Present Day
A low exhale exited his mouth. When he opened his eyes, the world was glowing around him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so refreshed. His lips parted into a natural smile. There hadn't been anything to worry about, after all.
How could anything go wrong in the tranquility of this cave, with the waking sunlight streaming in from outside, with the brisk breeze flying around in the atmosphere, with the pool of blood that he was sitting in?
Grayson froze. He refused to move his gaze from that single point in the cave, the only place that wasn't covered in claw marks or smeared with blood. He tried to swallow, but his throat wouldn't work.
Please, he prayed. Please, please let that be my own blood.
His eyes fell upon the crumpled husk of a girl that had been carelessly tossed aside.
"Bianca?" His voice held no fear, no worry. Her name rolled off his tongue in a mocking tone, and with it escaped a sneer.
Grayson clamped a hand to his mouth, terrified of what had just happened.
"Bianca," he tried again, and his normal voice came out this time. "B-Bianca..."
He didn't want to, he knew he didn't want to... Grayson walked towards her, and turned her so that her back was pressed against the blood stained ground.
Grayson fell to his knees.
A stream of blood was trickling out of her open mouth. Three crimson slashes had taken residence upon her beautiful face. Her shirt had been shredded apart, and decorating her once perfect skin were countless scars whose sizes ranged from a finger's length to one that ran a path from her shoulder to her stomach.
"Please, be alive," he whispered. He couldn't have killed her. He couldn't have...
He recoiled, horrified, when a drop of blood crept out of her tear glands.
Her eyes were open. Her eyes were open, so why wasn't she moving? Why wasn't she moving and talking and laughing to him, at him, making fun of him and ordering him around? Why were her parted lips not positioned in that twisted, devilish smile of hers?
It might've been his imagination, but he could've sworn her pupils had just moved- The millionth of an inch, or so. Still, that was enough hope for him.
"Bianca." He scrambled to his feet and lifted her up. She was as limp and as light as a doll. Trying his best not to completely fall apart, he placed her on his back, so that when he transitioned, her body was settled comfortably on his gray fur.
He had no clue as to how last night's battle had turned out. And frankly, he didn't care. He had much bigger things on his mind right now.
Getting back to the Redwood House took so much longer than he'd expected it to- Though he suspected it had more to do with the staggering weight of worries he was carrying, than with the actual distance itself.
The sun had completely risen by the time he arrived at the borders of his estate. He let a low howl into the air, and within seconds, the massive steel gates opened up to let him in.
Reyes and Jackson were waiting for him at the front doors of the manor. Both of them needed a few seconds to recognize to whom the body splayed across their alpha's back belonged- It was hard to see past all the blood on her face. They then had to do a double take to make sure Bianca was still breathing. Even with their supernatural hearing, it was hard to detect a pulse.
Neither of them spoke a word, much less asked any questions. Grayson noted their weary expressions, but it seemed they hadn't suffered any permanent injuries. He slunk off towards the entrance of the old storm cellar that had been built into the house. From there, he changed into the set of clothes that awaited him as quickly as possible, then burst up into the main hall.
The whole place was brimming with his wolves. Most were in their human forms, but he saw large furry figures prowling the corridors, too. About twenty of them were crowded around the bodies of the deceased. Grayson didn't look too closely, but he counted a little less than two dozen corpses. The remaining men and women present were covered in red, and a few had broken bones or missing limbs. But if they hadn't died yet, then chances were, they were going to survive.
Reyes and Jackson were nowhere to be seen. This was nothing less than what Grayson had expected out of the two of them. A majority of the wolves here were still under the impression that Bianca was with the enemy. They would've started cheering at the sight of her, and if that had happened, Grayson was pretty sure he would've doubled the casualty count within a mere ten minutes.
"Dumas. Seo," Grayson murmured. He'd practically whispered the names, but the two wolves appeared before him in no time. He felt a little sorry for having made Dumas get up- His arm was in a makeshift cast, and his pants legs had been dyed red. But then Grayson thought of Bianca, and any and all sympathy he'd been feeling towards Dumas disappeared at once.
Grayson marched up to his office, with Carter Dumas and Elena Seo at his heels. He braced himself before opening the door. He'd never been so terrified in his life.
Reyes and Jackson were already there, and had set Bianca gently down on his desk. Her eyes were closed now- Grayson didn't know if that was a good thing or not- But she looked much more at peace right now, and this automatically calmed him down.
"Oh my god-"
"-Oh my god," Dumas and Seo finished at the same time.
But while Dumas delivered his words in a tone of horror and concern, Seo spoke them in awe. She was one of the wolves who were oblivious to the role Bianca had played in the battle, so Grayson knew he shouldn't get mad at her for gasping, "This is amazing. How did you pull it off?"
Of course, that didn't stop him from ramming her head down onto his desk over and over again until blood was trickling out of her skull. Reyes, Jackson, and Dumas all had to work together to pull him off of her.
"Heal her." Grayson meant for this to come out in a menacing tone, with an implied 'Or else' at the end. Instead, what came out of him was a frightened stutter, a desperate plead. "Seo, you have to heal her for me."
Dumas helped Seo to her feet, and offered her a handkerchief to wipe the fresh blood off her face. She snatched it from him with a scowl. "I'll... I'll try my best," she answered Grayson.
"No," he said. "No, you can't just try. You have to."
Maybe he should've at least attempted to hide the desperation in his voice. He could already feel the confusion wafting off of Reyes.
"Whatever you need, whoever you need, just say the word, and Jackson will have them brought for you," Grayson swallowed.
"Yes, boss," Jackson nodded.
"Reyes, Dumas," Grayson said, and walked straight out of his office. He couldn't stand another second of being in there.
"Tell me everything that happened," he said to Reyes. He needed to keep his mind busy so he wouldn't end up trying to kill himself repeatedly for the next century.
"It was a good battle. Everyone's been accounted for. Twenty two casualties, over six dozen injured, but we got a lot more of them than they got of us. You taking part in the battle really turned the tides, boss."
They turned the corner, and began making a descent to the basement floor.
"How many of them did we get?"
"I'd say... Thirty, maybe forty? And most of the survivors are going to be living with a permanent scarred up piece of flesh to commemorate their encounter with..."
Reyes finally became sensible enough to shut up.
They'd reached the garage, which was filled with a vast collection of high end cars. Grayson removed two keys from the safety deposit box by the staircase, and handed one each to Reyes and Dumas.
"Go into town, find Captain Mendoza of the police force, and tell him I need to speak with him," Grayson told Dumas. As soon as he rushed off, Grayson turned to Reyes. "Go to Kenna. Make sure she's alright, and if she is, move her to a hotel somewhere. After that, make arrangements for the pack to move into the safehouse in Raleigh."
To Grayson's surprise, Reyes's initial reaction wasn't a curt nod or a reply of 'Yes, boss.' Instead, the idiot named Roman Reyes blurted out, "What?"
Grayson's temper was already high on edge. Reyes would need to tread carefully, or he would end up becoming a splatter on the wall.
"I- I just meant... I mean, not that I can't, but why are you asking me to go get Chase?"
"I don't see what the problem is," Grayson growled.
"No, I don't mean that it's a problem- I'm happy to go," Reyes insisted. Then he paused. "No- No, wait- I'm not happy to go, I'm not ecstatic or anything, but-"
"Kenna's familiar with you, She knows you by name. So go make sure she's safe."
Reyes's brows furrowed. "What? She's not familiar- I'm not- She doesn't know- We never..." He gulped. "I think I'll go make sure she's safe."
"Excellent idea."
It was an excruciating wait. Grayson would've broken all the bones in his body if it meant speeding up the process of Seo's healing. Before Elena Seo had become a member of his pack, she'd been trained as a combat medic. Grayson had hospitals in his pocket that he could've ordered to the estate in an instant, but seeing as it would've been difficult to explain why over a hundred people looked like they'd been through war, not to mention why some of the patients were furred carnivorous predators, Grayson had enlisted Seo's help in the cleanup of the aftermath. She and a few of her medic friends had stayed behind during the battle, and had been tending to the wounded since the break of dawn.
Then, Grayson had done Seo the favor of forcing her into his office and giving her half a dozen concussions.
At about noon, Seo approached him warily. "She's awake," she said. "But you should give her some time, she's only just gotten up-"
Ignoring her, Grayson practically dove into his office.
And there she was. Leaning against his desk, gingerly testing her legs to see if they were working properly. As always, he found himself completely in awe of how she could look so bright after having endured a waking nightmare.
"Bianca," he breathed.
The magic spell shattered into a million pieces. A wild look overtook Bianca's eyes. Her chest started heaving up and down, up and down, her limbs trembled and her gaze jerked around until she found the source of the voice-
"Bianca?"
She flinched.
Either Grayson was imagining things, or the end of the world had made a premature appearance, because there was no possible way that Bianca Blackburn, the girl who could smirk while a blowtorch was being waved in her face, had just flinched upon hearing his voice.
Frozen in fear. This phrase was the only way to explain Bianca's appearance right now. Her limbs were as rigid as stone, her pupils were bloodshot and wide, and the only sound that was coming from her was the wild beating of her heart.
Grayson took a hesitant step forward, the smallest one possible. Instantaneously, Bianca's hands shot behind her towards his desk for support. Another step, and her knuckles had turned white.
"You're alright," he spoke quietly, so as to hide the tremble in his voice. "You're safe now."
With every step he took, he was killing her. He could see that. And yet he didn't stop. He needed to let her know that whatever it was that had happened last night- It was never going to happen again. She didn't need to worry. It was all over now. He needed to make her see that.
He was an arm's length away from her now. Her eyes were bulging so much that they were in genuine danger of popping right out.
And still, he kept closing the distance between them.
"Please," he murmured. "Please believe me, Bianca."
He brushed his finger against the back of her hand.
He would've preferred it if she'd punched him, or scrambled out of the way, or even flinched again. But all she did was shut her eyes as tightly as possible, like she was wishing away a nightmare... Or, like she believed she couldn't fight off the danger that had rendered her to such a state.
But that didn't make sense. Bianca always fought back.
He raised his hand to the level of her face, and slowly caressed her cheek. She gasped. Grayson jumped back in shock to see tears flowing out of her eyes. Her shoulders were shaking violently, she seemed to have lost control over her breathing...
Bianca stumbled her way to the door. Grayson didn't stop her, but he did follow her. In her state, she might end up taking a headfirst dive out the nearest window. She didn't seem to understand this, though. One might even go so far as to say she was running for her life.
I'm not chasing you, he wanted to shout, but how could he, when he'd just seen the affect his voice had had on her?
"Bianca- No!" Grayson rushed forward, trying to prevent her from walking into the corridor whose side opened up into a balcony- A balcony which loomed over the very hall where practically all of his wolves were situated.
Maybe he shouldn't have shouted like that, because now, he'd caught the attention of every single wolf below. To top it all off, Bianca stumbled to the floor upon hearing his outburst, and couldn't seem to get back onto her feet.
The wolves began murmuring amongst themselves at this strange sight. The ones who'd been staying here at the Redwood House as his guards appeared to be concerned for Bianca's safety, but the rest of them...
"I'm not trying to hurt you, Bianca," his voice cracked. "I d-didn't mean for..."
He hadn't meant for what? What could he possibly say to make up for the hundreds of scars that covered her body, scars that would never heal? They would stay with her until the end of time: One hundred gruesome reminders of last night. Would it be possible for her to even look at a mirror without feeling an overwhelming sense of fear for him?
That last bit of truth sunk into his chest like a stone would to the bottom of a roaring stream.
Bianca Blackburn was afraid of him.
The irony of the situation wasn't lost on him. In fact, it was almost comical. It was as if the universe had decided it would be a great idea to use Grayson's life as the punch line to every joke from now on.
He had wanted this. He had wanted this so much, for her to live in complete terror of him. He'd needed the respect of his wolves and some semblance of power, and for that, he'd desperately prayed for her to flinch at his every move.
He'd gotten his wish. And as the stories said... Once you made a wish, you couldn't take it back.
"I can't see you like this, Bianca," he croaked. "I..."
Hyperventilating and clearly in so much pain, Bianca shut her eyes again. She turned around and gripped the railing of the balcony. One by one, teardrops traveled down her cheek. They splattered onto the ground below, breaking into a million molecules that would never be united again.