The Eve of Darkness

Chapter 27

A/N: WARNING - the following chapter contains graphic violence. Such violence includes murder and torture, child death, and slight body horror. If any of these things are of concern for you, please skip this chapter. Proceed with caution.  

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No matter how many years had passed, Aria would never forget the smell of her traumas. The sound of her nightmares. The sight of those most dear to her being slaughtered like pigs in a butcher shop. Despite the time that had gone by since her teenage-hood, Aria could still picture the exact image of the hunters slicing their knives across her younger sister Thera's throat, her body slumping into dirt as her pink pajamas became drenched in her spilt blood. Aria could still smell the burned gunpowder as bullets lodged themselves in her parent's hearts. She could still hear the way her older brother Adrian growled, winced, yelped, and then screamed as the hunters whipped him with ropes of leather doused in wolfsbane. He'd been forced to transform from wolf to human. His screams echoed through the forest as they trapped and killed him. She could still feel the burn of the silver knife that cut across her back as she shielded her last two siblings from a hunter's strike. She could smell the fear in their bodies when she'd been pulled away from them and forced to watch as Theodora and Alcander were collared and dragged away. The sound of their distant growls, two bullets, and then silence, haunted Aria like a poltergeist.

Aria knew violence. She knew war. She knew death. She knew the pain of having to run to survive despite the instinct to collapse on one's knees and mourn. She knew what it meant to meet the grim reaper and have him say "not you."

She knew loss, and she was determined to never know it again.

Her world had been shattered, disturbed, thrown into a bloody chaos that threatened to strike down everything and everyone she knew and loved.

The initial explosion had been made to stun Camden. The hunters–wherever they came from–knew that Camden had heightened senses due to blindness and actively targeted that double-edged strength. When she'd watched him collapse, she couldn't help the way her mind dragged her back into the memory of watching her own pack–her own family–being slaughtered. Following the explosion (which apparently was just a stick of fucking dynamite) more hunter's rushed the packhouse. Warriors and non-warrior wolves that were outside met the invaders halfway, giving Aria a moment to help her mate. One of Camden's ears bled from the side. His face was scrunched up in pain as he held a hand against it. He'd tried to get up and go to join the fight, but Aria's innate fear of losing him won over her own instincts. She'd gripped his hand and begged him to focus on helping weaker pack members escape. The argument only lasted about thirty seconds, but they'd reached a compromise that he would join the fight if and when his full hearing came back. He'd begged Aria to be careful, to which she'd squeezed his hand and promised to come back alive.

Now, here they were, deep in the trenches of conflict. Some of the Darkwoods Pack had transformed into full wolves, while others maintained half transformations, staying on two legs but using canines and claws to rip into the skin of those who tried to kill them. Xiomara and Jude had both transformed, their wolf forms a blur as they jumped from one adversary to the next with an enraged vigor. Aria dug her claws into the chest of a male hunter with blonde hair and brown eyes. There was nothing but fear as he felt her dig her hand into his sternum and rip it out. He'd choked on blood as he'd fallen. The whooshing sound of a blade moved behind Aria, and she spun just in time to see the blade stopped by another. Rowen stood in front of her with a sword held up, pushing against the silver blade of the hunter. With a quick move, Rowan parried and sliced the large man across his chest before kicking him away. Rowan turned to Aria while she looked him over with wide eyes.