“You two lovebirds decided to finally join us,” Ranulf said casually as his hand was rubbing my back. I was not comfortable with his casual public display of affection, but he wouldn’t let me move away from his side.
“You look like you’re enjoying yourself too my King,” Arkael said smirking at my fallen angel.
My what?
“I’m not complaining. So, Shani… Rain here had explained to me about your elders saying they want to restore balance to hell. It’s an easy enough task that I can help you with. Though I gather that they were more into wanting to secure their realm…” Ranulf started to explain himself, as I sit comfortably by his side.
“… since I think and believe that Rain is very good at what he does, he can help you… Maven will assist you from our end. But this task will bring you leverage, it would make you untouchable by your elders. They would not dare mess with you and your mate.”
Ranulf looked pleased with himself, I know he was doing this for me. He knows that I was the one who was causing the problem in the first place, but again he was not letting me take the fall. I didn’t think he would let me deal with Shani’s issues if she’s not my very best friend. He perfectly knew that I would be upset if I didn’t do anything to help her.
“I have indicated the covens, being one of the oldest covens on earth we managed to summon most of them and myself almost half of them…” I cleared my throat as I was taken back to the previous events, as to why I was summoning those demons.
A couple of weeks after the ambush to the northern pack, my coven decided to enslave those demons for their own purposes. I was obviously against them, but they were making me fulfill my duties. And I was welcoming the assignment, trying to make myself busy to forget about Don.
“… there are five covens, but there were thirty-seven demons that were successfully summoned and shackled as their slaves. My coven included,” I said looking directly at Shani, wishing that she could forgive me.
“Rain, you are not saying sorry. It is meant to be, you should know that by now living in our kind of worlds.” Shani finally speaks up and calmed me down with her words.
Ranulf draped his wing to my shoulder, making me sighed and relaxed back to my seat.
“Come let us join Maven at his sanctuary, so we can finish this sooner. Then you can finally be free from your elders. He is waiting for us right now.” Ranulf said getting up from his seat.
We all went to Maven’s and reached his minutes later. He was brewing a concoction in the cauldron. His greyish body and wings seemed to blend with the surrounding walls.
“Maven, let our human witches in on your plan. Arkael, while you’re here do you want to join me and hunt down some crawlers? Just leave the boring witching arrangements to Maven. He’s more than capable.” Ranulf said while caressing my back.
“Shani, I’m leaving you for a couple of hours okay?” Arkael said to her and kissed her cheek.
“Okay, have fun. I know I will…” she said eagerly as she circled Maven’s lair. Her eyes were wild with excitement as she looked at the various jars, books, and all of the dried ingredients. I laughed at her excitement.
“Shani, you’re such a witch geek.”
“Yeah, but you love me nonetheless.” She said passing me as she was tipping on her toes, trying to peek into the jars filled with greenish murky water.
Ranulf and Arkael left us moments later to go on their demon hunt.
It was not until an hour later that my wolf growled then whined inside me, I haven’t felt this uneasy for months. Shit… the last time was…
I quickly ran outside, Shani calls out my name but my feelings were blinded by the hurt. Until I reached his chamber and saw him being carried by Arkael, he was bleeding but what worried me the most were his wings which starting to change to a duller color.
Putting my hand under his arm, I quickly help Arkael and support him taking him swiftly to the bed. My heart was beating faster, knowing that he was poisoned. Just like Don… our healer Amos said that the poison spread too quickly before he could identify and make him the healing concoction.
My wolf was struggling inside me, I felt his sadness washing me, drowning me all over again. He hadn’t recovered from the loss, yet now he was faced with the same situation. He was trying to resurface, while I was keeping him down.
I was hunched over his unconscious body, his face was pale, his wings were slowly fading from the deep dark color to a pale grey with streaks of white on it.
“What the fuck happened?” I finally asked.
“The crawlers, I think he was poisoned…” Arkael answered me, looking as worried as I was.
Maven was by Ranulf’s side moments later, he was busy with his balms and ointments. Shani was helping him with the ingredients. I tried to help but my wolf was growling and making pathetic little noises.
Oh.. so now you’re feeling something for him. I was mocking my wolf but couldn’t keep myself to stand still and help them.
Damn! I should help them.
Moments later Shani backed away when Maven was finishing off tending to his wounds. She was trying to give me more privacy. My wolf kept on trying to resurface and whined several times. But I was too upset with him, that I kept pushing him down under the surface.
I couldn’t seem to bring myself to go to Ranulf, my heart was beating so fast that I truly think it might explode.
I didn’t hear when Shani came up to me, she hugged me and I eventually shed my tears. My wolf let out another whining sound, feeling at fault for making him go out and find more crawlers for my wolf to kill.
Then within seconds, I growled when I finally let my wolf resurfaced. Maven kept working on Ranulf’s wound, and not the very least affected by my very large wolf who gets onto the bed and snuggled up to Ranulf’s healthy side.
My wolf kept on voicing his low pitch sound of sorrow, but Ranulf was not moving. The streaks of white on his wings were getting more visible, as he lay still and looking terrifyingly pale.
“It’s a very deep lash and the poison is already webbing along his veins. It’ll take some time but we will know in a couple of more hours if he will survive this or not.” Maven said calmly, while he was gathering his stuff to one corner of the King’s seating area.
“Let the wolf give him the strength to push through…” he said as he circled the bed and scattered the healing sand, forming a healing circle.
The struggle was hard, my wolf had gone crazy for feeling so helpless until he abruptly got up and ran outside his chamber.
“Damn it… guards! Open the dungeon! Let the wolf into the crawlers’ cell!” I could hear Arkael’s voice behind me and saw him running trying to catch up to my wolf.
The dungeon’s door was open, I was seeing red as I let my wolf go wild and slashed and tore every one of them. The sound of his roar was heard throughout the dungeon, it was wild, feral, and terrifying as he threw them to the wall then picked them up only to snap their necks with his teeth.
I could feel my arm was slashed by one of them, but the adrenaline was too high making my wolf growled louder and bash his head with his sharp claws then throw him to the wall. There were skins, limbs, blood scattered everywhere.
Arkael arrived seconds after my wolf was done with the crawlers, he had slaughtered them all. I could smell the blood on my thick black fur, I could taste their blood on my teeth. But there was no satisfaction anymore, I couldn’t feel anything but sadness. I was feeling nothing. Nothing but great deep sadness, that I might lose someone again.
Arkael took me to the royal bath, and I was letting him take me there to clean me. I was done with my feelings, I was ready to end everything. I didn’t want to feel the loss for the second time.
I was done with my feelings.
I was done trying to survive.