CHAPTER FOUR: BURDENED BY TRAUMA

Niall Alcott

FIRE, the one element that threatened my life as a child, and here it was again, consuming my home.

Xander cupped my face, the volume of his voice barely registering. "Fight, Niall. Your people are dying."

Frantically, I darted around, my feet planted in one spot as crimson stained the once sandy earth.

"W-what are these?"

"Hollows." He said. Realising I had no idea what that meant, he continued. "Undead beings resurrected without a soul. Powered by the dark current of necromancy."

Nothing he said made any sense. All my life, hunters had been taught one thing: to fight for our right to exist in this world.

The population of Alphas had mostly gone rogue under the reign of treacherous ones who lived at the ends of the world, said to be the very ones who corrupted others into preying on different genders, most especially omegas.

And for that, we had to protect ourselves.

But this? This was beyond sinister.

"Brother!" Cyrus called out to Xander, who glanced at me once before leaving. Though he remained a stranger, my hand stretched out to grab him.

"Target the head. The skull specifically."

Don't leave me, I thought.

The heat of fire followed, then an explosion that shook the earth beneath me. My sight landed on Chris.

Without a second thought, instinct pulled my trigger, weakening the hollow pinning Chris to the ground. Once he gained the upper hand, he flipped it over and drove the handle of his pistol into its eyes.

The creature dissolved into an odourless vapour, dissipating like steam off boiling water.

I sped toward Chris and extended a hand. Around us, chaos was in full display, a procession of hunters battling these creatures while explosions tore through war barrels.

My palm was slapped away.

"I can stand on my own." He groaned, hauling himself upright.

I hissed but swallowed my irritation. Down to the very end with this one, it seemed. I should have known better.

"Where is Alpha Steele?"

"How would I know? You're not the one who had that beastly thing on top of him." He snarled.

My brows knitted, creases forming at the corners of my eyes.

"Fuck you, Chris. This is your duty as Hunt Commander." I gestured around us, making plain my assessment of his failures.

Hunters fought without formation, the discipline they had trained for reduced to nothing, each one moving only to survive.

His lips parted to curse me back, falling into our usual endless exchange, and then my mind landed on it.

"He'll be at the throne room."

Without another moment wasted, we pushed through the chaos. Alpha Steele worshipped nothing more than the heart of this pack, what sustained it. He was a man who held the soul of order sacred, and that soul was the throne of Moonblade.

Inside the castle, I weaved through a gauntlet of hollows, twisting out of their path by inches. These creatures, grotesque in the most terrifying manner, could run. Their movement was unsteady and driven purely by hunger, yet they were dangerously relentless.

Arriving at the throne room, I tore a spear from the wall and drove its sharpened end through the hollow closing in behind Alpha Steele.

"Sire." I drew close to him, eyes tight with worry. "You need to leave and protect yourself. We will handle this."

"I will never abandon my throne." He hissed through clenched teeth. My eyes dropped to his waist, where his grip held firm against a wound bleeding so heavily his trousers had darkened and clung to his skin.

"Sire, you are bleeding. We must evacuate."

"Sounds like the plea of a coward." Chris appeared behind me before positioning himself beside Alpha Steele.

"Chris, please. Do not let our rivalry cloud your reasoning. These things are undead."

On the way here, I had seen hollows with intact skulls resurrect after being brought down. Whatever was unfolding was beyond anything in our knowledge. This was a moment to pull back and understand what we were facing.

"Shit…" Alpha Steele's voice drew my eyes forward. More hollows swarmed into the space.

Sweat ran down my skin, the fire's intensity blurring my vision and dragging a cough up my throat.

I held my ground beside Alpha Steele, my spear firm in my grip.

Then another explosion tore through the southern pillar and Alpha Steele wrenched me from my position. I hit the ground hard, groaning, and opened my eyes to a thick cloud of dust following a heavy crash.

The slab of brick would have crushed me. He had taken the impact instead and suffered a violent dislocation. I scrambled to reach him, but the hollows poured in through the opening and lunged before I could.

Chris screamed, sending more hunters to tear them off while I stood, eyes wide, jaw dropped.

"Get off him!"

They tore into his flesh until bone broke through the surface and his blood soaked into the floor. Then Chris turned to me, unrefined rage carved into every line of his face. "You killed him."

For once, I did not argue with Chris.

I had killed my Alpha.

"You fucking killed him!"

He came at me with a sword and I shut my eyes. In that moment there was no time to think. I accepted whatever fate was rushing toward me.

Then I was pulled away. An arm locked around my waist and tore me out of there. One moment Chris was still raising the sword, and the next, the remainder of the roof caved in.

In a blink, we were outside. Impossibly and Inhumanly fast, but it had happened. 

Xander.

I turned back to face the castle as it collapsed to its very foundation.

A painful lump formed in my throat and my body shook with something I could not name. The grief pressing through me was beyond anything my mind could hold.

I ran back toward the ruin, only to be sent flying when another explosion detonated from nowhere.

14 YEARS AGO

"You fear fire, don't you?"

A man approached me, tall and composed, even with blood smeared across his face and his clothes torn to rags. I looked far worse.

"It burns everything. It hurts."

He stretched out his hand. "You are no longer caged, little one. Will you follow me?"

Hesitation filled my wide eyes. "Who are you?"

"My name is Steele. I am Alpha of a pack named Moonblade. I can make you strong enough that you will never be caged again. Do you want that, little one?"

I nodded.

"What is your name?" He smiled.

"Niall Alcott." I did not think twice.

I took his hand and asked. "Why is an Alpha trapped here with us? Alphas are not weak like us omegas, are they?"

"You are sharp, Niall. But you are naive. Be patient and you will understand everything in time."

Together, we ran from Emrys. Together.

The burning against my face pulled me back to the present. The metallic taste of blood coated my tongue, evidence of my impact against the earth.

"Get a grip, Niall. Your entire pack is gone." Xander stood before me.

I looked around. He was right. Nothing remained but death, smoke, fire, and settling dust.

I shook my head.

"Kill him." Lucious' voice came from somewhere behind. "It is a risk to leave a witness. We are untraceable for this reason and we intend to stay that way."

Xander glanced back at me, deep in thought. "Or he could prove useful. He may be the key to understanding Cyrus's hypothesis."

Lucious turned to Cyrus without a word to either of us. "What say you?"

The question seemed to land on someone only partially present. Cyrus hummed and gave me a slow once-over.

"Well. He is a non-shifter and an omega hunter." He simply shrugged.

"That settles it. Kill him." Lucious ordered.

Though I had accepted that I deserved death, looking into their eyes now, there was not a trace of hesitation in them. They closed in, ready to end it here.

With my death would come the end of Moonblade Pack. Just like that, we would have meant nothing.