Predator

Epilogue✔️

"Grey?"

He knew he was stupid for believing she'd be calling her own phone - she was dead for fucks sake, but there was this tiny bit of hope inside of him that pleaded to the heavens for it to be her, alive and okay.

"Alexei."

Maksim.

He sounded good. He sounded like he hadn't spent the last few years sulking and trying to drink himself to death. He sounded happy. Alexei wanted to cry.

"Brother." He breathed. "Why'd you call her phone?"

"I knew you'd answer." Maksim's voice was smooth and calm. He sounded like he'd finally found peace. "I was worried you wouldn't though. I thought you might've. . ."

He didn't need to say it, they both knew what he meant. "I don't have the courage brother. The one time I can actually die just by even the smallest things, I lack the courage to actually do it." Alexei ran a hand down his face and sank to the floor, his head resting against the wall. As he breathed in the stale, almost gone scent of Grey that lingered in this room. He almost broke again. "How are you?"

He hesitated. "Good, brother. I'm really good."

"I'm glad."

"You should come to America. I found a pack buried in the mountains, their Alpha has become a close friend of mine, they'd greet you with open arms."

Alexei was so silent for the longest time, Maksim had thought he'd hung up. He called his name and he finally answered. "I want to, Maks, I do. I just-I can't leave her. I know she's dead and I know she's not coming back but I keep praying that she will and I cannot leave until she returns to me."

"Alexei, I found her family before I came here-"

"What?!"

"-I had to tell them. I left out the whole curse thing but I told them the human truth. They deserved that much."

Alexei could imagine them: happy and loving, everything that Grey was. "What were they like?"

"She didn't have hardly anyone. All I found was a grandmother and a cousin. Her mom died ages ago and her father was never in her life." He sighed. "They asked about her body and I told them she was with our mother. I gave them the coordinates so that if they ever felt like it, they could see her grave."

"Thank you, brother."

"I'm glad you're alive, Alexei. It'll get better." Maksim wanted to say so much more but the words just wouldn't leave his tongue. He was crying on the other side of the phone but he'd never let his brother know; little did he know though Alexei was doing he same. "Please. Come live with me. The Rockies are beautiful, you'd love it."

"That's a place for a wolf, Maks, not me."

"You can still live here-"

"I can't leave her. It hurts too much."

Maksim was biting back sobs. "I love you, brother."

"I love you too." Alexei's head was buried between his knees. "Take care of yourself."

"You too."

And that was it.

Brother to brother. That was all they had to say, because they both knew deep down they were feeling the same things yet neither wanted to acknowledge it.

And as silence engulfed the mansion once again, with it came the cold fingers of a loneliness so deep Alexei could feel it in his bones. It made them ache as it's sinister fingers coiled around him and made him feel as if he was drowning. Drowning in his own tears and misery. He hated it, hated this weakness. It was a feeling he'd come to despise with every fiber of his being; it made him feel these human feelings that'd he'd never felt before and he hated it.

Although he knew he never could, and that everything that had happened was his fault, deep down he wanted to hate Grey. He wanted to blame this all on her because if she had never come here, he wouldn't be a human. If she had never found him in the trees that day, he'd still have a brother. If she never looked at him with those goddamn eyes, he'd still have a beast. And to him, being a beast was better than being a lonely human with no family or someone to love.

But he couldn't blame Grey, no matter how hard he tried. No matter how much alcohol filled his veins. No matter how much he cursed her name and trashed her old room. No matter how much he cried. He couldn't blame her. He couldn't even blame Petra. He couldn't blame anyone but his own self, because everything that happened that day was his fault. And he could still hear Petra's voice reminding him in his head, her voice driving him to insanity.

{Y'all had me laughing and crying reading the comments on the last chapter 😂😭😭
Before y'all freak out on me I know. . . I'm going to add another chapter after this as like a Q/A if yall want so if y'all have any questions/comments over literally anything at all leave them on this little authors note and i will answer them in the next chapter.
all my love, M xx}