Song: sad songs by Saddest Playlist

If silence were a true sound then it would be excruciatingly loud.

I heard the silence in between Leo's sweet whispers and gentle kisses. His affection was so quiet in the face of the looming monster hanging in the atmosphere. I heard the silence from Flora's anxiety ridden pacing. Floorboards creaked and groaned, nothing harsh compared to the roaring quiet. But a nuisance nonetheless.

I heard the silence in Pride's shifting weight as he moved from couch to couch. I wanted to snap at him to stay still. But knowing he needed to keep moving to keep his wits about him forced me to hold my tongue. I heard the silence in Beta Ryan's low rumbling and soft whines of soothing adoration. He held Reign with unreciprocated love and attention.

I heard the silence in Reign's unmoving statue-like form. Upper body scarred, black hair messy, torn black jeans, and crooked glasses. He was the outline of grief and guilt personified.

I tasted his unparalleled thoughts of ringing worry. It was bitter on my tongue. Like charred ash, strong and disgustingly pungent.

"Do you know how he was able to hide that curse within him for so long?" I asked Pride. He flinched at the sound of my voice. I didn't blame him. The waiting room had been plunged into a deafening silence for the past six hours. No one dared to loudly break it until now. "Pride?"

Pride's skittish eyes flicked from Reign to me. He tapped his thigh erratically, drawing out each "note" longer than he normally would have. The nerves in his tense body kept me more on edge than I already was.

I sunk into Leo's arms as he wrapped himself around me. The safety of home dulled the lulling waves of worry building within me. Pressing a gentle kiss to the back of my bandaged head, he whispered words of comfort into my skin. I maintained eye contact with Pride, quietly urging him to speak.

"I asked my mom about it without telling her about Hemlock. She said that those types of curses are undetectable. They don't activate until the afflicted individual succumbs to it," he replied. "It's like a disease that festers, grows with them, until it's ready to be used."

"Grows with them," I repeated. I shook my head at the sudden reality I'd unwittingly discovered. Rowena was a fucking bitch. "Are you saying he grew up with the hemlock poison inside him?"

Pride nodded. "A curse of this magnitude, able to destroy three miles of land, was most likely implanted at infancy."

Infancy.

Hemlock never had a chance. His life was over the second Rowena cut the umbilical cord and stole him away. From day one, just like the rest of us, he'd been another pawn in her elaborate chess game. She knew his original purpose was to somehow bring us all together. Give us a firm foundation to stand on. So, instead, she weaponized him to do the exact opposite.

To destroy us and drive a wedge between those that survived.

It was already working.

There was despair coming from Pride for not seeing this coming. I felt more than heard the way he was beating himself up. There was nothing anyone could say to not make him count this failure as a reflection of his "poor" magick skills.

Leo's loud thoughts of frustration for not doing enough to prevent this couldn't go ignored. Not when I secretly harbored the same thoughts for myself. Flora's soft mumblings of criticism weren't as quiet as she thought they were.

The blame game was going around and not one person was safe from it.

Even now my cousin was running around, trying to get everything back in order. His Luna was overworked, comforting the grieving families for their loss. Fifty lives weren't something to take lightly. Not while thirty more, including Sky's, still hung in the balance.

I ached to send out my gift as Alpha Draco was doing but I couldn't focus long enough to do so. All I felt was Leo and all I thought about was Sky and Reign. Sky and Reign who were finally starting to make some progress in their relationship. Sky and Reign, who deserved better lives than what they got, who were now here.

One, dying.

The other, praying that it wouldn't be so.

I kept my mouth shut. I didn't say that I felt Sky's life force draining from the inside out. I didn't say her body rejected my gift of comfort a little over two hours ago. I didn't say any of that while we waited and waited as the minutes dragged on into hours.

I didn't know what Reign would do if I did.

"It's my fault," Reign's hoarse voice mumbled.

"Baby-"

"She was on the way here, to the Healers headquarters for volunteering," he interrupted. Reign untangled himself from Beta Ryan's arms, putting distance between him and his Mate. "I told her to wait by the side of the bunker so we could go together. If I never said that then she would've been safe."

Beta Ryan stepped forward, quickly halting at the sight of Reign's dead stare. The manner of frostiness coming from his frozen body was unbearable. It hurt to see him slip back into who he was before.

The door flung open and a brown haired she-wolf sprinted outside. Soft whimpers drew my attention away from her blurring shape. Before any of us could peek inside the Healer that'd been working on Sky walked out. Crimson blood drenched her all white dress. A sudden rush of nausea made my knees buckle under the weight.

"You ok?" Leo murmured in my ear.

I nodded stiffly, bringing his wrist to my nose. I breathed in his natural aroma to help ease the pain in my gut. Only then could I raise my eyes to meet the Healers blinking brown gems.

I wished I hadn't.

The fair wolf shifted nervously, scanning the seven of us before settling on Beta Ryan. "Next of kin?"

"Me."

The older woman regarded Reign with a guarded expression. She shut the door completely and turned to face him head on. "Relationship?"

Reign opened and closed his mouth. A plethora of emotions ran across his hardened face. A small light flickered beneath his beady eyes and I saw how they shined with rising tears.

"I'm her brother," he choked out.

"Alright." The blonde woman shifted closer to him, conscious of his standoffish nature. To my surprise she managed to coax him to take a seat. Beta Ryan took advantage of Reign's distraction, sitting behind him as close as he could get. Reign leaned into his chest and we all waited with baited breath as the Healer opened her mouth to speak. "It would be best if you readied a goodbye."

"Excuse me?" Reign said icily.

Flora's haggard breathing filled the ringing silence of the room. A piano could've dropped right here and it wouldn't have been as loud as the crack in Reign's heart.

"We've removed most of the shrapnel in her body but there's one that can't be touched," she explained. Her honey voice was soft, like she'd had this conversation many times before. Judging by the wisdom within her aging eyes, my gut told me I was probably right. "It's in her chest, bent at an angle. Every time we touch it, try to remove it, the shrapnel burrows itself deeper into her chest. The deeper it burrows, the closer it gets to her heart. Any more meddling from us will only quicken her death. Right now, all we can do is keep her comfortable and make sure her bandages stay wrapped to buy her a little more time."

All we can do is keep her comfortable.

Buy her a little more time.

Goodbye.

An unknown scent filled the room. Heavy footsteps pierced through the silence, overcoming everything else. At the sound of Flora's feral growl my head whipped around to see the she-wolf from before. She'd returned with a man by her side.

I knew who he was immediately.

It wasn't his blonde hair and grey eyes that alerted me. Nor was it his tall height or golden skin he shared with both his children. It was the cold way he carried himself, the mannerisms he passed onto his son, that let me know who he was.

"Thalia, who's this?"

The brown eyed she-wolf nodded towards the closed door. "I heard her mumbling names in her sleep and figured they were either close friends or family. I guessed Reign was our new Beta but I had to go out to get John here."

Reign's father, John, scanned the tense atmosphere of the room. His wide eyes landed on Reign, dragging his emotionless gaze over his son's faded scars. Whippings. That's what they looked like to me.

My hands curled into tight fists and I shook with anger that not even Leo's embrace could contain.

"I don't understand," he said gruffly. "Why am I here?"

"Your daughter is dying," Beta Ryan growled. The furious Beta left his Mate, glaring daggers at Reign's father. "Now's your chance to say goodbye since she's going to die."

Reign was motionless, staring blankly at the floor.

"Why would I want to say goodbye?" he scoffed. "That bastard is worth nothing to me."

Reign snapped before any of us could.

It was a blur as he lunged with his claws fully extended. Blood sprayed Reign's chest as he slashed John's face. Five deep gashes covered his bloody face and John howled in pain. Reign growled, taking a chunk from his arm next.

Leo darted out from behind me and tackled John to the ground. The injured man wrestled to get away from him and attack Reign in return. It took everything within Beta Ryan and Flora to hold Reign back from doing worse.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?" John roared. Veins popped alongside his neck as he struggled under Leo's weight.

"Stop moving," Leo snapped. His harsh Alpha Command slammed into John over and over again, weakening his will to fight back. The bleeding man slumped into the floor, his raging eyes spat pure venom at all of us.

"You worthless piece of shit-"

"You don't speak to me that way, boy!" John thrashed and Leo gripped his neck tightly.

"The fuck did I just say?" Red bled into Leo's brown eyes as he leaned down to growl in John's face. "Stop fucking moving!"

John growled in frustration as his body complied with Leo's order. He twitched every few seconds but couldn't break free from his invisible restraints.

Reign wasn't giving up.

"I'm done listening to you!" Reign hissed. Beta Ryan twisted Reign around so that he couldn't pounce again. "I gave up my childhood to protect you from what would've happened if I reported the abuse! I made my sister hate me so that she'd never have to love someone as sick and twisted as you! Y'know what? No more!"

Reign shoved Flora to the side, pointing at John with pure hatred in his black eyes. "I challenge you."

Beta Ryan's eyes glazed over and he gasped. "Reign, don't!"

"Lupus proelium," Reign growled. "Sundown. Do you accept or decline?"

Everyone froze.

Lupus proelium was no idle challenge to make. Lupus proelium was a fight to the death.

And then it all made sense.

The dream the Moon Goddess gave us all. The warnings that came with it. The black wolf that stalked us in the nightmare before devouring us whole.

Reign thought he overcame his animalistic urges when he bonded with Beta Ryan. He was wrong. I could tell by the challenge. I was even more certain when I saw John fighting his shift. The black fur that emerged and vanished before all of our eyes only made things clearer.

"I accept."

The sixth star calls to you. She will try to devour your humanity but you must never surrender to the beast.

Firstborn.

If Reign killed his father then he would fall to the stars. But if he didn't kill his father, then he himself would die.

Lupus proelium was a fight that never ended until only one was left standing.

Meaning that no matter how things turned out, we were screwed.

🌙

Vote and/or Comment if you enjoyed this part!

🌙

QOTD: How do you think Sky's death will impact the group/prophecy? What do you think will be the outcome of the battle between Reign and his father? How will things turn out if both Reign and Sky are lost?