aroma wafted their noses and the only thing stopping them is-
"Alpha Alexander." Mavis finishes her mate's sentence with her fingers tucking a piece of hair back, that made its way into my face. "You've shifted now and that's all we needed. To finally tell you the truth." For the second time, I shoved her away with my back facing the many men who gazed into my skinny epitome to where they saw fleshy bones and tissue.
"So keep talking," I derided fanning my hand over my face. Suddenly and so easily I've become overwhelmed. "And you talk about me changing as if you wish I hadn't." I stated admittedly.
Hector growled again turning away from me to the members of his pack, his wolf brothern, his family. Not mine, these people didn't even know me. "You're one of us Vera. It's time you accept it. Make it one of your flaws or your greatest talents," Hector slowly descended to his knees in front of one of his brother's, shifting his eyes from their neutral ashy brown to their riveting blossomy red. The hair on the back of his neck, whereas his other limbs, began to raise higher as he welcomed the monstrosity that was sheltered behind his brutality of impair.
"I really don't give a damn but it's apart of you and it's yours." Hector roughens the hair on top of his head as he began to relax the muscles on his naked backside. Something stirred within him that was so great that it ruffled an interval within myself.
The beast is something we shared that was braced with strength and a limelight of golden coated blood. It made us stronger, it made the wild, the night, and even the moon worship a wilderness that was so tightly intuitive that it scared me.
It made my salvia boil as heat entrapped a mind, seducing me in a manner that I so badly wanted to burst. It couldn't be tamed as it was both new and old. How sadistic, maliciously confusing but so meant for me at the same time that it rained down on me in crusty patches of canine and claws. Now would it be easier to do it?
To give in to my forest?
"So will you, Vera Lee, join us tonight underneath the transparency of the feral moon?" Wouldn't it be more sufficient to do, to harbor the wolf without registration, rather than proclaiming it? To greet the struggling beast with something meaningful and tasty? Hastily I fret before bellowing out a deconstructing hollowed cry, before my bones began crackling in decomposition. "I need you to say it, to confess your pride. Your devotion to your pack. Your family." Hector leaps towards me with daggers for claws and as my own talons shed my fingertips, I could hear his heart beat.
"Yes."
Shoving me alive kale, damn near burying me into forestry, oily grail, Hector shields me as more and more people began to transition into their fury coats and hides but all I could hear was the cries rippling from my chambers of organs, as tears cascaded outside of my irises, just when I thought I'd become undone.
"No Vera Lee you need to say it," As sweat beaded down my forehead, Hector only leaned into me even as my body began to misshapen and fall apart, "Invite the linking of our family into your warm bodice, thrust it into the flames of ingenuity." I cry even harder as my body folds over my knees, robbing me of energy in absolution.
As the agonizing pain began to seethe inside the marrow of my bones, my arms were hoisted above my head as my wrists felt grounded into sandpaper, "I accept it. I accept it all, I accept You Alexander." I declare with the squeezing of my eyes shut before readjusting them to open, I look around with a pearly haze clouding my optics that were in-heightened, configuring and overlapped in opals.
My vision was consumed by my mate who wasn't even here with me and honestly it had weakened me in a way, I sought a release.
Before I could gather myself, I felt one with universal justice, especially as I whined and fell into a free fall but only time hadn't been on my side. I fell slowly.
Until I fell fast.
Residing in abstract glory weren't perpetual dictators surrounding me anymore but instead wolves who flanked each other's sides as they began to run, disappearing behind verdant speckles of lightning.
Suddenly I heard a daring voice in the back of my brain, coaxing me, praying for me to do it. What was I waiting for? I've already gave in as I ruffled out the beast I denied for so long. A chilly breeze slithered down the rift in my spine and I'm wondering why I hadn't moved yet. Why couldn't I possess the patronizing smoothness of instinctual raptorial anxiousness.
It was too late for me. I was a goner.
I was whipping threw tree lines as everything around me vanquished into the blurriness of a void and I was the unbecoming of a truce, a seasonal greedy vulture who harbored all the power coursing throughout the world and I'd be lying if I said it hadn't made me ravenous. It unraveled that same starving feeling for my mate that was intertwined with a universal blanket, wrapping around ponds of the prayers to the Amazon, deities appreciated by every carnivore, every fiend that craved gluttony.
What's wrong with me? Why had I felt this way?
I felt the brushing of a swine skim my side and the scent of Mavis infiltrated my nose. It briefly took me off my guard as I gazed into her wolf's fluffy coat of chestnut brown that grew even longer into it almost captured her bulky nostrils. Aside her was the notorious Hector who furrowed his eyebrows at me.
We ran a little more in silence until we came just above Alexander's borders and realization washed upon me that I've never been here in such a long time, the only distant memory I have is the very first time I passed threw here on the buses of my school with my classmates, my sister. If only they could look at me now would I smirk victoriously. Around this time it would the climax of bristling storms, foggy atmosphere to penalizing snow and frostbites again.
Hector's wolf trotted in front of us as Mavis left my side with a fleeting gaze on me until she domineeringly armored his newly found bareness with her venomous fangs overlapping her lips directed to the females who heatedly stared at her male.
He shedded his fur coat until it was replaced with olive skin and sandy tresses wavered across his forehead. I only slid down on my stomach as my paws buried deeper into the dirt which encompassed me.
Hector gestured for which me to come to me as if I were a dog, which I genuinely was in this state, with a weird craving for bunny rabbits or a small deer in my diet. I flashed him a hint of my teeth to which he chuckled and instead made his way over to me.
So many wolves started revealing themselves, the ones of my new pack, surrounding us as Hector bent down on his knees to become eye level with me.
I felt like a new born all over again in this world of fiends and a hostility that hosted my shifted genetics.
"For this was never the story of an abusive King of his power who imposed a threat to everything we've built. To himself," He began.
Everyone seemingly for a thousand years had their eyes transfixed on my wolf who snarled promises of a showcase of war, dismantling who I was, and I could tell now they truly saw me as their own. For the first time in my life I felt like I finally belonged. In this moment I decided I was suppose to be here, despite something in the back of my head telling me this wasn't right.
"But instead the chronicle of an unborn mortal soul, to becoming a Queen." Hector defied every past hatred I held as he refined the crown on top of my head.
Something had awaken,
A deathless death, with yet an insatiable appetite for pain.
Instantly as Hector's speech started to cease, everyone had broken out into a symphony of howls, wolf whistles, and barking noises that I couldn't foster to preform on my own. Because just as ear deafening as their chants were, it grew soundless as these beady flickering eyes captured mine as a person dispersed, publicizing themselves from their hidden skerts of the woods.
"What do you all think you are doing?" I trailed my angered stare up her long lanky legs slowly, until I realized she was naked for whatever reason. Her voice riveted an unconcealed anger inside of me and I couldn't decipher why.
All I know is, more and more of Alexander's family just keeps popping up with their own agendas and motives.
Okay, if Clarity throws a clock at me with some fable of her dead mother I'm going to lose my shit.
"I'm who you've been waiting for," the notorious Princess Clarity's declaration is filled with mischief, strutting her curvy self right into my land, where my people resided while going silent with this empty look in her eyes but a ghostly smile invaded her lips.
"She's no queen. I am. Now praise me like the infinite god I am."
•••