90

There’s nothing behind those eyes, no life, no acknowledgement of who I am, and I pull everything in me to try and deflect one last time, only managing a slight push of air at his face which barely moves him at all. He seems amused by it, my feeble attempts, and drops me in a heap on the ground as though mocking me by delaying the urge to end me. My body drops, bashing rocks and sticks scattered across the ground as I slump into uselessness submission. I’ve never been so ashamed of myself.

I killed a bear on my own for gods’ sakes…. It’s not a hard choice. Turn and live, turn and fight him. Turn and live with knowing I ended the life of our children before they even had a chance to exist. I just need to let go of them, to save my people, just be brave, be a Luna, and maybe one day, we can try again. Once he comes back to me…once…… once……

“I can’t do it!” I cry out in anguish; loud and hoarse as it burns my throat and my soul screams in pain. Sobbing his way with a broken expression, focused on his empty eyes, even though he has no idea what I’m talking about. I wail in broken despair, pushing myself down to facepalm the earth, burying my face in the rotting leaves of the dirty musky soil. I know he’s standing over me, toying with his little mouse, and enjoying the slow build to killing me but it feels like I’m already dead inside.

The only way I would stand a chance with him is as a wolf. And it’s the one option I refuse to take.

I can’t save myself and end them, even if he kills us all. My wolf isn’t even trying to save me anymore, because she too knows that saving me will kill me in other ways. I’ll never recover mentally, emotionally, if I make that choice to put my life over theirs. I’m their mother, I can’t be the one to choose to discard them. They’re innocent and they never asked me to be created. They’re the product of our love, our bond, our time together, and I won’t be able to ever look him in the face again if I lose them to save him.

I love them both already. As much as I love him. Maybe more.

My wolf, it’s like her instinct to keep me alive has disconnected too and is in there with them, hoping she can keep them safe instead of me. She’s as torn as I and no longer is my survival, my safety, her priority in this fight.

His hot breath and panting raspy heat hits me right by my ear as he bends low and growls into the left side of my head. My body goosebumping all over as a cold wave turns my skin to ice. I freeze, holding my breath and tremble at his sudden proximity, still affected by him but with a growing fear. There’s a moment of still, a slight silent pause, where I actually wonder if maybe he’s doubting the instinct to deliver the final blow and stupidly for a moment think he won’t do it. Maybe there’s an ounce of him still inside his body, who’s fighting to save me too. I grasp onto that tiny inkling of hope, that our love is stronger than a spell.

I’m wrong

Colton thrusts a clawed clenched grab into my right shoulder with a fierce impale, tossing me aside, and sends me splaying back ten feet with the impact. I fly through the air, everything slowing down into surreal disbelief and any chance of finding my strength evades me. He sends my lifeless body into the trees without a way to shield myself, so I’m hammered by the impact, with a crunch, and cracking. My ribs shatter in the process, piercing soft flesh, and pulsing vitality, behind my armor. I can’t even cry out; such is the massive blow to my body, the immense scourge of immense hurt, which stuns me into numb uselessness.

My body plate is dented and warped, as I slide down from mid-way up the trunk, and crumple into a broken mess, at the base of a shadow oak tree that broke my flight. Crunching my splintered body into agonizing pain, the collision into hard wood has completely knocked the wind out of me. I lay in a mangled heap and grasp for air, mouth opening and body trying, but I’m like a fish out of water.

Unable to do anything at all except whine under my breath, and claw weakly at the dirt around me, trying like crazy to inflate my lungs even an inch. My shoulder’s wet from a severe set of puncture wounds that extend up onto the side of my neck, and I know it’s probably my jugular that’s making the flow so intense. The throbbing coming from there, in time to my low and weak heartbeat, pulsing out my blood with every thud.

I’m bleeding fast and hard and have another two claw marks across my arm where he must have cut me with his throwing blow. I raise my head with all I have left and catch sight of him walking to me, slowly, predator like, while my blood drips from his paw and claws like a red beacon that signals his betrayal.

As he gets within a foot of me, my eyes fall down and level with the huge, clawed feet coming to my face. I don’t know why, but he chooses this moment to turn semi human and the sudden sight of that tanned skin on normal feet, and strong legs, , standing so close, gives me the energy to take one last look at him, A slight hope that Leyanne has won and maybe he’s turning because my mate has come back to me.

My eyes rise to his, and I almost cry out loud once more when I still see only the deadly black obsidian of his pupils, in a human face that’s sneering my way in total disdain. Although his teeth and claws are still out and waiting.

It seems he’s chosen to toy with me until the end, and kill me in his weaker form, to show how pitiful I am. He doesn’t need to be wolf to do this, I’m not resisting. There’s no glory if he’s four times the size of me.

Colton please… don’t.” I beg breathlessly forcing the words out and crying silently as the inevitable becomes clear and a memory hits me full force in the face.

Colton’s dream… it was a vision; it was this moment. He saw my death – our death, because I wouldn’t turn. And now I know why.

He knew it, he felt it, and his dreams warned him of all that was coming. If only we took heed and never ventured into the forest again.

My hand slides to my abdomen, almost like a last final decision that their life means more than my own and despite knowing they will die too…. I just can’t be the one to end theirs. Colton would never forgive himself, and neither would I. It would be our undoing.

He walks forward, slowly, no care in the world, taking his time, and I screw my eyes shut and start to whimper under my breath as I accept fate. My body is broken and my blood seeping out at a rate that I know I don’t have much time left.

“I’m sorry.”

I failed them all.

My pack, Sierra, Meadow…My children……

My mate.