Passion for War

Chapter 2:

Madeleine:

The sound of Grace crying burns my ears, I watch from the trees as she stands next to an empty coffin. My empty coffin. In order to protect me, Alexander thought it best that everyone in the council believed that I died with Lucian. That included my best friend. She kneels next to the coffin as she cries in her arms, Xavier holds her shoulder as he stares at the coffin.

Very few people arrived for my funeral or I suppose they wanted a small gathering. The only other people are distant aunts, uncles, cousins and a few of the nurses from the council. My heart clenches as I look at all their tear-stained faces. I'm right here, I wish I could scream at them to look at me but I can't. Soon the news would break out in the papers that the only daughter of the Collin family had passed and my brothers would then be forced to wear mournful faces at their work. Was this worth it? I wonder. Was deceiving and moving around in secret worth it in the end?

I feel something wet on my face only to find that I am now crying.

Fitz stands at a distance from me but keeps a close eye on me. I'd say that's comforting if I didn't resent him at the moment. We have not moved forward from what he did and what I have done. I don't know if we ever will.

I take one last look at the people I love and turn around and walk away from everything I know. "We can leave now," I say as I pass Fitz, I walk ahead of him as I wipe my tears. My family is gone, my friends are gone. The council is against me for betraying them. I have no one.

When we arrive back, I march straight to my room, in desperate need of alone time. "Don't forget that tonight is a full moon," he says from the bottom of the stairs and I halt at his words. A full moon? Already? My first transition has arrived and I am not in the least bit prepared for it. "Valerie will help you." He assures me, making me relax just a little. I nod and continue my journey back to my room, I am in no place to talk to him or anybody for that matter.

In my room I pace up and down as I figure out how to avoid this transition tonight. My heart is pounding fiercely against my ribcage. I can't turn into a wolf, Valerie has told me that the first couple of times are painful and long. This only puts me more on edge. What happens when I turn? Will I have control? Lately, after what Lucian and Irene did to me, I have this unsettling feeling that I am an imposter in my own skin. It feels as though I am sharing my body with something else, it feels crowded and it makes it hard for me to sleep.

Am I going crazy? I have checked the symptoms, I have urges to cut myself or hurt myself in some way. Just to shake this feeling but nothing has worked, I thought that I would find some relief in it but I never did. It's almost like an itch that I cannot get rid of and it drives me crazy. The feeling gets worse the closer the time comes to the full moon.

I know that my body is changing and I will experience many things but this doesn't feel right at all.

Soon the time comes and Valerie arrives. With her, she has two male pack members and lots of chains. "Are the chains necessary?" I ask as I feel the weight of them. "Yes, this is to protect everyone from you, remember you have no control the first few times and so this is to help restrain you." she points at the chains in my hand. I nod my understanding. "Right gentlemen, if you could please set this up outside." She hands the chains to the men as they leave. She then looks at me expectantly, for what? "Take your clothes off," she urges me, taking me by surprise. "What?" "Take them off, surely you weren't expecting to go through the transition in that?" She raises a brow at my dress. "You can't expect me to stand naked in front of you and the other males," I say feeling uneasy at the idea of men seeing me naked. I never even let my brothers see me naked, let alone strangers. "You will ruin your clothes if you stay in them, besides it's just me." She gives me an assuring smile.

Sighing I start to remove my clothes, still feeling uncomfortable as she watches me. "Do you mind?" I raise a brow, she sighs and moves to the door. "I'll be outside," she says before closing the door.

After some motivation, I convinced myself to undress and wrap myself in a blanket before meeting Valerie outside close to the forest. The two men stand on opposite sides of a tall tree, the chains are already wrapped around it. Valerie approaches and removes the blanket, exposing me to the cold air. Winter is getting closer and closer with every passing day.

I wrap my arms around my chest as I wait for her to tell me what to do, this is humiliating. "Right so Josh and Tyler will chain you to the tree and then we will wait for the process to take place." she pulls towards them. My heart beats faster as I take in the thickness of the chains. That will definitely be heavy.

The cold metal comes in contact with my skin but strangely I don't feel bothered by the cold. They wrap the chains around my legs first and then my waist, the chains snake around my body and end on my shoulders. The weight feels as though it is crushing my body. My heart is beating fast, I can't do this.

This feeling worsens as images of me chained in the middle of the council comes to mind. By then I realise I am hyperventilating. "Madeleine, just relax." Valerie tries to soothe me but my mind is elsewhere. "I-I can't breathe," I say through breaths, I feel her hand on my shoulder. I look into her calm eyes as she talks to me but I hear nothing other than the blood flowing through my ears. "Deep breaths." She takes slow breaths and I copy her, in and out and in and out.

Before I can truly calm down I feel a piercing sharp pain in my back causing me to scream. "It's starting, make sure the chains are tight." I hear Valerie instruct as I try to breathe through the pain of my spine snapping. My ribs move at an excruciatingly slow rate as they take a new position, saliva drips from my clenched teeth as I try to bear through the pain. My spine snaps again forcing me to my knees, I release another scream as I feel bones grazing my lungs. Tears stream down my face as an uncomfortable feeling settles within me. That same feeling I had earlier. I rest my hands on the ground, putting me on all fours. Soon the pain fades giving me time to breathe. "You doing perfect Madeleine," Valerie says as she wipes hair from my face so that I can see her clearly.

"I can't do this," I sob as my shoulder snaps, the pain like an elastic. It's quick and painful beyond anything I can comprehend. "Yes, you can love." I shake my head as I feel a headache coming. I lean down and rest my mouth on my arms, my gums are burning and my teeth feel sensitive. Before I can comprehend what I have done, blood leaks from my arm as my teeth clamp down on it. I bite harder as more pain comes from within my stomach. "Madeleine!" Valerie shouts but I ignore her as I push through the pain.

The pain in my arm outweighs the pain in the rest of my body but the pain is still there. Eventually, I let go of my arm only to find deep bite marks, but they didn't look like human teeth. Animal bite.

I wake up to the smell of death. When I open my eyes they instantly sting from the sunlight. I take in my surroundings and realise that I am still outside but I am no longer chained to a tree. I try to remember what happened last night but I came up blank.

A sharp pain draws my attention to my arm and it is there that I find deep wounds of an animal bite. But that becomes the least of my worries when I notice red on my skin, all over me. Startled, I try to move away but the pain in my arms and body stops me. What happened to me? I look around me to find a way to stand only to find the body of a deer. Its stomach ripped open and its organs are scattered around me, did I do that? Its empty eyes stare at me causing bile to rise up and I turn to the side to throw it up. The smell is overwhelming and I can't help but cry at what I did.

My body is sticky and smells of death. Why did this happen to me? What did I do?

Eventually, I gain the courage and strength to stand, my body is still sore and the bite mark on my arm has not healed. Which is strange since all my other marks have healed. I realise that I am quite far from the house and as I climb the ditch that I was in, my stomach drops at the site before me. Too many dead animals are scattered and the sick feeling in my stomach returns as I realise this was me. I take a deep breath as I walk through them, the smell fills my nostrils and it kills me internally.