‘Look, Nik! It’s so beautiful!’ She exclaimed through the mind-link. She had a wide grin playing on her face and her long silver hair floated in the water, forming almost a halo around her, making her look like a real angel. My angel.
This was really the happiest I had seen her. ‘Almost as beautiful as you, angel.’
Ava’s smile deepened and she swam closer to kiss my lips. I wrapped my arms around her waist and brought her closer, caressing her ass. Her legs wrapped around my waist and the way things were getting heated, I knew we were going to recreate the time we had sex underwater. Just in a much more beautiful setting.
And finally finish mating too.
But suddenly, I felt something stuck on my head and some sort of a… suction?
‘What the fuck?’
In the next moment, I felt something wrap around my face and Ava pulled away. When she saw me, she began laughing, ‘it’s an octopus. I think it’s jealous of you.’
‘That cock-blocking bastard.’ I hissed and yanked it off my head. I swear it glared at me as it swam away.
Ava was still laughing and I made an annoyed face.
‘Come, let’s swim some more,’ she grabbed my hand and we swam for hours yet it seemed like the time had went still. It felt surreal to be here. Nothing seemed to bother us. It was like there was no reason to worry or no underlying tension.
It was slowly getting dark so we mutually decided to head up back to the ship. Once our heads were above water, both of us were grinning widely. My heart felt so full of love for her that I felt like it would burst. I certainly can’t love her more than this.
“I love you, Nik.” Her voice trembled as a tear leaked from her eye.
I caught her face in my hands and wiped her cheeks, “I love you too. Why are you crying? Are you hurt?”
“No!” She sobbed, “I’m just so happy.” And then she wrapped her hands around my neck and I wrapped mine around her waist. We stayed there for a while, just floating in the water in each other’s arms. “I never thought I’d be able to live such a happy life. Even a year ago, if you would have asked me what I wanted, I would have said just one day of full plate of food. Nothing else.”
I kissed her shoulder, “happy life is all you will live now, Love. I’ll take personal offence if you’re anything but happy.”
“I’m so happy, Nik. I’m so happy that sometimes, it feels too good to be true.” She whispered.
“Well it is real, get used to it.” I caressed her back. “Let’s go back to the ship, it’s getting cold now.”
Ava easily teleported us back inside our bedroom in the ship before asking, “are you happy, Nik?”
I thought about it for a minute, “when I’m with you, our family, yeah. But…”
“Adrik?”
I nodded. “He’s a missing piece. I need to kill him, avenge Mom and ensure everyone’s safety. And… and I need to avenge myself too.”
“What was it like? Living with him?” She asked.
In a flash, thousands of memories passed in front of my eyes. “A constant struggle to be perfect and always feeling like I’m not enough, a nightmare of hearing him defile Mom every night and pretending like I don’t hear a thing, killing innocent people and constantly lying to my mom about it.”
“Is that why you always want to be perfect?” She asked, her voice soft.
“No.” I said instantly before realising that it might have stemmed from there. “Maybe. It’s just… it’s drilled into my head ever since I can remember. That an Alpha cannot be anything less than perfect. That’s why I always hold myself to such a high regard, I disappoint myself before anyone else like that and it helps me become better. It’s a constant pressure but truthfully, it’s challenging and I like it.”
“I know you do.” She murmured, giving me a quick kiss. “And what was it about killing innocent people?”
I nodded, my head lowering in shame, “he had a torture dungeon down in the basement where he brought in rogues, slaves who needed punishment, pack members who questioned or doubted him… basically anyone whom he was angry at or didn’t like. He tortured them first before killing them in there. He’d mostly ask me to watch and learn but sometimes when he wanted to punish me, he’d ask me to do it to them. And said if I didn’t, he would say that he would do it to Mom instead. And he knew that I would rather hurt myself than hurt her. It was pretty much the only thing that got me to do his bidding.”
“Oh, Nik.” She lowered my head to capture my lips in a kiss. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“It’s fine, it’s done now.” I said between kisses before I picked her up and dropped her on the bed. The last thing I wanted was to think about those days so I decided to shift the focus to her.
Before delaying any further, I lined myself against her entrance and slowly slid inside. I stopped when her face pinched in pain and quickly pulled out. “Are you okay, Love?”
She let out a shuddering breath before biting her lip, “I don’t know why it hurts so much.”
It might be because of that selfish spawns of Satan. Wanting all of her for themselves.
“It’s fine, we’ll talk to the doctor tomorrow.”
She nodded and then jumped at the sudden loud noises. I became alert too. Both us walked towards the window to look at the source of the sound and we saw firecrackers bursting in the sky.
Ava grinned. “Did you plan that too?”
“I wish I did.” I mumbled but smiled watching Ava smile. For whole five minutes, the crackers kept bursting. It felt like a show or something. And that’s when I remembered. Greenwitch town hosts a carnival around this time every year to commemorate the birthday of one of the founding members of the town.
“Want to go to a carnival?” I asked Ava.
“A carnival?” Her eyes widened with excitement and I nodded with a chuckle.
“Yes!” She exclaimed enthusiastically.
I looked at the clock and saw that it was eleven already. And I knew that it closed down after the fireworks. We needed to be quick.
“Let’s quickly get dressed then,” I said and the next second, I was wearing a black t-shirt, dark blue jeans and she was wearing a matching black top and a dark blue shorts.
“Ready, let’s go!” She said and in the next second, we were standing in the middle of the carnival.
My eyes widened and I looked around us to see if anyone saw anything but it seemed like no one had.
“You’ve gotten good, Love.” I dropped a peck on her lips and she grinned, “thanks.”
We held hands as we walked past the stalls. Most of the stalls were already closed, considering it was closing time. I saw a man who had just started to shut his stall and dragged Ava there.
“We’d like to play.” I stopped him.
“Too late, young man. Come next year now.”
“How about now?” Ava pulled out a wallet from my back pocket that was mine-the one that was supposed to be at the ship, and took out a hundred dollar bill from my pocket.
He rubbed his beard and took it. He then turned on the machine. There were five rows in shape of waves and fishes that moved to and fro at different speed.
“You have six bullets, hit the eye of five fishes and win anything,” he said in a tone that warned us to hurry.
I nodded, aimed at the first fish and missed.
“Have you gotten rusty, Nik?” Ava teased with a grin.
“No. The gun isn’t proper.” I growled, annoyed. I wanted to show off my skills!
“No excuses. Take it or leave it,” the man waved his hand.