Ember
The mud in the area glued to my skin as I kept running in the forest.
And my feet were covered in mud and dirt from the potholes on the ground in the muck, my chest heaving so hard it felt like my ribs were trying to snap from the inside. Behind me, the dogs howled, hungry and wild. But the dogs weren't as scary as the men.
"There she is! Don't let the little rat reach the tree line!"
That was Silas. He'd lived in the barracks of my father's manor for ten years. He'd eaten the bread I baked. He'd watched me scrub the floors until my knuckles bled. Now, he sounded like he was hunting a boar.
"You can't run away!!!", …. turn yourself in." He kept screaming as he chased me down with dogs sniffing my scent and with thousands of armed men in wolves form and armour running in scattered across the forest.
"I can't let them catch me", I kept mumbling under my breath . I kept running….
I tried to scramble up, but my foot slipped on a mossy stone. I went down hard. Before I could find my breath, a hand grabbed the back of my tunic and hauled me upward. I wasn't standing; I was dangling.
"Please, Silas," I choked out, the words thick with the blood pooling in my mouth. "I didn't do anything. I've been quiet. I've done everything Father asked—"
CRACK.
His fist caught me right on the jaw. The world went white. I didn't feel the pain at first, just a weird, hollow ringing in my ears and the sudden warmth of blood spilling over my lip. He dropped me back into the dirt like a bag of trash.
"You're a ledger, Ember," Silas spat, wiping my blood off his knuckles onto his trousers. "The Alpha's books are messy, and you're the only thing that balances them. Now get up before I decide to drag you by your hair."
"Let me go!!!....i screamed as my voice cracked, trembling with fear.
He grabbed my arm and yanked me toward the clearing. Every step was agony. The jagged flint in the soil tore at my bare knees, but I cried out. But I didn't make a sound , even tho I was breaking into two pieces. I had learned a long time ago that in the Silver Moon pack, a girl's tears only made the men hit harder.
We reached the edge of the woods where the black iron carriage waited. My father stood there, dressed in his finest silver-threaded wool, looking as bored as a man waiting for the rain to stop. My brother, Ronan, stood behind him, nursing a bruised hand and smirking at me.
"She's damaged," my father said, his voice as cold as a winter grave. He didn't even look at my face. He looked at the chains on the carriage door.
"She ran, Alpha," Silas muttered.
"It doesn't matter," my father said, finally shifting his eyes to mine. There was no love there. There wasn't even hate. Just a deep, simmering resentment. "You were always a mistake, Ember. A stain on my name. Today, you finally become useful. You're going to the Shadow King to pay for your brother's failure."
"Father, no," I whispered, my voice breaking. "He'll kill me. They say he eats the hearts of—"
"Then die quietly," he snapped, turning his back on me. "At least do one thing right for this family."
" why will you do this to me?, …Ronan was the one who lost to the alpha. Why sell me ? ….i cried trying to find answers.
"His my son and you're just a proof of your mother existence " my father replied, his voice was cold as ever he didn't even look at me why he spoke.And then he walked closer to me crossing the distance between us , he looked me straight into the eye and said;
" I wish you die there, so I wouldn't have to explain your death," I saw the hatred in his eyes.
I looked at the king, not my father. Because at this point he wasn't related to me. I waited twenty-three years of my life to see him this close, to stare at me and today he did; just to sell me.
I couldn't utter a word. I just kept quiet with my heads bowed down.
And then.
The guards shoved me into the cage. The iron was freezing against my skin. As the lock clicked shut, I watched my father walk back toward the manor. He didn't look back. Not once. I slumped against the bars, my forehead resting on the metal, waiting for the end.
EVANDER
The madness wasn't a whisper anymore; it was a physical weight pressing against the back of my skull.
I gripped the reins of my horse until the leather groaned, my knuckles white and shaking. Every breath I took tasted like ash. The "Blood Madness" was a rot that started in the soul and worked its way out, and I could feel it reaching for my eyes, trying to turn the world into a red haze of slaughter.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
A secondary heartbeat was thumping in the base of my throat. It wasn't mine. Mine was a frantic, dying rhythm. This one was slow, jagged, and terrified.
I turned my head trying to figure out where the beat was coming from. But I couldn't see a glimpse of anyone more than my horse and just me.
"She's the one, our healer"….i heard my wolf whisper.
I turned my eyes scanning the area ,for what he was aiming at but I found no one, yet I felt I strong scent in the wind.
"Don't joke with me , little wolf" …..i warned him with a stern voice and I could hear him shrink but still stubborn as he kept repeating the same thing.
Suddenly , I could see a carriage approaching my destination.
I stared at it for a while , trying to see what was inside. Behold was a certain energy like a bond compelling me to move closer.
Then I suddenly could see an image of a girl sitting inside.
But then, the carriage hit a massive stone in the road.
The girl's head slammed against the iron bar.
CRACK.
"Ouch" I felt the pain like it was me.
I let out a raw, guttural scream, my body jerking in the saddle. A blinding spike of agony exploded across my own temple—exactly where she had hit the bars. I felt a phantom trickle of warmth running down my own face
"Alpha!" Thorne shouted, riding up beside me. "Your eyes... they're bleeding into black!"
"I know!" I roared, the sound distorted by the rage boiling in my gut.
"You can feel it too? ..can't you." My little wolf whispered to my ears.
"I can feel it" - I replied.
I felt our hearts been connected.
Every pain she felt I could as well and it made me panic.
"She's the one from the prophecy, the one who would heal you, breaking our curse" my wolf rose inside of me, glowing with joy.
I swung off my horse before it had even stopped, my boots hitting the mud with a heavy splash. I reached the cage in three strides. Silas stood in my way, his chest puffed out with a pathetic, local arrogance.
"My Lord, the prisoner is—"
I didn't let him finish. I grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the side of the cage so hard the iron rattled. I could feel the pulse in his neck jumping against my palm—the rhythm of a coward.
"You touched her," I whispered, the madness vibrating in my chest.
"I... it was the Alpha's orders... she's just a bastard..." Silas choked out, his face turning a sickly, dark purple.
"Every bruise you gave her," I said, my voice dropping to a growl that made the horses whinny in terror, "is a debt you now owe to me. And I don't settle debts with gold. I settle them with skin."
I threw him aside like a piece of refuse and turned to the cage. I didn't wait for the keys. I grabbed the padlock and ripped it off, the metal snapping like a dry twig under the force of my rage.
I reached inside and hauled her out.
She was light. She felt like a bird that had been beaten against a wall. The moment my skin touched hers, the screaming in my head didn't just stop. It vanished. The silence was so sudden it was deafening. It was the first time in three years I hadn't felt like my brain was on fire.
I pulled her against my chest, my face burying in the crook of her neck. She smelled like rain, strawberry covered in sweats and blood, but yet something divine.
"Don't," she whimpered, her small hands pushing feebly against my steel armor. " don't touch ….me again."
I pulled back just enough to look at her. Her eyes were wide, a deep, honey-brown filled with a terror that made my own chest ache. I reached up, my thumb brushing the split skin on her cheek.
As I touched her wound, I felt a sharp, stinging heat on my own face.
I looked at her, and a memory that wasn't mine flickered behind my eyes. I saw a woman with soft, tired eyes whispering a name into the dark.
"Ember."
She was combing the hair of her daughter singing a lullaby, then I saw the girl run around playfully with a doll then the image disappeared. I could see the girl face turn into the woman before me.
"Ember"…. The name kept reading in my head.
The name tasted like smoke and honey. It didn't come from the guards or the treaty. It came from the marrow of her bones.
"Ember," I rasped.
She flinched as if I'd struck her. A single tear cut a path through the mud on her cheek.
"How..." she whispered, her voice a broken thread. "How do you know that? My father... he never used my name."
"Your father is a dead man walking," I said, my grip on her waist tightening as the possessive urge hit me like a physical blow. "He didn't tell me. The bond did. I can hear your soul answering to it."
She looked surprised.
"What bond?….. she asked like a lost kid.
I leaned closer, my forehead almost touching hers. The Mark on her forehead that looked like a blemish—was pulsing now, a steady, rhythmic gold that made the shadows around us retreat.
"The moon goddess", ...the healer" my wolf rejoiced more in joy ,I could feel it happiness.
"You're not a prisoner anymore, Ember," I whispered, my voice a ragged shadow of itself. "You're my life support. My anchor. My leash."
I lifted her up, ignoring the terrified looks of the guards. I didn't care about the Silver Moon or the debt.
"If your heart stops beating," I told her, my eyes boring into hers, "the world ends. So you're going to stay alive, little light. Even if I have to chain you to my soul to make it happen."
I walked toward my horse, the girl held tightly against my heart. For the first time, I didn't feel alone.
I lifted her, placed her on top of my horse and then I climbed riding it home.
My men followed.