The Twelfth Moon || ✔️

15. She Belongs To Me

          "The wolf looks so young," Jerr said. "How is that possible?"

          "I don't know," Aven answered, ruffling his hands through his night-black hair. "But I'm going to find out. I agree he does look oddly young."

          I looked down at the wolf and I saw what they were talking about. Although I hadn't seen many wolves in my life, this one seemed.. Smaller. The way his body was built, it looked as he wasn't fully formed yet. It was unlikely he had been of age, yet here he was in his wolven form.

          Aven and Jerr scouted the area, looking for any clues about what had happened. They had found several tracks, which confirmed that Beckett had not been alone. So he had probably come here straight after he left the Castle.

          Which meant he might have planned this horrid thing only moments after his confrontation with me in my room. He was angry, but I had underestimated just how angry he had been because I had never thought he'd go this far. Taking this big of a risk, killing a wolf of Death Moon so brutally, knowing Aven was so close.

          Would he have been less angry if I wouldn't have fought back? If I wouldn't have scratched him, maybe this wouldn't have happened. In the moment it happened, the scratch had felt so satisfying, but as I now looked down at the innocent body in front of me, all I could think was that I shouldn't have fought back. I shouldn't have angered him even more, not after what I had already done during the Ascension ritual. But it had felt so good. And wouldn't me not fighting back mean I was still under his control? Maybe there truly was no escaping Fire Moon. Maybe Aven had been right.

          "See that, Sari?" Jerr interrupted, as he pointed towards the grass behind the deer.

          "It's flat," I determined. "As if the deer was dragged here."

          Jerr nodded in confirmation. "Correct. Beckett probably found this somewhere along the way and placed it here to mask the scent of the freshly spilled blood."

          I raised my eyebrows. "Why would he do that?"

          "To take us by surprise, maybe. Or maybe to mask his own scent. The smell of a decomposing body is very overpowering," he explained. It was. Even with the wolf's body in front of us, the deer lingered in our minds too as its smell wouldn't leave us alone. It didn't matter how long we'd stood here, the foul smell of rot and death didn't thin out in the air, it just stayed present in an invisible, heavy smog.

          "The tracks come from the direction of Rahas," Aven realized. "He breached the city."

          Jerr looked shocked at the revelation. "How would he have done that? There's got to be another explanation."

          I hoped there was, because the city of Rahas was supposed to be a safe haven. But neither one of us could think of another reason as to why their tracks stemmed from the direction Rahas or why the young wolf had been out here alone, so far behind the supposedly safe city walls.