✔️The Embers| Caius Volturi (BOOK 2)

16. The Blood Moon

The full moon looked so beautiful as it arched high in the Volterra sky but it was a promise of pain to its slaves and deep within the luscious Italian forest, buried within a mountain home— The Luna pack and the Blue Wolves ran together for the very first time. They were young and untrained, carefree as they padded through forests and clearings with one another at their heels. There was something so beautiful poetic about the playful nature of the wolves that night, finally being allowed to let lose after all the pain and anguish they'd spent the past month suffering.

And among them, their new Alpha watched with an intense, marvellous gaze. Adolpha Blackwood had been dealing with a lot over the past few weeks and although the pain never seemed to get easier; she knew that she was getting better at handling it. Given the demonstration in the Volterra bar; nobody expected to hear from the Crescent wolves any time soon. That had been their first mistake. They'd underestimated the men who had destroyed so much. And she would always blame herself for that. Conri had been prepared for the attack, he'd expected they'd attack in their wolf forms and somehow, in the heat of all that had happened- they'd underestimated their capabilities.

It was a howl that sliced through the forest, a howl that was a clear indication to the newly collaborated packs that their playful night of warmth and happiness was long gone. It was something akin to switching off a switch and although no visible difference occurred- the air was instantly thick and tense with the upcoming war.

Though it was not just the Blue Wolves that underestimated their enemies that night. The Crescent pack were entirely unprepared for the army they would meet in open battle and within the dark woods of Italy, beneath the orb in the sky that played so many cruel games with them— Enemies clashed in combat. And the Crescents were strongly outnumbered. Play fights as it had once been, were now savage claws and sharp teeth and wolves tore through flesh as though it were butter.

Their underestimation of one another had been their greatest downfalls that evening. In the darkness; the shock of the sudden war that waged around their ears was deathly but their instincts carried them through. Only when their clear minds returned, would they truly begin to process what had happened. But the Blue pack fought two on one in a severely outnumbered war.

Adolpha Blackwoods human brain had been a swirl of thoughts, feelings and emotion and her body could now express all the rage she felt. The big grey wolf showed herself to be the Alpha they all supported that night and they followed her openly. It was ridiculous, how simply they had all forgotten what the original plan had been but they were lucky this time. The Blues had an uncanny skill when it came to fighting their enemies, and on that night they proved why they had been the strongest pack for centuries.

Blood rolled, dampening the rain neglected landscape and painting it the gruesome colours of war. The moon perched in the sky made monsters of decent men and women, it was an agonising curse, and the blood thirst was relentless. For the wolf of Adolpha, the ability to finally let the emotion explode out of her was startling as she shred her opponents. It was wolf pitted against wolf as it had been over many years. And perhaps they would never understand the meaning for the events that took place, they would certainly never know where the initial hatred of each other originated.

Adolpha Blackwood had once been an advocate for obtaining peace, she had once been a strong believer that with a treaty; union and calm could be found once more. But then the Crescent wolves attacked that small Italian bar, unprovoked and in their weaker forms, and when they sent a bullet through the chest of Alpha Conri, they obliterated the small part of Adolpha that clung on to futile, childish dreams of obtaining peace with the signing of a peace of paper.

Somewhere as night and day swirled passed in a haze of miscomprehension, Adolpha had morphed her own gut wrenching pain into a deep rooted, furious rolling anger and that was most definitely evident on that night as she shredded all enemies that dare disturb the peaceful play fighting that had been waging before their arrival.

Somewhere, the saner part of her soul knew that revenge would bring her closer to happiness once more. She would never be completely happy, not without him but she could certainly try and obliterating the Crescent wolf pack was the final piece of the large puzzle. As she fought for her packs survival, unprovoked in the forest- she felt like a true alpha and her rolling muscles seemed to dance as she completed what she had trained decades to do.

The Crescents were at a disadvantage and not only due to their size. The Blue Pack were preserved, trained over decades to fight and they grew no weaker with age. But the opposition did. And regardless of what The Crescents tried, attacking in human form, utterly disregarding the rules of the wolves; they still could not defy their greatest enemies.

It was that night that the Crescent pack died once and for all, and the Blue and Luna packs were finally combined. And Adolpha Blackwood knew, even before the sun came up; that now that the pain and suffering was over- she could finally get on with her life. It was high time she make something of her relationship with Caius Volturi.

Authors note: It's over... ??