AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“If I stay then all of you will end up like them,” she pointed the tip of her sword at the fallen wolves, and the threat in her voice was not mild. I pushed myself away from Dad and shifted back into my human form to join Brandon.
“He’s mine Amara. He’s given himself to me,” I cried out. Amara’s withering gaze turned towards me.
“You can believe that if you like, but he was mine long before you were even a twinkle in the sky. He has been mine all this time, and he will be mine again. Cassius, Cassius come out here my beautiful boy,” she called out. The way she spoke about him rankled in my soul. How dare she try and claim him as hers.
“You should go back to wherever you came from Amara. Time has moved on. We’ve all moved on from your kind,” Brandon said, using his most commanding voice. He looked every inch an Alpha, just like his father.
“You can never move on from this war,” she spat, her face darkening. Her expression shimmered like ripples upon a lake. My hands tensed. I wondered if I could be quick enough to run up to her and find a point of weakness. If I was swift enough then perhaps I could tackle her and start attacking, but the blood-hued sword warned me away. With a flick of her wrist she could end all that I was. Just one vampire was as good as an army. They were such deadly creatures, and even after all this time they could elicit fear from those who they opposed. I could feel it seeping into the air from the wolves around us, and I knew Amara must have been able to sense it as well. She would have reveled in it, drinking it in like the sweetest nectar.
“Then attack us. Attack us and be done with it. Stop standing there and come and end this,” Brandon challenged, shifting one of his legs back and getting ready to transform into a wolf. I knew what he was doing; he was hoping that Amara would let her rage get the better of her and rush forward into the fray against all these wolves, giving us the advantage again. But Amara had lived too long to make foolish mistakes like that. She knew exactly what Brandon was doing and wagged a finger in the air.
“Tsk, tsk, Alpha, do you really think I’m going to make that kind of mistake? I must admit if you had caught me shortly after my return I might well have taken you up on that offer, but I’ve had time to think and plan. You’ll have to do better than that to outwit me. But since I’m feeling in a generous mood I shall give you a choice. You can either give Cassius to me right now and I’ll leave, or I can cut my way through your little pack and leave this ground stained with your blood, and then I’ll take Cassius anyway. I’m going to give you a piece of advice; I always end up getting what I want one way or the other, so if you value the lives of your pack then you know what you have to do.”
I glanced towards Brandon. He couldn’t have been thinking of doing it, could he?
“Cassius is under my protection,” Brandon said through gritted teeth. I wondered if he was beginning to regret making that decision. Perhaps Naomi had been right all along. Maybe Cassius and I should have just moved on to another place… but no. Amara would have followed our trail here somehow. She would have torn this place apart. There was no reasoning with her.
Amara sighed and for a moment her regret seemed genuine, but I knew it must have been false. “Then you have made your choice. You will fall like so many others have fallen before you, but I suppose you have your lies about the moon to comfort you, don’t you? I’m sure right now you’re thinking that you will be able to sit with your ancestors again in the great beyond,” an undercurrent of derisive laughter laced her words. “It’s all so sweet how naïve you are. I should have expected nothing less from wolves though. Even after all this time you haven’t gotten any smarter.”
Her hands curled around the hilt of her sword and her body prepared for an attack. I could see it coming, and knew she was trying to rile us up, trying to make us lose focus. I had to keep telling myself that even though she was a vampire we still had a numerical advantage, and beating her wasn’t such an impossible thing. We just had to get everything right and make sure every strike was true. I felt the wolf prowling within me, growling and snarling and ready to be unleashed. All the anger churned as though I was a volcano, and it was just about ready to erupt. I wasn’t about to let her keep goading us like this, biding her timeand controllingthe flow of the moments. I had pinned her down once and I would do so again. She was not going to take my Cassius away from me.
I stepped forward and began to shift, crying out a great howl that would rally all the wolves to my cause. A lot of us might die, but I thought that if enough of us attacked then eventually she would be overwhelmed.
But then before I could move another muscle Cassius spoke.
“Wait!” he said. I turned just as I had been about to embrace my wolf. My eyes were already golden, my breath heavy. He strode from behind the line of wolves that guarded him, so vulnerable. His steps were stilted and his words were halting. I could almost hear the rapid drumbeat of his heart from here.
“I can’t allow you to do this Amara,” he said.
She laid her eyes upon him. There was a whole swirl of emotions within her gaze. In a way I knew she loved him, although it was a perverse kind of love that was forged from all the dark impulses a person could have. She still believed she owned him, and I longed to disabuse her of that notion, but I feared that Cassius was about to do something foolish.
“You do not get to choose what I do. It’s time to return home Cassius.”
“And you’ll leave these people alone if I do so?”
Amara narrowed her eyes at him, as if trying to decide whether he was telling the truth or not. My breath caught in my throat, a choking thing that seemed to take the strength away from my knees.
“I shall.”
Cassius turned to the wolves, to me. He was speaking to all of us, but I knew his words were meant for me alone.
“I want to thank you all for protecting me and offering me shelter. I was not deserving of such kindness, and yet you gave it to me anyway. I cannot in good conscience stay here and watch you lose your lives because of me. I have lived a long time, some would say too long, and I do not want to steal the opportunity away from any of you. Let me do this thing for you now. Too much blood has been spilled already. I have too much of it on my hands. Let me be the one who protects you,” he said.
“No…” I gasped, staggering forward. It felt as though I had been stabbed in the heart and all my strength was draining from me. Our eyes locked and I saw the watery sadness in his gaze. I reached out to him.
“I’m sorry Willow, but this is the only way to protect you all and I… I need to know. I need to know how she came back. I love you,” he said.
Amara then stood behind him and placed her hand on his shoulder, a gesture that made me sick to my stomach. I trembled with rage and shook my head, wanting to wrest the threads of destiny in my hands and pull them taut, but instead they were slipping through my fingers.
“I told you he was mine, little wolf. He always has been, and he always will be,” Amara said in a sing song tone that turned into a mocking laugh, and that laugh would be lodged into my mind for the rest of my days. But I wasn’t about to let it end like this. I cried out again and lunged forward, shifting into a wolf as I did so. I reached out with my claws, extending them as far as they could as I thought that if I could just lay a paw on him then he might be able to stay. It wasn’t over. It didn’t need to end like this, it didn’t…
There was a burst of smoke and the smell of ash and brimstone filled the air. Amara and Cassius were gone. There was a void where they had stood. I turned back into my human form. My hand fell onto empty grass. It was still warm from where they had stood, but Cassius was no longer there. I collapsed on the ground and almost wasn’t aware of my father coming to cradle me in his arms. The world looked as though it was melting all around me, and there was a deep howl emerging from the pit of my stomach. It was the most pitiful, painful thing I had ever heard and it was all coming from my broken soul.
Chapter Fifteen
Cassius
In a whisper of smoke we were back in the castle, just as it had happened centuries ago. Amara was still as impressive as she had always been, carrying herself with such confidence and grace. The title of King had never suited me well, I thought, and I had only ever been king of an empty castle. She, though, she had ruled over an army of vampires and had a regal air about her. I was just happy that we were greeted by an empty hallway, having been afraid that an army of vampires were going to greet me.
