Epsilon [Werewolf]

Chapter 64

Zion 

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It didn't take a master to see it. Beyond the false smile the forced actions, the forced words... it was so obvious. 

Kyra was breaking.

And there was nothing I could do about it. 

So I continued watching her from afar, keeping to the back as out little party traversed the woods. Truth be told, I'd been watching her all day -- well, as much as I could. Just as Azriel had demanded she do Luna duties, he'd demanded I do Beta duties, too, including training. I'd tried to hide my weakened state from my pupils, but I could tell they knew. Of course, they didn't know it was the Wolfsbane in my system, slowly eating me away. But then again, that wasn't the only thing being eaten away. 

Seeing Kyra deteriorate before my eyes... it was killing me. Killing me more than any lethal drug would. 

I'd seen her at the feasting, with that superficial smile that didn't meet those eyes. Eyes that had become a dull dark grey, very unlike the fierce black I used to know. The life in them, the fierceness... it was all gone. No one else noticed -- or cared. I'd seen her talking to people of the court, and they seemed too damn enamoured by her presence to notice something was wrong, that she needed help. 

That she was being tormented by the man she once loved.

I glared at his back, his figure tall and dark beside Kyra. Pride radiated off him in waves, and it angered me. How dare he exploit her and feel any sense of pride? What kind of man does that to someone, to a woman he claims to love? 

A friend. He used to be my friend, my saviour.

But things change. He was my sworn enemy now, and one day I would  make him pay for this. I would give him a death so painful to give him a taste of what he'd put Kyra through -- and maybe even that wouldn't be enough. 

I stared ahead, towards the trees that were starting to thin, towards the chugging noise of a distant human town. And now he was leading her to her home town, where she could turn people into monsters, just as he had once turned her.

I clenched my fists. I hadn't even known Azriel had turned her. I, as blinded by my loyalty as she was by love, believed Azriel when he claimed it had been an Alpha from a different pack. But no, it had been him. It was always him. 

But then that bought other thoughts, selfish thoughts. Why did it have to be her that night? Her, of all people, my mate. Why couldn't it have been some other girl? Some girl that would've died during the transformation anyway? Why did it have to be her? So much pain could have been avoided, for both of us.

I wouldn't care about some other girl like I did for her. I never would, because she was my mate.

My mate... but was she really my mate? She said she'd never felt a strong connection with anyone, and the strongest one she had felt turned out to be a fraud. I knew mate bonds often kicked in for one person earlier than the other, but surely she would have felt it by now, right?

Or, you're her dud mate, came that irksome thought. I shoved it aside. No, I couldn't be; I'd never felt a mate bond in my one-hundred-and-fifty years of existence. If I developed one now, then... then it just had to be real.