Chapter 105: Chapter 105

Knox:

I picked her limp body up and shimmered back home. I don’t have time to wait for them to catch up, or him, I should say. Cass’s tenderness towards her confirmed my fear. He is her mate, and he won’t tell her. I laid her in her bed and covered her over. She overfed, and it wiped her out. I remember those days well, and once you open yourself to feed, it is almost impossible at first to turn it off. But she is going to be just fine.

I stepped out, closing her door softly. Tiptoeing to the kitchen, I poured myself a shot of tequila and downed it before pouring another… and another.

“Where is she?” Cass slammed the front door behind him. I knew this would happen if she got out before she was ready. Feeding is just the start of training, and it only strengthens you mentally and physically enough that she could recognize being full before this s**t happens.

Other creatures don’t understand us. They never will. They have no idea what it is like to be consumed by the power that feeding can give you, and I had only been giving Lennon enough to feel complete. Today she felt the power, and I don’t know what she will be like when she wakes up.

“In bed. Stop acting like a little b***h. Clearwater would have been taken over if she hadn’t shown up.” I tossed back another shot, finally feeling buzzed from the alcohol.

“Knox, she used her magic against another creature. The elders forbade that years ago. You know what this means now. We are going to have to load her up and take her all the way into the holy grounds for a meeting with the elders. We will be lucky if they don’t banish her into The Nothing for her crimes.” Cass is between worried and pissed, and I can’t blame him.

“Between us, we can fix this before it gets back to the elders. I am death, and you are the king of everything. We can fix this. Besides, she did more good for your pack than she caused harm, and everyone who witnessed it can attest to that.” I poured him a shot and handed it over about the time Harley came slamming through the door in a whirl. She took the shot I was holding out to Cass and downed it. Then took the bottle from my hand and sat on the couch.

“What is she really?” She turned the glass bottle up, having her way with the smooth alcohol.

We both looked at her in confusion.

“A soul eater.” I cracked open another bottle of tequila.

“No, she isn’t. Soul eaters can’t do what she did today. I have seen low-level demons with more power than a soul eater. She is something else entirely that is covered as a soul eater. What did she tell you about her story?” I had thought the same thing more than once but wouldn’t dare speak it. Soul eaters aren’t as powerful as Lennon is, but she feeds like one.

“I was there the day she died. I brought her here the moment she transitioned, and her story isn’t mine to tell. The goddess and I took turns staying with her until her human form gave out and her soul turned.” I don’t know what they are trying to twist this into, but Lennon is a good person, and she didn’t do anything wrong. Besides taking out about 300 rogue wolves in one fell swoop, she didn’t do anything wrong.

“Call your nana, Cass. Something tells me we are going to need her here.” Harley huffed, taking a long drink from her tequila bottle.

Lennon:

My eyes are open, but they still seem closed. Everything is so f*****g dark and quiet.

“Knox? Cassius? Is anyone there?” my voice echoed around me, but no one answered,

“I need help,” I called out.

“You’re foolish. So, f*****g foolish.” A voice mirrored my own in the darkness.

“Who’s there?” I hated the shriek in my voice, but I was concreted to whatever was under my feet by my fear.

“You, stupid. You are here.” A small light flickered to life and grew until a portion of this darkness was illuminated. The girl on the other end of that light made me fall on my a*s and crawl backward to get away from her.

“Stop running away from yourself, dumbass. I’m just ugly. I won’t hurt you. Hell, I am you!” she sat on the ground before me.

“Did you kill them yet?” the hopefulness flickered in her dark eyes.

Her skin was falling away. The bruises that had sunk in on me had turned black on her. My red hair, which seemed healthier and more vibrant, was dull and lifeless on her. Where my head had been beaten in was completely normal when I clawed myself from the hole they put me in. But her head was dented in and open. I scooted closer to her. I hadn’t even realized I was crying until she wiped those tears away.

“No. I haven’t. I croaked.

“I will, though. I will avenge us. No matter what.” My lips quivered at the sight of myself. This is the piece of me that I was missing, and she is stuck here in the darkness.

“Lennon, can you hear me?” Cassius’s voice made the darkness vibrant with color and life. I looked to the sky, following his voice that seemed to warm me from the inside out.

“Don’t trust them, don’t trust anyone. You have to get strong; when you are, you go take them the way they took us. They took our lives from us. You have to take it back. PROMISE ME!” She screamed out to me as the darkness turned into a blinding light that shredded my brain.

“There you are. I knew you would come back to us.” Cassius’s smile was beautiful. I saw it around the lights that were still making it hard to focus.

“Am I dead?” I grumbled, massaging my forehead.

“Well… I mean, yeah. But no more than usual.” I looked over to my right to see Knox’s cocky smirk.

“Shut up, brat. My head hurts.” I laughed, wincing at the pain slicing through my head,

“Do you know what happened?” Harley’s voice came from the corner of my room.

“The wolf was hurt, and he fell down the hill.” I paused. I can’t remember anything between that and seeing myself in the darkness.

“You sucked the souls from hundreds of rogue werewolves in one swoop. Just pulled them right out.” Harley’s words had me ready to jump through the roof.

“I killed hundreds of poor wolves?” My wolf friend won’t see me in my dreams anymore once he finds out.

“They aren’t some poor defenseless creatures, princess. They killed many of Cassius’s men and wouldn’t have stopped there. If they could’ve gotten into the castle, they would have. You saved the day.” Knox pushed my curls out of my face, and Cassius rumbled lowly, angry with me.

“But what you did is considered illegal for our kind. Thankfully no one knows it was you but the three of us in this room.” Cassius grumbled, taking my hand.

“Nope,” Harley said, popping the P.

“I had to tell your fathers.” She could bore holes into you the same way Cass can; she has that gaze trained on Cass.

Cass ran his fingers through his thick black hair with a long sigh.

“Are they coming?” He looked at his mother through the shaggy hair that had fallen into his eyes.

“They are almost here.” Cas looked at me for what felt like a lifetime before speaking again.

“Don’t panic, Lennon. We are going to work all of this out.” His words felt like someone had blown fire into my face. What the f**k is going on right now?

“He’s right, Lennon. You aren’t rehearsed in our customs, and I find it hard to believe that they would prosecute you because of that.” Harley patted my leg before leaving me alone with the two people the dark me told me not to trust. But I couldn’t help it. They are my friends.

“I saw something in the darkness of my mind. I think something is wrong with me.” I scooted myself up onto the bed and sat crisscross applesauce.

“What darkness? What did you see?” Knox asked me with scrunched brows.

“I saw myself… the version of myself we left back at the lake, ” I told Knox.

His eyes widened at the realization of what I had said.

“You aren’t a soul eater.” Knox’s voice was low, and Cass was as confused as I was. I need more of an explanation than that.

“What am I then?” I asked him, fighting away the tears threatening to leave my eyes. I hate this, and I am confident that I am on the brink of an identity crisis, and his words didn’t reassure me or my brain.

“I don’t know. But I intend to find out.” He took my hand, trying to comfort me, but it didn’t help, like waking up knowing I hadn’t been dreaming and that they were real.

Goodness, where is the moon? I know she could answer my questions.