Each step ahead physically, was one step back emotionally.
Someone was pulling me back.
A divine, powerful and enchanting light.
I could see my long shadow on the way ahead.
Whoever it was, wanted to follow me to the borders.
It did.
When I drove out of the space in the jungle, it heard Misty's scream just like I did.
It haunted both of us through the journey.
We were mourning over this defeat. Lycans' didn't win. The border did.
The forest of densely growing pine and spruce continued.
Darkness followed and so did the rain.
The light didn't leave my back. As if it was sitting on my shoulders. I could feel this huge burden.
Eva cried. Keira slept through the path. Thomas stayed quiet. Father was lost. Probably wondering how Misty was doing what he could never.
Raising her mate's pup that wasn't her own.
While I was numb. Unable to feel the pain in my wounds, knowing I had clawed my sister's mate. Again. Another time. Same sin.
It was uncontrollable. It was hard not to hit him for how confident he looked.
It felt wrong. I was wrong. I was pathetic.
He was right on his path while I poured out my guilt by hurting him.
Misty was clever enough to understand it. I could see it in her eyes. She was concerned more for her mate, than for me. The guilt was there all over her face for trying to run away without telling her mate.
No matter how different he was. Way too different than the man of her dreams. Someone like that human boy she used to have a crush on. Someone who had been protective of her on her birthday night more than I ever could be.
I was the brother who threw his sisters to the troubles. I was the brother who would bring sorrows to them.
Yet she forgave me. How could she? How dare she? What kind of heart she owned? How soft and big it could be?
I wiped the tear before it could slide down the cheek.
Drenched and defeated, my family suffered the cold as we drove through the forest. I couldn't feel the cold.
Misty's forgiveness had just melted everything that I thought I had made of steel. No, I had no guts to face the Lycans. I did for her. No, I had not cared about my human half-sister. Her love made me do it.
How could she be concerned about my longing for my mate when I was clawing hers?
The sniffles just came out louder than I had expected.
Father had heard me. "I'll drive."
"No need."
I was furious at him.
How could he not hug her in the last moment? We all knew what she wanted. He knew what she longed for. Even her mate knew what she wished for.
"Ask your father to accept her as his daughter."
The words had made me angry. His confidence was deafening. Piercing. I couldn't breathe. As if he was someone who loved her more than us. As if he was someone who knew her more than us. As if it was a goodbye and we won't ever meet Misty again. All because he was capable of winning her heart earlier than I could come to rescue her.
I hadn't hurt him so early. I was myself getting strangled.
My hand left the staring to touch the back of my head. The rain had washed off the blood but it felt like thin scratches from the bark of the tree.
"You gave me my mate. My Goddess will gave you, yours."
It broke the angry trance. The beast took over. I felt humiliated. Hurt. Taunted.
The same Goddess that made those four Lycan monsters who wrecked the whole Rucussa. The same Goddess who was happy to separate two mates by creating the border. The same Goddess who chose Misty of all the females to be the Lycan's bride. The same Goddess who was torturing me.
My claws ripped his chest. Again and again.
Misty had screamed for his mate. We all observed the mate-bond. We all observed the concern. She remembered Eva. She remembered Leo.
The horror was there on her face.
But her mate knew the flow of nature more than me.
He didn't fight back. He slapped me with the truths. He clawed me with the facts.
"He is in love." Father's voice came low and rough through the noisy wind.
The rain had faded.
"How do you the think the heat came?" Eva's voice followed. Shaky and hoarse. "She is on the verge of falling for him crazily."
"You didn't hear the guilt in her silence when I told her that we were escaping," Thomas added, sounding numb and cold.
"It doesn't mean she didn't want to escape," reasoned Eva, sniffling softly. "We broke her spirit. We could have come earlier."
Silence followed. The divine light followed too.
The dense forest ended and began a vast ground. A little slant. The moonlight was pouring. The rain was gone.
"Doesn't matter now. Does it? He marked her. Not even her hair could cross the border. We raised her hopes. If only we could read her pupils." Thomas voice boomed around the ground. "I thought the rain was helping us. It did a favor to them. Made a fool of us. We could have smelled her scent and know about the heat."
A faint whimper cut the talks.
I glanced behind to observe Keira's sleepy face, holding pain.
Eva's hand reached for her forehead. "She is sleeping. It's aching, the wound. We should hurry. Ivan will kill me."
"Cover her forearm. Don't let the wind hit her." Father suggested immediately.
Eva did as he told only to curse in the middle. "She is bleeding," she said, fear lacing her voice.
Keira had covered her arms with a towel I had at the back of the seat. The moment Eva had checked her wound, the air brought the metallic taste of blood to my tongue.
Two different scents excluding Keira's own blood.
Father glanced at me immediately.
I gripped the steering wheel hard as the scent travelled through my nostrils and hit me right at the heart, bringing shivers down my spine.
"Get a hold of yourself!" Father growled, pulling me right when I almost felt like sliding rightwards out of the Jeep to fall on the ground.
The scent had soothed my soul yet awakened my beast.
It was my mate.
"Eva. . ." Keira sounded weak.
"Drive!" Father watched me like a hawk as I gritted my teeth, looking around while wishing for a way to stay here into the territory.
Getting clawed wasn't a plan. I could have demanded the flower anyway, blackmailing the Lycans for the brides.
My mate did it knowingly.
She couldn't leave her scent on Keira. She left her blood.
"Who clawed you? I thought, it was that youngest idiot!" Eva scolded while holding Keira properly so she won't slide ahead because of the slant ground.
I gulped when Father's eyes didn't leave my face. He knew that I was imagining myself giving up, jumping out of the Jeep and running back to find my mate. He knew that my heart was breaking. He knew that the Alpha in me was writhing in longing.
"The females had surrounded me before I found you in the jungle," Keira spoke weakly, making me clench my jaws. A tear collected at the corner of my eye as I raised the speed. "It was sudden."
"How many?" Eva asked hurriedly, while I couldn't breathe.
"Four or five."
"Enough." Thomas interrupted. "Let her rest. It didn't hurt you before during the fight. Did it?"
Everyone was occupied by the ambition of bringing Misty back.
"I didn't just get a claw mark," said Keira, making me wipe my cheek. My head hurt a little. The numbness was going away. That's what the mates do.
Their mere mention would create havoc in the heart and make you feel every extreme emotion.
"She kissed the idiot with cat eyes."
Thomas huffed and laid back on to the space.
Father removed his eyes from me when I calmed myself. I could not get crazy. I kept thinking of the courage all four of them and Ivan collected to accompany me here. For their sake and for the pack that believed in me, I stayed strong.
My mate had the courage. My sisters were fearless.
How could I even spare a second of mourning for myself? How could I even think of giving up and not cross the border when I still had a lot to do? How could let my father down who watched me getting defeated tonight and didn't give me a single glance of disgust?
Squeezing my shoulder, the big warm hand went back to his thigh. He looked back at the daughters.
"Better than stealing a smelling medieval old pant."
Eva gasped.
"Leo will love that," said Father, trying to distract everyone as I choked on a sob.
"Leo will love it. But make sure to throw it on that Declan's face." Thomas added mildly.
Eva's shakiness in the voice was gone. Keira was awake and calm, as if she had forgotten her pain.
"Misty's mate is huge. Handsome," she mumbled, making father let out a humorous hum.
I wiped my eyes, bit my trembling lips.
"Cat-eyed was a cutie." Eva said, chuckling lightly. "They all have beautiful lashes. Tall and those sharp-edged ears."
"Cutie? Handsome?" Thomas yelled in disbelief. "Wait. You could see through those bushes. I thought father had the bushiest beard in the world."
Father hummed again, asking him to confirm his words. "Now you see."
"Now, I see." Thomas chuckled, making the sisters giggle.
While I took long breathes and calmed myself. I had to face our mother. I couldn't cry in front of her, knowing the Lycans would have to give up the flower.
Thanks to Stephen's idea when Ivan phoned him about the wild flowers mentioned in the Mystics' old books.
They thought that it could heal Leo.
Aunt Ilona herself had told the Mystics that it was Lycan's cure for any claw attack.
Little did we know, we would be needing it to remove an actual Lycan's poison too.
Guess, my mate was a sinner too. Too determined to not leave any chance of sending a sign.
"Something isn't sitting well with me though." Thomas filled the air with seriousness. "Everything went smoothly until they caught us."
"Misty reached me," spoke Keira weakly. "We were able to fight off the deadliest Lycans. The Alpha borns."
"They didn't hit us with all their might," said Eva, stealing words right from my mind. "They could have killed us right on the spot."
Father turned quiet, now looking ahead as if he knew something. Of course, he didn't participate in the fights. He stayed beside Misty, giving her emotional courage. He knew what trick could work rather than throwing punches and claws.
"I had expected to get killed the moment I entered the territory," said Keira slowly. "I thought, we would easily get caught. The cat-eyed one was drunken to a point he couldn't stand. There is something definitely we didn't realise. I feel like we have been fooled or something."
"Misty real couldn't cross the border," said Thomas, finishing the doubts. "We all know they weren't lying."
"They must either being considerate that we were her family," guessed Eva, not sounding sure. "Or worse, they thought of us as mere pups and held back their exceptional strengths. You all saw her mate. He flipped the vehicle like it was a match box. That was nothing."
"They knew that Misty was trying to escape and couldn't," said father, clearing all of our doubts. "They wanted entertainment and they got it. They wanted the human pup to know that her family came to rescue her and they were letting it happen, but the fates weren't allowing it."
The vast ground narrowed down into a dense jungle again.
Deadly branches were out from the untouched trees of this uninhabited jungle.
"I. . ." Eva's sudden gasp caught our attention.
I was equally alert knowing, I wasn't the only one being able to taste dust in the air.
". . . Are we near the borders. How long have we been driving?"
The sky outside the canopy was grey of the dawn. The Sun might rise a little late.
The Moon was being notorious, not leaving so soon.
The light that was following me had disappeared way before I drove through the forest.
"I feel presence," said Thomas quietly, sounding calm and scared.
Of course, the pure-hearted would see the invisible.
"Many, father. Many."
"Do not meet eyes," said Father, telling Eva to hold the little one's hand. "It's a graveyard. Just that the bodies are dust flying through the air. Now, you know why Lycans don't make home here."
I slowed down a little, not wanting to disturb any soul that was lingering around. Even if my mind wouldn't believe, my heart respected the sacrifice they all gave.
Lycans were right at their decision of not touching these forests. They stayed far away and made homes in the mountains. Better than being scared all the time of catching any of them getting attracted by a mate on the other side of the border.
Who knew if they were scared of even entering these jungles and find these souls?
My mate really did have the guts to be here all the way. Did I even deserve this much efforts?
What if these souls weren't reaching the Moon? That would be tragic on a large scale.
The border wasn't hauntingly haunted.
"Maybe that's why they didn't follow us." Eva mumbled. "Or maybe, some of them do. They knew that Misty was escaping way before they were meant to. There is something we didn't realise or don't know."
"Or maybe, they wanted us to suffer the whole journey and understand how long the distance is." Keira guessed quietly. "I can't believe Misty's mate risked his life and came all the way to the borders to smell her scent and confirm the bond. It wasn't just once."
"Our Luna has the guts too." Father mumbled, giving me a humorous teasing glance.
I pretended to be numb. Emotion-proof.
The border had sucked lives. So many precious lives.
Even the thought of it would rip my heart, send shivers to whole of my body.
My mate couldn't be one of them. No, she won't be. She was a fighter. She was a lover. She won't become the dust. I won't let her.
I drove faster, carefully through the prickly uneven rows of jungle.
"Ivan must have reached the pack," said Eva, probably soothing Keira who might have start feeling the pain again. "We are close to the border."
Thomas was fast asleep in the back, rolling from left to right in the space.
"Is he getting possessed or something?" Eva joked while I could see the light at the end of this row of trees, far away.
"The souls can't cross the border. They would have to think before touching the descendants of the man who prayed for this border in the first place." Father answered while glancing at me.
"The Lycans might have to give a flower from their valley to you. But they are a step ahead. They let us have our ways for the sake of Misty's realisation of the fates. It is obvious. They are more than what they showed us back there."
"Why didn't you hug her then?" I asked, looking at him and back at the front. "If you knew that it would be the last time. You don't even hate her that much. You knew that the mate was getting angry. You knew that he is going to mark her. We all could see it coming. Even then. . . You didn't. You are egoistic."
Father didn't meet my eyes, masking the concern on his face with a sincere look.
"I am optimistic. So should be you."
______
"What do you think?"
Please vote and comment.
__
I am kind of very late. But. . .
Happy Ramadan to all my Muslim readers.
Happy Navratri to my Hindu ones.
I hope, the rest of you are celebrating other festivals. Let me know about them. I would love to explore. Even if there isn't any, it's not like we need a special occasion to pray and thank God.
Please be safe, stay at home and wear masks.
Eat good. Read. Listen to Music. Work hard but not worry too much. Happy. Happy. Stay happy.
I swear, I start feeling happier and good things happen whenever I update. It's like all your thanks and blessings pour and make effect immediately.
I will try to update sooner this time. Coz like I told you earlier, a little bit of interesting thing is coming up in next chapters. It's not something to be hyped about. But I am sure, it will be insightful.
And thanks for the wait. That just means a lot. You take care of me. You all really do. Sending you lots of love.
Until next update,
Nikki <3