Bound by the Hollow Moon

Chapter 20

Well, that was it then. I had nothing to keep me from fighting back, there was no reason to play nice anymore. There was no fucking deal. As much as my heart hurt, and oh god did it fucking hurt, I also felt free. Released from the iron chains that kept me obedient, I had the freedom to choose how it all ended now, and I was hollow enough to be willing to do anything to fucking end it. No. I wasn't hollow. I was full of fire. A storm of scorching heat that had cauterized my emotions, my fear, and every other gaping wound I had been holding together with old flimsy bandages.

I ran through the forest, darting and weaving through the labyrinthine mass of trees. I let my wolf instincts take me away from the suffocating weight of living as a human. It didn't last long though, it never does, this peace that I had found. I had always caught fleeting wisps of it, but like a breeze in a hurricane, it got lost in the gale. I looped around the perimeter of the compound one last time before I curled up on the woven welcome mat that graced Mira's front porch. I was still in my wolf skin and I didn't mind it. The cool air against my warm paper-white fur kept me comfortable and I wasn't ready to face anyone just yet.

I woke underneath a heavy quilt on an all too familiar bed. As many times as I had ended up here, I might as well have claimed it as my own. The scents were familiar and calming, but like peace, it was a momentary reprieve before memory came crashing down again. What do I do now? What do I do now that my singular pinpoint of motivation was gone? Ellie is gone...

Make choice and it will be done, my daughter. All my power is yours, my blood is yours, everything I can do, you may also. Forge your alliances, save the Wolfborn, and become the deity you are meant to be.

Her voice washed over me, a cooling salve over my scorched and raw spirit, but her words stoked the flames at my core that had been threatening to consume me since I discovered the reports. I was pulled from my brooding with a knock at the door.

"Good morning Adrienne," Mira greeted me somberly, I guess she knows. I grumbled a response and hugged the quilt to my neck. She sighed and laid next to me on the bed. Facing each other, I could see the dark circles under her eyes and a smile that only just managed to lift at the corners. "Are you ready?" she asked.

"Can I say no?" I mumbled.

Her smile warms up a little as she answered, "it's probably best if you don't." I groaned, she was right, there's no hiding from this. Marcus was going to pay for hurting my family, for hurting innocent people, for lying to me and manipulating me.

My face turned hard and serious when I locked eyes with Mira again, "I'm going to kill him."

"No sweetheart, you are not. Because if you do that, you would be giving him all that's left of your humanity." She pushed herself off the bed and paused at the door, "come and have some breakfast, we need to talk."

*-*-*

"Do you forgive me, Peaches?" James implored, begging with his puppy dog eyes, green and vibrant like the moss that carpeted the dark broken tree trunks. We had been talking over breakfast about Marcus' latest antics until it morphed into brunch. Mira, Ezra, Caius, and James greeted me when I trudged into the kitchen, looking hungover from the emotional binge that took over last night. I may have even had dead leaves and pine straw still stuck in my hair. I couldn't bring myself to look Caius in the eye, but that was a whole other pile of shit to deal with, and I would deal with it later.

"There's nothing to forgive," I insisted, "I get it, I really do. Marcus sounds like he had all the best intentions, how were you to know he'd get all crazy in the process?"

Caius snorted, "I think you were the first to call him out on it, Adri. Psychopathic Caveman, right?"

Bubbling laughter broke through my moping and I smiled despite my dejected mood and attempt to pretend Cai didn't exist, "Damn right, I did! But it's probably because I'm a psycho-magnet." The simmering anxiety I normally felt when I mentioned Tyler was gone, and I was able to see the humor in the irony of it all.