Emerald
“Why dinna yu try tu eat more while I go tu grab the bandages?” he tells me and I nod. Even though I’m not hungry, I see he’s putting in effort to truly care for me, and I don’t want to seem ungrateful.
“Okay,” I smile nodding and watch him get up and kiss me on the head, leaving me alone for the first time since we left the hunting grounds. I blow out a huge breath, not knowing how to feel…
All my life I’ve literally had to fight for just scraps of food… but now I’ve got a bag full of gold on a bedside table near me, I’m laying a plush bed big enough for a ten foot giant baby, fresh fruit… and an Alpha who’s calls me his precious one and even more than that… he treats me like it too…
A lump rises in my chest, but like always, I swallow it down… Don’t cry… don’t cry… d… Tears spill from my eyes, and an all-encompassing anger pours from me. Why… why couldn’t I have sh own my mama this kind of life? Followed by Envy that people could actually live lives like this from birth!
I sob silently to myself when I hear a sudden loud blaring horn than make me jump and my heart pound… I know that horn… I pant, sweating immediately, anxiety overcoming me, feeling as if I’m back in the Hunt, but I see my peripheral, the projector is on, and it’s broadcasting the Hunt…
I frown, eyes drawn to the flying projector even if I don’t want to look. It’s as if I cannot help it… The projector is split into four quadrants, and if you want, you can click and watch one full screen, but I just let all four of them play, eye greedily but horridly taking in everything.
In my zone, the reruns of the so called “epic battle” replays constantly, zeroing in on my battered and blood-slick body, but I don’t want to see that…
living it was enough for me… no, I turn my gaze and watch them.
The others. The strong ones I noticed from the carriage ride, the only ones who didn’t break, just like me…
and I smile with pride to see them still alive!
The one with the eyepatch fights alone in a black wasteland… no sun, no sky. Just jagged obsidian and choking ash. Her blade drips with Alpha blood, her body a blur of motion, and I can tell she’s being chased, but every time she stumbles, she rises again, faster, determination never wavering.
The red-eyed one is in a burning desert split by a volcano mouth, rivers of molten lava and rock at every turn, yet she moves between the flows, covered in soot, teeth bared, fighting off five Alphas at once. Her fists are savage. Her will unbroken .
Then the white-eyed one fights in a blizzard wasteland. Ice cutting the air like blades, yet she stands bare-armed in the storm, an ice spear twirling in her hands, facing down a massive polar bear alpha. Her breath steams in ragged bursts as a cold smirk plays on her lips, her grip tightening…
YES!
I swallow hard, wiping my tears! You’re still fighting. Pride builds up in my chest.
I close my eyes and send out a prayer to the Source to protect them.
Don’t stop. Keep fighting. There is life after the Hunt! WIN!
“AHHHHHHHH!” I look up shocked to see them all glow and show simultaneously.
The eyepatch fighter surges forward in the abyss, cutting down her unseen opponent with a scream of pure fury.
The red-eyed one ducks low, driving her blade into an Alpha’s heart.
The white-eyed one spins her spear, piercing through the bear’s throat with a final, perfect strike.
They all look in the distance, and the cameras pan on their faces, their eyes so fierce my breath catches. It’s as if we see each other… all four of us connect and I reach out to the projector, but a shadow falls across me and I look up to see my Alpha standing over me .
Murdoch! You’re back!
Aye an’ I see you dinna eat anymore…
He takes a seat in front of me, and the projector moves back. He waves a hand, and it turns off.
“I was watc?—”
His gaze pins me. Voice low. Rough.
“Yu’ve seen enough.”
I don’t argue… I just let him take up my hand and smile at him gently looking at my wounds as if he’ll cry. How adorable…