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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Time bled, a gaping wound that seeped infectious seconds, minutes into hours into days.
Marus was by my side almost nonstop until it came time for him to leave.
He told my stories of long nights by the open fire. Stories of my parents and sister. I clung to them, listening desperately to his every word hoping it might trigger more memories, hoping it might make everything make sense. But still nothing did, why did she kill them?
I had barely seen Astoria in the days that had passed, only caught fleeting glimpses of her leaving and entering her room. She hadn't left since the night ball.
It was strange, even for her.
I balanced the tray loaded with a cooked breakfast and a glass of juice in one hand and knocked three times on her door with the other. "Go away." She growled. The same thing she had said to me every other day I had tried.
"You can't hide away forever!" I called through the door. "Please just let me in."
The door opened to reveal a ragged looking Astoria, her hair was a mess and her eyes were red rimmed and puffy. I was taken aback by her appearance, she had always been so austere and cold. Her Cerulean eyes held many secrets. The ice queen was melting, her cold demeanour finally coming undone, but what was the cause?
"Are you okay?" I asked tentatively.
"I'm fine." She snapped. "Are you coming in or not?"
Her room was dark, all the curtains were drawn and it smelled like salty tears and roses. A bouquet of the red flowers perched on her dark wood desk, I set the tray down beside the flowers. A red light enveloped the room like everything was drenched in blood. She sad in the centre of her unmade bed, the covers cocooned around her and motioned for me to join her. I sat carful not to disturb her nest of sorrow.
"What's wrong, you've been acting really strange the last few days?" I said, motioning to her cave of bloody hibernation. "It's not normal, even for you."
She ignored me. "What do you know about mates?" She asked incredulously.
That I don't have one. At least, not anymore.
I laughed to try to diffuse the weight of her seriousness and the heavy burden that it pressed upon my shoulders, I tried not to think about it. "I know just about as much as everybody else, why?"
"Do you know what happens if one mate dies?" Her eyes were glassy and her words too harsh. Every syllable she spoke hit her too close to home. It was like she was made of glass, cold yet fiery. Smooth yet sharp. Even in her darkest times I still couldn't help but he baffled by her beauty. Her eyes were so bright even though they were glassed by tears, face so flawless even despite the tinted half flush that died along her neck. Grief suited her in some sick way, like she was revisiting an old friend.
"Why are you asking me this?" I frowned. "What happened to you?"
A sickening feeling was beginning settle like a weight in the pit of my stomach, I didn't like where this was headed.
"Tell me Artemis! What happens if one mate dies!" She hissed. Her eyes were wide and haunted. Ghost eyes. Eyes of the dead. Eyes that had seen so much, too much. Eyes that could never unsee the horrors of her life.
I grimaced, I shouldn't have answered I was only further fuelling her dark decent into her own personal hell. "The other goes insane or dies, only half a soul one cannot live without the other."
What happened to her? Was that why she was always so cold, so heartless. She never let anyone close to her, not even me. The only person I had ever seen her warm too was the Alpha.
Astoria stared at the blank red tinted wall, rocking slightly. "Yes." She whispered, "They go insane." Maybe it was my mind playing tricks on me, or maybe I heard her mutter under her breath, 'But what if they're already insane?'
"Astoria, you're scaring me.." I shifted away from her. "Are you sure you're all right?"
She was staring straight at the bloody flowers, a small white tag attacked around the bunched green stalks. "Who are those from?"
"Theos." She began to rock slightly. "He's the only one that understand. He's the only one that knows what it's like..."
My heart clenched at his name. They were both broken, two halves of a whole. They were not mates, sometimes I doubted they even liked each other, but deep down they needed each other to survive.
Two broken halves of a whole. Their pieces didn't fit together, but they stopped one another from crumbling when the drugs and the alcohol no longer flushed the nightmares out.
"Knows what what's like?" I said, I couldn't tear my eyes away from her ghostly pale face
I had never realised how hurt Astoria was. I should've realised.
Her next words shook me to my core.
"He's the only other one that knows what it's like..." She was silent for a long while, a single tear crawled down her flushed cheek. "To kill your own mate."
*** Has anyone figured it out yet😉 If you're enjoying TFOA please feel free to check out some of my other works! Any thoughts? Theories? Anyways... Don't forget to vote and comment! -🍟
