The light of life

Violet:

The moment we crested over the ridge into Darkwater, the silence of the forest hit me. There were no birds, no lingering prey, not even the rustling of a hungry animal in the weeds. 

I looked around at the fog coating the forest, and I told myself that was all it was… fog. 

Soon, my denial bled out, and clarity filled me. I saw it for real this time, the smoke that curled into the sky in thick, black plumes, heavy and churning. This wasn’t the soft gray of hearth fires or the pale drift of morning cookfires. This smoke was oily and wrong. The closer we got, the more you could smell the burning timber, the burning flesh. 

We were too late…

 By the time we reached what was left of the gates, the wood was charred, and the metal was twisted like broken bones. Bodies lay scattered on the grounds. Some I recognised as Darkwater members, and some I knew as Badland rogues. Either way, the effects of this battle cost more than just gates and buildings.

“Alec…” I whispered through the link he and I now shared, brushing up against his mental shields that stood like some impenetrable force. 

“Shields up, Violet. We don’t know if someone lingers.” It almost hurt that he dismissed my concern for him, almost… I learned a long time ago not to let men get under my skin, but this man… he was different.

Nonetheless, I ensured my shields were iron-clad, untouchable, and quiet. Instead of sulking like I wanted to, I listened. 

I jumped from Alec’s back the moment we crossed the gates. From behind me, I heard him shift; the sounds of bones breaking and sinew ripping filled the night air as my boots scuffed along gravel. 

Alec immediately began yelling orders… 

“Fortify the perimeter!” 

“Check for survivors!”

My mind went elsewhere. My gaze fell to the western tree line, where flames still licked high and hot. I didn’t make it fifteen yards before Marcus called my name, pulled me behind what was left of the infirmary, and pushed me against the wall. I hissed when the brick bit into my skin through my thin shirt, but that didn’t stop his panic. 

“Violet, I told you, you need to get out of here. I called in a favor at a neighboring pack, they’re offering you sanctuary, this fight is going to get you–” 

“Get her what, cadet?” Alec appeared through smoke and chaos to stand behind Marcus. 

“Killed,” Marus answered without hesitation. 

In that moment, I couldn’t tell if it was hurt in Alec’s eyes or agreement. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” I answered simply, shrugging out of Marcus’s grip, stepping away from both of them and their pissing contest to look toward the west where the smoke curled and clawed at the sky. 

I hated that I could feel Neal… 

“Scent the bastard,” Neoma whispered. It was the first thing she had said in some time, and the shock of it made me jump. 

“I don’t think I can,” I told her, knowing I likely could, but… did I really want to? 

“Violet, sometimes we have to do things that leave us uncomfortable. I’m with you, we can do this.” I took a deep breath, shaking my tingling fingers, blocking out Alec and Marcus, who were still silently arguing behind me, and I focused, reaching into that deep, dark part of me that I had long since locked away, and I tugged at that rotting coil that tied me to Neal. 

“He went west!” I turned, grabbing Alec by the arm, hauling him toward the west. 

“I know, sweetheart,” he said softly, tucking the hair behind my ear.

“Let’s go after him then,” I pulled at him again. 

“I already sent scouts after him; they’re going to report back the minute that they find him or something useful to us,” I had hoped that those words, his calm, collectedness, would have eased something in me, even if it were a fraction of ease, but it didn’t. 

“I have to go,” I told him softly. “I have to end this.”

“There is no way I am letting you walk into an active burn zone,” His eyes ignited with his lycan, as if it were territorial at the thought of me leaving. 

I shook my head and turned away, but the moment that I turned away from him, his hand brushed along my shields, filling my mind with one word… “Please!”

“Violet, my scouts will report soon, and I promise you we will go then. Just stay put for now.” Outwardly, he was harder, tougher. But that hand brushing my shield, it was soft, begging to be heard. 

“What if he gets away?” I asked him.

“He won’t, Darkwater holds the thing he wants most.” I looked around at the carnage, and then I realized that the thing Neal wanted most was me, and I nodded. 

“Alec!” Russ came running up to us, grabbing Alec by the arm, “We need you,” he said before running back from where he came. 

Alec held his hand out to me, and without thinking, I took it. I let his warmth spread through our entwined hands and into my soul, letting his presence ease the chaos swarming me as he led me to where Russ and Asher stood over a pup clinging to the body of a lifeless mother, and my heart cinched up tight. 

“Hi there, little one.” Alec squatted next to the child, pushing the sweat-soaked hair from his little face. 

“Alpha, my mama!” He cried, making me fall to my knees. 

I realized then I couldn’t do what Alec does, I couldn’t be their person for everything. 

“I know,” Alec said softly, then he touched the ground, his lycan fronting, its eyes glowing so bright in the night they were damn near blinding.

A sharp breath filled me when I watched swirling light, the same light I built in his mind, swirl down his arms and into the ground, spreading outward all through Darkwater. I watched in awe as the houses and buildings began knitting themselves back together with that light, as the trees splintered and groaned until they stood tall again. 

I watched in awe as the fire burned out as if it had never been there, and then, as if the moment couldn’t be anymore incredible, I watched the blood on the ground next to the Darkwater members begin to shift and shiver until that blood was being drawn back inside the dead, and just as my head began to spin, the mother in the little boys arms took a long, deep breath, and then… I collapsed, swallowed by the darkness that Alec had rid Darkwater of entirely.