Moon Bound

(55) Exile |Regan's POV|

As a reference (if anyone is wondering):

thou=you

thy=your

doth=do

Ready to accept my claim over their lives, to accept me as their alpha, they knelt in front of me.

My heart was trembling in my chest. The hand holding the silver dagger was shaking. I could feel the tension rolling off of me. I could feel it in the silence pregnant with their expectation.

My pack's, the hybrids', my luna's.

The faces of my wolves looked sullen as if they'd been defeated under my iron fist only mere seconds before its palm started bleeding. They had accepted their luna, but they weren't ready to accept others like her into the pack – into the bond.

Raising my left hand, the one that was empty, I willed my flesh to mold into the shape I wished it to be. It was a skill the wolves of my line had. A skill I'd inherited from my bastard of a father and he – from his father.

It was a skill that had fed his delusions of grandeur and made him believe that our line that originated from the first wolf. It was the proof he'd needed to believe and made me believe it too. At least, until Scarlet came along. I no longer knew if it was true or if it was a tale one crazy ruler passed down to another. It no longer mattered.

I could feel the claws growing, piercing the tips of my fingers, elongating in order to do what they were supposed to do.

Those talons would draw blood and blood would be drawn from the flesh they grew on. It was how this was done.

The blonde, Micah, was going to be the first I gave the mark. Cole was going to be the last.

Stepping towards her, my clawed hand reached for the spot on her body, just between her shoulders and neck, where the mark would be placed.

One swift motion and a deep gash formed at the crook of her neck, red seeping through her broken skin. Sour, rancid scent drifted to my nostrils, making me doubt the decision to place my palm over the wound and mix my blood with hers but I ignored it.

Maybe it was because they were what they were.

I slashed the inside of my hand with the blade, feeling the silver burn on my skin, and held it in front of her. The wound wouldn't close for a while since it was silver that inflicted it but, hopefully, it was going to stay open for long enough to place a mark on them all.

"I, Regan Conrad Greene, first of his name, Alpha of ShadowFang, offer thee the gift of my pack mark upon thy fresh," I recited the words I'd heard my father utter so many times they were now engraved in my memory. "Doth thee accept my offering and pledge thy life to serve and protect this pack and its Alpha?"

"I do," the girl whispered softly, the Moon's magic already upon her skin as small shivers raced across her body.

"By the Moon's will and mine, hereby, I claim thy body and soul as mine by placing this mark upon thy skin," I finished pressing my bleeding hand over her wound.

The bond stayed quiet. Motionless and then, like an audible sizzle in the whispering wind, the connection formed with a snap, stretching over the female and pulling her into the packlink until I could feel her – a caustic, empty shell when she should have been burning from the Moon's magical touch.

She wasn't.

The girl' sudden inhale had me snapping out of my observation, brushing it off as another oddity, probably a fluke born out of her different nature. Gathering back my bearings, I moved on to the next in line, repeating the process.

They were all the same. The words coming out of my mouth, the promises they gave me in return, the connection that formed between us. Even the feeling of cold emptiness. They were all hollow. Minds wiped blank as if they'd been asleep for too long. No emotions existed in their world.

Perhaps I just couldn't feel it because of how different they were. But then again, I could feel Scarlet in the bond just fine.

I stepped in front of Cole, deciding to approach the topic later.

He had his usual blank expression on his face, except for his eyes. Gleaming with satisfaction. He never as much as breathed a word that he wanted to join the pack, yet he seemed happy about it.

His mental voice was silent too.

I flicked my talons over his flesh. The gash they made seemed to be deeper than the rest I'd made tonight, bleeding profusely as soon as my claws retreated.

The smell was also stronger. The same one I'd caught from the rest of his hybrids but thicker as it sprayed into the air around the other male. Scarlet never smelt like this. Not before I found she was mine and not now when I'd already claimed her as mine. It made me feel so uneasy I wanted to be just done with this as quickly as possible.

Hastily, I repeated the ceremonial words. Accepted his affirmation of my claim and pressed my palm to his flesh, disgusted by the act but helpless to stop it now that it was nearly over.

"By the Moon's will and mine, hereby, I claim thy body and soul as mine by placing this mark upon thy skin," I bellowed, my hand withdrawing as the packlink sizzled and quaked, instantly awake unlike its slow reaction with the others.

As soon as the link formed, I felt him. A powerful presence inside the bond, casting darkness and weighing the scales of balance further away from me as if he was gathering clouds in his hands.

He'd been silent lately, but now I could hear the thundering approach of his mind, intent guiding it closer to me until it reached the destination, reached me.

I took a step back from him, desperate in my hope that physical distance would hinder his progress.

What the fuck are you doing, Cole? I shouted into the link but there was no reaction, only my voice that sounded inside it.

My pack was watching but I didn't see awareness in their eyes and when I glanced at my mate I didn't see there either. She was happy, her expression one of relief.

Turning my eyes from her back to the male, 'What the fuck are you doing, Cole?' I tried to scream again into the bond but nothing came out. Only the thought in my head remained. Not even a sound escaping, like screaming in the desert, only the desert was my own mind.

I met his eyes, coals from a fire I'd somehow missed in my mirth of finding a moment of happiness with my mate. Those eyes were looking at me now, capturing me within their darkness.

You can scream all you want, Regan. I have the packbond blocked so they can't hear you. No one but I will hear you now. He smiled at me from his place on the ground. Still kneeling in front of his alpha and portraying the submission expected of him but, nonetheless, triumphant on the inside.

Ghostly limbs clamped around my mind. Extensions of his, their grasp felt like an iron hold I couldn't escape. Striking deeper and deeper through my mental walls until there were none, until there were just the two of us.

I'm going to make the best of this meanwhile...

The world was fading in darkness. I was looking through a hole the size of the tip of a needle. I could no longer feel my body. He wasn't supposed to be even able to do this.

No! You can't do this, Col--

Enjoy your exile, Regan. I certainly will, he cut the connection off.

"ShadowFang, let us welcome our new members..." My voice turned into a distant echo as I drifted into a world of darkness.

Am I ever going see her again, ever going to hold her in my arms...

Numb. Empty. Everything.

It was gone. I was.