I knew instantly from the look in my mate's storming hazel eyes that something had happened. She hugged me and kissed my tangled hair and asked me to get dressed.
"Val, what's wrong?"
Her lips played at a smile but it didn't reach her eyes. She folded her fingers behind her head and tried to avoid my questioning gaze. She looked completely enraged like she was barely able to contain the anger in her body. I couldn't tell what she was angry at and she shook her head to my question rather than answering it.
I stood up slowly and pulled my baggy jeans on, not ignoring the way her eyes turned lustful as she watched me dress. I spoke again, demanding her to answer me.
"Vallory Valleriano."
She snapped back to look at me, eyes shocked and tinkering on disbelieving. I put a hand on my hip and pointed at her, glaring commandingly as I did so.
"Tell me what happened, right now."
She shot me a real smile at the attitude and closed the distance between us, slipping her large hands around my waist and coaxing a kiss out of me. It was a small comfort to see her ease up a bit. She finally exhaled and met my demanding gaze with a tired kind of look.
"I can't explain it to you yet because you don't remember right now but as soon as you do I will tell you everything. Please just follow me for a second, okay?"
I searched her face. The sharp cut of her brow twitched sometimes when she got particularly annoyed with something. I frowned but followed behind her as she started to lead me out of the room. She was fully dressed and her hair was combed out- like she had already been awake for hours. We walked down the corridors in a direction I hadn't been very often, towards where Liam and most of the high ranking pack members resided.
We entered a cozy wooden sitting room with shelves full of dusted old books. At a writing desk towards the back there was a large window, Rosaura was sitting at the desk like she had been ripped to shreds just moments ago. Every time I saw her my stomach felt nauseous. It was an involuntary recoil. I didn't want to be uncomfortable by her but somehow I was without being able to explain it.
I noticed Liam leaning against the end of the bookshelf with a hard look. The longer I had remained with the Vallerianos, the less he seemed to despise me.
"What's going on?"
My voice was unburdened with my true anxiety, coming off as harsh instead. I glanced back and forth between the three of them, eventually meeting a regretful look from Val.
Rosaura stood up from her chair and looked in my direction quietly. The waterfall ripples of her snowy hair swayed as she tilted her head and peered in my direction.
"Remember."
Her command made my mind fall into a trance. I felt a fog around my mind pulling back to unsheath something ugly and horrible. A gasp of terror escaped my lips and my hands started to tremble.
The horrible feeling of stabbing the blade into that oily skinned mass of whispers overcame my senses. Val was in front of me, wrapping her arms around me as I started to stammer out loud.
"What- what the fuck was that thing?"
Rosaura was unhappy at the unfolding scene. She pouted her lip out and met an unforgiving glare from her younger sister before Val finally stepped back from me so I could stare at Rosaura.
"The witches called them Masters. Summoned them to harness their powers and strengthen spells."
For the first time, I remembered seeing her and the way she stood over me in the woods. I remembered Everest trying to fight off the trance of sleep. I shivered, mildly horrified but curious despite myself.
"You took the memories away, why?"
Rosaura frowned. Liam shifted uncomfortably behind her. He hadn't spoken a word yet.
"They feed on fear- you were so full of it there would have been nothing left if they touched you."
I recoiled physically, remembering the tar like substance all over my hands. I felt sick, cheeks paling two shades whiter than usual. Then I glared at Rosaura, opening my mouth to confront her but I truly didn't even know what to say.
Instead of answering to the madness of it, I turned and started to walk out of the room.
"Liana-"
Val had started to follow me and I held up a hand hastily for her to stay away from me. She looked pained but paused where she stood.
"Don't."
I pushed out of the wooden doors and started to run. I ran down the corridors a little bit blindly at first but found a side exit along the way that dipped out to the back edge of the property away from the garden. The back ledge of the property dipped into a wide range of woods.
I broke into the tree line and pushed farther, running until my legs burned and tree branches had snapped at my forehead and whipped all over my arms. I shuddered, stopping to gasp in air against a maple tree and quaintly vomiting up whatever cheesy dish I must have eaten the night before.
My skin was crawling. From the memory of the greasy dark liquid all over my arms, but particularly from the feeling of losing my own willpower completely at the hands of Rosaura.
At the time she had forced me to sleep, it didn't really feel like anything. I was simply scared and then I wasn't anymore, but now I remembered Everest fighting to transform before we fell unconscious. I felt the confusion and terror at losing consciousness coupled with the violation of having been commanded to do it.
'You should go back.' Everest commented.
I didn't answer. I wandered away from the smell of my vomit and found another larger maple tree to sit against. The whole Valleriano family was kind of fucked up and I had put it to the back of my mind for the most part rather than addressing it. Like how many people had they murdered? How many people died at their hands as a collective truly? It had to be in the hundreds.
Something irrational in me wanted to run away altogether. Val's peaceful sleeping face entered my mind. Long dark lashes- the way they casted shadows down her tan cheeks. Her laugh, her honey thick voice and warm hands. I hated myself for wanting her. I hated myself for wanting to leave her.
Everest nudged me inside, through our mind link. She beckoned for me to transform and run through the woods, and so I did. I transformed and let the wind run through my fur. Reminded myself that at the end of the day, we are simply animals. I bit into the throat of an unsuspecting rabbit and feasted, resigning myself to a creek to rinse the blood away. I lapped at it with my tongue- it was dark in the night now.
I breathed out and transformed back into myself, stepping into the river and letting myself sink to the bottom of it. The water rushed over top of me and I tried to soothe myself, repeating in my mind the same thing over and over again.
We are only animals.
The water was warmer in the south. I pictured her face again and let the river baptise me.
We are only animals.
Finally, on the brink of suffocating myself, I pushed through the water's surface and spluttered loudly, coughing and distracted by my state of near death- almost not hearing the twigs crack behind me.