??A Howl In The Night??
?She’s mine?
?From Novel r0m@n�
?Chapter 27?
?Why Does Everything Have to Be So Complicated??
Even as his warm, strangely familiar f!ngersdance over my skin, I feel no discomfort. Relaxed breaths brush against the back of my n£¢k, somehow sweeping away all alarm. I feel an alien de-sire to l@yhere forever in this enchanting embr@ce.
Am I going crazy?
Fighting the strong urge to once again close my eyes, I jo-lt upright. Suddenly losing my balance, I sl!poff the be-d, tumbling towards the ground. With a loud crash I ban-g my head against the cold stone floor, a slight wave of pain sweeping throu-gh my bones.
There is silence for a few seconds, then a voice. “Mona?” For some reason, the word s£nds shivers throu-gh my spine with its irresistibility. The light by the be-d switches on as f!ngerti-ps woozily grasp it, filling the room with brightness. A head appears over the side of the be-d and I nearly go into a self-cataclysmic shock.
It is like I am falling un-der a de-ep spell, mesmerized by the striking beauty of his features. His hair is a golden-red, chaotic strands springing in every direction. Skin as clear as crystal holds a masterful pair ofl-ips and a small nose, slightly tanned by the warmth of the sun. However, his beautiful, incredibly large brown eyes are what keep me spellbound. They sparkle slightly as he surveys me, confusion plainly showing in his features.
I find myself unable to move, frozen to the core. “Mona?” he repeats, a dizzy smile appearing on his face. And what an attrac-tive smile that is.
His grin suddenly vanishes as he casts a glance at his hand, an expression of horror soon replacing it. “Oh no…” he gro-an s as if in pain, “I ruined it now.” His head retreats from view, although his hand reaches to help me up.
“Who are you?” I try to be rou-gh and f0rç£ful with my question, but I can’t as soon as I catch sight of those hypnotizing chocolate eyes. All my anger evaporates, leaving me completely defenseless as I stand up across from him. Those eyes remind me of my father.
Instantly I notice his ba-re che-st, rippled with muscles. He sits up against the pillow, his head in his hands. “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he sighs apologetically, glancing at me cautiously.
“For what to happen?” I take a look at the floor, suddenly embarras-sed by the thoughts I am having.
“For this,” he waves his hand at both of us, “for you to see me in this way.”
I just stare at him, waiting for answers.
“I’m sorry,” his eyes crinkle adorably; “this must be a shock for you. I let myself get out of control.” Newfound alarm races throu-gh my blood, my mind racing to new conclusions. Glancing at my rumpled clothes, I suddenly realize that I never changed from last night. Surely this attrac-tive man didn’t… do anything to me.
“Cra-p, I must have shifted in the middle of the night,” he mutters darkly to himself, cringing as he looks once more at his human hands. Within a flash, clothes materialize on his skin, ma-king me blink several times.
“Why do you seem so familiar to me?” I ask him finally, and he pauses.
“You might want to sit down,” he recommends, and I slowly obey him, suspicion racing throu-gh me. Raising his gaze to mine, he reluctantly holds out his hand.
“Hello, Mona. To you, my name is Scotty.”
All consciousness escapes me as true shock overwhelms my being.
* * *
“plea-se, Mona, wake up. I’m sorry that I upset you.” A hand stro-kes my long red hair. “plea-se wake up,” he begs, his voice cutting throu-gh my empty thoughts. As my eyes slide open, one lone message enters my mind.
Scotty is a man. A very, very, very handsome man.
For some reason, I can’t make any s-en-se out of that statement.
“I must be dreaming,” I woozily whisper, “you can’t be Scotty. You can’t.”
“But I am,” he whispers back, grasping my f!ngersand holding them ti-ghtly. “Here, my name is Griffin, but you can call me any name you want to.”
His hand travels to my side, and I jump a little bit as he t©uçhes the mark near my h!p. The strange thing about all this is that it feels completely natural to me. For him to be here. For us to be like this.
“I missed you so much, Mona,” he smiles, a beautiful expression that leaves me spellbound, “it took every ounce of my strength to not shift into this form when I saw you yesterday. I thought I would never see you again. I was still trying to forget you. But then it all c@m£ back when I saw your face.”
He leans towards me, and before I can react a tingle spre-ads throu-ghout my entire b©dy as hisl-ips brush against my mark. I scoot away as soon as I realize what he did, a blus-h creeping upon my cheeks. “This is too much,” I try to explain when he looks at me with questioning eyes, “this is too much for one day. I feel like my head is going to explode.”
My head is not the only thing that is about to explode. My heart is as well, nearly bur-sting after the k!sshe gave. He seems to s-en-se this, crawling across the be-d to me. “Now we can finally act like mates. I have waited so long for this… for you.” He takes my arm and gently runs k!sses up and down it. Shock temporarily overwhelms me as he pins me down, k!ss!ngmy n£¢k. He st©ps for a second, inches away from my mouth, as if he expects me to reach up and k!sshim back.
“Scotty… uh, Griffin… don’t you think this is a little fast?” I ask him, a little scared by his expression and behavior. He just looks at me, clueless.
“Fast? What do you mean by that?” he asks, his brown eyes creasing in confusion. “Do you not feel the attra-ction as well? We are mates, Mona.”
“No, it is just… I’m a little conflicted right now.” I sit up, leaning against the back of the be-d. “I don’t really know anything any more. I feel the attra-ction too. I mean, it would be impossible not to feel it. But it almost feels like there is something missing.”
What is that missing quality? With Xavier, I don’t feel quite like this, though the same attra-ction exists.
“Mona… that attra-ction is what binds us together. It is the eternal bond re-leased by our werewolf forms… or dog forms.”
“G-griffin,” I stutter, “is that why you have brown eyes? You are a crossbreed?”
“Yes,” he looks away, shame in his features. “I know I’m not deserving of you.”
“At least you can shift,” I complain, snorting then laughing to try and cover it up. “I don’t even know if I have a werewolf form.”
He suddenly grows stiff. “What?” he asks.
“I’m not a full werewolf,” I explain, “I was originally meant to be converted to a Spier. However, throu-ghout the conversion something went wrong, and apparently my conversion had failed. I was going to die. But Xavier c@m£ and gave me a few drops of his blood, and somehow I survived.”
He remains motionless, thinking ha-rd . “So you show the symptoms of both supernatural species?”
“Well, I changed in appearance, and my reflexes and strength improved. But I haven’t shown any Spier abilities, besides the fact that I can see the shifters and heal the possessed.”
“So you can’t make a Spirit Spear,” he said worriedly, “for any other person, that would be normal, but for you, that’s very bad news. And what was the other thing you said you could-”
“Am I really going to die here?” I ask, tou-ching his hand softly. He leans closer, k!ss!ngme on the forehead. Us being like this… it feels so comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. I feel like a traitor.
“Not if I can help it,” his k!sses de-epen, dancing across my skin. “But you will probably be re-moved from Pack 101, and they will be either exiled or terminated.”
“What?! No, plea-se, Griffin, don’t let them,” I beg, staring at him.
“There’s not much I can do about that,” he said softly, “it will be a stretch for me even to save you.”
I think of their faces; Yi, Jake, Ray, Wes, and… Xavier. They sacrificed everything to save me. I was so important to them. How could I let them down like this?
How could I let… him down?
“plea-se,” I say, pu-lling away my arm, “I can’t right now.”
“Why?” His adorable eyes search my soul. After I say nothing in response, he resumes his previous action, pas-sion burning in his expression.
“plea-se!” I squeal as he continues, “Xavier wouldn’t like-”
“What?” he asks angrily, st©pping entirely. “Xavier? He’s the other one who marked you, right? Who cares what he thinks? You belong to me.”
I am frozen, considering my own feelings. Why did I say that? I suppose it was because I felt like this wasn’t right. Like I was betraying Xavier. But am I really betraying him when he was the second one to mark me? Where should my allegiance lie?
“I was serious before,” I urgently beg him, “I nee-d some time to think before I go into br@in overload. plea-se forgive me.”
“I mean, I will always forgive you,” Griffin replied, leaning back and lying on the edge of the be-d, “but I am… angry. This is a strange feeling. It is like fire is choking me alive.”
He looks at me with a inexplicable expression. “You should forget about him, Mona. He won’t last long here. None of them will.”
I bury myself un-der the covers, trying to escape the burning reality. I may not even see them again, and that is a ha-rd thing to accept. This is too much to take in. Why does the fact that I might not see Xavier hurt so much?
When I finally recover, I slowly sit up. The first thing I notice is that Griffin is there, slee-ping on the side of the be-d in his dog form. His personality as a human is so similar to his dog personality. He is earnest and persistent, pas-sionate and loyal. My mind flashes back to the time when we were inseparable. That time seems so far in the past, but it was a time of incredible happiness.
Griffin lifts his head, and I find that in this form I can’t call him anything but Scotty. “Scotty, could you bring me to the rest of the pack?” I ask him softly. He shakes his head. “Could.. you try to save them?” I beg him, growing desperate. Scotty looks at me, then meltingly nods in response.
We sit there for a minute, then Scotty travels over to my side. He places a paw right above my che-st, staring with unblinking eyes. This moment of seriousness pas-ses, and he pounces on me, l!çk!ng my entire face. I begin to laugh.
“St©p… st©p…. St©p!!!” I yell as he covers my face in sticky saliva. He backs off, running to the door. I smile as he somehow manages to paw the door open, walking outside into the hallway. The happiness in the room vanishes, however, when the door ban-gs to a shut. Suddenly my previously desolate state of being returns, and I feel the urge to cry.
Somehow, the thought that I may survive this whole ordeal at the cost of my pack’s deaths makes me so depressed. I might as well just die with them, with the number of times Xavier has saved me from certain death. I don’t deserve to live any more than he does.
And there is also the fact that he is convinced that I hate him. The way he apologized to me last night displa-yed that. I want to explain to him before it is too late that I am not mad at him. Even now, it makes me hurt so much. I really don’t un-derstand myself anymore.
I l@yon the be-d, drifting into nothingness within the next few minutes.
* * *
During my time alone in my room, I try to create a spirit spear. Lying down on the floor, I close my eyes and try to imagine one. To imagine anything.
Although it has gotten easier to meditate, nothing happens even after hours of concentration. My eyes grow bloodsh0t and my b©dy gets frenzied with anticipation. When is something finally going to happen? With every minute I am getting closer and closer to possible elimination by the council. No one has come to see me for two days, and the desperate nature of this whole situation is really starting to hit me. The horror of it at first was offset by the reappearance of Scotty, but now the fact that he’s a freakin’ man just adds more peculiarity to these circu-mtances. I have gotten sick of trying to figure this whole thing out. It’s either I develop my skills, or I die. Unless I get a really good lawyer or something.
I haven’t gotten any visions either, which is rather strange. I used to get them once every few days, but it has been almost a week since my last one. Only a few glimpses of this unknown world have skittered across my mind; most of dark forests, villages, and vast oceans. In all the scenes the same emotion appears—emptiness—which washes over the entire area like a flood. Not a single person is to be seen, not a sound to be heard. It leads me to wonder whether all of these glimpses and visions are just figments of my imagination, augmenting my de-epest fears of becoming utterly alone.
For it is now a legitimate fear of mine, creeping upon me until it is impossible to ignore or avoid, ma-king its timeless mark upon my form. Having met such crazy people, and having my life impacted in such a way really has affected me for the better or worse, depending on how I look at it. On one hand, I am now more vulnerable than I would like to be; I can now be hurt in ways that I couldn’t before. On the other hand, however, I have been introduced to this warm feeling that I almost didn’t know existed. It feels now like I am alive, and before like I wasn’t living a true life. It makes me laugh to think now that the werewolves have brou-ght me to death, then back to life.
But obviously now I can’t fit in anywhere, which is why it is so important that I learn to create a spirit spear. I’m not a werewolf, Spier, or human being. I can heal the possessed but lack the basic abilities of any supernatural creature. I look the p@rt, but I can’t as-similate into any of those societies at this point.
Taking a pen from the desk beside me, I sit down and stare at a blank piece of paper. Laughingly I remember an aphorism and modify it to describe my situation perfectly. “Jack of all races,” I whisper as I write, “master of none.” Honestly, the council could kill me just for the fact that I’m an oddity.
Once I think about it, that’s really all I ever was, even as a human. A laughingstock, caged in fear and criticism. But does being an oddity really warrant such chains?
I realize that I have been straying from the point, and try to focus on the matter at hand, which seems to be saving my sorry bu-tt. Fli-pping over the page, I try to br@instorm ways to prove that I am not a werewolf and therefore undeserving of the punishments they wish to give. Any tests of strength would not work because the council would think I was merely holding back on my power. Demonstrations of my Spier abilities would clearly be impossible unless a possessed man or woman popped out of nowhere, which would be…
Hey, that’s not a half-bad idea. I write it down on my piece of paper and label it “Game Plan”. That’s really all the proof I have that’s in my favor, and though it’s a long-sh0t, its also a possibly redeeming move.
I settle on the floor, having put my piece of paper aside. Casting my eyes to the ceiling, I attempt to calm down and enter relaxation mode. As I predicted, it is pretty much impossible.
In spite of my nerves I eventually close my eyes, laying on the cold stone floor with my stomach to the ceiling. I take de-ep breaths, breathing in and out…
My heart jumps a million miles in the air as a key cli-cks in the lock. Oh cra-p. They’re here.
plea-se not now!
The door swings open to reveal two armed guards, both staring at my strange position on the floor. blu-shing, I scramble to my feet.
“The council has summoned you,” the tall guard says, his brown hair covered by a strange hat made of metal. The other guard is short and stocky, with bright orange hair that lights up the entire room.
“I suppose I can’t refuse to go,” I laugh shakily, which reveals my inner nervousness as it escalates at a mile a minute. They shake their head in unison. I check my appearance in the mirror. I’m not dressed up or anything, but I feel that my clothes look half-way decent. And its not like I nee-d makeup… which always makes me feel weird because I never looked at myself with satisfaction before my conversion.
I follow the tall guard out of the room, while the short one trails behind. With each step my heart thumps fas-ter, getting louder and louder until it is the only thing I hear. The short guard, though remaining silent, t©uçhes my back once. Throu-gh that t©uçh I can feel his laughter. I didn’t know my heart was that loud.
Oh well.
The tall guard leads me to these double doors that stretch almost twenty feet in height, inscribe-d with designs along the sides. Both of the guards stand on either side of me, swinging the doors open slowly. They look heavy; I wonder how they do it. Probably with their super strength that I lack.
The room is not as grandiose as I thought it was going to be, but it is impressive in an entirely different manner. Instead of shining with overindulgence and lavish sculptures and paintings, it reminds me somewhat of a fairy wonderland. Somewhat difficult to describe, the ceiling is made of leaves and vines and gigantic trees are all over the place. Small fountains are at the corners of the room, spilling into tiny ponds in which koi fish swim. Flowers are placed sporadically throu-ghout the room and on t©p of a marble platform in the center is a pure white table and several elaborate chairs. There is no other furniture in the room.
Not like I imagined at all.
Seated at these chairs are stunningly handsome men and women, five in total. The only one I recognize is Ferrars, who is staring at me then looking away with a strange expression. As I approach them, I bow slightly, which causes them to stand in a displ@yof respect. I don’t know what I did to deserve even this, considering that they were probably going to kill me.
“Good morning, Mona,” a de-ep voice erupts from the man closest to me. He has light chocolate skin and bright green eyes, dressed in a toga-like robe. “I am Markus.”
He lifts a hand to t©uçh the regal woman beside him. “This is Gizelda, and next to her is Cyrus, Ulysses, and Ferrars.” Gizelda has olive skin and black hair, while Cyrus is exceptionally tall with pale skin and silver hair. Ulysses is slightly tanned with a long black ponytail, which contrasts with Ferrars’s light hair and skin.
“Good morning,” I reply, not knowing quite what to do. The short guard elbows me, and as I turn to look at him he makes a gesture with his hands. I mirror the gesture, which I realize was the one Markus made to me on my way in.
“Your conversion went splendidly well,” Gizelda comments, scanning my face and b©dy, “you are quite beautiful.” Her statement feels almost like a cold as-sessment.
“Thank you… High One,” I choke as the guard elbows me again, whispering the words.
“Sit down,” Markus smiles, gesturing to a chair about ten feet from the white table. Cautiously, I travel over to it, checking for bombs or something like that before sitting in the chair.
“Her smell is simply magnificent,” Ulysses comments with a smile. Ferrars says nothing, almost squirming in his seat. The other four launch into a conversation about my looks and smell. Soon the whole conversation shifted to how I would be a good as-set to headquarters, mostly as a female spy.
“She would be a good mate or servant to one of the nobles,” Markus notes, marking in a notepad in front of him. Ferrars looked at Markus urgently after he says this, all of the sudden invested in the conversation.
“Markus, she’s mated alre-ady,” he says, then suddenly st©ps and looks like he wants to cough what he said back into his throat. The other four completely st©p and stare at him.
“And how would you know that?” Gizelda asks, raising an eyebrow. Ferrars says nothing in response.
“Mona, plea-se show us your marking,” Ulysses requests, and they all turn to stare at me. Hesitantly I show them the mark near my n£¢k. I had covered it with facial makeup earlier, so I ru-b it off quic-kly.
“Well, that eliminates those options,” Cyrus looks at the others, “we don’t really have much of a choice now. I’m guessing she is mated to someone from her pack. If we exile the pack like we originally planned, she will be torn ap@rt due to her bond.”
Silence reigns in the room for a few seconds. Ulysses and Gizelda are nodding their heads in agreement. Pure dre-ad enters me, shocking my entire b©dy. They are going to terminate me.
“Show them your other marking, Mona,” Ferrars commands, looking almost as disturbe-d as I am. A collective g@sp rises in the room, as all the attention once again rivets towards me.
I shakily raise the corner of my shi-t, revea-ling the small marking near my h!p. “Is that really a marking, Ulysses?” Cyrus asks, “you know I can’t see very well.”
“Oh, it is,” Ulysses remarks, staring ha-rd at it. “Mona, when did you receive these marks? What talent are you?”
“I’m… not sure. I was not conscious for either,” I reply, “and I do not have a talent.”
“Surely you have a talent,” Markus says, “even if it is just developing, every werewolf has one.”
“She is a strange creature,” Gizelda smiles rather coldly, “she seems very confused and misguided. It would be best to terminate her, no matter how much of an as-set she could potentially become.”
It is at this point that I begin to seriously panic.
“plea-se, High Ones, I am not a werewolf! You must believe me!” Tears sl!plike raindrops from my features, and I stand up.
They look at me for a few seconds. “She is obviously a very confused creature,” Gizelda repeats slowly.
“I promise, High Ones. I was never meant to have any characteristics of a werewolf, I-”
“Bring in the rest of her pack,” Gizelda orders, “maybe she will st©p spouting nons-en-se if she sees them.” The doors open again and one by one each member of the pack are led in. Danae is not among them, but it seems that they captured Ray. Yi is still nowhere to be found. I begin to cry even ha-rder when I see Xavier’s stunningly beautiful features covered in dirt and grime. His reaction is similar to my own.
“Gizelda, Mona is not speaking nons-en-se.” The door ban-gs open again, and Griffin walks in. His hair glows along with his brown eyes, a smile on his features. He travels to my side, tou-ching my shoulder once. “She is a Spier.”
“Griffin, act as befitting your status,” Cyrus sighs, “it is not your place to be defending her. It is obvious that she is a werewolf, and a unique one at that.”
“But is it?” he responds, “she does not have super strength, eyesight, or speed. She does not possess a talent as well, and was carried over to Headquarters because she couldn’t keep up. In addition, she also possesses an ability that we would regret terminating her for. She is an as-set so valuable that throwing her away would be like throwing away one of you, even. Her pack has done nothing wrong.”
“What is it, Griffin?” Gizelda asks impatiently, “get to the point.”
“She can heal the possessed,” he says triumphantly, by which point the entire council is laughing with incredulity. I am even more puzzled. How did he know that? He must have questioned Xavier or something.
“Good one, Griffin,” Ferrars chuckles.
“Seriously, if you like her that much, you could have come up with something better than that,” Ulysses says.
“She really can!” Xavier pleads, breaking from the line he had been f0rç£d to stay in. He walks forward, and the others do as well. “We saw it several times.”
“Well, obviously you all “saw” it, considering that every one of you clearly has a great attachment to this woman,” Gizelda snaps, “excuse us if we don’t take your testimonies as evidence.”
“plea-se give me a chance,” I beg them, trying to smile throu-gh my tears, “I was a Seer since I was a little girl. Ray awakened me, but the conversion was going unsuccessfully so Xavier added some werewolf blood.”
“So you are saying you are both werewolf and Spier?” Gizelda asks dryly. Obviously she is taking command of the conversation.
“Yes, High One.” I nod my head.
“Okay, fine. Then you should be able to conjure a spirit spear for us.”
Oh no. I look at Xavier, then back at the council, fear in my eyes. “I am still developing that skill.” I lower my eyes.
“Then you have no proof,” Markus says calmly.
We stare at each other as the council continues to converse in loud tones. “I’m doomed,” I mouth to Xavier and the others. As he weakly smiles back, it is like a band-aid is r!pp£dfrom an open so-re, the pain swallowing me whole. It feels like everything shouldn’t end this way. Like I would leave something unfinished if I was terminated now. Whether that something is mending my broken relationsh!pwith Xavier or not, I can’t really tell.
“Council, do you really not remember her?” Griffin speaks up, interrupting the banter of the others. “It was only a few years ago that you considered her as a Candid@t£.”
All movement st©ps in the room, even time seeming to halt.
“Surely… you don’t mean that she is the one that died un-der your care,” Gizelda boomed.
“Yes, I was as-signed to her. I was there when she died in a car crash. However, I was also there when she c@m£ back to life, with eyes of bright green, crying about a dark creature that turned her father’s eyes red.”
I am frozen to the sp©t. This is a pretty fanciful tale, though a shamefully convincing one, that he is spinning.
Cyrus pounds his hands on the table as he rises to his feet in indignation. “You can’t possibly tell us this now when over ten years ago you told us she was dead. You are lying to us.”
“I am not lying! As your oldest and faithful son, I am not lying to you. What I speak is utter truth. Mona is the only living Candid@t£ for the prophecy, and if you terminate her and the pack, we will all be condemned as fools for the rest of eternity.”
Shock ripples throu-gh me as I realize he was the son that wasn’t suitable to be the successor to the throne. All because he’s a crossbreed.
“WHY did you lie to us, Griffin?” Ulysses thun-ders.
“Well, at the time, I thought that she deserved a life without us watching her every move. I observed that she had suffered great trauma at the hands of the Shifters, and you know that the Candidacy is affected by the Candid@t£’s mental health. I thought our pres£nce as well as the trauma of losing her parents would affect her for the worse. What if she caught me morphing one day? We couldn’t hide from her forever. By that time I had alre-ady had some close calls. However, the most important reason why I had the courage to leave her at the orphanage and travel back to Headquarters was that I believed if she was truly the Candid@t£, she would somehow find her way back to us. And I was right.”
“Son, I did not raise you to so blatantly lie like this,” Cyrus says angrily.
“I am not lying,” Griffin responds, just as frustrated.
“Griffin, either you are lying to us now, or you lied to us then. Either way that is a disgraceful act that we do not condone. However, if you are lying now, the consequences will be far worse. I must have your absolute as-surance that you believe this to be true,” Markus says calmly.
“I am not lying,” Griffin states with such conviction that I would have believed him if he said that the world was made of marshmallows and lolli-pops.
“We will take your words into account,” Gizelda responds, looking down at her paper. “However, we will nee-d proof before we can be certain that Mona is a Candid@t£.”
“Griffin, is one of the marks on Mona yours?” Ferrars asked him. Griffin’s cool demeanor all but evaporates in seconds.
“Yes, I left a mark on her right before we p@rted ways,” he replies slowly. Gizelda raises her eyebrows.
I cast a glance over at Xavier to see how he is taking this. He is literally shaking with anger, and the others are looking at him with curiosity. Ray catches my eye and shrugs.
“Which all but elevates our nee-d to gather more evidence in order to accept this as truth,” Gizelda says, “We still have not seen any of Mona’s abilities as of yet-”
Suddenly everyone’s nose perks up. I watch in confusion as several of the guards begin to morph. Griffin gr-abs my arm. “Stay by me,” he whispers, “I’ll protect you.”
“No, I’ll protect you,” Xavier shows up by my side. “Get lost, crossbreed,” he scathingly insults Griffin.
“Be nice,” I elbow him in the side, “he may have gotten us out of being killed.” No matter how much I am entertained by his jealousy, I feel like Griffin will be hurt if I don’t say anything.
Both of them squee-ze my arm. “Would either of you tell me what is going on?”
“No other way to describe it except that it smells like puke mixed in with blood and terror in here,” Griffin wrinkles his nose, “yeah, pretty sure its a Shifter attack.”
“I didn’t know terror had a smell.” If I wrinkle my nose enough, I can smell the hint of pure nastiness.
“Well it does. And it’s getting closer,” he replies, “seems like an insane number of them too.”
“How did they get in?” Markus exclaims, “we have impene-trable walls around the Headquarters!” Of course, no one answers.
All of the werewolves are looking around anxiously. “Call a Spier!” Gizelda orders. Within seconds, three or four march in. All of them look like normal human beings, none p@rticularly pretty or ugly.
Then the fear sets in.
Claws of icy coldness dig into my che-st, chilling me to the bone. I can ba-rely think as the fear chokes me, squee-zing all the life out of my b©dy. Griffin and Xavier’s pres£nce don’t help at all… all I can feel is the sorrow, hurt and pain.
Then everything is black. To me, everything is dark and gloomy. I see glimpses of the empty forests, the lonesome castles, the large oceans, and everything begins to make s-en-se. No wonder the world is empty.
They are all coming here.
The lights flash again as I see them—big and small, skinny and large—coming by the thousands into the room. I can’t breathe as they crowd the floor and walls, stuffing the room with their dark energy.
“I should have known this was going to happen,” I whisper softly.
“How, Mona, how?” Xavier asks, ru-bbing my hand. I saw the signs. I have no excuse. And now we are all going to die here. “How many are there, Mona?”
“Too many to count,” I choke, “they are everywhere… their red eyes are all staring at me.” I feel dizzy, and almost faint into Xavier’s arms. I cannot take their red eyes.
Gizelda looks at me, and I can feel her desperate gaze. The Shifters are vanishing into trees and fountains, ma-king the water turn to lava and the leaves into burning coal.
The Spiers step forward and begin murmuring strange chants. To my amazed eyes, enormous spears are formed, which they then throw with incredible accuracy throu-gh dozens of Shifters. As the spear stab each one they disappear, simply ceasing to exist. However, so many more are taking their place that they seem impossible to fight all at once.
“Mona, move!” Griffin pushes me out of the way as a mas-s of burning, tangled vines fall where I used to stand. For some reason, the raining vines and leaves remind me of the hail that beat upon me on the day I tried to commit suicide. How can the werewolves fight against something like this? They can only kill the host of the Shifter, and if the Shifter chooses not to take a host until it is in a position that makes it impossible to kill, then there is no way to defeat them.
Maybe I have looking at this from the wrong angle this entire time. I have always thought, kill the Shifters. Create a spear, so you can kill the Shifters. It is all I have been told by the werewolves, and maybe for them there really is no other way. But I am different. An oddity. I mean, look at my crazy ability to basically extract the Shifter from the host.
I guess the real dilemma I should consider is that if I am able to heal the possessed, how would I heal the possessor from itself?
My whole line of thought snaps as I suddenly just get it. un-derstanding flows throu-gh my entire being… from where, I have no clue. Without a word I break away from Griffin and Xavier, both of them yelling after me in alarm.
I travel up to the platform, where the High Ones are standing. “plea-se,” I say once, and all five of them step off the platform. I am amazed at the power and authority laced within my voice.
I climb onto the chair, and from there onto the table. It is from this vantage point that I can see them all, thousands surrounding me. I can feel their emotions of fear and hurt, of confusion and terror. It threatens to swallow me whole, for it resembles the same pain that I have been shouldering all my life.
I am not like them. I do not only consist of pain and hurt, or even the de-sire for revenge. I am more.
I am different.
I start to open myself to the lost souls, projecting emotions of joy and hope upon them. I can see them shrink back in retaliation… just like I would in their position. I start to see myself in every one of them. How can I possibly heal these broken souls when I am not fully mended myself?
I start to think of the warmth within my heart, letting memories overwhelm me. Faces start to appear before me… my mother, father… and a familiar werewolf with bright blue hair. A bright emotion starts to leave me, an emotion that overpowers everything else. I smile in excitement. This is what the Shifters nee-d. Love.
My emotions form wisps of air, which all come together to form a shape. Even I don’t know what it looks like because of its enormity. But I can feel it. I can s-en-se the warmness surrounding me, filling the room with energy and light.
The Shifters stare it the shape, their red eyes boring into the light with its darkness. After a second, they all begin to enter the shape, boarding it as if they were all in line to enter a cruise and embark on a magical journey.
Amazement still overwhelms me as every last one of the Shifters enter the shape. I can feel it tugging at me, and I let go hesitantly. The shape sails away, and as it does I can see that it truly does resemble a boat, flying throu-gh the sky as if it is the ocean. It takes a few seconds after the boat disappears for me to realize what I had done.
I stumble off the table, completely drained. As I fall, I murmur, “I s£nt them, I s£nt them…”
Out of the darkness, I hear someone ask, “where did you s£nd them?”
I answer with a weak smile on my face. “I s£nt them home.”
T B C