Prologue

~Mel~

“You don’t value what you have until you lose it.”

I don’t like to assume but I am sure out of a thousand people that would have just read that line, at least seventy of them have heard that, maybe even lived it. 

Unfortunately…

I fall into that category of the latter and it all happened because of two reasons. 

One. I got infected with a virus. Some people call it love. Two. I didn’t listen to the one person who saw that virus for what it was at the very start. A vile infestation that was eating away at my brain, slowly destroying every ounce of sensibility that I had in me, until it led to this point.

“Melody, do not walk away from me. I am talking to you.”

The wooden flow creaked beneath my feet as I stomped through the house trying to get away from her but she just wouldn’t stop.

“Melody!”

I finally stopped turning back to face her, my eyes burning with anger, “What? What do you want me to say? That I agree with you? That I think he is wrong for me? Because I do not. I love him, Hannah!”

“Don’t you see that he is using you?” She moved closer to me trying to touch me but I shrugged it off. 

“How? Tell me how Hannah because he has done nothing wrong and the only thing you’ve done is hate on him. So tell me. Why is he so bad for me?”

Her mouth opened and closed like she wanted to say something, then she let out a deep breath, “Just please listen to me.”

“No! Not until you tell me why.”

“The reason I...” The words trailed off as she looked around, “The reason he is with you is because…” Then she went silent. 

I laughed out, the sound hollow even to my ears, “I see what it is now. You don’t want me to be with him because you are jealous of what I have but it doesn’t even matter and you know why? Because I have reached a point where I want to breathe in the air that he breathes right from the moment he lets it out. I want to bury myself inside him so deep that I wouldn’t be found.”

I could feel the air cackle around us, the intensity of everything growing with each second that passed, as I watched her stare back at me with a mixture of anger and sorrow in her eyes,  “He tethers me to this world. He makes my wolf feel alive. His stare makes me burn until I cannot feel anything but the electrifying fire of his gaze.”

She shook her head slowly, the flame slowly dying out in the fireplace, “That is not love, Mel. That is obsession and it will only consume you, set you ablaze until there is nothing left but the smoke from your ashes.”

I sucked in a deep breath, letting the first tear drop fall from my eyes.

Her lips parted to continue but I stopped her before she could, “If that’s what it’s called, Obsession? I do not mind because I would rather burn, seize to exist than live with the gnawing emptiness that I feel when he is not here.”

Seconds passed and all we did was stare at each other. With no words left to say between us, I turned my back on her walking away then I heard her whisper,  “Please don’t go tonight. I beg of you,  Mel.”

My hand hovered on the door knob, “Goodbye, Hannah.”

Those were the last words I spoke to her. My best friend. The only person that saw him for what he was. I think it was rather ironic that I got to say goodbye because the next time I saw her, she had a blank stare in her eyes in addition to the blood that pooled around her body.

Yes. She was dead.

This is usually the part where the main character in a movie or book goes, ‘She was dead and it is all my fault’. I didn’t know how but I felt it. I used to find it cliche yet in this moment, those were the exact words filtering through my head, my entire body frozen in shock.

One… Two… Three…

And then my brain caught up with reality. I let out a piercing scream that echoed through the walls of our shared apartment. I rushed over to her trying to will her awake.

“No. No please. Hannah you have to wake up. Hannah please!”

The stain of red seemed to bask in my pleas and spread even more, staining my knees. This couldn’t be happening. I had to be dreaming right? No. It had to be a nightmare. I was wrong because in the span of another three seconds, the true nightmare began.

The door to the house suddenly burst open, three men in black suits pouring in. I froze right on the spot, unable to move, my eyes wide at the gun pointed right in my face by the biggest of the three.

I didn’t understand what was happening. A week ago, I was a twenty  year college old girl in love. That same week, my best friend had told me that I was in love with the wrong man, an argument that seeped into one hour ago when I had walked out on her and now she was dead. 

I was seconds away from joining her by the looks of things.

So yet again. What. Was. Happening?

The man in the middle suddenly moved, paving way for none other than Victor? For context, Victor was my boyfriend. The man who had infected with the virus Hannah warned me about.

The words fell out of my lips in a stutter, “Victor.. What.. What is going on?”

He stared at me blankly like I was a distant shadow. I could still see the gun pointed at me from the corner of my eyes then he spoke finally, uttering two words that ended my world or were about to.

“Kill her.”

My entire world started spinning and I reacted instinctively, quickly grabbing onto the lapel of his jacket before he moved away. He raised his hand, sending me flying backwards right on Hannah’s blood. 

He stepped forward, his eyes burning with rage, “Don’t you ever touch me again. You worthless little st.”

“What?” My voice broke, tears falling down my eyes, “Why are you doing this? Did you kill Hannah?”

He suddenly broke into a cruel laugh, “Naive little Melody. You really think I could be in love with someone like you? You are nothing but a weak little wolf.”

“Then why pretend? Why make me fall in love with you?” The words were so low that I barely even heard them.

His lips rose up in a smirk, “She never told you did she? What she truly was. How she ended up here when her father used to belong to a powerful pack.”

My eyes instinctively went to Hannah’s still body. Her lifeless eyes and all I could do was stare. What was he talking about? What did her former pack have anything to do with this in the first place? It was the modern world and no one fking cared about packs anymore.

He was still speaking but the words were hardly registering through the blood pounding in my ear. His mocking laugh cut through the haze making my attention snap back to him.

His tone was mocking. “I needed to prove myself to my people. To my father. This was my mission. You see Hannah is no ordinary girl. Or should I say was. The plan was to lure her with my good looks, get her to come with me willingly but she was too headstrong for me to warm my way in. Then I saw you, the naive best friend. You were my in and now that I have gotten what I want…”

The words trailed off, his eyes going back to Hannah’s dead body, “I have no use for you anymore.” He shook his head like he was remorseful, “I didn’t want to kill her after I extracted what I wanted from her blood. She just wouldn’t stay put so I had no choice but to put  a silver bullet in her head.”

He held up a vial with a smirk on his face, “Maybe you weren’t really her best friend if she never told you what she truly was.”

The look in his eyes darkened as he  turned to the man who had not flinched, the gun still pointed at me, “Kill her.”

This is something I should have specifically mentioned but I was too occupied with my drama. The mystical creatures most have read about in books? They existed and I was one of them.

A werewolf. 

I have read in several books that your entire life flashes in front of your eyes just before you die. That was not what happened. First I heard my wolf growl in my head lunging to the surface to protect me from what was coming but she wasn’t fast enough. 

The sound of the shot followed.

Then I saw the face of the man I loved. The man who had crashed into my life seven months ago, and changed everything for me. It was never real. Every word had been a lie because he wanted to use me to get to Hannah. I had allowed the virus spread too far, now the cure would be my death. His face looked the same yet so different. It was a cruel mask, his eyes gleaming with malice.

I plummeted back as the silver bullet went straight into my chest. I think I heard a scream but I wasn’t sure it came from me. My body collapsed right on Hannah’s. The blood poured out immediately, mine mixing with hers.

My wolf let out a painful howl still struggling to get to the surface. The lights were fading out from my eyes, and the only thought in my head was the line that started this story. I didn’t realize how much she meant to me until I lost her. I didn’t realize how much my life meant to me until I could feel it slowly draining away.

One last thought that crossed my mind was that I had at least kept my promise to her. That we would be together till the end of time.

Even in death.