A better friend would have gone and checked on him, a better friend would not have left him to his own while I romped around with a dictator. My heart sings, plummeting as I see the scene before me. The smell of rust and salt heavy in the air, only this time I'm numb to the gore. All I can see if Tonic, all I can envision is how would he ever recover from this?
"Tonic." My voice is barely above a whisper. I drop Alpha's hand and rush forward, my feet struggle to find purchase on the slippery marble floor, the blood is sticky and slick all at once. The gushing, sucking noises of my feet slipping through the practical silt of remains mixed with the thick life-giving substance. I'm vaguely aware that Alpha has scrambled after me; he throws his arms around my waist and pulls me back.
I fight against him, kicking and shoving at his arms. "He needs me!" I plead. Tonic would not be a victim as I was, alone, and without anyone to understand his pain. He needed me now more than ever and I would go to him. I'd already let him down once before.
"He needs help," Alpha tells me sharply.
I snap my head to look at him, glaring daggers, my eyes burning with resentment that he dare restrain me. "No thanks to you!" I want to go to him. I want to hug him and tell him it's alright. I'm not met with the scowl I was expecting, instead, he holds me firmly, his hands like steel vices on my biceps.
Ever the one in control, the calm and even tone attempting to coax me out of my own hysteria. "We have to get Sota. When this happens... Tonic is very dangerous in this state. We have to wait for back up if we want to help him." He tries to warn me but I shake my head. I don't want to listen to his, hearing him speak of my friend as if he were a murderer.
I had forgiven killers before, in my head I was already attempting to come up with a dozen different ways that would explain him out of this situation. "Tonic would never hurt anyone!" I shove him away from me, freeing myself.
"Look around you! He's proven he will hurt plenty of people, you don't know him, Nicolas! You are not going over there, you are staying here. I'm not giving you an option." His harsh tone cuts through me, echoing off the walls of the chamber, and rattling my confidence. Tonic wasn't the only dangerous one here. "Nicolas!" He commands my response.
I couldn't help Tonic if he banished me from this room. "Yes, Alpha." My voice is low and cold. Tonic needs help but not their help. He needs his friends, he needs to grieve. Despite me efforts, the gore surrounding me, the blood filling my nose, I can't convince myself it's true. It has to have been a setup. To truly be convinced, I must hear it from him and maybe not even though. Dark magic, mystics, shapeshifters, we could be looking at a doubleganger.
"Stay here. Do not move a muscle. Keep an eye on him, I'll be right back." He leaves and my eyes wander the throne room, finally drifting to the motionless young man.
He cut them up.
There are pieces of elf everywhere, parts, and glimpses of what could be a torso strewn across the room in a cyclone of disorder. My eyes pass over the impressions of marble under all that red. I look at the cold faces of those who had fallen victim to whatever this is, the rawest form of expression in a total mental break down. The look of shock and terror still remains, their jaws slack, their eyes wide.
War takes more than lives.
The longer I remain here, the longer I stand motionless among the dead, the more I begin to realize that I had been irrational in my justification. With the steady dripping of blood running down the grand stairs, I shudder.
YOU ARE READING
Affliction - Book One - Man x Man
RomanceBook One of the Alpha Series -- PREVIOUSLY KNOWN AS 'ALPHA'. Sometimes, the story isn't supposed to be about you. Sometimes, you are the weakest link, the least important person in the family. When it became known that Nicolas Matesscu, the youngest...