Raptor
Igo to the bed and sit cross-legged, placing my clammy, shaking hands on my thighs and close my eyes. I haven’t locked the door, but the alphas are distracted with Pix and bonding with their other omega.
We’re not avoiding him.
Okay, we are, but we have reasons, and at the moment, he’s an excellent distraction.
When I open my eyes, I’m inside my head.
In the special place. I’m sitting on a stone throne, my hands on the cold slabs.
In front of me are cobblestones that have been placed so that they circle anticlockwise.
There are several more stone thrones in the dark room, but only six are in the light and occupied.
In here, we all look different. But it’s just our mind, the deepest, darkest place in our head that is safe for us to talk.
Raven has inky black feathers coming out of her face and down her arms, she has massive wings that are black and glossy, her eyes are as dark as ebony. She is a cold and unfeeling creature, haughty, and noble. Different from the rest of us.
Sometimes I wonder if she’s even human.
Merle has glasses and messy mouse brown hair. She looks like she’s in her early twenties, but she almost never makes eye contact. She’s wearing boots that lace up to her knees and a skirt, which is new. Normally, she’s covered head to toe. I guess the alphas are helping her to evolve a little bit.
I adjust my grip on the chair, drumming my long and deadly nails. They are, of course, painted a bloody red.
“Are we ready to discuss this?” I snarl, breaking the tense silence.
The thrones in the shadows rumble, vibrating, but they stay in the dark. For now.
Jay leans forward, his sword across his knees, glaring at me. “We can’t go back there.” He’s got blue hair, blue eyes, pale white skin, and looks desperately sad. There’s a gold key on a chain around his neck. Sometimes I wonder about that key and what it’s for.
I lift my chin, my inky blue-black hair falling around me. “I don’t see that we have a choice.”
Kestrel stands up and walks into the middle of the space. She’s got a long gown on; it’s soft and green, her hair streaked with reds, browns, blonds, and one white lock on her brow. Her eyes are violet, and she smiles too much. She is soft, but that is her strength.
I like to imagine Kestrel is who we should have become if life didn’t try to chew us up and vomit us out.
Jay stands up, glaring at Kestrel. “No.”
His long hair is held back by a gold coronet, and I think he’s wearing leather armor.
“I think we need to do this. We go to him before he comes and takes what is ours,” Kestrel says with a sad smile.
Raven pops her chin on her fist and watches with a blank expression. I want to punch her in the face.
Merle starts to shake and jitter her leg.
I pull out a dagger and start spinning it in my hand. I can’t kill them, I’ve tried. It does nothing but piss everyone off, but it’s tempting right now.
I glance to my left and see nothing but a mound of huge, stuffed teddy. I heave a sigh, feeling the part of me that is still soft and caring get all gentle.
“Dove?” I whisper. “Come on, sweetheart, we need to figure out how to save the alphas. You like them, don’t you?”
The teddy shakes, and the sound of a child crying starts.
“I guess not.”
“Now look what you’ve done!” Kestrel growls at me and goes and kneels in front of Dove.
The sound grates, but only because it demands for us to do something to fix it, but we can’t. The past isn’t something we can erase. We can’t eliminate the pain. No one can stop Dove crying.
No one can stop her pain.
So, she just cries.
All the time. It never ends. In every moment of our lives, we can all hear her in the background. Sometimes she weeps, sometimes she howls, sometimes she sobs, but she cries.
And we need to protect her.
“Argh!” I throw my hands in the air. I stand up, pacing and staring into those dark spaces. What’s in the shadows? What’s on the other side of this field of light? What will I find?
“Raptor?”
I turn back with a smile, finding Raven ruffling those damn wings. I sashay towards her, walking in stilettos with expert ease.
“What are you up to?” I ask on the sly, glancing at Jay, Kestrel, and Merle, who are gathered around Dove.
“Me? Nothing at all.”
I whip my head toward her. I might be a cold-blooded killer, but Raven is something else. She’s…I don’t even understand her purpose, but she’s more than us. Something special.
“Why are you a beta?”
“Why would it matter what I am?” she asks me with a smile that is all too innocent and mocking.
“I don’t know, but don’t you think it’s weird that we’re all omegas but you and Jay?”
She shrugs and reaches out, brushing some imaginary lint from my shoulder.
“Don’t touch me,” I growl.
She laughs, her eyes cold, the smile not reaching them. “So sensitive.”
I huff.
She turns away, going back to her chair and sitting down.
With a silent signal that none of us hear, we all return to our seats and sit down.
“We need to go to him. Bring the fight to him,” I say succinctly. “We need to kill him this time!”
“He will be expecting it,” Kestrel says sadly. “He’s too smart. Maybe we could trap him.”
“Yes, but if we don’t go to him, he will come and take the alphas. You’ve seen what he does,” I insist. “Would you like to see Blaze hanging in that tree with a gaping wound in his chest?” My voice echoes, sharp and hard.
Jay makes a choked sound and squeezes the blade of his sword until blood drips from his palm.
“We have to protect them,” he says at last. “They don’t know what he’s like, but we do. We can survive him. If we have to…we can survive the pain again.”
Raven is sitting quietly, not saying a word, just watching us all talk.
“What do you think about all this?” I snarl at her.
She shrugs her delicate shoulders. “I think we should protect your alphas.”
I narrow my eyes. “Why haven’t you come out and met them yet?”
Raven affects an expression of deep surprise. “Do you want me to?”
I glare at her. Fuck these mind games! “Are you not part of us?”
She shrugs again, smiling down at her lap. “I guess so. Okay, I would like to meet them.”
“You guess so?” I snarl, my temper rising to the surface, igniting like the fire that now races down blue veins that colour my skin.
“I thought you might all enjoy time with them, without me. I know I upset you all. It seemed like a kind thing to do.” Raven sits all innocent with her horned halo on, and the others just fall for it.
I scoff.
“Raven, please,” Dove whispers. “We need you.”
Raven sits back, chastised. For some reason, where none of us can, Merle and Dove can drag the humanity back into that beast. Would that they could drive her back out into the shadows.
“All right, so our plan is to what? Go out there, run away, and hand ourselves in.”
“No, that won’t work,” Kestrel says. “We’re going to have to deceive them.”
“Deceive them?” I echo, looking around. In the dark, opposite my throne, I think I see the flicker of yellow that could be eyes reflecting light in the dark. Leave it alone. Do not go courting danger, Raptor.
“Yes, we’re going to have to lead them somewhere safe and leave them there while we go and meet up with Father, and Raptor will kill him. He won’t expect us to come to him.”
Merle whimpers and shrinks into her stone chair.
“Okay, so who is going to-”
“It has to be Merle,” Raven says suddenly. “She’s the only one they will trust completely and without question.”
Merle starts to cry, which sets Dove off. I roll my eyes and turn away, frustrated with the incessant noise.
But then, I am an alter who was born of helplessness and rage.
I created this space. It took a long time and learning and listening to the others to create it, but I have excellent visualization skills, and it just sort of became the one place we can really see each other.
It’s the deepest part of our minds, hidden where no one can reach it, a million tonnes of mind and rock enclosing the space, like our mind is a castle, and this is the hidden room deep in the belly of it. There are no doors, no windows. Just the dark, the thrones, and us under the candlelight.
The floor is wet, and I can hear dripping, but I can feel the warmth from the candles, too.
This room is as real to me as the rest of the world is.
It means everything because it’s our place.
Where I can see them, where they can see me.
We might drive each other insane, but we are closer than family.
“What’s going to happen when we go into heat?”
My elbow slips off my armrest.
“I beg your fucking pardon?” I shriek.
Raven pouts prettily. I want to smack her in the head.
“What happens when you all go into heat? Whose heat will it be? Do you have one each? Do you even have a heat? What if Jay has a heat or I do?”
“Of all that’s fucking holy, why would you ask that?” I shout at her.
I swear, I hear the darkness laugh.
"I dunno, it’s been bothering me.”
“Bothering you?” I stand up and let out an insane scream that echoes.
She just watches me with an amused twist of her lips.
“We will sort it out later,” Kestrel says with a wary look at me. “Let’s focus on the problem at hand.”
“Which is who is betraying our alphas?” Jay snarls. “And you all think poor Merle should do it.”
I want to blame Raven, but I do think she’s right. Merle is the best choice.
“Yes, we do,” Kestrel says calmly. “They trust her. They will follow her blindly.”
“But where?”
“Anywhere, so long as it’s nowhere near-” Raven pauses, standing up and looking around. “Someone is coming.”
Raven crosses to Merle and grabs her shoulders. “You can do this, sweetheart. You take them where they are safe. So they can live another day. We’re all relying on you.”
I can see the terror in her eyes.
“Keep them safe, Merle. If we’re going to have a life. If we are going to live, we’re going to need all of them.”
Merle looks terrified. I don’t think she can do this.
Jay cocks his head to the side, listening intently.
“Merle?” The voice is male and coming from a long way away.
Merle shudders, her eyes rolling.
“We will be with you every single step of the way,” I whisper.
You won’t leave me? Her silent question, thrown with a single glance of her eyes, is a desperate plea that’s impossible to miss.
“Never,” I promise.
“I’ll be right here,” Jay whispers.
“Always beside you,” Kestrel murmurs.
Raven puts her hand on her shoulder and stands behind her and to the left. “Ready?”
Dove starts to cry in tiny, pitiful sounds, hiccuping. We ignore her.
“You’re going to save them,” I whisper, and then she slips into the space, taking our body, while we fade from the room, going back to the dark where we belong.