Chapter 16.
New Emotions.
Daemon.
It started as flashes, then whispers…
A face, a long mane of hair… Electric blue eyes and a fiery attitude.
My supposed demise. The eyes locked with mine and my heart began to pound, my airways suddenly getting constricted. My mind was in chaos as she advanced slowly. What felt off was the fact that I couldn't lift a finger to protect myself, and she advanced slowly towards me... ...to kill me.
"Daemon!" A sharp tap on my back jolted me awake, and I found myself drenched in sweat.
"What happened?" I tried to force out in a growl, but it came as shaky. "What just happened?"
"We were just talking, and you blacked out." Wilder stared at me cautiously. "You just stopped talking, your eyes went blank…"
"Someone is about to kill me…" I cut him off.
His eyes twitched at that. "Everyone has always made it their life mission to kill you, Daemon." He said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"No." I shook my head contemplatively. "This is different. This person is stronger."
"You're the strongest person in this world, Daemon. Nothing can kill you…"
"Yeah, well, except the woman born under the first full moon of the year…" Oliver walked into my study, eyes sharp and head held high.
She exuded so much confidence that normal people were in a trance anytime she made an entrance.
"No one would want to risk the life of their own child to create such monstrosity." Wilder shook his head while looking for something on my table to amuse himself with.
"Oh." A small smile began to spread on Oliver's lips. "But someone already has." She said, and our eyes snapped up to hers.
My wolf began spinning in circles in my head. It was getting agitated on the thoughts of being attacked by something stronger than us. It wasn't meant to be so. We were the predators for a reason. We never let ourselves get preyed on. We wouldn't stand and watch it happen!
"How do you know all this?" Wilder asked, leaning far back into my leather cushioned couch.
"I read." She replied, rolling her eyes.
"Shocking…" Wilder mocked.
But my head was brimming with ways I would kill this person. No one, not even the top assassin's society struck me with fear like this. I wasn't going to let this happen.
"Where is she?" I asked in a low growl, my eyes darkening in the process. "Where are they? The people who dared to start this, where are they?"
There was a sudden sparkle in Wilder's eyes. He knew I was about to begin a massacre in the packs until I got what I wanted, and he wanted to be part of this massacre.
"Parents fled, but are suspected to be dead. No one knows what happened, only the fact that she is within the pack of Alpha Blackthorn."
A shadow of a dark smirk crept over my face and I began to find the situation amusing. "Blackthorn, heh? We have a lot of unfinished business with him, don't we?"
Wilder gave me a deeper smirk. "Of course we do! How could we forget our old alpha friend who came begging to be made an Alpha even when he was not born through the bloodline."
"He still owes us. Now, this?"
"I'm staying out of this one." Oliver told us while retreating from the office.
Something was wrong with her these days and I couldn't quite figure out what it was. She enjoyed these kinds of things. She encouraged these destruction. Now, she was always retreating or hiding when topics like this were brought up. Destruction was my nature, and I enjoyed it. Most importantly, I enjoyed the hunt.
"Are we packing our bags or something?" Wilder didn't spare Oliver a thought as he got straight into it.
I liked him for that.
"What bags?" My mouth lifted at the corners into a slow, cunning smile. "We need to pay a good friend a visit, I don't think we have to pack our bags to do this."
The sound of my chair scraping the floor filled the room as I made my way out of my seat.
"Well, at least I would have some fun. It has been a bit boring around here."
*
Getting through the borders of the pack was easy, the warriors there were as weak as they came.
"Do you smell that?" A tiny scent reached my nose, and it instilled so much fear in my heart.
Instantly, I knew she was here. I knew the only thing that could kill me was here, and the fact that Blackthorn kept her in his pack could mean one thing. He wanted me dead, and he had found a weapon.
Blinded by rage, everything that happened around me was a blur. I stepped on the bones and crushed those that tried to stop me. I was unstoppable at this point. My only goal in mind was to draw this creature out and see how strong it was to be able to end the life of a Predator!
"I think I've found something more interesting. Have fun at your town end." I barely registered Wilder's words as I was consumed by the deepest emotions I was born with – rage.
The purest form of it. I let myself be consumed with it until the fur started sprouting out, and I knew that my demon of a beast was ready to make its appearance.
"We need to stop it!"
"It isn't dying!"
"Nothing can penetrate its hide!"
"Call the Alpha! We need the Alpha!"
The voices of the pack warriors were frantic and filled with fear, and it only made me stronger. It only made my hide thicker. The warrior who turned to find the Alpha was my target. I wanted to find the Alpha too.
I wanted to destroy him in front of his pack, not before destroying the weapon he had kept killing me. The warriors realized who I set my sights on and tried to buy time for him, but they were gone within a second of my rage. I watched as they sank to the ground in agony, struggling to breathe. Their resilience was surprising as some tried to pick up their weapons and come for me, even after their knees were pinned to the ground.
"He is going to the pack house!"
"We need to stop…"
The words died in their throat as the crunches of their bones filled my ears. They were innocent, I knew, and I didn't care. They chose to serve the wrong Alpha and got what they had coming anyway.
Wilder suddenly came up behind, eyes wide in surprise. "Describe the woman you said you've been seeing…"
My eyes widened as my beast whipped around to look at him. "Have you met with her?" I glowered into the mind link.
He shook his head in denial. "No. But something is egging me to tell you that she is in the pack house. I don't know what is…"
I didn't wait to listen to any other thing he had to say as I bounded towards the pack house. Whatever she had up in her sleeves, I would destroy her and every single thing she ever kept dear to her heart. I would make her see pain. I would make her suffer.
The warriors were never ending, but they were simple enough to swat aside. As I got nearer to the enormous pack house, a group of warriors surrounded me. Nobody needed to tell me that they were the elite warriors of the pack, and nobody needed to inform them that they were like ants under my feet. They would find out soon enough.
I heard a shout of agony to my side. "Not that way!"
I didn't care anyway, but I could feel a pair of eyes staring deeply at my back. I turned around to see who dared to have such audacity. And that was when I saw her…
Everything suddenly went quiet in my head, and I was trying to process what I was looking at. The first thing I noticed was how unkempt she was. Her face was dirty, eyes were dull.
Yet, even with the rags for clothes and the child she firmly held in her skinny and tiny arms, she looked so alluring it confused me. Her eyes fixated on mine, and for the first time, it was like someone stared into the depths of my soul, and that shook me in ways I couldn't understand.
"Lilian, run!" I heard someone shout towards her, but she was still in a trance.
This was it! This was our chance. Maybe she hadn't gotten her full powers yet, but I wasn't going to wait for that to happen anyway. I came here with a purpose. To end her life. Predators didn't like threats, and didn't like threats kept around. So, she wouldn't be kept around.
I advanced towards her as she still stood fixed to the spot. It would be so easy to kill her. A snap to her neck, and that would do the job.
Someone shouted towards her again, and that was when she regained her senses and started running. It was amusing. Her legs were small and tiny, and she couldn't cover that much distance with it. I could catch up with her if I jogged at my slowest pace, but I let her run. I enjoyed the hunt.
It wasn't so long when she tripped and fell over, and I watched how she struggled to help herself out of the situation. The struggle and fear in her eyes were so compelling as I stood over her.
"You little creature…" I smiled slowly as the smirk made its way over my face.
Was this a joke? Was this the thing that was supposed to be my demise? A soft laugh escaped my lips when she struggled and begged, even when she warned me not to come closer.
I crouched over her face to look deep into those eyes, and something snapped in me.
Mate.
What? The words were out of my mouth before I could even process it. What was going on? My brows furrowed as she kept denying its possibility. It wasn't going to be possible. I couldn't be mated. I couldn't have a mate. It was my curse. It wasn't going to be possible!
I shook my head several times as I stared at her small and pitiful figure. I noted the scratches and wounds all over her body. It made me wonder what had been going on. Was the dream about me getting killed or was it just to find her and save her from whatever was going on in her life?
"Stay away from my son!" The thunderous growl ripped through the forest grounds and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Finally, someone who has brought himself as a willing sacrifice so I can transfer all my deep emotions of hatred on. Alpha Blackthorn, the man I was waiting for.
The back and forth conversations between them only added to my confusion, and when he commanded my mate to shut up, I did something I had never done before. I acted out of an emotion I had never felt before. I wanted to rip his throat out and make him pay.
"No! Stop." Her pained voice cried out to me as my hands wrapped around his throat, and I froze.
I listened to her. My bones refused to kill the Alpha. I was stuck in place. I was forced to listen to her pleas. I wanted to please her. I wanted to make the pain in her voice go away. My brain was going haywire at the intense emotions I was feeling for this creature and her soulful voice.
I couldn't. I had to fight it. But something was keeping me from actually killing Blackthorn, and I found myself crushing his throat instead. And instantly, I was gone. I would rather not be around her.
It was then I realized how easy it would be for her t
o kill me. If she asked me to kill myself, I would find every possible means to kill myself.
I couldn't let that happen. I had to find a way around it.