Seven Devils

| prologue |

Gone.

The walls around were cold and wet. Dark water seeped through the cracks and lonely steps were heard walking slowly down the corridor. She stepped in and looked around the worn out room. She saw it in her mind. Her favorite place.

The cries and laughter of innocence bouncing from the past, running around and through her. Her throat hurt and her heart skipped a beat. The big window let the glow of the moon tickle her skin as she walked towards it. She closed her eyes. Memories stared at her from every inch of the room and made her want to just stand there, still for all eternity.

She opened her eyes as reality pulled her back from the pleasures of what had once been and released her into the now where all hope had vanished and loneliness been bitterly embraced. She sat down slowly on an old rocking chair covered by moss and looked up to the ceiling. She reached out to one the baby cribs resting by the big window. The brisk breeze kissed her weary skin, adamant tears flooded her silver eyes, shamelessly running down her soft cheeks. She rocked the old lonely crib, back and forth. Slowly. Bittersweetly.

This would be the only thing her hands would never forget how to do.

"Lupa."

She quickly turns and sees him, moving like a shadow with a wicked grin. Obsidian hair, obsidian eyes and an obsidian soul, he is beautiful, deadly and cruel. His eyes burn like tongues of fire when she watches him.

Lupa, Lupa, Lupa.

Two syllables, deep and heavy, like drums of war, echoing in her ears. The lethal king, the powerful beast. Up there in the inky blackness, he is made of moondust and nightmares.

"Lycaon." She breathe his name.

He reaches out and traces his fingers down the scars on her face. "Hello, Lupa." He says her name in a low voice, terrifying, like a demon. The moon can be seen, nearly full and painful, reflecting in his dark eyes through the windows.

"You want to help me, don't you?" He asks, nearly snarling.  "Tell me, where are they?" He laughs then, grabbing the front of her shirt. "Where's your pack? They should be here to protect you from me."

"I'm...not afraid of you." She says, and it's a lie.

"You should be." She knows she should. He is dangerous and cruel. She could see it in his eyes.

He hates me.

He stares at her, fire in his eyes, darkness clawing at his chest. His hands shake. "You know what I am." He says. Poisonous.

"And you know what I am." She replies, heart racing. Poisoned.  She could reach out and touch him. Lycaon, Lycaon, Lycaon, like the drums of war. She wanted to pull him from the dark inky ocean, breathe life back into him the way They did.

"I've been told to kill you." He says like it's a joke, sneering, his head tilted to the side. "I've been told to hunt you down and drag you in, alive or dead." He laughs, darkness pouring out of him.

He is self destructing, a super nova, brilliant and beautiful but dying.

"You're lucky I loved you."

And once again he is gone.