novelxo Chapter 42: The Past
"What?" it's like every cell in my body stops as a deathly silence fills the air, shock stilling my thoughts, my lungs ceasing to move, and you can hear a pin drop as his words sink in slowly... so fucking slowly.
Juan executed my family. They didn't die in battle.
That's a lie, it can't be true because they weren't the only pack to never return. The entire Whyte line, among others, they all died protecting our kind. It was a war for god's sake, and we had many casualties. Did Juan kill them all too?
The doctor has to be playing me, lying to mess with my head for some kind of ulterior motive and I'm falling for it. Maybe it's a test to see if I'm strong enough to turn, despite being in this isolation tank. Maybe I was wrong to trust him, and this is all a ploy to break me down and get intel he thinks I may have... but how would he know her name?
I take a much-needed breath as I begin to suffocate under the pressure of my own mounting emotions, realizing I wasn't inhaling or letting it go. I take a moment to let it sink in, my head spinning as my brain tries to dissect and makes sense of each word and how it comes together in what he just said. I don't know how to react; cry, rage, scream, laugh? I sit here like a numb dead weight staring at him as though he just told me the world is ending and we're to wait here to die. Momentarily devoid of feeling as shock fills the void.
It has a different effect on my body though, and for a second, I think I might throw up. I wretch, my body lurching, and as it all spins out of control and I have to lift my heels to the edge of the bed so I can prop my head between my knees to ground myself. Swallowing down the rush of salvia that clogs my throat and breathing through the waves of nausea.
“I'm sorry... my memory is not what it was, but the gist is that Juan was eliminating the possibility of a prophecy coming to fruition... a white wolf Queen, rising from the shadows to reign the people in a victorious and united future. Juan believed your mother was going to dethrone him, after she proved herself a worthy warrior on the battlefield and led many a victorious attack on your enemy by uniting the packs. Your kind were losing the war, and she turned it around... your mother, she was gifted, and special, and more powerful than he could ever dream of being. The kind of specimen I could only dream of being able to study.” He sounds concerned, regretful, apologetic, all at once, but it's all meaningless noise and I just keep coming back to it, over and over.
Juan... he killed them all. My whole family. All those that mattered to me. My past ten years have been a lie, and I suffered, not because they failed, but because he took them from me. This can’t be true, especially not if she was so powerful.
“Then how did he.... If she was” The words die on my tongue, hastily uttered in a breath as my brain tries to rationalize the details, as warm salty tears roll down my cheeks and I sit absorbing a history I never knew, as the pieces are laid out before me. Confused with the conflicting statement to what I've always been told, and a fire of rage building inside of me slowly to overcome the icy cold that has spread through my nerve endings. It's like a drip, drip, as it's fed and allowed to grow slowly. It warms my belly and spreads across my pelvis and down my limbs, something growing inside of me so all-consuming that I almost welcome its warm fluid expansion to my cold empty soul. My brain just cannot seem to filter and arrange it so that it makes sense.
“Your father was her weak point... just a peaceful land-dwelling wolf that he murdered to get to her. Your kinds devastating ability to kill both mates with one blow, and sadly an uneven pairing as that was her only downfall. It's a rather sad travesty, that even your strongest is only as strong as the mate bonded to them in the end and highlights the importance of why they shun the impure. He then ordered his own sub pack to hunt down and destroy everyone from the pack she was residing with in case they linked in the last moments and knew of his treason. He had to tidy up loose ends, you see. He had to cover his tracks, and only his loyal knew of what he'd done and aided him.”
I inhale sharply, my heart constricting as tears bite my eyes and the words wound my soul. Sliced open and ravaged with a truth that's more devastating than the one I lived for ten years.
The Whyte pack, none of them returned from war, as they were apparently cursed as warriors and fell at the first battle. Not strong enough, fast enough, not able to hold their own because of being weak land workers and not warriors at all.
All lies.
All slaughtered by Juan and his trusted, his sub pack, his elders, his closest. Those he now wears like a shroud, to lead from behind on the mountain. Which meant Sierra saw it all too, as his Luna, she was by his side at all times and followed him into battle. None of them jumped to defend her because they were just as guilty as her mate.
Mother, my father, my brother, my grandparents... all gone at Juan's hand and I cannot contain the fury growing within me as my mind puts the pieces together and it all begins to add up. The return of the wolves saw everything change, and the children like me, ripped from guardian's families who had vowed to care for us, and pushed into that home. Except me... my guardian's, the last of the Whytes, were slaughtered by “vampires’ in the middle of the night. I now wonder if that too was a lie.
We went from being cared for, cherished by wolves who opened their homes to us, all while our families fought, to being almost outlawed in a way. By Santo wolves who spread the word that the war was almost lost because of our blood lines. They told them none of us should be revered as fallen heroes remaining legacy... but left to fade out and kill an impure invasion on future generations. They started the second they returned, in pushing all of us into that dark side of the mountain and maintaining we were cursed. Why didn't he just kill me too?
Words fail me and I stare at the doctor as I lift my head, catching the wariness in his eye as he sees the expression on my face and hesitates about moving away a little.
My heart is pounding, my breathing shallow, and a twisting knife of pain devours me as it really does sink and coarse through every cell of my body that Juan did the most unthinkable thing of all, broke our own laws, and killed his own.... Killed mine and my own! For what fucking reason!!!
A prophecy about a rising wolf? A story? A fable... that hadn't even come to fruition. He thought HE could overpower the fates and take what he wanted, push things in his own way?
It's almost as if the Doctor can feel my questioning, or maybe it's my silent deathly manner as I sit up stock straight and lower my chin to glare hatefully across his shoulder at the Luna beyond. It's not a look for her, but at everything I'm now finding out and I can’t control it. He betrayed her, just as he betrayed his entire people... my family. He betrayed his own son.
"Sierra was meant to be his answer... a hybrid witch and wolf. He thought by searching out this white queen and mating her he would be assured the power he longs for. Sierra is a black wolf though, something he overlooked as a small detail, and when their tale did not push them into the path of the story he thought was rightfully his, he took matters into his own hands. The rising of your mother made him insane, and upon return from the wars, the books were scraped free of any hint of a prophecy, forbidding the Shamans from teaching it to the young. He rewrote history to hide it. He pushed all trace of what he did into a coma to silence her for her own treason.” His voice is tight, tension hitching, and I can taste his nervousness this time, as he does back away, shuffling out of my way to give me a clear view of the lifeless soul I'm fixated on.
My whole being poised, like I'm on the verge of lashing out and ripping this room to shreds, such is the crazy hate and anger coursing through me, and I clutch the bed viciously to hold myself in check. Torn between mounting fury and heart breaking, crippling devastation. If I could turn, I would already be ripping this facility apart with the intensity of everything I feel inside of me. A storm raging to be set free, yet my heart aches to the point I think it may stop beating, under the force of pressure. An agony incomparable to anything and my entire truth crumbles like ash around the ruins of my own fire.
"He knew Sierra was a mixed breed. He knew he’s completely destroyed something decided by the fates. He thinks he has that power? That worth?” I snarl, my voice unrecognizable as this feeds my desire to combust in a tornado of destruction. I never knew I could harbor so much longing to find one man, hunt him down, and enjoy ripping him limb from limb. Slowly, and painfully.
I can almost taste it; such is the want to have it badly. The blood lust coursing through me in hot waves as I start to visualize that narcissistic asshole and what I'm going to do to him when he gets within an inch of me. Body bristling and goose bumping, my heart rate rising, and my lungs quickening to accommodate my fast, rapid breath.
"Yes. It was by design that he sought her out and travelled far to find her. Sweeping her off her feet and mating to her so he could possess her for eternity. He thought he could fulfil and control the prophecy and further his own desire to rule. She was a relatively isolated wolf, naive, unloved, her own pack rejecting her because of her roots, and she fell straight into the arms of the first real love shown her way. She was known as a witch, and well, you know they're as much a wolf's enemy as the vampires, which made her a cursed and fearful species. She told me she fell madly in love and didn’t find out about his ulterior motive until she had been his for many months, and already bound by the mate bond.” The doctor looks towards her, a sad distant glaze to his glassy eyes as he remembers their conversations, and the regret of not believing her when he should.
“So how did she end up here? If she had powers... Witches are strong. You said she tried to stop him, so why couldn't she?” I'm devilishly low toned, controlled, the growl coming through in my voice, leaning to anger to try and avoid the pain inside of me, and I can feel my inner wolf tossing and turning with the frustrating need to be set free. It's sharpening its claws and begging to be uncaged.
“She betrayed him. By sacrificing her own life for the protection of a child who can regain the balance of things. Sierra is a seer and a witch, yes, she has powers unlike any wolf, but they are not strong like a warrior... They are useful in ways of protection on a small scale, and she has abilities to control certain aspects of others. She's a healer, not a fighter, and she did what she thought could make a difference.”