I shifted and followed my senses, doing my best to avoid the battlefield.
I walked around it, careful to hide my scent as I looked for them, knowing that if they were here I could reach them through the pack bond and tell them they needed to leave the plan behind.
The center of the clearing was a warzone, countless dead bodies on each side were scattered along the terrain. There were wolves fighting, but the only silhouettes I could see were those of two vampires. One that I knew to be my friend, her hair moving in the wind as the dark energy that surrounded her attacked the other creature.
I gasped at the other vampire's resemblance with Violette. They had to be related, they shared the same hair and similar features. The other girl had brown eyes and was slightly shorter, but they had to be sisters.
Violette wasn't struggling, she looked perfectly content, but her sister was, her hands shook and the power coming out of her seemed unable to rival her sisters'.
"Give up, Lily" I heard Violette say even though they were very far away. "You know you'll never beat me."
"I don't need to beat you," the girl named Lily said, "I just need to buy Everest and Dahlia some time" shit, fuck. Violette seemed to have the same thought I did as she stopped fighting with her energy and lunged at her sister.
She was faster, stronger, and possibly older as she easily overpowered her. Violette slammed her sister into the floor as she used her power to keep other vampires from interfering in the battle.
"You, Dahlia, and the rest are cowards," she whispered, but I heard clearly "I will do to you what you did to her..." a single tear came out of her ice-blue eyes. Like the glaciers are melting "This is for Margaret" she said as she ripped her head off with her bare hands. And then she did something I couldn't see as the shadows that rippled around her forbid me to see anything else. But when the shadows dispersed the body was gone.
I knew I didn't need to waste more time as I ventured deeper into the woods trying to find Damien or my mate.
I followed their scent as far as I could until I reached a little clearing.
And I tried my hardest not to make any sound as I watched Damien, Harlan, and Gemma writhing under the power of some other person. I felt sick with dread and worry, unable to decide if I should intervene. So I circled around the scene just enough to be able to see a face twin to the one I had just seen perish continue to torture my friends.
Twins. Interesting, but not enough to make me forget my fear as I reached out to Harlan.
'Are you okay?' I asked and he closed his eyes for some reason.
'I'm fine, just pretending, what are you doing here?' he asked, I could feel his fear and worry.
'Everest made a pact with a demon, Selene's life's in danger, you have to kill him as fast as you can to break it' I said to the three of them, throwing caution to the wind.
'We got it, get out of here' Harlan said.
'But--' I wanted to stay and fight, wanted to help.
'Go!' he said and Damien went for the other vampire whose name I couldn't remember. I listened, ran toward the battlefield, and was there in mere minutes. I somehow understood this was a fight he needed to win by himself.
So I ran back and saw vampires cornering Callum, I ran to help, and I did. These vampires were under the effect of wild-rose I could smell it on them. So it was easy to take them down and kill them.
Callum's wolf form was similar but smaller than mine and I could feel his appreciation as we continued taking care of the vampires. The moon was way past its peak and the half-lings were struggling to fight against wolves in their human forms.
It hurt her to see so many of the half-lings who had no choice but to fight, be killed so mercilessly. But this was a war, and it was a bloody one at that.
I saw Damien run by the field, he was so fast he looked like a black shadow. He was going to her, I realized.
And I hoped Selene was alright. I hoped everything was.