The Alpha King's Weakness [On Hold]

TWENTY-TWO

"HOW ANGELS SLEEP: Unsoundly. They toss and turn, trying to understand the mystery of the living. They know so little about what it's like to fill a new prescription for glasses and suddenly see the world again, with a mixture of disappointment and gratitude ...
Also, they don't dream. For this reason, they have one less thing to talk about. In a backward way, when they wake up they feel as if there is something they are forgetting to tell each other. There is disagreement among the angels as to whether this is a result of something vestigial, or whether it is the result of the empathy they feel for the Living, so powerful it sometimes makes them weep.
In general, they fall into these two camps on the subject of dreams. Even among the angels, there is the sadness of division."
—Nicole Krauss

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
PAIN BREEDS PAIN, WAR PT. 3

Before I could begin to do anything— to fight back against Macklem or even remove the hand squeezing my throat, my grandmother is between them.

Grams forces us apart, my body spazzing for only a few seconds before every muscle seems to freeze-- I can't blink, and I can't even breathe.

My eyes take in the scene lifelessly, everyone is like me.

Everyone is just... frozen.

The whole battlefield, every warrior and rogue a like frozen in gruesome positions and painfully stiff postures.

Swords clung to their owners or fell in clatters to the ground, arrows that had been in the air piercing their now unmoving targets or things they weren't supposed to.

Everything had been moving so fast-- so terrifyingly fast. So heartbreakingly bloody and tragic but now, it wasn't.

Ekon was still underneath rogues but his body was frozen in a way that I knew he'd be able to escape.

I just didn't know if I would be able to.

I gave up my life for his-- for my packs. They matter, they are important. More important than one life, even if that life is mine.

But I still couldn't help but to be relieved that Macklem was away from me, that he was so longer stealing my breath away with his greedy, murdering hands.

Macklem who was going pale--violently, exponentially pale. Like all his blood was being driven out of him.

What was Grams doing?

Killing him?

No, no, she wasn't. He was under the spell that my pack and warriors were. Grandma Tempe wouldn't put me or her own people in danger like that.

Not even to win a war.

Grams was levitating ten feet off the ground, her magic like purple and green twisting vines and smoke around her, spreading throughout the field and as of us slowly rose with her.

Her eyes were completely white.

I couldn't help but to let fear sink into my stomach, but to wonder where this war would end.

Where we will be as a pack, as people.

How many have we sacrificed today to win something that held no meaning? Was it worth it, was the war with it?