IN FULL COLOUR - Dark Fantasy

Axel

The next few days was a chaotic blur of preparations. New battleplans had to be made, defence tactics re-evaluated, and patrol schedules adapted, all of which keeping me busy day and night. Each and every pack member had a job to do. From food storage and preparation to welding the immaculate iron gate, wolves and fae alike were rushing around trying to get as ready as one could be for an approaching ambush.

We needed a defence plan that could withstand both vampires and fae creatures, an almost impossible task. Fae creatures we had very little knowledge of. Coyne had merely said that most of them could change forms and that the nether fae of Dreams and Seduction included Gorgon’s, Aqrabuamelu and Basilisks. None of them played any role in making me sleep any better at night.

I have heard of Gorgons growing up. Used to love the stories my father told about the beautiful females with hair made of live snakes, vicious monsters capable of turning their victims into stone with just one look. Used to, until a few days ago, when I realized that these horrible creatures actually existed.

And Aqrabuamelu; half man, half scorpion? It seemed like the Kingdom of Dreams and Seduction were filled with repulsive monstrosities. Snakes, spiders, scorpions, the list goes on. All of them combined and mixed with human characteristics to produce some of the most hideous and terrifying creatures known to man.

Gabrielle seemed to be handling things quite well and hardly showed any signs of distress. She was a Luna after all, a female of Alpha blood, I shouldn’t have expected anything less.

After our unexpected night of passion together in Lighthaven, she has not denied me once when I sought her out. And for the life of me, I couldn’t stay away. I found myself thinking about her all the time, either daydreaming about things I wanted to do to her or thinking back to things I actually did.

Usually, it got worse after hours of mind-numbing work, topped off with chronic sleeplessness. It was like I couldn’t settle down anymore, well, not before burying myself deep inside of her first. She had become my personal aphrodisiac. My very own drug, one which brought out not only the beast in me, but also a gentleness I tried to ignore. A vulnerability exposing my weaknesses, her being one of them whether I would ever admit it or not.

Over the years I had been with many women, but none of them compared to Gabrielle. She was in a league of her own. Precious. Invaluable. Exquisite. A goddess of light in my utter darkness.

The connection we shared impossible to comprehend. I couldn’t understand the depth of it. Even the strong connection I shared with my twin, paled in comparison to the one I had with Gabrielle.

Yet, somewhere deep down, my inner monsters kept haunting me. Memories and self-doubt eating away at my insides, clawing relentlessly at the scars hidden beneath my skin, telling me that I should stay away from her, that I would only break her heart and cause her unbearable misery. That I would fail to protect her, just like I failed to protect my sister.

Once in a while, the demons would push so hard, that I found it physically difficult to breathe. Usually, when it happened, my reality also warped, bending and twisting my view on life into a disordered web of confusion.

Still, Gabrielle could ground me with a single, featherlight kiss. Bring me back to earth and into the light, out of my pit of despair without even breaking a sweat.

And whether I wanted to admit it or not, I found myself sneaking into her room more often, crawling under her covers in the middle of the night and feasting on her skin. If I wasn’t working on battleplans, I was in her bed, making her beg for more and moan my name again and again.

Tonight, was no different, and as I lay there, in her bed, with my body slightly sweaty and hot, slumped over hers, as we collapsed in ecstasy, I listened to her heartbeat and breathing pattern, which had gradually turned from the breathless panting of earlier into slow, rhythmic inhales and exhales. The sound so wonderfully calming, medicine to a shattered soul.

I breathed in her intoxicating scent and dragged my tongue in lazy strokes over the delicate curve of her bare shoulder. My wolf. I let him take the lead tonight and now, he enjoyed licking her lovingly. A show of affection only understood by wolves. Animals.

She loved it though and encouraged him by moaning softly and digging her fingers into the duvet. The smell of her arousal lingered in the air, and I found myself warming up again, provoked by the inviting sounds emanating from her full, kissable lips.

“I should probably get going.”

She groaned and shifted underneath me, “you can stay, if you want to.”

Although it was meant as a statement, the way she said it, made it sound more like a question.

She was asking me to stay. To sleep next to her. To love her.

“I’m sorry, I can’t,” I ground out dragging myself away from her, and searching for my shorts along the floor.

She turned to face me and steadied herself onto her elbows, “Axel?”

I found my shorts and pulled them on in one swift move. The entire time, I felt her eyes burning into me.

“Axel?” She asked again. Pleaded.

I had to close my eyes for a second and take a deep breath, “I can’t.”

“Why not?” That voice. She sounded so hurt. So broken. I was hurting her; I was breaking her.

She deserved better. She deserved a prince, a hero. A knight and a happy ever after. I would never be that. I could never give her what she was worth, because I, myself, was broken and empty. There was nothing left inside of me to give, and it pained me to know it.

“Axel?”

“WHAT!? WHAT IS IT? WHAT DO YOU WANT!?”

Gabrielle flinched, hurt flickering in her beautiful caramel orbs. I couldn’t stand it, yet I couldn’t help myself. Couldn’t stop myself from lashing out again.

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT FROM ME!?”

A whimper, “I-I don’t want anything from you. I just want you.”

I shook my head and snatched my t-shirt from the floor, hauling it over my head.

“I don’t think the question is what I want, I think the real question should be what you want.” She stared at me while I moved around the room like a predator. “What do you want, Axel?”

Growling and pacing, that was what I had reduced myself to. I didn’t know what to say and I didn’t want this conversation. Not now, not ever.

“Axel, just tell me what you want!?” She was almost yelling now. Hurt and frustrated.

“I DON’T KNOW, OK!?” Dragging a heavy hand through my messy hair, I finally turned to face her. “I DON’T KNOW WHAT I WANT!”

In horror, I watched as her bottom lip trembled. She tried to hide it, but I saw it anyway. “You don’t want me,” she whispered and as the words came out, I saw her heart breaking.

I couldn’t answer. No words, not even ideas formed in my mind as I took in her devastated expression and the tears welling up in those beautiful eyes. I knew this was coming. I knew it was going to happen, and yet I stayed. I toyed with her heart. Made her hope for a future with me. A future that would never happen.

“Axel Scott, I hereby grant you my third, sacred wish. Take it and ask for what you are so desperately searching for.” She was full out crying now with tears of anguish running in streams down her face. “Just be happy again.”

My fingers balled into tight fists, “what don’t you understand? I don’t know what I want! You would be wasting your wish on me!”

She shook her head and said in between her sobs, “I wish that Axel Scott, second son of Alpha Leonidas and Luna Eleanor, would receive the one thing he so desperately desires. The thing that haunts his thoughts night and day, hindering him to find true happiness.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, Gabrielle hissed and slammed her palms into her side, writhing and twisting in pain. She gritted her teeth as the smell of burning flesh filled the room. My wolf surged forward, detecting that his mate was in danger. Before I could comprehend what was going on, he lifted her onto our lap and gently pulled her hands away from the injured area to inspect it.

And right there, underneath the faint scarring of her first two sacred wishes, lay a new red and inflamed symbol burned into her skin. A reminder of her third wish being granted.

With frantic eyes, I searched her face for answers, “wh-what did you do?”

I couldn’t form coherent thoughts. I couldn’t even string a simple sentence together.

“Y-your, w-w-whish,” I stuttered like a fool. A gaping, bomb-struck fool.

She smiled through her pain, through her tears, “I truly hope you find what you are searching for, Axel.”