The Twelfth Moon || ✔️ [LOTM #1]

15. She Belongs To Me

Beckett's touch and malicious greetings were spread all over the corpse. The wolf was entirely ravaged, and bloodied. By the placement of the wounds, Aven and Jerr concluded that the death had probably been a slow and painful one. My heart broke as I looked down at the wolf and all the blood pooling out of it in many different places. All because of me.

Aven had immediately transformed into he glorious, night-black best in an attempt to track down Beckett or any other leads, with the order for the two of us to wait for his return by the horses.

"This isn't your doing, Sari," Jerr said, in a futile attempt to comfort me. It didn't matter which words he spoke, nor the tone he lined them with—this loss could never be undone, nor could the blame be shifted. "This is purely Beckett's cruelty."

I had to disagree with Jerr, he had to know this just as well as I. I did not like to be pitied, or to be made a fool of. "This wouldn't have happened if I would have stayed in Fire Moon."

"Beckett has been killing innocents before you were even born, and he will continue to do so. You are only one of many of his fucked up reasons, Sari."

"But I am one of his reasons. How did he even do this? How—" I couldn't even get the rest of the sentence out before my lips trembled and my mind crushed me, but Jerr understood what I was asking.

"I don't know how they knew we were taking this road," he said silently. "I do not know how we didn't smell them sooner. But Beckett and his escorts were able to turn, and they left the Castle before us. It's probable they got here long before us, and only waited until we were close enough to send their message."

So it was even more my fault—if we'd been able to change, to run, perhaps this life could have been saved. 

"But then why didn't they just come after us? If it's me he wants?" I sloppily pointed at the gruesome note, where the words she belongs to me were burning and itching and twisting, until they warped my mind and occupied my every thought. I had been too foolish to think this would have ended at the Castle. I had underestimated the enemy that I knew like the back of my hand, the man who had shaped many of my scars.

Jerr looked at me, and the seeming sadness dulled the green, his brown hair hanging over his grieving face. "Because Aven is dangerous, Sari. Beckett knows he doesn't stand a chance against him here, especially not if I'm around, too. This wolf however, was powerless. The poor guy never stood a chance."

I gulped, hoping some of the grief would ebb away. I had heard rumours of Aven's powers, naturally. Everyone in this realm had. But they were rumours, nothing more. None had been precise as to the true extent of his might, the largeness of his danger. I had believed the rumours, of course, as my parents had, too. Rumours, more often than not, were based in some seedling of truth. But they also grew on their own, and often grew larger, and more extensive than the truth. "Is Aven really that powerful?"

Jerr nodded. "Probably one of the most powerful wolves to have lived since our Moons came down to us."