2

LAZARUS

If someone had told me that my day would end with my claws deep in someone’s gut, I would never have believed them. Sadly, I have no choice but to live with the consequences of my lapse in judgment.

I stare down at the body beneath me, too disgusted with myself to think about anything else. How could I have made such a mistake? Even worse, I have no memory of how I ended up killing one of my own.

She was . . . the last thing in my mind before I was suddenly overcome with a torrent of bloodlust and rage, and then, I found myself here.

The last thing I can remember vividly is thinking about the only person that has been in my thoughts for such a long time. I'm not sure what her name is, but she's always on my mind with her beautiful brown hair and innocent face. We go to the same school, but I'm a level above her, and hence, I have little chance to interact with her. Whenever we walk past each other in the halls, it's like there's a string pulling us together, and our eyes always meet. The first time it happened, her cheeks reddened, and she immediately looked away, but as time went on, she became bolder, even managing to hold my gaze for a couple of moments.

Jared, the alpha of the Moon Stone pack, is said to be her boyfriend. He's in my class, but there's nothing particularly interesting about him. He's much too talkative and had the personality of a typical jock that knows and cares about nothing else but himself. For someone in a relationship, he sure flirts a lot, and I'm sure I've seen him in a too-tight embrace with more than three girls alone this week.

But enough of that now, because I need to focus on the trouble at hand.

I stagger away from the body on the floor, as whatever had kept me in a trance loses its hold on me. I lift my bloody hands up to my face, unable to believe what I’m looking at.

Mallory’s face is frozen in a silent scream that will forever haunt my dreams, with his limbs sprawled about like a ragdoll’s. His blue eyes, which once held so much life, now hold nothing but emptiness. If I look too closely at him, it’s like he’s accusing me of murdering him in cold blood, even if I have no memory of ever doing so.

But if I’m not guilty, then why are my hands all bloody?

Someone screams, causing me to turn around in panic. It’s the last person I want to see, which just happens to be my aunt, Mallory’s mother. She brings her hands to her mouth as she finds the body of her dead son on the ground. and then sinks to the floor on her knees.

“What have you done?” she screams into my face, grabbing my arms and shaking me so hard that I stumble backward. “How could you kill him?”

I want to tell her so badly that I didn’t do anything to him. I want this to all be one long nightmare that I’ll wake up from in a few minutes. I want to tell her that her son is still alive and well, painting portraits of another woman he had fallen in love with at first sight.

How can I tell her all this when I’m not even sure what happened? I’m not even sure whether or not I actually dug my claws into his chest and ruptured his heart. I’m not sure about anything at all.

My heart rate speeds up, and my vision blurs with tears. I violently pull away from my aunt and rush out of the little cabin they both lived in. My uncle died five months ago from a mysterious accident, and now she’ll have to deal with the loss of her only son.

I run my fingers through my hair and pull at the strands, screaming into the sky. Why can’t I remember anything? I slap my face over and over again, hoping to jog my memory as I dash through the village belonging to the White Oak pack.

I have broken the one sacred rule of our pack: never kill one of your own. No matter what happens, I can’t shield myself from what I’ve just done. I deserve to perish as well after committing such a sin.

How could I have done such a thing to a member of my own family?

I move through the village swiftly, heading over to my home. I have to turn myself in. I will never be able to live with myself after this incident, be it an accident or not.

As I step into the large building, I see that four people are already waiting for me. My mate-to-be, my father, my sister, and finally, my older brother, whom I haven’t seen in more than five years.

Before I can open my mouth to speak, my brother rushes at me and pins me down to the floor, growling into my face. “Have you lost your mind? You have broken the one sacred rule of this pack.” He grabs me by the chin so hard that his nails press into my skin. The scent of my own blood greets my nostrils.

I have nothing to say, and I have no defense at all, so I keep quiet. All in all, this is what I deserve.

“Will you say nothing at all?” He asks, his face full of anger and pity.

“He has been acting out of place for weeks now. talking nonsense about shadows watching him and gaps in his memory. Maybe I should have listened to him, but I never expected that he would go on to kill his own cousin,” Father says, his voice conveying all his disappointment.

“But, sir, you know what they will do to him once this spreads all over the pack. He will be killed, Alpha or not," begs Sasha, the woman my father has insisted I marry. Her golden hair is swept across one shoulder, and it's obvious that she doesn’t really care about what happens to me. Her concern lies with what she’ll have to lose when her ticket to becoming Luna is gone.

My father looks at her, and his eyes dip down into her exposed cleavage. I know what they’ve been doing behind my back, and it’s even more disgusting that they aren’t ashamed to show it in public.

A flash of anger runs through me, and I almost throw my brother off me, but my little sister doesn’t need to see any more violence. Her little doe eyes are fixed on me, full of tears, as she stands by a chair too big for her four-year-old self.

I want to call her name, but my brother presses his arm across my throat. His strength is admirable, but in the end, he’s simply a Beta that can’t take me on in a fight. The only reason I haven’t broken free of his hold is that I’m too devastated to fight back.

Sasha’s eyes light up as an idea comes to her. “What if we send him to that place?”

“What place?” my father asks.

Her eyes fall on me, and her smile is far too sinister to mean anything good to me. "That detention center for wild, undisciplined werewolves like Lazarus."

From the way she looks at me, I can tell that this is something that has been on her mind for a long time. She never liked me, and my father hated the fact that he handed over the Alpha title to me instead of the illegitimate son currently pressing on my windpipe.

Could it be that somehow they planned this just to get me away from White Oak?

A familiar scent fills my nostrils, and I start to jerk violently, trying to get away from the putrid odor. It’s what I smelled right before I blacked out and woke up beside my dead cousin.

Sasha grins, now holding something in her hand. “Now, with you out of the way, White Oak can finally become what it has always been meant to be. A pack without boundaries, a pack without restrictions." She comes to kneel beside me and presses the pouch in her hand on my nose. “The only pack that will have me as its one true Luna!”

The deadly scent finds its way into my lungs, and I finally break free of my captor. Before I can grab my baby sister and get away, the poison kicks in.

I lose consciousness before I take my next breath.