𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐎𝐅 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐒✔️

THIRTYFIVE|DARE

Over the days I had learned much about the three survivors.

Carmen, the pale faced woman with dirty blonde hair who I originally hadn't taken much notice of did most of the talking. Whilst Pollux, the limber, catlike man lingered ever close, always watching. He made me uncomfortable, it was the look in his eyes, always like he was about to pounce. I could never relax around him.

Theos had offered them separate rooms but they insisted on staying together despite the constant arguments between the two adults, though nothing physical ever occurred. Even now the child still cowered behind the frail woman, always staring at me with those wide and haunting lilac eyes.

Her name was Dalia, they said.
She was completely mute, that much I had gathered.
They said she wasn't always like this, silent and afraid.
She didn't always look like that either.. with her ghostly blonde hair and glowing skin.

They made her that way.

She was a clone, a genetically engineered mutation.

A clone.. Of me.

Carmen said that my sister and I along with one other, a Luna named Amora, were the only ones to express the gene for immunity to the Alpha poison they had been working on, by using samples of our DNA they were able to reverse engineer a vaccine.. but also a strain that even we wouldn't be immune to.

My mind was thrown back into darkness, it was all I could see, all I could taste. All I could touch. The inky blackness that crawled down my throat and suffocated me, leaving my clawing at mr throat.

That's why they had blinded me. Another strain of the vaccine, another layer of weakness. Who knows what other side effects may have reared their ugly heads if Astoria hadn't cured me, maybe that was why the price was so high.

Though after all there was never really a price to pay, once Theos' teeth buried in my flesh a whole new mate bond was created, regardless of the old one. Sometimes, though I hated to admit it, I did wonder who my original intended mate was... what was he like? Would I ever meet him? If I did, would I know it was him?

Part of me hoped I would never meet him, for fear of greed ruining what I already had, as fragile as it was.

Even now I wasn't really sure what it was, and I tried not to think about what exactly it was too much. I just tried to let things happen as organically as possible.

Carmen rocked the child that slept curled into a ball in her arms in the old wooden chair before the mantle. Flames the colour of molten honey climbed to lick at the hearth, and danced among the ash. "So do you really not remember Pollux and I at all?"

Shaking my head I stared into the flames, "I don't remember much of anything from back then."

Theos' cabin was far larger than Astorias, my fingers stroked the thick brown pelt the lined the floor beneath me, Theos had said that it was tradition that every Alpha would be initiated into the role by fighting a bear. If they managed to kill the bear, they would take over possession of the pack. If they couldn't kill the bear, well then.. The bear would kill them. There was no backing out, he said. An alpha had to be proven worthy. They had to be strong, and so did their Luna.

Thats why Mare would've been perfect, I couldn't help but think, she had always been strong willed, stubborn beyond belief, and ready to fight tooth and claw for what she believed in, at least... that was how I remembered her.

"Its not your fault you don't remember," She said slowly, "I would forget it all in a heartbeat if I could... Besides they used to make us forget most of it."

I furrowed by brow, watching as the pale haired child shifted in her sleep. "Make us?" I echoed, turning back to the fire my eyes settled on the humungous skull that settled upon the mantle, that of the bear Theos had slain for his initiation, from here its sharp canines looked longer than my hand.

Carmen chuckled slightly, "Of course you wouldn't remember, silly me. They used to give us these little green pills to make us forget, so that they could reuse the same test subjects over and over again without bias."

Biting my lip I asked, "Then how come you remember?"

"Because Pollux and I would never actually take them," She smirked triumphantly, "You could just shove them under your tongue, and on the rare occasion that they would actually check properly, we just swallowed them and then shoved our fingers down our throats as soon as they left."

I wondered why I had never thought of that trick, maybe I had but they had caught me? I guess I would never know.

"Oh but you couldn't do that of course." Her lips pursed. "You were their prized possession, a genetic diamond.. they kept watch on you 24/7, you would never have gotten away with not taking your pills."

"How do you know all this?"

She smiled sadly, "We had adjoining cells. We were quite accustomed to each other's screams."

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