A wound to heal
~
Accalia
~
To Accalia's disbelief, Lycus kept to his word and had his brother lead the way to where Cadence was.
In all honestly, she was more surprised she wasn't being led to her grave.
Accalia inspected Gabriel's rigid and taunt presence. He glanced over his stiff shoulders every few seconds to ensure the hunter was struck trailing behind him and not formulating another escape plan.
Accalia's heart quickened every time he did so, sweat matting her forehead at the unwanted attention. That's what caused her to leave her gaze to the ground and realise Gabriel hated being in her presence as much as she did.
But when he opened a door and lead them into a cool room, his existence disappeared like a ghost.
Accalia almost dashed to the bed Cadence laid upon, but feeling eyes on her, she tattled over and watched her peaceful looking cousin. However, her cousin still had that harsh look on her face, even while she slept.
Accalia almost smiled at that but stopped when she reminded herself who was in this room other than them.
"Can't you go?" Accalia almost spat but kept her voice levelled and even. But she couldn't contain that anger when she watched him from the corner of the room, looking like a shadow.
Gabriel's lip twitched, but he gave a nod, leaving the room and closing the door behind them.
Accalia breathed a sigh of relief as she slumped into a chair beside the bed, craning her arms onto the mattress as she gauged her cousin's appearance.
Cadence's dark olive skin had lost its colour, revealing that lifelessness Accalia believed had become of her back in the car wreck. The paleness of her lips was cracked with dry blood, a plaster was aided to the corner of her head but even then, you could see dots of crimson.
"This should be me, Cadence," Accalia muttered, caressing her cousin's hand with gentle strokes. She would hate that if was she wakeful and energetic. Cadence wasn't fond of human contact unless it was to punch someone. "Should be me."
Accalia was raised in a world where hunters are seen as the bringers of justice and honour, their intentions pure and hopeful just as the shade white. The colour is achromatic, without hue and is the lightest of all colours.
Lycans are spoiled and defiled, emitting nothing but a threat that must be eliminated, never befriended, allied or connected to. They depicted the shades of blackness in this world where they are absent of light, hidden from the world but no less, filled with power and authority.
It was this extremist of thinking where Accalia wanted nothing but a middle ground to stand on. A grey area. Not where black and white is the foundation of one's life, shaping Accalia into having to deem herself as one thing or nothing at all.
And it seemed Accalia was at a loss in greyness, being the intermediate colour between black and white. It made her feel balanced for once in her life although she felt more out of touch and out of control than ever before. She was in the middle of two worlds, living between the extremes of black and white, hunter and Lycan now.
The door knocked and in walked three figures.
Accalia froze, eyes narrowing and scanned each individual intensely. She supposed she could breathe a little better with Lycus not being among the three, but there was his brother and two other females.
"Accalia," Gabriel said softly and it made her cringe, not liking the kindness coating his tone. "This is the healer, she's just checking up on your cousin and you as well."
He gestured to a pink-haired and tiny she-wolf that looked nothing short of disgusted by this situation.
Accalia thought the same thing. Who would've thought the Larren hunters would allow a werewolf to tend to their wounds? Not in a million years, Accalia thought.
The healer ambled on over and inspected Cadence with procession, eyes narrowing into slits.
The healer checked her temperature, dabbed any wounds and plastered them. She also injected her with a fluid.
"What is that?" Accalia snapped darkly.
The healer sighed and looked back to the Alpha, trying not to growl at the huntress that hadn't left Cadence's side, making it more difficult to do her job.
"It's just a healing remedy, Accalia. It will speed up any pain and wounds she's endured." Gabriel explained to her.
Accalia clenched her teeth together as she mulled over his words, deeming a lie to be within that sentence.
Cadence wouldn't like that, she'd rather heal naturally, painfully and without any hand of the supernatural being involved.
The healer made her way to Accalia who kicked the chair back, getting to her feet with an immediate wide stance.
Everyone shifted, the energy growing more daunting and malevolent as Accalia fought the urge to look for an object that could mask itself as a weapon.
She was in unknown territory with lycans she's only ever read about, no way in hell was she letting them slip past the cracks just because Gabriel sounded sincere.
"She's just going to check up on you, Accalia," Gabriel got closer now and so did the women standing by him.
Accalia snarled, "I don't need anything from any of you. Once Cadence is fine, we're leaving."
And you can pass that on to Lycus, Accalia brooded darkly.
Gabriel shot the healer a warning look and she gave a slow nod, retreating to the door before leaving.
"Is the healer going to tell anyone there are two hunters here?" Accalia asked bitterly, putting the chair back on its legs and sitting back down. She was too drained to stand any longer. She didn't want to pass out and leave her and Cadence even more vulnerable.
"She won't, Lycus has already warned her and she would know better," Gabriel explained and passed a glance to the women next to him.
Accalia pointed at her, curious as to who she was and if she posed any form of a threat. She couldn't help but think like that. She had no choice but to right now. "Who's this?"
She was half Gabriel's size which was saying something. Brown-skinned, curly hair and a pair of moss green eyes. Quite pretty.
"This is my mate, Ni—"
The woman took a step forward, etching closer to the bed as a sweet grin swept across her lips. "I'm Nina, you must be Accalia, the hunter — how is your hair that long? It's really pretty! You must take proper care of—"
"Angel, please," Gabriel tutted, pulling her into his side and trying to make her shut up. It didn't work, she continued to ramble.
"I'm sorry about your cousin. By the way, Lycus's car has roadkill all over it from hitting the deer. It completely splattered the front of his car—"
"Nina, shut up," Gabriel mumbled, but she only pinched his cheek and got out of his hold, face beaming.
So strange and peculiar for a lycan to willingly give their time to a hunter. Accalia thought this creature was nothing but a weirdo. How can she willingly converse with her? Like it was nothing like they weren't natural born enemies? Insanity.
"Would you like some water?" Nina questioned gently and it almost knocked the air out of Accalia's lungs.
"I'm— I'm fine—"
"I'll get you some water."
Nina dashed to the corner of the room where a table with a jug of water and two glasses sat.
She made her way over to Accalia with a glass in her hand and the hunter immediately grew tense in her seat. She's never been this close to a lycan in a situation such as this. For all she knew, this Nina girl could smash the glass of water over her head.
But she merely placed it by Accalia's boots and steered back to her mate.
A sufferable and tolerable halo shrouded around them in silence and Accalia picked up the glass to bring it to her lips.
She had winced and cringed, but the salivating sensation of water creeping down her throat was elating.
She needed that.
And a shower, a long and hot shower. Accalia smelt rancid; pungent and metallic.
How these lycans could stand her stench, her humanness and lineage baffled her to the core.
"Thank you," Accalia said stiffly and placed the glass back down to the floor, wiping her mouth. There's no harm in having manners with the enemy, is there?
"So you're a Larren hunter?" Nina questioned, curiosity filling her green gaze. "They're so infamous."
"The ones I knew," Accalia said softly, suppressing the memories of her loved ones that wanted to resurface.
Accalia and Cadence weren't at their elders level, to be at that extent, you'd have to be dead. And by death, you'd have to die with a sword in your hands. They weren't at that level yet, but have come close to it. Cadence more than Accalia.
"So the Alpha told you about me, huh?"Accalia asked and referred to Lycus, looking to the floor to shield her face that immediately dropped.
It was odd to speak of him in conversation or any Alpha that matter if didn't have something to do with learning about them. Step one in being a hunter, know your enemy as you know yourself.
"He told me about you and then his two soldiers informed us on how you both got away. He tracked you down, pulled the both of you from the car wreck and brought you here, to his home. He told me who you were and it explained how odd he had been acting the entire day. He didn't want anyone around the pack to know he found his mate." Gabriel explained to Accalia who listened intently.
She closed her eyes before saying anything. She wanted to bite out a remark, but all she did was recoiled into the chair, thinking on how Gabriel spoke of mates; so nonchalantly and bristly. A very normal matter for lycans.
Well, it is for them, the idea of finding their mate centred their world. It was the ultimate gift to be bestowed onto a lycan and werewolf.
An idea Accalia struggled to gather she was now forcefully a part of.
Accalia quickly found herself trying to change the subject, "The both of you don't seem bothered being in the presence—"
"Did you endure that bruise on your cheek from the accident?" Gabriel cut her off icily.
He observed Accalia's battered face, knowing that would bring her immense discomfort but couldn't relate to it in any way.
She looked wrecked. Cheek swelled, bright with colour and the corner of her lip split and dry with dark blood.
Accalia brushed the pad of her fingers across her cheek and flinched. Lacing her hands on top of each other she debated whether to answer this lycan's question.
She was just manhandled and nearly marked by his brother, who's to say he won't inflict the same amount of pain?
Accalia sat up, shoulders squaring. If any other lycan tried anything else, she could only condemn silver and war onto them.
"My dad hit me in the face before the car accident."
Nina gasped and Gabriel looked expressionless. Good, Accalia didn't what to know what was going on in that head of his.
"Does Lycus know this?" Gabriel questioned and avoided her face, looking thoughtful.
Accalia gave him a disgruntled look. "Why should he need to know? I doubt he would care. He almost did worse tonight."
But he seemed to know she had been hit, he felt it apparently and it was all due to that damned bond.
"That is true," Gabriel didn't deny and continued, "but my brother wouldn't like someone harming his mate."
Accalia frowned, trying to wrap her head around that, but only found herself saying, "I don't think he particularly cares who harms me, even if it's him."
The silence strained between them and Accalia wiped at her eyes, trying to suppress a yawn.
"You should try and rest," Gabriel advised, lacing his hands together and surveying Nina who looked fretful.
Accalia stubbornly shook her head and peeked over to give her cousin a once over glance to see any changes. She was fine, despite the obvious and looked the same as Accalia first saw her minutes ago.
"No, she should wake up soon. Erm—you can both go though." Accalia said, feeling that awkwardness creep up on her and having no idea how to squash it.
Gabriel nodded firmly, placing a hand across his mate's waist and went to the door, stepping lightly.
Once he grabbed the doorknob, a hitch of breath welcomed the room and they spun around, sensing another presence.
Accalia's face lit up for the first time in a very long time and beamed with amazement as she lounged over to see Cadence's eyes willing themselves open.
Her gaze swivelled, blurry and hazy with blackness until they found Accalia's.
Everything slowly sewed itself together as her dumbfounded face drew into focus, gathering they were in somewhere unfamiliar to them.
"Acc—Accalia," Cadence croaked out hoarsely, "I thrashed the car, didn't I? And now we're in heaven or hell, I think I deserve to be in hell ..." the young girl trailed off, face swaying and distancing from her cousin.
She then focused on something else, mouth falling open. "I'm definitely in hell." Her dark eyes were set on the Fenris couple, Gabriel and Nina who stood pin-straight and taunt.
Accalia brushed Cadence's hair out of her face, withholding a grin. "Cadence, you're fine — all things considering. And you're not in hell, not yet anyway."
Cadence cracked a smile and went to sit up, feeling cocky at the moment. "Then why am I surrounded by mutts? They could be hellhounds for all I know, guarding the gates of hell." Cadence said and sat up against the headboard, narrowing her sights on them.
Gabriel growled as did Nina, deep and resonating growls that only spoke of offence and aggression. It's disrespectful to refer to a lycan and werewolf as mutt.
Accalia lightly shook Cadence and gave her a harsh glare.
"What?" Cadence snapped.
"This Gabriel Fenris and his mate, Nina Fenris, Cadence," It sounded all too formal on Accalia's lips but she had to bend her wording that way.
Cadence has just disrespected them without care and seeing as they were in a territory where heads end on a stick, they had to watch their footing.
Cadence's eyes squinted, a wryly smile swaying her lips and it became evident, she wasn't exactly in a conscious state at the moment. "I gathered that," she bent low to Accalia's ear, "Why do you think I called them mutts?"
All perhaps all too conscious and self-aware.
"Cadence," Accalia growled out and clutched her arm, "Gabriel took me to see you and has been ... kind. Nina has been friendly as well."
She couldn't believe what she just said.
Cadence looked to the pair and then to Accalia. "If you were held at gunpoint I still wouldn't believe that."
"I think it's best Nina and I retire for the night. Werewolves are hanging about, neither of you should do anything reckless."
And with that, they left and closed the door behind them.
"Quick!" Cadence yowled and tossed the blanket off her, swinging her long legs off the bed. "We'll take our chances like last time, we'll—"
She rose to her feet and then her knees buckled, taking her to the floor.
Accalia stifled a laugh before tucking her arms under Cadence's biceps and forcing her up with all the strength she had.
Cadence immediately fell back onto the bed and threw the blanket over her body, stifling a wince. "So I'm out of the business for the next few hours, we'll try again tomorrow."
It just reached nightfall, the sun disappearing behind the mass of trees that left strays of pretty sunset colours. But the unwelcoming obscurity of the darkened skies gave an eerie notion for Accalia and that was merely because the night had something the day didn't.
Even more so now with the territory she was in.
"I'm sorry about all of this, Cadence, this is all my fault."
Cadence brows knitted together and she remained impassive to her cousin's choice of words.
"I remember what happened, just not the whole car thing. But Lycus was being relentless, Accalia and truthfully, I was paying too much attention to you because you were freaking out. I should've paid closer attention to the road." Cadence said on a sigh and scrunched her face up, observing the room she lay in.
"Hmm, so he brought us back here, huh? How marvellous..." Cadence said sarcastically.
Accalia laced her hands together nervously and contemplated her next words, knowing Cadence should be in the know with everything that has gone on whilst she hasn't been awake.
"Well, Lycus and I had a fight. He almost marked me."
Cadence's mouth fell open and she almost attempted to get up but failed. "And he's still alive?"
"Only because I escaped and then run into Gabriel, that's how we met," Accalia explained.
Cadence only looked stunned, questions and questions toppling from her mouth. "And—I—How?"
"I haven't seen Lycus since, so I don't know what he's doing because Gabriel told him to go. He basically protected me."
"A Lycan?" Cadence demanded.
"Yes, a Lycan, Cadence."
It shook Accalia to the core at first as well. It still does.
"We're going to try and escape again, right?" Cadence whispered, eyes squinting as she peered at Accalia rather pensively as though she could read every emotion Accalia was currently experiencing.
Accalia swallowed, fiddling with her fingers as she tried to work her way around that question in the spirals of her mind.
"Cadence," Accalia rasped out, the words wanting to spill suddenly being lodged in the back of her throat. "I don't think he has any intention of letting me go."
But Accalia had every intention, in every fibre of her being and soul to leave.
——
Lycus
~
Never has Lycus taken companionship with humans since he became a lycan. But now, after turning, slaughtering and finding amusement in it, his existence was founded in one human.
Accalia Larren.
He was beyond angry with her escape, thinking it could happen but not expecting it as quick as it did.
It was well thought out and precise, Lycus had thought.
And yet, he wasn't surprised. They planned this the first day they were confined here.
If only he had informed a few others of his mate, then maybe none of this would've occurred. He could've had the entire dungeons monitored and under watch, but the prospect of telling his people his mate was a hunter wasn't a matter he wanted to deal with.
And so, Lycus sat with heavy and prowling thoughts that wouldn't leave him. All circling around Accalia.
It was torture.
The effect she had on him and how oblivious she is to it. And probably for good reason.
Accalia wouldn't comprehend the impact she had on him. Even in such a short time, Lycus was already feeling the turmoil and crippling emotion of longing for a person you shouldn't have.
And in a matter of hours, he almost lost and had her tonight.
Losing her when it came to the car incident.
He was impulsive, more impulsive than usual. Once Lycus caught her scent, he set off in his car and was on the highway in a matter of minutes.
Once you find your mate, for a lycan, your senses are in overdrive. His senses that could smell things from a great distance only attached themselves to Accalia, adapting and clinging onto her.
And he didn't slow down until her smell drifted into the town she drove through.
It was making him on edge, almost finding it difficult to be away from her even though she didn't even want to be in the same room as him.
When Accalia and Cadence made it back on the highway, Lycus found himself waiting for them.
All Lycus could feel was fury and rage through him, piercing into his bones and threatening a bone-breaking transformation. He wanted to turn.
And he almost did when he saw the car flips off its wheels to not hit the animal. Everything blurred, his movements phased together as if he felt out of touch with himself. He pulled the girls out of the wreckage, collected their belongings and ditched the car, leaving it on the side of the road.
He was glad he hit the deer now, its insides tainting the front of his car and the remains still rotting. He had yet to clean it as he's had other matters to deal with.
Then hours passed by, slower than the phases of the moon when Lycus's mate awoke from her slumber.
He almost had Accalia by marking her. How close he was from doing it, on the verge and hinge of committing it. But now he was left craving it.
He wanted his lips to craze across her skin, leaving a streak of heat to burn afterwards and fangs to claim her as his own. Only his.
"I sense you have found your mate," a mystical voice announced.
The oracle by the name of Vaela gazed upon Lycus with keen interest, her silver eyes shining. Her dreads were weaved with flowers and dark skin was arrayed in cryptic tattoos that Lycus couldn't differentiate.
She looked eminent and otherworldly.
Misunderstood beings oracles are. They can harness the moon's power to gain predictions, reasonings and information but that's just the foundation of their abilities.
The oracle jutted her chin, regarding Lycus. Her eyes glistened against the lit candle. Wax dripped onto the table, the burning smell enveloping them as ash submerged the cooped room.
Lycus gaze fell to the floor but nodded, confirming it even though his head didn't want to.
"She's a hunter," Lycus affirmed. A tempting and fierce huntress that he wanted to mark and make his.
But there was no need for that. From the earth to the sky, Accalia was his whether she liked it or not. Fate deemed it be the case once they first met, and therefore, there was no fighting fate without karma striking down on them both.
The beast, the lycan wanted her ever since his black eyes locked eyes on her. There was no denying or fighting it.
However, Lycus, the side of himself with human skin and bones of a man battled a bloody battle with the curse streaming through his blood. Whilst the beast craved Accalia, willing to ignite a war to have her by his side like she needs to be, the shape of a man by the name of Lycus Fenris struggled with this.
He wanted her gone as much as she wanted to leave.
"Alpha, if there's one thing I can gather from your union with Accalia is only chaos will enter your life. Your past returns, whilst your future lies in the balance of life and death." Vaela recited as a telling of misfortunes entered her mind and would only unravel as time went on.