Silver Skin

33

No pulse
~
Accalia
~

It could have all been a lie.

A sweet, oblivious, wretched lie.

But lies were too easy. So easily said, so simply performed, even if they hurt enough to break a person.

Lies were made to hide the truth.

And Accalia couldn't be lied to. She was exposed, bare and vulnerable to the naked truth. It laid upon the floor, in a puddle of blood staining marble and nothing could ignore blood.

How could Accalia deny it when it was right in her face?

How could she deny it as Cadence's strangled, agonised shriek told Accalia the truth?

Why did the truth hurt even more?

There was nothing in head at that moment, whatever was there, that urge to protect, to protect her mate and her people faded away as everyone within the room did. It was just the two of them. Her and Tristan.

Accalia didn't realise she was bent down by her brother's side. She didn't gather that with the pads of two fingers she reached for his throat, pressing her skin against his. Feeling out for his warmth, feeling out for any shred of life within. Feeling if he was still alive and with her.

When someone dies ... in the normal and everyday way, this was what people did right? Check for a pulse?

He had no pulse, it rocked into Accalia's head, but she wouldn't have it.

She needed to feel it. She had to feel his heart gallop beneath the pads of her fingers. She couldn't see it. She couldn't bare witness to a torn out heart that laid by her feet.

Accalia ignored the punctured hole in his chest and waited for the thud of his heart. Thump? Nothing. Thud? Not a sound of it. Beat? Not a soul of it.

None came, but the beating in her heart that sounded off into her throat and ears, thumping and thudding, it could have been his. It would be. Should be.

To her knees, she fell and her fingers pressed deeper into his neck, digging for the heartbeat, savouring his warmth.

He would go cold, Accalia shook her head at herself, shoving aside her thoughts like they were a death wish. He couldn't. It wasn't possible. They weren't here right now. They weren't in this horrid place of nightmares and death. They were back home. They were with their parents, William and Belle. They were reunited with Aunty Katerina and Uncle Henry — Cadence amongst them.

Accalia would want the truth, even if it hurt, cut deep enough to leave a wound. She would rather the truth than the lie, and she would rather pain than pretend.

But not this time.

"Put Lycus back in his cage and lock them up, all except Rexton."

If it was Adriana speaking, Accalia didn't know it. She couldn't recognise the voice that spoke. All she could hear, all she could breathe was white silence that hissed out every other crackle and buzz.

The sound was white hot. So blinding it brought white lights to her eyes as a resurgence of doubt punched its way into her soul and left bruises.

She would recover from that.

Me, this was supposed to be me, Accalia reasoned numbly, feeling no sense of her thoughts, no weight of her distraught.

Nothing could be felt.

A huge shape drifted along her peripheral vision and she could feel black eyes watching her body that was set in place as her knees merged with the bloodied floor. She couldn't move, but she could feel everything around her.