His

In The Dead Of Night

The fog was thick, curling it's milky claws around the trunks of pines that looked more obsidian than emerald in the darkness. The moon was not present to save us, as if the Goddess herself had turned her face away from her child in favor of another. An eerie silence had cloaked our territory like a heavy blanket that was slowly smothering us. No one spoke, no breathed. The curtains of the Pack House had not been drawn; we were not hiding from them, we were not afraid. Instead, a sense of dread slunk through the hallways of the Golden Reign Pack House.

We knew what was to come. We knew not to try to run from it. It was an inevitable, an imminent end to a pack that had thrived for over a thousand years. This silence that settled, that suffocated and left us with bated breath and an emptiness in our eyes, it was the calm before the storm.

I sat perched on the window seat in my brother's room, my arms wound around my knees as I stared out into the courtyard and the woods beyond. Not a soul was out, all of us inside waiting. My brother had ordered all women and children and those unable to fight into the bowels of the house; the rest were preparing to lose a battle in the war room. I didn't know how to feel. I was going to die tonight, probably violently, at the hands of an enemy that had risen. I was just nineteen. Too young to have done anything of consequence and I hadn't even met my Mate yet. My life would mean nothing and those who would remember it would be gone in a matter of hours.

The bedroom door opened and my brother's scent wafted in. I didn't turn from the window.

"They'll kill them, you know. Every last one of them," I murmured into the darkness.

A bird glided across the sky, just a flicker of white and grey before it disappeared. My fingers traced it's path along the glass of the window.

"We will go down fighting. It's what our father wanted," was all he said.

This time I did turn. "Is that what is right though?"

Luke slammed his fist down on the dresser and I flinched.

"We are not weak, Annushka! I will not allow this pack to look it!"

He almost never called me by that name. Our pack was originally from Russia and we immigrated many generations ago, but the Alpha's family always gave traditional names and taught the language to it's descendants. I had chosen the name Evangeline though as it was more assimilated, much like how my brother was called Luke instead of Petro. I dropped my head against the window and let the cold glass attempt to soothe me. I slipped from my seat and came to stand in front of Luke.

"There are children, Petro. Innocent pups who aren't a part of this. Please-"

"Enough!"

I shrank back from his harshness. He rubbed his jaw roughly and turned to leave. Hand on the frame, Luke stood in the doorway with his eyes trained forward.

"You will stand with your pack, Annushka. You will be strong."

The door closed behind him with a soft click and I was back at the window biting my fist just to keep from screaming. I didn't dare ask the Goddess why or for help. My hate was strong and fiery through my veins and I knew I could only utter the Goddess's name through a spit. She was about to let hundreds die, and for what?

A coldness overtook my body as the fierce, fiery anger drained out of me to let in a sense of loathing. If I were feeling more ironic in this rather bleak situation, I might've compared my sudden change in emotion to the five stages of grief. I went from denial to anger in the span of a day, then I went straight to a morbid kind of acceptance whilst skipping right over bargaining and depression all together. What could I say? I liked to cut corners.