Scarlet was raised to lead and protect. But he was something no man could stop - a monster. In a story where fate is a curse, she can't escape a future defined by the Moon. He can't stop the consequences. He can't change the past. She can't forget i...
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They were savage. They were monsters. Yet, it required a special kind of perversity in one's soul to be able to kill a child.
He had done just that. He finally sacrificed that part of him that had stayed intact for so long. And why?
"What are you thinking with that beautiful expression on your face, Ashwin?"
Looking at the woman who had followed them for years, hearing the mocking, taunting voice, he wanted to do something... anything.
His ugly, clawed hands were no match for the soulless. His scarred and burned body didn't faze her. Nothing did.
Nothing could hurt her.
She was the one who hurt others.
"Are you thinking about brother dearest weaving his web? I hear he's had quite the breakthrough tonight."
She was sitting like a queen in her own kingdom. They all had to be kneeling in front of her when they wanted to speak to her. Except for Cole. He was her favorite toy to play with, the spider who weaved and knotted the web.
"Hesss been talking tooo you, hassssn't hhhe?" Ashwin asked, dropping to his knees. He hated the sound of his own voice in his own ears.
It didn't scare her, though. She liked it, liked seeing others suffer – even more when she was the reason behind the suffering.
The wild had taken countless of lives but even they couldn't compare to the soulless. Just like his name – Ash, he was ashes. It was all that was left of him now – ashes.
He crawled his way toward the woman sitting by the dead fire. He knew she didn't need its flame to feel warm. The souls did that for her.
"He's always talking in my head, Ashwin," Leila finally gave him an answer. "Unlike you, he's open to me."
He didn't dare look her in the eye. Instead, he watched the shadows wrapped around her. Flowing like black smoke around her body, they sometimes made him wonder if it was these shadows or flesh that was real.
After so many years of service, he was still unsure.
"Whaat doo we doo noow, myy laady?" he asked her.
The woman just looked at the ugly creature kneeling before her. Minutes passed and she stayed silent in her observation of the gruesomeness that was the wildling. It was so ugly it was almost beautiful.
She smiled at him, her eyes drinking him up like a person starved for others' touch. She could feel the on the tips of her fingers – the small bites of pain every time she touched him. His pain.
"Your brother is going to take over the pack," she told him, raising her hand and tracing the melted side of his face with her fingertip. "And we'll be watching." She made a gesture with her hand toward the sky.
"And then, we will kill... and she will raise them." Her voice sounded breathless.
"Arrre yoou sssure--"
The woman smiled. "She is the one holding life and she'll lead us to others we can use."
The creature in front of her shivered. Half-beast and half-man, he shivered like a child in front of a monster when he was one himself.
