Dark Possession ✔

Chapter 21: Reckoning

The entire manor was dark as Adrik walked down the stairs. No one was in sight and they all looked to be in bed already. At the bottom of the steps, he contemplated whether he should just return to the room where he left Rosalie to rest alone. But he needed to talk to Isaiah, Lazarus and Ronin to see if they were all okay. All of them were injured and definitely took wild hits. Adrik was feeling sore after the fight too; the claw and bite marks had stopped bleeding finally, but they ached with every movement.

Adrik turned towards the basement door and left to the bottom level of the house. As he continued down the hall, he took a short glimpse inside the kiln room, half-excepting to see the disaster from today, but it was gone. Ronin or maybe Lazarus must have cleaned it all up.

Adrik went down the long dark hall and reached the infirmary they had down here. The light from the room was bright and it beamed through the window of the door and onto the black floor.

Adrik's stomach twisted with guilt. He was the reason his pack was injured in the first place. If only he hadn't lost control, none of this would have happened. This was all his fault, he knew that and nothing anyone said would change it.

Adrik reached for the knob of the door. But he stiffened at the entrance but hadn't stalled for long. He forced a breath into his lungs, feeling them enlarge and then compress before he had pushed the door open.

Lazarus was resting his back on the metal headboard of the bed. His bare torso covered with bandages and over his tattoos, they circled his chest and one of his bulky shoulders. The white was slightly blemished with red stains which had seeped through the bandage. The wounds were definitely deep and painful, but Lazarus didn't look bothered by them, except that's just how the man handled anything.

Lazarus met his eyes. "Hey," he said to Adrik first.

Adrik was kind of relieved that Lazarus sounded relaxed despite what happened. "Where's everyone?" he asked.

"Isaiah's with Ashley. She was pretty freaked out over what happened," Lazarus answered. "Ronin was here a second ago, helped patch me up."

"Oh," he mumbled and didn't know what to say next.

"Is Rosalie okay?" Lazarus asked then.

"Yeah, better than me," Adrik confessed.

"I guessed that," Lazarus claimed as he sat up with a deep grimace. Adrik wished the man would just stay down and rest up. "Don't blame yourself. We all made the decision to fight you."

Adrik shook his head and sat on the vacant bed facing his cousin. "Which I still don't understand why'd you even think that was a good idea," his tone was bitter and so tired from all this shit.

Lazarus looked stunned from his expression. "You seriously thought that we'd kill you?" he asked.

Adrik felt as if a knife twisted in his gut. "You know damn well that I excepted all of you to do it," his voice trembled and he hated that it did.

Lazarus chuckled a little, but he held the bandage on his hard abdomen, like that would stop it the skin from stretching. "Maybe, a few years ago we would've done it," he admitted candidly. "But with Ashley here, Rosalie now too, the kids, all the packs we're friends with. Killing one of our own seems impossible- even with our track record."

"I was a threat to everyone," said Adrik. "I don't know what my wolf would've done."

"Well, let's hope that Rosalie is always here to save the day," jested Lazarus.