IN FULL COLOUR - Dark Fantasy

Axel

When I left my room earlier, clutching the pre-packed suitcase in hand, Lily had simply said, “I am sorry, Axel.”

Her voice had been low and rasp, which should have already given it away. I should have known.

I should have known that sending me back to Hollow Stone was never in the plans. And as I walked down the front steps of Shadow Creek's main entrance, my eyes fell onto my brother’s private car parked in the driveway. He was there too, casually leaning against the side with his arms crossed, scanning me over lazily as I approached, like an animal being lead to the slaughter.

In my mind, it was already confirmed. My sentence.

Cassius, my brother, was Hollow Stone’s Alpha. My pack's Alpha. He rarely ever travelled beyond pack borders unaccompanied unless he had some sensitive business to attend to. Business where he didn't want an audience.

That was it. He had travelled here alone because he wanted to talk to me privately. Immediately, I felt something stir uncomfortably in my gut. I did NOT want this, why couldn’t everyone just leave me alone? Let me be so I can sort out my own shit.

Constricting my grip around the handle of the suitcase and clenching my jaw, I managed to take the last few steps towards him.

“Brother,” he simply said and held the passenger door open for me.

I ignored him and stepped around to the other side of the car, sliding into the back, like the prisoner I was.

Cassius shut the front door again and walked around, taking his seat behind the wheel, and readjusting his rear-view mirror so he would be able to see me as we drove. I was surprised he hadn’t slammed the door since he was widely known for his short temper and intolerance towards disrespect.

As Cassius started the engine and the vehicle slowly began moving, Lily appeared on the front steps of their packhouse with her arm hooked into Mia’s. The latter was staring at me as we drove off, but Lily’s pale, lifeless gaze was turned to the ground, looking at nothing.

The stabbing sensation pierced through my gut, one I had become so familiar with over the past few months. It throbbed harshly and I had to turn my face away as I felt my throat starting to bob.

“You look like shit,” Cassius grumbled from the front.

I did not bother answering him because I didn’t know how to.

“Haven’t they been feeding you?” He asked with a glint of humour in his eyes.

Huffing, I turned my gaze back out the window. We were gliding through Shadow Creek’s forest, making our way towards their border.. My eyes roamed over the trees and the plants lining the undergrowth of their dark shadowy trunks. Light filtered through the openings of their leafy canopies in lines of dust-filled beams. For a moment I had forgotten all my troubles. All the darkness that had accumulated inside of me over the past nine years. All the pain disappeared, even if it was just for a brief instant.

I felt like I could breathe. Like the monster inside of me had gone to sleep and released me from its relentless bite.

“Here,” I heard Cassius’s deep voice saying, sounding much more serious than before.

My eyes unwillingly drifted away from the majestical forest and landed on his outstretched arm, holding an envelope out to me. He kept his other hand on the steering wheel and his eyes on the road.

Something in my gut stirred and the monster propped an idle eye open from its short slumber.

“What is this?” I asked as my fingers gripped the pure white, smooth paper. It had two simple words written on the front in black ink.

I recognised the handwriting instantly. It belonged to my mother, the previous Luna of Hollow Stone. She and my father had given their reigns over to Cassius only a few months after Lily had gone missing. They had spent most of the first three years searching for her, as we all did, but not a single trace was ever found. It was like Lily had disappeared off of the face of the earth for that miserable eight years of our lives.

My mother had been a wreck the entire time, although she never dared showing us the full force of it. She knew the guilt both me and Cassius had endured and did not want to add to the weight we already struggled to carry.

“How are they?” I managed to ask as my fingertips drifted over the two words my mother had written on the envelope.

“They are fine, worried, but fine.”

I didn't want them to worry about me. I wasn’t the one needing anyone’s pity, nor worry for that matter. Lily had been the one to suffer the most, they should rather pour their energy into her, not me.

Cassius kept his eyes on the road as we drove but glanced at me through the rear-view mirror from time to time as he spoke.

“Mom’s started taking up crocheting,” he continued, “she’s pretty good, made a scarf for Maya and baby-booties for Zephyr.”

My little niece and nephew, Cassius and his mate, Laura’s pups.

“And dad?”

Cassius chuckled lightly, “Mom made him sleeping socks that looks exactly the same as Zephyr’s baby booties. It was a thing. We teased him about it for weeks.”

I could just imagine it, my father, the previous big bad Alpha, sitting lazily in the living room with a grandchild perched on each leg, as he read them stories with crocketed sleeping socks that resembled baby booties.

“He still helps a lot with training and recruiting new warriors,” Cassius added, “you know how he is.”

I smiled and nodded.

“So, aren’t you going to open it?” Cassius asked peering at me through the rectangular mirror.

I looked down at the envelope again; Face it, the words simply read.

Although the words were simple, I knew that the meaning certainly wouldn’t be. My mother rarely ever took anything lightly and whatever she had written inside this envelope, must have been considered for a lengthy amount of time before she decided to send it my way.

“Do you know what’s inside?”

Cassius didn't reply.

“Why did you come alone?” I finally managed to voice.

Cassius’s eyes briefly met with mine in the mirror, but he turned his focus back onto the road as soon as it did.

“Just open it,” he grumbled.