31

CHAPTER 31: Illusional Revelation

I felt the candles flames weave through me. She stood there, and she disappeared, along with the entire room...and there, in the distance was a road. I spin around, alone in the frosted ground. It looked like it was, only the entire atmosphere was a welcoming dessert of humidity. The trees were a mystic green before a flowing glow of red and orange leaves. The road held four seasons, all in my line of vision. I was facing the light of summer, but it was the cold dark hand behind me, from the voids of a dark winter.

I turn and still.

There in the road was a body.

I run for her, she’s horizontal, unmoving, not breathing. I sprinted, pumping my legs, with every step I was running further from her. Screaming, I try harder and harder to get closer. I growled, pumping faster, but forces were tugging me back. I do the only thing I could, I shed my clothes and pull out the beast I always keep so locked up inside me. Not out of fear, but out of a foreign entity. A foreign touch was my wolf’s pelt, a foreign smell was her scent, a foreign being she was because that connection between beast and man should have been stronger.

Suddenly I was too close to the body. Paw after paw and there she is. I shed the fur and drop to my knees. A woman in a white dress, only the white was almost non-existent. She was soaking in hipper own blood. Scratches that pulled out bone, guts filled with magnets knowing on her organs. I screamed and spun out, spun away from her, “Burn me. Stop the pain.” Her mind, not her mouth that physically opened.

I stare at her, horror wretched through me, “How?! How do I stop it?” How do I save you?” I cry out. Her mind asked for flames, for mercy. It’s what she called it, likes strip of silver and gold thoughts running through the lobes of her mind. Everything that had its place was crawling with insects and she couldn’t stop it.

I cry out and drop to my knees.

Burn.

I shake my head, I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Raising my fingers, I spread the bony things out to her, barely a meter away. I clench my breath, keeping it lodged in my throat. I try a spark, I try to burn something in my palm. I hold the bile rising in my throat, my lungs were burning. I scream out, trying again. The flame sizzles at first.

I aim it at her.

Burn!

“I’m trying.”

“You’re not trying hard enough.” The masculine voice behind me. Martin. I spin around.

“Martin, we have to—to do something. Please.” I beg of him, unable to understand how he’s here. He stares so blankly. Pale and empty and a void of something, like his face would swallow hole and into nothing.

“You failed. Again.”

I stare at him, “I didn’t fail anything, we have to help her!” I roar at him, rotating to the body...that’s no longer there. No blood on the yellow strip. The horrific smell gone in a flash. You failed. Again. What does he mean again.

“What is this?” I ask him.

He moves forward, “Here I thought I chose a strong female. Fighting back was delicious at first, but you got greedy in Europe. Always fighting for a society that does not exist. Women—you were given a purpose, serve the superior species and produce the next generation. You do not have that many jobs, and yet, you failed. You failed in making me happy. You failed in protecting your own family. Your mother’s gone, your father’s refused to reveal his identity, the children you hurt and the cuffs you wore because of your own fault. A wolf cannot be scared. You failed the test in the face of fear, you wear the silver cuffs to bed because you could not rule. You could not show the animalistic side you hide.”

“You know nothing.”

“You’re in denial if you believe that.” He eyes me like a predator who’s tongue hasn’t licked enough blood, who’s vengeance isn’t finished until more flesh is ripped apart.

In that moment, I wanted him dead. And I felt it, it crawled up my arms like two baby dragons at first. Fire. It’s talons scraped skin and demanded the blood in my veins to boil in a magnifying lure of heat and lust. Because lust was a key factor, a key ingredient in igniting something that was both evil and passionate.

“You’ll make it for my death, but not to save hers. Disappointing as usual.” His voice, the way the words fell off his lips. I wanted him skinned, everything about him, I wanted...burned away like it never existed. I wanted to know why I was his victim. Why he chose me to treat so badly, to torment so dangerously. Why he needed me to fuel whatever serial killer, psychotic mind he had locked in that big head.

“Why choose you? Was that not obvious? Because...that wolf craved it like a goddamn curse and a blessing all in one. You wanted a genie in the bottle, you wanted your wish, little queens that nasty slut of a wolf gulped and clawed for a crown. A throne. She begged me for it. Whenever you started hating her...that’s how deep those wounds go and she’s so scarred, it’s almost ugly for me to mind-fuck her enough to force you into submission, into a goddamn kneel. And while she loved gutting into my side like that corpse behind you, she fucking loved it more when I showed dominance!”

His eyes were black. Like a manic king with his humanity lost to the ruins of pain and sins darker than the devil’s. He looked crazed and unhinged and I felt it in my bones. It was dark and cold and hot all at once.

The heat was sickening this time, choking, “Let’s see you work that elemental side the same way I fucked that wolf of yours over, shall we, honey?!”

He blasts a wrecking ball of dark magic at me. I flipped through the air with a scream and shot the red hot flame out of my fingers, straight for him. He laughed—threw his head right back and let the roar go, “Finally, some fucking gasoline to you.” He smirks and disappears when I drop against what should have been concrete.

But I stare into the red eyes of the blood witch instead. Bleeding out, only something changes and the blood swipes away, sinking into pale white skin and...long blonde hair, a gemmed red dress. Blood red, curling down her slim frame. My view of the horizontal plane twists ninety degrees until I see her face. Vertical and standing in front of me...is me. The blood witch...she’s me.

That hitched breath nonsense sticks on my skin, “What the hell—”

She grabs my neck and sinks her fingernails into the layers of skin before the blood splits out and I wriggle, squirming, yelling for it to stop.

Burn.

I roar and slap my hand against her head, locking my forearm into her elbow, I crunch it down, before backhanding her. The fingers are gone, I sink my knees to the floor and stare. It’s sunset behind her and her dress fades into dust. Like she herself became ashes to the wind, “You’re quite the harbinger of death, don’t you think?”

I hitch a breath, Elias. The throbbing of my heart running deeper as he moves into the light, silhouette goes it’s warmth and then, like a light switch. It’s gone. The light turned off and there he stood above me, old-bearded professor with eyes that narrowed in on my form and I was suddenly pulled into a classroom, sitting at a desk with a humanised test in hand, struggling with my spelling, struggling with the words I couldn’t get out because I never learned how, “What is the trouble?”

“I don’t know the right word.” I whisper.

The students laughed, “Dummy!”

“Dummy! Dummy! Dummy!”

“She shouldn’t be here if she’s so behind!”

Elias raised a hand and the power of it alone stopped. He kneeled down before me, “You’re going to need to practice at home.” Should I tell him the orphanage didn’t allow it. That I cooked and cleaned and served to the human orphans, but was chained in a dog house when I slept. The collar around my neck. It was freezing cold. Every night. Should I tell this professor that I can’t sleep? Because the night is so loud. Because I couldn’t eat.

I look down at the page, “Yes, sir.” He looks at my dirty handwriting.

“A wolf can’t read and write.”

“Can it talk properly either?” I was taught to hide the head of the wolf and force this side of my face to always show. Because the ideal normal was this. Elder Elias. The professor disappears and let’s the screams for me to be put down serenade my form. The lashings from the mother of the orphanage, the shock therapy on a dog. On a humanised wolf. The crackles every night. I hid my wolf, not because of fear, but because of society. Because my colour was fur. Because my loyalty was eradicated. Because I was not ever caressed or embraced in any society. Not by the humans. Not by the wolves. Not by the elementals either.

Alastair oozed power as he stood above that tree, “You’re useless. Do your job! You HAD ONE FUCKING JOB! TO BE HIS CHEW TOY UNTIL MY VENGEANCE IS OVER! WHY CAN’T YOU DO ANYTHING RIGHT!” Alastair wanted me to distract the lycanthrope. Elias wanted me to accept him. Martin wanted to me to bow to him.

“WHAT ABOUT WHAT I FU KING WANT?!”

They all stood there in front of me.

The three points of degrees, all of them wrong.

All of them flawed. Like each of them could reflect me.

Alastair—colder than a lake of ice. Hidden and unaccepting of the times. He hid behind a hood, those shadows that stroked his revenge like a kitten being hugged for the first time. It’s addicting and can’t be parted from.

Martin—power and greed. Taught to believe women are here for one thing, and one job, and one purpose in life. His parents didn’t prove him wrong. His sister didn’t prove him wrong. The exile that needed a woman, but never wanted a queen. Just a bitch to play the part.

I was never a good actress.

Elias—wise, but a coward. He coloured a walk of wisdom, yet when it came to a plan, a plan that would sacrifice the girl he never saved in that classroom. The girl he wouldn’t be truthful with because then his years of life would trap him in a life he wanted no part of anymore. He wanted death because that was a freedom he needed. He stuck with rules all his life, when an abnormality changes him, he steps aside, let’s others use her.

Let’s others use me.

“This is where your problems lie. In each one of them.”

Her voice.

I gasp, snapping away, still in the temple where she’s there, she hasn’t disintegrated anywhere, in sheer fact...she’s right in front of me. Silver eyes that penetrate mine, I gulp, “What the hell was that?” It felt real...it felt too real.

“You’re not done. Begin again.”