Smoke and Mirrors

Sapphire Ragna Nightborne

I woke up feeling like death, my head was pounding as if someone had been going at hit with a sledgehammer. I got out of the small cot I was on before realising that I had yet again been stripped down but this time with slightly more clothing. I felt someone watching me before turning around to see Damien flanked by two guards standing right in front of me, however, the only thing that truly protected him was a thick pane of glass that separated the two of us, I punched the glass expecting it to fall apart and shatter but nothing happened, I had not been able to even put a crack in it. In fact, my hands burned by merely touching it.

“I wouldn’t bother, sweetheart, the glass had been coated with a layer of silver so I would not waste my energy and time?”

“You bastard!”

That coward, he could not even face me one-to-one but instead had to have one of his minions poison me with silver. And now here he was, smiling smugly at me like a cat that had gotten all the cream.

“I have to thank you, darling, I never quite believed in the power that Lycans were rumoured to possess but today, you proved me wrong.”

He smiled as he showed me the scar where he had cut his hand during the ceremony, I looked at the matching one on my palm before scowling.

“It is like having an adrenaline rush all the time, my senses are always on the alert and my reflexes are faster than ever, so much power just kept in one person.”

He winked at me before continuing.

“A person like you does not deserve a gift such as this one, it made it so that you are as powerful or even more powerful than most of the Alphas right now, and what do you do with it? You use your abilities to guard and protect an Alpha and his pack that could not care less whether you died doing so. You could have usurped his position a long time ago but no, you watched from the side-lines as he took credit for the battles that you won for your pack.”

How dare he, I reigned in my emotions before letting my face fall into a blank expression.

“Then who pray tell me deserves such power? You? Don’t make me laugh. A coward like could not even take such power without the use of lies and deception.”

I scoffed before I continued, his smug expression falling with each word I said.

“Let us go through some of your greatest hits, you slaughter the old, injured and young just because you can… you tortured a girl just because of your unresolved daddy issues… you deliver the parts of your enemies to their families just to show your power, and the most cowardice thing of all, you send your pack to the front lines of battle while you stay far away watching, so tell me why would a coward like you deserve such power.”

I smiled as his face turned into an ugly sneer. The truth hurts, doesn’t it Damien? I started to pace up and down in the small room I was given, I did not feel any anger but I wanted my words to hurt because if I could not be outside hitting him with my fists, my words were my next best weapons, after all, my father said that even if our claws and fangs failed us, our words would not.

“Let me tell you, dearest, why I and I alone deserve the power given to me. I don’t parade my ability, like you do now, and use it to lord over people as I believe that it does not make me superior to them, I was just born different that is all. I don’t care if I am side-lined while someone like Ryder takes the credit because I as well as my pack know who truly won the battle. True, I could have usurped his position at any time I wanted and would have most probably won but I didn’t, you know why? Because I simply don’t want to be Alpha, I don’t crave the recognition that you do, I don’t need to be the centre of attention like you desire and especially unlike you, I don’t crave the love of every single person on Earth which I know you do because deep down, you are still the scared little boy whose mommy hurt him because ran away so he decided to become the big scary Alpha so that no one could hurt him again. Let me give some advice Damien: Grow a pair and grow up. Life never treats us fairly but we have to suck it up and move on as the world will not wait for us to wallow in our little pity party”

With that last sentence I banged my fist against the glass panel and watched as it trembled beneath my touch, the shocked look on their face was priceless as the glass splintered with spider web-like cracks appearing. Looks of horror masked their faces as more cracks appeared just a push from my finger, my hand started to smoke and blister due to the silver but I masked my pain, this was nothing compared to what I was going to do to them.

“Just because I hold back does not mean I am weak.”

The guards and Damien moved back as I gave the glass panel one last punch causing it to completely shatter. I jumped through the hole and into the room where they were in, both guards swung at me at the same time but I easily grab their hands and twisted them, they howled like babies as I let their hands go before grabbing both their throats and crushing their windpipe simultaneously, they fell to the floor like sandbags as I released my grip on their throats.

Damien, the coward, ran to the door to try and call for help but not before his leg, pulling him down so he fell to the ground, I straddled his chest before raising a clawed hand, he screamed as I brought it down again and again on his chest, blood sprayed against my face but that did not stop me, I had become the thing my pack tried to suppress, he tried to push me off but I did not budge.

This was it, this was the end, I would finally avenge my family as well as all those that Damien had wronged. I lifted my hand ready to deliver the killing blow, Damien pleaded with me to stop that we could start over but they fell on deaf ears, now he would finally experience what all those people felt during those last moments before their lives were taken.

“The Moon Goddess must be cruel to make you my mate.”

His eyes widened at the familiar phrase before I screamed as I brought my hand down it barely scraped his neck before Damien disappeared from underneath me.

The familiar smell of honeysuckle filled my nose as I looked down at the lush grass that I was kneeling on, it was stained with the blood dripping off my clawed hand which was still raised to deal the killing blow, it had been an inch away from Damien’s neck. A faint breeze blew the matted hair from my face and I growled as I registered the scent that came with the wind, it increased in volume as I looked up. Of all the times she could have picked she chose now, there are things I could forget but this was not one of them.

“Hello, Child.”