SWNOVELS Chapter 113: Unmarked
It feels like time stands still and I watch in disbelief as both Sierra and Radar try to regain composure, confusion etching the face of both and even I have no clue how this just happened. Sierra clutches the point above her left breast as though suddenly inflicted with pain and looks down, gasping in surprise. Her hand sliding away to reveal where her mate mark from her union with Juan is, something that can never be removed. Yet, before my very eyes it begins to heal and fade away into nothingness as though it never was. The one mark in life that a wolf can never erase or heal from and yet hers is washing away like dust on a smooth surface when hit with a gentle breeze.
I gawp in surreal stillness, filtering into my head what this could possibly mean. Radar too fixes his focus on her mark as it disperses and the two of them seem to pause, stuck in a time freeze for a few seconds as all this slowly drips into reality. Expressions unreadable and the air suddenly seems to tingle with an undefined energy.
"We?" Sierra is the first to disrupt the pause, her voice barely a whisper above the noise of the chaos around us and Radar only nods. Hearing her loud and clear. His face pale from being wounded and yet the disbelief and wide-eyed shock can’t be missed. He's stunned, his head working at a million miles an hour trying to process if this is real. Even though we are in the center of a bloody hurricane it feels like they are the only noise, and this is the only detail I'm zoned into. My brain trying to register what this means.
“You imprinted...your mate mark is gone..... that means.” I stammer it out, voice wavering with a sudden need to cry, emotion hitting hard.
“Juan isn't bonded to you anymore. Your life now belongs to Radar.” Leyanne’s voice comes from behind me, and I jump in fright at the sudden intrusion of a welcome figure. Relief at her sudden appearance and yet my face falls when I see she isn't standing alone. Pushing between my guards, who easily give way to her, there is a large black cloaked figured standing behind, an intimidating presence that I can't miss. I guess wherever she was , it involved finding this ghoul.
My eyes are drawn to the solid, tall, figure; mysterious in their shroud of fabric which conceals all shape, a hood pulled up and over so not even a face is on show. An air of death lingering around them and I shudder and pull my eyes back to Leyanne. Dismissing this detail and more interested in what just happened before my very eyes.
"How can this be...how could we?” Sierra breaks into my train of thought, stammering with a shake to her voice, and I turn back to them. Just in time to see her reach out and trace Radar's features so lovingly it makes my heart ache. The touch of true love, and his eyes are fixated on hers, but he holds himself in check knowing this isn't the time or place to maul his new mate. A sudden private moment between them, a flicker of nonverbal communication, and I look away, instantly shy and feeling like they need a moment.
“Leyanne, where did you go? How can you be sure this has broken the bond?” I cut in, so many questions but most importantly, her whereabouts. Giving Sierra space and pulling the focus to other things.
“This means if Juan dies, then Sierra will be safe? The bond is dissolved? She's really mine?” Radar’s gravelly voice takes over and he pushes him self up onto his haunches before awkwardly moving towards Sierra so he closes that last gap, taking her hand and tugging her. She's still half sitting, half laid on her back from the sheer intensity of the imprint and he hauls her to him in a flash. All inhibition gone now that they have just had the purest form of bonding known to our kind. His shyness evaporated in knowing she’s his now and he no longer has a reason to hold back. He cradles her head against his neck in a flash pull against him, and despite all the craziness around us, I feel a sheer elation of joy. Seeing them wrap around one another as if it's as natural as breathing, something deep inside of me finally feels a sense of contentment for them. This is what I always hoped for her.
“I have it on good authority that imprinting with a wolf can only happen when the fates intend it to be so. Anything previous, becomes null and void. Juan is your distant memory; the mate bond is broken. I'm guessing your fated mate was always here in front of you and was biding their time to step up. Your fates always like an out to tie up their loose ends it seems.” Leyanne takes on that air of smug she is so good at and yet the figure looming close can’t be ignored, even in this happy moment. It keeps drawing my focus, a familiarness about his presence pulling me to him.
"Oh my god” Sierra blurts out, tears hitting hard, and yet sense brings us all back to the seriousness of where we are. We can't get swept up in this, even though it's a huge deal, while our world is still crumbling around us.
"Who is he?” I cut in like a knife, pointing sharply at the stranger, focus pulling back as that dark shadow moves closer to our inner circle of safety within my guards. I can’t ignore him if he insists on coming nearer and all my defensive senses spike up.
“Don’t recognize your own brother?” Jasper's husky voice comes at me from under his fabric shield and he slides it back slowly, revealing amber eyes glowing in his human form. That handsome face, those wide shoulders, and yet there's not a single hint of sibling adoration in his eyes.
“Jasper! Why are you here?” I blanche, torn between elation and yet sudden anxiety given our last interaction. His whole aura is different form before, and I know that he came here with the mindset that he had the last time we meet.
“Your father sent me to bring you to him. You paged him after all.” He pulls back the cloak enough to reveal his tall and strong physique, draped in tailored black clothing, and air of superiority on him now I see him like this. He doesn't scream wolf anymore, in his posture, his manner, or his fashion sense. He's spent too many years with the likes of Darrius, and it's rubbed off in all the wrong ways. He's as cold as one of them and that joy of finding me last time, has evaporated.
"He can stop this mess before I go to him. Call off his demons first!” I spring to my feet, suddenly enraged that he thinks he can click his fingers to summon me, even though I was the one who put out the call. am not about to run off into his fold of demons with a brother I don't trust anymore. “The quicker you see him, the faster this battle will stop.” Jasper sneers at me, anger tinging his words at my refusal, and he clenches his jaw in agitation at my own disdain seeping through. I can feel his anger simmering below the surface and I know just being here probably has stirred up a million pains in his heart. Memories he doesn’t want to relive.
“You know he has no intention of stopping this don’t you? This is just a ploy to move me out of the battle zone..... because I'm important to him!” I retort, not sure that it's true but just unwilling. “You're important to me too. You don't need to be here, among this. Come with me and see him, in a safe space. No one will touch you by my side.” Jasper steps to me and I move back in perfect sync, so our distance remains constant. His flash of furrowed brow showing his displeasure at my evasion and he grits his teeth that I'm being headstrong in this matter.
“Stop it now. Alora go with him, you're no use here and I give you my word, your father will be waiting. The only way to end this is to find a middle ground. You know what he wants.” Leyanne lays a hand on my shoulder as though to coax me but I shrug it away. She brought Jasper to me, so no way in hell is she on my side in this.
“I want my pack to be safe. I'm going nowhere until everything stops. If he wants to see me then he calls his creatures of right now!!! NOW, JASPER!" I erupt at him; tears bite my eyes and desperation seeps out. I won't abandon them to swan off until I know nothing else will happen while I'm gone. There's a moment of silence as we stare at one another in a battle of wills. Tension sparking between us and that good old Whytte stubbornness shines through. Leyanne drops behind me and moves back to the still hugging pair of wolves who are lost in their own world right now. The mate bond pulling them out of reality.
“Fine..... if he calls a temporary halt, then you come with me. I won't let anyone touch you.” Jasper relents, exasperation evident as he tenses, yet it doesn't fill me with any sense of trust.
“He can come here. I'm not his dog. I have what he wants right here, the person responsible. He can come if he wants to talk to the child he claims to care for. Otherwise, I'll happily fight to the end against him.” I shrug, showing my petty side, but I don't care.
“Why are you so stubborn and headstrong?” Jasper yells at me, a flash of his temper breaking through and very much like the brother who would lose his cool with me when I was being willful. It only riles me all the more.
“Same reason you are, you stupid asshole. Why the hell are you so dumb, so sure the only answer is death to the Santo pack? Why can't you see past the hatred in your heart and realize there's a better way than this.” I snap at him, moving forward so we hit almost nose to nose, squaring up to his taller height with a new fierce building inside of me.
“The only way to avenge our parents is to see this pack fall! What don’t you understand?”
“I'm this pack...so if they fall, then I do too. What is it that you don't understand huh? Your own god damn mate will fall too, and if she does, you're dead jasper. The girl you rejected is still going to be your downfall. All of us will perish here today....is that what you want?"
Jasper snorts and then chuckles in a weird out of place way. His whole manner becoming hostile and he shakes his head as though I'm a naive child and he's slightly amused.
“You think I planned on life after this? My last ten years have been building to the moment I can bring down those who took our family. Once that's done, I have no reason to keep breathing. If my death is hers, then so long to another Santo.”
“You're an idiot" I fly for him, slapping him in the left peck so hard it sings my hand, and then punching his shoulder hard. Letting out all the pain in my heart he’s causing me. “I'm your family! Carmen is your family.....this pack could be your family too, if you just let them. You have so much more than revenge to live for. Why can't you let it go and listen to me? We can fix this without the death of an entire pack.” My emotions break and instead of fury, I begin to sob in desperation. So overwhelmed that my brothers own hatred will be the one thing that can destroy him, us. There's no solution if my brother won't let this go. I need him to be on my side, like he always sued to be.
“My family died on a battlefield and my sister..." he snorts again, a sadness taking over his expression and his eyes glaze over as the amber dims away “Isn't who she used to be. So in reality, you already died too. I have nothing left to fight for after this.” His words are softer, almost pitiful and even though I know it's said in anger, it wounds me to the core.
"Screw you. You're not the brother I remember and love either. You're a fool. Do you really think mum and dad would want this for us? Do you think they would make us sacrifice our all to even a score on a pack who don't deserve it? Juan is the problem, and his loyal.....the rest of the wolves are as innocent as the Whyte pack was.... These wolves raised me in your absence, and they have paid for their wrongs against me in the last year. They stand here ready to die for me.... how can you condemn them for that?”
“They did nothing when it mattered!!!” Jasper erupts at me, all rage and fury directed as his eyes glow with fire and his teeth elongate from sheer emotion. His pain on show, and despite his sheer anger, tears fill his eyes and his mouth trembles. A tell that underneath, his heart is in chaos.
"How do you know what they did or didn't do? You weren't there.... Sierra sacrificed herself to protect me or else I would be dead too. Santo wolves died alongside Whyte wolves when Juan made the truth disappear about what happened to us. They have been manipulated and oppressed by him for a decade and yet here they stand, willing to die in a war that isn't theirs, protecting me, their luna, while he hides among them like a coward and uses them as pawns.”
"Enough! I canny listen to another minute of this. You two are clearly siblings with that same thick skull and ability to open your mouth to let nonsense spew out.” Leyanne shoves my brother back away from me, bringing herself to the side of us so she snaps all focus to her. Agitated with our squabbling. “Alora’s right. This is about Juan, not the Santo's. Tell your master to cease fire and his daughter will freely see him. After all, this is what this is all about, right? You know it's the right way to do things, you're not stupid.” Leyanne brushes down the side of Jaspers cloak in a weirdly maternal way and pats him on the shoulder. Somehow soothing his fire without doing too much and I can't miss the slight hue of yellow mist where her touch hits him. He seems to deflate a little, some of that fierce dying at her words and he shakes his head and looks away. I wonder what kind of magic she has that can diffuse someone like Jasper with only a touch.
“Fine. I'll link Darrius and have him call a truce for now. Your wolves better not try anything... Varro won't be lenient if you piss him off.” Jasper’s unfriendliness shines through, only less venomous, and it breaks my heart a little inside. He no longer considers himself a wolf, he’s just one of them now and his loyalty is with Varro. Leyanne may have cooled his jets but his will remains unbudged.
“I'm staying right here; he can come to me.” I reinforce my stance, my words biting with my own stubbornness. I refuse to back down and chase after this man who thinks I owe him anything just because we share DNA. He came to ruin my people; I won't run along after him.
"Whatever. Just call back your dogs and have them sit and stay like good little mutts.” Jasper turns on his heel, his cloak almost slapping me across the legs with the speed he marches away, and within seconds I realize the humdrum of cries and noise around me seem to drop off to an almost eerie silence. It's sudden, like the jump from light to dark with the flick of a switch.
I look around in the darkness, lit only by the full moon and adding to the spookiness, and see creatures pulling back. Slinking out of the shadows, peeling away in fluid motion back to where they came from, and some diving upwards into the air with huge bat like wings. The sky full of giant creatures scurrying away to god knows where.
"We can't link how do we call our own off?” Sierra's voice brings me back to reality, my brain getting that snap back and I turn and shake my head, a new problem rising, and I have no answer. The weapon is still disabling some of our gifts and standing here, even I feel weaker while exposed. Carmen still hasn't managed to do anything about it.
“Word of mouth.... we are still wolves after all.” Radar jumps to his feet, suddenly renewed with energy and strength, as he shifts in the blink of an eyes, throwing back his huge furry head and let's out a long blood curling howl. Loud and proud, the depth of his howl vibrates around us and spreads through the air. An echoing call and message to our kin, one they will understand, and within seconds distance howls join as they pass the message along the ranks to wherever my mate must be.
Stand down, wait for orders. Stop fighting.
It's as clear as day and almost like magic, everything around me starts to separate as vampires and Lychan push away from one another and stumble backwards to tend to their own wounds. From harsh screams, tearing, and gnashing of teeth, comes the weird and sudden pause that let's the noise of the rustling trees sound louder than I have ever heard them. From chaos to calm, form blood lust to stillness.
The quiet of a battlefield in a temporary lull and yet I only feel fear intensify and nausea rises that this is far from over and only the calm before the typhoon rips though. Everything relies on me now and whatever I say to convince Varro that the only death needs to be Juan's.