I walked out onto the field, my heart hammering.
The familiarity of it all threatened to bowl me over. Despite the blatant differences in...well, species, the people training here were akin to those from my past. They all wore the same masks of steely determination—they all moved with dizzying speed, matching their sparring partner in a frantic dance of strength and power and muscle. I stopped for just a moment, resigning myself to this new yet unbearably familiar reality. Fighting, blood, and sweat.
"Over here, Isa!"
I tore my gaze from the fighting and looked to the far left of the field. Thea stood beside Magali, and Damien beside Thea, whilst my mate and Lexus leaned against the trees that girdled the training expanse. My eyes immediately went to Phoenix, whose muscle-bound arms were folded across his chest. There was fire in his eyes and distaste in the grimace that lingered upon his lips. Despite the fact that his blatant glare was directed at the witch, my heart still twisted with unease.
I shook my head, inwardly chastising my lack of strength. What sort of woman was I if I craved validation from a man I hardly knew?
"Are you ready to train?" Magali asked as I drew closer.
I stopped just beside Thea. Magali smiled, and coiled upon her quirked lips were unspoken secrets. I gazed into her eyes, trying to decipher who she was—what she would do, should the darkness descend upon the world. But in those inhuman green depths, I found no answers.
"I suppose," I replied, folding my arms across my chest. "What would you have me do?"
She didn't reply for a moment, examining me with a raised brow. And then, just as the awkwardness began to set in, she spread her arms wide and looked into the forest.
A girl, no older than ten and sporting braided pigtails, emerged from between two trees. Confusion swirled in my stomach but I smiled at her, offering the child a tentative wave. Her big blue eyes met mine and she grinned back.
"Hurt her." Magali ordered.
The world seemed to stop. The girl's eyes widened and she looked between Magali and I, as if unsure of how to react. My stomach plummeted as if I was in an elevator that'd dropped twelve stories. Hurt her, she'd said. Her words were uncomfortably familiar and they sat in my mind, the only constant in a storm of fleeting, panicked thoughts. Even Phoenix, who'd been quiet throughout our exchange, pushed himself away from the tree and growled warningly.
"What?" Thea and I asked in unison.
The witch placed a hand on the trembling child's shoulder and guided her forward until she was only a few metres away from me. Her lips trembled and her eyes, so eminently innocent, glistened with unshed tears. I wanted to tell her that I wouldn't hurt her but my voice was lost to the shriek of an inward storm. My mind trembled with each clap of thunder and my limbs, once strong and willing, were now seized by corporal fear. Was Magali like Alanna?
"Go on." Magali said, waving her hand dismissively. "You were a Huntress, after all. Prove to me how strong you really are."
My mate started to walk towards me but Lexus pulled him back, whispering something I couldn't quite catch in his ear. He glanced at me, eyes darkened with concern, and reluctantly stepped backwards into the shadow of a looming tree. Desperation clawed at me, urging that I concealed myself in his arms. He was safe. Or safer, at least, than this harsh reality.
"P-please," the desperate whisper from the child had me turning to face her once more. "I'm scared."
There is no room for mercy, the power whispered, waking from its short-lived slumber to tentatively glance across the planes of my mind. We must prove ourselves.
I shifted from foot to foot, my watery eyes fixated on the child before me. She almost looked like my sister, with bright blonde hair that glittered like spun gold. I didn't want to hurt her. I never wanted to harm anyone...that much was obvious in my inability to kill Alanna's subjects. But there was a darkness within me, one that resided in the twisting and coiling body of power.
And it was my power that controlled me.
"Hurt her." repeated Magali, giving the girl another shove. "Do it."
I glanced wildly at Thea, who was ashen. Help, I wanted to say. But of course, my words betrayed me. I looked down at my hands. I felt a lurch from within me and soon, as if on cue, curls of golden light began to seep from my fingertips. Fear made my blood run cold.
"That's it." Magali encouraged.
I looked at the girl. She was shaking...or was it me? I could no longer tell. The power reached outwards, attuned to my fear.
"Quickly, Isa."
She is like Alanna. She is like Alanna.
"Why do you hesitate?"
I had to prove myself. I had to.
"Now."
"NO!"
A shriek escaped me as I crouched, bringing my hands above my head. The coils of once tentative light blazed, billowing outwards in great, orange wings. The child dove to the side, believing that she was the target, but she wasn't the one who we were after. It was her.
The light surged towards Magali and before she could react, it sent her flying through the air, pushing her backwards with such force that the tree she collided with splintered and caved around her. I gasped, calling the power back with an unspoken plea, and sagged on solid turf.
Everything was silent for a moment. Even the winds seemed to falter, allowing the dust to settle around us. Magali wheezed, nestled in the thick foliage. I looked at the child, whose eyes betrayed her inward fear. Go, I mouthed, and go she did. She took off running, and part of me contemplated where exactly she had come from. The rest of me wondered what the fuck had just happened.
"Why?" I decided to break the silence, rising from the floor. "Why would you ask that of me?"
No one spoke. Everyone, it seemed, was shocked. I couldn't bring myself to look at my company for fear of what I would see. Did they hate me now? Or worse, did they fear me?
"I wanted to check that you weren't a sadist." the witch eventually replied, her voice a hoarse whisper. "Clearly, I was right. Painfully so."
I watched as she stood up, her legs trembling with exertion. It seemed I'd invested more into my rebuttal than I'd intended, for her skin was marred with bruises and the tree she'd hit was lying in ruins. Guilt twisted my insides but anger ruled over me, enshrouding my vision in a red mist.
"How dare you?" I hissed. "How fucking dare you?"
Phoenix walked towards me and wound an arm around my waist, gently but firmly pulling me against him. I dared to look up. He was angry—that much was obvious in his thinned lips and blazing eyes—but it did not seem to be directed at me. I would've sagged in relief if not for my own searing fury.
"Isa's right to be angry. That was all kinds of fucked up. That's almost reaching Uncle Tom levels of fucked up—"
She's like Alanna. She's like Alanna. She's like Alanna.
"I'm taking Isa inside." Phoenix declared, interrupting Thea's spiel. "If the ved'ma ever talks to my mate again, she'll die. Am I clear?"
She's like Alanna. She's like Alanna. She's like Alanna.
Silence ensued. My legs threatened to buckle with the freight of what had occurred and my eyes watered with tears of the past. Phoenix, as if attuned to my distress, tightened his hold on my waist and led me towards the pack house.
Phoenix disappeared into the en suite as soon as we reached my bedroom.
I practically collapsed on the bed, my mind buzzing with fleeting thoughts and flashes of what had occurred. The fear on the girl's face...it was deeply stirring and forever seared into my brain, a reminder of what my power could provoke. How could anyone ever trust me when such evil festered in my heart? How could I ever trust myself?
Tears slid down my nose, carving white paths across my bronze skin. I knew Phoenix was only next door and with his enhanced senses, he'd hear me crying, should I heave a sob. So there I sat, lips thinned in an effort to muffle my cries, shoulders trembling with the force of an earthquake, mind spinning with possibilities and poisonous words and fearful children.
"Come here."
I looked up, the mate bond twisting and palpitating like a shared heart. At the sight of him I forced a lazy grin to stretch across my lips in a last ditch attempt to conceal my anguish. Rationality tap, tap, tapped her nails against my mind, reminding me that I couldn't trust him yet, that I didn't know him well enough.
"I didn't hear you, tigritsa. I smelled the salt, though." he said when I chose not to move.
"I wasn't crying," I wanted to say, but the lie died in the back of my throat, crumbling to ashes as my vocal cords grazed against each other, like corrugated metal chafing against flesh.
I stayed silent, unable to find my voice amidst the influx of malignant thoughts. The Alpha dropped to his knees before me, like a worshipper before his God, and wiped the tears from my cheeks, his touch sending lazy tingles crawling across the harsh planes of my cheekbones.
"It isn't your fault." he said quietly, his eyes stormy and troubled. "The child escaped unscathed."
But I didn't. Part of hated the fact that I was crying again, that I'd showed this werewolf how weak I really was. But there was a beauty to this...encounter, for his touch transcended my bronzed flesh and glanced across the impossible edges and contours of my soul, awakening a feeling from within that I hadn't been privy to before. He cupped my face in his large hands and somehow, despite my worries, I found myself barrelling into his arms, abandoning my place upon the bed and knocking into him like a tornado.
He tightened his grip around my midsection and rested his head in the crook of my neck, rocking me softly as I cried. His scent washed over me like a blanket and I allowed myself, in that moment, to inhale as deeply as my lungs would allow and bask in the aroma of cloves and spice. If not for my anguish, I would've laughed at the irony of it all. The infamous Alpha, lulling me as if I was a mewling babe.
Eventually, after what felt like aeons, I found the courage—and strength—to pull away from Phoenix, who'd long since settled in our embrace. He frowned but decided against objecting—instead, he smiled softly and rubbed his thumb over the purple rings that encircled my eyes.
"I ran you a bath," he said huskily, jerking his head in the direction of the en suite. "There were too many bottles of that bubble stuff to choose from so...I just dumped them all in."
I smiled despite myself. He was...cute, in a brutish-russian-overwhelmingly-tall-man sort of way. He'd consoled me without thought, ran me a bath despite a blatant lack of knowledge regarding feminine products—heck, he'd promised not to touch me unless I made it clear that I wanted him to. It seemed that the domineering Alpha of the fables was really a softie...or perhaps he was pulling the wool over my eyes.
I straightened at the thought, dusting myself off with a forced smile. "Sorry about that," I managed, my voice hoarse from crying. "And thank you. It is much appreciated."
Phoenix grabbed my wrist as I made my way to the bathroom, effectively stopping me in my tracks. When I turned around to question him, the look of thinly veiled sympathy made the words die in my throat. It wasn't pity that shadowed his expression, and for that I was immensely grateful. His pity wasn't something I wanted. It would've made me feel weak.
"You don't have to pretend, you know." his voice was like a quiet rasp of silk over steel, impossibly and irrevocably attractive. "Being hurt isn't something to be ashamed of."
My legs carried me in the direction of the bathroom and, just as my fingertips grazed the door knob, I looked over my shoulder at Phoenix. A small, sad smile tugged at my lips.
"It is in my world." I said, and shut the door behind me.
A/N: GAH I WROTE MAGALI'S CHARACTER AND I FREAKING HATED HER IN THIS PART
QUESTION FOR TODAY: Heels or pumps (or sneakers, as some call them)