“She didn’t go down though, she kept brawling. Kept going, despite the devastating shot to her stomach, sacrificing herself for her kids, urging all of us to run instead of staying to fight with the adults. Justice and my father had run over to get Taleb, who’d been hit by one of the ATVs the hunters were driving, and knocked unconscious. But, I couldn’t leave my mother on her own. She was injured and I knew she needed to get to our healer fast. She was leaving a trail of blood behind her, but she kept snapping at me to run. Farica was hiding behind a tree waiting for me when hunters crept up on her. My mom tried to go after her but got struck by a vehicle and knocked over the side of the cliff… and I dove for her.
“Oh, Alek.” Bell caressed his rough cheek. Alek’s blue eyes were hazy and he was staring straight ahead, not focused on anything, as if he was watching the story he was telling play out like a horror film in his mind.
“I was hurting everywhere. I’d been hit several times myself and I think one of my legs had been broken. I thought my chest was going to cave in at the pain in my sides from the broken ribs. But, I still dove for her. She shifted from her wolf, holding onto my hand just long enough to tell me she loved me…” Alek choked on the last sentence. His throat worked up and down as if he was dislodging something massive there.
“Hey, shhh. It’s okay. You don’t have to do this now if…”
“No. I do. You need to know why I am who I am. And that it wasn’t Wrath’s fault.” Alek set the rag beside them and started using his hands on Bell’s shoulders, again letting the movement lure him back to his tale. “She said that I was going to do great things. But, when she opened her hand to let go, I clutched on harder. I was screaming for help because my arm was giving out, and the hunters had tranquilized Farica and were dragging her away, since her young wolf couldn’t fight yet. My mom yelled at me to save my sister. ‘Go! Save her Alek, you’ll need her’, she’d told me but I didn’t listen to her instructions. I was too conflicted and I couldn’t budge. I became paralyzed while the others waited impatiently inside for me to make the choice. I wanted to save my mom. Wolf kept pulling on me to shift and fight and then Wrath was tugging for me to save Farica and ourselves, because I was slowly going over the edge too. I was watching my baby sister be manhandled and kidnapped yet I held my mother’s battered body suspended over a cliff of sharp rocks and I couldn’t decide who to let die and who to save. So Wrath did it for me.”
Bell’s mouth fell open.
“Wrath exploded to the surface, and the first thing he did was wrench my hand away from my mother, letting her body fall. He tore us apart. Pulling Wolf out of the connection too. And when he did…” Alek shook his head. “I realized the pain I’d been feeling from my injuries had been nothing compared to losing them. I don’t know… I think I disappeared inside, and he and Wolf fought off the rest of the hunters. My hate was strong. As Wrath fought to try to protect the rest of the pack, I sent him my worst thoughts of him. I drowned him with hate and it affected the control of his flames.”
Bell eased his other arm around Alek’s neck, his fingertips curling into his wet hair. He wished he were strong enough to knead at the tension and strain bulging in Alek’s thick shoulders, but he wasn’t, so he’d have to be okay with the light rubs.
“Some of the pack members got in the crossfire… and were burned to death. Friends that we’d known all of our lives. My father’s only brother, as well.” Alek dropped his head. “A few shifters saw what Wrath had done, and most of them couldn’t handle it. Shifters all over the country were devastated at what happened to the Alpha Zenith and his family. Shifters had to mourn their loved ones, their lost mates, while the one who killed them was roaming free in the forest around them. When Wrath released the surface and I came to out of a thick fog of darkness, I was treated like a pariah. Even though I didn’t know what’d happened, and why everything was burned to the ground around me, they still saw me as a more dangerous threat than the hunters. A man with a rogue wolf, and a descendant of Hades inside him.”