Silver Skin

38

Dark moon rising
~
Cadence
~

The moon hung like a poltergeist, tormenting the living for its amusement.

As far as Cadence was concerned, she wanted the moon to explode, to erupt in its chaos and confusion.

The more she stared, the intensified she felt. It was there, blooming and blazing in the inner parts of her chest where something lay beating untimely.

She wanted to detonate.

Cadence was a floating object ... a crumbling, decaying object just waiting to implode and wither.

But not yet. Not tonight ... not when the moon hung at its highest and fullest.

It would be poetic. A hunter dying when they were supposed to do the slaying. Dying by their hand when the night unravelled with lycans and werewolves. Hunters were needed most at night. They prepared in the day.

Cadence had to wait. She couldn't fly off the handles yet. Even if the handles were creaking in scrapes and cracks; ready to break.

She couldn't, not when they haven't fallen.

Cadence wanted to marvel at their downfall first. Whether that be in blood or tears. She wanted to revel in it, feel their cries bleed into her ears, their begging sow itself into her soul until she finally fell. It was only right.

Cadence had to spit and dance on their graves — celebrate those that deserved to fall.

Tristan wasn't here. He was torn from this world. By the heart, by the vessel that bounded him here.

Cadence angrily wiped at her mouth, wanting to pull herself apart. Skin by skin.

Rexton wasn't here.

Would she be stuck here for the rest of her days? No flicker of light, no array of hope that maybe Rexton will come tumbling down those steps and greet her like an old friend?

The Larren hunter gripped the chain and pulled it away from the wall, tugging it toward her heart-pounding chest.

"Make it secure," Erisa huffed through thick sighs. "My taste is changing, everything is."

It wouldn't hold Erisa. Every time a bone cracked and quaked, it took Cadence back. Before the hybrid, before Lycus, before crossing into Fenris territory, it took Cadence to the ways of hunting a werewolf and lycan.

After pulling at the chains for a final time, Cadence picked up Erisa's leather jacket that was on the floor. She was only in grey pants and a singlet that was bathed in her sweat.

Cadence struggled to see the sight and whirled around. "She's chained. Your turn, Tala."

She was met with a harsh glare by the Beta.

"I don't need to be chained. I'm in control."

Cadence's hand found her head and she dragged it down her face, briefly feeling the swelling of her eyes and sunken cheeks that puffed out, resigned.

"I highly doubt it," Cadence stated and let loose of Erisa's chain.

Her friend was collected. For now. The moonlight had yet to touch the paleness of Erisa's skin and once it did, all hell would break loose.

Erisa was already breathing heavily, her wrists entrapped with iron and her head hung low, feeling every single piece of her past, present and future. Once the moon came through that barred window, all of that would be snuffed out. It would only be the kill. The thrill of the kill.