What Other People Say
By: Sam Fischer & Demi Lovato
&
Feels
By: WATTS & Khalid
I woke on a cold stone slab, my wrists and ankles strapped down, the thick leather cutting ruefully into my naked skin. The cloying darkness weighed me down, and the heart-wrenching screams of the occupants in the cells next to mine left little to wonder where I was.
I bucked and fought hard against the restraints, adding my own scream to the mix when they refused to give. Looking up, there was no ceiling. I could see every breathtaking part of the sky, which was filled with hues of pink and purple as the clouds drifted lazily by through the darkness. The only thing keeping me from dozing off myself was the fact that here, the sky is permanently black. I squeezed my eyes closed and cried out, begging whoever was listening for mercy, for death.
A voice laughed back at me, cruel and deep. "Your wish has already been granted."
His voice was something else.....something wild, untamable. It was like a blast of warm air, like you'd lit a match and were unprepared for the roar of the fire. Yet at the same time it was akin to the spray of the sea, the wildness of waves when at times can lap so gently against the shore.
My body trembled and my heart raced. I did not look, not knowing if I could hear the weight of what I saw.
"Look at me, child." He prodded, that lovely voice caressing my soul in places I did not know were reachable. I did as he said, and gasped.
He was everything, the sky, the sea, the wind. He was the breath in our lungs and the blood in our veins. He was so ethereal that I didn't think there were words for it. Broad and strong shoulders, features so finely crafted that they were unable to be peered upon for long periods of time. He was tall, but what made him even taller were the eight foot tall gorgeous wings of gunmetal silver, half-unfurled behind him. They tapered off to white at the ends of each wing tip, with little spots in between. I thought it interesting how they were not traditionally black, or white, but something mixed.
Like ash landing onto freshly fallen snow.
He smiled so beautifully it ached, while in his eyes a monster came out to play.
And then I knew, I truly was dancing with the devil.
🖤
The last of winter was blissfully cool on my sweat dampened skin, with the breeze whipping my hair back from my face and the nearby tree branches threatening to dislodge me from my hiding spot, I had it made. If you discounted the fact that I was somewhat mateless, a failure as an alpha, a supernatural, and I had absolutely no idea what to do or where to start when it comes to bringing Elizabeth's mother down. I thought we had more time to figure this out, more time for me to learn. Not a lot obviously, but anything would've been better than this clusterfuck of a never-ending doomsday boulder hurling towards my face. I had no strategy, no way to understand what it meant to be skilled at the art of war. Sure I could snarl and bite and act like I have a clue as to what I'm doing but honestly I don't know shit.
The dream played over and over inside my head, and I could not escape it, or my melancholy thoughts. So here I am, out in the middle of nowhere, hoping to somehow lure out my mother to tell her that her crazy twin sister is dead.
"She may not be in the district anymore." Camille's warning rebounded annoyingly around in my skull.
I glared at the back of her head from where she climbed a tree three trees down from me, the large branch above her swaying slightly as she gracefully swung onto it.
"I can see that, you know." She turned and "one eye-browed" me and I chose to ignore it, surveying the area we surrounded. I breathed in the smell of damn soil and wet leaves, my chest rumbling with a deep purr of satisfaction. My wolf pushed, wanting out, and so I leapt down from my tree, somersaulting off of the limb with ease and landing deftly on my feet. Camille's exasperated sign and annoyed grumbles following me down.
"I just climbed that tree." She whined, a rather comical thing to see on a creature that has lived over five hundred years.
I shot her a look. "She's close. She wouldn't leave me."
"Suit yourself." Camille harrumphed, falling silent when I let my wolf magic free. The change rippled over me like the first fall of a leaf on a still lake, tediously and yet methodical. My consciousness fled at the pain of it, instead desperately trying to search every inch of my mind for Elizabeth and I's bond. I didn't understand how it was just.....gone, and so I refused to believe that it was. Though the pain gripped me tighter every day, and I feared the day it would break me entirely.
A breeze swept through my fur when I finally opened my eyes, settling into my skin with hardened ease. My eyesight gleamed in the soft light of early day, and as I stood atop the valley of rock that had been in front of us, I could see for miles longer than I ever knew. My paws felt heavier when they touched the ground, my fur felt thicker, more luscious. I turned my head to look at Camille, and the starstruck look on her face pleased my self-centered wolf counterpart. That bitch loves being the center of attention.
I shook my head and huffed, climbing down the rock-face towards her. She backed up when I neared, almost subconsciously, and for a moment a flash of fear crossed her eyes. So I stopped when I was a few feet away, and realized with slight surprise that my head was nearly level with hers.
I had grown exponentially.
"Well this is awkward. Hope you're into big girls."
My joke cracked the tension in the air and she laughed, sudden and loud. I wrinkled my nose up in a wolfish smile, showing teeth, and she paused, uncertain.
"I'm smiling Camille, relax. My wolf adores you and considers you pack. Neither her nor I mean you harm." I explained, my voice soft.
My wolf agreed with me and whined, flattening our ears to show our distress at the thought of her afraid of us. However, I could imagine her hesitation at living life as an immortal being yet coming face to face with the one thing that was created specifically to kill you.
She nodded and let out a breath, taking a tentative step forward, her hand outstretched. My wolf pushed our nose into her hand and licked her fingers, and a second later both her palms cradled our head. I allowed her to run her fingers through my fur for a moment.
"The first time I saw a pack, I was traveling with my mother. It was the coldest part of the world, more than any place I had ever been to. I remember the white wolves moving like ghosts through the forest, their blue eyes eerily human from where they looked out from their faces. I knew they weren't wild wolves, but shapeshifters, wolf-born."
She slid her gaze to mine, sorrow in the depths of her eyes. I stilled and pulled away from her reach, listening intently when she spoke again. "My mother destroyed them while her guards forced me to watch, all except a little brown haired girl and her mother."
Her lips twitched faintly, as if remembering something amusing. "However, that was also the first time I met your mother."
A twig snapped in the forest and I whipped around protectively, the fur across the tops of my shoulders and down my back rising threateningly. Putting myself in front of her, I backed into Camille and planted my feet, my body vibrating with snarls. Her power swept through my mind, wrapping me in a cocoon of warmth, like a hug. It calmed me and helped me to see past the wolf's insatiable need protect the pack.
"You were right," Camille whispered, her hand resting on my flank when we turned. "She wouldn't leave you."
Raynia appeared much like a ghost, her red vampire eyes taking me in, narrowing on Camille's hand, a threatening hiss escaping her mouth. Rolling her eyes at the display of possessiveness, she removed her hand. I shook my fur and trotted to my mother, feeling somewhat apprehensive when the full force of her attention rested on me. It had been so long since I'd seen her, I had no idea of where she'd been or what she'd been through. Her hair was a wild mess around her head and most of her clothing was ripped and torn and very bloody.
"Mamă, calm, aduc știri." I tried to calm her down, licking her chin with a whine.
"Vee is dead, I know." I blinked, shocked, and she waved me off. "My sister always craved power above all else. I warned her one day that it would bite back, and she didn't listen. It was only a matter of time before someone removed her head."
My memory flashed back to Vienna's body, her head twisted free from her neck, and my mood soured into anger. I knew she deserved to have suffered for the things she'd done, but I did not approve of the way she was talked about in death. Narrowing my eyes, my wolf and I scrutinized her closely. Something was different about her, she was harsher, yet dismissive, leading me to believe she was having a harder time with Vienna's death than she wanted to admit.
"We don't have time for this." There was an urgency in her voice that had not been there a moment ago, a desperation as she spoke to me, shocking me into oblivion with her request.
"Azalea, I need you to do something for me, and you're not going to like it." She warned, lips pursed. I lowered my head and sniffed, wary.
"There is a great deal of things I dislike doing these days." I growled. "What is it?"
"Vienna left me something....a piece of information that is extremely valuable and also equally as dangerous should it fall into the wrong hands." She took a deep breath, centering her gaze onto mine.
"You are aware that your blood cures vampirism, are you not?" I nodded, sitting back on my haunches, bracing myself for whatever crazy plan she had cooked up.
"Yes, I am aware, although I don't see what good this information is as I have not discovered a way to keep my victims alive after I bite them." She smiled, sinister and cold, the expression sent a shiver down my spine.
"That, my love, is because they were all born vampires. A born vampire, should you take away what makes them who and what they are, will cease to exist. However, a made vampire," she trailed off, watching me intently.
It took me a fat second to understand what she was saying, the full impact of it too much for my mind to comprehend at the moment.
"Are........are you saying that Vienna actually found a way for my bite to cure vampires without killing them?"
"Yes, but not just vampires." She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a worn leather bound book. "Vienna left me this, her grimoire. Only I can't read it. It's a language unknown to me, runic almost." Her forehead creased in frustration. Behind me, Camille gasped, stepping forward to explain.
Her fine features were wonderstruck as she surveyed the cover and the intricate symbols burned into the leather. "A witches grimoire is sacred and you almost never find them. They usually die with their witch. It took a great deal of self-sacrifice for her to leave this with you. May I?" She held out her hand for the book.
She handed it over. Camille opened the book, her watchful gaze scanning the pages delicately.
"Can you read it?" I leaned forward to sniff it and sneezed, dust coating the inside of my nose. I shook my head with a perturbed huff.
She just looked at me, the ring around her pupil brightening. "Of course."
She returned her attention to the book, flipping through the pages before coming to a stop on one. Her face showed a mirage of emotions before settling on what looked like shock and a little bit of anger. She snapped the cover closed and sucked in a deep breath before handing it back.
"Well, what did it say?" I demanded, my tail whipping back forth impatiently.
"I'm not going to do it." She growled, glaring at my mother and bypassing my question. "I'll not risk the repercussions should something go wrong, and if you cared for her at all, you would not ask it."
White hair whipped through the air as she stalked forward towards Camille, and for half a second I almost stepped back, struck by the ferocity on her face.
"Fortunately, it's not about you." She spat, baring her fangs. "My daughter will make the decision for herself. I will not hide this from her. Tell her what it says, witch."
I snarled, loudly, cutting them off. I did not appreciate them talking as if I am not here. "You will speak to me, not around me." My wolf commanded, alpha power leaking from my body. "I am not a pup anymore and I will not be treated as such, not in my own kingdom."
Their heads immediately lowered in submission, and I stood when Camille approached me, her jaw clenched in barely restrained anger. "What your mother wishes for you to do could not only kill her, but you as well. It takes an enormous amount of power to bring life to what is dead. You would be reshaping her very cells, her body itself, in an attempt to restore her to what she once was."
"What the fuck are you talking about?!" I lifted my lip in a show of teeth.
"Azalea." Raynia chided half-heartedly, stepping forward until we were face to face. A slight smile graced her ageless features, a face so identical to mine when in human form.
"How you've grown." She murmured to herself, brushing her fingers through the thick fur surrounding my neck. I leaned into her touch, momentarily forgetting the seriousness of the moment.
Then she pulled back, the deep pain in her eyes speaking volumes. "I am no use to you this way. I am a burden, a monster, a threat to the wolves. What Camille is trying to avoid saying," she shot the witch a look. "Is that in the grimoire is a spell, a spell that once cast will unlock the full potential of your blood. Once cast, you would be able to control who lives and who dies."
She sucked in a breath, her next words hitting me like a sucker punch to the chest. "If successful, you would be able to turn me back into my former self. I'd be a wolf, once more."
I didn't hesitate, looking at Camille, who looked back at me pleadingly.
"Please don't make me do this. The risk far outweighs the gain. Elizabeth would be furious." My heart clenched at the sound of my mate's name, and my wolf growled, turning our attention back to our mother. She wasn't wrong, Elizabeth would be furious.
Kore even more so.
But then again, was there ever a time my mates weren't furious with me? I turned away, my heart aching. I was so very tired in that moment. Once again, the fate of not only thousands rested in my hands, but now my mother's fate has been added in as well. The wind rushed through my fur, winding around my body in a soothing caress.
"Leave me." I needed to think, and I couldn't do that with the both of them standing there staring at me. So they left me to my thoughts, and it was almost worse, because I truly had no idea what to do. I could only hope that the answer would come to me soon, because our time here, in safety, was falling short.
Enjoy ;) Kore and Ravenna's chapter is next 😘 stay tuned.
With love, K ❤️