I Won’t Lose You
I Won’t Lose You
Liam
The chaos is everywhere, but with Dante taking on Enzo, I take on a morghul instead. There are so many of them. All around me, my warriors are fighting, and I can feel the pack-links snapping as they lose their lives.
It’s hard, the pain, knowing I’m losing someone every few minutes. The burden an alpha must carry. It’s my job to protect them, and yet they’re dying.
My wolf is at the forefront of my mind, his rage and thirst for blood merging with mine, when pain suddenly explodes inside me so violently that it robs the very air from my lungs, and the world lurches sideways.
My head, my chest, and my stomach are all screaming for reprieve. It’s so excruciating that for a heartbeat, I think I’ve been attacked from behind, but then reality slams in.
Raven!
This pain isn’t mine, it’s hers!
RAVEN! I choke out through the mind-link, but I’m unable to make the connection, pain tearing through me, throwing me off. I hit the ground.
Barely registering when the morghul rips through my back, all I can focus on is the frantic pull of something being taken from me.
Raven!
I turn, trying to mind-link someone to help her, but I can’t. Pain tears through my head and neck, dizzying me. And then a pain that I have never felt before rips from my chest in a tidal wave, tearing through every part of me.
And then I feel it, like a hand physically clawing into my chest and tearing my soul in two.
No… NO!
No, no, no!
Raven.
This feeling-
Fear tears through my mind as I scramble upright, barely registering the new set of claws that rake across my side, the burning pain meaningless compared to the unbearable emptiness that now settles within me, and I howl in rage, the sound more animalistic than human.
My emotions surge, my aura tearing through the sky as I scream in agony.
The battlefield blurs around me, and all I can think about is her.
I falter; it feels like my chest is being crushed inwards. I stagger, my knees buckling as a morghul’s fangs sink into my shoulder, the wound barely registering.
I throw my head back, the scream finally breaking free, loud and cracked, fuelled with every ounce of grief, rage, and devastation I have ever known. It echoes across the battlefield as my body shakes violently, the chaos reduced to distorted noise, blood and shadows that I can no longer see.
THE LUNA IS DEAD!
I run towards her, only focused on her scent. The bunkers… She’s at the bunkers! I don’t want to believe this. I won’t believe this…
Liam, honey, where are you? I don’t respond to Mom’s words. I can’t.
My vision is blurry, my chest heaving as if my heart is trying to tear itself free to follow her, to reach her, to undo the impossible.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t think.
I can’t exist without her.
Half of my soul is gone, ripped away without mercy, and all that remains is agony so deep it consumes everything I am.
And beneath the grief, beneath the screaming void, all that’s there is something hollow yet filled with so much pain at the same time.
I crash through trees, splintering bark and bone alike, my aura flaring wild and uncontrolled as warriors shout my name through the pack bond, fear and panic rippling after me.
But I don’t answer them, can’t answer them, because every second she remains out of reach feels like another knife twisting inside the hollowness where our bond used to be.
The silence where she should be is unbearable.
The bunker clearing comes into view, and something in my chest seizes so hard I nearly collapse, my steps faltering as I take in the chaos, the bodies, the scorched earth, the metallic tang of blood so thick it coats my tongue.
Then I see her.
Or what’s left of her.
Time slows, stretching into something grotesque and unreal as my vision locks onto the shape on the ground, my mind refusing to accept what my eyes are seeing, my heart pounding violently as denial claws its way up my throat.
No.
No…
NO!
Her body lies broken on the ground, stained with her blood as it spreads like a pool beneath her. Ares is bending over her, and as I step forward, I realise her head is missing.
I stop in my tracks as I see her head, cradled in Renji’s arms, her hair matted with blood, her eyes wide and glassy, frozen in an expression of pain and sadness. It cuts through me.
How? How did I let this happen to her? How?!
I failed her after promising to always protect her.
A sound tears out of my chest that doesn’t sound human, a raw, broken howl that rips through the clearing as my legs finally give out beneath me and I hit the ground hard, crawling the last few feet towards her, hands shaking so violently I can barely touch her without sobbing.
“Dad…” one of my sons says, placing their hand on my shoulder.
Renji holds her head out, and it shatters me.
“No,” I choke, my fingers brushing her cheek, still her, even as my heart shatters with the knowledge that she is gone. “Please… don’t let this be real… Please don’t do this to me. Raven… I need you… Come back…”
I take her head and hold it to my chest, pressing my forehead to hers, breathing her in desperately. “Please…” I don’t know who I’m begging, I just want her back. My tears blind me, my wolf screams and claws at the inside of my skull.
“I’m sorry… I was too late,” I sob, rocking slightly as if she could hear me. “I should have been here…”
My gaze drops to what remains of her body, to the savage wounds punched through her chest and abdomen. Even in my pain, it doesn’t make sense. She is an incredible warrior. Did she get attacked from behind?
But it doesn’t matter… because I was too late.
The grief curdles inside of me as I clutch her tighter and scream her name again, the sound ripping through the pack territory.
I feel the pack around me, their horror, their sorrow, their fear, but it barely registers because all I can see is her, all I can feel is the empty void where her presence should be, the echo of a life ripped away far too brutally, far too soon.
My mate.
My Luna.
My heart.
How do I live on from here?
Raven, you weren’t meant to leave me.
A strangled cry escapes my throat as I scoop her body into my lap with my other arm. The tiny body that once contained a soul so generous and so big that no one could ever match up to it. She was the flame that kept me going.
And as I press my lips to her bloodied forehead, shaking and broken and utterly undone, I know my life will never be the same again, because she wasn’t just my world, she was the oxygen I needed to survive.
And she’s gone.