The Dark Beast's Love

The gunshot was like an echo forever ringing in my ear. On my left, I could hear someone yelling my name, but in front of me, Nathan's body fell forwards and knocked me off my feet. It was the collision of our bodies that woke me from the horrifying frozen moment and when I pulled Nathan's body back to look at him I saw red. The blood already staining his shirt as his inhales and exhales took up an insatiable pattern.

I didn't notice my hands shaking until I had to turn him onto his back to cradle his face between them. His eyes were vivid. His pupils were looking everywhere and I could feel the warmth from the blood from where his body was resting against mine. Nothing else in the world mattered except for the fact that I was losing him, and I was losing him like this.

“Nathan,” I croaked out and felt the tears stream down my face. "Hang on, okay? Just hang on and it will be okay."

The sound of my voice had his eyes returning to mine and I felt my heart ache as I realised that the life in his eyes was already fading. The vibrant blue was duller than just some moments before, when everything was okay. Does this place take life the same way it gives life, quicker and without hesitation?

"Liliana!" The sound of approaching footsteps caused my head to turn to the left.

I noticed immediately that the first thing I looked at was his hands, but they were empty. When I then shamefully moved to scan his face, Riven's expression was as vivid and caught off guard as I felt, his eyes darting between Nathan and someone on the other side of the glade.

Following his eyes, it landed on my own, the same warm brown colour and the same dark curls on the top of his head. Varius stood a couple of feet away, the fun in his hand once again aimed but this time towards Riven. I didn't know whose life I feared the most, Riven with a gun aimed at him, or Varius when the beast would come out to save its companion.

"Stop!" I screamed out over the glade, covering both of Nathan's ears as if loud sounds were his biggest problem for the moment. "Varius don't!"

My brother's eyes travelled to mine but the gun was still aimed towards Riven who had his hands up in the air in surrounder, but an expression that said that this wasn't the end.

"You better listen to her," Riven said, voice in no way louder than mine had been but still clearer in the air. "This won't end in your favour if you pull that trigger."

"Are you threatening me?" Varius looked back at Riven with more determination than before.

"Stop, both of you!" I yelled again but tore my eyes away from both of them to look down at Nathan who was still fighting for his life. "We need to help him! We need to..."

"He's a lost cause," Riven said beside me. "The glade won't let him survive."

"No!" I screamed back at Riven. "I don't give a single damn about what the glade will or will not do but I am not letting him die."

More tears streamed down my face when I heard him say my name.

"Liliana..." In a surrounding of screams his whisper was a clear contrast. "Liliana."

I looked down at him and past the tears in my eyes, I could see Nathan's tears as well. He was already giving up, and I was unable to do anything.

"You're beautiful, you know that right?" He said as if it was relevant now, as if he wasn't dying. "You've always been beautiful."

"You don't get to say that," I sobbed. "You don't get to say that when you don't know what I've done."

His eyes wandered in the direction where Riven was, but I wasn't sure if he could see him from where he was. Still, a sad smile ghosted over his lips as his eyes returned to mine.

"I don't know what you've done," Nathan whispered. "But I want you to be happy."

"I'm a monster," I pressed my forehead onto his and closed my eyes. "I'm a..."

"You love him," This caused me to draw back and face him again.

"I love you," I said in weak protest, because I couldn't find any strength anymore. Not when I was losing another.

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"I know you do," Nathan smiled and his hand came up to brush away one of my tears. "And that will be the greatest pleasure in my life."

"It shouldn't have to be," I shook my head. "You deserve so much more."

"I never wanted more than you."

And if my heart hadn't already been breaking, it would have shattered at the sound of that. My three worlds were colliding, and in mere seconds one of them had been eliminated. The universe knew that these realities couldn't exist with each other. The life with my family, the life with my love and the life with my mate were three different lives, and I so desperately and greedily wanted them all, but the odds had never been in my favour.

"In another life," Nathan started out carefully. "We would have been married right now. I would have bought a small house in the outskirts of town where we would build whatever we wanted to build and do whatever we wanted to do." I hadn't realised that my tears had stopped streaming until they started again.

"We would have had children, one or a dozen," Nathan let out a small chuckle but then winced in pain. "One of the girls would have been like you, hot-headed, stubborn and a menace to society. But we would have loved her regardless." "Don't do this," I found myself whispering in the distance between us. "I can't..."

"You can," Nathan smiled. "You can because I am living that life right now. While in your arms, I see it all before me. We would have a son that was too afraid of the world until you showed him how harmless the world could be with the right perspective. The girl would be named after your mother, and the boy..."

"Theo," I blurted out, allowing myself to play along with his reality. "I would love one of the boys' names to be Theo."

Nathan took some time to think, or maybe he had to catch his breath, I wasn't sure. All I knew was that I held him, and while the world around us was falling apart, he had already taken escape to another place far more beautiful than the one we were currently in. A place where his eyes weren't growing more and more dull but instead bright as the laughter of his children, our children filled his ears. A place where the sun almost always shone and when it didn't, we danced in the rain. A place where instead of the blood covering our hands from where we'd both pointlessly tried to stop the flowing blood, there were rings on our fingers that symbolised forever. Nathan and I were in that place together, but only one of us would have to wake up from the daydream.

"I like that name," Nathan finally said. "Theo. It's pretty. And another boy will have to be after my father, otherwise, they will accuse us of favouritism."

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"We can't have that," I let out a shaky laugh that was mainly lost between my sobs, but Nathan's smile told me that he heard it anyway.

"They would have hated you," Nathan said with as little emotions as he could muster.

"I know," I said as if it didn't matter.

Maybe because it didn't. Not anymore.

"I don't care about that," His voice was almost defensive, but the strength was lost in his desperation to stay awake.

"I know," I said again.

"I love you."

My breath hitched again because it was such a selfish thing for him to say right now. And it caused everything to overflow once again.

"I love you," I said and pressed a light kiss on his forehead.

The sound of his breathing was all that I could focus on after that. By now, there was too little air to even form words and the sound of his desperate breathe takes made it hard for me not to start praying to whoever would listen. The ruffling of the leaves and the smell of blood and grass were nothing compared to the sight of Nathan's shallow breaths and it felt like if I didn't say anything soon. I wouldn't be able to say anything at all for the rest of my life.

"Please don't leave me," I begged despite the hopelessness that hung between us. "Please stay awake."

Nathan had stopped breathing before I'd even finished my last sentence.

Somewhere inside me, a light was put out.