Chapter 39
I dash through the forest, my dress tearing and ripping from the trees and branches catching it as I move.
The beast growls behind me, but I’m not the same girl it had fought before.
I quicken my pace, pushing my legs to move faster as the forest around me begins to blur, creating more distance between me and it.
Scraps and cuts form on my arms and legs from branches and rocks catching me, small droplets forming a trail down my arm, mirroring the one on my cut palm.
The beast bellows, picking up pace to match me and closing the distance between us again.
We move together through the forest, heading deeper inside and further away from the academy.
I slow slightly as the beast nears and lunges from behind. Twisting around, I whip my blade out and take a swipe at its torso as I tumble beneath it. It lands in front of me, turning around quickly as I grip my Elven blade.
Its unearthly blue-eyes narrow toward my hands. It growls again, before moving toward me. It reaches me just as I kick off a tree behind me, thrusting my blade toward it.
It dodges and I land behind it, twisting back around and jumping toward its unguarded back again, but it quickly dodges me, and my blade catches on a thick tree root below it.
I try pulling the blade out but the beast lunges for me again and I have to dive to get out of its path. I quickly twirl around but am just a second too late as the beast is upon me.
It hovers over me, its cold icy breath brushing against my skin as its teeth fall inches from my face. Would this be my end? Would the beast finally take its meal? Or would it somehow spare me again for its own cat and mouse amusement?
It leans down toward me, its eyes in line with mine. And never before have I seen such luminous blue eyes; so huge and monstrous and yet so deep and endless. It's then that I notice its eyes are no longer pin-points; no longer crazed or mindless.
It had become the beast I had first met, one of intelligence and of the huge predator I knew before.
It bares its teeth toward me, a low growl pouring from its mouth as it sits face to face with me. It opens its jaw and I instinctively close my eyes.
I didn’t want to die again, I couldn’t…I had too much to do in this life; my revenge and freedom and…Annex and Ezra.
No. I promised myself I would never give up and that I would always fight.
I open my eyes, ready to give this bastard the fight it never expected from me, when I suddenly feel something warm and wet on my hand.
The beast leans down, lapping at the wound on my palm. Did the bastard want a little taste first?
I try to move my hand, but he growls and I freeze. He continues licking my hand, until all the blood is gone and the wound is fully clean, and… healing?
The skin was slowly closing, the cut healing quickly on my hands.
I narrow my eyes at my hand and then toward the beast, who has moved to the scratches on my arms and legs and doing the same to them. What the hell was happening?
Was it helping me? But why?
Or was this another one of its games, wanting to heal me and lull me into some sense of security before shredding me up like noodles?
I try to move away but the beast growls again, this time nuzzling at my arms, its black and white-tipped fur ticklish against my skin as it shifts closer to me.
Its eyes meet mine again and my breath catches in my throat, something small tugging deep inside me. These eyes weren’t the eyes of some animal or wild beast. They had a depth to them, an intelligence of a higher level, and an anger and anguish I would recognize with ease.
I reach my hand toward its face, and this time it doesn’t stop me. I brush my fingers through its fur; the feeling soft and warm against my hands.
A noise vibrates from its chest, not a snarl or a growl, more like a chuffing noise.
My hand reaches above its jaw and its eyes slowly close. A small breath leaving its lips with my touch.
Suddenly the beast begins to tremble and shake, its figure convulsing above me as my eyes flicker back and forth between its head and body as it changes.
What was happening, why–
My thoughts are cut off as its body begins to shrink, its arms and legs slowly shifting from the huge beasts shape into something else.
This was a transformation I’d seen before…by shifters.
The murderous beast was a shifter?! But I’d never seen or heard of something so big and powerful being a shifter before.
My eyes flicker to the body forming above me…a very naked body. They trail up his toned legs to his very large… package …I move quickly up to his torso and the tight six pack there before trailing up the muscular arms sitting to each side of my head. And that's when we meet. Two grey-blue eyes.
A very familiar pair of grey-blue eyes.
Mallyn’s.
His face is now fully visible and not hidden by a hood. His white hair shines almost silver above me, his skin almost a porcelain shade as his eyes swirl with hues of grey and bright blue. But it's his face that captures the air from my lungs.
It's a face that could rival even Creed’s modelesque features. But where Creed had a classic Grecian God kind of beauty, Mallyn’s looks were a mix of light and dark, of soft and sculpted. Looking at him was like seeing a Fallen Angel. Something truly breath-taking and untouchable.
He sits above me, his eyes glued to me with my hand still cupping his cheek.
I move to take it back, when he suddenly shifts forward, leaning further into my palm with his eyes never leaving mine.
A strange look pulls at his features as he gazes at me, his eyes slightly widening before they soften almost just as instantly. His mouth parts, “ Micai, I –”
“Micai!”
“Red!”
Ezra and Annex’s voices echo out behind us with their footsteps following soon after.
“Mic–” Ezra's voice cuts off, his shoes now at my eye level before he moves to help Mallyn up off me.
“What are you–” Shouts Annex as he comes up beside them. “Oh.”
Ezra tells Annex to give Mallyn his jacket to wrap around him, while he takes off his own. He pulls me up toward him and wraps his teal shirt around me.
I meet his turquoise eyes, a shaky sigh falling from his lips as he pulls me closer and leans his forehead against mine.
“Never again, Micai. Never do that to me again.” He kisses the tip of my nose as his hands slide around my waist, a slight tremor in his fingers as he pulls me into his bare torso.
“Don't ever do something so dangerous again, and don’t ever leave without me. I’ll always follow you, no matter where.
” He pulls back, his eyes narrowing, “Lead the way…but don’t ever leave me behind again. ”
Annex wraps an arm around Ezra, his eyes meeting mine in a mock glare before grinning.
“I told you she was my kind of crazy.” He places his hand on my cheek, brushing his rough fingers along my skin before his grin fades into a more serious look.
“But Ez is right. This …” He gestures between us all.
“This isn’t negotiable. We go where you go and vice versa, Red.
Never leave us behind again.” His gaze softens slightly as a warm smile stretches his lips, “It's too late to run from us…you’re ours now.”
Ezra nods as a grey-blue pair of eyes gleam behind him. A strange look forming on Mallyn’s face as he takes a step closer to us.
Mallyn had always been an enigma, but now a piece of that has come undone. He was the beast and predator I had come to know and fear, my forest rival and foe.
Is that why he always kept his distance from me?
The eyes I’m gazing into now don’t seem like the same creature from moments ago though…
A plethora of questions flood my mind, my thoughts racing back and forth, when suddenly a shout rings out around me.
A set of hands grab me before I can think and throw me to the ground, sending me tumbling to the forest floor.
I pick myself up, my vision slightly blurry and my head ringing as voices sound out around me.
I rub my aching head and scratched arms before pulling myself up straight.
Turning back, I see Mallyn snapping the neck of a large grey beast. Blood runs down a huge curved black horn on its head as it falls limply to the ground.
Green liquid oozes from its mouth. But if that was its blood, then the red blood on its horn…
“Stay with me, Annex.” Ezra’s voice is shaky as I look over to him…and to where I had just been standing.
Ezra’s crouches over Annex’s body, his hands pushing down on a large gaping wound in his chest. Blood seeps through the gaps in his fingers as he tries his best to stop the bleeding.
I rush over as Ezra’s shouts to Mallyn telling him to get Creed, to get help…but everything fades to white noise in my ears as I edge closer to Annex’s side.
My heart comes to a screeching stop as I stare down at him. Annex….
A pool of blood seeps out below him, his eyes fluttering open and shut, his face falling paler by the second as his breathing grows raspy and gurgled.
I slowly crouch down beside him, my hands fumbling to take his in my own. His cold fingers grip weakly onto my hand as his head turns slightly to meet me.
He tries to open his mouth and give me a smile but starts coughing instead, blood spluttering from his mouth with each painful bark.
I grip his hand tighter, squeezing it as I feel a vise wrap around my chest and my throat feeling narrow.
“Stay with us, Annex,” Ezra pleads, his hands pushing down harder on the wound. “We still have to punish Micai for not listening. You don’t want to miss out on that do you?”
A small gurgling noise falls from Annex’s bloodied lips as a weak smile stretches them. A feeble sound follows from his throat, but it lacks any of his normal dark playful tones.
“No…ca…n’t mi…ss that.” His voice sounds frail and shaky, growing weaker with each syllable.
But I shake the thought from my head. I had to focus.
Annex would be fine, nothing could kill this psycho. I just had to help him until someone came.
But what could I do? My eyes flicker toward the shirt draped over my shoulders.
I pull Ezras teal shirt off and place it on Annex’s wound. Ezra nods, taking it from me and using it to help stop the bleeding.
“Red…” Annex calls weakly. I take his hand in mine and lean down closer, thinking about what I could do to help keep him conscious and here with us until help arrives.
His eyes flutter as a trickle of blood drips from the side of his mouth, and a panic like no other slices through me as I watch his complexion darken.
I grip his hand, pulling it toward me as nonsensical words fall from my mouth.
“You always call me Red. Red this and Red that…why, it makes no sense!” My voice is a little more high-pitched than I’d like, some of my panic seeping through as Ezra tries to call for help.
A small feeble grin embraces his blood stained lips, “Closer Red…”
I bend in closer, his voice almost like a whisper in my ear as he beckons me to him. A gurgling sound falls from his lips as he tries to chuckle again, his eyes fluttering a little as I squeeze his hand.
“It's because…you're everything that colour stands for…and more. Dangerous. Fearless…And a temptation…I shouldn’t touch or want…but can’t help coming back to…You’re the salvation I never knew I needed. My Red .”
“Annex…” I pull back slightly, my face a mere couple of inches from his as his fingers twitch in my hand.
I take his hand and place it on my cheek, his feeble smile growing a little.
He coughs again, more blood seeping from his mouth and down his neck as my mind goes blank.
The sound of his breathing grows weaker with each passing moment and panic lances up my back and splinters through my chest.
This couldn’t be it.
Annex couldn’t die. Not him, not the demented psycho who was blood mad, who annoyed me to no end, who tried to take my food, and who…made me laugh and smile.
The ache in my chest starts to grow, spreading to each limb, my fingertips feeling weak as I clutch his hand and watch as his eyes turn hazy and dark. My throat dries up, my breath coming out in small gasps trying to pull whatever air I can into my lungs.
My hands tremble as the memories of the day I lost Zrael flood my mind. I couldn’t lose another person I loved…I wasn't strong enough. The grief and pain almost killed me the first time.
Life wasn’t worth living when Zrael left me, only my pain and revenge spurred me on.
But Annex and Ezra…they brought a part of me I thought I’d never have again back.
They filled a part of the gaping hole trying to consume my heart and soul and made me smile again.
They made me feel like there could be more to this life than I thought, if maybe they were in it with me. They gave me hope .
Tears trickle down my face as I hear Ezra’s voice somewhere near.
The fingers on my cheek brush weakly along my skin before instantly loosening.
I grip his hand, the weight becoming heavier in my grasp as I lift it toward my lips.
I place a shaky kiss along his fingers, praying to whatever Gods there are that they help.
That they save him. And don't take him from me.
Our eyes meet and I watch on as the glint from those piercing blue eyes darkens, his hand now limp in mine as I clutch it.
Everything around me darkens, each sound and feeling falling numb as the broken pieces inside me further crack and splinter.
A part of me leaving with his last breath as death takes another piece of my soul with him.