Epilogue
"Blood will saturate the soil
Tears will soak the soul
Fighting our demons
A war that never ends
A child to defend"
-Unknown
~~~~~
Alexis threw herself between SIN and Leiden, desperate to protect her brother till her dying breath. Without time to stop or think SIN's jaws locked automatically around Alexis' throat, ripping it out in one clean bite.
Alexis crumpled to the floor, wheezing as blood bubbled out from her mouth, as SIN stood still in shock.
As Nikolai rushed over to stop the bleeding Leiden turned to see the carnage, immediately shouldering past a terrified Nikolai he screamed at them to all fuck off as he stood shaking from an adrenaline rush, panting as his mind scrambled for a solution: there was none.
He tried to comfort his rapidly deteriorating sister as she bled out onto the dirt, saturating the soil till it oozed red as she rasped and gasped.
"Al-Alexis?" he asked, his voice small and helpless.
"Leiden," she sighed heavily, her body trembled as she struggled to lift her head to gaze into his eyes.
"Don't," he said quickly as he moved so she could lay her eyes upon him, "I'm...I'm so sorry," he apologised, his voice bleeding with sorrow as behind them Halone, Nikolai and SIN watched wordlessly, standing stoically.
"It's okay," she breathed loudly as she lay quietly dying, the pool of blood surrounding her and wetting Leiden's paws was like a shattered halo on the floor, "I promise."
Halone waited for the inevitable, her eyes reflected a deep well of sadness as she watched the only person who had ever truly loved her bled to death right in front of her. She knew there was nothing to be done, but she doubted Leiden knew that. Grabbing hold of her child she promised to nurture it as innocently as Alexis had nurtured her. She realised she had to turn her back on her past, no matter how determined it was to haunt her. Perhaps forever.
But she had to keep moving forward. The past was a downward spiral, she had to keep running towards a bright future-hope would set her free. And as she despaired for Alexis' suffering she felt free, oddly enough. Alexis soon would be free from pain. And in the birth of her child Halone's heart was set free to love without limits.
Surrounding in the wider backgrounds the rabid hoards had fallen silent. Halone slowly turned and began to walk away as Shadow and Sky ran to her amidst the bustling commotion, SIN followed behind her-treading nervously into a new world he barely understood.
And, for a moment, Nikolai lingered-hanging over Leiden, like a shadow or a guardian angel, before he too won his war and walked away.
Leiden's hope died as he watched Alexis take her dying breath, the infamous death rattle he had seen so many times overpowered her body as she succumbed. His heart died with her. His pain was sharp and constant, tears flowed freely down his face as he howled for his sister, the last light in his life had gone out. No one to hold him after a night terror, no one to cheer him up when he was missing mum, no little sister to be a big brother to.
Howls of insanity ripped straight from a broken heart, screams of grief demanding to be heard.
Hysterical wails, desperate and raw, then a solitary shriek of terror, which slowly and then all at once built into a symphony of horror punctuated by the tearing of skin from flesh and flesh from bone as Leiden massacred the rabid crowds, their still warm and twitching corpses offered as sacrifices to his need for revenge
And so a new war was declared.
She looked to Nikolai, his eyes calm and collected. Her eyes were steeled with an indestructible resolve, ready for anything. As was he.
She knew now more than ever the war would never end. Both external and internal ones would rage on for all of eternity. She knew she still had demons to face, demons that would hunt her down to the end of the earth and give her no mercy-demons that were all too familiar.
She wanted to transcend war and peace, searching for freedom. She saw now their was no such thing as good and evil, only existence.
She was, for the first time ever in her life, truly free.
~~~
Flash forward:
"Halone?!" Nikolai screamed above the rabid sound of claws slashing and jaws snarling. Everywhere she looked, chaos. Pure, raw, unfiltered mayhem.
She stood paralysed, unflinching and frozen.
"Halone!" he screeched his voice till it cracked, rushing to her side and grabbed her face, the sweat and blood on his palms soaking it.
"I-is she dead?" she asked, the words escaping from her lips in an effortless yet hushed whisper. As if she was afraid to know.
"Yeah," Nikolai sighed heavily, "she's dead."
"C'mon! We don't have much time!" SIN yelled, Nikolai looked to Halone before the pair shifted in their animal forms for speed and stamina as they followed the shaggy black and white werewolf that was SIN in his animal form into the wilderness and the depths of the undergrowth.
———
And that concludes this book but not this story! I've got a lot of books to write, one being a sequel to this book to continue on from this ending. It's probably going to be slightly longer, but I'm looking forward to writing it
I hope you enjoyed reading this story, it might be awhile before I get round to the sequel (probably June at the latest I'd imagine) but it's definitely coming! Which is what she said ;)
Onto the next story!
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