After being blinded by those sworn to protect her, Artemis trades her vision for her ability to have a mate. Only things are not as they seem when she's taken in by a pack where everybody already seems to know her face and the brooding Alpha keeps a...
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It was wrong. It felt so wrong.
It had all gone to shit and nothing felt right anymore.
Inhale. I put the cigarette to my lips, taking a deep draw. I savoured the feeling as the smoke burned my throat and scorched my lungs. What had I done?
Exhale.
I couldn't help it, I couldn't stop myself. It was too strong, but I should've known her heat was coming. I should've sensed it.
Taking another held inhale of the cigarette I dragged a callused palm down my tired face. I poured over the sheet plan before me. The ball would have to be delayed until the females had finished their heat. The women didn't need unmated outsiders from every pack in the country trying to mate them.
It had been only a day since the females had been sent underground, deep below the pack-house to a specially designed bunker. All unmated females were sent there during their three day heat.
"Fuck." I grunted, slamming a fist into the desk. Why did everything in here reek of her.
She was long gone but still her presence remained in the form of an outsider. I saw her everywhere now. It was bad before that girl showed up but it was far worse now, I saw parts of her in everything around me.
The pale curtains fluttered in the breeze from the open window. I clenched my jaw and kept my eyes fast shut. Her scent was everywhere, it was crisp and clean and wonderful in every way. I had loved it, but now it seemed to suffocate me with its thick lust.
It awoke a part inside of my that I thought died along time ago.
The beast inside me roared, clawed, hissed, spat. He thrashed violently in my mind, howling to go to her. He wouldn't hesitate to kill whoever got in his way, all he wanted was her.
I squeezed my eyes shut tighter. If I ignored it, it would go away. I had urges before, but nothing close to this, except from her.
My beast had mourned for many moons after the death of his mate, but he didn't quite understand the loss as I did, he only viewed it in the most primal ways of loosing his moon given mate. I knew the weight behind the reality, he didn't have to live with the guilt that it was me who killed her.
Mare was gone. She wasn't coming back. The dead don't come back.
But she had- A woman the absolute spit of her had appeared, she found me in the woods. She sat where she once sat beneath the aged pine, her head rested on my chest. Carved out names into the trunk, stared out over the forest below.
She wasn't Mare, but she was sure as hell close. Maybe that was what scared me the most, the thought of having a second chance. To me it seemed just another chance to fuck it all up all over again. I pressed the butt of the cigarette to my parted lips, wishing for the scent of smoke to drown her out.
The thought of her hung in the air untill even the smoke smelled like Mare. She had always abhorred smoking, and I had never smoked, it all started after she died. Drinking first and then smoking, to help kill the pain. It never completely numbed it, but for a short while it dulled the edges.
I blinked and there she was, sat across from me.
Her silvery blue eyes shining with tears. Her soft white hair fell to her waist, she pushed a strand behind her ear with a perfect and slender finger.
I often saw her like this in my dreams, broken and sobbing, maybe it was her was of destroying me from the grave. Seemed like something she would've done, a smile tugged at the corner of my lips. "I've missed you." My voice was barely a whisper but I knew she'd heard me. She wasn't real after all.
Her rose tinted lips turned into a small smile. "You always will."
That was what I feared, what if the hole Mare left in me never healed. What if it remained open and bleeding forever. What if I remained alone forever.
My heart was guarded tightly by thorns, those bladed guards bound tight around the marred organ, spurring themselves deep below my damaged and broken skin, making it difficult... No, impossible to love.
I didn't need to think, my hands knew what to do as I grabbed the half empty bottle of whiskey from under my desk along with a glass.
I watched as the honey coloured liquid fell like water into the glass, at first I sipped at it. Mare's ocean eyes stared at the drink in disgust, "You're killing yourself.."
She had never trusted me. The thorns of loss digging deeper into my heart. I never trusted her.
In the end the lack of trust was what got her killed. I tipped my head back, finishing off the last of the glass. "Good." I grunted, pouring myself another glass, "Anything to drown you out." If only I had believed her. I stubbed the cigarette out into an ashtray, quickly lighting a new one and taking a drag.
Whiskey and cigarettes. What a way to go, I chuckled to myself.
She was gone, she never stayed to torment me long. I remembered the first time I had seen her, I cried, begged at her feet to come back. My heart dropped as I remembered reaching out to touch her face... she vanished back into nothing more than a memory.
Every time I saw her I brought it all back, everything that I had tried so hard to forget.
Every night I saw her body, hanging from the end of a rope at my command. Every night I saw her eyes as she plummeted into the darkness.
Every night I awoke to a cold sweat.
*** I honestly fell like I can't even write anymore, the words just aren't flowing at all😭 Any thoughts? Theories? Anyways... Don't forget to vote and comment! -🍟
