Bound

After The Fallout

ALEXI POV

I was livid. A passionate red shade that bled from my heart to cloud my vision in a macabre strobelight of emotion.

How dare she.

Leaving me alone under the milky way in a sea of ripped clothing and broken dreams.

Xandra locked the balcony off while I stewed. Jeering me privately was one thing, putting her gentle brute in a position to be publicly mocked was quite another. So I was contained by a marble balustrade, the sky, and my pride. Claire had inspired me to streak through this city naked once, I was not inclined to do it again.

The worst part was that the more I thought about the fight with the infuriating woman wearing Claire's skin; The more I realised that while I had not been in the wrong...I may not exactly been entirely in the right either.

Goddessdamnit.

The masses behind the locked doors eventually left the hotel to continue the frivolities in the name of supporting - without condoning - the war. I watched them funnel out onto the street and wind their way to a local shifter nightclub.

A snaking line of hopeful normies in clothes unsuited for the weather wove around a few blocks. Ambient heat from the scorching sun emanated from the pavement, hours after it had disappeared over the horizon. Without the air conditioned environment and kind muted lighting of inside the normies were showing various stages of melting. A diligent bouncer patrolled the line, plucking shifters and delivering them to the entrance. Delivering hope to the sweaty normies that they too could be plucked at random and delivered to the Garden of Eden Nightclub.

Which was never going to happen.

I glared at the simplicity and the hopelessness of their problems. Having been alone for just enough time for me to consider the possibility that I had actually really fucked up here. Was I also standing in line for something that would never happen due to my nature?

Clouds rolled through the sky to hide the stars as I waited, and fat water droplets melted my hopeless fury to simple hopelessness. Some of the normies skittered away, rain being the final straw in what they would put up with. Some stayed, shrinking into unhappy postures, hoping that the bouncer would take pity on them. A hawker appeared out of thin air and dispensed flimsy umbrellas in exchange for a few pretty pennies.

"Stupid. Stupid. Stupid." I muttered under my breath. Not sure if it was for them, or me, or Claire, or the Moon Goddess. Probably all of us.

What did you expect Alexi? Becky broke into my fuming reverie. She had kept her distance for a good long while, but recognised when my stubborn ass wanted company without having to ask for it.

I don't know. Not that. I snapped back at her. Whipping the nearest available post with aggression borne from insecurity. I knew exactly what I expected. I expected a fairytale ending to the evening, but would not admit that to Becky if my life depended on it.

Oh come off it. You have been rejecting her for two months straight. Why should she suddenly be all open arms and loving sentiment? Because you finally removed your head from your ass? Because you have stopped belittling her publicly and ignoring her privately for all of a few hours? You are going to have to do better than that.

It seemed that my sister was in the mood for hard truths.

She had spent the evening orchestrating a party of her own. It involved sneaking a number of the more rebellious youths through their bedroom windows, scaling down the thick old vines climbing up the brickwork, and into a private section of one of the properties. It progressed to plying them with whisky. Binding them together with a secret. Bonding with the alpha. Allowing them to make bad decisions just like any other adult. Joining them to obtain her own state of inebriated frivolity, she was angry at the world too.