Moon Bound (Glorious Darkness Book 1) (21 page)

(40) Shark's Bait

|Regan's POV|

What did he force me to do? I've known the pack won't take this without objections but how did he know? Did he foresee this when he commanded me to take the one thing they've never been bereft of?

The loss of the pup has been a strike they never saw coming. Parting with one of our own, someone so young, someone who meant a future for all of us, it's breaking the pack like nothing else ever has.

Even the savage care for their children. This is already hard enough for them but making me take away their freedom too...

It's too much.

"I understand your concerns, Thomas," I force out past my lips, words that hurt me as much as they hurt the pack. My pack.

The one I've been coerced to sacrifice for his purposes, whichever they might be.

Now is maybe a good time to announce accepting us into the pack, Alpha,
 Collen sends in my mind.

They are already distraught with the situation, Collen. How do you expect me to just do that? How am I to tell them that when we just lost one of our own? 
I snarl back into the mind-link, nearly forgetting what I was about to announce to the pack.

"And this is exactly the reason I'm going to assign some of our pack warriors to this task. You, however, won't be allowed to venture outside our territory," I elaborate, remembering my announcement.

The pack bond is stirring with discontent, my statement only adding more salt to the already festering wound.

Just say it. They will understand this is something that should be done considering the threat. Don't make my efforts go to waste after the trouble I went to make them see this
threat,
Collen hisses back.

I glance at him, his sulking form perched on the last row, watching me with calculation from beneath thick lashes. Does he realize what I'm doing? Does he know me as well as he seems to know my pack?

"That's fine then, I guess," Thomas concedes, submerging back into his seat. He's not happy, no wolf inside the meeting chamber is, but he is willing to bear with me, give me the benefit of the doubt.

Only if he knew I'm just going with the flow, figuring things on the spot just in hope to outsmart the rat that infested my land with his insidious schemes...

Gambling against all odds. To what end, that's to be seen.

I'll tell them but don't-

"It's not actually," Hayden shouts, cutting my response into the link and leaving his place on the front row to approach me.

What is that dumbass doing?
 Collen shouts into my mind. I ignore him, focusing on the approaching wolf.

Hayden's beast is lurking under the surface, his face turning wild with the first signs of the change, he is denying the wolf. I find myself suppressing a smile as I watch the lower-ranked male rebel against me just like I've expected him to.

Adrenaline is pumping through the veins on his jugular, the lines thickening to pulse in anger and years of suppressed dominance on the side of his forehead.

I grind my teeth, clenching my jaw when all I want is to laugh out my victory, small as it might be.

What is your Beta doing, Regan?
 Collen cries into the link, panic audible in his mental voice.

Let's wait and see. I know as much as you do,
 I send back, not breaking my focus on the wolf fighting to stay in human skin and finish what he has begun.

"If I understand correctly," Hayden draws out, barely pushing the words through canines that are now poking out.

"You are going to assign our fighters on getting the necessary provisions for the pack but doesn't that leave us vulnerable to a further attack from the wildlings? I think it does and I don't agree with this decision, Alpha."

I take the hit of his words, the pack bond shaking with his rebellion, the mind-link my wolves and I share - rumbling with activity as they converse their options. Stand by me or choose the one who's finally come forth in a challenge.

The violent waves of Collen's fury are clashing with my mind like it is a shore on a stormy day.

Did you expect this, Alpha? 
His words bombard into the mental link while there's nothing but a whisper inside the quiet of the room.

The air is still with the silence, one in which you can drop a pin and be certain to be overheard. Eerie and frightening, unlike that link between the two of us.

No, 
I lie, the truth that I've expected this from Hayden hushed into my thoughts.

I've been hoping for it, waiting for it for so long I can't remember the last time I confided in my Beta without caution... if I ever did.

A smarter, more calculating wolf would have waited for his moment to strike and not rushed things like he's doing now, but Hayden has never been the brightest of them. Too overwhelmed by his own visions of how this pack should be run, he let himself get caught in my trap.

Perhaps, for the first time since he stepped up as this pack's Beta, he doesn't fail me. And, hopefully, this move won't turn against me. Hopefully.

The man stands proud against me, not realizing the reasons why I'm doing this. He doesn't know it's not the wildlings outside our borders we must fight but their leader inside our nest. Too reckless and shortsighted, this wolf was never supposed to take the position he has had for years.

This is my fault. I guess I should have seen that.
 Collen's fury recedes into the ocean, moonlight now grazing on a calm, even surface. 
I overestimated your hold on your pack. I should have known better, Regan.

My gaze flickers in his direction, measuring him up and down like Hayden's wolf has been measuring me all this time.

I always keep my word, Collen. You'll get into my pack. Have no doubt about this,
 I assure the wildling, then turn my attention back to my Beta.

"Are you questioning my authority, Hayden?" I growl out, daring him to spell it out for everyone present to hear, allowing him to enjoy his moment of glory for as long as he can before letting him down in the dust... something he's more than earned.

"Why, yes, I think I am." He takes the bait, his wolf roaring into the pack bond, snapping and sizzling with this new power flooding it.

He may not be as smart as his position requires but he's a strong opponent. I will give him that.

A moment after announcing his challenge, his head drops downward, acknowledging me for what I am to this pack for the last time, as he's convinced. He turns on a heel, leaving the meeting room.

For a few long minutes, I stand on the stage, alone and waiting for the ones who will follow the next Alpha contestant, abiding by traditions we live and die by. Watching as one after another, they all leave, deserting me in the most symbolic, yet silent way.

We've already had one funeral tonight, a moment to say our farewells to a future. This feels like a second one.

Silently proceeding out of the meeting chamber, flicking sorrow-filled, apologetic glances at me, this time, however, the wolves are not saying goodbye to the future. No...

Now they are sending off their past.

(41) Hush, My Love

|Regan's POV|

Hours have passed since I was abandoned from my pack. The clearing inside the woods is as quiet as the Moon watching us from above. The pack has settled into a silent agreement of what needs to happen tonight.

They've been offered more than they could take and, tonight, they are standing on the wrong side of the line.

They should support me, the one who has led them through so much and tempered them with fire and blood, but they aren't.

I'm alone. Deserted in the sea of wolves who once saw nothing and no one more worthy than I. They forsook me for empty words and promises that are yet to be fulfilled.

What did he promise them to turn them against me, or was it all my doing?

I no longer need to pretend to be feeling weak or scared. I am weak. And I am scared. Because what if I can't defeat them? What if all this manoeuvring has been for nothing and I lose all instead of gaining the edge I need to win this war and get back in the clear, untainted by the wildling or the vampire' schemes.

I've been used as a pawn in their game of power, the closure they seek not just unknown but also overlaid with so many lies it's impossible to see the grand picture. No explanation was ever given to me - the one who's been charged to do the dirty deeds.

To be used the same way I once used others and be helplessly swept into that battle, a battle which isn't even my own, it's sickeningly perverse punishment for someone such as I.

When I should have been left in peace, the moment I needed to be alone in the embrace of my mate, it's when this filthy affair comes. An irony of fate, they say it's cruel. It doesn't care what you want or whether what you need. It takes what you can't give.

Fate played her too. She doesn't want to do this, yet, she's still offering herself to me. Not because she wants to help 
me
, her mate, but because she wants to protect the very people I'm hoping to defeat.

Staring into her eyes, her neck bare to my gaze as she stays silently focused on me, I try to move an inch closer to her, do what she's requesting of me, but I find myself rooted to my spot. Wheels turning in my mind, thousands of thoughts passing through that mind, a voice inside me screaming...

Don't. Not like this.

Frozen, I listen to this voice, wonder if it's my beast finally speaking to me or just my reason.

Am I going insane?

The wind has shifted, lifting her body scent off her skin, throwing it to the beast. A fragrance he's been dreaming to inhale deeply into his starved lungs, he's breathing it in until there's no reason standing on his way.

"Mark me, Alpha," she says. A curse rolling off the sweetest lips. Their taste is carved to my memory from that first sip.

"Are you sure you want me to-"

"Mark. Me." With the words fanning over my feverish skin, I am compelled to obey her command.

I lean over, both beast and man shifting into space, melting the distance between us and our mate, the hardest few inches in our intertwined lives.

My vision narrows down to the single spot at the crook of her neck, bared in invitation, just where it meets her shoulder. My canines descending through flesh with the slight sting there usually is, this time, however, there's more just that sting. Everything in me is drawn to that spot, the bond tugging me closer to it as I keep taking her mesmerizing scent inside, holding it in like there's no tomorrow.

And perhaps, there really isn't. Perhaps, all we have is just this night. Perhaps, this moment is all we'll ever be allowed by the Moon.

Teeth breaking the skin, the truth of all we were a second ago is disappearing with that minimal yet so significant contact. The mate bond sizzles, snakes around us, binding us to each other in a hold, tighter than any else, until there's nothing and no one else in our world but the other.

My hands press to her sides when her body gives in, steadying her to her feet and enclosing her within my embrace.

Captured.

A soft sigh of protest brushes past her lips, tickling my ears as the bond weaves itself tighter around us.

Her pain is turning into my pain as the bond surges deeper, breaking every barrier standing in between us, block after block of walls that were so carefully built crumbling down as she breaks too. Wide open. Vulnerable.

Canines retracting back, I raise my lips from her skin, cradling her smaller frame within mine, feeding her comfort when she needs it the most.

Trembling, her arms come around me, shaking they close tightly around my waist... unsure if this is their rightful place, if this is the right choice.

Her head falls on my chest. She's breathing me in, the same way I'm breathing her in with my nose buried in her hair, my hand, guided by instinct older than time itself, lifting to her waterfall of curls, is running fingers through the soft texture.

The skin on my chest burns from the tears my mate is unable to stop as she shivers into my embrace, a storm of feelings flooding through the bond... wishing to fight the need to hold me close to her but failing every step of the way.

I don't have to wonder what she's been feeling all this time because I can feel it now, an echo of conflicting emotions underneath her quiet sobbing, now uncovered by the newly formed mate bond.

Unable to deny the discovery, I find myself forced into the feeling of warmth inside her, a flame burning just for me, a love flickering against her beliefs and convictions, despite her.

"Shh," I soothe, the sound rumbling from inside my chest, quieting down her sorrows with my desperation to make it all right between us. "Hush, my love."

Hyperventilating, she snugs into my chest.

(42) No Mercy Served

|Scarlet's POV|

Fear.

The scent of raw male, pine, spring rain compelling my senses until there's no air for me to breathe in but that unmistakable fragrance, a scent that's... his.

A demon letting my head rest on his strong chest, a heart beating wildly underneath, as affected by my touch as I am by his. Is it really his heart I can hear, or is it mine, ringing in my mind?

As soon as I lift my head up it's going to end, slip under a reality I no longer want to accept as mine.

What are we? Who are we to each other? Is he still my tormentor? Am I still his victim?

His touch is so gentle, a promise-filled caress only he can give me now. Sinking under, falling deeper under the illusion. Is that what this is? Or have I just turned... willing, accepting the pain, accepting the past?

Letting go? Rejoicing?

Waking up from a dream, head rising from a warm chest, I press my lips together, screaming, crying out from the breach in contact. Never aloud.

Tears are drying off my face, the blur fading as the moment disappears. My hands withdraw from around his waist, sheer will twisting bones and muscle tissues just to make them move away an inch, then another from the only place that feels right for them to be.

Hopeless. Helpless.

Whatever this is, the battle needs to be fought before either of us can explore these new sensations.

Lifted by a force I find myself unwilling to acknowledge, my eyes meet his - green pools of swarming emotions. Compassion? Understanding? Or something else, something more?

Undoing me completely.

"We need to fight," my shaky voice reverberates through my chest, barely audible even in the ascended silence, voice that doesn't sound like mine but foreign, like the words are spoken by a stranger.

"We need," he echoes, fingers tracing my face, brushing against the skin in the softest caress... causing me to become aware that he's changed too. Something I've been refusing to admit for so long... now has crystallized to undeniable clarity.

"And we will," he goes on, his hand traveling down to my neck, sneaking to my shoulder and finally, trekking down to my hand, my palm, enveloping it within.

"Together," he whispers quietly, taking a hold of me once again, the touch electrifying, giving me strength I never knew I needed, mending wounds I've forgotten existed.

My body still trembling like a shaking leaf gripped by the wind's merciless hands just before it's ripped from the home it grew on, more shivers erupt from inside, weakening my knees as warmth floods from where he's touching me to my very core.

Mortified by my own response, I heave out a sigh, the man standing inches away from me inhaling the breath I've let out like it's everything he ever longed for, like it's a means for his own survival.

Something inside me stirs up, attracted by his every gesture, small as they are, the creature lurking inside me finds them significant, meaningful, melting her more and more into falling under his spell. For this is a spell, the bond, strengthened and mended by the fresh mark on the crook of my neck, already pulling me closer than I've ever imagined I'd be to him.

The Moon is whispering quiet promises of a future I never wanted to have with him, yet, the promise is there, laying underneath my chest, beating with excitement and something I'm not ready to name yet.

I turn toward my friends, waiting at the verge of the clearing, watching just like the wolves in the circle are watching us. There are only a few steps separating me from the people who've become my family but, now, along with the bond to my mate, the pack bond is restored too.

My family now feels more distant than the wolves on the other side of the clearing. Even the challengers are a part of me now, a part I can almost feel deep within me. Connected. Unafraid. Revolting against their alpha.

"Join us!" I call out to them, unable to hide the emotions battling inside me.

I'm still shaken, frightened of what just happened - of what will. But now when I can feel their defiance I am angered too.

Perhaps, it is my own savage instinct to seek blood or maybe it's just that newly uncovered need to protect what's mine - the mate that's now mine, has always been. The mate they are threatening.

I'm as willing to fight for him as the male holding my hand is to fight for me, a fury that's coursing through the now open bond we share. Awaiting completion.

With a sudden pull, he whisks me to his side, making me face our opponents as I listen to the quiet steps of my friends, closing the distance between us. The steps halt, the feel of their presence looming at my back.

The wolves on the other side bristle, their eyes taking that dangerous gleam as their jaws clench in anger, embracing this fight that will leave no survivors behind.

They are standing straight, postures rigid but proud, certain of their edge over our small group, they believe in their prevail.

The hand holding mine shakes, his feelings still not completely revealed by the one-way bond, however, this is a sign enough for me to know that he's actually afraid of the outcome of this battle. He knows as little as the opponents standing against us.

"Don't be afraid," I whisper quietly to him then turn to the wolves opposite us. "Shall we?" I shout, masking my own fear under a hardened facade, facial muscles stretching in what I know others have found a terrifying sight. Not the wolves, not now when they think they've seen the worst of my kind.

"Shift!" Hayden orders with a loud voice, the command as sharp as a fired gun in the quiet of an early morning.

We watch the men standing around him undo their pants, probably thinking about preserving them so they can wear them again after they win their challenge. Throwing them on the forest floor, they stand just in their undergarments, some closing their eyes, others taking deep breaths in before they welcome the change.

A few moments later, their flesh starts molding. Muscles shifting underneath the skin, bones twisting and snapping, shapes transforming into another as their breathing quickens and shortens with the suppressed pain accompanying the change. Observing it from the side, it is a gruesome, horrifying sight to witness. One that will haunt your nightmares - how that skin stretches, how that bones break like crackling sticks under the weight of the shift, how that flesh turns into a less human shape, into the one of an animal - a near replica of a wolf, though a lot bigger than a normal one.

Fur grows in patches of brown, gray and black, eyes change into whether amber, brown or gold, the usual color for a wolf's to be, the scent of fear mixed with adrenaline is carried by the wind, intensified by the change until it's almost a fragrance you can taste in your mouth. A sweet acidic taste.

The spectators are as silent as the shifted wolves, barely a rumble coming out of their muzzles, a threat waiting to be freed by their leader's next command.

Unlike his supporters, Hayden doesn't lose time to slip out of his jeans. Instead, he rips the cloth off his ebony skin, standing in just a pair of black boxers, sweat trickling down his chest, gleaming under the moonlight as he lifts his gaze up, fixing Regan with his dark stare and parts his thick lips to say one single word.

"Attack!" the shout comes as suddenly as his change, barely leaving me time to meet my first opponent.

I jump forth, changing mid-air, my clothes tearing up in the process as I collide with a dark-brown wolf, his canines bared with a growl sizzling out of his parted in challenge muzzle.

I Let out an answering growl before we fall on the hard ground, rolling down as we claw at the other's tender flesh.

Ignoring the pain his clawed paws inflict in me, my wolf body pumped on adrenaline and hunger I need to unleash, I bite down on the wolf's forechest, my canines tearing through fur, blood oozing from the wound and into my mouth.

The male underneath me whimpers, his body shaking as he tries to lessen my hold on him. I let go, aiming for his neck before he can realize my ruse.

The moment my teeth connect with the vulnerable spot, another body crashes over me, tackling me off my target.

I take a moment to observe my surroundings - wolves fighting all around me, my mate not too far from me, trying to fight off three wolves, one of them his own beta.

I hop back on my legs, my hackles rising with rage. I need to end my own fight before I can help him.

A warning growl comes from the one who pushed me off my mark. The other is already up, closing the space between us from the opposite side, planning to attack as soon as the other one does so they could take me out.

I stand still, waiting for them to make their move when a desperate yelp reaches my ears. Recognizing Regan's plea for help, I spring into action, moving swifter, faster than the prowling wolves expected.

My canines clamp down over the dark-brown wolf, the moment I tug on, the flesh ripping, a gaping hole forming on the neck as I take out the trachea. Spitting it out, I swing towards the other. Black as night, he bolts toward the shadows of the surrounding trees, thinking, probably hoping that I won't be able to see him there.

My paws padding onto the forest canopy, I follow him in a flash, pinning him down before he can escape. My teeth bite down, throwing him onto his back, and immediately I fling my body over, claws ripping the tender flesh of his belly as my canines stick into his neck, ripping it open.

I leave the dying wolf to choke on his own blood, searching through the throng of fighting wolves for the one who sought help.

A few seconds later, I find my mate, desperately trying to throw the trio off himself as they have pinned him down, forming a heap of limbs.

Growling, biting and clawing at him as he whimpers underneath, trying to free himself, to block every attack.

A furious howl makes his way out of my chest, the blood in my mouth flaring up my hunger for more as I take in the scene, cataloging the wounds on his animal form.

I dive straight in, throwing one of them off and turning my attention to another of them to bite down the wolf's back. The attacker yelps, leaving his target to turn his notice toward me, his canines connecting with my ear, tearing the flesh as I hold my grasp, putting more pressure on my clamped over jaws until I can feel the bones on his spine crack with the unmistakable sound of his defeat.

The wolf's body underneath me turns limp, the sound of his whimpers dies out, the broken spinal column as damaging to a wolf as it is for any human.

Suddenly, I'm thrown off from the body, the wolf I've pushed off of my way pinning me down underneath his heavy form, trying to bite and claw every single part of my vulnerable flesh. I start clawing and biting the parts I can reach, my position on my back on the ground handicapping any offensive move I could opt for.

Loud growls and whimpers are sounding all around me, blurred shapes are flashing in my peripheral vision as I try to push my attacker off me, growling out my frustration as his claws connect with my body, opening wounds.

Fending off his flashing canines, I bite his muzzle, tearing a chunk of his upper lip and almost reach the lower side of his neck when an angry wolf form crashes into the wolf, shoving him off me.

Rolling to my feet, I search for the wolf, recognizing him as my mate as soon as I find the fighting wolves.

The fight doesn't last for long. Soon, my mate's opponent is tackled underneath Regan, whimpering in a plea to be left breathing... whole.

Mercy, however, is off the menu tonight.