Kieran was completely consumed by the power of the shard, his red eyes becoming even more terrifying and tearing, the fishy-sweet aura emanating from his body almost suffocating. He clutched the crimson shard in both hands, a low, beastly growl escaping his throat.
'Power...pure power!' Kieran's frenzied roar echoed through the lair as he squeezed Anna's wrists tighter, more blood gushing out and dripping onto the shard.
The red light from the shard flickered through the lair like a materialized flame. The ancient claw marks on the walls rapidly decayed and peeled away under the red light, and the massive stone pillars made a crunching sound of being overburdened. The rocks overhead fell in large chunks, sending dust and debris flying. The entire lair was wailing and collapsing.
'It's a curse!' Rory's voice was tinged with despair and pain. She looked at Kieran, who she had once considered family, his face now twisted, completely controlled by that evil shard. This was not the Wolf Clan she wanted, not the one she belonged to, the one for which she had endured humiliation and carried a mission!
Milo took advantage of the chaos and rushed towards Anna, trying to drag her away from Kieran.
'Anna, go!'
Anna's eyes look hollow in the blood light, she seems to hear Milo's voice, but her body is being pulled by a powerful force, making it difficult to break free from Kieran and the shards.
Rory watched Milo rushing towards Anna, his heart was complicated to the extreme. Should Milo be allowed to take Anna and sever her connection with the shard? Or to stop him because he was a hunter and Anna was now part of the wolf pack, even if it was forced upon her. The conflict inside her tore at her like a crumbling nest.
Wild instincts and the last vestiges of her attachment to her 'family' (even after Kieran's betrayal) drove her to choose. She suddenly lunged at Milo, pinning him to the ground.
Milo let out a dull thud as he was tackled by the sudden force, his body hitting the hard ground. Rory rode on top of him, her claws sharp as knives and pressed against his throat.
'Beast...' Milo gasped shock and alarm in his amber eyes, along with a hint of incredulous hurt. He couldn't seem to understand why Rory would attack him at this point.
Rory's red pupils locked onto his eyes, close enough to feel each other's hot nostrils. The scent of smoke and pine flooded her nostrils once more, mixed with the smell of dust and blood from the nest's collapse, and that strange feeling of her heartbeat being out of order came back. Her claws dangled over Milo's throat, and with the slightest pressure, she could end his life.
But she couldn't.
She saw a hint of pain and persistence she couldn't fathom hidden beneath the burning rage in Milo's eyes. She smelled the scent of him that belonged to a hunter, yet carried a certain warmth and restraint. This man, her enemy, had repeatedly set her heartbeat on edge and repeatedly stood alongside her (if only briefly) in danger.
'You can't save her,' Rory said coldly, her voice carrying a hint of a tremor, and she herself couldn't tell if it was because of her anger, her heartache, or because of the strange sensation the man beneath her brought.
It was during this brief confrontation that Anna suddenly erupted with tremendous strength and broke free of Milo's strong hands. Her body twisted in bloody light and her blue eyes became even more disorientated.
'I...I choose the Wolves...' Anna chattered nervously, her voice carrying a sense of controlled disorientation and a certain morbid sense of belonging. 'The Blood Moon is calling me...it's where I belong...'
Rory and Milo looked at Anna at the same time, both wearing shocked expressions. Anna's choice, or rather her behavior after being controlled by the Blood Moon and the Shard, caught her more off guard than any attack could have.
Just then, a loud roar came from the entrance of the lair, and the distinctive buzzing of drones was heard in the air. More red lights flashed at the entrance, it was the Auroran hunters closing in, their silver bullets at the ready.
'Retreat!' Rory growled at the wolves, she knew the lair wouldn't last long with the outside hunters coming. She couldn't let Anna fall into the hands of the hunters, not for the sake of her pack's 'mission', not out of the complex emotions she felt for Anna, and not to let her pack be slaughtered in a frenzy, even if they had betrayed her.
She rolled off Milo and grabbed Anna's arm, who was stiff and disorientated, but Rory was still dragging her along. At the same time, she signals a high-pitched retreat deeper into the lair that only a werewolf can understand.
Milo rose from the ground and watched Rory drag Anna away with pain and disbelief in his eyes.
'You don't deserve to touch her!' He roared, his voice taking on the low tone of a wounded beast, as much an indictment of Rory as it was of his own powerlessness.
Rory didn't turn around; she sniffed deeper into the lair, where the few awake werewolves led by Selene were responding to her signal.
Huge boulders crashed down, and the lair collapsed with an earth-shattering roar. Rory dragged Anna through the dust and debris that filled the air, running wildly towards the depths of the lair, towards the place where the aura of the ancient blood was at its strongest. She hoped there was another way out there, or some way to contain the power of the shards.
Behind her, there was the sound of Milo's unwilling roar and the tangle of chains as he seemed to be entangled in either the berserk werewolves or the crumbling stone, unable to get out.
Rory's heart finally breaks. Kieran's betrayal, Anna's disorientation, Milo's antagonism, and her confusion about the pack's and her own fate stab her like sharp knives. She escaped from the crumbling edge of the lair, Anna shielded, her red pupils glittering with pain and determination.
Anna's blue eyes are still lost in her forced flight, she mumbles, her voice so soft it's almost inaudible, but it reaches Rory's ears loud and clear: 'It's calling...the Blood Moon...it's calling...'
Outside the lair, the red light of the drones had penetrated the crumbling lair entrance, locking onto their fleeing figures.
Fate, it seemed, was pushing her down a darker, more isolated, more helpless path.