Shadow Bite || WATTYS 2017

Chapter Fifty

A/N: OH MY GOD WE'RE UP TO 50 CHAPTERS!!!! I had no idea that this story would go on for this long, but you know - oh well, more reading time for you guys ;-)

I'm going to be having crazy busy weeks, but this story is NEARLY finished, so I'll try to get it wrapped up as soon as possible. However, I'm not sure when it'll be possible for me to write, so please be patient. =)

I hope that you enjoy this! 

-xoxo, Sophia

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The waiting is the worst. 

Not the red marks left on my arm from the force that Jasper is gripping my arm with, not with the blood trickling down my skin from the claws that he has unconsciously extracted into my flesh as he leans against the stone wall, staring out at the pale and glowing moon with my tired out body besides him in an uncomfortable seating position. It isn't even the painfully stabbing and agonising pressures of Killian's amusement at sending in images of my loved ones, torn and shredded with blood everywhere, into my unguarded mind. 

It is the waiting. 

Waiting for Asher, waiting for freedom - even... waiting for death. 

And the powerlessness, oh the heart-wrenching feeling of not being able to do anything useful, for myself or for the pack that thinks that it's coming to my rescue, but is really diving straight to its outmost destruction. I wish that I could send a message to Asher or to anyone, anyone, because they'll be outnumbered and slaughtered in seconds. 

I don't doubt it, and that's what scares me. 

Inside of me, sitting here on the freezing floor with nothing but a thin tee shirt and shorts to protect me from the biting cold of the warehouse, I can't find a single sliver of radiant hope, nothing to soothe me or relax me, nothing to convince myself that we do have a chance of coming out of this, partly alive. 

I've watched the werewolves of Killian's 'army', their sullen, vacant and inhuman expressions. I know that Mrs Lee has everything to do with their transformation into cruel and bloodthirsty beasts, because no one has ever looked so passive and fearless - indestructible. The witch in question is sitting on the other side of the high-ceilinged space in dirty old rags, twirling a twig pensively around in her fingers and watching me with the thirst for power. She wants my Caster powers, I know that, she's told me that before, and it seems to me that she knows exactly how to get them. That's probably what Killian promised her in exchange for her help - me. 

Sometimes, when I look up at Jasper's profile as he gazes at the night sky, bathed in a pale glow of moonlight, I try to convince myself that the witch enchanted him as well, that he had no escaping her powers. But from the small flickers of human emotion that have passed over his features - pain, longing, and infinite sorrow - my eyes well with tears every time at the knowledge that he came to Killian by his own free will. 

Suddenly, an ear-piercing howl resonates through the air and every werewolf inside of the warehouse stills immediately, listening with disgusting anticipation for a blood-filled fight as hundreds of other howls follow that one call: Asher and his pack are here. 

At first, I feel joy - joy of being found, of being acknowledged. But then, horror floods through me and I scramble to my feet as Jasper hauls me up, desperately screaming for whoever who can here me from Asher's side to not come in: if they do, they'll surely fall to their deaths. Killian's werewolves are unforgiving machines of flesh and blood, programmed with the intent to kill anything with an adversary heartbeat. Then, the first piles of stone fly from the far wall as a torrent of werewolves stream in from the gaping hole with howls of purpose and the promise for blood. In this moment, every single one of them are cold-hearted killers. I search the crowd filled with crimson red splashes and the scent of death, until my eyes finally rest upon my fighting beastly mate.