BLACK

(16) Lonely

EDITED

The mirror mocks me. To it, the girls tresses are messy and wild. Her green eyes are so glazed, they appear a misty grey with large, black pupils. Each action, the girl in the mirror mimics. She tries to wear the dress I do, but on her it sags. It is unkept and unflattering. The gorgeous red rose used to do a number for her, but now it only heightens the pink along my eyelids. I'd put on this dress to get things off my mind, yet it hadn't worked. I love this dress, or used to. Now the image only glares at me.

I'd been crying for hours. On and off, if I lied still, if I didn't breathe, I wouldn't cry. Yet with every other action a turmoil of despair rocked me beneath the blankets of the bed. I thought Aris would come soon after he sensed my hysteria, but he did not. I wept more with those thoughts, times new roman fonts floating through my brain on a one circuit track.

Salt water didn't leak from my eyes for no reason. I had explanations, but it was not merely the stress  of everything added up. It was through the phone, line cut short after I started screaming. Nothing made sense.

They never called me, never had a reason. Especially if it wasn't directly from my mate. Though this was an exception, and this time I didn't taste the details. I'd thrown a mobile tantrum, my angry yells probably burning the shifters ears. I didn't care. I was past caring. I was in hysteria, and not the good kind.

Another mate. Zaccai, of Luxembourg's Ardennes forêt. Gone. No heir, no solution. Vulnerable. Nothing had happened yet, to Roman's pack or Lucan's, not even Jonneth's yet. I could sense it rising on my back, right behind my peripheral vision. They were coming, the murderers, the rogues, the anything but nice beasts. They were waiting, for a specific moment. The one where I crumble. You'd think I'd have slit my wrists by now, after six dead soul mates.

One. With a surge through my heart, I feel it that many times. The ones after me had a single thing left, and then I would break for them.

Aris, his name drums in my memory like a motor function. Aris.

I scramble from where I had sunk to the floor, hiking the silk material up and away from my bare feet. There was no time to change, not when Aris hadn't rushed to me after my first wave of emotions. I should have clicked the clues together when Zaccai's pack got a hold of me. It was typically through Aris word was delivered, or through him he controlled how much information would get to me. I'm sure if I had stayed on the line long enough and not gone crazy, their beta would have willingly told me every single characteristic of Zaccai's mutilated body.

I sprint down the stairs of our three story home, searching frantically for my last mate left.

No one believed me when I tried explaining something was after me. It was not a coincidence each of my alpha mates was murdered with the brutality of a rogue. If the killer could even be called that. I had no weak mates, even Lucan as my youngest was trained to be ruthless. Even Roman my most gentle and caring had slashes down his back from victories. They either didn't see it, or they didn't want to. The media was feeding them from their palm that it was Aris and I's doing, for money and power. How silly, how stupid.

I yank at my frizzy hair as I run around the first level, checking windows and doors for anything. When the rogues came, I was not much in my weak human form. I hated rogues, hated shifters too. I grew up and around them, but it was always a deep secret my despise of them.

I lived with Aris for protection, he was supposed to keep me safe. The evidence of battle on his golden skin was supposed to be a reminder of his strength. If I lost Aris... I can't even finish that thought. I won't.

Running frantically, I finally peer open the abandoned door in the back of the laundry room. As it creaks open, the echoing sound of only silence marches with my heart rate.