14 — The Rogue’s Eyes

Damon’s POV

There was the smell of blood on the wind before the messenger came. It was subtle, but clear enough to give my wolf the hairs up. I sat on the edge of the training range, watching the patrol unit come back with taut faces, eyes flicking towards the tree line, as though afraid of what was walking behind them.

One of them lowered his head limply, panting. "We got rogue tracks near the eastern border - fresh. Not the usual scavengers."

I frowned. "How close?"

"Too close. They did not run away like the rest. "It was as though they were watching us."

A chill slid down my spine. Rogues never hung around unless they had to. And lately, too many causes returned to one and the same.

Aria.

I didn't waste another second. My wolf rode under my skin, agitating, pacing, defend her. I ran towards the forest, not heeding the voices screaming for me. The trees grew dense as I ran, their branches scraping the sky.

Every breath brought in her scent - soft, familiar, maddening. But this night it was contaminated with something else. Smoke. Fear. And blood.

"Aria!" I screamed my voice ringing in the woods. "Aria, answer me!"

No reply.

The forest quieted down, the air unnatural and heavy. Then I saw it - broken branches, upturned earth, and the ghost of little feet pulled through the mud. My pulse spiked. She had been here. And she hadn't gone willingly.

My wolf snarled, fighting to take over. I let him stand halfway up, through the senses, heightened, hearing every movement of the wind.

That's when I smelled it - the scent of the male under hers, the scent of a stranger.

Rogue.

There was a violent and pure rage within me.

I tracked the trail further until I heard the first snarl. Steel met flesh. A cry split the air--hers.

I stormed through the clearing like a breakaway.

Aria lay on the ground, grappling with a tall ash-grey furred body with yellow eyes that shone not only with madness, but with something else. His claws caught her arm, drawing blood, and she attempted to fight back, but he was stronger. Too strong.

My wolf came out and took control of me before I even had a chance to think.

"Get away from her!" Roaring, I moved halfway, bones cracking, seeing blood in my eyes. The rogue turned, with a snarl on his face. Something passed through his eyes--then disdain.

"So the mighty Alpha came for her," he spat, his voice gravel and venom. "You think she belongs to you? You don't even know what she is."

I didn't wait to answer. I lunged.

We crashed together, claws and teeth and anger. The fight was brutal, fast. He was an accomplished man, too accomplished for a simple rogue. But my wolf was faster. Stronger. And when he moved to attack my throat I sank my claws into his side and tore through him until his body became limp upon the dirt.

After this silence was deafening.

I stood over him, breathing hard, blood dripping down my arm. My wolf took a long time to back as I turned towards Aria. Her body was shaking, her face pale, her eyes wide, not with fear of me - but something else.

"Aria," I knelt down beside her, breathing heavily. "You're hurt."

She recoiled as I took hold of her arm. "I'm fine."

"You're bleeding."

"I said I'm fine!" Her voice broke on the last word of it.

And I stopped dead, startled by the shake in her tone. She wasn't looking at me. Her eyes were staring at the dead rogue, tears shimmering in her lashes.

"Aria?" I tried again, slower this time. "Do you know him?"

She didn't answer. Her lips opened, but no sound was made. Then, slowly, she stood up and went to the body. Her movements were shaky, almost zombified. She knelt by him, the fingers shaking as she wiped the matted hair away from his face.

"Aria," I said, moving closer.

"Do not meddle in my affairs."

"Don't," she whispered. "Please."

The word froze me in place. She had grief in her voice; I'd never heard that in her before.

She looked at the rogue's face for quite a long time. Then, in a voice barely above a breath, she said, "He called me by another name."

I tensed. "What name?"

Her eyes flicked up to me then - haunted, breaking. "Zyra."

It sounded like something that had entered me, something dark and familiar, a shadow of something I'd never heard her say.

"Who was he?" I asked again, although I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the answer.

Her lips trembled. "You shouldn't have killed him."

I was sharp with my tone, sharper than I'd planned, and he would have killed you. "He was a rogue, Aria--"

"He wasn't just a rogue!" She screamed, turning on me, tears in the dirt on her cheeks. "You don't understand!"

I took one step toward her, and my jaw was tight. "Then make me understand."

She glanced away, shaking on her shoulders. At one point, I thought she wasn't going to speak. Then she whispered, "He used to be my brother."

The words are sharper than any sword.

I looked at her and my brain tripped over the meaning of what I had to say. Brother? My eyes moved to the body, to what I had missed about his resemblance to her - the curve of his jaw, the silver thread in his hair that was her hair too.

"Your... brother?" The word heavy in my throat, I repeated.

She nodded weakly. "Before everything. Before I was brought to Redmoon. Before Zac. As a child, we used to be attacked by rogues. I thought he died. I was connected with him by a bond through which I felt his death. Her voice broke. "But he didn't die, Damon. He became one of them."

I approached a little nearer, but she flinched away.

"Zyra," she said again, and her voice was hollow. That was how I was known until everything did. When they joined the Redmoon Pack, my parents changed my name. They told us that it would keep us safe.

Safe. There was nothing safe in this.

My wolf stirred uneasily. There was more to her story - more to the girl I thought I knew. "Why didn't you tell me?"

She looked at me then with an eye glistening with pain and defiance. "Because I didn't want you to look at me like so."

"Like what?"

"Like I'm cursed."

The word between us is like the hanging scythe.

I reached for her hand, but she retracted it, shaking her head. "You don't understand, Damon. My family, we as a family, it did not happen by chance. We were marked. Someone wanted us dead. And now they're coming again."

Her voice became a whisper - a tremble. That's what he came to warn me about.'

The forest around us appeared to be holding its breath. The blood, the silence, the dead rogue - it all felt like the beginning of worse.

I moved closer, my voice low, steady. "Then they'll have to pass through me first."

Aria looked up, and tears were spilling freely now. "You can't fight what's coming."

I brushed a strand of hair from her face, allowing my thumb to linger underneath her chin. "Watch me."

The wind returned, and this time it was cold and stinging as it blew the stench of more trouble on its back. My instincts screamed that this wasn't over - by far.

And as I glanced down at the rogue's dead eyes, I knew something unsettling.

They were the same shade of silver as that of Aria's.