All I Ask
Unknown POV
If she didn’t go to my room or stick her nose where it wasn’t wanted, I wouldn’t have to do this. This battle has given me the perfect cover. Now, I just have to get away from the battlefield without anyone realising. Something that is hard when everyone is around.
I slip through the trees towards the bunkers. I know she won’t be inside, after all, she’s such a do-gooder. She’ll be out there protecting the entrance.
My parents are fucking embarrassments. Always at the beck and call of everyone else. Pathetic. We’re meant to be the Deimos bloodline, not dogs!
Rage burns inside of me like poison, my eyes simmering as I stop. Just as I predicted, there she is.
I stay in the shadows, watching as she attacks a manananggal. She’s quick on her feet, even though the monster towers over her.
“Get them down below! I got this!” Mom shouts to two of the warriors as another two warriors rush over with several pack members.
How stupid. She thinks she’ll be fine alone.
I scoff silently.
Or so she thinks.
The manananggal shrieks as she blinds it, its claws scraping uselessly at its ruined face, and I move closer, masking myself completely, letting her attention stay where I want it, letting her believe the danger is still in front of her and not coming towards her from the shadows.
“I wish I could help you with that,” I say calmly.
Her body reacts before her mind does, her shoulders stiffening, breath hitching ever so quietly before she turns as if she’s already braced for something she doesn’t yet understand.
At least she’s not entirely dumb. She knows I’m dangerous. Good.
She finishes the creature in one vicious, efficient strike, severing its head clean off. The body falls to the ground, splattering blood across my boots and pants. I remain emotionless, my eyes on her.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, glancing around. There’s confusion on her face. “Shouldn’t you-”
“Yeah,” I interrupt softly, “But I needed to be here.”
Her eyes search my face, confusion giving way to concern and worry. She raises her hand, as if she thinks she might still be able to reach me, still able to fix whatever she’s sensing.
I step away from her touch.
“What do you mean you need to be here?” she asks softly. I raise my eyebrow.
“To fix things, remember?” I whisper sinisterly.
Her face crumbles, understanding settling in when she realises what I mean, but even then, she reaches up for me, her fingers trembling.
“You’re scaring me,” she whispers, her voice shaking.
I tilt my head, studying her. “Why?” I ask lightly. “Why are you so scared?”
Her brows knit together, denial flickering across her face as she shakes her head. “No. I just-”
“Well, you should be.”
My words hit her hard as she stares at me, her eyes glittering with tears. I never took her for the crying type.
“Please, talk to me. Why are you doing this?”
Another hiss cuts through the trees as a morghul charges toward us, but it doesn’t matter, because backup will be here soon, and I can’t allow that to happen.
I step forward and lift my hand, dark smoke pouring from my palm, tightly controlled so no one senses it. All this time, I’ve been able to pretend I’m normal; that there is nothing special about me, and it has to stay that way.
She looks at me, her eyes full of pain.
“What are you planning to do?” she asks softly, and I realise even though she’s worried and scared, she doesn’t think I’ll harm her. That’s laughable.
Because I’m her child.
The one she carried, the one she fed, the one she has always tried to shield.
But she still doesn’t move, as if somehow her not believing this will make it stop.
“I’m going to kill you,” I reply lightly as my power curls around her, and then I twist my hand sharply.
The smoke solidifies instantly, piercing through her chest, stomach and throat, rupturing muscle and bone with sickening force, and her body jerks violently as blood spills from her mouth in thick, choking spurts.
Her eyes widen in horror as she stares at me. I twist my hand, spreading it wide, watching as I break her tiny body in ways it never should.
She lets out a choked sound, her lungs failing her as she struggles to draw breath that won’t come, as blood drowns her airway. She gags on it, her entire body beginning to convulse. She claws desperately at her neck, but she’s too weak.
Yet, her eyes never leave mine, now filled with blood and tears.
She doesn’t scream.
Even now, even like this, she refuses to give me that. As if even now, she believes I’ll regret my actions.
“I… still… l-love you…” she chokes out as her broken body collapses to the ground, shaking uncontrollably as her hands scrape uselessly at the dirt, blood pooling beneath her, her eyes never leaving my face, still searching desperately for a trace of the child she loves.
“I… f-for…give… you…”
I scoff, as if I need it; I feel nothing. I hear wolves roaring in the distance, feel the echo of it in my bones, as one sound tears through the sky. The sound of a wolf in agony.
Dad has felt her pain, but it’s too late.
I crouch beside her and lean in closer as her breathing deteriorates into broken, gargling sounds. Her chest is barely moving, her dying eyes fixed on me.
Silently asking me – why? Why am I doing this?
“Hopefully…” I whisper into her ear. “You can make it to Selene.”
With a flick of my hand, I rip her head ruthlessly from her pathetic body. I chuckle softly, watching as it hits the ground hard, her nose smashing with a satisfying crunch before it comes to a stop, her lifeless eyes still open, staring emptily right back at me.
I tilt my head, satisfied, before I turn and scan my surroundings. I’m still alone. Good.
The battle is still ongoing in the distance, and I recognise Dad’s aura as it splits the sky like a blue beacon.
That wasn’t hard at all. She really didn’t put up a fight. Well, she didn’t resist at all, as if she truly believed I wasn’t capable of ending her.
But she doesn’t know me, the real me, or what I am.
Before this world, before the gods, before any of it, there were the primordials.
And our power is far superior to any gods.
Theo
Dad’s roar rips through the forest and straight through me, a sound so raw and broken that it makes my blood run cold.
I have never heard such a sound from him before, never heard him break like that, never heard the kind of anguish that only comes from losing the one thing you were never supposed to lose.
His aura burns through the trees like a flare, and my legs falter beneath me as terror claws its way up my spine, knowing what it means.
“Ma,” I whisper, my heart slamming so hard against my ribcage it fucking hurts.
Ma!
I shift, picking up her scent, panic blurring everything else into noise as I follow it.
THE LUNA IS DEAD! someone screams through the mind-link, and the world lurches violently beneath my feet as my heart seems to stop altogether. Alpha, the Luna! We failed her! Help!
No.
No, she isn’t.
She’s not dead! I shout back, my voice cracking as I lock onto her scent. It’s in the direction of the bunker; there shouldn’t have been anything that far out!
I run as fast as I can, my paws barely touching the ground, my lungs burning, my ears ringing. The mind-link dissolves into incoherent noise because I can’t process anything right now. Of all the people in this world, she didn’t deserve this, not at all. Not Ma. Anyone but Ma.
Her scent grows stronger, and then suddenly I’m bursting out of the trees, the clearing before the bunker coming into view. Several warriors are fighting off a morghul, chaos still alive and breathing around us, and then I see Renji.
On his knees, sobbing.
My body stops before my mind can catch up, and I shift back, staring at her.
Her body lies crumpled on the ground in front of him. My stomach churns as I realise she’s been decapitated, and Renji is holding her head in his arms protectively. His gut-wrenching sobs are all I can hear, his tears soaking into her hair as he begs her to wake up.
My vision tunnels as I stare at her. There’s no heartbeat, no life. There’s no hope.
“Theo!” Renji screams when he sees me, his eyes glowing wild with grief and madness. “Bring her back, please. I’ll pay the price! Anything! Ask Hades, ask Selene, I don’t care who, take my life in return for hers. We need her, I need her...” He breaks down, and I don’t know what to say.
This pain is choking me.
I’ve never seen my brother like this, never seen him unravel so completely, and something inside my chest splits wide open as I close the distance between us and drop to my knees beside him, my hands shaking violently as I gently take her head from his grasp and place it back beside her body, trying to make her whole even though I already know it’s too late.
She’s… there’s no hope. She’s gone. She was murdered.
There are gaping holes torn clean through her torso, chest and stomach. The attack was so brutal that it makes my stomach twist, reality finally crashing down on me.
Hades! I shout in my mind, desperation tearing my voice raw as I press my hand against Ma’s broken body, her skin already cooling beneath my palm. Hades, I call on you. Help me! Please.
Nothing.
HADES! I thunder, my throat burning, despair threatening to swallow me whole.
I am here… but I cannot do anything. Her time was up.
The response slams into me, devoid of any emotion, as if she is of no importance. I spin, searching for him, searching for anything, but he doesn’t appear, not even bothering to show his face.
Name your price, I beg, my voice breaking as hands gently pull Ma away from me. Please. Anything.
I cannot. This time, there is nothing I can do.
And then he’s gone.
“Theo! Do something!” someone shouts.
I look up, blinking through tears, and see Ares standing there, fury and grief twisting his features; Carter frozen a few meters away, pale and shaking, his hands trembling at his sides.
“What happened to her?” I snarl, my voice shaking with barely restrained rage as I glare at the warriors nearby.
One of them looks away in shame and regret, still in wolf form, his fur bloody and matted.
We weren’t gone long. She told us to take the people below. The manananggal she was fighting was already dead. The morghul must have-
“No,” I cut in sharply, my stomach sinking as I stare at Ma’s wounds. “No, this isn’t a morghul’s doing.”
The silence that follows is suffocating.
“Where were you, Renji?” I ask quietly, turning to him.
He looks up at me, eyes shattered. “I-I shouldn’t have left her.”
“No,” I say softly, dread curling in my gut. “Where were you, and what were you doing that you got here so fast?”
Ares snaps his head toward me.
“Who cares?!” he roars. “Fix her! Bring her back!”
“I can’t,” I whisper, my voice hollow and breaking as tears finally spill over.
“You brought me back before! Now bring her back. Please,” Ares whispers, distraught. ‘Please’ isn’t a word in his vocabulary, and as he kneels there, I’ve never seen him look so… vulnerable. “Do something, Theo.”
“I can’t, I tried. We need to find out who did this, because it wasn’t that fucking morghul,” I snarl, staring at Renji.
His eyes meet mine, and he flinches, realising what I was implying moments ago. “You think I did this?”
“You’ve been lying,” I say, anger slicing through my grief like glass. “Using magic to move around, hiding shit. What else have you been hiding?”
Carter finally speaks, his voice shaking. “How do we know it wasn’t you?” he asks. “You disappear all the time, too, Theo. Where do you go? What do you need to do so late at night?”
“Enough!” Ares bellows, power rippling outward. “Why are we tearing each other apart when Mom is dead? We need to bring her back! NOW! I fucking need her back… I… I owe her an apology… Fuck… fuck!”
Every single time he’s brushed her off, gotten angry at her. Us leaving for the Academy, her always being there… Even if we didn’t want her to fuss over us… she was always fucking there. And like every other goddamn fool, we regret not having more time with her.
I stagger backwards, the image of her headless body burned permanently into my mind, the weight of our failure crushing me as the truth settles in.
My eyes skim over the injuries. She didn’t expect the attack; there are no injuries to her hands or bruises on her arms. Either she was taken by complete surprise with no time to react, or whoever did this was someone she trusted.
Someone we trusted.
I look at my brothers.
Carter stands frozen, Ares is clutching her hand, and Renji is still sobbing quietly. As I look between them with a cold certainty that terrifies me, I realise I don’t know who to trust anymore.
Hades, I whisper one last time, lifting my gaze to the darkening sky. Selene. I’m still your wolf. You brought the dead back before. Please. I’m begging you. Bring her back… please.
The sky remains silent.
My mind remains empty; it’s just my wolf and me.
No one answers my prayers.
Because the gods don’t protect the kind-hearted.
They don’t protect the selfless.
They don’t protect the ones who give everything and ask for nothing in return.
They protect only those who are useful to them.
Those strong enough to carry out their bidding.
They don’t protect the mother who birthed the prophesied king.
Because she has already completed the task they expected of her.
No one will help my ma.
I can’t help her.
Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry, Ma…
I feel so fucking helpless.
I slam my fist into the ground, a snarl tearing from my throat as grief and rage rip through me.
The gods are fucking selfish.