Shattering Soul
\[Maverick’s POV\]
‘Stay with me.’
I keep repeating these three words as Serenity’s mouth moves, ripping the skin from where she has managed to get ahold of me.
‘Just stay with me.’
‘I can’t…’ She murmurs and I can almost feel her very essence disappearing.
‘SERENITY!’ I roar, but with each passing minute she becomes fainter and fainter and then it’s almost like a candle being extinguished as her essence disappears completely and I’m left with nothing but this puppet I’m fighting. ‘SERENITY!’ I repeat, again and again, but with each passing minute I’m met with nothing but silence.
“Sorry,” Ellie laughs as the wolf that is no longer Serenity jumps on me. “It seems that she was spiritually weaker than I thought.”
She wasn’t. I counter silently. She isn’t. You’re the reason she isn’t here.
I’m going to fucking kill her. This only promise continues to spur me, making me fight with everything that I am and when what sounds almost like a stampede starts approaching, I feel a wave of relief. However, that relief is short lived as more rogues appear with their teeth bared.
“Looks like your friends didn’t make it.” Ellie shrugs and I feel something in me snap.
I let out a snarl of rage as I avoid Serenity’s next attack and then I’m turning on Ellie because the only thing that is going to make me feel better is ripping out her throat, but before I can, Serenity is on me and her teeth are digging into my flesh way too close to my throat.
I let out a pained hiss as she rips at me and when her claws dig into my flesh, I feel myself collapsing as the wall of rogues move in.
I can’t stop. I tell myself as they start to move in on me, surrounding me, covering me, their claws ripping into me, ripping me apart anywhere they can.
The coppery scent of blood begins to surround me and honestly, I don’t know if it’s just my blood or theirs because as they try their hardest to get to me, they rip at each other, not giving two shits whether those they are attacking are on their sides and when my view of Ellie starts disappearing, I try to hold on to hope.
Not yet. I tell myself, trying to fight the rogues off. I can’t give in yet.
I have to keep fighting.
I can’t stop fighting.
I have to hold on and wait for help to come, but even as I tell myself this I can almost feel it.
I can feel the severed ties of those who were here with me and even though I don’t want to admit it or accept it, I know that they are most likely dead.
Then was all of this for nothing? Was this how things were going to end?
Goddess, I beg to abyss. Is this really the fate that you have left for us? Is this really how things are going to end? Was all this for nothing? Or, was there going to be some miracle that saved us and reversed the damage that was already done?
As I beg for answers, I’m met with nothing but silence and when the pain and the blood loss becomes too much, I feel myself sinking into a darkness I’m not sure if I’m ever going to be able to wake up from.
\[Elise’s POV\]
I sit with Denali, my mind whirling, my hands clasped together as fear slowly starts to overlap the hope that I have that what is going on out there, the darkness that is closing in, will disappear.
How long have I sat here hoping that those who were fighting with all their might would return victorious? I didn’t know, but since their leaving we hadn’t heard a thing about where they were or how they were doing.
“It’s going to be okay.” Denali murmurs, her voice weak. “We just have to keep faith.”
How could she say such a thing when she was in this condition?
Since she overdid it she was running a high fever and her very aura was growing weaker and weaker, but even in her condition she could hold on. And because she could hold on like this, I had to hold on too because I couldn’t accept the alternative.
“Have you heard anything from the others?” I ask, hoping that she did and she just didn’t say it.
At my question, Denali opens her mouth to respond, but before she can her eyes widen in shock and then a look of complete and utter pain moves her face before she is letting out a scream.
“What?” I gasp as she curls in on herself. “Denali, what’s wrong?”
“It’s…” she gasps, tears flowing from her eyes. “It’s…”
She can’t even get out the sentence before another pained groan escapes her and when blood bursts from her lips, I’m jumping up and looking around for someone who can help.
“Hang on,” I murmur, knowing that I needed to find a healer. “Just hold on. I’ll go get someone…” But I don’t even have to as Tristan bursts into the room with a look of panic on his face.
“Did she feel it?” He demands, coming up beside her and then beginning to try to help her. “Dammit.”
“Feel what?” I ask, watching the scene unfolding in front of me. “Tristan, what’s going on?”
At my question, Tristan’s expression shifts, but he doesn’t speak. Instead, he tries to calm Denali who is wailing and shrieking like something is eating away at her from the inside.
It’s like she is being tormented from something that we can’t see and when I realize this, only one possibility pops into my head.
I find myself drifting back to a few hours prior while Denali insisted that everything was fine and that nothing had happened to her family and packmates.
“How can you be certain?” I asked her at that time and she gave me a knowing look.
“I can feel it.” She tells me, touching her chest. “Right here.”
“You can feel it in your heart?” I push, confused. “But how?”
“The bond. My connection with the members of my pack and my family. I can feel them and I know that they’re okay because I don’t feel them disappearing.”
Now, back in the present, I look at Denali as she is literally breaking in front of me and I know right then and there what is happening.
“No,” I whisper, unable to believe it. “No, that can’t be.”
“Elise,” Tristan says before I can spiral. “I need you to go and find Jolene. Tell her that I need fluids and a sedative for Denali.”
“Yeah,” I murmur, though I don’t want to leave the side of the woman who is suffering. “I’ll go and…”
I don’t get to finish my words before another wail of pain escapes Denali and her eyes roll into the back of her.
As I watch on, I can almost see her soul cracking inside her body and when the pain of loss becomes too much, she stops making noise and she grows still.
“Denali,” I whisper, staring at her in disbelief. “Denali!”
“GO GET JOLENE!” Tristan roars. “NOW!”