Chapter Notes: Caleb's POV
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- 'If this is to end in fire, then we should all burn together. . .' -
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I was going to kill Angelie. I was absolutely and positively going to kill Angelie.
"What did you do?" I yelled at her after catching an unconscious Ava-Rain before she hit the floor. Forcing my gaze to tear away from my mate, I looked at the person whose final minutes on this Earth were rapidly dwindling. "What the hell did you do?"
"I told you!" Angelie yelled back, running a shaky hand through her hair. "I told you this could happen, Caleb!"
This didn't make any sense. This didn't make any God damned sense! Five seconds ago, Ava-Rain had been coherent. Conscious. Five seconds ago, she had been ready to explain the pure blood's memories locked inside of her head after thirty minutes of Angelie trying to coerce them out of the darkness and into the light. Five seconds ago, my mate had been completely fine.
Staring down at her now, she most definitely was not fine. Her eyes were closed and her lips slightly parted. Calling out her name proved useless because she only remained unresponsive. Placing the back of my hand on her forehead, I flinched at the unexpected contact made with her icy cold skin. In this case, any lingering state of unconsciousness was obviously a bad thing, but unconsciousness mixed in with her drop in temperature was quickly becoming a very, very bad thing.
"Kane!" I shouted, once again tearing my eyes away from my unconscious mate to glance at the study door. "Chase!" I didn't wait to see them enter but instead focused my attention back on Ava-Rain. I gathered her in my arms, carried her over to the desk and gently laid her on top.
"Ava-Rain?" I placed a hand on her cheek while the other swept some of her curls away from her face. "Ava-Rain, open your eyes for me. I need you to open your eyes. Please," I pleaded. I sensed my betas behind me but didn't turn to address them.
"What happened?" Chase asked, his voice full of concern.
"What happened?" Kane repeated the question, but it had not been directed at me like Chase's had. The anger in his tone, the slight quiver in his voice—that only a wolf could detect—that indicated he was battling his wolf for control hinted that Kane's question had been aimed in Angelie's direction.
My own wolf wanted nothing more than to join Kane's inner beast. He was begging me to be released, commanding me to look down at our mate and explain why punishing Angelie should be delayed.
And who was I to deny him? Who was I to stop him?
Yet, I pleaded with him to wait. To be patient.
As if we have any damn time to wait or to be patient, he pushed into my thoughts. As if Ava-Rain's mind isn't shutting down. As if we aren't minutes away from losing her forever.
Although he was right and completely justified in his arguments, a part of me managed to command my wolf to stand down. And that part of me—I did not know what to call it. A voice? A presence? Whatever it was, it asked me to grant it control instead. It asked me to trust it. To give in to it. To help it. To listen.
So I listened.
Not to Chase's voice asking me what to do. Not to Kane yelling at Angelie, nor to Angelie as she argued back. I did not listen as the rest of the pack shuffled into the room, nor to their inquisitive questions.
I listened to Ava-Rain's even breathing. I listened to the steady beating of her heart and to the rhythmic throbs of her pulse throughout her body. I listened to that tiny little particle inside of me, latched onto it and gave it what it asked for.
Submission.
'Establish a connection,' it ordered.
My head lowered immediately to Ava-Rain's, an act that had not been carried out by my own free will. I couldn't explain why, only that when our foreheads touched—connected—it felt right.
'Steady the waters,' it commanded next.
The blue.
When I thought it impossible for my racing heart to drift from its raging battle cries into a soft murmur, it only made sense that I couldn't have possibly been in control. Being calm was the last thing I ever would have been able to achieve while the fate of my mate's mental state hung in the balance, and every second that Ava-Rain remained unconscious was another second that brought the possibility of losing her forever closer. But I managed to do so and called on my wolf to do the same. Together, we channeled our sparring emotions, molded them until they all became one and locked it up.
'Feed the flames.'
The red.
Even with my emotions locked up and out of the way, there was still a list of desires standing in the way of doing what needed to be done. Of course, in that moment I desired many things. I wanted my mate back. I desired her safety. I desired to see her brown eyes staring back at me; to feel the warmth from her touch; to hear her whisper she loved me; to tell her that I loved her and knowing that, without a shadow of a doubt, she could hear it. But there was only room for one desire. One desire to represent all the others, to be the voice and leader of the rest. One shot to see to it that all of those desires would be met. And that was my desire to be what Ava-Rain needed me to be in order to save her.
'Soar on its wings.'
The yellow.
I once told Ava-Rain that our bond as mates provided us with the ability to pick up on each other's feelings and emotions. That we fed off of each other when our emotions were in synch because emotion recognized emotion. It was the day she had been brought to the den to be introduced to my parents and the pack, when my anger had been able to hijack her through her own anger.
But thoughts did not work that way, even with the bond. I couldn't read Ava-Rain's mind anymore than she could read mine. I could only make a guess or be steered along the right path to conclude what her thoughts might be with the assistance of the ability to feel her emotions. Unless you were an heir of the yellow and a true master of your element, entering another's mind to learn their thoughts—even if that mind and those thoughts belonged to your mate—was impossible. Or so I had once believed until that guiding voice inside of me told me—reminded me—that possibilities were bred from impossibilities. I was no master of the yellow, but I had what was required to get inside of Ava-Rain's mind. I felt it.
'Take root in her veins.'
The green.
Ava-Rain was mine and I was hers. We belonged to each other. We existed for each other. That was a truth. A fact that was far too big to ever be understood entirely yet comprehensible enough not to be disputed. To define mates as being two halves of one soul was the most basic of definitions that barely scratched the surface onto what it truly meant in its entirety. Your mate was your completion. Your beginning and your end. Your life and your death. They were the air in your lungs, the blood in your veins. Ava-Rain existed inside of me just as I existed inside of her. And it was now time for that part of me implanted inside of her to wake up.
Steady the waters—I called on the blue.
Feed the flames—I called on the red.
Soar on its wings—I called on the yellow.
Take root in her veins—I called on the green.
"As the power of the four flows through me," I whispered to her words I had never uttered before, yet felt some sort of familiarity with, "and so it shall flow through you."
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She was beautiful. Standing in the familiar field of green with the sunlight beaming down upon her and the wind tossing her curls all around her, Ava-Rain was beautiful.
She stood a mile or so away from me and although that wasn't a great amount of distance, it was still enough to put my wolf and I at odds. He, as always, deemed any bit of distance away from our mate an offense. I didn't enjoy being separated from her any more than he did—not being able to reach out and touch her was bothersome but not completely unbearable—but a little bit of space, for her sake, was not an unfair request.
She had requested space, hadn't she? I could not, for whatever reason, remember. But what other reason could there be explaining her being all the way over there and me being here? Well, whatever that reason may have been, my wolf was clearly refusing to be at ease or find any sort of solace in Ava-Rain being so far away from us. And it was his urgency that pushed me forward in her direction; I knew which battles were worth fighting and which ones were not. As ridiculous as he was being, who was I to deny him or myself a reunion with our mate?
I suppose because I wasn't moving fast enough for his liking, he pushed me to move faster, to get to Ava-Rain quicker.
'Relax, buddy. We're almost there,' I tried to reason.
My eyes remained on Ava-Rain along the short journey to meet her. The wind was still tossing her hair around carelessly, and, soon, the skirt of her black dress decided it wanted to partake in the wind's fun, too.
That dress looked familiar. Had she worn it before?
I called out her name, hoping she would have turned around to grace me with her smile. Instead, she remained in place, had not even moved an inch that would have at least suggested that she had heard my call.
Her hair and dress continued to toss in the wind.
Although she appeared fine, I moved faster.
When I crossed the halfway mark, the first boom of thunder erupted in the clear blue sky. A quick glance upwards was all that was spared on my part to confirm that there was not one sign of an emerging storm. So what the hell was up with the thunder?
Another roar of thunder was released, the second much louder than the first and lasted a bit longer.
The first was merely a test.
The second, a warning.
It occurred to me then why my wolf refused to settle down until we reached our mate.
The sea of grass around me was still. Perfectly Still. Far too still despite the dancing wind around Ava-Rain. In fact, I didn't feel the caress of the yellow at all.
I broke out into a run.
I called out her name again, only to be answered with a painful silence for the second time.
I was a hundred feet away.
Eighty feet.
Sixty.
Then, before I knew it, I had been knocked several feet backwards onto the grass and feeling like I had just, quite literally, had the wind knocked out of me. Pushing to my knees, then finally to my feet, I tried to get to my mate again, only to be knocked back down again. The second time hurt a hundred times more than the first, and getting myself to my knees that second time requested a strength that even my wolf was finding hard to conjure.
I called out to Ava-Rain a third time, but unlike the first two attempts that seemed to have fallen on deaf ears, my third attempt had been completely drowned out by another roar of thunder. Even if it had not been, I quickly realized that my calls out to her were pointless. It was as if there was a barrier between Ava-Rain and I, a sort of protective shield cascaded around her that extended about fifty feet out from where she stood. But whether it was to keep her inside or to keep everything and anything else out, I couldn't be certain.
Using every ounce of remaining strength inside of me, I rose to my feet again. I circled the barrier, hoping to try and gain her attention. Calling out to her already proved to be useless, so the only other option was to try and position myself within her sights. Frantically, I tried to work my way around the shield, trying harder not to trip over my own feet while guestimating just where exactly the damned invisible bubble extended. But as quickly as I was trying to move, it just wasn't fast enough for my wolf's liking.
A loud clap of thunder erupted for the fourth time. But, unlike the previous three, the fourth literally forced me down onto my knees, the intensity of it resonating inside of me in a unbearable amount of pain and anguish. My head was pounding, my entire body felt like it was being torn apart inside.
Then, along with the pain came the fire.
My blood was boiling; I felt it scorching it's way through my veins, felt my wolf trying desperately to claw its way out of me to escape the flames. He was dying. We were both dying. His cries of pain filled my ears, his desperate need for an escape identical with my own desperation to get him out. But he was trapped and I was helpless.
Still on my hands and knees, I managed to lift my head and that was when I saw it. The reason why. The sea of green was turning into a sea of fire. Off in the distance, fire was engulfing the grass, swallowing it whole as it made its way closer and closer, heeding the beck and call of its master: Ava-Rain.
And then I remembered. I remembered why her dress looked familiar. I remembered why the field of grass had looked familiar. We were in the backyard of the den and Ava-Rain was rooted exactly where the house was supposed to be. I was inside Ava-Rain's mind, and I think it was pretty damned safe to say that this was exactly what Angelie meant when she said Ava-Rain's mind could potentially self-destruct if broken into.
Where I found the strength to rise to my feet, I couldn't tell you. But I had found it and latched onto it with all of my Luna given might and commanded myself to hold onto it. Every direction my eyes darted only confirmed that the fire was purposefully headed straight towards us. Towards me.
Then, in the blink of an eye, the clear blue sky turned dark and cloudy and down came the rain.
Within seconds, I was drenched, yet the down pour had not put out the fire as expected. In fact, it was as if it was fueling it because the amber glow only seemed to glow brighter, the flames only seemed to grow bigger and burn hotter.
Next, came the wind. The ferocious and often underestimated element joined its kin, blowing the flames closer and filling my nose with the undeniable stench of smoke and death.
I turned around and willed my feet to move. Despite the pain, despite the burning field and goddamned monsoon erupting around me, I pushed myself around the barrier, praying to Luna to get to Ava-Rain. I just needed to get to her. I needed to save her. I had to save her. And I was almost there, almost within her line of sight outside of the fifty feet wide barrier when the bit of strength aiding my mission chose in that exact moment to withdraw and I fell to the ground.
Had I truly become so damned weak that I was tripping over my own feet now? When my mate needed me the most, when the most important thing was pulling her out of the mind that was caving in on her?
When the jolt of pain that erupted inside of my head upon impact of it hitting the ground had passed, once the burst of light behind my eye lids had once again returned to black, I opened my eyes only to see the real reason why I was on the ground. The fourth and final element—earth—had finally chosen to actively take part in the destruction started by the other three elements. Beneath me, the ground could be heard cracking as it began to split and separate.
She was falling apart. Ava-Rain was falling apart before my eyes.
My hand flew to the throbbing ache at the back of my head, my fingers running through the strands before latching onto them in a firm grip. Maybe it had been an attempt to sooth the pain even in the slightest, or maybe it was an action derived from my own helplessness because I knew that I had failed.
I looked up towards where Ava-Rain stood in the centre of the circling barrier. Her hair and dress were no longer blowing. Everything inside of the barrier appeared calm as she remained perfectly still and unaware of my presence. Behind me, I heard the cackling of the fire and felt its undeniable heat signaling that it was close. That it wasn't going to be long now.
The ground continued to split beneath me, the wind continued to rage and the rain continued to pour. All four elements, together, in perfect balance.
Together, in perfect balance, they had created me. Together, in perfect balance, they resided within me. They grew as I had grown, nurtured me, protected and shielded me. For so long, I believed them to have been the light, leading me down the path to who I was meant to become, guiding me away from the darkness. And that darkness, I saw now, was destruction. It was the destruction erupting all around me. The destruction was me. This is what the power of the four was capable of—destroying all that I held dear. I was the light as much as I was the darkness, both saviour and destroyer. Both Chayton and Chogan, the original heirs of the four.
The power of the four would always be my life as well as my death.
I withdrew my hand from the back of my head and reached out towards the invisible barrier separating me from my mate. I had been lucky to survive the first two jolts of electricity when I came into contact with the barrier, but I knew there was no way I would survive a third time. The power of the four may have been my creators, but they were not going to claim me. I was going to choose how this ended. And if this was going to end in only one way, then I was going to die by my own hand, reaching out towards my mate and imagining that it was her beautiful face that I was caressing one final time.
I didn't have much time to dwell on the blood dripping from my hand as I extended it outwards. I simply chalked it up to being a result of my head splitting open when it hit the ground moments prior. Nor did I spend my final seconds in fear or anticipation of when exactly that hand would come in contact with the invisible barrier, wondering if I would even feel the pain. No, I spent those final moments staring directly at Ava-Rain, wanting her to be the last thing I thought about and the last thing that I saw before I closed them.
My hand reached out further and further, a warm vibration tingled in my fingertips, signaling the barrier was near. With a final breath from both myself and my wolf, I held my bloody hand up, placed it against the barrier and with the last sliver of strength I had, whispered words forming an apology to the girl that would never hear them.
And then everything stopped. Or perhaps I had stopped because I no longer felt the rain or the wind, nor the ground falling apart beneath me or the heat of the burning fire that had been closing in on me. I no longer felt the pain of my wolf nor the boiling of my blood as it raced through my veins. The pounding in my head had ceased. All around me was nothing but silence. Calm. Peace.
I opened my eyes, not entirely wanting to part from the darkness but gave into the enticing call of the sunlight currently dancing along my skin. However, the sight before me was hardly one I expected to see and any sort of understanding of what I was witnessing was completely absent along with my rationality. In front of me, the invisible barrier encasing Ava-Rain had become visible, completely covered in red lines stretching across it in horizontal and vertical lines. The barrier was actually a dome, I noticed, when my eyes trailed from the ground upwards at least a hundred feet. I inched my head closer to get a better look only to find that the red lines were. . .blood?
My eyes immediately darted down at the hand I had used to touch the barrier with—the same hand that had been dripping with my own blood. Turning it around so that my palm faced up, not much blood remained, but whatever was left I quickly rubbed on my shirt. Bringing it in front of my eyes once more, I saw it then. Although there was no pain to support it was there, very clearly in the center of my palm as if it had been burned into it was a hexagram, the traditional symbol of all four elements.
The power of the four.
Rising to my feet, I reached out that same hand and placed it flat against the barrier. It hadn't done anything except send a tingle of warmth through that hand and up my arm. Of course, it was a thousand times better than being electrocuted, but even though the destruction of the power of the four had ceased, I was still very much trapped outside while Ava-Rain was still trapped inside.
'Buddy, tell me you're still there,' I whispered to my wolf. 'Tell me you're still with me.'
Silence.
'Don't make me do this without you. I need you and she needs us.'
I felt my anger begin to rise the longer I waited for my wolf to respond. Seconds went by, then minutes. I knew he was there, I knew he was floating around inside of me but despite the return of my strength, his had yet to do the same. I closed my eyes and frantically tried to locate him. Why couldn't I feel his heartbeat that for so long had beat to the same rhythm as my own? Why couldn't I hear his heavy breaths or feel his thoughts or emotions? Why couldn't I feel him?
Another minute ticked by.
Then another.
And another.
And I didn't want to think it. I didn't want the thought to take root in my mind or occupy even the slightest amount of space inside of my head. But when the anger turned into sadness, when the light of hope began to dim and was moments away from burning out, I knew that the longer my calls went unanswered, the stronger that one thought turned into a possibility. A reality.
That he was gone. Stuck inside of his own eternity. And if he was gone then, soon, I would be, too. We were, after all, one in the same and neither of us could exist without the other.
No.
'No!' I shouted internally at him. This was not how it was going to end. Not for him, not for me, and certainly not for Ava-Rain.
'Wake up, buddy!' I demanded. 'Come on, I know you're in there. I can't lose you. I need you. She needs us. She needs us now more than ever. She needs us to burn this damned shield to the ground, so wake up! Come on, boy, wake up! Wake up! Dammit, wake up!'
His howl had never been so loud or so strong. It had never resonated with so much emotion or with so much power. It echoed inside of me and flowed through every fibre of my being. And, before I knew it, with all of his power and my own combined, I slammed my hand against the barrier and watched it, first, as it glowed crimson red then explode into tiny little shards of nothing.
Wasting no time dwelling on what just happened, I began to make my way towards Ava-Rain, closing the fifty foot distance in under half a minute or so. A slight tremor of pain rippled through my right hand—they very one that had the symbol of the four elements seared into my palm. At first, I didn't think anything of it, but realized that the closer I got to my mate, the pain only intensified. But I didn't care, nor did my wolf.
When I was only a couple of feet away from her, I stopped. "Ava-Rain?" I called out to her. Had she not felt my presence? Why was she still frozen in place?
I took a single step forward, then a couple more around her to bring us face to face. Her lips were parted ever so slightly and I was only able to notice the millimeter of space between her top and bottom lip because I was standing that close. Her brown eyes were gazing off into the distance as if they were focused on something, despite there being nothing except grass and trees surrounding us. Even as I blocked their path, she only stared straight through me as if I had not existed.
"Ava-Rain?" I called out to her again, staring directly into her vacant eyes. "Ava-Rain, I know you're in there. I need you to come back to me. I need you to hear my voice and follow it back to me."
I no longer cared about the memories belonging to the pure blood that attacked her. I didn't care about the pain shooting from my hand and up my arm. I didn't care about anything except bringing my mate back to me in one piece. "Dammit, come back to me, Ava-Rain! I command you to come back! Please. . ."
Absentmindedly, I reached up and cupped her cheek, remembering a second too late that I had done so with my throbbing hand that felt as though it was on fire. But when I tried to pull it away from her face, Ava-Rain's brown eyes turned milky white. And, before I knew it, the air was sucked out of my lungs completely, my mind was filled with a burst of white light and all I remembered was feeling like I was. . .flying?
No. Falling.
I was falling through memories. Not mine nor Ava-Rain's, but the memories of the pure blood. And I continued to fall. . .and fall. . .and fall before I finally landed. The white light in my head and responsible for blurring my vision slowly began to recede, and taking its place was the unveiling of a scene, or at least snippets.
A teenaged girl with long brown hair. A teenaged boy. A cottage. Trees. Lots of trees. An elderly man and elderly woman holding hands. Laughter. Smiles.
Wolves off in the distance, cloaked in the trees. The wolf's sister to the left. His brother to his right. Watching the humans. The sky is blue and not a single cloud for miles, but the storm is coming. It's coming. He can taste it. He smells it. Feels it.
And the humans know it, too. He senses it in their thoughts.
Woman. Mother.
Man. Father.
Parents.
Girl. Daughter.
Boy. Son.
And grandparents.
Family.
The girl. Friend. Her friend. His mate's friend.
He knows what she is. He knows what they all are.
The girl looks his way, hand clutching her necklace. She cannot see him; he's hidden in the shadows of the forest. But he know that she knows that he's there.
Long, brown hair dancing in the wind. He looks at her. He continues to look at her. She does not see him, but he sees her.
He sees her.
And I see what he is seeing. The girl he is watching.
It's Kasey.