War In Embers - A Lycans Story

Chapter 29: Paradigm Shift

The scars stood in sharp relief against the skin, raised and ugly. All manner of them; bites, burns, and cuts, some new and some old. Samuel shrugged his sweater back down over his battered arms and looked at the floor, his face flush and tears brimming behind his glasses.

Dime shook with rage. He might have had his differences with the man. Might've had their falling out. But he still cared deeply for him, and to think that there was yet another monster in Ilaross. The thought made him nauseous.

"What the hell happened? Who the fuck did this to you?" Dime asked, stepping closer to the man and reaching for his hands. Samuel flinched away and wrapped his arms around himself.

He burned like wildfire. He felt dangerous. "Tell me who did this to you. I swear to god I'll kill them."

Sam shook his head, wilting under the attention Dime was giving him. "I..." he trailed off, and the seconds turned into minutes while Sam waged some war within himself.

It made Dime's heart ache, and slowly, he moved to grip the man's frail, freckled hands. Sam glanced up at him, the tears falling with the jerk of his head. "Please. Just be honest with me, and I will fix this. I will take care of you."

In his desperation, he reached for Sam's mind but found it blocked off. Not in the traditional sense. Thoughts still swam there, but they couldn't possibly be real. They were a front. A painted window to hide what was really there. Dime had never noticed the deception before. Worse, it wasn't cast by Samuels own energy- no, this was a foreign feeling. It was someone else. Someone whose artful constructions spoke of determined violence and dripping malice and enough hate to drown him.

Samuel's eyes darted around the room as if searching for an escape, or maybe searching for whoever had done this to him. Like he had to make sure that he wouldn't be overheard.

Then, the choked admission came.

"It was Mitroshka," he began, the tears flowing in full force down his freckled cheeks now. "And he- he knew." Sam sobbed.

"Who knew?" Dime asked, moving his hands up to hold Sam's biceps, afraid that he would fall at any moment if Dime wasn't holding him up.

A mad laugh through the sobs sounded, and then he blurted, "Vsevolod! Your precious fucking alpha! He's always known!"

Dime let go at that moment, backed up a step and shook his head. The horror of the claim dawned on him, and he could only think to do one thing. "No. No, that's impossible."

Samuel shook his head, insistent even through the tears. "He knew. He knew and I have proof."

Before Dime could move or protest, Sam was stripping off his sweater, and the short sleeved undershirt beneath it. Beyond that was his skin.

Bare wouldn't have been the right word for it. Not with the aftermath of so many heinous acts littering it. There were wounds of every kind, old and half healed and stitched and scarred, but what stood out to Dime most were the words.

Across his chest and abdomen, trailing down into the line of his pants where it no doubt continued down his legs, were words. Familiar, because he'd heard them somewhere before.

'Should have saved her" was etched into his collarbone. 'Mischa I'm sorry' trailed along his chest just below his left nipple. 'Never forgive' below the navel. The words blurred as tears of rage and hopelessness welled in his eyes, and he reached out a hand to trace along the scarred paths that Mitroshka had left.

Samuel tensed and flinched at every touch as he explained through choking anger. "This one," he pointed to the one below his navel, "was done the night I was changed. After Vsevolod found out I was the weakest sort of man and gave me to Mitroshka." His voice was full of sorrow and a pent up anger that Dime knew he had been holding in all this time.

"And this," he pointed then to the brand they all carried. The interlocking letters that symbolized the three brothers. "This was done a week later by Vsevolod himself. After I had been brutalized and scarred to the monster's content."

Sam shivered as Dime's fingertips brushed across the healed brand, and then lower to the phrase etched into his skin. With his hand still pressed firmly to Sam's abdomen, he looked up and said, "something has to be done."

Samuel swayed, leaning into Dime's touch. "There's nothing to be done. There is no escaping this place. Vsevolod is too powerful. There is no justice." Sam spat the last word like it physically burned him.

For a moment, Dime allowed himself to wallow in the same hopelessness Sam must have felt for the past two years that they had lived in Ilaross. He understood now why the man had wanted nothing to do with him. Dime had been the one to invite Sam to Ilaross, after all, thinking that the change and the power would be good for him. It had felt oh so good to Dime.

Now, that power was locked away, and those he had come to respect had done the unimaginable.

And then, something sprang into his mind. A tiny voice that maintained its sensibilities and forced him to remember.

Ivans whisper and the sensation of his lips brushing against his earlobe came rushing back to him.

"There's a way."

Sam shook his head, "there's never any hope here. You don't know how bad it is."

Dime slipped one hand around to rest on Sam's hip, and then raised his other to grasp onto his chin, forcing the man to look him in the eyes. "There is hope," he began. "Before everything happened, Ivan found me."

Samuels teary eyes were skeptical, but he leaned in and nodded ever so slightly. "He told me to be ready to escape. That something was coming." Dime spoke slowly so that the full weight of his words could sink in. "I can bring you with me. We will get out of this hell."

Sam's bottom lip trembled, and in one swift movement, Dime had pulled him into a hug, tucking the redhead into his arms and resting his chin on his head. Sam sobbed in his arms, shaking and clutching onto him tightly while Dime ran his fingers down the length of the crying man's spine.

"You just have to let me in. Let me in and we can be the way we used to be," Dime pleaded softly, squeezing him tightly in his grip.

Sam pushed away a little, creating a little gap of space between them so that he could look up at Dime. His face was painted with guilt, and his mouth hung slightly open like there was something he wanted to say. His frail hands fisted against the back of Dime's shirt to keep him held close.

The words hovered on the edge of his lips. Those finely sculpted, perfect lips.

Dime didn't need to hear them.

He didn't think Samuel really wanted to say them either, whatever they were.

He leaned down and pressed his mouth into Samuel's, gentle and explorative. After a short second of hesitation, Samuel melted against him, his mouth responding in kind.

He tasted of mint leaves and dark chocolate, like he always had. It was a flavor Dime had almost forgotten, and one that he was determined not to forget again. 

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