Hers (#1)

28| a spade for a spade

an update after a year. i am trash.

Dread is a terrible feeling.

Much like the sensations of drowning, its sinewy tendrils encase themselves around a quivering heart. Every pore and vein is clogged with this horrible emotion. An almost invisible ball of lead grows slowly and menacing in the throat till breathing becomes choppy and eyes flash red. The obsidian paws of the Alpha mark the soil as she sprints towards her goal: Marcus.

The scent of his blood--his blood--did not leave her once. He was hurt. He was hurt and she couldn't do anything. Hurt by the one person who had terrorized her since decades past. By the one threat to her people's existence--Stamos. Galdoni. She felt the bubbling of a panic attack but quickly quelched it, imagining her mate's bloodied form under Stamos's shadow. No time for self-pity, she barked internally. Her paws didn't not once stop till her sharp eyes sighted the greycast building.

Memories swarmed her in an instant. Unwelcome ones; ones of a time she so wished she could forget. She didn't bother to scout the area--muscle memory would guide her to the Trail. Instead of keeping guard, she let her mind wonder. What did Stamos hope to gain after this? For all his years as a wolf, he had never undergone the Trial of Bones himself. An image of Samantha injecting herself with Galdoni blood flashes in her rattled mind. No, she immediately thought. He wouldn't do that. Samantha maybe--she's always been power hungry--but not Stamos. Control. Being a Galdoni is like surrendering every last drop of self control towards pure rage and abandon, something Lana knew Stamos would never give up. How could he rid the world of wolves if he wasn't controlled enough to oversee the process?

Soon enough, her nose picked up the scent of people. Wolves. Vaguely attempting to calm her beating heart, she began to crawl slowly to the door on the left. The closer she got, the more pronounced the smells became--no less that four bodies were in that room. Blood. Death. A slow ringing began to develop in her ears. A growl sounded through the door and across the narrow hallway. Galdoni. There was a Galdoni in the room--but that growl didn't sound like what she knew. It couldn't have been one of Stamos's turned lackeys--no, no a wolf much stronger emitted that growl. A higher ranking, clearly trained wolf. The growl sounded like what Sam, Flame and her sounded like when they were Galdoni themselves.

A familiar scent washed through her canine nostrils. Flame. She ground her paws to the marble ground to stop the earth shattering growl she almost released. How did they get her Gamma? How did they possibly intercept the Central pack again?!

She could control her emotions no longer. Knowing that if she burst into there in wolf form, she would have Wolf's blood injected into her in seconds--she shifted back into her human form and burst through the doors. Her almond eyes took in everything: Flame strapped to a chair bruised and twitching, Stamos to the right, a slumped dead body with blood flowing out the chest and Samantha, her former treacherous Beta, gripping the collar of the largest Galdoni she had seen in decades. She also noticed the still, bloody heart her former Beta gripped as well.
The blonde growled at the Alpha but quickly stopped. Before Lana could blink, the still heart was thrown at her and she was able to catch the scent--Fei. The Hazard. But most importantly, Logan's mate. Highly trained wolf, that growl--the Galdoni was Logan.

"Fetch."

The monstrous form leaps out of Samantha's grasp, aiming for Lana's throat. But she wasn't Great Alpha for nothing. She reached into the back pocket of her jeans and whipped out a syringe with a small amount of Wolf's blood, enough to sedate any Galdoni. She plunges the needle into Logan's enormous neck before his elongated claws come in contact with her throat. Instantly, the Galdoni slumps to the floor, tranquilized. She stares at the massive form, her breathing laboured. Logan didn't deserve this--he had done nothing but serve her with unwavering loyalty. And this is how she repays his. With his mate and his mind gone.

A slow, taunting clap brings Lana out of her self loathing. Looking up, she meets the eyes of the one man who has tormented her almost her whole existence. "Lana," he spoke, his voice dripping with sweet malice, "My greatest creation. How wonderful it is to see you again, my child."

She had no time or patience for his mind games. "Where is he?" she grit through clenched teeth.

"Why so hasty?" He chuckles, turning towards Samantha who was ready to strike. "Go." She stares at the General for all but two seconds and leaves the room. As she walks past Lana, she lets out a soft, almost inaudible chuckle that makes Lana's blood boil. "I haven't seen you in years. How's my wife, by the way."

Lana almost smiles at the catch in his voice. Even monsters have a weakness. "Olgierd is still under constant watch. Is that why you've been sending your wolves to Central? To rescue her?" She nearly spits out the word rescue, wishing she had killed Olgierd when she had the chance to all those years ago. Maybe the old bastard would have died of a broken heart.

Stamos' expressions falters but his menacing smile is back so quickly she wonders if she imagined it. "A spade for a spade, is the saying yes? You have someone I hold dear," he pauses and barks out a command in a language foreign to her ears, "and I have someone you hold dear." Her heart begins to beat rapidly in her chest. Calm down, calm down, calm down, calm, calm,calm, she chants in her head, the mantra doing nothing to soothe her frayed state.

The door opens once more and Samantha drags in a body. It's littered in bruises and cuts, dirtied. The bones are not of a human and clearly have been broken and forced to set in ways a human could not. Only a wolf. She was staring at a wolf.

She was staring at Marcus.

All pretense of strength forgotten, she let out a piercing wail. Her legs can no longer hold her up, and she sinks helplessly to the floor. "Or is it a tooth for a tooth? An eye for an eye? Whatever, you get my point." He inches closer and closer to her as her body begins to shake violently. He stops and places his lips near to her ear, and she feels his hot breath as he speaks: "You make my Olgierd a human, I make your Jaci a wolf."

Without even breathing, Lana immediately transformed and aimed for the General's throat. A rash decision she would not have made if her mate didn't lay on the floor, after undergoing the one thing she never wanted him to even know about. Kill. Kill. Kill. She could ignore what she had suppressed no longer. She wanted to kill him. To kill Samantha. To kill every wolf that worked for the Kraken, who had dedicated skills to making her sure her mate would never live a human life again. She wanted to tear their skins into small strips and feed the a a flight of vultures. She wanted to twist every organ slowly out of their bodies and hear every agonized scream. She wanted all of them--any of them--to feel the pain she carried around every since she was forced into the Trail of Bones.

But for now, she would settle with ripping Stamos' throat out.

Before she could accomplish her goal, her muscles went limp and she began to sink to the floor. The sting of the syringe vanished as quickly as it came. Of course. Wolf's blood. How could she have thought that she would win this. She didn't even bother to fight it. Deep down, she knew what had to be done. Marcus would leave this place.

No matter what became of her.