Bloodmark

by Aurora Whittet

  I wanted to throw up. I felt sick with the idea of his body touching mine. Losing Grey, losing everything—to die even—I could endure. But to be raped? I couldn’t stand the thought. It made every inch of my skin burn with hate, but I felt too weak to fight or shift. I wanted to live, but I didn’t know if I could fight this to the end.

  Maybe Grey and I would meet in another life. I wondered what kind of creatures we would be. I believed with all my heart that he loved me, that he still held onto my heart after his death, and that I would be with him again. With the amount of blood I was losing, I would be dead soon anyway.

  “Come to your senses, brother,” Bento said. “You will be starting a war.”

  “I won’t let you do this,” Eamon said.

  “You won’t let me?” Adomnan laughed, letting go of my arm. I crumbled to the floor.

  “No. I will not let you do this.”

  The two squared off in human form and lunged at each other. Their bodies clashed together, and their growls echoed off the walls. The sounds dripped with their hatred for one another. It stemmed deeper than this one moment, I was sure. Eamon threw Adomnan into another glass pane, and Adomnan broke through the window. The glass rained down two stories below into the snow. Adomnan’s body dangled outside the window, bent out awkwardly and faltering, as though he might fall, but he caught his footing and lunged back into the room. He slammed Eamon’s body into the iron bathtub.

  Eamon cried out in pain as his right arm broke, hanging unnaturally at his side. A twisted laugh escaped Adomnan’s lips. Eamon retaliated, ramming his body into Adomnan’s chest, slamming him to the ground. His lifeless arm still hung at his side as he crushed several of Adomnan’s ribs.

  But Adomnan wrapped the chains from the shackles around Eamon’s throat as he kicked him in the back. A cracking sound came from Eamon’s neck. With the sound of an animal dying, Eamon finally fell to the ground in a heap, gasping for air. It was all over so fast, a clash of gods in mere moments. Bento rushed over, helping his fallen brother back to his feet.

  “Will you not stand by me, brothers?” Adomnan said.

  Neither brother answered Adomnan’s call to fight. They just stared back at him. He was once their brother, their leader. Now they had to decide if they stood with him or against him.

  “Choose!” Adomnan screamed at them. “Choose!”

  Eamon’s head fell with shame for his elder brother.

  “We can no longer protect you from yourself, Adomnan,” Bento said. “We cannot stand with you.”

  Adomnan nodded and turned his back on them. After centuries of loyalty, their blood bond was broken. It was almost heartbreaking to imagine, but it wasn’t so different from what I had done to my family, fleeing from them as I did.

  Eamon was too wounded to fight again. I could see it in the way his limbs hung unnaturally at his sides. With the silver poisoning him, making him temporarily mortal, he needed to escape, or he would die easily at his brother’s hands, like his father before him.

  “I failed you,” he said to me as Bento led his broken body out of the room.

  There was nothing and no one left to stand between Adomnan and me. No one left to protect me. The truth of his imminent rule over me made me sick.

  After studying his wounds and torn garments, he turned to face me. “There are no more fleshy bodies standing between us,” he cooed, his voice soaked in a false admiration. “It’s just you and me, and now we can finally be together.”

  He said it as if it were my wish to be with him, as if he were fighting for what I wanted. He reached out tenderly to touch my cheek as a lover would, but I flinched away. He grabbed my chin, nearly crushing the bone with his force, and turned my face back to his.

  “I will grow my pack from your womb, and you will not question my rule again.”

  He rubbed his thumb roughly over my lower lip, splitting it. A tiny bead of blood formed in its place. He leaned down and sucked the blood off my lip as I squirmed away with a whimper. The smell of his sickly sweet breath made me gag, and his saliva pooled on my lower lip, mixing with my blood.

  Lust and power filled his eyes as he devoured the taste of my blood’s lineage. His soul dwelled in perpetual darkness. His large hands slid to my shoulders, gripping my small frame as he caressed my skin. He wanted to break me, to own my body. His touch made me feel filthy. I wanted to peel my skin off my bones to remove his touch. Every part he touched became his. I couldn’t bear the idea of having to carry this tainted flesh for the rest of my life. The shame of it was almost too much. His hands made their way down to my stomach, lingering where his hateful seed would grow. His touch was soft, but it may as well have been a knife. I wanted to hide inside myself, to stop feeling what was happening. I could let my soul die with his touch, but if I did, it would never return. A dead, soulless trophy at the side of a killer.

  His fingers lightly grazed over my sex as bile quickly filled my throat. I wasn’t going to let him hurt me. Not this time. Not like this. The wild animal inside me filled my blood with adrenaline. I felt my golden eyes fill with hate as rage consumed my flesh like wildfire, burning away his unwanted touch. I slapped his chiseled face, leaving a red welt in the shape of my small hand on his cheek. He turned back to me laughing.

  “Don’t act crazy,” he said.

  I bared my teeth with a smirk. “You haven’t seen me crazy yet,” I sneered.

  He threw my body across the room, and I slid into the base of the cast-iron tub, cracking my ribs and splitting open my shoulder wound again. I leapt up onto the edge of the tub on all fours. Crouched like the animal I was, waiting to attack. A cry escaped my lips—it was a cry from hell itself. My body shook and trembled as I lunged into the air, shifting into a wolf. My body filled with the blood of Old Mother as I crashed into him without leaving a single mark. He easily blocked my attack and slammed my body back down on to the floor, knocking all the air from my lungs.

  “It’s nice to see you in your proper attire,” he said.

  He was just trying to get under my skin, but he was already there. Already fueling my hate. My hackles stood on end. I wanted his blood. I wanted to see him take his last breath. I wanted him to die.

  “I have been waiting for you to accept what you are. You are a killer. And you are my queen,” he said.

  He slowly stalked toward me. Every step he took made me hate him more. He was trying to break me, but I wouldn’t obey him. With each step he took, I measured my next move. I remembered everything Mund had taught me about fighting, and I lunged forward, clamping my teeth into the flesh of his arm, tearing away at the muscle. He screamed in pain as he dug his fingers into my shoulder wound. The pain was nearly unbearable.

  Involuntarily, I released my jaw and backed away, but he pursued. I tried to calm the pain and panic as I watched my opponent. He was older, stronger, and a merciless killer. I had to be precise and calculating. I sat back, pretending to submit to him, luring him to me.

  “Good girl, accept your master.”

  He kneeled before me, looking deep into my eyes. With a flash of my sharp teeth, I bit into his face, ripping his left eye from the socket. He let out a violent scream and held the bleeding socket where his eye had just been. With his other hand, he slammed me across the room with the force of a sledgehammer. I slid to a stop as I watched his hand desperately feel his empty eye socket as the blood seeped over his cheek.

  I felt weak from starvation and injury. Blood still poured from my shoulder—it wasn’t healing fast enough, and I was so very tired. This was my last chance to survive. I had to be his killer. Saliva pooled onto my dry tongue at the thought. The animal inside me consumed my soul. The girl of Ashling was all but lost in my rage. Suddenly, I felt stronger than I ever had before. He was still kneeling on the floor, pieces of him missing. He stared into my golden eyes with rage. Did he know he was locking eyes with his murderer?

  “There is no one to save you now,” he said. But he was wrong; there was no one to save
him. I didn’t need to be saved. I would save my bloody self.

  I lunged forward, knocking his body to the ground. His throat was in my mouth before he knew what was coming, and I ripped the life from his body in one sharp snap of my neck. The smallest gasp came from him as his soul left his body. His blood coated my fur, matting it down in its sticky, sweet scent.

  I stood over his lifeless, decapitated body, still growling at his flesh. As though he could still hear me—hear my rage. I wanted him to know how he had hurt so many, but there was nothing left of him. He couldn’t hear my hate. My soul would never be darker than it was in that moment. But I didn’t allow him to touch me or anyone else ever again, and that was the only thing that mattered.

  Adomnan’s guards came barreling into the room, ready to fight. When they saw me standing on their master’s chest with his blood coating my fur, they stopped dead in their tracks. I had beaten their false king.

  They looked as though they could be brothers, bred for this life. Both were bulky, muscular men. Which meant the same in wolf form. Both had hair as black as night and dark circles under their deep-set, sinister eyes, though one was clearly younger than the other. They were trained killers. Their sole purpose was to protect Adomnan and kill any who threatened him. But Adomnan had made a mistake. Thinking he would be able to take me with ease, he instructed them not to intervene. They had failed him, and I delighted in that fact. It was my duty to put nature back in order and protect Old Mother’s way of life.

  The older one lunged at me, grabbing hold of my front paw before I could get out of the way. He broke it with his bare hands.

  I wiggled my broken paw free from his grip and limped backward as the two pursued me. I had no way out of this room. With my shoulder still bleeding, a broken paw, and cracked ribs, I was in no condition to beat these two guard dogs.

  “I will crush your bones,” one snarled.

  I took another few steps back, keeping weight off my damaged paw. The ache throbbed up my leg into my chest. It was hard to keep my killer instincts with the pain in my body screaming at me.

  I growled at them as my body finally backed into the wall. There was nowhere to go. I was trapped and they knew it. There was no time left to reflect on my short life, but I had accomplished one great thing, and my fur was still coated in his revolting blood to prove it. I had saved the world from one sadistic murderer, and that was enough for one lifetime. My suicide prize.

  One of them reached his hand toward me, but I snapped at it. He laughed at my attempt to hurt him. My death was nothing more than a game to them, and it was only a matter of time before they won. So many had died for Calista’s vision. It seemed unfair that so many lives had to be destroyed because of an idea of unity.

  “Come here, little red. I won’t hurt you. I always wanted a pet.”

  He grabbed my neck, pulling me forward. My nails dragged and ripped at the marble floor, but he held me tight in his steel grip. No matter how I writhed, I couldn’t free my broken body from his tight restraint. I had expended my energy in killing Adomnan.

  Finally, I was able to turn enough to sink my teeth into his cheek, ripping his skin. I spat out his disgusting flesh, but the potent flavor remained, tainting my tongue. He easily threw my body into the corner of the room, splintering my broken ribs into my lungs. The pain burned through me as I struggled to breathe. The thunderous ringing in my ears made it impossible to hear. I tried to stand, only to fall back down in pain. Broken. I was on the ground, bleeding for all I loved.

  I wanted to breathe Grey in one last time to fill my mind with the happiness I had once felt in his arms. I closed my eyes to the pain. It was as though I could really smell him. His earthy scent intoxicated my mind, swirling into my senses and shutting off my ability to feel any of the physical pain. The overpowering feeling of Grey’s love filled my animal heart, melting away any remaining hate. His love consumed all of me. I breathed him in again and again, thinking of his deep green eyes, his chiseled jaw, and his delicious lips. Oh, to kiss his lips again. I would let go of this life just to feel his warm lips on mine one last time. I knew I should fight to live, for the pack, but I was exhausted, and my only thoughts were selfishly of Grey. Suddenly, I felt a hand lightly touch my matted fur and search for a pulse. I opened my eyes to Grey’s beautiful face.

  It was impossible, but there he was. He was just as I remembered him, though his eyes were deep with sadness and fatigue. Was I already dead, or had he followed me all this way only to be too late? I was dying—I could feel the end was near. I could feel my soul slipping away.

  “Ashling,” he said. My name was only a whisper in my ringing ears.

  Grey turned his attention back to the two startled guards as he pulled broken glass from his hands, casting it to the ground. His blood was all over the broken window he had crawled through. A deep, unrelenting growl ripped from his chest. His body naturally curved, and he lunged forward as the two attacked him. He meant to kill them, but he was only a human. He couldn’t win this fight. I tried to stand to protect him, but my body was too badly broken, and it wasn’t healing as it should. I fell back down with a whimper. The younger one had a hold of Grey and started repeatedly punching him in the chest. I could hear his ribs snap one by one, but Grey didn’t cry out, and my body was too broken for the new pain to register.

  Satisfied with his brother’s abilities to win against the mere human, the older one lunged at me, shifting into his wolf form. Smashing into me and pushing my body back several feet, he smeared the floor with my blood. The giant black wolf stood above my broken body, and his dark eyes glared down at me. He stepped down on my broken paw, and I cried out in pain.

  Grey’s growl grew even more inhuman; it was a sound I had never heard any other creature make. He broke free from the grip of his captor and lunged at the older black wolf who was hurting me. Grey’s body vibrated, and his head cocked to the side as his bones began cracking. His golden chest ripped through his shirt, exposing his bare skin as his arms tore out of socket. I was petrified with fear watching his body break apart. Suddenly Grey’s growl changed to a haunting howl as he shifted into a wolf, right in front of my eyes, landing on my attacker’s back.

  It happened so fast. I had to be hallucinating from the pain and shock. But there he stood, nearly three times my size—my Grey, a dire wolf. A large gray wolf with bright-green eyes that danced with hate. He tore into my attacker’s throat. With a horrible gurgling sound, the dead wolf fell to the ground, blood pouring from his wounds.

  The stench of blood filled the air, smothering out life. The younger wolf had shifted, and he leapt onto Grey dominantly and bit into his back. Grey let out a desperate howl. He flung his head around, biting the guard in the face, crushing his skull. My sight started to flash and flicker. I blinked hard, trying to keep my eyes on Grey, to stay alive for him, but it was a lost cause. My body involuntarily shifted back into my human form, and I curled my naked body into a ball, gasping for air as I lay in the cold pools of blood.

  Two more wolves rushed into the room howling, but it was too late. My eyes closed to the pain. I could hear the fight raging around my lifeless body. My breaths came out in small gasps, barely getting oxygen into my lungs, but with each breath came Grey’s fantastic scent, and it comforted my pain.

  I wanted his arms around me. I wanted him to hold me and tell me it would be all right, that we could finally be together. He had followed me around the world and fought to save my life, to see me this one last time.

  I love you, I thought. Before I could imagine the words on his sweet lips, I drifted into unconsciousness.

  24

  Survivor

  “I won’t leave her,” I heard Grey say.

  I blinked hard, trying to get my vision to focus. I could see Grey’s handsome face in the center of the darkness. He stood by the bed, rage rippling through his strong body, shaking his core—like a young wolf learning to control his shifting and anger. His black dress shirt was open a few butt
ons, revealing his deliciously golden skin. I wanted so much to call out to him, to scream his name, but no words would come out. I needed to touch him, to know he was real, to know I was alive.

  “You have no place here,” Flin said. “You’re not one of us.”

  Grey stood his ground against my eldest brother. His back was to me as they faced off. He couldn’t see my face as I silently screamed for him. I tried to scream again and gagged for air. Flin’s face was filled with distaste; he wouldn’t tolerate insolence from anyone.

  “Listen, man, I’m not going anywhere. Why don’t you just get used to looking at my pretty face,” Grey said, his voice filled with sarcasm.

  I had missed the sound of his voice, and it sent tingles down my spine. I loved the way he stood up to anyone who stood between us.

  Flin shoved Grey, but he was unwavering to Flin’s anger. Grey was fighting for the right to be with me, and frustration overwhelmed me. My body was unmoving and my voice was lost. I couldn’t break through to them. This time Flin hit Grey with all his strength, sending Grey flying backward into the nightstand next to me, smashing it. The pain shot through my body like flames licking at my skin. Grey growled territorially. His body curved; he was readying himself to attack my brother. My hand searched for him with all my strength, and my fingers barely touched his.

  Grey jumped away from me, startled by the gentle touch. His green eyes were wide with concern as he knelt at my side. He held my limp hand in his, rubbing warmth and life back into it. He studied my pale face as though he hadn’t seen me in years. I smiled weakly, touching his cheek with my other hand, and he kissed my palm with his warm lips. His touch was my salvation.

  My brothers ran in surrounding Flin. Mund smiled, and his acceptance was all I needed to know we would survive this new battle. I looked around the room and finally realized I was at the Rock of Cashel in Calista’s bedchamber. No one used this room. It was preserved the way Calista had left it on that fateful day. The beautiful gold chandelier with inlaid rubies hung above me, lit in all its glory, casting its golden glow onto our skin. The room was exquisite.