The Wolf Series #3: Between Two Worlds

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

France, three and a half years ago...

I wipe the blood from my nose. It's thick and warm unlike my webbed fingertips. The air around me is all but crystalizing in the subzero temperatures the tomb has fallen to. The shadows crawl and slither, but I am not the only master they obey in this moment.

"Well fought, Amelia," I take a flinching step back as Orion steps towards me. His clothes are stained with blood. So are his hands. He lifts his hands and I feel the shadows at my throat instantly. He chuckles as I struggle to breathe, "Amazing to think that there was a Helios here the entire time. Underneath the very grounds that your hallowed feet bless this earth with."

It's as if he can sense the 'fuck you' about to slip off my tongue, because the pressure on my throat only tightens. My vision is beginning to fade while my fear doubles. He won't kill me—I know this much and that is what I fear. What he'll do to me is far worse than Death.

"You're tired, my precious half. And why wouldn't you? Slaving away on the behalf of these Wolves who beat you—who torture and confine you. And for what—The Moon?" When my vision comes to again, he's standing in front of me. His fingers scrape my cheek with a featherlight touch, and I gag. His eyes flicker over my face and he whispers, "I could set you free, Amelia."

"Only to—kill me?" I struggle to force the words through the crushing discomfort against my windpipe. His smile makes my stomach churn, and I begin to thrash around, "I'll free myself, thanks."

"You've always had the same fire as Zemira. And Breanna too—she was a feisty, little thing." He's amused when I freeze at the mention of my grandmother, "But they were never free of The Order. It always kept coming to bite them in the ass."

My response has him grinning widely, "Can't bite me in the ass if I destroy it."

I'm released from his hold. His cackling bouncing off the intricate pattern of bones and skulls that form the walls around us. I hold my chest and cough loudly. The shadows dance across my skin agitatedly, as if confused whose command to follow.

"Ah, Amelia. If I didn't have to kill you for what I want, then I might very well keep you."

"You're disgusting," My eyes find the glazed over eyes of my fellow sister. Her throat lies besides her corpse—her blood still dripping from Orion's fingertips. Her blood is now on my face where he touched me. I clench my teeth and feel the catacombs rumble. Orion's gaze meets mine as the walls begin to crumble around us, "I will kill you, Orion."

"Not if I kill you first," He wags The Helios before taking a step back. We both retreat as the tombs begin to collapse.

"Amelia!" Rowan grabs my arm and yanks me out of the way of a falling brick. More follow it, and I watch as Orion disappears in a cloud of ash and dust. "We need to leave—"

"He has The Helios—"

"And we have another! We need to go!" She's dragging me back, ignoring the shadows that shriek louder and louder.

All I can hear is the deafening sounds of their screams and the falling stone as we escape into the daylight aboveground.

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Alaska, present day...

Adrian has always been a source of inspiration for me.

He's a faithful leader and a skilled mediator. I have watched him unite many packs to The Order's cause over the years, and mend bridges that everyone once thought were long burnt down. I truly believe that he was the only one who could do it. No other man had the patience, empathy, or wisdom that he did. At the end of the day, it would be Adrian's relentlessness that would win the war, not me. I would just end it.