Hekate’s Bride

My claws jut out, biting into my closed fists, tearing into the skin of my palms. The skin heals only a second later, but the wound in my heart is deeper.

The skies have a tinge of orange in it as the sun disappears behind pinkish clouds. Dusk approaches and there are three more games to name a winner.

Already, the scoreboards have figures that have wide contrasts against the other. LS has sixty points and WA has twenty. Not surprising, since we all knew it was never really going to be a fair game.

I sit, watching the players for the ‘Pack Hunt’ form lines, each team facing off. My brows furrow when I see Maya at the end of the line, head bowed low and a ferocious grin on her face as she faces off a figure that seems oddly familiar…

I start in my seat. Trinity?

Not good. Not good at all. I am happy to see Tri, but seeing her stand against Maya, looking every bit as menacing as I know she is, I can’t help but feel a sense of dread.

For Maya, of course. She is gentle and has never been an advocate for violence, and the Pack Hunt, from the little I have heard about it is the most lawless game played. Even the adults play it too–when they wish to evict a quisling from the pack.

They hunt the prey and occasionally, very little is left of them when the Hunt is done.

The maze is gone, and it’s place is a clear, vast field that has me wondering what the obstacle course might be for this game in particular. As well as who the chosen targeted prey might be. Maya, possibly. Or the wide eyed she-wolf who looks like she was forced to be there.

“In my time, I was prey,” Father says, trying to engage me in conversation, but I give a non-committal reply, hiding my red hands in my lap.

Father sighs. “You’re still mad at me and your mother for keeping it from you?”

I don’t say anything, glad to let him believe what he wishes to. At least, in his world of thoughts, Rune is Rune and I am his harmless daughter who isn’t the Erasthai to the evil beyond the Void… and the one on the field.

“No,” I say loud enough for Rune’s father to hear me as I lean back in my seat. “I’m just curious as to what else you’re not telling me.”

I feel father’s keen gaze on me, as well as the Lycan King’s, but I don’t let it overwhelm me. I keep my gaze trained ahead, staring at nothing in particular. I wonder if the Lycan King knows what Rune is, or if he somehow managed to hide this from his parents as well.

Slowly it sinks in, and so does my despair.

Rune is the Hekate.

He killed my friends. He killed those people. And when I had found him by the school’s entrance that day, had he been off to do more of that? Kill more people?

The panic that had been in his eyes, the vulnerability I had seen, the crack on the surface and that fear… had it even been real?

“There are things that–”

The earth moves under my feet and there is a ripple in the air that causes the buzzing chatter of the excited crowd fall silent in an instant.

I look at my father, wide eyed as the air around us suddenly felt heavy as a shroud of darkness descends upon the stadium.

Goosebumps erupts on my skin, and my heart begins to race with unease. My father’s words trails off as we both turned to the sky, eyes scanning the inky blackness for the cause of this sudden and foreboding change.

Gasps and whispers ripple through the audience as they too realized that something is not right. The darkness spreads, covering the stadium and the thickness to it is almost suffocating.

The tension in the air is electrifying and for a moment, everything seems to stop. I feel it then. The familiar embrace of the Hekate’s aura.

And the screams begin.

Loud, guttural roars and cries. Gut wrenching. Soul ripping. It nearly cripples me.

I feel my father’s fingers circle my wrist, yanking me from my throne and I squint through the darkness to find him pulling mother out of her sit as well.

I vaguely register Rune’s father roaring and calling for him.

“Get inside the school. Now! Both of you!” He barks, and I tumble forward in the darkness, feeling around me for him or mom.

I feel another hand on mine, yanking me from my father. “No! No! Father!” I scream, fighting it.

“Get a hold of yourself, Astrid!” My mother yells and it takes a moment before it registers. Her grip on my arm is tight and urgent as she shoves me forward. I bump into seats and people, none that I can see in the dark fog.

“And father? We can’t leave him behind!” I cry.

“We are not,” Mother chides and she pushes me forward, causing me to stumble into people who in turn grasp my arms. “Get the princess inside,” she orders.

“Mom? Mom!” I scream, pushing back, snarling and crying. I can’t see anything or smell anything. “Mother!”

My screams are covered with the frantic cries for help and screams from the crowd around us.

My mind is a blur as I am pulled through the panicked throngs of people, their terror palpable in the air. The farther they take me, the deeper into the darkness we go. How they can tell where we are headed of where the exits are, I don’t know, because I can’t.

Animalistic growls and high pitched roars echo in the air, sending shivers down my spine and the men who carry me move faster. Taking me farther away from the sounds.

A single roar pierces the night and my entire world stops. My heart stops. My blood runs cold, and Sloan… she roars in outrage as blinding pain rips through us, tearing down my mental shields.

The pain isn’t mine.

Rune.

I do not think of the fact that he is the reason why all of this is happening. In fact, I do not think of anything as I move. My head is a vessel that has been emptied out and left with only one thing.

Rune.

One moment, I am being hurled toward the entrance, and the next, I am twisting and breaking free of the hold on me, running down, down, where I know in my heart that he is.

I cannot see a single thing. Or smell anything, but I know where Rune is. I don’t know how, but I just do.

My senses sharpen to a height it has never been to before and my legs move like the wind as I break free of the barrier around the field and I start to run across.

My vision is dark, but I am able to make out a few faces as I run past, scanning them with primal focus, seeking. Searching.

Something careens into me and I yelp as I fall, claws ripping into my chest. The face that hovers above mine is pale, smooth and deadly, much like the people I saw at Hekate’s home in my dream.

The male’s eyes are wholly black and the anger and hate in his eyes as he lunges nearly has me out of my haze.

Very nearly.

But Sloan is instantly there where I falter and my hand moves up, fast and precise, inconceivably strong, and it rips through the male’s chest and yanks out the bloody beating organ.

He is dead before we both realize it and I am up on my feet again, discarding his heart and his body and running through the fighting crowd like I haven’t just killed a man.C0pyright © 2024 Nôv)(elDrama.Org.

Anytime now…

He is close. I can feel him. Deeper and deeper, I move, striking down whoever gets in my path.

And when I do find him, he is alone, in the center of the field; the center of that darkness that surrounds him and remains like a shield, standing with his eyes closed.

His hair whips about him and his colour is more pale than usual. He is so still, I can’t tell if he is breathing. Not from this distance at least.

I start for him but stop in my tracks when his lips part and he releases a sharp breath.

His eyes flutter open and the green in them is gone. In its place, obsidian sits, peering at everything and nothing in particular. He cranes his neck in my direction with a grace that is nothing like Rune’s. Those black cold eyes land on me and his lips tilt upwards in a deadly smile that has the fine hair of my skin rising and my body trembling.

“Why, hello princess,” the Hekate says.