ALPHA GREY (Re-written)

Chapter 24

They say death is the kingdom where peace reigns – where pain hath no reach. Yet as I wander through the emptiness – the pain around my neck still raw, I begin to question whether everything I'd learned about the after-life had been a lie. Here, in cold empty space, pain ruled in all its glorious forms. Everything I had felt as the life slowly drained from my body, I could still feel. Not only did I still feel the burning around my throat from the weight of Kaden's death grip, my heart still ached in longing for my mate.

I had come to, in this dark pit of emptiness where no soul dared roam. The time I've spent searching for a sign of any other presence except mine had given me time to think, albeit the search itself having proven futile. If this is what hell is, I now rebuke myself for having thought it was better than the what my life had been at times. Burning may seem like the most excruciating form of torture but it pales in comparison to the subjection to this– this indescribable damnation of maddening torment.

of now is what I could've done differently, how I should've lived but mostly of all the moments of happiness I had deprived myself because I was too consumed with all that was wrong with my life instead of taking things as they came. I missed out on the chance of a destined love, at the hand of my stubbornness. Greyson will never truly know what it is like to have been loved by his mate, and I, what it could be to be loved my someone whose soul is a reflection of my own. It was selfish of me to have treated him the way I did when really, he'd only ever tried to ease me into the future that neither of us had had a hand in choosing.

At the thought of him, a sudden wave of pain washes over me, trailing behind the regret I feel. It is characterized by terror and longing. Every emotion I felt, I could not place. Yes, I am fucked up but this was some next level shit. Trauma, regret, bloodlust, rage and agonizing torment – bombarded me all at once, in a rising tide of destruction. Whether it was destruction of one 'self or the destruction of everything in its path. I couldn't tell.

"They are his emotions that you feel." A familiar voice echoes through the vacuum.

For a moment, I am convinced that I must be beginning to hallucinate.

Surely it couldn't be his voice I heard.

"You aren't hallucinating." His response to my unspoken thoughts startles me.

I must be in hell.

"How are you here?" I ask in shock as my Father who I had hoped was dead and gone, emerges from the darkness.

"I am only here because you summoned me, it may not have been consciously but our bond, as weak as it may be now, alerted me of the danger you face."

What? Wait am I dead or not?

"Am I dead?" I blurt out nervously. Although I probably was dead, a glimmer of the hope of seeing Greyson again still lingered.

Why the hell did I care about his so intensely all of a sudden? Well it isn't that sudden dummy. You've just been fighting it all this time.

"No, my sweetheart. You aren't dead. This is just a dimension you created to reach me, and equally to protect yourself from whatever danger you faced in the real world. I am only here at your will."

He chuckles softly, the sound of him mounting my anger. I didn't really understand just how much he affected me still, until now. As in my dreams, he wears a neatly tailored suit, his dumb face smug and knowing.

"How?"

"You are both the lock and the key."

"Cut the riddles, will you? I'd actually like to get out of this hell." I snap.