Bloodbound [Werewolf]

Chapter Twenty-Two

I had never dreaded waking up. True, I found every day a responsibility to hold and make the most of, but I never hated the fact that I had to spend another day in Aigaryn.

I never, not even in the slightest, thought I would dread waking up; not until I knew the consequence of doing so, or the weight that my eyelids carried if I was to open them. But I still did — I still needed to; fluttering my eyes awake as I regained my senses steadily. My eyes were unfocused and hazy whilst I tried to make sense of the world around me as if a newborn child. The first thing I noticed was how warm I was feeling; an undeniably tight embrace of a shuddering person wrapped firmly around my limp body. Then the noise — bawling uncontrollably next to my still ringing ear as if there were no tomorrow. I would have sworn at him if not for the reason of his distressed howling; cries that were meant to mourn the death of me.

And honestly, it would have been so poetically romantic — to say that his tears and yearning raised me from the dead; but it wasn't his desperate plea for me to return that pulled me out of the grave. It was the selfish decision of my sister that brought me back to life, to fulfil a deal I had no chance of escaping from. Alas, there was nothing more that I could do but to at least savour the barred moments of another life that would be spent in anguish and lament.

Tenderly, I reached up to touch his hair; a lot more dishevelled as I ruffled it ever so gently before my hand slid down to his cheek; wet with tears that he had spilled over my death.

"Such an insufferable Omega you are, crying right next to an Alpha's ear," I muttered, though sounding a terribly lot more rugged than I would have expected it to sound.

In response, I felt him tense; slowly backing away to see my golden eyes looking back at him. Disbelief registered in his face the quickest, then confusion as he muttered my name much like how he would if he was seeing an apparition. I managed to smile back, offering him the reality that I was there and I was alive — despite my chagrin.

"You... You're alive..." he breathed out, uncertainty subtly intertwined with his sentence, as it sounded more like a question than a statement. However, the hope shining in his eyes caused my conscience to scream curses at me for giving him the false promise of my return. Ironically, I would have been better off being struck again by a silver bolt than having him give me that look; far more painful than any wolfsbane or poison that attacked my body.

"... I am." Was all I could reply; short and a little more bitter than I ought to be.

Though before we could even fully take in our moment, a slow clapping sound echoed in the room in sync with a sharp clanking of heels that gradually increased as it moved closer. That was when I noticed how I was still wearing the same gown I had before I jumped into the bolt to save Conan; that it wasn't light years that I spent on her Aether or whatever realm my soul travelled to but mere seconds.

"My, my. Must I say, this act of yours is truly moving. I would love to watch it unfold more. It is very much... saccharine, do you not agree?" Cienna mused as she walked over whilst Conan immediately tightened his hold of me as if to block me from any attacks that my sister was bound to do; snarling at her with disgust and hatred while at it.

"We're not some stupid play you can watch for your entertainment, you wench. We are people unlike you who's a demon in disguise."

Cienna was not deterred by his venomous statement; looking indifferent as ever. Instead, she raised an eyebrow at him with an egotistical smirk.

"Now, now. That is not a way to treat someone who brought darling Evelyn back from the dead, is it? At the very least, you should be on all fours and kissing my feet for spending power I could only utilize once for her sake."