Chapter 18

As a new void descended upon the area; it overshadowed the natural darkness that surrounded during the night. It had changed to a dull, lifeless, never-ending abyss that waited to swallow us all into an eternal pit of emotional turmoil, torture and unrest.

The smell that now came from Elliot was not the scent that I recognised when I thought of him from before tonight. His usual scent of musky familiarity was long gone and would forever be replaced by the heave-inducing smell of blood.

I could no longer smell just the peaceful nature that surrounded us; it was now intoxicated with a mixture of crippling fear, salty tears that had fallen from almost every single eye of the assembled wolves, sweat from both the faction that worked with Corbin and all of us that had been forced here. It all permeated the once-fresh air and made it too bitter to focus with my stupid enhanced wolf senses. The usually mild dirt scent was stronger from the many wolves trampling the lush grass, whilst the extra scent of smoke from the torches burnt at my nose. But it was the coppery blood forcing itself to the front of it all and was the base scent of everything enveloping us.

There was one sound that was not the usual sonorous howl from a wolf as it cried its sorrow to the moon, but a very much human, heart-clenching and gut-wrenching wail that shattered the harmony of mournful howls. I had never heard such heartbreak before; I did not think that it was even possible to vocalise that much pain. But when I searched for whom it had come from, more of my soul fell away when I saw that it had come from mum.

The Luna of our pack that is usually so composed was on her knees, destroyed by at the sight of the mutilated corpse of her son, and unable to go to him, all thanks to the threat lingering on Corbin’s smug face. He watched and reveled in her distraught reaction to Elliot’s death. I wanted to go to her, drop down to the ground, throw myself and her into an embrace and join her despair.

The sobbing sounds and unfiltered agony that fell unintentionally but relentlessly from her through the Luna bond had me believe the world had ended, as Hell had risen to the surface, bringing a boundless burning pain to us all. I wanted it to happen. It would hurt much less to be in a perpetual, hellish torment as flames licked my skin, blistering it as the colour changed to that of well-cooked flesh, before ultimately turning to ash and falling from my bones.

With the heavy metallic essence of blood clinging to the air as though it was on life-support, Mum’s body violently shook with her sobs as they took over any other ability to move, small whimpering sounds escaped from her lips. Mum's makeup was usually completely flawless, regularly maintained throughout the day to stay impeccable, but I noticed that now it was badly streaked from her tears. Under the Niagra Falls of tears, I could see the red blotchy skin and puffy tired eyes from her unstoppable sobbing.

I was rocked at the feeling of a hollow, never-ending emptiness at all the wolves that would never get their happy endings, just gore and carnage, no happy memories of finding their mate. So many bonds were gone before they even had a chance to bloom and flourish.

I did not notice when Corbin had turned to observe us do what we always do when we lost a pack member, but I did eventually. I noticed in my peripheral that the egotistical wanker was glaring self-satisfied as he stood, ostensibly unaffected by our wolfish cries.

An appeased sigh escaped as Corbin’s frame sagged in relief, all tension dissipating after finally having his dream come true.

I felt sickened seeing the satisfaction that his body screamed out at seeing Elliot’s marred and blood-soaked, lifeless corpse. No wolf should be able to feel such elation at horrific, torturous actions inflicted upon such a good, poor soul.

I briefly gazed directly into Corbin’s eyes and maintained the contact before howling again as if to prove a point; as if to show him how much suffering that he was choosing to cause.

There was not a time before this that held so much misery when I had lost someone; never had the pain cut so deep that it felt as though the wound forever be open and not heal. I was oblivious to everything around me, apart from the excruciating agony that we all openly shared as we filled the vast nightfall above the tips of the trees that swayed gently and peacefully, constantly changing where the pitless colour ended and where they began.

Corbin simply stood still, his posture giving nothing away with his hands resting on his hips. The whole front of him was covered in Elliot’s blood as though he was the serial killer in a horror film, with a gentle smirk shaping his thin lips. I suppose that it was no different to reality. He still had an imposing and authoritative presence with his relaxed stance, listening as sorrow-filled howls echoed all throughout the territory that told me everyone else had felt the bond of an Alpha family member snap. They felt the life prematurely ripped away from the close-knit pack.

I paused my part in the bereaved song that we all howled; the calling out of our sorrows to the Moon Goddess and Elliot in the hope that he heard how much we all already missed him. I had only just lost my brother, but there was already a part of my soul that was missing, as though it had left me when Elliot had. Still looking to the empty skies, I listened to all the misery that Corbin and his merry band of rebels had inflicted whilst feeling nothing but a deep and pure hatred for them; a need for vengeance slowly unfurling and building up within me.

Tonight should have been full of nothing but love and laughter, building on future relationships that would last a lifetime. However, these selfish, entitled arseholes stole it all away in an instant.

“Wow. That was.... simply, just......wow.” Corbin gasped, unable to find the right words to express how he was feeling with finally having completed The Blood Eagle. An unnatural silence bestowed him; he was rendered speechless for what was probably the first time in his silver-spoon life.

He dropped his podgy hands to his plump sides, finally having nothing to do with them for the time being. The deadly didgets on his hands dripped with the blood from his actions; his arms were coated to the elbow. Both limbs shimmered as they reflected the low light from the dancing flames of the nearby torches.

“I think that it’s time to begin this show properly, don’t you?” Asking no-one in particular, Corbin spoke over all the grieving wolves, instantaneously putting a stop to the tradition of howling when we lose one of our own. The fear rippled throughout the crowd at all the possible meanings behind what he had said.

Very slowly, one by one, the rest of all the howls ceased, as though someone had crept through the territory, forcing their silence and submission.

“That’s better.” He sighed in relief. “Now that I have let you all have your moment, we can crack on.” As he addressed the mournful crowd, Corbin’s eyes wondered from wolf to wolf. He memorised the pain etched on each of their faces, drawing out a satisfied smile on his own. The flickering lights cast a devilish shadow on one side of his aging features, highlighting the evil that he possessed, and accentuating the feral wolf that resided in him. His canines seemingly enhanced by his evil grin as he bared them for all to see.

My stomach twisted as I observed the beast that had torn our lives apart, whilst my throat clenched as if it no longer needed air passing through to survive. Fear started to crawl throughout every part of my body at the sinister hints and the realisation that losing Elliot was just the beginning of something probably worse.

Elijah must have felt the spike in my emotions; he was still attuned to all his pack members and would do anything that he could to make just one feel better. He grabbed my hand that was closest to him and was hanging aimlessly at my side and squeezed it to reassure me and as though to say, ‘I am here for you.’ I relaxed just a smidge at his sentiment and assurance, a warmth beginning where he grasped onto me for the first time tonight since the bitter cold and numbness had taken over me.

A loud, furious growl broke the silence a split second before my bicep was clutched painfully tight and used to pull me away from my family and friends. Terror momentarily immobilised all my limbs, making them useless to react to the sudden force that was making me move. That was until I realised that there were electric tingles on my skin under the vice-like grip, alerting me to the fact that it was just my mate. But it was too late for me to do anything to stop myself from falling shoulder first into his concrete body. I looked up, straight into the angry glowing eyes of Reid and for a moment, I was lost in the beauty of the swirling colours and the hard expression on his gorgeous face. I quickly remembered who he was behind the mesmerising eyes; he was a monster and eventually I made my limbs catch-up with my brain, stood up and tried to pull my arm out of his unnecessarily tight grasp, to no avail.

“No-one else touches you.” He growled out possessively, glaring into my eyes a second longer than necessary, before forcefully pushing my arm away from him and letting go.

The primal growl had an involuntary heat begin to burn lower down in my stomach and make the insides of my vagina automatically clamp down on nothing, leaving it to feel unnaturally empty.

Fucking traitorous fanny had never done that before and I was mortified. The shock was most likely written all over my face as though it was spelt out on a billboard, advertising my embarrassment with arrows pointing directly to it and framed with flashing lights to grab anyone's attention that had dared to look.

Reid's nostrils twitched as if catching onto a new scent, just before his eyes widened in surprise, softening the hard lines that until now had seemed to be a permanent feature.

The heat in my deceptive body changed direction quicker than the British weather and flared in my cheeks, probably turning them into a guiding beacon for aircraft flying above us.

I clenched my vagina as tight as possible to try and stop any more betraying scents of arousal leaking out. This pissing mate bond was a bunch of bollocks and completing it was certainly something that I never wanted to do.

I straightened my composure and wiped all emotions from my face, steeling it so that it no longer displayed every single one of my inner thoughts as I realised that there was only one option for me.

“I, Olivia Wolf of The Moonlight Pack, reject you, Ried Corbin, future Alpha of Bloodmoon Pack as my Goddess given mate.”

Flatly spoken, without a quiver in my voice, I slowly spoke the words that I thought I would never say. I always believed that rejecting my mate when I found him was not a possibility for me, as I have only ever wanted to be unconditionally loved by someone. But I knew that Reid could not provide me with that. A rejection was my only option, and I needed to do it sooner rather than later, before something happened.

No time like the present, hey? What was some excruciating pain with my looming death anyway?

The softer emotion of shock disappeared as soon as I finished the typical rejection bollocks, and the angry, schooled Reid returned once more. Only now, he was a lot more pissed, and it rolled off him in terrifying waves.

It is surprising that all the sudden, sharp intakes of air that people drew in to gasp, did not cause a strong enough gust of wind to pull all of those from the front of the field-myself included, to the back in an instance of shock and trepidation.

All the wolves surrounding us held their breaths in anticipation of Reid’s reaction. I knew it was going to be explosive and most likely leave me severely beaten or dead at his feet after accepting it, but it had to be done.

It was not until my lungs painfully screamed for air that I realised that I too had been holding my breath in the suspense that seemed to stretch on endlessly.

“I. DO. NOT. ACCEPT. YOUR. REJECTION.”  Reid’s nostrils flared as he huffed heavily with each breath in and out, his anger scarily increased by the second as he clearly annunciated each word. Each syllable that he spoke sent my stomach plummeting to the other side of the planet in record timing, as he glared unblinking at my face with a look that said he was going to tear me limb from limb.

As he forcefully expelled the word ‘NOT’, my heart hammered an extra beat in my chest; I swear it was close to breaking through my ribs as he leaned in closer to my face, enveloping me in his irresistible scent. His luscious breath fanned the stray hairs away as it crawled up my nose and swarmed my senses.

“Why?” I whispered, completely confused at his reluctance to accept my rejection. Somewhere deep, deep, down, buried under every other emotion that choked me, I felt relief that he had chosen to stay with me, even if I was unsure of the reason why. But truthfully and realistically, I was mortified. I was completely paralised by the fear of what he would do to me after hearing that I did not want him. He is a finely tuned, dangerous killing machine and an extremely territorial predator that had just been slapped with an attempted rejection.

I am fucked.

There was no other way to say it. I was completely and utterly, royally, FUCKED.

“You are mine. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, that you can do to get away from me.” Reid quietly growled out for only me to hear, enforcing the fact that the mate bond was not going anywhere.

An unfiltered rage towards me roared to life in his eyes. There was a strong odour of blood coming from him, but he had no obvious injuries. However, I did notice that his hands were so tightly clenched that his knuckles where white; the muscles in his forearms and biceps looked as though they were ready to burst, whilst veins snaked from his skin.

After a very long few seconds of me staring at the fists that were probably itching to beat me into submission, I noticed blood drip from between his curled fingers; his claws must have extended whilst he was fighting his wolf for control.

The tiny hairs rose up on end all over my body; a physical representative of the building fear as a response to the rising threat in front of me. The small, cool nighttime breeze caused them to move and make my skin tickle. The unnoticed tears that streaked down my face turned icy cold, like the blood in my veins. But now I used them as a point to focus on, something other than the impressive wall of simmering and trembling muscle in front of me.

A deep malicious, masculine chuckle interrupted the tense silence. Without even having to look, I knew that it was that bastard, Corbin.

“Now, now children. Let's hold ourselves in check here, please. You can sort this out in a more private setting later.” I could hear the amusement in his voice at mine and Reid’s crappy situation.

With one last huff for emphasis on just how fucked off he was, Reid turned and moved a few paces away from me. But not too many; his wolf was probably pushing him to stay close by to me if he could not claim me and enforce his dominance over the males around.

“For fuck sakes, Reid. She’s not going anywhere, and I'm pretty sure that no-one else is going to go up and piss on her leg in some stupid claim with you around. You can move away from her and do your job.” Corbin laughed as he spoke, but there was a warning tone underlying it.

I was drowning in my emotions.

I did not know what to think or feel, knowing that wherever Reid and Corbin went to from here, I was going to be stuck with them. I was always going to be trapped in their shadows to watch as they tore more lives apart in their unrealistic bid for more power than what they got from just being the Alpha of their own pack.

“I think that these two are going to make a lovely couple, now that we know they’re accepting the mating bond. How about a round of applause for them?” Corbin was the first to clap; a loud, striking sound making us all flinch, before small, weaker claps started sporadically throughout the collection of

imprisoned wolves, none of them feeling the same as Corbin did about this union.

‘Lovely couple my fucking arse. Let me close enough and I'll show him fucking lovely couple.’ Beaux growled out of nowhere, previously having been silent and monitoring everything going on around her, restlessly just beneath the surface.

‘Not now, Beaux, we need to wait and choose our time perfectly. Then we’ll show him that it was the wrong decision to try his power-hungry shit here.’ A new glimmer of hope started as she grunted her approval.

“I forgot to mention boys and girls, that all those howls that you have heard are from wolves that have been captured as well; there’s no-one coming to help you.” His mood changing sour suddenly, giving everyone whiplash. Corbin spoke with his sadistic gaze directed at me, and I felt as though I had been punched in the stomach. “Anyone that hasn't already been captured, will be soon. I am making it my mission to destroy all of you tonight. My army will obliterate everything that stands here. And when we are done, we will move onto the next, then the next, and then the next, until every single pack that stands with the Royals has been decimated from this very existence.”

All the wolves that Corbin had brought with him, both ferals and members of his own pack, descended upon everyone; females, pups and elderly were traumatically separated from all the males and dragged away violently towards a brigade of trucks that had previously not been noticed before all the archaic torture.