At a crossroads
~
Lycus
~
These were well-known roads for Lycus. Mapped out in his head, but he remained unsure if the drive became quicker or longer.
In his other form, he could travel great distances at even greater speeds. It was useful until it wasn't. Until the prime purpose of it wielded into losing the very thing Lycus clings onto now more than ever. His human side.
With centuries of drowning in his lycan side, being in the very entity that ignited battles and bathed in the aftermath, it granted you the cost of not coming back from it. But every time, Lycus came back. He turned his matted fur into ragged skin and his war-torn claws into nails.
You can be a human without a soul, you can be a wolf in sheep's clothing, but you cannot be a lycan without being a human. Because what was the point of the lycanthropy curse?
The curse was given solace, and Lycus knew he didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve to have a curse with a blessing. Especially a blessing he couldn't afford to lose.
The mere threat on Accalia overcame his mind with such wrath he was fuelled to burn the world to the ground. He can't lose Accalia. He can't have her blood on his hands — or her tears, her pain ever again.
But even sealing her in his arms where she belonged, he still managed to inflict pain. His fingers curled into fists and he rested his head back. Accalia's wounds will leave scars from the cuts so deep that Lycus remained stagnant if she would ever recover.
She would heal from this, she had to — whatever way that may be. Battling it out, have her walls back up and if Lycus had to let her go and unclip those caged wings of hers, he would do it.
Accalia is a Larren hunter and Luna of the Fenris Pack, how her path may be carved, whatever road she may take, those scars would linger behind her and Lycus wanted her to heal from it.
"Can you go any faster?" Lycus grumbled at his brother.
It had been nearly three hours of travel, the sun dimming and skies darkening, and every space being stretched between Lycus from Accalia had dug a paranoid nick in his head that wouldn't leave him.
He didn't think he'd be so fretful about leaving her behind, even for a few hours, but the nervousness didn't ease, it only rumbled like a stampede.
Gabriel gave him an aghast look, offended. "I'm going as fast as I can."
"Like a fucking grandmother."
"I'm going the speed limit!"
Fucking pansy bitch, Lycus thought with venom and kept his mouth shut.
"The hunters are still behind us." Came Tala's monotone voice.
"Yippee." Lycus sarcastically cheered.
Lycus could feel the eyes of his Beta on him and it made his shoulder twitch. Turning around, he chanced her a beaming grin, all fake and enough for her to see through it.
"Something wrong, Beta?" Lycus taunted.
Tala's fringe fanned across her beady eyes but her jaw locked. "Nothing, Alpha." She clipped.
Lycus chuckled and slipped back around in his seat. "We couldn't tell anyone except Vaela."
"You don't have to explain yourself to me, Alpha," Accusation strained the Beta, so foully you could smell it on her.
"I know I don't have to explain myself to anyone, Tala. But I'll tell you this, pass it onto Accalia if you like: I wasn't going to kill him, so I tucked him away. It was for his own good." Lycus explained simply and in his peripheral vision, saw Gabriel's fingers clenched tightly around the steering wheel.
Tala growled, unsatisfied and lurched forward across the console. "What about you, Gabriel? Do you share the same stance as your brother?"
Lycus shrugged lazily and waved his hand at his brother, nestling into his seat. "Have your word, Gabriel, you will anyway."
Gabriel gave his attention to the road, hidden but pained emotions running through his head in an unending cycle. Lycus could see it so plainly. The squint of his brother's eyes foretold his agony that lingered so deep it ordered distance amongst them both.
Lycus drove him away and Gabriel wanted it to remain that way.
"My last stance ended with Lycus when I foolishly decided to do that to Rexton all those years ago." Gabriel murmured to Tala.
Lycus's head lulled to the window, closing his eyes and hating the silence when surrounded by others. Their heartbeats would beat too loud, the throat clearings too reassuring and just the subtle exhales sounded like whispers in his ears.
"I would visit the tomb."
Gabriel and Tala snapped their necks in Lycus's direction.
"What do you mean?" Gabriel demanded.
Lycus scratched the back of his neck and as the trees drew nearer, the branches weaving through each other and ignoring the skies, he knew they were close.
Lycus stretched his long body along the chair and released a yawn. "Before meeting Accalia, I would sit by the tomb for hours on end, just to sit next to him — I could hear his heartbeat that seemed to be in an endless slumber. He probably needed the company, poor thing."
Gabriel's fist flew over and landed on Lycus's arm. "Company? Shut your mouth, Lycus Fenris, you shut it right now."
Lycus groaned and clutched his arm. "You'll leave a bruise for that."
"I don't care!" Gabriel snapped and the car skidded around a bend before making a left. "You're a selfish bastard! You—you try to claim inflicting pain as righteousness and ruthlessness as a right to excuse what you are. It's pathetic. I'm glad Cadence freed Rexton, I don't care how we will pay for it."
Time seemed to quicken and no minute later, Gabriel parked the car on the outskirts of Kara forest.
"We're here." Gabriel growled and left without another word.
Tala's breath fanned the side of Lycus's face and they came cheek to cheek. "I shouldn't have opened my mouth, Alpha, I am—"
Lycus unbuckled himself, feeling all too suffocated and slipped out of the car.
A rumble of doors opening and closing ensued, quaking the birds from their nests and taking flight to the skies.
Lycus never completely got over the creepiness of this forest. That was exactly why he placed his dearest brother here. Ominous and uninviting. The perfect escapism for one who wishes to be left alone. To leave someone behind. Even to bury a body.
Looking to his right, Lycus rolled his eyes and promised himself — promised Accalia, to play nice.
Cadence wasn't all that eager to be around him or anyone for that matter. Her patched-up neck concealed one thing but not the redness painting her neck from Lycus choking her. Her companion beside her, inky-haired and black letter archetype racked up a whirlwind of misery Lycus almost felt pity for.
The stocky-looking male behind the both of them gave a cheeky grin to his cousin. Tristan, Accalia's older brother.
How alike they looked, Lycus mused. Accalia embodied the flower, Tristan the stem and William, he naturally was the thorns. Brown-skinned, dark-eyed and all fierce looking.
"Let's get this over with." Cadence muttered and tracked her steps to the place where her neck was being used as a blood bag.
Droplets of blood painted the sticks and rocks of the forest's grounds and Lycus snickered at Cadence's uncomfortable reminiscence.
"His scent has gotten stronger." Gabriel observed and tugged his hands into his coat.
Lycus closed his eyes and inhaled, the revival of his brother becoming more potent and telling.
It was as if Rexton was shedding a layer of his old skin and within that, his odour growing fresher.
He had headed west, Lycus concluded, turning his head to the trail his brother left behind.
"Why are we even here? He would be elsewhere by now. This is pointless." Cadence piped up to the lycans.
Lycus clucked his tongue and looked at Gabriel, inclining his head. Whatever would come out of his mouth would be regretful and he opted to hold his tongue.
"You're right, Cadence, he would be elsewhere. But we can track him from where he left. You saw him half dead, once he bit you, that practically would have brought him to life. Since then, he'd be growing stronger in all aspects, his scent being one of them." Gabriel explained generously and surprising everyone around her, Cadence gave a begrudging nod in understanding.
Lycus nearly laid a hand on his chest in mock disbelief.
"What about Alexene?" Asked Cadence's friend.
Gabriel ran a hand through his dark hair and peered around, looking pensive. "She won't make a return until nightfall, but she tried to look for him as best she could. I smell blood that isn't just Cadence's. She would have wanted to give him a blood bag."
Cadence scoffed. "You sure about that?"
Gabriel kicked the sticks from beneath him and said, "you only know one side of Alexene, Cadence and that's the side that would do anything for the person she loves even if it hurts others. Sounds like someone I know."
Lycus didn't want to revel in it as much as he did, but that pitiful face of hers was all too pathetically amusing to him. If he couldn't kill her, he will at least get pleasure from her torment.
Maybe Rexton will finish her off for me, Lycus thought hopefully.
He wondered where his brother could be, where on earth would he take his travels. Lycus was well aware of one thing: Rexton wouldn't want to stick around where he was held captive for years on end. Delicate as glass, easy to break if pushed too far, Rexton would have wanted to seek solitude in a place where no harm could come to him.
"He was heading west," Lycus said, forcing himself out of his thoughts and pointing to an area of the woods. "From past travels, that leads into an old town. We should go there."
Kara forest would suffocate Rexton, how tightly the trees pressed together and no light in sight. Rexton would want to breathe and see.
No one refused and their journey led them back to their cars.
Drumming his fingers along the dashboard to create a sound that wasn't his thoughts, Lycus's lips stretched into a smile and said, "you seeing anybody, Tala?"
Tala snorted from behind him. "Was. I broke things off with her though."
Lycus's face shifted and he steered around to face her. "Why?"
So harsh and controlled, Tala was. Lycus couldn't help but think he played a part in that once handing her the role of Beta.
"I'm in love with the job more than anything else." Tala murmured sarcastically and motioned to the drive they were on with a deadpan look on her face.
Definitely, my doing, Lycus concluded with a frown. "Maybe you should see humans."
Tala's eyebrows raised and she smirked sheepishly. "Opinions have changed, I see."
Not just opinions. Lycus sensed the moon inhaling the chaos he once caused to exhaling the heavens down him in a stellar making. He didn't deserve it. He deserved to wander in loneliness with passing women to fuck, wars to end and his enemies to want his head on a stick.
Lycus deserved that black heart of his to grow fonder to the darkness because that was his rightful punishment since becoming a lycan.
"Perhaps," Lycus responded to the Beta and turned back around.
Gabriel turned the radio up and Lycus turned it down.
"When are you having pups, Gabriel?" Lycus asked, not wanting to settle in silence.
His brother growled under his breath and slapped Lycus's hand away from the stereo. "When are you having children with Accalia?" Gabriel fired back.
Lycus's eyes almost popped out of his sockets and was lost for words. Children weren't even faintly in his realm of thinking. They hadn't even placed a label on their ... relationship, partnership — all Lycus needed to know was that Accalia was his and only his.
That was enough, but in the world of lycans, a thin line of being territorial and possessive extended so far without the claim. The mark is to strike awareness in everyone outside of the pairing. They are each other halves and no one is to trifle against it.
Lycus wasn't possessive over Accalia, merely territorial, but how could he be when he had yet to lay his claim?
The Alpha of Alphas ran a harsh hand through his hair.
"Worrying, brother?" Gabriel inquired from his side.
And to think, over a month ago, Lycus could have any female on their knees and at his command. So forthright and uncomplicated before the last women he bedded ended with an undoing — a bounty on Accalia's head.
Lycus had only ever kissed Accalia and with what occurred hours ago, a hollowness creeping inside of him at the memory, she will probably never allow him to touch her again.
His reckless lack of control seemed to hack at him every time he delved slightly deeper with her. With their sharing of lips, he gathered she is the unsure type when it came to anything sexual. Despite it all, she seemed somewhat experienced, eager and responsive when applied the right amount of pressure. Lycus doubted that if he were to bury himself between her legs.
"I haven't even marked her yet, it's only been a month and most of that was fighting." Lycus mumbled and slumped in his seat.
"I just can't believe you two didn't get together sooner," Tala sighed and wedged herself between the two brothers, leaning on the console. "Accalia is so cool, like a breath of fresh air, you know? She grounds you, Alpha."
She brings me to my knees and makes me want to stay there before her.
"Accalia is humane." Someone who was not her came to the front of Lycus's thoughts and his chest tightened because of it. "I love that about her ... it reminds me of —"
"Rexton." Gabriel finished for Lycus and flickered his blue eyes to him briefly. "He was always kind, considerate and humane."
He was much, much more ...
Gabriel turned off the main highway and drove down a secluded road.
Lycus peered into the side mirror and watched the black jeep follow closely behind. Tristan ruffed Cadence's hair who didn't look her best with that curled lip on her face.
A scent hit Lycus like a truck and he stiffened in his seat. "He was here. It's recent and fresh."
Gabriel lifted his head slightly and nodded in agreement. "We're close."
Lycus unbuckled himself, prepared to lurch out of the car and track down his brother.
To put him away again? Catch a glimpse of him? Lycus sat unsurely.
As he played at his tormenting ideas, they found themselves outside of a cathedral that spoke age and reverence — a place to find salvation.
Rexton would have craved this, his essence led him through the doors and he would have wanted deliverance from the cage.
Gabriel couldn't get out of the car fast enough and Lycus stumbled after him.
Lycus tilted his head at Gabriel, sensing the hunters close behind and lingered his eyes on Cadence who stalked around aimlessly. There was no denying it, she was a panther waiting to attack.
"You sure you won't burn when you walk in there?" Tala remarked snidely to the Alpha.
Lycus chuckled and mockingly bowed before Tala. "We will see, ladies first."
The Alphas and Beta trod up the steps of the fine cathedral and stepped through the threshold. Lycus immediately knew what would lead his little brother here, this place was a haven and locked all things insidious away.
"Could he be here?" Cadence's voice asked from behind Lycus and it was enough to set him on edge.
He steered around to face her and said, "Why don't you play guard and go outside to watch everything for us?"
Cadence snorted, black eyes gleaming at the challenge and gladly taking it. "You're the mutt, shouldn't you keep watch?"
Lycus quirked a brow and straightened up, his skin prickling from the jab. Never in all his years has he had the displeasure of arguing with an insolent, little girl.
He wanted to rip her head from her shoulders and watch as her body fell limp.
Tristan came up behind her and tugged her away with a firm grip. "Cadence, take it easy."
Lycus snarled, "Yes Cadence, you will do well to listen to your cousin."
Cadence licked her lips and drew back with raised hands. "I'm good at that, Lycus. Listening. Like when I listened to the time when Alexene told me she was the one that killed all twenty-three of your wolves on the night of the last full moon."
Lycus froze, the silence so enthralling you could hear a pin drop, but he would hear much more than that. He would hear Cadence's heart faintly and slowly stop beating once he ripped it from her chest.
"What the did you just say?" Lycus spat, wanting to hear her confession again — just to confirm his other reason to kill her.
"Behave!" Gabriel chided frustratedly.
Cadence grinned and waved him off, stepping back to the entrance of the door. "You heard me, mutt."
Lycus was so close, so eagerly and desperately close in going after that wretched huntress, but a thread inside himself strung through him, causing him to stay put.
Accalia.
Cadence was led away from the place of holiness by her friend, and Lycus didn't know if he would stop himself the next time in killing Accalia's beloved cousin.
"Hello Father," Gabriel chimed kindly and Lycus whipped around, remembering why he was here.
An elderly man stood before them, graced with a cross dangling over his robes and a hearty smile on his aged face.
"How may I help you?" The Priest laced his wrinkled hands together and gave all eyes to Gabriel.
Lycus wanted to wring the man by his collar. Rexton's scent was all over him but there wasn't a speck of blood or mark on him.
Rexton hadn't hurt him, but he could have compelled him.
"By any chance, did you happen to cross paths with a boy in the recent hours?" Gabriel asked.
Lycus stepped beside his brother, watching the man for any indication of a lie or a fault in the compulsion. Someone who is compelled appears aloof, befuddled in their thinking and their eyes travel elsewhere in a swivel of confusion.
"Well, I—"
That was enough to set Lycus off and he stepped forward. "Very tall, wearing old clothing and amber eyes. He could be in danger, Father."
A danger to everyone around him.
The Priest tilted his head and hobbled near a candle, the flame blazing around him. "The boy ran off. He was terrified of himself, absolutely terrified. I went to get him a cup of tea, but by the time I returned, he fled."
Lycus fixated on that information, processing every detail it offered and came to a dead end. Where would he go now?
The Priest raised a long finger and it landed on Lycus. "He looked an awful lot like you, young man. Innocent though, emotional."
Lycus swallowed and faintly nodded at the Priest. "Thank you for your time."
They left the church, Lycus walking to the car and noticed Cadence's lanky form leaning against the jeep with her friend.
On their own accord, Lycus's ears wired in on the conversation being had between the two girls.
"Why would you say anything? You're definitely gonna be on his hit list now." Cadence's friend chastised.
Lycus saw Cadence shrug carelessly.
"When I passed out from the blood loss, I saw my mother for a moment. Just a moment. Is it foolish to say I don't care sometimes, Erisa?" Indifference traced along Cadence's words in an ill-at-ease caress. "Because most of the time, I just don't."
Lycus tuned her out, cringing from the sudden south their discussion took and how it was nothing he predicted.
A crackling and unsettling hailstorm descended on Lycus like thunder clapping down on him. A revelation. It clicked loudly in his skull like a switch that the hunter he strangled in cold blood is a young girl. Accalia once said Cadence was rough around the edges. A young, reckless and wrathful girl.
And Accalia had been the main person in her life trying to steer her back on course.
Cadence did what she deemed best for her family and Lycus strangled her for it.
Shaking his head in astonishment, Lycus faced away from the Larren huntress and felt his cell ring loudly through his front pocket.
"For fuck sake," he growled and pulled the device out, blinking in bewilderment from who was on the other end.
There's no escaping them! Lycus concluded and answered the call.
"What's wrong, Accalia?" Was the first thing that unravelled from Lycus's mouth.
Did her stitches open again? Did the healers not come? If not, death would be knocking on their front door come night time.
Did Cole come to finish the job — Lycus almost crashed the phone between his fingers.
"Ev—everything is fine ..." Accalia stammered, her voice trembling enough to have Lycus's eyes flail wide.
"What happened?"
"Your brother is here."