Regrets & Wrath

Diana sensed the dread before she saw the gore laid before her like a mocking dye of red and black. She foolishly thought that the silence cloaking the entire residence of the Crescent Pack’s beta family was the worst, but she was proven wrong by the sight in front of her.

“What is happening? What happened?”

Though Diana screamed those words in her mind, they only came out as whispered words from her tittering mouth. Her jaws locked and her tongue numb. Countless possibilities ran through her mind and all of those were not a good thing for the residents of the bed chambers.

The calm before the storm ensued beyond the premise of the cabin walls. All of a sudden, the looming storm hovering over the entirety of the Crescent Pack was gone. The horizon stirred with tranquility, so daunting that even the wolves sensed their hackles raising with a warning.

Heavy steps resonated inside the chilling, silent bed chamber of the beta male and the beta female. The sound of splashing followed as a pair of bare feet did not dodge the small pools of crimson ink littered on the floor.

A squeak accompanied the small splashing of blood for a fraction of a fleeting moment upon the contact of a trembling leg with an unmoving cadaver, which was laid along the murky floor that was once pristine and unscathed.

What was once a room full of regal splendor adorned with the warmth and security of a family was now replaced with nothing, but piles and piles of rubbles and dead werewolf bodies. Furs and claw marks scratched the marbled walls. Chandeliers that were once the bringer of light were now lying shattered on the ground; thousands of shards littered the bloody floor.

‘Five… Twelve… Twenty-three…’ Diana counted the number of wolves around her with one scan of the room.

Black-furred wolves filled the room along with corpses of residents’ deltas. She could easily differentiate which wolves were which since the black-furred wolves reeked of rancid smell, a pungent odor that could only be smelled by the rogues. Rogues were werewolves who lost their sanity after they turned their back to rationality. But rogues were supposed to be extinct.

The Werewolf Committee promised their extinction!

And seeing the number of attackers, it would be impossible for them to breach the pack’s territory without announcing their arrival. After all, their smell was a dead giveaway that she could smell from miles.

‘So, how can this be? And, right after the night of Dylan’s attack? Did I make the wrong call? Is it my fault? Am I too complacent?’ Diana pondered over and over again.

Standing at the center of the tragedy, a pair of tear-stricken, stormy eyes remained unblinking as Diana stayed completely still.

Her trembling seized.

She faced the broken canopy of the bed as she stood perfectly still. Diana was not moving.

Though silence ensued within the bed chamber’s walls, she was seeing what transpired in the room long before she was there. She was seeing everything through the traces surrounding her like a perfectly laid out map meant to be read and followed – and so she did.

Though Diana was yet to move, her eyes were slowly chasing the pieces of evidence of the battle that transpired in the very room she was standing.

‘What happened here? Please, someone, answer me!’ Diana screamed in frantic inside her frenzied mind. She knew she was a wolf with an ability of a witch and that she must contain any anger – she was doing everything in her power to do so!

Diana’s eyes first landed on the claw marks above the ceiling. With the way how a black-furred werewolf was crushed down by a shattered chandelier, she could conclude that her father, Beta Mason Ritchell, had put up a fairly rough fight.

‘But where is he? Mom and Dad’s scent are strong here, but where are they?’

She could vividly see and hear the onslaught of attacks from the opposing black-furred wolves. The battle that had happened there played in her mind, mocking her.

With numb fingers, Diana started to move once again. She took a step forward.

Once, twice, thrice… she clenched her molars, grinding them to stop herself from screaming like what she was doing inside her frenzied mind.

The turmoil in her core was gnawing at her restraint to lash out; the restraint that was all for the sake of her family as she remembered her father’s words – to use her wolf to protect and not to destroy.

But as the sands of time seeped through her fingers, seconds turned into minutes, and minutes turned into hours – still, no remains of her father and mother were ever found.

It was at this moment that Diana took a step forward toward the direction where her parents’ smells were the strongest in the room. She trudged over the fallen bodies of the enemies and the deltas. Death permeated the stale air of the room.

‘Where are the gammas? The healer? The alpha and the Luna? Where were they?’

Looming over the broken canopy of the bed, its lilac colors could not be seen, for the stench of crimson ink dyed the majority of its part. Due to her heightened senses, Diana knew that her parents were not there but she also knew that the litter of blood soaking the bed and the canopy belonged to her mother and father.

She did not know if she should feel delighted that she could not see their corpses or frightened that all she could see was blood. Diana dived deep into the possibilities of the scene before her. The possibility that they could have escaped – it was the last sliver of hope that she helplessly held. This hope kept her from breaking down right now.

‘But with this much blood? They are out there, wounded, and probably still being chased by the enemies! But where? To where can I find them?’

The second possibility popped into her mind. They could have died right at the spot before her. They died so brutally – by some sorcery – that even their remains vanished along with their souls.

Both of Diana’s shaking hands found their way to her head and in one agonizing guttural growl, she rubbed her temples – hoping to stop the buzzing in her mind.

Silence.

She wanted silence, but her restraint was cracking.

Diana knew that there was more way to find out if her parents were indeed alive like what she was hoping. And it was through their bond and her little magic.

'Shall I do it?'

Diana knew it was too late for regrets, but not that late for her wrath.