Chapter 83
+25 Points
Luckily there was somebody who ran towards us as we were leaving the house and Astor entrusted our son to him.
I wanted to go and see this for myself and he didn’t have a problem with it.
The air was thick with the smell of pine needles and something else, something metallic and sickening. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. Astor’s hand was a comforting weight on my back as we burst through the trees, but even his presence couldn’t push back the dread that was tightening its icy grip around my throat.
And then we saw them.
Two small bodies, still and silent, lay sprawled on the forest floor. The scene was… awful.
The worst part was how small the bodies were which means that it was two small kids.
It was too awful to describe. A sob caught in my throat, raw and choked. My vision swam, the vibrant green of the woods blurring into a muddy mess. A wave of dizziness washed over me, so powerful I swayed on my feet.
I tried to keep my strength and my balance but I couldn’t as I felt on the ground with a painful
thud.
It wasn’t just dizziness. It was something more. A sudden, overwhelming flood of images, a feeling that wasn’t mine but somehow was. I saw them, the two children, their laughter echoing in my mind, bright and carefree. They were running, chasing each other through sun–dappled clearings, their joy a stark contrast to the horror I was now witnessing.
Then, the light faded. The woods grew darker, the shadows stretching long and menacing. A figure, cloaked in the deepening twilight, stood at the edge of the trees. A figure I recognized and a knot of cold fear tightening in my stomach.
He waited, a silent lure. And for some reason, deep within me, I knew he had drawn them there. He had made them run this way because kids never got this far.
The figure shifted. Bones cracked, fur sprouted, and where the figure had stood, a massive, black wolf now crouched. Its eyes glowed with an unnatural hunger, reflecting the dying embers of the day.
Wolves are scary but this was different. It wasn’t the normal intimidation that occurs when you look at an alpha. No. There was something dead and cruel in his gaze.
He didn’t even seem like a normal wolf either but I couldn’t point out what made his wolf
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Chapter 83
different either.
+25 Points
The wolf moved with impossible speed. The scene that followed was a blur of terror, a nightmare I couldn’t escape. The sounds… oh, the sounds were what I would never forget. Gruesome. Unimaginable. My mind recoiled, trying desperately to shut out the images, the sounds, the sheer wrongness of it all.
The poor pups cried and begged for help but somehow their noise didn’t seem to move past them. He didn’t stop until they stopped breathing.
I screamed for him to stop because I couldn’t handle something like that but it was a memory so I couldn’t do anything to help but I will never forget what happened here.
You certainly have to be an evil monster to do something like this.
I was back in the woods now, or reality. But my body was betraying me. I was thrashing, my hands flailing, a scream tearing from my lungs. “No! No!”
“Faith! Faith, calm down!” Astor’s voice was a lifeline, but I couldn’t grasp it. He was holding me, trying to soothe me, but I was a storm of terror and confusion. My eyes, when they finally focused, saw not just Astor, but the small group of patrol guards and warriors who had arrived. Their faces were grim, and every single one of them was staring at me.
Shame washed over me, hot and stinging, mingling with the fear. I pulled away from Astor, stumbling a few steps before vomiting violently onto the damp earth. The taste was foul, a bitter reminder of what I had just experienced.
My body was shaking in fear and trauma and I was drowning in the memories of what I
witnessed.
Astor was there again, his arms wrapping around me, a steady presence in the whirlwind. “It’s okay, Faith. It’s okay.” his presence brought a bit of comfort but all I could see was that monster’s fangs filled with blood and how he didn’t even look back as he left the defenceless kids laying there dead.
Tears streamed down my face, hot and unstoppable. I buried my face in his chest, clinging to him as if he were the only solid thing in the world. “I saw it, Astor,” I sobbed, my voice muffled against his tunic. “I saw it all.”
I don’t know how it’s possible but I did.
He held me tighter, his hand gently stroking my hair, but then I felt a subtle shift in his body. His embrace, once simply comforting, became rigid. His hand stopped its motion. I looked up, my eyes still blurry with tears, to see his face.
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+25 Points
His jaw was clenched, his eyes hard as flint. The warmth I had felt moments before was gone, replaced by a fierce, protective anger. He wiped a tear from my cheek with his thumb, his touch now deliberate.
“Faith,” he said, his voice low and dangerous, a rumble beneath the surface. “Tell me, Give me
the name.”
I took a ragged breath, the image of the wolf, the shadowed figure, seared into my mind. I knew the name. I knew it with an absolute certainty that chilled me to the bone.
It was somebody who only came here because he wanted me and this was prooof that there wasn’t a limit he wasn’t going to cross to get to me.
I was responsible for what happened here today as much as he was because I should have
come clean sooner
“Alpha Kyle,” I whispered, the words tasting like ash.
Unfortunately his name isn’t the only thing I was hiding and I know it’s only going to go downhill from here.
AL
cphakathi28
#vote # A few people in the comments already guessed who it was. Y’all are awesome.
