The Vision

The widows’ village. More like a brothel. The widows, men and women, were split between two huge buildings with a connecting fenced grass section.

One building was for the widows without children. The other for the widows with children.

Once people were married, their duties to the village had technically been fulfilled, so they cast them aside and put them in purgatory. Forgot about them.

They all kept to themselves, scorned for not keeping a marriage alive or their other halves. Any divorces meant getting banished here. The unchosen were sent here. It was my future without the wolves.

It was another stupid tradition that humans liked to use as a power play.

They had all the shit jobs, but they couldn’t complain because then the main villages wouldn’t share food or security. So, the widows did the washing and dishes for the others.

Why they couldn’t do it themselves was beyond me. I can wash my own panties, thanks.

Brax walked up the path and through the gate, where children played with balls, hoops, and skipping ropes. They stopped when we entered, the kids pausing to stare at Brax.

He was huge compared to them, and without his smile, he looked intimidating as hell.

He held my hand tightly as he led me to the building that didn’t house the children. He didn’t bother knocking, and I should have cautioned him against that.

The widows were sad, needy, and filled the gaps inside with emotionless sex. All the time.

He walked in, stopping short as we interrupted a woman getting fucked against the wall in the hall. Brax smirked, then walked past them and led me down to the living areas.

Upstairs were the rooms, but as far as I knew, nobody designated anything around here. Except the newer widows, they always needed time to work through the stages of grief.

We went to the living area and he sniffed the air, grimacing as the smells of sex and depression hit him. I laughed.

The room was empty, cold, dark. The furniture was worn and not even worth sitting on.

A woman sat on the rusting chair on the rotting deck, sipping from a broken jar. She was watching the kids play, silent and kind of creepily.

Brax moved through the open double doors onto the deck, the slats creaking underneath his muscled weight. I wasn’t even sure how long it would hold him.

“Ma’am,” he interrupted her.

She turned to him, and he kept his expression neutral when she did, which was better than I managed. I gasped at the sight of her cut face, her white eyes.

“I suppose you want to know what I saw last night. Well, you’re out of luck, wolf, this girl is blind as a bat.”

She cackled, her wild hair bobbing with her sagging shoulders as she did. She sobered quickly though and pulled her dressing gown tighter.

She got out a cigarette and held it out to Brax. I frowned as he sighed, whispering something to his hand before lighting it for her. I raised my brows at his magic—I didn’t know he had.

“You were hurt by whatever was here?” he asked.

“No, I was juggling with knives.” She chortled, then sighed. “Yeah, I felt something weird. Cold. Think the fucker thought I wouldn’t see anything because I got no eyes.

“But I got that son of a bitch pinned and cut ’im up pretty good. He got me back, but I don’t need this mug for much more anymore, so I figure I won that round.”

She sneered, taking a long drag on her smoke. She blew it out, then emptied the jar of moonshine in her hand.

I raised a brow at her until she turned to me, and my expression dropped. Not that she could see, but it felt like she could.

“He wanted you, my dear. Offered a pretty penny too. Then he took them. The ladies from the room next to mine. Didn’t kill them, but oh, he wanted to. I felt it in my bones and in his rage.”

She shivered, and I did too, looking at Brax, who frowned.

“It was a he?”

“I didn’t feel no tits when I was body slammin’ him.” She laughed, then had another puff.

I knew who it was, and so did Brax. My brother was not going to survive once they caught him, and it had me swallowing hard.

He was doing this. I still wasn’t ready for that. I blew out a breath, my stomach turning. The only relief that I had was that Mother was safe, and since it was Lucas, she should stay safe.

“Anything else?” Brax asked, and she laughed.

“Yeah, when you find him, tell him I want my dagger back. That thing was a gift, and it is mine,” she snapped, unconcerned by the cut that was sealed with dried blood still smeared on her face and dressing gown.

“What kind of dagger? Was it a gift from your husband?” Brax asked, and she scoffed.

“I ain’t got no husband. Never have, never will. I got the blind, son. That means I’m as cursed as the winter born. No, my name never made the choosing bowl.

“That dagger was a gift from ancestors much wiser than I, and I would like it back,” she said, then put out her cigarette, facing the kids playing again.

“It’s blessed.” She grinned at that. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

I had no idea what that meant, but Brax did, his brow furrowing. “Sacrificial?”

Her grin grew wider, that creepiness factor coming back. “Generations’ worth.”

“You believe that is why he came here in the first place? For the dagger?” Brax guessed, and she nodded.

“Get it back, please,” she asked, and he nodded, then turned to me.

“We’ve got to get back,” he urged, but as he went to step, one of the little girls who had been playing came over.

She tugged on Brax’s pants, and he looked down at her, smiling. He knelt down to her, and she blushed.

“Can you come play?” she asked, and his smile tightened.

He looked like he was considering it, which meant whatever the dagger meant was important information he needed to share.

But then she smiled wide. “Please? We never get to see the wolves, and I told my brother that you were faster than him, but he doesn’t believe me.”

She played with her hands, and Brax looked up to the other kids waiting. His tight smile broke, and he grinned.

“I’ll just be a minute,” he said to me, then went with the girl.

And then he was a big kid, playing football with them, racing them, laughing with them. It was so lighthearted and happy, brightening the dark day and morbid widows’ village.

“A human and an alpha. Brave or stupid?” the woman asked quietly, still facing the kids.

I wasn’t sure how to answer or whether it needed an answer. “Both,” I whispered, and her shoulders moved with her chuckle.

“The dagger I speak of has many truths in its make, winter born, but even it cannot decide. Touch the blade and you will either prosper or be the death of us all,” she said lowly, and then she was humming as I panicked.

My heart closed and a picture of a blade flashed in my mind. The dagger was silver, with black veins through it. Blood dripped off the end, and I was holding it, my face covered in the red liquid.

I gasped and moved back from the woman.

“Hmm.” She simply hummed, and I spun away from her, going inside to catch my breath.

Another couple had taken the couch, stripping clothes off each other, but I ignored them, my breath harsh, my chest so tight.

Sweat prickled on my forehead as I tried to breathe. The vision I had seen scared the shit out of me, and I tried to stop seeing it, but there was so much blood dripping over me, and the dagger was in my hand.

Had I killed someone? My stomach coiled in response, and I stumbled my way up the stairs to the bathroom, crashing on the floor, reaching for the toilet bowl as I heaved. Nothing came out, my stomach empty, but it still sucked.

I breathed in and out, concentrating on keeping them even when the shadows appeared, dark and thunderous. My brother walked out of them with that annoying smirk that I hated so much.

“Little sister. Nice to see you again,” he said, bending down to me. “Do you know how hard it is to get you alone nowadays?” he said, and I spat at him.

I hope it tasted like bile. He wiped it off his face calmly before scowling at me with a dark expression that had my sticky dampness turning to cold shivers.

“Take a hint then,” I snapped, and he reached forward, tucking my hair behind my ears with a heavy sigh.

“Such a waste. We could’ve been everything this world needed. But since you have decided to be a brat, we must continue to do this the hard way.”

“It’s not the full moon.”

“It is not. But in two short weeks you will have the answer that I want from you. You can be sure of that. I just came to give you a message.”

“What?” I demanded, hating that he could find me anywhere through the shadows, but when he was gone, I had no sense of him at all.

Then again, he wasn’t really my brother anymore. And the shadows were darker, almost a raven black instead of stormy gray like before.

“Here’s the location for our meet on the full moon. Be there at midnight. Alone,” he said, grabbing my arm before I could react.

His fingers burned me as they touched my skin, and he seared a picture into my mind. A cemetery. How original. He showed me the crypt to meet him in, and I laughed, snatching my arm back, rubbing the burn away.

“A creepy crypt in a graveyard?” I sneered. “I’m not coming alone,” I finished, not dumb enough to try that.

“You come with those pesky werewolves and I will slit my own throat. Bye-bye, brother.” He sneered, and the echo in his voice got stronger.

It did make me hesitate though. I couldn’t work out my brother’s place, whether he was willingly doing Elias’s bidding or choosing to. It made all the difference.

“You control my brother? Or he’s letting you?” I asked, but he grinned, knowing the answer would affect whether I cared about his threat or not.

Then he disappeared again.

I huffed and stood from the toilet as Brax burst in. His eyes moved over me before he sighed and pulled me into him.

“You were told not to leave my side,” he growled, and I hugged him back.

“Had to use the bathroom. Didn’t need company.”

“You don’t know what you need,” he breathed, curling me in tighter, and he had no idea how right he was because something inside stopped me from telling him about the meeting on the full moon with my brother, or Elias, or both.

If I told him, they would come, and I might get more people killed. I had to go alone. Or that was being dumb and how the vision would come true. I had no idea.

I held him tighter before leaning up for a searing kiss that washed away the bad. He kissed harder, his tongue finding mine as he yanked the bathroom door shut, shoving me against the tiny vanity.

I ripped his shirt off as his shadows merged with mine. They did that every time we got this close now, like they craved the connection as much as we did.

I rubbed him through his pants as he held my lips captive with his. Brax kissed me so fiercely, like all the fear of me being gone for those few minutes was enough to drive him over the edge.

I felt the same. The vision, the meeting, my brother…it all had me desperate to feel the good his touch offered.

He lifted me on the edge of the basin, fighting my skirt up my thighs until I was bared to him.

I fumbled with his pant strings and freed his thick length, sighing into the kiss as he moved my panties out of the way and slid inside me.

I gasped at the fullness, my head hanging back as I wrapped an arm around his neck. He pumped into me, fast and hard, his breaths panting with mine as I urged him on with bucks of my hips.

It was fast and messy but felt so fucking good. It was everything we both needed in that moment, and I didn’t even care that we were in the tiniest, grossest bathroom I had ever seen, because none of it mattered.

I just wanted him.

So, when his furious thrusts sent me over the edge, screaming out his name, I held on tight and took him with me to paradise, taking the private moment we could get without the evil of the outside world invading it.