Mated for life, p.10
Mated for Life,
p.10
My layers of fur provided a mild form of insulation for at least a few quick seconds. I could feel it, smell it burning around me, and soon it was licking at my very skin, threatening to consume me. All I had to do was outlast him, though. He was the first of us in the fire, and would be the last one out of it with me on top of him in this way. Whatever hell I experienced in those moments, he would experience it doubly so. And I swear to you, that awful, eternal squirming in embers that took place in those horrific moments was the closest thing to hell I ever care to experience.
Onid snarled, and hissed, and clawed to free himself from beneath my weight. I just kept holding and holding him, watching the already burned flesh on the side of his face begin to burn up without fur to protect it, shaking violently as sweat and blood and fire and sheer, horrible pain all consumed me, subjecting me to agony that was unlike anything I had ever experienced.
“One day soon we'll both look back on this and laugh! We'll wonder how we could ever have believed this was the end! Because it isn't, Leira! Do you understand me? It's not the end!”
My own words, repeated so many times over the years from the annals of my memories, came flooding back to me in the excruciating throes of agony. I’d already let down one woman I loved, failing to save her despite doing everything I could think to preserve her. I wasn’t going to let Natalie down. I’d put her through too much already. I cared about her too much to let it end this way.
This wasn’t the end. It simply couldn’t be.
This was only the start of an entirely new beginning.
This was the start of something wonderful…
I couldn’t stand the flames any longer. I leapt back out of the fire, every inch of me ablaze, and careened into the snow, submerging myself completely, the relief instant, yet excruciating, as the freezing ice burned against my blackened flesh.
All things considered, the damage wasn’t bad. I rose up from the ground, legs trembling and in pain, but I didn’t think I would experience much greater long term damage than some mild scarring on my chest and back.
Onid, however, was another story altogether.
Looking over, I saw that he’d failed to clear the fire at his first attempt, and as he tried to put himself out in the snow he’d blindly rolled back into the flames again, subjecting himself to yet another round of torture. I almost felt sorry for him as he flailed about, steam rising from his body, his naturally black fur somehow darker than ever, and falling out in charred clumps as he rolled across the ground.
I would have let it end there had he submitted to his defeat. I nearly made the mistake of supposing that he might, but was hardly surprised all the same when he rose up again, snarling at me, and came running at a pathetic trot in my direction, stupidly undeterred.
I didn’t even run backward to build up momentum. When he drew near, chomping his fangs at me, I knocked him from the air with a heavy swat of my paw, slamming him to the ground. He wrestled around for a moment, snapping his jaws, and I slashed my claws against the side of his face that had once contained an eye.
Still he did not relent.
He flew up at me, jaws wide, and I dodged his attack. I bit down through the scruff of his neck so hard that my fangs clacked together in his flesh, then flung him forward across the snow, like nothing more than some runt of a newborn puppy. His body toppled like a ragdoll, and settled at last in the snow.
Shivering he attempted to rise, his canine muscles straining from the effort, but in the end there was no point. He slumped down to the ground at last, collapsing all the way back into his human form, his tanned skin bloodied and burnt in so many places that he was all but unrecognizable.
I rose up. Transformed. Strode slowly across to the spot where he lay.
I looked down at him, a burned and broken man. So small, so deflated, that it was hard to imagine even finding the energy to hate such a creature.
I actually pitied him in that moment, however much of a mistake that might have been.
Slowly I lifted up a foot, and placed it in the center of his chest, barely applying pressure. He groaned with pain at the contact of skin against burnt skin, and a pure, unmitigated hatred of me caused his one good eye to bulge.
“Fffffffuuuuuuck yyyyyyooooooou!” he hissed, a mixture of blood and spittle gurgling from between his lips and dripping down his chin.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“I really should kill you right now,” I said calmly. “I really want to kill you. But I’m not a murderer. I’m not like you. And so I’m giving you a choice. This all ends. Right now. I spare your life, and you get the hell as far away from here as possible. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll accept that offer. Or you can keep on trying to prove something that obviously isn’t true. You can try to prove to my pack that you’re anything more than a tin pot dictator. And you can suffer the undignified death that I’m doing everything in my power to spare you. The choice is entirely yours. But you only get to make it once. So I suggest that you choose wisely.”
He was mostly silent at my offer for a moment. He kept on gurgling blood and spit, shaking beneath the spot where my foot lay on his chest, his one eye spinning around as though in search of any redemption he might possibly find.
There was none.
“You win,” he finally snarled. “I’ll leave. I am unworthy to live up to the title of alpha.”
I was surprised by this, though pleasantly so. I stared at him for a long time, eyes narrowed. Then I gave him a single nod, and pulled the sole of my foot from his chest. He gasped for breath the moment I was off of him, and I knew I’d done the right thing.
I turned to address the pack around me, all eyes locked upon the two of us. I found Natalie in the crowd, her eyes even wider than before. Tears were spilling down her face, which was lit up with the brightest smile I’d yet seen her give.
I smiled back at her, and then returned my focus to the audience at large.
“You all have just witnessed what true strength looks like,” I called out, in my most commanding voice. “You have all seen what true mercy is. What you have all seen here this evening, is the definition of true leadership.”
I began to pace, collecting my thoughts, and allowing tension to build.
“I know that in my later days as an alpha, I allowed the loss of my beloved wife Leira to distract me. I know that some of you believe that I faltered in my leadership as a result, and I know that many of you bought into the snake oil that this broken creature that lies before you was attempting to sell you.
“But all of that is behind us now. My eyes have been opened, and I hope that yours have as well, to the lies and deceits of your fallen alpha, whose wicked regime sought nothing more than to turn our once peaceful society into a-”
“Ethin, look out!” Natalie cried out quite suddenly.
I turned just in time to see the blackened jaws darting toward me, approaching far too quickly for me to even react. But then there was a glowing flash of movement, as Natalie’s white wolf intervened, and tackled Onid hard into the snow.
The burned wolf thrashed and kicked beneath her, struggling beneath her comparably slight weight. I was on the verge of shifting down and ending it, afraid that even in his ragged state he might yet overpower a wolf shifter as new and inexperienced as Natalie was.
All of my worries, however, quickly proved to be in vain, as the beautiful white wolf that was my new mate darted her head down, sank her teeth into Onid’s neck, and pulled. Blood burst across the snow and along Natalie’s gleaming fur, and my old foe fell dead at last to the ground, without even a last twitch of his limbs.
I stood staring at the spot where he lay, totally astonished, and utterly convinced in that moment that the Ancient Ones had been right on the money.
I had, in point of fact, found my soulmate.
Natalie rose up onto her hind legs, and daintily wiped Onid’s spilled blood from her human lips.
“Always go for the throat,” she said matter of factly. I winked at her.
“Are you alright?” I asked her, forgetting for a moment that this wasn’t her first rodeo with death. She nodded calmly, and spit some more of Onid’s blood into the snow.
“Never better,” she said with a smile.
“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” I said, then turned back to the crowd. “Case in point,” I said, gesturing to the spot where Onid’s lifeless body now lay. “My brethren and sisters, I stand before you here this evening to tell you… It doesn’t have to be like this. The blood of our people is precious, and sacred. There are far too few of us to continue on in such a manner. There is no point to this violence. I know for a fact that we might live side by side together, in harmony with the human race.
“I have had the great privilege of living among the humans for the past several months now. I have seen their true selves, beyond the lies and propaganda which Onid tried to feed you. I know for a fact that there can be harmony between us. That we are all far less different than we realize. I can guarantee you that this process will not be easy. It is, however, necessary, and entirely possible. But I cannot do it alone.
“Please. I beg of you. Not for my sake, but for the sake of the pack, which has been my greatest concern, my only concern, since I was born into the alpha hood, inheriting my responsibilities from my father before me. Please. Accept me as your alpha again. Let me lead you, along with this incredible woman who stands beside me, into a new and better world. We cannot continue to live on in hiding, in fear and in anger. We must discover a better way. And we can only do so together.”
For a moment there was silence. Utter, deafening silence.
I listened to the crackling of the flames. The blowing of the wind. Felt the cold, cold snow drifting down onto my areas of burned flesh.
I turned to look at Natalie, and she took my hand in her own, and squeezed. She smiled at me, and I smiled back. I turned back to the crowd.
Then, at last, movement.
A man fell forward. He turned into his wolf form, and bowed with his muzzle practically pressed into the snow. A woman followed his lead behind him, and then another.
Soon a great wave rippled through the pack, as shifters turned into wolves, and bowed before the man they evidently had accepted as their new alpha. My heart raced in my chest, my eyes brimming with tears at the sight of the entire pack prostrate before me. Again Natalie squeezed my hand, and I turned to her, certain at that moment that I loved her more than life itself.
“Thank you,” I whispered softly to her. She drew her head forward, leaning it briefly against my own. Then she too bowed to the ground in her canine form, her elegant white coat blowing in the wind.
And at last, once all other faces were down amongst the snow, I leaned my body forward, and transformed one last time, bowing as a sign of respect and subservience to my people. Then a moment later, I jerked my head up again.
I let out a triumphant, yet melancholy howl to the scarcely visible moon above. Natalie immediately did the same, her wolfish voice slightly higher pitched than my own, and absolutely adorable.
The cry resounded throughout the entire assembled pack, each and every muzzle of every age pointed skyward, calling our mysterious age old call, to the all-knowing Ancient Ones who sat looking down at us from the stars.
For the first time in as long as I could remember, everything in the world suddenly felt right again. I knew that the battle wasn’t over yet- that it was really only just beginning. But I knew that I could deliver on the promises of peace I’d promised here this evening. As long as I had my entire pack, as well as this amazing, intelligent, beautiful, brave woman right here by my side.
As long as Natalie was by my side, there was simply no such thing as impossible.
THE END
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Other Works by Sloane Peterson:
The Red Zone: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y2TFB6M
Highway Driver https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07J3W4YWF
Billionaire’s Baby https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CRH9SPR
Sacked https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07G6LH335
Billion Dollar Murder https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07B2LV6QC
Billion Dollar Box Set (Collection of Sloane’s Books) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TYRK7WG
Sloane Peterson, Mated for Life
