Chapter 36
"Any minute now."
Allivander's grip on the back of my neck is tight, his warm breath souring against the wet, tear stained skin of my cheek. The knife he is holding against my neck is long, jagged, and pressing deep enough to draw blood, the thick black liquid dripping down and staining the neck of my hoodie.
He's expecting Kaden to find me, to sense the death of Lyle on his pack lands.
I can't even look at him.
Allivander stood me right in front of him and made me look, but I won't look anymore. He won't even let me close his eyes, so those brown irises that used to hold so much love and compassion are now empty and lifeless and staring into nothing.
"Why'd you have to kill him?" I sob quietly, tears falling harder as the cold steel of the knife is pressed further into my neck. I'm speaking to him, whilst trying to call out to Shiva in my head, hoping and praying that she can hear me. "Did he really have to die?"
Allivander tuts continuously next to my ear, shuffling his feet as he moves ya from side to side in the clearing as his eyes dart around to look for any signs of movement.
He's no longer Mark, his faces void of any substance.
"Don't you get it, Lola? You're all going to die sooner or later.
No supernatural creature is getting out of this alive.
You'll be next to die, and once you do, everyone else will follow. "
"But you've already lost." I choke against the frigid steel of the blade, spots dancing my vision as the pressure on my carotid becomes too much. "You're dying, and you're going to die before you finish this pissing contest with my mate because Shiva has almost finished rejecting you."
I'm not lying. The white veins dancing across his pale blue skin in a similar pattern to my own have almost reached his brain, their icy fingertips clawing at the blood vessels on his neck as they complete their climb.
No matter how immortal he believes he is, with his Faerie heart and vampire blood, he went too far with using my wolf and it will kill him.
A poison that can kill a wolf can kill anything, especially if the poison is themselves.
I heard my father say that once when at a funeral for a boy who's wolf rejected him about 8 years ago, and I knew it had significance.
I looked it up and found it from an old scripture that alphas hold sacred, and the words are used and upheld in the highest honour.
Kaden will have read them, just like my father read his, as it is essential to a male Alpha's ritual ceremony.
The Female alpha ascension ceremony is similar, though they read the scripture of Luna herself, they hold their own specific words dear.
The scripture states that a wolf bite can kill any supernatural creature. The toxins in our saliva are deadly to any creature that is not our own. The toxin morphs, latches onto DNA in any being and kills them very quickly. Only humans aren't affected because half of our own werewolf DNA is human.
The spirit of the wolf rejecting their human host is like a werewolf biting a vampire. It poisons the DNA, morphs it, makes it defective. It's slow and painful for the toxins aren't released in a bite, so they don't enter the bloodstream directly.
Allivander is dying, and his small overlook on werewolf tragedy is how I'm going to kill him.
I can't bite him myself, now not having a wolf would make it harmless and make him angry. But I have a plan, and I hope to god that Kaden understands me so that it can work.
A twig snaps nearby and Allivander flinches, spinning us around quickly to face whatever is coming out of the woods. He is no longer the composed madman who tried to kill multiple races, he's become a lunatic with his sanity attached on its very last, very thin string.
"Get out here," Allivander snarls, taking steps further back into the clearing away fro the edge. "Or I'll make her death as painful as humanely possible."
Tears fill my eyes once again when I see Kaden emerge from the clearing flanked by hundreds of soldiers of different species.
Elves carrying bows, orcs shouldering huge two handed hammers, all bloodied and scraped from the fight.
I see Otis on his left shoulder, his arms covered blood I'm sure isn't his.
His pockets are overflowing with bandages and suture kits that I hope saved someone's life.
Kaden's armour is scattered with large holes, blood oozing from each and every one of them.
The chainmail is hanging in shreds from his broad shoulders, his usually tanned skin now dark red.
His face is covered in mud and dirt, his hair almost grey from the pale gravel he must've been fighting in.
His eyes widen when they take in the ever changing appearance of my captor, myself noticing the discreet change of skin tone on the hand that's holding the knife to my throat.
Well, as much as I can considering nearly all of his skin is blue and cracking.
But he's still the most handsome man I've ever seen.
His face softens when he looks at me, his eyes telling me so much that I know he wants to spill from his lips but can't. I see his fists clench so tightly that I know he's trying not to do something stupid like pounce on Allivander that will only go and get me killed.
"I love you." I mouth to him, my heart tearing into a thousand pieces when I see his eyes water. "I love you so damn much."
I've never openly told him that I do, the L word being a bomb that I didn't want to drop in times like these.
But there's something about the way Allivander's grip is tightening around the handle of the blade, edging it closer to my skin, it makes me feel like this is a situation I'm not going to get out of, and I want him to know that.
I think Kaden senses it too, because I've never seen him so ready to kill a person before.
Not even with Carrick after he tried to kill me.
"If you hurt her in any way, death will be the least of your worries.
" He snaps, the words ripping from his mouth tainted with so much hate and fury I feel Allivander tense behind me.
My mate looks murderous, his eyes glowing red and his teeth and claws are extended to the fullest.
I see Jasper on the edge of the tree line almost concealed in shadows, trying to sneak around the back of us with a few orcs and the vampire leader Alaric. Allivander hasn't noticed their presence, his whole demeanour suggesting he only has eyes for Kaden.
I get a feeling it's because he's the one who's going to be hurt the most if he decides to rip my neck open with the blade of the knife.
"Come any closer and I swear to god I will spill every drop of her blood out of her neck." Allivander shouts out, completely unphased by the horde of supernatural creatures gaining on him.
"Kaden." I gasp out, my words being cut when Allivander digs the knife into my neck again. Kaden almost attacks right there and then, but I bring my hand up to point at my neck, and then subtly at Allivander.
I hope to God he gets the message.
Realisation dawns in his eyes and I almost sob with joy when I see him step back and raise his hands in the air in surrender, his eyes telling me something his body isn't.
I understand. I trust you.
"Alright, lets talk." Kaden says slowly, flicking his wrist to have everyone lower their weapons. They all look confused, most of them itching to pounce on him, but a light tug on his collar sends a wave of understanding through the wolves, and they urge the elves to lower their bows.
"That wasn't so hard was it?" Allivander sneers, the hand on my neck now circling around it. It's not as bad as having a knife against it, though a little harder to breathe. "It only took me physically putting the bitch's life on the line for you to actually listen."
Kaden growls dangerously, the noise coming from deep within the out of his wolf as it threatens to come out, but a warning glance from myself has him stopping.
We only need to waste more time.
"I can see who wears the trousers in that relationship." Allivander cackles manically, his voice straining as the spirit of Shiva slowly turns him more and more mad. He's on his last legs and he doesn't even know it. "You want to know something Kaden?"
"What?" My mate grinds out as calmly as he can, his eyes focused solely on myself.
"I could have killed Lola several times before this." He laughs again, less and less sanity gripping to the sound as Shiva begins to kill him quicker. "But my ego wouldn't let me do it if you weren't watching."
"And why is that?"
"Because," Allivander presses the knife against my stomach where my heart is, but not deep enough to break the skin.
"I wanted to see if the rumours about the Alpha with no feeling, with no forgiveness, no heart, would crumble at the sight of his mate dying whilst he held her.
I wanted to watch as your entire facade blew away with her soul.
I wanted to prove that the supernatural are human like me, and that they are so human we don't need them. "
"So you'd kill her. Why not just kill me?" Kaden asks, confusion in his features as time seems to pass dangerously slowly.
"Because I need her wolf to help me destroy you.
To destroy the entire supernatural world.
My army was a distraction so I could get what I wanted.
Her." He points a grubby finger in my face, the edge of the knife pointing at my eyes.
"It's no secret her wolf is the strongest out of the two of you.
And I knew that in the end, killing Lola would kill two birds with one stone. "
Kaden takes a step forward and Allivander's arm tightens around my neck, his finger wagging condescendingly in front of my face. "Ah, ah, ah. I don't believe I finished." Kaden raises his hands again and the crazy lunatic decided that's his permission to carry on.
"I am a supernatural now, but I am prepared to do what's necessary.
I am over three hundred years old, and after this it will be my time to go and I have never been more ready for anything.
I am ready to see my family again. So," he presses the tip of the blade against my chest and I wince when he starts to push it into my body.
"Any last words, Kaden Thorne of the DawnStar pack? "
"Yes." My mate says so coolly, his face expressionless and his eyes hard. My own eyes widen when I recognise the words coming from his mouth. "A poison that can kill a wolf can kill anything, especially if the poison is themselves."
I can't see Allivander's face but by the hesitation in his hand I know that he recognises what Kaden has said. I see the skin on his arm solidify and begin to turn white, tears pouring from my eyes as I see that he ran out of time. "No."
He arms springs loose from around my neck and I gasp, my hands springing up to my throat to feel my injuries, my head turning around to capture the last sight of the psycho that has tormented me, hurt me, tried to kill me.
His face is set to that of an older man, his hair greying and his eyes a pale watery blue.
His once pale skin is slowly turning white, his eyes opened wide in alarm as he realises that the curse of a wolf's rejection has countered every failsafe he put into himself to make him immortal.
"No," he gasps as he looks at himself dying in front of his eyes. Then they harden and narrow in on myself. "No!"
The world seems to slow down as I watch him raise the blade with his hand. I can hear the echo of Kaden shouting at me to move, Jasper springing out from the trees to launch himself in my direction.
But they're too late.
I watch as the knife buried hilt deep into my chest, blood spraying from Allivander's mouth as he cackles with his last few dying breaths before slumping to the ground in front of me.
"Lola!" Kaden's arms circle around my body just as my knees give in, his eyes widening in alarm when they see that I'm not in a very good place. "Otis, someone! Get help!"
Pain is consuming my thoughts as I raise my hand to my mate's cheek, caressing the stubbled skin in my palm as dots begin to dance in my vision. "Hey, Kaden. It's okay, I love you it's okay."
"It's going to be fine, my love." He whispers softly, his feather light touch brushing some hair away from my face. "God I love you."
Kaden rests his forehead against my own as everything begins to slip away from me. "You're so stupid leaving the bunker Lola, so damn stupid."
"You forgive me right?" I ask quietly as it becomes harder and harder to speak. My eyes flirt down to see my entire hoodie soaked with my own blood, my head feeling lighter than it did before as I look back up to Kaden.
Tears are pouring down his dirt covered face, his eyes never leaving mine as his free hand presses down on the wound in my chest. "You know I can never hold grudges against you."
"Good." I laugh, blood pouring from the corners and driving down my chin. "Please take care of our baby, raise him right."
"Don't talk stupid." He snaps at me, but his face shows no sign of anger. "You're going to raise him beside me. We'll teach him to walk and talk and we'll see him shift for the first time. You'll see everything."
I run my thumb along his upper lip and his kisses it, his eyes closing as a way of stopping his tears, but it no use.
"I don't..." I begin to say, but I'm suddenly ripped from his arms as blurry hands and faces try to stop the bleeding and get me to focus.
But I can't.
And the last thing I see is Otis' kind and sorrow filled eyes before I slip away from everything, my body going limp, and everything going black.