Shattered - Completed

43 - Allies

Gavin

I don't shift back to paws. I don't have to. My bond with my sunshine love thrums through me strengthening every muscle, every sinew, every fiber of skin, bone, and tissue. Even my heart beats blood of steel. My fiend would laugh, if he could, at the bloodlust surging through us in a chant; CeCe, CeCe.

Malcolm lunges at me again, only to be flipped head over heels into another of his attacking wolves. I keep my caws retracted and try to be careful with my strength. All over the cavern, my elite fight with their claws sheathed, obedient to my order; suppress without doing irreversible damage.

Something wells up in me. Thankfulness to my warriors, my friends. Males and a few females who are so loyal to me that they throw themselves after me without any hesitation. They fight, knowing that the object here is capitulation, not destruction. It's dangerous. We fight to subdue, while the clans fight to the death, but my elite do it anyway.

Malcolm gets a bite in. The skin on my right forearm splits, blood spurting. I laugh at the pain. It's a paltry wound and the last true effort Malcolm can deliver. His sides are heaving with effort, foam flecking his maw. He's hit his wall.

"I am CeCe's mate," I repeat, for the tenth time. "She is mine and I am hers."

With one last snarl, Malcolm retreats a few steps and shifts back to feet, staggering, bloody, bruised. "You are not her mate," he snarls. "Every wolf on the continent knows you are MateLess."

I feel my smile spread on my face. "I am hers," I tell him. My voice drops. The warning is clear. CeCe, CeCe. She is my female, my mate, my sunshine.

The fighting dwindles down. Malcolm runs a hand over his face. "Moon above," he mutters so quietly that only I can hear him, "you smell of her. My little sister. How?"

"You're really questioning it, Malcolm?" I ask softly. "You've lived here all your life. You know how powerful the Knowing is."

"How do you know this?" he rasps. "The... How do you know of Cecelia's Sight?" There's the tiniest thread of hope in his voice. I doubt he even realizes it.

"Her Knowing is utter power, Malcolm. Indescribable and," I pause with a wicked smile, "incomprehensible at times." A mind fuck, I think to myself, but I don't say it out loud. He won't appreciate it.

"Cecelia has her Sight," he repeats, looking equally wary and dumbfounded. "She... she really has it?"

I laugh as the Knowing flits around the edges of my consciousness. There, always there, waiting to strike another blow and reveal another secret in the most mind-bending way. "Yes, my sweetheart has the fucking Sight. More to the point; it has us. We are prisoners and executioners all at once." I pound my chest with the flat of my palm, feeling my heart beating her name. Goddess, my CeCe.

"You have never met her," he rasps, "yet you positively stink of her."

I reply patiently, "you think that I need to touch her to make her mine? I don't." I will touch her, all over her sweet, delectable little body, but I'm not going to tell Malcolm that. He'll know it, eventually.

"I brought her here, Prince," Malcolm announces suddenly. "When she was a pup. Was she yours and I ruined her life?" Torment flashes in his eyes, the green so similar to his sister's it makes my chest hurt.

The cavern has fallen quiet, except for a few sniffles and soft growls. Our conversation is no longer private. Oh, well. My elite and these clans will learn the truth eventually, anyway.

I think for a moment. "From the fairgrounds, when she was a pup," I clarify, remembering the story. "You brought her home?" Her mother abandoned her, in the second and first Knowing, leaving her in MoonGlist to rot. Malcolm failed to bring her back home, but in truth... it makes sense that it would be Malcolm who brought her here.