Hey again! Sorry for the wait; I just started college and I may or may not have briefly forgot my upload... Oops? Hope you enjoy!

As always, let me know what you think :D

Libby xx

Raven was in front of Thalia and Elijah, clutching her arms in some sort of comfort. The Princess was plagued with guilt and worried for the young red-head. Ever since Meredith’s name had been mentioned Raven had sheltered her thoughts. The brunette frowned.
“Are you thinking what I am?” She whispered to Elijah as he walked next to her. He too was frowning at the young girl ahead of them.
“That she had a personal visit from our dead vampire? Yes.” The hunter spat, glaring at the trees around them as they weaved their way through the tackling trunks.
“Meredith died over one year ago.” Thalia spoke, putting pieces together in her mind. “So who was torturing her?”
“Do I look like I know the name of every vampire in the world Thalia!?” Elijah shouted, but brought it down to a whisper when he caught Raven flinching in the corner of his flaming green eyes. “No Hunter knows every Vampire in the world.”
“Don’t raise your voice at me you arrogant twat.” Thalia snarled, glaring him down. Elijah hesitated with his vulgar response before seeing not only the anger in her eyes but also the worry and sorrow. Making the wise decision he backed down.
“I’m sorry…” He slowly spoke, the word sounding foreign on his tongue. “I’m just angry of what Raven has been though. She’s young, doesn’t deserve this.”
Thalia almost choked on shock. He’s apologising?! She stared at her mate with wide eyes and jaw dropped. She saw the slight blush on Elijah’s cheeks but still she didn’t move her face. The Elijah she was mated to was not the type to back down from a fight, would never give up on a spat. This new Elijah though… she kind of liked more. The one that listened and actually thought about what to say.
“Who are you and what have you done with my mate?!” Thalia accused, but a small smile played on her peach lips. Elijah playfully glared at her before checking on the surroundings again. The Princess laughed at his glare, not noticing the loving look and smile Elijah gave her. When she finished her laugh the smile was hidden behind a guarded grimace as they passed a wad of manure from some unknown animal.
“Wild wolf.” Thalia stated, catching the smell. Being in the good mood she was, the Royal slipped him a small secret. “Did you know about our connection to the wild wolves?”
The Hunter Leader frowned, looking at Thalia curiously before she spilled on her tale. “Usually, we use the wild wolves as spies, to give us some information on scent surrounding a target or when they’re moving. You hunters never shot the pure wolves, they weren’t werewolves so they could always slip past you’re radar.”
Elijah suddenly stopped, processing this information. Thalia didn't notice his halt for a while, her one-side conversation continuing before she frowned at his lack of presence.
"It's crazy; you hunters just let the wild ones pass right under your nose! Like they're invisible....Elijah?" Thalia stopped as well and watched as her mate's dark green eyes darted back and forth on the foliage on the floor. Pausing, his eyes snapped up and stared at the walking figure in front of them. Raven's read hair swung in a single thick knot as she walked aimlessly towards the direction that Elijah had pointed at previously. Her grey eyes warily darted back and forth, searching for some evidence that would cause her to run in the opposite direction. Raven was only just sane, the laughter of her captor haunting her quietly.
Elijah looked from the back of the red-haired girl and into the eyes of his mate. Her lips pursed in worry but she was in a stance ready to fight. Looking between each of her eyes, he leaned in slightly.

“Do you believe that Raven is telling the truth?” Elijah asked, quieting his voice to barely a whisper.

Silence enveloped the forest briefly; the only sounds were Raven’s footsteps away from them. Thalia’s eyes seem to freeze before she too leaned in, only a bite away from Elijah’s face. Her eyes were guarded as she stared into her Hunter’s vision. He had the idea in his brain, and there was no getting rid of it now.
“Are. You. Insane?” Thalia hissed, and Elijah’s jaw clenched. The guard had unveiled itself to reveal a nasty pit of anger and disappointed. The hunter quickly realised he had made a mistake insinuating what he thought Raven was, to the Princess of her kind nonetheless.
“She’s obviously been through a lot, you saw her reactions Elijah!” Thalia growled, standing her ground.
“Just think not as a Princess for once Thalia!” Elijah snapped back. “She won’t say what has happened to her-“
“For obvious reasons! It’s probably so-“
“unreal!” Elijah interrupted. His eyes wide in disbelief that his own mate wouldn’t believe him.
“You can’t expect me to believe that Raven, that small girl, is in fact lying to us!” The Princess burst as she wove her arms about in anger. She pointed a sharp finger at Elijah’s chest. “Don’t you dare say what I know you’re thinking hunter.”
Elijah rolled his eyes, the balls of anger burning in his sockets but he pushed on. “Why didn’t she tell us about Meredith? Why hasn’t she said who is capturing her? We’re freaking behind enemy lines here and we have literally no information!”
Thalia’s eyes darkened dangerously but Elijah ploughed on. “We have a whole colony of vampires to deal with and the one person who was on the inside is hiding everything! Raven, if that is even her real name, was found in a known vampire house as a victim to experimentation…”
“Don’t you dare…” The Princess snarled viciously, still keeping her tone quiet but the deadliness could not be contained in a whisper.
“What if the vampires planted her there to make us think she was a victim? What if Raven isn’t a victim at all, but an accomplice?!” Elijah ranted; his mind racing as he tried to put the pieces together, but there were so many holes. Too many holes; all because a certain small wolf wouldn’t reveal the truth on what happened to her. Raven would not say even anything towards her capture which could turn the tide for this ever-increasing deadly war. Centuries had passed where thousands and thousands of vampires, werewolves and even hunters had been killed; it had to end soon. It had to end or the humans would find out and then the tables would turn into one of survival. The three developed species were right under the noses of the humans, like spies in an enemy fort.

Like Raven, a possible vampire minion, in a Royal wolf’s loyalty.

“Right under our noses like wild wolves... but a turned werewolf under the noses of its former species?! It’s the perfect plan for vampires, to push a spy wolf into the Royal castle for protection and then the vampires come! And you could, I know you can Thalia, you could use your freaky ability to just look and see if Raven is-“

Thalia slapped him.

The rant of spies halted as Elijah’s head snapped to the side. The hunter had not even seen the slap coming, but he should have. What he was saying, that a werewolf was a traitor to a Royal who believed she had to repay said werewolf for a crime she didn’t commit, it was crossing all kinds of lines. The amount of stupidity he had momentarily gained might have cost him the love of his life.
Thalia was incredibly still. The only movement from the Princess was her long brown hair blowing in the subtle wind, strands stroking her face. Other strands ventured away from her head as though desperate to escape the tension between them. It seemed like hours before Thalia even blinked, let alone opened her mouth to talk. The Hunter’s heart, surprising himself that he even had one anymore, stopped when she spoke.
“I would never see the memories of a tortured girl, memories I helped create.” She whispered with no emotion, no life. It was as though vampires themselves had drained Thalia of all the emotions she could have, leaving a shell of a Princess before her mate.
“Thalia, you didn’t…” Elijah tried to say but the words got caught in his throat when Thalia merely looked at him. Just looked. The gaze was a mere brown colour; no trace of the sparkle which had once rested there. It was just cold.
“I could have saved one of my kind months of pain.” Thalia whispered death again, her lifeless gaze not wavering. “That is something I will carry for my entire life. Do not try and convince me otherwise.”
“You don’t know…”
“But I do.” Thalia interrupted, a slight flicker of pain bursting through the colourless shield before her eyes faded back to mere brown flecks. “I can feel the pain she went through, and it trumps the guilt I feel tenfold.”
Elijah stepped back. A clear metre from the unstable Princess might save his life if she tried to strike. His confused green orbs darted back and forth, but his bushy brows creased when he couldn’t detect any emotion in them. He couldn’t get a read on her, Elijah couldn’t tell what his Princess was thinking.

Was she even his anymore? Had he gone that far?

“Elijah, I’m a Royal Princess of the Wolves.” Thalia deadpanned. “I can feel the pain of one of my wolves; the first Princess is always the patron of all female pack wolves. It’s the closest they’ll be to the Moon Goddess, of course, before we realised Lady Seraphina was still alive. I couldn’t detect her pain because she wasn’t a pack wolf; the Moon pack was wiped. But Raven…”
Elijah stilled before suddenly becoming angry. “You felt her pain and you didn’t even think to pursue the house?!”
“I didn’t know!” Thalia suddenly burst, her eyes flourishing in every dark emotion possible. “I didn’t know what I was feeling; I thought I was in heat, I thought the pain I was feeling was distance between you and I when you insisted on leaving me behind so you could hunt, I thought…”
“Don’t you put this on me Thalia.” Elijah hissed. “You’re a Wolf Princess for a reason; you’re meant to know!”
“But I DIDN’T!” The paranoid Princess prowled. “The wolves cry for the Goddess, and all I felt was heartache at random bursts. I never experienced the pain; Seraphina wasn’t bound to the wolves she is bound to the Goddess. I thought it was freaking cramps for crying out loud!”
Elijah flinched at the raised volume, but glared down Thalia. “This is why you’re guilty? Because you felt some unknown pain and you ignored it, and you just realise after the rescue that it was Raven’s?”
Thalia’s eyes watered, but she breathed away the water. She had to be strong now; she was adamant that Elijah would reject her and the Princess would be alone for eternity with a guilt she couldn’t fix. “I know for a fact that Raven couldn’t have faked that pain. She’s no spy.” Thalia whispered.
The Hunter merely stared at his mate before looking up towards the direction Raven was still walking. He could just glimpse her red hair through the trees, some left over strands tangling in the branches by her head. Elijah looked down on his mate in a new emotion.
“You feel guilty?” Elijah confirmed, and the look on the Royal’s face was enough to prove so. Elijah stepped back again, before looking at where Raven was walking. She hadn’t even noticed that they had stopped; her wolf must be so weak.
“Then help her find her family.” He whispered, still staring at the frail female. “Help her find out who she is, and help me and the rest of your own kind eliminate the threat so no other wolf has to feel what Raven nor Seraphina went through.”
Silence enveloped them once again, and Elijah looked back at his mate to find her struggling to hold back the tears. Her lip was starting to tremble and the Hunter started to realise just how broken Thalia was.
“Can you do that Thalia?” Elijah whispered as the wind subtly ruffled their hair. “Can you do that for yourself?”

Raven barely felt the pain on her scalp as her red tendrils clung to the branches; she merely kept walking forward. The laughter was haunting her footsteps. Raven kept looking down, thinking that someone was clinging to her ankle and snickering. Her grey eyes were filled with fear as she followed the hunter’s instructions. She had long ago lost concentration of her surroundings and was more focused on getting her wolf under control so, for once since her escape, she could actually sense what was around her.
Her wolf merely laughed as though Raven’s attempt at focus tickled her dark coat. The golden eyes of her wolf glinted in amusement.
Please. She thought desperately as she practically begged the other part of her to give her back the senses which they both needed to live. Please, my wolf.
The wolf seemed to realise that Raven needed the senses for her own self to life. With eyes growling gold, the black beast bowed her head and snarled. Raven breathed deeply as the wolf let go of her senses, letting the taste and fresh air breathe into her screeched lungs.
The cool air shot into her broken lungs; the taste of fresh pine, unearthed dirt and the smell of deer and wolf filled her senses. Her eyes seem to flash a bright grey like the fluffy clouds above her. A silver lining seemed to shine in her eyes as she finally felt what it was like to be a pure werewolf once again. Crickets, coiling of snakes, flutter of flying birds sounded in her small ears and for the first time in a while she grinned. Laughter echoed out of her petit mouth as she finally felt free. She was about to embrace the shift into her wolf when she smelt something off.

Humans… Iron…

Hunters.

Raven stilled; a chill running down her spine. She spun on her heels, only to come face to face with the Princess and the Hunter. They were both focused, but the tension seemed to have cleared slightly. Their brown and green orbs were locked with Raven’s sparkling grey as panic started to set in again.
“It’s okay Raven.” Elijah quickly reassured, Thalia nodding in agreement. “This is our base camp; where we resided to plan the storming of the vamp house.”
Thalia gently laid a hand on Raven’s shoulder. The red-head’s eyes widened in shock when she felt the warmth beneath the Royal’s skin so strongly, she thought that her dark nightmares might have been wiped from her scarred mind.

The laughter sounded so quietly she thought she imagined it; but Raven knew that it wouldn’t go away with the touch of a Royal.

“Come on Raven, this is home for you for now.” She said, as she led her beyond the trees and into the territory of the Hunters.