Chained

Chapter 15 - Cold

Nico's POV

Blood and ash drenched my hands.

A familiar haze clouded my mind like it always did after I killed. And I killed so many that night, it pulled down on me like silver weights. I only managed to continue because I hadn't yet found my siblings.

Luca, my father's beta, had checked the entire house and hadn't found them.

Despite my heart thundering in my chest, I managed to keep my pace steady and my eyes straight. The smell of death coated the air made it impossible to catch the scent of my siblings but they were close. They had to be.

I had tried countless times to contact them through their mind link and had gotten no response.

How could I have let them out of my sight?

The attack had happened so suddenly the only thing I thought to do was to contact a few of the warriors to find them and protect them at the house in case it was infiltrated. Thankfully it wasn't, but the warriors I had ordered to protect them were all dead or close to it.

I had let them down.

The cold nipped at my fingers and I buried them deeper into the pockets of my jacket. As I scanned the surrounding forest all I could see was the fresh layer of snow that had fallen during the night and mixed with the ash, staining it a deep grey.

The smell of blood overpowered anything else in the air and my search became more and more frantic.

"Vivian!" I screamed. "Hunter!"

My parents were searching the other side of the territory alongside anyone else who was able to search, it wasn't many. So many people I had known my entire life were killed or injured, but I couldn't think about that now, not until I had found them.

Why didn't they just stay in the house?

I didn't let the tears of fear and frustration fall as I searched further into the bushland, I couldn't break, not yet. I could not lose them. The earth around me was a sloppy mess of ice melted by the fires and mixed with the ash and dust from the carnage that followed them it was almost impossible to maintain my senses.

I walked further into the forest and continued to scream their names until my throat became raw.

I had to find them.

"Nico," Elly, spoke through the mind-link. A small tension in my chest released knowing she was okay. "We found them by the south-side territory, they're okay."

I gasped but didn't allow myself to sink my knees into the snow in relief. Before I knew what I was doing, I was sprinting towards where Vivian and Hunter had been found. My legs burnt painfully despite the chill of the air and I felt the warmth of blood trickle down my calf where one of the invaders had managed to scratch.

As I ran, I caught scent of Elly and followed it. The frozen morning air filled my smoke-stained lungs, but I didn't stop as I flew towards a small opening in the bushland where my siblings stood wrapped in blankets and surrounded by Elly and a few other members of the pack.

They were filthy.

Their little faces were blackened with soot and dirt and even from where I stood, I could see their teeth chattering. Vivian's normally bright red hair was now stained brown and was knotted terribly over her eyes that had widened as she saw him. Hunter's pale skin was smeared with dirt and his dark eyes were low with exhaustion. He stood almost unnaturally still and composed but I saw how he chewed on the inside of his gum in stress.