Skinned

Snow was sticking, and all I could see was white.

Every stretch of my limbs were strained, the icy ground biting harder and harder at every land of my paws as I ran.

The stench of rot—the familiar smell of decayed blood, stuck sickeningly in my teeth and stained my fur.

Everything I saw was vague, almost blurry, but all the emotion I felt was clear as day.

I felt enraged and vengeful, like a king who was denied his retaliation.

The emotions were dangerously up to the extreme, and it could never outweigh anything I felt during my lifetime.

This was different. This wasn’t mine to feel.

This was Killian’s.

And I get to be immersed into his raw, untethered power.

It was all so consuming, and it frightened me to know that it was the type of wild that could conquer the skin, completely obliterating all sense of control.

This was what he meant, the danger that followed upon his shift.

Anyone could get lost in it.

I started to feel my heart hammer itself into my chest, breathing in lung full of air as Killian’s unbridled instincts began to make an influence.

It consumed me, filling every fiber of my being with an insatiable appetite for slaughter.

A beeping sound began to ring into my ears and voices started to fill the noise.

And the sound of Killian’s deep, chilling snarl sent me jolting with a loud cry.

“No!” I sobbed out, and immediately woke up to me being held by several hands down on the bed and Maxon’s eyes keeping a terrified gaze on the heartrate monitor.

“What—” I breathed out, looking around frantically as I tried to shake the two, bulky looking nurses’ hands off of me, “Where am I? Reed, Heath—”

“Your heart rate spiked a few seconds ago,” Maxon told me, “How’re you feeling?”

“Don’t fucking touch me,” I snarled at the two male nurses, ignoring Maxon’s question. The two men reeled back, hands slipping off of my body as they felt my threat make a bite.

“We’ll be fine,” Maxon assured the two wolves, dismissing them with a weak smile. And I didn’t miss how the one with the buzz cut threw me a sour look before walking out of the room.

I sunk back down on the hospital bed, my gaze travelling up to the ceiling as Maxon took a seat beside me.

“How long have I been asleep?” I asked.

“A day,” Maxon said, and gestured for the tray full of food on the table beside me, “Help yourself with some food. You lost a lot of blood.”

“I shifted that night, Maxon—” I swallowed down an impending cry as I recalled the very moment that Heath chased me down the lake, “The baby, is it—”

“The sudden shift wasn’t able to complicate your pregnancy,” he gave me a long look, “it didn’t do the pup any harm. In fact, I think it can withstand the force of your shift; odd, but fairly astonishing.”

I released a relieved breath, closing my eyes for a brief moment as my hands protectively laid over my stomach.

“Reed and Heath,” I said, “Where are they?”

A grim look crossed his face, gaze falling to the tiled floor, “Reed requested distance from the pack. He left for a breather while Maliha cleans and prepares Heath’s body for his grave.”

Images of Reed cradling a dying Heath began to flood into my mind, whispering an unending wave of apology while he watched the color drain from his younger brother’s face.

The memory alone had me on a chokehold of grief, stinging my eyes with unshed tears.

It was a nightmare, but the only difference was that it was all real, and I had sorrow and a few scars to prove it.

Reed killed Heath to save me—snipped his brother’s time short in exchange for my life, a female who had done nothing but challenge everything that the pack has ever stood for.

“I’m so sorry, Valerie,” Maxon mumbled.

I shook my head and wordlessly flicked my hand to dismiss the pity that stuck on his face.

Heath was dead. Nothing could change that, all that was left was the guilt that loomed over my head, telling me that I could have ran faster and defended myself better.

If I had handled the situation more carefully, I wouldn’t have trapped Reed with the choice of killing Heath.

“Alpha Eli would like to have a word with you,” Maxon said, “he insisted that you and him talk the moment you wake up. Though I would have allowed you at least a day for your own, I assume it’s urgent.”

“He knows, doesn’t he?”

“It wasn’t hard to piece together,” he sent me a weak smile, “Maliha was awfully protective of you when you were brought to the clinic, especially when you were unconscious and losing a lot of blood.”

I nodded slowly, “You can send him in.”

Maxon nodded and slowly left the room, I fixed myself up on the bed with a groan before Eli could enter the room.

“Valerie,” Alpha Eli greeted upon his entrance. He smiled at me as he stopped at the foot of my hospital bed, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

“Alpha Eli,” I lowered my head to acknowledge him and returned the intensity of his calculating eyes, “You have something to discuss with me?”

“I have a lot to discuss with you,” he let out a soft laugh, “and it won’t be easy for me to break it down for you either.”

I raised an eyebrow, “Meaning?”

“I would have allowed you more time to orient yourself, but it’s important that I discuss with you your circumstance in the pack, especially now that news has spread that you’re carrying their former alpha’s pup and that their beta is dead.”

My jaw ticked, “And who, I ask, let the word spread of my pregnancy?”

“Words travel fast like the wind among wolves; they were bound to know, that pup is their future as well.”

I scoffed. No matter how hard I tried, my upper lip curled to show my teeth.

That alone had Eli fixing on a defensive posture, crossing his arms above his chest as my involuntary threat sent his senses into alert.

“I’m throwing you a caution here, Valerie,” Eli said momentarily, “I’m not here to raise any hackles.”

I sent him a look, and urged him to speak on with a nod of my head.

“With Killian and Heath gone, you have gained control over all aspects of the pack, and that leads to your people questioning your authority.

Wolves are starting to size you up, Valerie. With Heath gone as your last ally, what ever immunity you had from the pack is gone. You aren’t protected anymore.”

Eli was mapping out my demise.

The look he had on his face was hard, like he was itching to step forward and take care of the matter that was bubbling to explode.

Any wolves were well acquainted with how Eli handled his own pack, and I knew that he wanted to do the same with mine,

The eastern alpha wanted control, something that my pack lacked thereof.

“I don’t need to be protected when I can renounce my authority,” I simply said, “I don’t need that power, Alpha Eli. I don’t need to owe any leadership to this pack.”

“It’s not even about the title anymore, Valerie,” he said, “It’s the pup.”

“Choose your next words wisely,” I snarled.

“Is it not true?” Eli’s upper lip curled up to return the same hostility, “I don’t think you realize that pup’s descent. It’s won’t be a normal wolf, Valerie, the amount of power it would acquire would inevitably threaten a lot of the werewolves.”

Eli was telling me to look at Killian and I.

My wolf alone was seeping with anger as she picked up the judgement off of Eli’s words, but I couldn’t help but consider what he was saying.

A father whose wolf is built for slaughter and a mother whose wild is born of wrath.

What would that make of the pup?

Alphas of all alphas,

A new breed of power.

Thoughts belonging to my wolf rang clear in my mind and it fit so terrifyingly perfect that the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

Suddenly I wasn’t so afraid of such future.

An emotion filled almost overwhelmingly into my chest,

It was pride—an honor to mother a new beginning.

“They’d be wise not to challenge me in any way. They know what I’m capable of,” I frowned, “They’ve seen it.”

“You may be fit to kill, but you don’t stand a chance against their number,” Eli stated, “How many wolves do you think would it take before you’re beaten down?”

I sent Eli a glare, “You’re not one to mince you words, Alpha Eli, so tell me why my safety should concern you. ”

“I think you misjudge me, Valerie,” Eli went to say, a small smile on his face, yet I could see clear in his eyes that he didn’t take kindly to how I regarded him, “I’m not here to offer a price for your safety. Killian became the alpha that Azeil failed to be, and I owe him enough to keep his mate and his heir alive.”

I frowned. What had Killian done to make Eli owe him enough that he was obliged to help me?

“Even if I surrender my title to you?”

Eli’s gaze remained unwavering, “I won’t reject an opportunity for power.”

He didn’t even hesitate to answer me, and that spoke volumes on how willing he was to acquire more ally.

A wider reign merits a stronger alpha, all werewolves knew that.

“I can protect you,” Eli said momentarily, “For now, I can help your pack with the damage control, after that you can figure out your role with the pack members.

And all you have to do is allow me to actually help you.”

Losing an alpha and beta caused a new silence to befall the pack. And Heath’s death happened to be the final push that drove us forward into the brink of collapsing.

Now with everyone gathered in Heath’s last destination, I was finally able to witness the state that my pack was left in.

As Heath’s body was lowered into his grave, right beside his parents’, I saw the look of anguish in all of his comrades. The grief hovered above us like a storm, mourning cries filling the suffocating air, and the loudest one was from Maliha herself.

Maliha looked like her entire health and wellness collapsed along with Heath’s death, her posture frail and eyes red from the ceaseless flow of tears. She was engulfed in the loss of her other half.

I felt sympathetic, but I harbored an underlying thought that her case was almost ironic. She preached so much to me about doting my other half, but she seemed to have forgotten to practice those ideologies for herself.

Was this a price to pay? To do the ceremony, not for an ordinary wolf, but of her own mate? It was painful to lose a mate, all the more that she was the one who had to pave her other half’s path to the Moon.

And the bid of farewell was her last and only word she’ll ever give to Heath.

My eyes observed the wolves in the ceremony once again, and I came to notice that several of Eli’s pack members were present as well. My eyes met Eli for a moment, and we regarded each other with a nod.

I stood throughout the entire ceremony. By the time the prayers were said and the burial was done, everyone started to leave one by one.

Reed took one last look at Heath’s grave, a struggled look of barred emotions crossing over his features. He pulled out a flask and settled it just beside the grave, not even sparing Maliha any glance. He regarded me briefly, before standing up and making his leave.

Maliha and I were left standing by Heath’s grave.

“Somehow, seeing him dead was a lot easier than watching him in pain,” Maliha bit down hard on her lower lip as she fought of another wave of tears.

I felt my heart sink at her words, and I regarded her with a furious gaze, “So you had him and Reed deal with it on their own?”

Maliha snarled, “You have no idea how far I went just to figure out a way to help Heath. I spent those times searching for an answer.”

“All you had to do was be with him, Maliha. He would have wanted that.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” Maliha said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What ever happened between the two of you, I’m sure he would have welcomed you still—”

“I lost that chance a long time ago.”

Maliha didn’t look at me.

I saw the shame that quickly took over her posture. Her shoulders curved forward and her head hung low, avoiding my questioning gaze.

I didn’t even fucking need to ask what she did.

“You rejected him,” I breathed out, and her silence alone was enough to confirm it.

“For the Moon,” Maliha said, “If I wanted to devote myself to something, I had to give up another. Giving up Heath was my sacrifice.”

“And you let him endure that consequence?”

She didn’t respond.

I drew away from Maliha, and I couldn’t wipe the scorn from my face.

All the hurtful words were fighting to escape my mouth, and I was fighting to hold them back and keep my anger in check. I didn’t want to say anything, not when we stood right in front of Heath’s grave. I figured the best I could do was to leave.

I turned on my feet to make my exit, fingers curling tightly into my palms as I drew myself away from an impending outrage

“Valerie,” Maliha called out, stopping me on my tracks.

“One last thing,” She said and went up to me. She took my wrist and placed something in the palm of my hand.

I opened my hand and saw a necklace. Its pendant was a beautiful blue stone, carved to make out a circular shape, and it was the exact color that reminded me of Killian’s eye.

“A gift from me,” she mumbled.

I frowned at the necklace, unsure what the gift was for.

And I looked at her questioningly, “What’s this for?”

“It’s a boy.”