Wolven Knot

Nine

Marie POV

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I left Shane there, I had left Shane there with that...that...animal! I couldn't believe Ressi shifted to that, she was like a young pup, just no control over her instincts. She had attacked Shane, my mate! And I had just met him. She could of killed him, and I had just ran, oh God, I was a terrible mate!

As soon as that other wolf had come when I thought it was over for me, that Ressi was going to kill me, I couldn't not stay. His power, it was too overwhelming, he sent me one look, and I didn't even know my feet were moving, I had turned and fled before I could even register my movements.

Wait, where was...

Tom rounded the corner, looking dazed as nurse Maya steadied him by gripping his arms and led him to the seat beside me in the medic room. I rushed up to grip his other arm, I couldn't see any wounds, but I also still couldn't feel him and it was confusing and alarming. He fell into the chair, it squeaked under the force of his fall. His face was like he was in pain, eyes squinted, mouth curled down in a grimace, cold sweat glinting in his forehead as he shook his head back and forth, mummering words at such a fast rate the nurse and I both couldn't understand a word. I flattened my palm to his arm, trying to feel the link between us, and coming up with nothing. Then I caught his scent, I didn't realise it earlier but...It was different, he was different. He wasn't pack.

I jerked my arm back as if burnt. He wasn't pack, he wasn't pack. He...he had betrayed us! He had switched packs!

Out of his rambling I caught one word, one word that stuck a chord in every part of my body. Ressi.

That one word made me bristle. It was Ressi, always Ressi, she was the problem in all of this!

"Ressi. Ressi. So cold, cold, so much...Ressi " The words were full of so much pain and understanding, so much devastation that there was no other reason for it, Ressi had stolen Tom, Ressi had made her own pack. He smelt like her, like his own mix of her her and him, they weren't mates, I knew that for sure, well I think they're not...

I didn't believe Jessica, all those things she said about Ressi. None of us believed her, besides from Allisia, Laura and Greg. They believed anything that came out of that girls mouth. But the rest of us, Valda, Hasse, Quill, Lyri, Maddox, Calista and Bao, we never did. We couldn't, there was no bad blood between Ressi and the rest of us. We never knew her. She was intimidating to us, always shut down, never letting us near her, and if we were, there was just something about her that warned us that she wasn't right, that there was something wrong with her.

But when we reached Jaded, I didn't think she was bad, judged wrongly maybe by the elders but not by us. I started to like her, and look at what she did! Tried to kill my brother, then kill Shane!

Today was the first time I had ever seen her wolf, she didn't hunt with the pack. When I was 2 or 3 or so Ressi hunted with my brother, they were closer in age, but then something happened...I couldn't remember! But there was a big commotion. Ressi was excluded from the rest of the pups, the alpha's, her parents, started to treat her more like a pet than a daughter, the rest of the werewolfs steered clear of her, and I didn't know why. None of us younger wolves did, neither did Tom.

It was all so strange, I remember being so jealous of Ressi, watching her play with her twin Jessica, they were inseparable, or at least they was.

"Tom. Tom! Are you listening? What did Ressi do to you? Tom? Please speak to me!" I cried to Tom, shaking his shoulders as his head rolled back.

"Need...Ressi...Have to help..." He continued to ramble and all the anger in me snapped, without knowing it myself I raised my hand and slapped his cheek sharply and he sucked in a breath and hanged his head down low. Shaking it, until he just stopped all together.

"Tom? Are you alright? Ressi's a monster, Jessica was right, Ressi is an animal, but we can help you, I can help you-" I was cut up as he threw his head back up, an almost feral look on his face as rage was etched into her line of his face. He snarled at me and violently shook my hands of his shoulders, standing up so fast he threw the chair back into the wall with a large clatter.

"Tom? What's wrong?" I ask quietly as he heaved, he turned his head to me.

"Don't you ever say anything like that again about her, those are lies, you are all liars" He seethed.

"Do you hear yourself Tom? She's made you mad! I didn't believe it either! But she tried to kill you, and then tried to kill Shane!" I all but screamed.

"Shane, he's your mate? What a pathetic mongrel!" He chuckled as if in a haze and I felt my blood boil.

"Don't talk about my mate! He saved me! Or you wouldn't care, Ressi, Ressi, Ressi. Don't you see? She changed your bond! You only feel like this because she tore you from us, made you her own pack somehow! You don't even care about how she nearly killed me!" I was so mad, I felt like hitting him again upside the head.

"I was always her pack! You took her away from us! She was the one who bonded all of us!" He rambled.

"You wouldn't remember, you're wrong, you're all wrong, and you're so gullible you don't even realise!" He screamed at me, a vein buldging in his neck.

He stared at me, and I stared back. This is what my brother has turned into. He made no sense at all! Ressi had taken him, and I would get him back.

Suddenly his head whipped to the side, as if lost in thought. And just in that moment someone ran in, whispering words upon words in the ear of the figure he carried. Both completely naked as nurse Maya rushed in after, Tom close on her heels deeper into the medic centre and I followed, caught in the rush all around me.

I heard Tom's whimpers and growls mingled with the other males as he cradled her slowly, moving her onto the bed where Maya pushed us all out with determined force. Throwing a towel at the naked male you caught it almost dazely. Tom's face was completely full of worry. And then I realised who was on the bed and I lost all thought of compassion and worry.

Ressi.