IN FULL COLOUR - Dark Fantasy

Axel

“Just open it,” Cassius grumbled.

I felt uneasy. Something stirred slow and deliberately in my gut, like a serpent constricting around my intestines, just enough to produce discomfort but not enough to cause me any physical harm.

My fingertips glided over the two words again.

Face it.

I wasn’t sure what my mother was referring to, but I had an inkling, and it was something I did not want to face because I never wanted it in the first place.

After taking a deep calming breath, I turned the envelope over and lifted the crisp rectangular fold to peer inside.

No.

Excruciatingly slow, I pulled the glossy photograph out. My hands and fingers trembled as I took in the image. The serpent inside of me constricted violently, moving up and around my heart.

Pain, that was what I felt as I scanned my eyes over her perfect features.

Caramel eyes, smooth skin and brown, almost black hair, blowing carelessly in the wind. She looked different in the photograph than I had remembered her. She looked happy. In her hands, she held a Dandelionstem covered in seeds. Her eyes were bright and her mouth, her beautiful lips pulled into the perfect smile.

I swallowed the lump forming in my throat and shoved the photograph back into the envelope.

“Why?” I bit out. My voice sounding raspy and strained.

Cassius squinted at me through the mirror, “because it is killing you,” he replied in a low, serious tone.

I clamped my eyes shut tightly and grit my teeth. I couldn’t bear to look at him anymore and I wished that he couldn’t see me either.

“It is none of your business,” I said, keeping my eyes shut, my hands forming tight fists around the once smooth envelope, “you have no right.”

“I am still your Alpha,” Cassius stated.

“You were my brother first!” I ground out, my knuckles turning white.

“Yes, I still am,” he exclaimed, making me snap my eyes open and shoot daggers at him through the tiny mirror, “and as your brother, I am trying to help you!”

I snorted in response and turned my gaze out the window. We had left Shadow Creek’s boundaries and were now travelling AWAY from Hollow Stone, instead of moving towards it.

My brows lifted at the realization and Cassius knew I had figured it out.

“As your Alpha, I hereby order you to spend the next three months in the territory of Dire Mountain.”

“Don’t,” I growled.

Cassius simply ignored me and continued, “to aid them with their warrior training program and to spend at least one hour every day with the Alpha’s daughter, Gabrielle Stone.”

My blood was boiling. How dare he!? How dare he pull the Alpha card on me and call it an act of compassion.

“What a brother you are,” I seethed, my fists trembling in anger.

Cassius avoided my piercing stare and kept his eyes focused on the road ahead of us. The road taking me to Dire Mountain.

They had gone behind my back.

All of them.

They had orchestrated this and now I had to dance to the music of their destructive flutes while they toyed with my life from a safe distance.

I had no words. No words to describe how betrayed and utterly abandoned I felt. How could they?

I was truly alone. Even my wolf had left me.

“So what? You are just going to send me off to get mated and pocket in a new alliance for Hollow Stone? Is that your grand plan?” I asked, venom dripping from each word.

Cassius chuckled huskily, “you are expected to aid them with training their warriors,” he replied with a shrug, “whatever else you decide to do is up to you.”

“I think it is pretty clear what YOU have decided for me,” I spat, “why else send me? Send another to do it.”

“No! You are not my Beta, nor my Delta. You are not needed in Hollow Stone, nor in Shadow Creek, not anymore at least. The pack would survive without you,” I visibly cringed and felt a stab of pain shoot through me as he spoke, “Dire Mountain has no male heir.”

I let out a bitter laugh, “ME!? An Alpha? You must be kidding?”

“Alpha Blake needs to see if you have got what it takes. He wants to know if you are the solution they have been waiting for.”

Chuckling some more, I pressed my thumb and index finger to the bridge of my nose and shook my head in disbelief.

“This is something you could do, to help. Not only would it form a great alliance between the three of our packs, but it would also prevent Dire Mountain from crumbling or being invaded by weaker, maybe even rogue wolves in the future. Without an heir, the pack will be left vulnerable and defenceless against attacks, not to mention what would happen to their women and children, should there ever be an invasion.”

The mere thought pushed bile up the back of my throat. Cassius was right. I had heard the stories growing up of packs collapsing under the rule of cruel, foreign Alphas.

My brother sighed deeply when I did not reply, “just see it as aiding a neighbouring pack in training their warriors and come back after three months.”