Chapter 5

 

Michael’s face paled at her father’s words and looked towards her with fright in his eyes. Their last bought had not ended in his favour, his scared face was a testament to that. He shifted on his feet as his beast lurked below the surface. She could see the gears in his head turning as he searched for an exit to the situation.

She watched as the veins in his arms bulged and his muscles clenched in his attempts to hold it off. He had lost his composure completely. She wondered if any of the Alpha’s were still worthy of their titles. If Michael was the strongest of them, he was a sorry excuse.

She began to circle him, walking slowly around him, stalking. He turned his head to follow her movements, watching her carefully. She sensed every emotion that poured off of him. Fear, Anger, Nervousness. He was a wild animal trapped in a cage.

She was his jailer.

He knew all too well the destruction she could bring. She’d promised him that she would be his reaper. Her claws unfurled at the thought as she bared her teeth at him.

She came back to stand before him, letting him gaze at her, before his end. It had been no mistake that he had plans for her. To use her as they did before.

Never again.

“Skin or fur,” She growled out between her beast’s teeth.

Her father hummed in his throat beside her, she could feel the delight coming off of him. His pleased tone showing the inner viciousness his wolf held. He was thriving on the challenge, thriving on the battle for dominance. He was like a man revived; she saw a spark back in his eyes as he stood calmly with his hands behind his back.

“Skin,” He commanded.

She smiled and her eyes brightened in anticipation at his words. Her father had ruled in her favour, just as she had known he would. She rolled her shoulders, loosening them as her body hummed with her dominance. Her power as a strong born wolf.

She allowed a few sparing seconds after her father’s words before she shifted her footing to pounce.

“Wait!” She halted at the shout.

Her eyes narrowed on Michael as he held up a hand. His nervousness had turned to smugness, the gears she knew were turning in his head grinding to a halt.

The air grew still at his words as she eased her stance, glaring at him from across the space between them. Her beast began to pace in her mind as she growled under her breath, he was stalling. The cold breeze that drifted through the clearing did nothing to cool her fiery blood. Her fixed gaze didn’t leave his form as she watched him with suspicion.

He turned towards her father and the other Alpha’s, almost giving her his back, as a sign of dismissal at their challenge. She fumed internally at his ignorance before tuning her ears to listen to what he had to say.

“If I remember correctly, I also have the right to a champion.” He declared.

Her father laughed at his tenacity to hold onto his life. He had turned from the strong Alpha he once was, renowned for his battles in the pack wars, to a mere rabbit clinging onto life in the wild. She didn’t understand the weakening within the Alpha’s, they had never seemed so powerless. Powerful wolves were out there, they just needed to be found. A change in power was needed.

 

“Coward,” She spat at him, her hair falling into her eyes as she resisted the urge to pounce at him.

“My son will take my place; he must prove his worth,” He declared.

He ignored her insult as he made his way towards the crowd. He reached his arm in and pulled a young male from the crowd by the collar of his shirt. He dragged him along, the young male trying to resist as his father pushed him into the circle that had been created.

He had a slender build, the build of a tracker, rather than an Alpha. The sinew in his muscles held definition and his tanned skin, like most were, showed he spent most of his time outdoors. His eyes, however, were the brightest of blue’s, molten sapphires that held defeat in their clutches. His shoulders were sagged forward and his head held low enough for his mop of black hair to cover his face.

His position was submissive, and his eyes spoke droves of the treatment he had undertaken from his father. A tortured soul.

She wondered if he truly realised the tortures of his world.

“Stand, boy,” Michael commanded roughly.

Adelaide turned her head to him, watching the smugness on his face. What father would happily give up his son for slaughter? Not any strong man she knew. The thirst for power with a weakening wolf was much like the greed of money the humans had before their extinction. Pitiful.

She watched as the ‘boy’ stood. His feet scrapped across the ground as he tried to pull his shoulders back. He was welcoming death, a release from his coward of a father. She wiggled her fingers as she waited, her wolf bored of the delays.

As she did so his eyes drew to her claws, clicking against one another, and his heartbeat sped up in his chest. His breathing uneven. Fear was an easy emotion to process in such a situation.

She pitied him really, her beast craved for blood like a warrior on the battlefield, she would try to make his death swift.

“Beware, Adam,” Her father warned.

Her father’s words were soft, she could sense the care in his tone. Looking at the young male brought images she quickly pushed away. A reminder of a sombre past for herself and her father. Her father never liked unnecessary death, he believed in life itself. For a father, an Alpha, to give up his child was a disgrace to his name, she was surprised her father had managed to remain calm.

 

At her father’s words of her beast’s violent nature the male stiffened and his eyes widened. He understood the danger he now faced. She began to circle again, her posture relaxed but her dominance still filled the air. He folded into himself slightly as she stepped closer to him, a small breath of air between them.

He was an attractive male, she had to admit, but did nothing to interest herself or her beast. They needed a male to match their own urges and indulgences, a strong male. She was worried she’d rip right through the male if she clawed him.

“Adelaide,” Her father urged.

His torso was bare, his shirt ripped off by his father for his execution. She paid closer attention to his skin as she assessed him, silence surrounding them. He was heavily scarred for a male that had never seen war, the only other reason could be that he was a fighter, but she severely doubted that. Michael was even more of a coward that she had first thought.

She came to a stop behind him, breathing down his neck as her claws danced across his throat. Her other handheld his arm still, keeping him in place as she brought her lips to his ear.

“Should I tell you of the sins your father has committed?” She spoke lowly, eerily calm.

The other Alpha’s shifted at her tone, picking up her words with ease across the space. She turned the male towards his father as she did so, he held no resistance against her. His skin was warm against her cold and he smelt of a heavy musk that couldn’t be replicated by perfumes, it was alluring.

His heartbeat slowed in his chest as he sensed his end, his perception of time slowing to match his situation. He thought that she was going to rip his throat out.

She kicked his knee’s out from him, her beast salivating in anticipation as she gripped the back of his neck and his shoulder. Grounding him in the earth below them. He made no sound, he didn’t beg for his life, she had to commend him for that. He held honour.

“I’ll show you instead.”

Her claws sunk into his shoulder and the back of his neck, sucking them both into a void where their minds melded together. His thoughts and memories raced across her vision as he became accustomed to the connection, their physical bodies freezing in place.

She focused her mind as she replayed her memories to him. He felt everything through her, every wound, every death. He watched as she scarred his father’s face for his actions, saw her as she truly was. The beast unfurled because of his father.

Her claws retracted from his neck as she broke the connection between them, locking the door to her mind. He hunched forward on his hands as he struggled for breath. The first experience was always the worst. An invasion of the mind was common to wolves, telepathic links were what bound packs together but the Mente Compartida was a much more dangerous ritual.

She looked to her father and nodded her head, he nodded back in understanding before turning. She faced the Alpha’s, equal looks of anger and fear in their eyes at the forgotten challenge.

She ignored them and turned back to the male who kneeled before her.

“I have shown you mercy. More than your father ever gave to my people,” She said to him.

He met her eyes and sucked in a breath as their gazes connected. Silver and sapphire blue. Her beast locked tightly away under her skin, pushed to the back of her mind. She walked past him and let her hand land back onto his shoulder where her claws had marred his skin.

“Fight to survive, Were. The Goddess has plans for you,” She told him.

She dragged her claws across his skin as she walked away, making him cry out for the first time since their meeting. She left his shoulder with a bloody crescent moon shaped around his shoulder.

The Moon had marked him as her own, his time would come.

She continued walking after her father, into the woods as the Alpha’s roared behind her in trepidation and relief. While others howled in anger.

Their leaders had returned but the war was far from over.