longing

Laziel Brahm

The night was as silent as a graveyard.

High winds rustled the tall elm trees surrounding me as my view of the infinity fortress blurred and sharpened when a thin gray mist rolled between us.

What was I doing out here? 

I couldn't remember, and the crease in my forehead deepened when I glanced down to see that I was several feet off the loamy forest floor.

“Seven hells,” my voice when it came, sounded unrecognizable even to my ears. Like an animal.

I was in The Darkness once more…but how?

The last thing I remembered was being in my room. 

How on earth had I managed to leave the fortress with my wounds?

“Shit, shit, shit. Not good Laz,” I groaned, hissing when I shifted my weight onto on clawed feet to release the burning in my thighs.

My large paws brushed lightly against the bone-deep claw marks crisscrossing my midriff and I let out another hiss when white hot pain cut through my consciousness.

“Those fuckers really got me good.”

I could feel The Darkness bearing down on my shoulders, as a ghoul’s eerie hiss scratched at my ears.

“Garh! Damn it,” 

I couldn't shift, hard as I tried, it was useless!

Only my ragged grunt broke the silence when I leaped down from the branch, flexing the tree-thick muscles of my thighs.

Something was off. I could smell it.

My palms were hot and damp, even with the blistering cold blowing through the trees. 

I tightened them to fists, taking a step forward and pausing to glance around the darkness.

My body still ached from the war but I ground my teeth to forge ahead.

I would die with my sword plunged through my chest before I would admit it, but I was terrified.

Forgetting shit like some lard who’d been shot in the head…hell…it just wasn't me.

I was an elite Infinity soldier, damn it. 

Not some botched half-brained lobotomy dimwit who couldn't even remember his shifts or kills.

Milburn NEEDED me. I couldn't afford any more screw-ups when I’d vowed to be by his side!

The distant din of an explosion made the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight, but it was the stench of smoke in the air that made my heart pound.

Something was burning.

“The fortress!” I rasped, snapping my head up to the horizon and feeling my heart sink when I saw the giant plume of thick white smoke rising in the air.

My body shot forward instinctively, as if pulled by an unseen force, past the thorned branches and brambles that drew blood when they licked at my fur.

I could taste its sweet metallc tang in the back of my throat even before I saw the woman.

The gates had fallen. 

How on earth had she managed to fell the impenetrable gates?

“On your knees, or I will cut you down where you stand!” I bellowed, but my lips remained firmly shut, the words only reverberating uselessly inside my head.

Was she holding me hostage somehow?

My feet ground to a stop as the pressure from the woman and the ashes threatened to push me to my knees.

“I am Infinity, damn it! I kneel for no one!” I forced out a roar, my chest heaving with ragged breaths until the woman held out one dainty porcelain hand to me.

What did she want from us? Why would she destroy everything? After all we had done for her?

Milburn. I had to find Milburn!

The urgency of my loyalty seemed to fizzle into thin air when the woman stepped toward me, her cold green eyes seeming to see right through my skull.

“Don’t touch me,” I hissed, but again the words stuck stubbornly to the walls of my throat, threatening to suffocate me as her sweet vanilla scent wrapped around my body.

Her deep red claws were as cold ice when they pressed lightly over my heart, making its rub-a-dub beating even more erratic.

Only maidens blessed or cursed by the goddess had such claws. 

Just who was she? What did she do to my brothers?

To my home?

I shook my head, digging for every morsel of strength I had left and forcing a step back when her eyes drifted shut, thick red lashes fluttering.

Hardly did I ever get the urge to kiss anyone, and yet, a bolt of arousal whittled through my body at the sight of her full pink lips, slightly moist from the fog.

I wanted to kiss her. NEEDED to feel her body against mine. To have her completely.

She was bad for me. 

I knew it the way a pup knew sticking his paw in the flames would burn him and yet, was unable to resist its orange lull.

I had to get away. 

Fear rippled through my body when I glanced down to see the ash swirling around her feet, the blood red dress she wore gaping at the center where the black hole in her chest pulsed almost hungrily.

Her heart had been torn out.

Fuck!

She was death. She had to be!

One more touch from the woman and I was sure I wouldn't recover.

That was certain. 

The woman with hair the color of a burning sun had destroyed everything. 

I’d failed Milburn. 

A gasp tore through my throat like a poisoned arrow and I shot to my feet, blinking away the nightmare that played behind my lids only seconds ago.

“So real, how could it feel so real?” I wheezed, scrambling out the bed and heaving over the porcelain bowl of the washroom sink just before my guts heaved up even more of my poisoned blood.

“Goddess and seven hells, Laziel. You have finally gone mad.” I chuckled bitterly, glaring at my reflection in the dirty mirror.

“Side effects of The Darkness include fever dreams, wolf maladies, hallucinations…delirium,” I muttered, recalling the words from the scribe’s handbook after the first plague of the darkness hit all those years ago.

And now I've got all of them.

“Good Goddess please,” I groaned, scrubbing a hand over my eyes as my bleary reflection stared back at me from the lit mirror.

My limo brown hair curled around my neck and shoulders like a wolf’s mane, resisting my fingers when I tried to work out the kinks of brambles and knots in it.

I looked positively animal, with red-rimmed bronze eyes that caught beautifully in the low light.

I must have fallen asleep in my own blood after Milburn left.

“Seven fucking hells,” I cursed again when my eyes trailed over my scarred flesh where the blood had stained through the gauze I strapped around it.

Engorged black veins jutted from my skin, wriggling like puffed-up maggots.

It was not painless.

“Lord Brahm? Are you in there?” A strange throaty tenor snapped me out of my reverie.

What the fuck? 

Hadn't I given strict orders not to be disturbed?

My feet padded over the cold tiles silently and I cringed instinctively at the state of the room.

The monochrome painting hanging on the only straight wall in my chambers was askew.

Glass shrapnel from the broken coffee table jutted from the red rug and a vague memory of sinking my fist through it flickered in my mind.

“M’Lord? Are you in there? I’m coming in—” The disembodied voice stuttered again and I gritted my teeth.

My large King-sized bed was a mess, large claw marks dug through the wooden headboard and white duvet to reveal the ugly yellow foam beneath.

Between the blood-stained walls and the broken furniture, I was powerless to hide my breakdown.

It looked like a wild wolf had charged through the room and turned everything into paper mulche.

“No! Wait!” I bellowed, but the door had already creaked open to reveal a beefy wolf in a crisp white coat.

One of Milburn’s royal physicians.

“Wh-what’s going on? Lord Brahms! Heavens! Are you alright? I had no idea those…those mavericks made it into our fortress!” He gasped, big brown eyes widening behind his turtle-shelled glasses as he glanced around my chambers with nothing short of horror.

“You need to leave…now.” I ground through clenched teeth, but if the doctor noticed the urgency in my tone, then he took his sweet time glancing around the space and dabbing a white kerchief absently on the globules of sweat rolling down his creased neck.

“Its simply…just a mess, I...it almost looks like the attack was wildly contained…were you injured, by any chance?” 

His beefy hands clutched the thick notepad to his chest and I skulked back into the shadows reflexively,  faster than his eyes could move.

I couldn't let him see my body. 

Between the distended veins and my luminescent eyes, it wouldn't take a fucking confessor for him to know my wolf was going wild.

I needed to find a way to get him out of here! The last thing I wanted was more blood on my hands after the last carnage had made me black out. 

With fever dreams of that fucking Shadow!

“You are alright, aren't you, M’Lord?” the scant whispers of revenants from the darkness distorted the doctor’s voice so that it sounded scratchy and breathless as a look of concern shadowed his face.

My lips parted to order him away once more when he stepped closer, the crunch of glass beneath his feet making him scowl when he glanced down.

“Don’t tell me—” He gasped, and my hands balled to fists when I saw the quivering in his jaw as he scrambled back, almost losing his balance in the mess of overturned furniture.

Too late. He had figured it out.

“Edward, its fine, don't freak out alright?” I breathed, hating the animalistic lilt in my voice as my wolf stirred even closer to the surface as if sensing trouble.

“You’ve turned…you’ve gone wild—” 

“You have to understand you absolutely can't tell anyone about this—” I tried again, raising my hands to calm him before the light from the fireplace bounced off my claws and the doctor choked through another scream.

The loud crack of his notepad as it fell to the floor echoed in the small room as he fell on his ass, kicking short stubby legs up into the air.

“Not now, tiger,” I growled inwardly, suppressing the almost reflexive urge to slash my claws across his face and shut him up that way.

The last thing I needed was the coward drawing attention to me when my bloodthirsty wasn't out of control yet.

I mean, I WAS talking to him wasn't I?

I needed to be by Milburn’s side, and if the twat was going to stand in my way then….

“Argh! Away! Get back! Guards! Guards help me!” He screeched, eyes damned near bulging out of their sockets as he scraped his body along the broken glass, oblivious to the tempting blood pooling from his cuts.

He smelled revolting. Fucks sake, I had better taste, why did he think I was going to eat him?

“Stay back! Stay away from me you monster!” He screeched, and the noise echoed like iron on chalkboard in my ears.

I hated it when they set my teeth on edge like that.

Something seemed to snap inside me as my wolf shot to the surface, closing the distance between us in one swift move.

I got to the door first, my powerful hind legs slamming it shut before the doctor had time to cry out.

I hovered over his whimpering frame as globs of drool fell from the corners of my mouth onto his face.

“Oh, Eddie…” I tutted, squatting when he flinched and brushing one blackened claw over the limp black strands on his head. 

Monster? He had no idea what a monster was capable of.

“I really wish you hadn't done that.” I finished almost sadly as my claws sunk into his throat and I watched the blood burst in his eyes.