Differences
Jacob sobs, writhing beneath me. He’s clutching at the jagged stump of his arm as blood pumps between his fingers. He continues to kick weakly against the ground, panic surging through hine in shallow, useless gaspo
“You betrayed me. You betrayed her.” I growl, then my teeth snap around his face. His screams are muted as I rip the skin from his face
His body jerks and tries to twist beneath me as I throw the flesh to the side. Then snap my teeth into his throat, his body jerks once, then goes limp beneath me. The blood gushes fast and warm across my tongue. I finally release him, staggering back with a deep growing breath. My paws feels heavy, the adrenaline draining out of me in thick and cold
Waves
Killian and Garrick don’t approach me or even speak. They just stare at me, in shock. They know better than to come near me if my wolf is in control. They’ve seen me angry, but this is different, they’ve never seen me like this.
The bond, that fragile, burning thread between me and Serafine is gone. I feel it in my chest like a hollow weight that is pulling me down. There’s no scent trail, and no warmth left. There’s nothing I can follow, and I can’t feel her like before. I know I’ve lost her.
I shift back, my body trembling as my skin pulls painfully tight over the raw muscles and torn flesh. My knees hit the ground and my breath stutters as I brace my blood–streaked hands into the dirt.
My wolf is quiet now, he’s drained and hollow, and just as broken as I am.
“She was mine,” I whisper into the ground, though there’s no one left to hear it. Not her. Not even my wolf. The emptiness answers with nothing. I’m alone, I’ve lost her entirely and I can’t get her back.
Part of me says I should search for her, the other part says I don’t deserve her and should leave her alone. Which side should I listen to? The part of me that knows I hurt her, my mate, and destroyed the band myself and don’t deserve her. Or, the part of me that is selfish and wants her back despite how much I hurt her.
I don’t move for what feels like hours, I can’t move. I can’t not chase after her, but then I feel wrong for doing it. Like she deserves better than me. Slowly, I push up and straighten myself. My ribs grind with every breath, and sharp pain flares from where the Hollowfang and guardians tore into me. The burns and cuts sting beneath the shifting layers of skin. I ignore it all though, none of it matters anymore.
I was wrong about her, about everything and this is all my fault.
A strange weight because of what just happened presses against my thoughts like an unanswered question that I can’t get rid of. I can still feel the lingering bite of every injury I gave the guardians, like I shared their suffering.
I’ve found them before in training drills, and I’ve never felt that before. It wasn’t instinct or pack bond, it was something deeper something raw that dragged through my flesh when I dared to strike them.
Lifting my head I stare into the trees where she vanished. The forest is still now, and the breeze no longer carries her scent or the Silvermane Hound. There’s not even the faintest trace of the Silvermane Hound, it’s like it’s vanished. She crossed the border with them, she’s beyond my reach now.
My wards can’t track past my territory, and I know she’s gone, truly gone. I can feel the loss down to the marrow of my bones. The bond has been severed, not entirely like a rejection, but it may as well be.
My wolf doesn’t stop pacing, he growls low and restless inside of my chest, and he’s grieving in his own way. One was was to kill Jacob. There’s a change that feel deep now. The memory of me shifting earlier floods through me, but there was something different. I had felt something was wrong, or changed at least. My balance had changed, and my weight shifted different.
My wolf’s coat also felt heavier, but I had been faster and stronger. I shouldn’t have been able to get a hit in with the guardians, I did though. My paws, I can vaguely remember they were larger than they’d ever been. It doesn’t make sense, and I push the thought away. Filing it under the long list of things I can’t understand right now, it could just be because I was losing her and I panicked.
I force myself to take a step, but my legs shake under me, the pain and exhaustion are dragging like lead weights at my feet. I step away from the blood–soaked ground and walk toward the tree line with slow, dragging steps. I should go back to the pack house.
Garrick and Killian are there just at the trees wat
ching from a distance, too smart to interfere
until now. They flank my path, but neither spe: Successfully unlocked!ck on me, and I catch the faint edge of shock they’re trying hard to hide. They look at me like Lucy i ceny sumumiy unifamiliar.
1
I frown and glance down at myself. There’s nothing obviously different now that I’ve shifted back. My wolf growls inside me, uneasy, but I still don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I killed Jacob? I didn’t ask questions, I didn’t pull him in and force him to give me answers.
Differences
I just snapped, and killed him. Needing to make him bleed and feel the pain I was feeling.
“You shifted,” Killian says finally, his voice careful. “But not into your usual form.”
I stop walking. “What?”
“You weren’t a wolf,” Garrick adds. His tone is low, uncertain. “You shifted into a Silvermane hound.”
The words hit me harder than any blow, and I stare at them both, they’re wrong. “That’s not possible.”
“Tell that to the guardians,” Killian says. “We saw it, Xander. You shifted. You chased her in a Silvermane body. That’s why they didn’t tear you to pieces the moment you fought against them. That’s why you felt their pain when you attacked. You were one of them.”
I stare blankly into the trees, the weight of what they’re saying refusing to register fully. It’s not possible, but my wolf is pressing at the walls of my mind again, pacing harder now, like he’s just as restless as I am to understand what we’ve become. We’ve just lost our mate, we’re not able to process this shit right now.
“I heard you speak,” Killian continues. “Not through the bond either, but out loud. You spoke in wolf form. I thought I imagined it, but Garrick heard it too. No one can do that Xander.”
Closing my eyes, I focus. My voice had sounded like my own, but it was layered with something ancient, something that I’d never heard before. I remember the words when I spoke to him. I hadn’t meant to say it out loud, I just thought them, and everyone must have heard them.
“We don’t know what it means,” Garrick says. “No one’s ever heard of a Silvermane shifting into a human. Or a human shifting into one. It shouldn’t be possible.”
Yet, they claim I had. I do remember the heavy steps, the raw force beneath my paws. I can, now that I think about it, see how much taller I was. My wolf was always smaller than the guardian’s, but it was the same size, if not bigger.
Then there’s the guardian’s refusal to fight me, for a while,e they stepped back, just protecting the border, protecting Serafine. They only attacked me if I hit them. Then they would step back again.
I stagger back a step, trying to make sense of what they’re telling me, of what I already know to be true deep inside my chest. No one understand why the guardians helped Serafine escape, no one knows why they protected her from me. Some fo them have even left with her, followed her across the border into the unknown.
Pressing a hand to the center of my chest, I drag in a shaky breath. There’s nothing to track, no scent, no bond, and no way to follow her now. I’ve lost her completely. That realization drops hard and I turn and force my exhausted legs to move, heading back to the pack.
There’ll be fallout, questions and even rumors. None of it matters to me now.
I’ve lost her, but I’ll find her and I don’t care how far she runs or where she hides. I don’t care what I have to become to do it.
I will find her, no matter how long it takes.
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