Eresos

As the beta’s daughter, who was born from a strong bloodline, a bond was made with her wolf to the hundreds of wolves in the pack. Growing up, Diana felt that the bond connecting her to her pack mates was both a privilege and a burden to bear – especially those who were related by blood to her parents.

It was a privilege to sense the thrumming lives of the people inside her core, but that privilege came with a price. For every death of her pack mates and relatives, the snapping of threads that connected her to them was like a stab of dagger in her heart.

One death was like a fleeting stab and Diana could barely felt it back.

But now, she discovered in her rebirth that there was another feature. She discovered it when one of the girls she killed during the Tribute was a distant relative of hers.

The lingering pain was followed by a sudden sense of knowledge and a memory which only lasted for a fraction of a minute – enough for her to know who died and in what manner the relative died. At that time, she foolishly that she would not be able to feel it much since she was going to cut her ties with the Crescent Pack.

Indeed, she was foolish.

Today was the moment she experienced her first collective snaps of the threads of the bond, what was once a fleeting stabbing pain became a thousand stabbing pains, waking her up from a night of passion.

It was at that moment that she realized how foolish and complacent she had been. She forgot that one change would result to a chain of reactions – she had gambled on the wrong decision.

She was too hasty. And regrets would always be late.

The moment she felt the stinging bonds on her way to the borders, she knew something was definitely wrong. For her to be able to feel the snapping of the band meant that a massive killing was happening – a massive killing of those who she personally bonded with both her human form and wolf form.

But she was yet to open the chains of the bond. She feared it before she came here. And she feared it now more than ever. It was not the pain she was afraid of.

Diana was more afraid of what would follow the stabbing pain she felt at that forest.

‘But I have to do it to know my parents’ current condition. If I want to help them, I have to confirm that they are indeed still alive. Oh, Moon Goddess! Please, let the possibility of their death be wrong! I have yet to protect them and I have yet to apologize for keeping a secret from them!’ Diana plead in her mind, the first trickle of a single translucent liquid fell from her right eye.

Diana placed her right palm above her beating heart and closed her tear-stricken eyes.

Tarnished by the pounding of her heart, the silence of the room continued in which she did not mind one bit. Unchaining the bind that was keeping the bond hidden, she muttered under her breath.

 “Eresos.”

Eresos meant to wake up or to open what was closed. Upon whispering the ancient language of witches, the rattling of chains engulfed her sense of hearing. The bloody room remained eerily silent but her mind was buzzing for a whole new reason – the bond had resurfaced once again after hours of slumbering within her.

The onslaught of memories from the fallen werewolves that were loyal to the Ritchell Family made Diana stagger.

With her weakened state, her trembling knees kissed the shard-laden floor. Not minding the debris of the battle that had transpired within the room, her shoulders shook as her shaking fingers tugged her disheveled hair.

Pain.

The feeling of a thousand of blades drilling her body was not the pain she was enduring. It was because of the last memories of the fallen deltas and relatives lying dead around her. Their final moments showed her a couple of snippets about what transpired to them and to her parents.

As she delved deep to the bonds, she was now looking at the myriad of memories of the wolves that had bonded with her wolf like the deltas that she saw her father trained with everyday or the relatives that she saw everyday talking to her parents.

‘I was right about the chandelier caused by my father.’ Diana thought as she watched the memory of one delta who was saved by her father.

“Oh, Moon Goddess! If it is life that you have wanted, take mine! Not this! Never this!” Her anguished voice cracked the deafening silence of the bed chamber.

On cue, the storm that vanished a few moments ago came back with vengeance.

Double the size of the looming storm from before, the thunderclaps rattled the windowpanes of the hundreds of cabins in the Crescent Pack. Zaps of lightning bolts littered the darkened skies of the Crescent Pack followed by a heavy rain.

The restraints had been severed. And the magic had been activated.

Gone was the last of her control as she reached out towards the blood-soaked blankets of the bed. The lingering smell of her parents was covered by the stench of their blood yet Diana clutched the blankets as if her life depended on it.

Regret.

The depravity of regret and anguish was clouding her mind; one of the reasons why her restraints had snapped. Diana regretted that she had left her mother and father without telling them how much she loved them and how she felt so lucky to be their daughter.

‘I failed them in my first life. Yet I still failed them now.’

And when she reached the bond to her parents that she was looking for, her world stopped upon seeing a couple of memories from both of her mother and father.