Mercy and the Merciless Alpha

Chapter Nineteen

The ticking of the grandfather clock in corner of Azrael's room was all I could think about. I don't know why but for some reason I felt like every quiet tick was a moment closer to me finally getting some answers.

Whoever had been on the other side of the door was long gone by now, I pricked my ear towards the door to see if there was anyone around and to my surprise there wasn't a single soul to be found. I knew that going through the house wasn't an option, I saw how swimmingly that worked out the first time I attempted to escape.

It was five minutes until midnight at this point when I quietly crept out of bed and tip toed my way to the window. His room was located on the second floor and while looking at the height was intimidating, I knew if I shifted my wolf would be able to handle it easily.

Time was of the essence, I unlatched the window and shifted into my wolf, making sure to grab a change of clothes before carefully climbing onto the sill and jumping down. I landed awkwardly and ended up rolling onto my ass, the epitome of grace. The presence of a rose garden in this god forsaken pack was news to me but my wolf quickly picked up on the scent of the lovely blooms and in a flash I was cautiously walking through the maze of deep red flowers.

A quiet cough from behind me nearly sent me jumping into the air, I speedily turned around and was shocked to see three unexpected people in front of me.

Grinning like idiots were Emmanuel and Sapphire, while a more serious looking McCoy stood beside them. I was confused especially by the presence of Emmanuel and I slowly backed away from the trio, the hairs on my back raiding ever so slightly. Sapphire raised her hands quickly, "Woah, woah, woah! Easy there, Mercy. We mean you no harm, we are here to help you."

I eyed them suspiciously before creeping behind the nearest bush and shifting back into my human form, throwing on the change of clothes quickly as there was a chill in the night. "Help me?"

This time McCoy stepped forward, "You deserve answers, it's the only way to..." He trailed off in hesitation, "It's just in your best interest to know."

"Answers?" I parroted again.

Emmanuel gestured with a hand over his shoulder to a small gazebo tucked away in the thick brush of the rose bushes. Once everyone was seated, Sapphire produced a massive and incredibly old looking book from her satchel. "It's time you learned your history, young lady." She said with a small, almost sad smile.

Emmanuel nodded eagerly in agreement, "You are cursed!"

Both McCoy and Sapphire instantly shot him dirty looks, my eyes widened in confusion. "I don't understand."

"You know that special magical little gift of yours? Turns out," Emmanuel flipped open the ancient book and pointed to a page in particularly poor condition. "Turns out, it's not a gift at all. It's a curse."

A laugh slipped past my lips, "Very funny. I know my history, my father grew up telling us the story of our pack and the gift from as early as I can remember. The Moon Goddess gave the Alpha line the gift because she admired Hope Pack's stubborn hopefulness and peace."

Emmanuel tapped the page of the book, "Your parents are liars"

It was my turn to glare at Emmanuel, I opened my mouth to admonish him for talking so poorly about my father but McCoy stepped in. "What he meant to say was that your parents might not have been so transparent with you about the way this whole thing began."

McCoy cleared his throat, "That is...until now. At the infirmary your mother spoke earnestly to me and was the one who gave us the tip and location of this very book." He ran his hand across the page as if it was a precious object, "With this book not only will you finally learn the truth about yourself and also so much more than you can imagine right now. It transcends your history, Mercy."

I glanced over at the book and McCoy slid it over in front of me, "In the beginning, one of your ancestors became obsessed with the pursuit of immortality—Cassian." The name wasn't familiar to me at all but McCoy continued nonetheless, "He believed that the best was to ensure Hope's legacy of protecting the peace and hope within the werewolves was for him to become immortal."

The page of the book showed a shrewd looking man with an evil glint in his eyes visible even through the tattered page. "In these ancient times there was no separation between the gods and the wolves, the pantheon roamed freely amongst us. But Cassian took advantage of this and traveled to the land of gods in search of immortality but he mistakenly stole something entirely different."

Sapphire reached across and turned the page, on it was a glowing blue elixir with Cassian eyeing it greedily. Then suddenly the page came to life with animation, Cassian snatched the the elixir before my very eyes and fled from the land of the gods. Once he was back in his territory, he hungrily gulped down the potion. "Little did he know, what he grabbed wasn't anything to do with eternal life at all. He stole an elixir that granted the gift of healing from the Moon Goddess."

"Upon realizing the theft, the Moon Goddess came to Hope Pack with a fury like no other, threatening to decimate the entire pack for Cassian's greed. To her dismay, Cassian had already consumed the elixir and there was nothing even a goddess could do to take it back from him at that point. However, an idea occurred to her, instead of punishing an entire pack for one man's crime—she cursed his newly acquired gift and cursed his entire future lineage.

While able to heal and bring life still, Cassian's line was forever doomed to be dying slowly from a mystical ailment. An illness with no cure, a terminal sickness that would constantly need to be healed or else they would die a gruesome death. She turned the gift of healing into a chore and a death sentence."

A quiet gasp left me as Emmanuel suddenly slammed the book shut, "Let me guess, your father was determined to have you proficient in healing from a young age? He would heal you for seemingly no apparent reason until you mastered the gift?"

My stomach dropped as Emmanuel spoke as if he had been there through my childhood because that was exactly what happened. I remembered how adamant and strict my father was with my training and learning of the gift as soon as it presented itself, I remembered being young before my gift and being a very frail and weak child—often times needing healing and other times being healed for no reason at all seemingly. He always told Weston and I to master constantly passively healing ourselves so we were prepared for any situation.

Sapphire elbowed McCoy and he cleared his throat, "What is happening to you right now, what your mother spoke of in the clearing was the curse. You are slowly dying because you are not able to heal yourself, that band around your wrist is essentially a death sentence."

My heart was pounding in my chest, I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack and an absolute meltdown from the overload of information that had just been dumped onto me. I didn't want to believe that it could be true but everything they'd said so far was making too much sense for me to ignore.

"That's not all Mercy." Sapphire informed be quietly. "There's another curse you need to know about."

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im back kinda here's three chapters to try and makeup for me falling off the face of the earth. next chapter is almost done too.

xq