Aislinn was standing before the bank of windows, the sun was just beginning to break over the treetops. It was late in the day, they had been up all night discussing the ramifications of everything that she had discovered and that Alpha Rainer had revealed, but it still felt like dawn. She stared at the explosion of golds, reds and oranges that were lighting the sky aflame and silhouetting the towering mountains and sprawling forests below. The tundra illuminating like a river of flame as the warmth of summer gave one finally breathtaking display.
She felt him enter the room, even without her wolf, her body and soul so aware of him, so connected that she thought she would be able to sense him no matter what. She felt the throbbing darkness in her chest when her wolf didn't stir at his appearance. The aching emptiness threatening to pull her under. She felt it growing, the despair and emptiness. She didn't think she'd survive without her wolf much longer, she wasn't whole and more and more bits were falling away, leaving nothing behind.
"Will you ever forgive me?" His voice was strained but soft.
She didn't turn, her arms remaining wrapped around herself, an attempt to hold herself together a little longer. To hold off the creeping blackness a little more.
"Please my love, will you not even look at me?"
She closed her eyes, her breath leaving her heavily.
"You are mine Aislinn. You are mine and you can hate me, and you can ignore me, but that doesn't change that you are mine." Kaiden growled stepping closer to her. His voice determined, as he stared at her stiff back. He hated the silence. It wasn't like before, it wasn't like when he had first found her and she didn't speak but he could feel her. Could feel the life and connection that had hummed between them. Could sense the women he would come to love more than his own existence, alive and dwelling just under her icy-demeanor. No now, he felt nothing, sensed nothing from her. She was a stranger that he could not reach. The bond was silent, her presence nothing but a shadow of what it once had been.
His heart-leaped as she slowly turned. Her eyes were hollow and dead. Her face sunken and shallow, Kaiden's breath hitched as he stared at her. His mate that had been so alive, so full of fire and passion, spun of ice and steel, now an empty husk standing before him.
"I am not yours." She said.
Kaiden growled, his hands lifting to reach for her. Flinching as she stepped away from his touch. "You are mine mate!"
Stepping back again from him, she shook her head at his words. He watched as her hand reached for the collar of her shirt. His wolf pacing anxiously in his mind as he watched in confusion as she slowly peeled the thin black material to expose her shoulder. His eyes narrowed at the deep bruises and cuts that still adorned her, his wolf growling dangerously in his mind at those that would dare to harm HIS mate.
Then as if a bucket of ice had been poured over him, he realized what he was seeing. What he was looking at. Her shoulder, exposed to his eyes - and bare.
Bare of the mark that should have been displayed so proudly and explicitly claiming her as his.
It was gone.
Her shoulder was bare.
His horrified eyes rose to meet hers. The pain and grief he saw was staggering.
"You see?" She asked tiredly. "I am not yours."
"How?" He asked weakly his gaze going over and over to the spot where he had sunken his teeth, where he had claimed her, to the now empty and unblemished skin that was mockingly staring back at him.
"Does it matter?" She asked. Her hand falling back to hold herself, letting go of the material and releasing it to once more cover her shoulder. "Ciera knows, as does Richard, you'll need to inform the others." She said, turning back to look out the window. The world was so still. So beautiful. Looking out she could almost believe it was a place of hope and love. A place where she might be happy.
"Aislinn I can fix this." He watched her back stiffen before slumping weakly, looking at her he amended his words. "We- we can fix this. Aislinn please, you can't give up on me. I was only trying to protect you. You are my life, you have to understand that. Believe that."
She didn't look at him, "Did you forget that you were mine?"
"Aislinn" His touch was soft as he turned her, his hands light on her shoulders. She felt so delicate in his grasp, nothing but a whisper of glass and bone, like a bird. So easily crushed by his heavy hands. He stared down at her. His wolf whimpering in his mind, his agonized cries and anger only intensifying as his fears were confirmed. Inhaling Kaiden shuddered to find her scent also changed. Gone was the undercurrent of their pack, the scent of him, even of her own wolf. There was now an emptiness to her scent, which smelled of nothing but car fumes, a hint of soap, detergent, blood and dirt.
"You lost me anyway Kaiden." She said without malice, only deep sadness.
It had started when they had re-entered Silverblood territory. The aching emptiness, the loneliness and loss pulsing louder and louder. She had tried to ignore it at the beginning. Focusing on her anger, on the others, and on what they had learned. But as the night had worn on and she had fallen quieter and quieter. She knew the others had noticed, that they had brushed it off as mere exhaustion.
But it wasn't. Being back in her homeland, her mate standing in front of her and her pack around her had fueled the darkness which had taken up residence in her chest. It pulsed and grew, fueled by the silent emptiness, the distance and hollowness, where there should have been wholeness, warmth, companionship and love.
She was dying, unable to survive with only half of herself. Her spirit, mind and heart, broken and damaged.
"Don't say that." Kaiden growled, bowing his head so his forehead rested against hers. His hands cupping her face refusing to let her back away from him. Refusing to let her go.
"It's the truth."
"We will fix this." He said with absolute conviction.
With reluctance she broke his hold, twisting away from his warmth, turning back to the windows. "Maybe I don't want to." She said quietly.
"Don't!" Kaiden roared his voice shaking with anger. "Don't you ever say that. Aislinn, you are not giving up. I almost lost you once, I will not let it happen again."
"So what now Kaiden? Are you going to command me to live? Lock me in a tower and force Richard to find a way to bend me once again to your wishes?" There was no heat in her voice, she was too empty to even try and stir up anything but sadness at what he had done. She was sick of being angry, of hating the world, of being consumed with rage.
"Aislinn it wasn't like that."
"Then tell me Kaiden, what was it like? What do you want to call it?" She asked wearily, a shiver racking over her body. She hugged her arms tighter around herself.
"I was trying to protect you."
Aislinn let out a sigh, she knew she could hurt him, could hurl that back in his face and break him, but what was the point? Would it change anything that had happened? Would making him hurt, as she had been hurt, really make her feel better? Sighing again she said, "I know Kade. I know."
"Aislinn we will get through this."
"I want to be alone now." She replied, and could feel as he stiffened, hurt flaring in him.
"I want to stay with you."
"You are needed downstairs, Kade. If Rainer is correct; the Rogues, the council and the Packs will be here tomorrow. Plus there's nothing you can do here."
"Aislinn stop talking like you're giving up."
"You're King now, my pack is returned, and tomorrow you will face those responsible and make them pay."
"I swear it on my life. They will die or I will."
"Then what's left, hmm? That's all I ever wanted."
"What about me?" Kaiden asked quietly.
Aislinn felt tears well in her eyes, the hole in her center throbbing as heartbreak and pain spread. "What about you Kade?"
"You would leave me? You would give up on me?"
Aislinn flinched, her breath shuddering. "I want to be alone."
.
.
Aislinn had been here before. Too many times in fact. This space of in-between. This floating abyss on the cusp of nothingness, and the edge of everything.
So many times, she had dragged herself back. So many times, she had thought she was too broken. Too weak. Too tired to go on.
And yet, each time she would muster her courage, her energy, her heart, and would pull herself back once more. She would re-forge the broken, piece together the shattered, and try to heal the twisted blackened form she had become.
She stared out the window as the world burned.