The Awakening and The Lie

Mine.

The ancient, guttural voice echoed through my skull, vibrating against my bones with a terrifying, untamed power. It wasn't my voice. It was deeper, richer, and dripping with bloodlust.

The brightness of my eyes shone through the obscurity of the room in the antique mirror like two stars. A pureblood Luna.

Kaelen choked an airy breath over me. His huge body stiffened to the last drop. I caught the reflection of his ice-blue eyes, and his pupils were enlarged, his eyes fixed upon the unnatural flash of light in the glass. He opened his lips, his Alpha aura blazing in the air, his handsome, cruel face in utter confusion and shock.

Cover it, my instinct of survival cried.

I closed my eyelids with a bang and threw my chin immediately to my chest with a sob of pathetic misery. I bent my shoulders as much as possible, and made myself look as little and shattered and human as I could. My heart was beating against my ribs, in hope that he would shout, in hope that he would seize me and take me to be sliced in the presence of his father.

"What is it, Kaelen?" Caleb broke the great silence with his harsh voice. I heard the sound of his garments rustling, and he had a step towards me. "Did you break her already?"

Kaelen did not respond at once. I was almost being burned by his gaze on the top of my head. I smelled the smothering odour of black ice and dark cedar, heavy with his distrust. He moved nearer, the point of his costly leather shoe touching my bare knee on the carpet.

"Look at me," Kaelen commanded. It wasn't a request. It was an Alpha order, with a heavy compulsion that I felt like snarling in my newly awakened wolf.

Razed out his throat, the savage voice in my head grumbled.

No. We play their game. We live, I told my wolf, and pushed her into the dark depths of my mind.

Slowly, I raised my head and opened my eyes. I tried not to shed the humiliation tears, and looked up at him with large and frightened, all-too-human brown eyes. The silver had disappeared, bound up underneath a good disguise of obedience.

Kaelen looked deep into my eyes in the hope of discovering the strangeness with which he believed he had beheld me. His jaw was tightening, one of the cheeks twitching. He studied his reflection in the mirror and shook his head at me. A trick of the moonlight. An image of the broken lamp glass. This is what he was telling himself. He could not imagine that the fates of this shining on the face of a poor human malformation were the legendary eyes of a real Luna Queen.

She is pathetic, Kaelen at last spat, but no longer with the lethal conviction with which he had just talked. He turned his back on me, shoving his black hair. "We're done here for tonight. Get out of my room, both of you. Leave her."

Jace heaved a dramatic sigh, and, following the path of a tender, teasing finger down my back, walked off. "Shame. I had only started to have some fun. Goodnight, little sister."

Snorting, Caleb turned his heavy feet back to the door. Never forget you, human, not in the clear. Tomorrow, the actual games start.

The door, which was heavy of oak, burst open and poured a momentary square of yellow light into the room, and burst closed behind them. The deadbolt skipped into position.

I was alone.

I didn't move for a long time. I remained on my knees in the middle of the dark room, hearing their dying footsteps along the great passage of the east wing. It was not until there was complete silence in the packhouse that I got the breath I had suppressed out.

I went down on my heels, sitting backwards, and my hands trembling, as I clasped them together before my chest. There was a warm, humming energy that throbbed beneath my ribs where there had been nothing in nineteen years but emptiness.

Here I am, my voice was telling me. Now it was more docile, motherly, and ferocious. I have been sleeping, sweetie. The dark magic of the Alpha King had repressed me when you were a child. But the feel of your mate... his rejection... it broke the seal.

My eyes welled with tears; however, they were tears of not dread. They were awe-stricken, with relieved tears. I wasn't a defect. I wasn't weak. I had a wolf. And not just any wolf, a Luna.

We shall kill them to make us lie on our knees, growled my wolf, pacing in my mind in a cage.

We will, I said to her, wiping the wetness on my cheeks. But we cannot just attack. Kaelen is the most slain warrior within the territory, and Thorne leads an army. Provided they discover who we are, Thorne will suck us dry so as to become immortal. We have to be smart. We will be just as they make us to be a broken submissive toy. We will let them get close. And then we shall kill them inwardly.

My wolf gave a deep, contented grunt of assent.

I struggled to my feet on the floor, sore in my muscles with the strain. I went across to the large window and raised the heavy velvet curtain only a little. It was the setting of the blood moon, yielding to the pale, bruised purple of the early dawn.

I had managed to survive the initial night. But today, I needed intel. There was a time I had to visit my mother, and I had to know what Thorne was putting in her veins.

In two hours, my door locks turned open. An omnipresent servant with high heels slipped in silently, leaving a plain beige dress on the bed, and rushed away without a glance. I took a shower in the bathroom that was next to the one, looking into the mirror and watching my brown eyes. I exercised my terrified, shy face. I began to rehearse at concealing the fire that was boiling in my soul.

I put on the beige dress and went into the corridor. The packhouse was enormous, an enormous castle of black marble and silver ornaments. It was very early, and the major corridors were largely deserted as I wound my way into the high security medical wing where my mother was being held captive.

I got as far as the frosted glass infirmary doors. Two heavily armed enforcers guarded, but looked scarcely at me. They simply thought of me as the new human stepdaughter to the King. Harmless. Invisible.

I entered the doors, crossing into a white-tiled corridor in spotless condition. At the very end was my mother with her suit. However, coming closer to the door, I could hear voices talking in the neighboring supply room.

The sound was instantly registered by my newly increased Luna hearing.

Alpha King requires the decreasing of the dosage, a clinical voice with a deep, rough tone said. It was Dr. Vance, the lycan-healer of Thorne.

"Lowered?" Another voice asked. But, sir, in case we reduce the amount of the silver-lace extract, then her lungs will start to crystallize again. She will be in absolute agony."

I stood still, my back hard to the chilly tiled wall, my breath stopping in my throat.

Precisely, that is what you mean, eh, Dr. Vance? The King does not desire the healing of her healing. He wants her dependent. Supposing the sick mother is suffering, the human daughter will be submissive to the young masters. It is a leash, nurse. Nothing more. Put the diluted syringe ready for her morning dose.

A pure, unadulterated venom rushed through my veins.

My mother was not dying of an inborn condition. Thorne was purposely maintaining her illness. The drug was not a remedy; it was a poison to ensure that we are stuck in this nightmare.

took out his throat! my wolf cried, and tore at my brain. I felt the desire to kick the door open and kill the doctor was so great, my fingernails even elongated, and I was on the point of becoming murderous.

I had to get in there. I was forced to steal the actual medicine. I stepped forward, and my hand went to the doorknob of the supply room.

Then, a huge, creamy hot hand grabbed roughly and squarely upon my lips.

I have not yet been able to scream as a strong arm wrapped around my waist and lifted my feet completely off the floor. I was thrust downwards, and with terrible velocity, pulled off the door and kicked, kicking, into a small dark linen closet on the opposite side of the hall.

The door shattered closed, and we were engulfed in utter darkness.

I kicked about, getting both my hands into the air to attack him, but he grabbed both of my wrists with one colossal palm and tied them above my head, on the shelves. His other hand had stayed over my mouth, and was choking my scream.

The odor of black ice and dark cedar filled the small room overwhelmingly and intoxicatingly.

"Are you completely suicidal?" Kaelen was whining and raging in his deep, furious voice, his hard, muscular body against mine in the dark.

You know, you hear my father talking, and you are dead, not to mention his guards.