LIAM.
"Where is he?!" I screamed. "Mary! Where is he?!"
Her eyes widened at how frantic I was.
She glanced behind her and at the Pack House.
"There."
There. There. There.
The word resonated throughout my body.
My body turned towards the House.
There.
I recognised his scent. And as I approached the Pack House, I recognised his scent.
I was in desperation.
He was not dead. He was not dead. He was not dead.
There.
And, there he was, at the door to the Pack House, his body wounded and mangled.
Blood. There was blood on him. His blood.
"Liam! Wake up, Liam!"
He couldn't wake up. He was dead.
He could wake up. He wasn't dead.
He couldn't wake up. He was dead.
"Liam!"
I was consumed by all of my emotions.
"Please, Liam."
Fear.
"Wake up!"
Desperation.
"Why won't you wake up, Liam?!"
Anger.
"LIAM!"
It was as though I was being torn apart as all of my emotions consumed me.
He did not have a heart beat.
He was dead. I knew he was dead.
But...
There.
It was as though he was there with me.
"Wake up, Liam! Please!"
"He is dead."
My throat tightened.
"What?"
"He can't wake up because he is dead."
"Who are you?"
It was a voice.
It was not the voice of the Angel or a voice of a Soulmate but a voice.
"You."
My voice.
"I'm you."
There were questions that lingered in my mind but all I could concentrate on was Liam.
"He's here," I insisted. "You tell me he's dead. But... He's here."
"Yes."
What?
"His Soul is here, because we, his Soulmate, are here."
"He's not dead?"
"He is dead."
"But-"
"All of him but his Soul is dead."
The tears stained my face as I pulled his mangled body into my arms.
"You lie!"
"Why would I lie?"
"No!" I screamed. "Liam, you can't be dead! You promised me forever... And forever isn't a lie. It wasn't a lie that you promised me! No! You can't die." I couldn't breathe. "Liam... You can't be dead."
"Forever is a lie."
"No!"
"My words are your words."
He is dead. He is not dead. He is dead. He is not dead. He is dead. He is not dead.
He is dead.
I started to scream from my own torment.
"He is dead."
"STOP!"
"I told you he was not safe."
That was when I realised.
It was not Blayze.
That voice had told me that my Soulmate was not safe.
But the Soulmate that was not safe was not Blayze.
It was Liam.
"I didn't know."
"I told you."
"I know but I didn't know it was him!"
"Wes?"
I sensed that Mary was behind me.
And when I sensed her, it was as though all of my emotions turned to anger.
"Mary." I growled out. "I will kill you."
"Stop! We don't have to kill Mary!"
The anger had started to control me.
"I will kill you, Mary."
And that was when it came to me.
I could feel the blood burn from within me. I could feel my skin scorch. And I could feel the bones in my body break.
I was in pain.
And I knew what pain I was in.
I was shifting.
And I couldn't control myself from shifting into my Wolf Form.
It was the anger.
I could not control the anger. And I could not control my shift if I could not control the anger in me.
And so the anger had started to control me and the shifting into my Wolf Form.
"Stop!"
There was that voice of reason within me - my voice - that told me he was dead; that I needed to come to terms with that so that I could control my anger. And so that I could control myself.
No. No. No.
He was not dead.
He promised me that he would be with me forever.
Promised.
"Forever is a lie."
"I will not be taunted by you!"
It came out as a growl and not as words.
Mary stared at me. "You're shifting."
I screamed out in pain.
And then...
Red.
All I could see was the red.
The world was stained with red.
Red. Red. Red.
And, in front of me, I could see Mary.
She was also stained red by blood.
The blood of Liam. The blood of Blayze. The blood of the Gray Wolves and Brown Wolves in the War.
I was consumed by the animalistic instinct within me.
I lunged at her.
She had to be killed. It was she who had hurt them. She had to be killed.
My teeth pierced into her.
Red.
She was stained with red.
Blood... Her blood.
Her screams resonated in my ears.
But...
It was not enough.
Her pain was not enough. She was not hurt enough.
Her blood was not enough.
And through all of the blood, I sensed her fall to the ground and scream, as she grasped the wound on her shoulder, from where the blood seeped.
"Please!"
Please? She killed Liam. And now... Please?
She had to be killed.
"No." The voice of reason had returned. "This is not who we are."
She killed Liam.
And the pain, from that, would not stop.
I didn't believe the pain could stop.
But, if I killed her, as she killed Liam, then, would it stop?
Attack.
I attacked her.
My body I attacked her before my mind could consider it.
My teeth tore into her wound. And before my mind could consider it, my venom seeped, into her body, through her wound.
"No, Weslyn!"
And through the red I recognised the face of a man I didn't believe I could protect.
Blayze.
"Weslyn... Please. It's not what he would have wanted!"
There was a pause.
His words resonated with me.
It's not what he would have wanted.
A monster. Liam would not have wanted me to be a monster.
And with that, the emotions that consumed me disappeared and I was... Broken.
"I don't want this."
The expression on Blayze's face softened.
He lowered himself before me.
"Breathe," he whispered.
I let out a breath.
A strange feeling of nostalgia swept through me as I sensed the presence of my Wolf fade from within me.
My teeth and claws retracted and I began my shift into a human.
I stared at the ground.
"I don't want this," I whispered, as my voice returned to me. "I know that... I don't want this."
"Yes." The voice was also fading from within me. "And we don't want this - the death of Mary - because this is not who we are."
I trembled. "I don't know who I am."
Blayze glanced at me.
"You are Weslyn Grayson."
Who am I without my Liam?
Nothing.
The pain would not stop. The pain could not stop.
And the tears had started to fall.
Again.
But they were not from my emotions.
They were from how broken I was.
"Weslyn?"
A broken girl.
A girl without her Soulmate.
A girl who did not know who she was without him.
Weslyn Grayson.