Movement No. 34
Tempest
My eyes flutter open and for a second I think I’m having another nightmare, but my senses are telling me this is all too real. The air smells like smoke and blood, and I look up to see Yasmeena’s golden gaze staring down at me, my head resting in her lap.
“What’s happening, nuisance?”
Her eyes are watering, and there’s dried blood clinging to her scalp and forehead. “Pack Escalus attacked. They figured out where Gemma and I were hiding, so we lost some of our edge of surprise, but we’re doing okay.”
“Is anyone hurt?”
“Someone is definitely dead, and another seriously injured, but I don’t know who yet. It was some pack members I’ve never seen before,” she answers.
“Who of ours?”
She blinks at me, confused until she realizes I mean the carnies. Ours. I see myself as one of them, just as much as I see myself as a part of Pack Escalus.
“Leo is over there. Baelor as well, but I don’t know who else. I still have eyes on Draven and Khalid, but everyone else is scattered,” she answers, and my heart drops.
“Where’s Gemma? Where’s Absinthe?” I say through coughs.
“Gemma is injured, she’s hiding. I need to take over for Draven so he can help her. I haven’t seen Absinthe since we dispatched.”
My mind is going every which way. I want to check on Gemma and make sure Leo is alive. I want to find Absinthe and speak to the members of my pack, but most importantly, I want to see my father.
“Where is he?”
“Just up ahead,” she says, helping me sit up.
Fenris and Khalid are fighting right in front of us, fire meeting rock as the two use their magic. I lift my hands, shooting a block of ice straight for Fenris’ head. As he falls to the ground, Khalid moves forward, giving me a clear view of my father and Draven.
“Does he have more than one rune tattoo?” Yasmeena asks, and I nod.
“Yes. One for lightning and one for thunder, though I don’t think he knows how to tap into the second one fully. He’s strong, but he’s close to the edge where his body won’t be able to handle any more magic, and it’ll start to destroy him from the inside out.”
Her brows furrow. “Has that happened before?”
“Yeah, to my uncle Abel. He had three runes tattooed on him. It’s how my father was able to overthrow him and become Alpha.”
Greed is one Hel of a drug.
Cain and I lock eyes, and instead of looking at me with love or care, or even concern, all I see is rage. It’s at this moment I realize he is not my Alpha, not my father, not anything to me any longer. He’s a shell of the lupion I once thought I knew.
“You betrayed me,” he shouts, his strength levels clearly rising as he begins to overpower Draven.
“Draven, go. Go to Gemma,” Yasmeena yells, and Draven lets go, concern contorting his features as he darts for the popcorn stand.
Cain’s eyes track the half-demon, so I click my tongue as I stand. “Over here.”
“You were supposed to be my heir.” He shouts, turning toward me.
“You were going to continue my legacy. You’d marry Ferdinand, produce more heirs, and combine our packs.
There would no longer be Pack Escalus or Pack Capulet, but one singular Pack Lupine, as it should be.
” His words are slurred, and that’s when I smell it.
The fresh ink.
“Did you get another rune?” I ask, feeling the one on my back flare, sparking with life.
“I did. I got one for power, can’t you feel how well it’s working?” His forehead wrinkles, a grotesque smile forming on his lips.
“What about Abel?”
“I’m stronger than Abel. I have always been stronger and better than Abel. He should never have been made heir. I was the first born, it was rightfully mine,” he says, face turning red in his fit of rage.
“It was never supposed to be yours.”
My grandfather killed Balthasar Escalus, to become Alpha, and Stephano Escalus chose to exile himself after my uncle took power. When my father murdered Abel, Stephano returned, happy to serve the wolf who had avenged his father’s death.
But the role of Alpha should’ve been his. It was always supposed to belong to Stephano.
“You think Stephano should be Alpha? Stephano bows to me. He’s here tonight, killing your precious freaks.”
I shake my head. “Stephano wouldn’t kill anyone. He’s not like you—”
“This is why I chose Tyrus and not you. He understood what we could become and was willing to die for it. We both knew you were too weak. You would never agree, so I never told you everything.” His words hit like venom, only deepening my hatred for him.
“This is why your mother left. She blamed herself for your weakness.”
I can see the magic crackling at his fingertips. He inches towards me, taking a step with every word, and I know the second I let up, he’s going to blast me, ending my life, yet I find myself frozen. My muscles scream, begging me to move, but my feet remain planted on the ground.
“Tempest,” Yasmeena yells. “Tempest, he’s doing this on purpose. He’s saying whatever he can to hurt you.”
Except he can’t hurt me. Not anymore.
As a child, I blamed myself for his wrongdoings. It was my fault my mother left. My fault whenever things went wrong. My fault when Tyrus died.
I was taught that every bad thing that happened to my pack was due to my mistakes. For not being strong enough, or for being unlovable. My father didn’t need chains, no, instead he gave me a voice that sounded just like his so I could be a prisoner in my own mind.
So I adapted. I kept quiet. Learned to flinch before his fist hit my cheek, learned to apologize before the accusation even left his lips.
I used to think the pain in my chest was weakness, but turns out it was heartache.
I thought love was something to be earned, something you had to suffer for, so I became willing to bend and bleed for a tenderness that never came. For a father who would never care.
I mistook obedience for honor, and cruelty for valor.
The accumulation of everything that’s ever happened to me hits me like a hammer, breaking my bones, leaving me destroyed. Every sweat-glazed night terror was a memory my brain was desperate to forget, and every beating I endured was not an Alpha forging a warrior, but a monster forming a wound.
Heat flares from behind me, and Fenris screams in agony. Draven runs across the field, Gemma in his arms, and I can hear Reina and Khalid, but everything is muffled. I think they grab Yasmeena and pull her away, but I can’t see anything other than my father as he stalks towards me.
The entire grounds seem to shake with untethered power and it’s as though I can see my father’s mind being corrupted in front of my eyes. He was always the villain, but the atra is destroying him, just like it did Abel.
I have to be the one to end this.
Coils of magic threaten to release from under my skin, and I let go, unleashing myself upon him. Frost blooms from the tips of my fingers, growing across the grass between us. Ice forms on his boots, crawling up his legs and chest, over old scars I used to trace as a child.
There’s a part of me that wants to stop here and let him be locked away in prison, or let someone else finish the job, but I know deep down that it has to be me.
The ice makes its way up his neck until I can no longer hear him. He is completely frozen, unable to move, but his eyes are still wide. His breath creates a fog until I can no longer see his face, but my magic keeps going.
Layer upon layer, ice upon ice, I completely encapsulate him in a frozen tomb.
My mind clears, realizing how quiet it’s gotten on this battlefield. Khalid finally lets go, allowing Yasmeena to run towards me, and I wrap my arms around her.
I kiss her forehead, and she hums. “You’re okay, princess.”
“I’m okay,” I repeat, and place a finger under her jaw, tipping her head up to look at me. “How are the others?”
“I don’t know. Draven took Gemma. Reina and Khalid are fine, I haven’t seen anyone else. There are definitely some dead lupion,” she says, and I nod.
“I heard Fenris—who else? Gregory and Sampson?”
Yasmeena shakes her head. “They’re both unconscious. It’s some lupion I’ve never met before.”
“Show me.”
We walk over, Khalid and Reina flanking us, and find Leo and Baelor both bleeding and unconscious.
“Rowan, come help me carry them,” Khalid yells, and Rowan runs over to us.
There are six dead lupion on the ground, none of which I recognize. “These are not Pack Escalus. They must’ve been exiled, packless wolves, hired to serve my father.
“That’s because half of the pack was planning a mutiny when they found out Cain’s plan,” Stephano says, coming out from the shadows. Crow’s feet line his eyes, his graying hair pulled back in a low bun.
Absinthe is beside him, her face covered in dirt and blood, and Yasmeena and I audibly sigh in relief.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I say, and run to hug the older lupion. “Where were you?”
“Blame me! We were hiding,” Absinthe says. “He found me, but when we both realized we were fighting on the same team, we decided to hide out and come up with back-up plans.”
Did they not see us getting our asses handed to us? “Back-up plans for what?”
“If Cain’s power went berserk, and he managed to electrocute everyone,” Stephano explains.
“I was going to join the fight, but then I was knocked unconscious by some metal shrapnel. So, naptime for me,” Absinthe explains, hooking an arm around Yasmeena.
“I’ll help her and the others get back to camp, or maybe the hospital, but I’ll be back,” Yasmeena says, and I give her a small, parting smile.
“I’m sorry, did you say a mutiny? Does this mean you’ll finally take your rightful place as Alpha?” I ask, but he shakes his head, his expression serious.
“No, Tempest,” he says, his voice firm as stone. “You are Alpha now.”
I inhale a sharp breath. There are too many hormones coursing through my bloodstream for me to properly enjoy this moment, but I nod.