Damian knew that something was wrong as soon as he discovered that it was Travis who had started the massive fight in the ballroom. Then he discovered the doors leading out to the gardens had been locked by Trixie and Regina, while the security guards scrambled to break up the fight.
At first, he had suspected that there was some massive and humiliating prank awaiting the bobcat students, but when no prank came and the fight was willingly broken up, he became concerned. Then he couldn't find Kayla, and his mind began whirring. She wasn't inside, there was only one other place she could be. The Gardens.
He ran through the front entrance and around the building. The tall wall was the only thing blocking him from the beautiful gardens, he quickly glanced around to make sure there was no one around. Then he scaled it with a single leap, and landed in the midst of the green plants and soft grass. It vaguely reminded him of Bermuda, it was as close to beautiful that they would ever get these plants to be here on Earth, which was barren, compared to Bermuda's fertile soil.
He slowly wandered around, sniffing the air for a scent. He found Cody's and followed it to another part of the wall close, the end of the stream. There was something else there too, it smelled sort of like dog, but he couldn't quite place it. It was extremely faint, like a very old scent, but it didn't smell stale like an old scent either. Then there was the other scent, dominating everything else.
Blood.
It trickled down the stream, not enough that gave way of some slaughter, but enough to say that someone was bleeding out. If Cody's scent was here on the wall where he had obviously jumped to get away, that only meant the blood could belong to one other person...
He ran frantically through the trees, splashing over the water and panting while his heart pounded in his ears. If she was injured what would he do? Anthony would surely cry for war, they would never believe that he was innocent of her injury. And even if they did, he was responsible for her this evening, that would be enough reason for them to kill him and his pack. What had his cousins planned?
He burst through a clearing, expecting to see a half dead princess. Instead, what he saw made his heart stop.
"Kevin?" Damian gasped, taking in the image of his brother, bloodied and bruised, kneeling over Raul, who was excreting red liquid in the water, with a clawed hand snaked around his crimson colored neck. He glanced between the two, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, recognizing Kayla's sour perfume hovering in the still air around them, and noting that Kevin possessed no scent at all.
"What have you done!?" He asked horrified when the shock of seeing his brother again left him.
Kevin sighed deeply and reluctantly let go of Raul. He knew the Pelisian was as good as dead anyway, he barely had enough strength to keep his head above the water and he was bleeding rapidly. He smirked as he took one last look at his long time enemy. The plan had gone even better than he thought, Kayla had been taken and would be dead by morning, and now Raul, the second heir, would bleed to death. The Pelisian Pack was finished in under an hour. He had to give Raul some credit for being a good fighter, he might've even won, had it not been for Kevin's dirty little trick of putting a Taser to him. The electricity would stun anyone, but it was extra damaging to a Lobain, because the electrical surge caused Raul to go through the entire shape shifting process twice, against his will. It was a devastating blow to his mind and body, and in his state of extreme weakness Kevin had beaten him to a pulp.
"Just saving your skin." Kevin smiled at Damian, "This brute here"--he indicated to Raul--"was going to kill you."
Damian snarled, he hated Raul as much as the next Serian. Maybe it was Kevin's untrusting ghostly scent, or his smug pride, that made him question his brother's integrity.
"Don't bullshit me!" He yelled. He also knew, from the few times that he'd been unlucky enough to cross paths with Raul, that he would only attack when Kayla was being threatened in some way. Most of the time, she stopped an actual fight from happening. To his alarm, she was missing from this situation, her scent was beginning to turn stale.
"Where is she, Kevin!?" He demanded.
"Out of your hair." He grinned with his sharp teeth, which were stained red with blood, Raul's blood. "You'll thank me someday." He pulled a circular object from his belt. Damian's green eyes widened, it was a weapon that hunters used.
"I love you, little bro." Kevin cooed as he slammed it to the water. Damian tried to charge after him, to force him to spill his guts on what he had done and explain why he held a hunter's trick in his hand.
There was a pop, and a bright flash that left the poor Serius heir blinded and deaf momentarily. When his vision cleared, he was standing on the other side of the bank. Kevin was gone, not even his scent had been left behind. He looked around wildly, sniffing hard at the air for some sort of trace. Some tiny mark that Kevin had to have left, but there was nothing. It was if he had never been there.
He wanted to scream. What was going on!? Kevin was wielding the weapons of a hunter, and had no scent at all. Kayla was gone, the ballroom was an absolute mess, and someone was bleeding to death in the gardens. Remembering Raul, he twisted around to see him dragging his beaten mass to the edge of the stream. He was panting, blood dripping from his mouth with each breath he took, the gaping hole in his neck bubbling like if the blood was boiling. He instinctively held a hand to it, but the blood wasn't going to stop. Tremors shook through him as if he was freezing. His broken dark amber eyes locked onto Damian, there was no hate in them anymore, instead, they were pleading.
"P-Please..." Raul struggled to breathe out. "Save... her..." A mouthful of blood suddenly poured out of him.
Damian's eyes went wide when he suddenly realized something. When Raul's pack arrived and found him, they wouldn't smell Kevin here, they would smell Damian. If Raul was dead by then, his truth of being attacked by Kevin would die as well, and Kayla would be gone, the last person she'd have been seen with was Damian. He'd be blamed for all of this. The anger and devastation of the Pelisians wouldn't be well on anyone. With a missing--possibly dead--heir, and the beta gone, they'd know the pack is forever lost, so they'd have nothing to lose. They'd bring the entire valley down with them, they'd wage war against the Serius Pack. An uncontrolled, vengeful war.
He turned away, bile rising within him at the near future, and grabbed at some huge star shaped leaves nearby. He used a clawed hand to break away the bark of a tree causing it to leak sticky tree sap. He quickly mixed them together with his saliva--it possessed healing properties like most of his kind did--and placed them on the hole over Raul's neck. He did his best to cover up every place where Raul bled heavily, with shaking hands and nervous breaths. He called on his memory from the pre-med courses he'd taken in school since freshman year. If he succeeded, he could stop the bleeding long enough for help to arrive, and give Raul a chance to survive and testify the truth of what happened here. He hated him, but he needed him alive, he was the only one who knew what had happened.
All the while, Raul choked on his words, trying to get Damian's attention. He pushed him back roughly, and Damian got the sinking feeling that nothing could save Raul. He was too torn up, a piece of his leg bone stuck out of him, and there was too much lost blood. Already, he was going pale, and light faded from his eyes.
"Hunters..." Raul gasped weakly.
Damian felt his world go icy. He noticed that Raul's trembling had lessened a bit, it was being traded in for stillness.
"...through... back roads... to kill..." He took a shaky breath, "Please... save her..." Raul lifted a quivering hand and grabbed at Damian's sleeve, "Please..." Tears slid from his swollen eyes and mixed with dried black blood that caked his face.
Damian had been holding his breath. He gently rested his other hand over Raul's in assurance. His chest tightened as he looked at his enemy, devastated physically and emotionally, in front of him. Raul was stooped to such hopelessness that he pleaded to Damian--Damian, of all people--for Kayla's life.
The pelisian beta hadn't succeeded in keeping her safe, but he would not let himself die without knowing that he sent someone after her. He needed an affirmation that someone else would save her life. His loyalty to her went beyond the fact that she was the heir, she was his family, they'd done everything together. All his life he'd been raised to protect her, but he would've done it anyway without being told too.
Even after he'd gotten his mate, therefore ending his bodyguard duties over Kayla, he was the first to respond to her cry for help. He wasn't capable of ignoring her when she needed someone, he couldn't imagine a life without her whining about everything, and rolling her eyes at his jokes. Red, hot, tears streamed down his face, he suddenly regretted harassing Kayla all the time, and for being angry with her at the diner. He regretted not being a better protector.
Every memory they ever had together came rushing back to him. Memories of being children, pushing each other on the swings at the park, when he taught her the joy of rolling down the hill, or when she forced him to play tea time with the dolls at her house. The arguments they used to get in over such pointless things, and the fits she'd throw when he'd beat her at video games. Her depression when he left their elementary school and joined the ranks in middle school, and the pesky little punk he beat up for throwing spitballs and pulling her braids. He remembered when she cried at his graduation last year, because she didn't want him to leave her behind and go to college.
The same vulnerability Damian saw when Raul was at the park with Silvia, appeared again. Only this time, it was different, because it was accompanied with tears and dying breaths. He had despised the ground Raul walked on, he saw him as the definition of an enemy. But now, as he stared at the poor hurting body of his enemy, he couldn't bring to mind any crime that Raul had committed against him. All he'd ever done was display superb loyalty to his cousin, Kayla, and protect her when things seemed to be going rough.
A new question formulated in his mind: Who was the real enemy here? The wounded Pelisian, begging for his cousin's life, or the careless brother that lead hunters into his home?
He growled so powerfully it boiled within his stomach and climbed higher, until he snapped his head up and howled loud and clear, so every Lobain in the valley would hear. It was a distress howl, laced with anger and betrayal. He knew his pack would rally together at the sound of the heir being so distressed, and that the Pelisian pack would come running right to him in worry for Kayla.
The howl was so powerful that it made his throat ache, and it carried just as he had hoped it would. Every Lobain froze on the spot as they listened in their various places, some dropped their items as they shopped at the market, others snapped awake from sleep. Amarie froze in the ballroom, just as the dancing was picking up again from the ruckus that had formed, and she took off for the gardens, the other Pelisian students behind her.
When Damian's howl finished, both alpha's responded. Anthony's thick with warning, and Devon's spilling over with worry.
He grabbed Raul's face, gently as he could, and bore his green eyes into him.
"I'm going to save her." He promised, "And I will not let the hunters take anyone else."
Raul was to weak to nod or smile, but Damian could see the glow of gratitude in his dying eyes. With his promise, Raul felt safe to relax and his eyes closed. Damian darted out of the gardens, Amarie bursting through the bushes as he departed. He heard her scream when she saw all the blood, and Raul's limp body. Then she howled in panicked urgency. He knew she was already blaming him for it all, but it was okay, once he saved Kayla, she could say what happened, and he would be her savior. It would all be okay. He just needed to get to her first.