The Eve of Darkness

Chapter 18 - Camden

A/N: i feel like it should be clear at this point, but I'll say it here: this story has no beta, we die like men.

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Camden awoke with a nauseating feeling bubbling in his gut. As a familiar nothingness greeted his vision, he was acutely aware of the overturning tightness that brewed within himself. His fists tightened over the sheets that had tangled around his body - he never was a still sleeper - and he took deep breaths to calm his strangely racing heart.

The alpha knew better than to let his anxieties catch hold of his mind, but he couldn't help but allow the need to think over the plans of the day once more, cataloguing every little thing that needed to go right and could go wrong.

It was finally time to return to the god-awful place in which he had found Aria. The mere memory of the place was enough to send a shiver up his spine. He could viscerally recall the putrid stench of metallic blood and barely masked hatred that hung in the basement's air. It was an all enveloping carcass that choked him with a disgusting strength when he'd first come upon it. Almost immediately, Camden could tell that an uncountable number of lives had been lost in that cold room of death. The alpha could clearly remember the way his apprehension in the basement was quickly replaced with an anxious rage that threatened to tear apart his very soul. For amongst the scent of death and despair was the distinct smell of pine bark, of running rivers, and of nature itself. The lovely smell that had brought him to the place was his mate's, that he was sure of. The knowledge that his mate, the person that he was fated to love and be loved by forever, was trapped in the wretched location made his instincts run feral.

Camden didn't consider himself violent, nor did he think taking a life was easy. However, in those few seconds of brushing the dirt off his body and trying to play off how angry the combination of smells had made him, he'd become intimately familiar with pure bloodlust. When he heard the hunter's voices, riddled with disdain and vile, his willingness to send souls to Hades was as solid as bedrock. His own spirit, filled with the need to protect his mate, his pack, and himself, was slowly being corrupted by the violent darkness he'd stumbled into, and, without hesitation, he was willing to dive deeper.

Those demented thoughts came to a halt, however, at the sound of his mate calling him a "fucking idiot" and her captors "useless paperclips" in the same breath.

Aria was a spitfire. She was confident, unwavering, and sure of herself in a way that Camden could only be envious of. The alpha knew that his insecurity surrounding his capabilities had been a challenge to manage ever since his parents retired. He figured that Jude probably had to take on more work to compensate for Camden's disability, such as when they needed to deal with paperwork fast and couldn't wait for Camden's reader program to scan every document. He would never know the faces of those he led beyond the one's he'd met as a child , and he was acutely aware of the small number of pack members who were in disapproval when he'd first succeeded his parents.

Despite the many fears and apprehensions that Camden and the pack had during his initial crowning as leader, Aria seemed unbothered by it all. Other than slipping up with common idioms or, towards the beginning, forgetting about Camden's blindness, Aria never held it against him and never addressed him as less than normal. If anything, the rogue had more respect for Camden's efforts than he had expected.

Even aside from his own insecurities, Camden knew that Aria would make an amazing Sola. She was strong and capable, she held a finely tuned survival instinct, and she was loyal to those she loved. Even her anger, which was mostly withheld until exploded, was something that Camden found himself attracted to.

Ah, yes, Camden thought, attraction.

Camden was immensely, pitifully, unendingly attracted to Aria. Her voice, the tight strength resting beneath her skin, the smell that lingered in her hair and on her neck, the little hiccuped laugh that would burst from her throat when humored—she was magnificent, and Camden wanted all of her to himself. Sometimes, as if she were doing it subconsciously, Aria would stand beside him, letting her fingers graze across his back with ghostly softness. It was almost as if she were confirming that he was real and beside her.