Too Heart Wrenching

Elise Pov

The aura was oppressive and strangely familiar. My eyes scurried around the room but it looked as though the darkness I just felt was my imagination. I could swear I saw an entity.

Too dark to behold, yet familiar to my very soul. 

The air around me thickened again, and the faint scent of damp soil and ash seeped in, crawling under my skin.

Then I saw it. 

A dark shadow gathered at the far end of the room, coiling like smoke before slowly taking shape. My breath hitched as the darkness took on a familiar shape.

Too familiar. Too heart-wrenching. 

I couldn't move. My fist clenched tightly as my eyes caught the dark presence in the room. I swallowed hard, my breath edgy against the chill of the early morning.

" Who-who-the hell are you?" 

My eyes were fixed on the dark entity while I felt the deafening silence of the chamber, which felt colder without the triplets' heat. Without their voices echoing in my head. 

I swallowed an invisible lump when I caught the silhouette that had been etched on my mind for years. 

It was Mother.

Not her body, but the same image I had seen burning that night of the slaughter. The same broken figure reaching for me through the flames, casting the spell that saved my life, yet binds me to a condemnable oath. Her face was blurred, but her voice was unmistakable. 

Soft. Cold. Terrifying.

“Elise,” she whispered. My name slithered through the air like a curse, her curse that served as a daily reminder all through the silence of the years.

I froze. 

My wolf, Keiran, whimpered in the back of my mind, unsure whether to fight or flee. The presence was powerful, not because of its strength but because of our ties. A tie that overrules every strength and power inside of me.

“No… no, you’re not real,” I breathed. “You can’t be here.”

Yes. This was definitely a ploy.

“Blood remembers, child,” the shadow whispered again, drifting closer. Her eyes, or where her eyes should have been glowed faintly, like dying embers. 

“You swore.”

The oath. The condemnable oath that lingered and rings in my head every day. 

My pulse pounded in my ears. I had tried to bury it beneath everything. The bond, the heat and the constant pull of the triplets, but it came back, mercilessly. The night they slaughtered them all. I had carved a vow into my soul, the tear as a reminder.

I will make them pay. All of them.

“You let them touch you,” the shadow hissed, her voice shifting from calm to sharp, slicing through the room. “You let the blood of monsters claim your body again even when you recognise them. Do you remember what they did?”

Images slammed into me: tearing screams, the burning house, my mother’s final cry and my father’s broken body. I could hear the sputtering of the blood as they severed every head alive, wolf or human, in a bid to get what they wanted.

From where my parents his me, I peeped. The same royal crest was burned into the skin of those who murdered them.

The crest of the Alpha King.

The triplets’ father.

My hands shook as the shadow reached out. Her icy fingers brushed my cheek, and I felt it, rage. Pure, suffocating rage seeps into my veins like poison.

“You must break the bond,” she whispered. “Or they will consume you.”

Her words kept resounding in the silent chamber, the guilt eating me whole. How could I have let my lust overwhelm me? 

" I am sorry..."

Those words couldn't erase the guilt gnawing inside of me. I shouldn't have let them have me again. I hated that I was powerless against the bond. My mother was right. I needed to break the bond or risk everything.

" You need to fight the bond, Snow."

That name brought back memories. The pleasant and unpleasant memories of who I truly was. That's before I became the adopted daughter of Alpha Kingston. That name reminded me of my vengeance and anger for those people.

" How can I fight it? It's triple the pull."

" Then triple your hate. Do everything to break it or risk everything. Remember what's inside you can either make you or break you, my child."

And just as suddenly as she came, the shadow dissolved into smoke and vanished.

I sat at the edge of the bed, the sheets tangled around my trembling fingers. There was little I was afraid of, after what happened years ago. Tonight, this was certainly one of the few occurrences that got me trembling once more. 

There was something else too. A feeling that seems to mingle with the dark entity. A feeling of guilt deep down.

“She’s right,” I muttered. “I can’t… I won’t let them control me.”

Hatred unfurled inside me like a serpent. For the triplets. For the Alpha King. For myself, for being weak.

I clenched my fists, digging my nails into my palms. If I didn’t break the bond, I would lose myself. My mission would die with me. And that, I could never allow.

Just then, I gasped, stumbling backwards, clutching my chest. My breath came in sharp bursts. My wolf growled low, unsettled. I let out a searing cry. It was as though my heart was being pricked by needles. 

" What's wrong with me?" My edgy voice was unable to conceal the writhing feeling deep inside. 

Slowly, my hands stopped clutching my chest. It wasn't because I felt better but because I was gradually becoming weaker. Amidst all of these, unconsciously, I saw a shape looking exactly like a tear. 

The brighter it shone, the painful my heart felt. 

In my unconscious state, I could hear the desperate voices of the triplets. Their voices laced with fear or something even worse. Maybe it was my imagination seeing these monster mates of mine in such a state, but I could swear in reality that it was highly impossible. 

Slowly, I let the darkness envelope me.