Silver Skin

1

Crying to the moon
~
Lycus
~

She kissed him with open eyes. And with those open, brown eyes, Lycus could see the striking indifference. A shell of a being. A mass emptiness.

It devoured Lycus ... her absence of emotion.

Eyes stricken in indifference, rosebud lips falling against his in a damning sweet caress, nothing felt natural.

Lycus pulled away from her and pressed his hands against her shoulders to stop whatever this discomfort wrapping around them was.

"Accalia," Lycus whispered carefully to her.

She didn't respond. She watched on as she sat up, staring into his eyes and ... through him.

Nothing showed for her intense and penetrating stare.

No emotion, no warmth, hell, no bitterness toward him whenever he drove her up the wall.

Accalia tilted her head in wonder at his rejection and she raised her hand. She gently cupped Lycus's face, skimming her fingers against his short beard and along his jaw that clenched like unbreakable stone.

This wasn't her.

A ghostly touch, but by the moon on his side, she had an ethereal hold over him.

Brown-skinned, which had the grazing touch of the sun, and her broad shoulders were covered by hair that rippled around her as a luscious mane, curtaining around her face.

Her legs hooked in either side of Lycus and she was as stellar as the moon, but it wasn't to be mistaken ... she had silver on her.

That was the last thing she had on her. A silver sword. That was what Lycus could recall.

He rubbed his chest, soothing over a odd ache building inside.

She didn't die, did she? She couldn't have. Lycus would have felt it — he would have died with her.

She was right with him, touch and all. But even then, he felt estrange from her. A lack of presence. He couldn't feel her at all, even as they touched.

Lycus's mind raced back to when they were last together.

He was torn from her. Lycus was ripped away from her side in the battle by a pack of wolves that hounded him. They took him from Accalia, clouding them in a shadow of hounds and silver.

One moment, they were at the hip, and the second, Lycus was tackled by a pack of wolves.

Taken ...

He was taken.

He couldn't protect her. His mate.

Accalia's penetrating stare took him far away from his thoughts and they locked eyes.

Lycus clasped Accalia's shoulders and brought her close where their heated breaths danced and twirled with each other in an emotionless embrace. Nothing, again.

"Accalia, you're real, righ—"

"Going into your dreams is so much easier than I thought ..."

Lycus's eyes snapped open and the ghost of his mate became all too real.

She wasn't here. She wasn't where Lycus was. But someone else was. They had slipped through the barriers of his thoughts and corrupted his dreams. Only one species could do that. The creatures of the night. Creatures hellbent on being the ultimate predator for their victim.

Lycus's jaw ticked. He didn't know where he was, but he could feel the silk comforters beneath him. Could smell the overwhelming stench of blood that blanketed the room he was in and not a droplet of it was coming from him.