Everyone enjoys dinner, and the atmosphere is energetic as everyone excitedly gets ready for the pack run. People disperse in groups and head toward the forest. The place feels alive with echoes of howls ringing through the night. The buzz rippling through everyone is contagious. Mateo tugs his shirt over his head before draping it over a fallen tree next to the tree line.
I watch as he and Ezra strip off before shifting, but Kora never comes forth. I try to feel for her, searching the depths of my mind for her, but come up empty. It is like searching through an empty filing cabinet. I have no tether to her like she is completely gone, and that empty, hollow feeling sweeps over me again when I find myself shoved backward on the grass. Maddox jumps on top of me before gripping my shirt between his teeth and tugging it off, leaving me in my jeans and bra.
“Maddox, stop,” I object. Ares nips him when he continues to try to undress me, his claws scratching me, and I can hear Ezra trying to control him, but Maddox is almost frantic as he keeps trying to get me to shift.
Ares comes over, standing over me while Maddox tries to get to me. His voice is booming through the mindlink angrily. “Where is she?” he demands to know, but I have no answers to give him.
“Maddox, stop it. Calm down,” Ezra scolds his wolf, but Maddox is on the verge of losing control the more he waits. Maddox grabs my shoulder with his sharp teeth and I wince like I’m being mauled as his teeth slice through my arm, and Ares snaps at his face, biting him hard and trying to pull his attention away from me.
Maddox growls at Ares, biting the back of his neck and pinning him to the ground beside me, and I whimper at the sight of him standing over Mateo’s wolf.
Reaching over, I grab Maddox’s ear and yank on him, yet he doesn’t let go. Just holds him in place, showing him who is in control. He isn’t hurting him, but showing who the dominant wolf is.
I slap his nose, and Maddox growls, letting him go before turning on me. He growls viciously, his teeth barely an inch from my face as I lean away from him and fall backward on the grass onto my elbows. Maddox pushes his paw down on my chest, forcing me flat against the ground, and I know what he wants, for me to submit to his request and force Kora forward, but I don’t know how to force the shift. Kora does that.
“Maddox, please,” I whimper to him.
Ares comes over, nudging him with his nose, and Maddox bites him, snapping at his face before Ares bears his neck to him before dropping his furry head and sniffing my face, his tongue flicking out and across my cheek. I roll my eyes at Maddox before turning my head and bearing my neck in submission. I can hear Ezra losing it at him for forcing me to submit while he fought for control back.
“It’s fine, Ezra, stop. You will just anger him more,” I admit, defeated.
“It’s not fine, Kat, he knows better than this, he is being a jerk,” Ezra argues when Maddox nips my neck, his canines nicking the skin, and Ares whimpers at him while I clench my eyes shut. If Kora was here, she would have attacked him. I can’t feel her, and it makes my heart twist painfully in my chest, realizing she isn’t here to help and protect me like she usually does.
“Where is she? Bring her back,” Maddox snaps at me through the link.
Tears slip down my face because I don’t have any answer to give him. Of course, I don’t know what is going on either. But the longer he yells for me to bring her forward and let him see her, the more I notice how alone I am in my head. Kora would have shown herself by now, she would have come forward when she felt my fear of him. Only she hasn’t come forward, making me realize I am on my own, she is gone.
Her last words to me come back and haunt me, ringing loudly in my head on repeat. Now I know what Kora had meant when she said I set her free, that our mates freed her, I know why I felt her bleed into me when the Moon Goddess broke the curse.
Balance, that word is ringing true with startling clarity. To give life, you must take it. That cold feeling when the Moon Goddess killed me before I felt the warmth of life, that was Kora giving her life for mine, dying and setting herself free of the curse and giving me my life back. Kora was the sacrifice, my life for hers. Kora is bleeding her soul and entwining it with mine, that is the true meaning of becoming a Gemini wolf. What she meant when she said we are ONE now. I killed her, she died for me just like my mother, everyone I love dies for the sake of a curse and for me. It is excessive. I sacrificed my wolf for them, for myself, and she gladly accepted her fate.
I blink back tears when Maddox nips at my neck again painfully. Ares shoves him off me, only for Maddox to turn quickly just as I sit up, blocking him from attacking Ares. Unfortunately, I sit up at the wrong time, his teeth slicing through my cheek before Maddox jerks back, realizing he bit me, not Ares. Ares whimpers as he is forced to endure my pain. Maddox rubs his face with his paws at the pain he inflicted and bears it.
I touch my cheek and feel my blood run down my face before it slowly heals when Maddox runs his tongue over it frantically, quickening the healing process, a strangled whimper leaves him when he realizes he hurt me. My face stings before closing as they heal me. Maddox licks the blood away from my face and neck like he can erase what he has just done.
“Sorry, Kitty, I didn’t mean it,” he keeps repeating through the link.