Blood Ties

47

It plagued her insides with a blistering and soul-taking vengeance on who lived above the dungeons. Who survived the terror of the Canus and Thrax wolves?

Did Lycus and Accalia end with where they began this evening, together with nothing to tear them apart?

Cadence's stomach dropped, an estranged and foreign sensation pulling and twisting inside her. She couldn't describe it, no familiar notion connected the dots within her mind and her bottom lip shook.

Cole's head tilted, a face of mockery dancing across his haunting features and Cadence couldn't even stomach any of the tormented words that followed out of his mouth.

"Cadence has her tail tucked between her legs," Cole burst into laughter and flung his head back, more laps of taunts flying out his wretched mouth. "Run, run and find all the ones you love ..."

It took everything in her to walk away, forcing one step forward that felt frozen at the soles of her feet and she stalked away from the target she wanted to take out.

Erisa and Tristan checked everybody laid on the floor out, checking for any signs of life and if their hearts were still beating.

"They're all dead," Tristan concluded.

Cadence nodded, eyes on the fallen hunters and feral mutts.

Besides Cadence, Erisa and Tristan, a few hunters survived. The lost ones wouldn't be forgotten. Their stories and triumphs would live on through the stories travelled through the grapevine of hunters for however long they lived to tell the tales.

"Let Cole's wolves rot before him," Cadence growled and inclined her head to the entrance door. "Let's go."

Ashes in the air, blood staining the ground and piles of bodies in the afterlife, Cadence gathered there were no more battles to come. This lasting night now brings on the day, dawn rising.

Walking through the decay and dying in their wake, Cadence noted the many Fenris wolves scattering across their lands and tracing their steps to inspect the dungeons.

Erisa stuck close to Cadence as they searched for any familiar faces as bodies were already being burnt by flames.

Fenris lycans and werewolves rounded all their people that didn't make it out of this war and through the many fields of dead grass and treeless plains, they were lit up in flames. Their ashes would meet the earth, their souls would travel elsewhere.

Cadence reminded herself they would need to do the same for her people.

What shocked Cadence first was Accalia's teary face, tears falling and face ridden in muck. Beside her was Tala, a crestfallen Beta.

The three hunters ran up to them. They got it worse than they did; Tala's arm was bent at an odd angle and Accalia was clutching her side, but that wasn't why she was in so much pain.

"Where's Lycus?" Cadence asked hoarsely.

Accalia shook her head miserably, tears spilling from her eyes and she stepped up toward Cadence, her arms trembling around her in an embrace.

Accalia fell limp in her hold, an onslaught of her pain and sorrow falling against Cadence like a wave and it crashed against her like nothing ever had before.

Cadence couldn't get through to her, no words of comfort offered helped and all that she could give were her arms wrapped securely around Accalia, feeling every tear that fell on her shoulder and trembles that coursed against her.

Tristan came around them and gently brushed his hand across Accalia, fanning his touch across her head.

"Beta, Luna!" A voice shouted at a distance and everyone turned to the male wolf that stumbled toward them.