* * *
Jackson had been stop on account of three times to stop the Alpha's rampage, and while he did put the decent reasoning of losing potential evidence, Enzo kept him contained.
But it hurt, the tension was something all the wolves felt and Rebekah was sure Sage could pick up on this as well. Even if they were far away.
The satellite phone ended up being useless, so instead, she tried to due with the situation at hand and attempt to sort through the symbols on the wall.
While the bodies could be either wolf, witch, or human. The ceremony was universal.
Nor did Rebekah want to add to the stress of the Alpha, and instead sat outside on the side steps trying to decipher the many vague symbols.
It was easier to figure out the ruins, but it wasn't a full word. Not one that she knew at least, but she moved on to the Alchemy symbols. Only pushing the notion that there were witches among the prisoners in this mountain and tunnel.
The symbols were all negative—
Death.
Life.
Silver.
Water.
Crucible.
Aether.
Triple Goddess
Spirits.
Creation.
To purify.
They didn't make any sense, and a Triquetra meant a multitude of things dependent on the expression. Which only made her cave in on the idea that this was a younger and inexperienced witch.
These Alchemy symbols could never form a sentence or formula, and sure they offered the same concept, but in the end, Rebekah had dropped her notebook and pen down onto the floor in a fit of anger.
Pulling up her knees did she continue to look over the mountain, praying on her own blessing and for her muse to boost her energy.
"Love?" She responded by squeezing her eyes further shut and hoping that her silence would let him know she wasn't in the mood to talk. However, he proceeded to kneel down beside her and offer a small granola bar.
"You didn't eat much this morning—"
"I'm fine. I'm mediating Enz, leave me be." The vampire sighed and shook his head, joining her on the step with a chuckle.
"Yeah? Even I know you won't get far with the silver in this mountain...Or with what we just uncovered."
"Well, if you know so damn much why don't you tell me what the hell this could mean!" She said, shoving the book into his hands.
He looked at her with parted lips, the soulless male wasn't used to his mate being so brutally aggravated, especially towards him. So he tucked the book under his arm and pulled her closer into his embrace. "Shh...It's alright my sweet. Relax. Take a moment to steady that beating heart of yours. I don't like it when it's pounding." She settled in his hold without much struggle and so he wrapped his arms further around her figure, hoping that the familiar coolness of his hands would offer the help she needed.
"You're so precious to me, my love. Don't think this has to be solved today. We're staying the night, and you'll be warm enough that there's no excuse to sleep with the wolves." A small smile appeared on her face, causing him to grin as well. "Oh, my excuse? Listen here—"
"Relax. I'm yours tonight." He claimed with a kiss to her temple before reaching for her notebook, careful not to look at any private projects.
He trusted his mate just as she trusted him in his doings.
"It doesn't make any sense, it's all gibberish sentences—It's not a formula so they shouldn't have used Alchemy symbols."
"Well that's what you're missing out then, look—'Silver,' obvious. 'Death,' again that's obvious...Alright, 'Crucible' could be a few things, we're involving demons now, aren't we?" Rebekah nodded, curling further into his arm and urging him to continue.
"Alright here...' silver water,' could be the way that it was given—'Life' could just be the phrase to tie it with it being taken away." Rebekah sighed and shook her head.
"This is where I'm stuck, this has hundreds of meanings and isn't an alchemy symbol. So why is it there?" Enzo took a closer look at the design and smiled.
"'Soulmate'. Isn't that it? The unity of two souls..." Enzo said, pointing to the bottom points of the triquetra before gesturing to the top, "...Then the goddess who gifted it?" Rebekah's jaw dropped at the possibility, but it made perfect sense!
"Alpha Hayes claimed that it felt like Willow died through the bond, that's what they were doing here! They were separating mate bonds!" She babbled, hurrying to her feet and barging into the room where the wolves were, or the ones who were taking advantage of the fully stocked pantry.
"What happens when a wolf loses their mate?!" The sore topic had caught everyone by surprise and stilled their next bite.
"Uh—"
"What happens to a wolf when they lose a mate?" She repeated, and Aurora settled Jackson from making a joke or upsetting anyone. "Our wolves lose their sense of purpose, we could fall into a depression and the urge to walk the moon to them is at its strongest. There aren't many wolves who could survive it for very long." Rebekah turned to Enzo and nodded.
"That's why Alpha Hayes is still able and strong, because deep down it's fake. The break is fake." The others looked at her in confusion and Enzo sucked in a breath.
"Deciphering the symbols in the cells, Rebekah thinks that the former Alpha was destroying a wolf's mate bond." The looks of fear caused the spines of the wolves to straighten and their eyes to blacken, making the witch stumble back into her vampire's hold.
"Is that a potion? A curse, a spell?! Why would that sort of dark magic exist?!" Jackson growled, and they were backed up with another two who had mates back home that could possibly be rendered to the same fate.
"Take a step back, Delta Jackson. What we need to do is go back to the tunnels later with new eyes." The feral look on the wolf scared the witch so much that a crackle of her magic spiked up to the chandelier above—to either wolves and Vampires, the quick movement was second nature.
But for Rebekah, she was at the mercy of her mate pulling her out of the way.
"Wolves are known to turn rogue if the mate bond is severed." Aurora followed up, and Enzo showcased his arm. "There's our answer, what better way to mandate an army than to hold a mate over one's head." With a built-up theory, Jack was nervous in return to Remus—But seeing that the room was empty pulled him to panic.
The last thing the group needed was for Remus to lose himself, he promised Sage right beside Aurora that they would keep him in check. This was surely breaking that promise.
"Alpha!" He called out, but the male wasn't nearby to hear it. And it only made sense for Remus to return back to the tunnels, so Jack rushed back to the main common area and informed that he'd be going back down.
Two others had offered to join the Delta and to be frank, he was thankful he didn't have to go alone. Power in numbers was what kept them united so far—But the damned silver surrounding them was making it impossible to feel connected.
Even with Dante beside him, they couldn't link. And he tried not to think about how far away Aurora was in terms of their bond.
Not when Rebheka's theory was raging in the back of his mind.
The three males were not prepared for what they were about to uncover, nor did they know how Remus caught wind of this discovery. But a whole other wall had been moved aside, the cages blocking the said doors to the labs as a new type of torture had been mandated.
What appeared to be a conveyer belt, held stones from the last production, but the end result is where they had found the Alpha. Holding the final product in hand, causing the burning scent of flesh to assault the male's noses.
"Sir..." Jackson tempted, but the onyx eyes of the Alpha caused him and the others to crane their necks in submission. "They made the rope here...Randal forced them to make rope, it killed them."
There was a pause between the group of males, and Jackson didn't know any other way to put the witch's theory into words other than blurting it out.
"Sir...Rebekah figured out the symbols in the cages. Randal managed to separate mate bonds."
"What?" Remus croaked, rising to his feet and leaving the rope and spinning wheels to rot alone in the darkness.
Returning into the lab-like room, the males packed everything they could in the bags they crafted to carry it out with. They left nothing unscathed this time.
He decided outright that the only thing that was going to be left here was the furniture, any scrap of paper would be brought back. Even if it took multiple trips—And even if Rebekah's limitless bag started to get heavy.
Remus was having the strong urge to burn this place to the ground. But was interrupted by a very livid Delta female.
To say that Aurora was pissed was an understatement, and at first, it was Jackson who was flinching at the words of an aggravated female. But it was all to the Alpha's actions in going somewhere by himself.
"...Are you trying to get yourself killed?!" He frowned at the female.
"I don't need to be lectured, Aurora."
"No? Or do you want to be lectured by Sage? She's having a hard enough time worrying about everything else that forming a proper way to beat your ass is only going to come in the form of sending you to the ring! And news flash, Alpha, we don't have time for a civil war. Get it together!" The woman huffed, storming out of the room to join the rest of the group who went to go and raid the kitchen.
"You're not alone anymore, Remus. What if there was a trap down there just waiting to snap...I have to go back to the pack, to your family, and tell them you're not coming home?" Jackson's words caused him to hang his head down in potential shame.
"Then I expect that blood pact between you and Eli to follow through this time."
"Sir, Sage's eyes didn't come back for almost two weeks after you were in that coma. What were we supposed to do? Challenge her?... It doesn't work anymore, Sage would keep the title until Ronan is of age. You know that better than I do." The sheer cut in conversation caused Remus to frown.
He forgot for a moment that he has an heir for the pack now, that Ronan would be the future Alpha of Crescent Moon. "Is that how it'd work? Beta's no longer take over if the Alpha is still a pup?" Aurora questioned, her brain still fuzzy and everything she learned about the mainland's ways of the pack's chain of command. But Jackson turned to look at his female and sighed.
"Not if the Luna is just as capable, and Eli won't want to take the title with a pup on the way...Come on, let's get something to eat, and maybe we can get a call home. Rebekah said something about the walls being down." It certainly gave a better feeling than before when they arrived, but seeing how silent the Alpha had turned worried the party.
Rebekah especially, as she hadn't managed to tell him her findings entirely, but both her mate and Aurora said that he needed to take in the other information.
This factory was mining silver and forming it into silver rope, something he should've caught years ago—he recalled his mother stopped sowing and knitting all together and of course, a young pup like him wouldn't take mind into his mom finding another hobby.
But from the time of birth, even before she was pregnant. The she-wolf would knit, stitch and sow. The ugly curtains had been her design just like his father had with the Norse inscription.
Remus hardly recalled how he ended up back into the tunnels, in seeing the damn silver encasing the frame and painted to appear like a wood fixture—But it took little work to reveal the weaving stations, and who better to put to that task than his mother?
Randal had used every ounce of resource he could, and even now the burns on his hands from touching the last creations had give him thin red lines that still lingered.
Aurora had come by every once in a while and refilled his bowl of stew and water cup, but the last time he received a kiss on his temple. He wasn't used to such effection unless it was Sage. But this was cleanly platonic and formal.
The she-wolf left without another word and continued back off to the group, though it was only the mated couples that really sat beside one another. Beds had been stripped from the individual rooms as nobody felt safe in sleeping by themselves. Not to mention that the clinical feel on how everything was starting to wain on those from the Reformed program.
Of course, attempting to sleep was unreasonable, but part of Remus was urging him to get rest as the idea of a sluggish travel back meant another night away from Sage and the pups.
He wanted to curl up in her warmth and decipher her growing half sentences. Or even hear how she was dancing with the forest nymphs. Remus realized that Enzo was right, for so long he thought that Kelly was his chosen mate. A decent she-wolf who happened to have the darkest colors, who only wanted him for the title.
But Sage was clear from the start that she only saw him for him, and that had been a change of pace—The Moon Goddess gifted him a she-wolf that wouldn't take an ounce of his shit and she rarely did.
She bit and fought back in ways he could hardly understand, and it brought the male to wonder how different their life would've been had he not waited.
Had his father not captured Willow, would Hera be the same as Sage?
With sleep continuing to evade him, he rose up to his feet and waved off those who were still awake. Aurora gave him a warning glance but Jackson shushed her.
A part of the Delta male understood wanting to look for a mother's comfort, and this was as close as to what Remus could get.
They found Randal's room, but it wasn't much and in complete disaster with writings on the wall. It was clearly a sign that he was not in his right head, especially when he drew darkened images of topics like the blood moon.
He recalled those preachings, that the blood moon would rise one day and give the supernatural world a chance to claim it back from the humans.
What sort of mindset is that? To wish the absolute worse on their enemy.
Not that Remus was any at all innocent in thinking that this 'A' or 'Master' or whatever his real name is, wouldn't be tortured for the hell of it to settle his beast.
But that's like saying all vampires deserve the torture, and as far as Remus could recall. Humans hardly did anything to their kind, but then again, some believed that they were forced into hiding—That humans couldn't handle not being at the top of the food chain and thus, resulted into the supernatural world becoming nothing more than fictional.
"You liked that name they gave you...Didn't you—They thought you'd be the 'end of all things'. I guess the biggest karma is that I'm mated to a Hybrid Mystic heir, but lucky me, she's the sweetest female there is." Remus said in the likes of his mom's bedroom, he couldn't get enough of her scent—It was as though she was here, alive and breathing.
It didn't smell old like the rest of the factory, which either meant that she was here often or nobody touched the room since. Remus might have his father's blood, but he also held his mother's.
The relation was the same claim as before.
"I can't imagine ever doing what you did to me to Ronan, how could you—I was your son. What did Hayes do that made you this way? What happened?" The questions continued, and the only real light that was shining in was from the window that lacked the curtains that he swiped early in the day.
His mind was starting to stagger with the overflow of memories of his mom that he decided he needed fresh air. He'd come back tomorrow, to say goodbye.
No part of him would want to return here, not after seeing those cages.
With his mother's scent starting to leave his nostrils, a new one found its way through.
And he frowned as it brought another memory instantly to his mind...
______
Date: 03/21/2022
Time: 11:16
Words: 3026
Author's Note:
The truth is revealed of what Randal Moon was doing up in the mountains, and goddess have mercy on his soul, could you imagine if he won the war?
If Hayes didn't kill him?
The picture is starting to become a little clearer of what happened during the end of Randal's Reign. Anyone remember the silver ropes from the previous story? 👀
If the heartbreak couldn't get any worse, you'll have to wait to find out whose room that is on Friday...Any guesses?
Luna of Crescent Moon should be finished in the next few weeks if anyone wants to binge read it once it's finished--Just a quick summary, it's a short spin-off of what life would've looked like if Hera grew up in Mystic Grimm.
Alright, I'll see you all with chapter 27 on Friday, have a good week!!