Protecting the enemy
~
Cadence
~

His voice unravelled from his tongue like a nip, with every word he uttered his bite grew sharper and harder.

"Cadence, I apologise for bringing her along. I should have realised the impact it would have on you."

It wasn't the impact it had on her, it was the devastation. The unceasing and lasting imprint Alexene left on Cadence.

Cadence hated many people, and many creatures, but Alexene rose to the highest point.

She was an immortal being made to prey on the weakness of others, designed to seduce and feed until there was no blood left. At least with a lycan, they have a chance of redemption, an opportunity to recount their humanity by the bonds of a mate.

Cadence whipped around and bumped right into the hybrid.

She steadied herself and sent him a glare when he attempted to grab ahold of her. Accalia and Tristan were up front, leading them to the inside of the pack and Alexene was nowhere to be found in the maze of the forest. But she would be listening.

"For once in your life, shut your goddamn mouth!" Cadence spluttered and took a step toward him, lifting her chin to see him fully. "Do you know why I hate Alexene?"

Rexton froze at her question. "She kidnapped you and you freed me because of it."

Cadence laughed, covering her mouth with her dagger and then thrust it at him fiercely. "Yeah, she did that. Tied me up, threatened to kill everyone I care about, strangled me and manipulated me. She almost makes your brother look like a saint. Let's not forget, the worst of all, made me free you and then you fed on me. You both have done nothing but make my life a living hell."

A cold and blistering hell.

Alexene was the catalyst, but Rexton was the executor, inflicting and deepening the wound.

Rexton's eyes glossed over with an emotion Cadence couldn't detect, but his voice rang with something worse. "Cadence, please forgive me. I hadn't the faintest thought of what she did exactly."

Another apology, Cadence released a ragged sigh and stepped back, wanting his body to disappear into the darkness.

"I don't want your apology, I want you to get the hell out of my life—"

Rexton fell to his knees, bowing before her and splayed his palms across the dirt as if to pray.

Her sentence flew into the wind and her heart galloped into her throat, eyes widening in disbelief as she fought back the urge to laugh.

"You're stupid." Cadence bit out.

Rexton shook his head stubbornly, dirt smudging his jeans and hands. "What will it take for you to forgive me?"

"Drop dead."

His head hung low. "If it ensures your forgiveness—"

Cadence's knife fell from her hand and her lip quirked upward. She couldn't help it and collapsed to the floor in a fit of uncontrollable laughter.

The lengths a person would go to.

Cadence couldn't grasp it as her body shook with laughter and she lifted her head from her hands to see Rexton staring at her curiously.

"What on earth is she laughing about? The lycans might hear us." Alexene hissed bitterly, emerging from the shadows.

"I said I would die if it meant she would forgive me," Rexton explained and looked up to the pale vampire. "She doesn't believe me."

Cadence's booming laugh died out and fell into a chilling echo. She stared at the two, the rage seeping back into her chest like it never left and she reached for her dagger.

Alexene scoffed, shooing the fog away from her with a disgruntled expression on her haunting face. "Rexton would go such lengths, Cadence Larren. Don't doubt that."

If it was coming from Alexene's demonic mouth, she wouldn't.

"Alexene," Rexton drawled silverily and on instinct, she gave him her all.

"Rexton?"

Rexton chanced a glance at Cadence and rose to his feet, towering over them. "Don't ever hurt Cadence again, in this life or any other. Do you understand me?"

There was a savagery to his words, something close to a lycan. A Fenris lycan. He sounded like his brothers, and his words carried their weight and meaning in an underlying threat.

Cadence was, once again, stunned by him.

"I did it to get you back, Rexton. You are my brother."

Rexton nodded understandably, but his empathy ran deeper than that. "I know and I am forever indebted to you for it. But you and I both know I would have never wanted it done this way if it was at the expense of others. No less, my mate."

Alexene looked down, that child-like wonder forming on her face, making her more innocent than needed. "I hate Lycus and Gabriel for what they did to you and it took me years to find you. I became desperate. I became obsessive."

Cadence would do the same. She would go to such lengths, tip the scales and raise hell to find someone she cared about even at the cost of others.

Because what meaning did someone you didn't know mean to you?

To Cadence? Nothing.

To a vampire? A worthless existence to either use or feed on.

Cadence would admit to her soul, to the fractures of it but not to anyone else, she would do the same.

"You three coming or what?" Tristan's voice rattled through the dark woods.

Cadence jolted, gripping her dagger and turned on her heel to head back to her family.

Accalia offered Cadence a gracious smile that was met with a blank, demeaning stare. But her smile didn't falter.

Cadence would do anything for Accalia. They both knew that, it was written into their code of being a Larren hunter, but with her constant attempts at protecting the supernatural, coming to their defence and seeing a point of view Cadence couldn't reason with, Accalia was becoming more Luna than hunter day by day.

It didn't sit well with Cadence and she wasn't sure it ever would.

They passed the gated trees through the many confining and tight spaces and came to the bounds of the pack, taking refuge behind thick tree trunks to hide.

The first thing that could be seen was bonfires scattered across the territory, lycans and werewolves dancing and lounging around the rising flames.

"Are those cages?" Accalia stammered, pointing to a deserted corner of the land.

Huge, metal cages stood off to the side by the trees and to Cadence's surprise, people were in them. Some naked, others clad in fur and blood. They were feral, pacing up and down the narrow and wide space like they were slowly going insane. On the edges of lunacy.

Sounds called to them, loud and snarling noises that took the centre of the pack. A huge fighting ring stood in the centre of the clearing and wolves surrounded it, yowling in excitement as two lycans ripped into each other.

"Barbaric." Cadence heard Alexene whisper from behind her.

They weren't close to the madness but they could see the Canus wolves' shelter was the ground they walked on. The flames were their glory and the night was their reason to go mad. They didn't need the full moon for that. They didn't need laws or rules, they made their own.

Wolves were exchanging cash, placing bets on who would win as two lycans went head to head in the battle cage. Other wolves set to other activities, more desired tasks that Cadence didn't picture seeing on this dreary night.

The huge and widespread land was their home and they treated it like a playground.

"Look," Rexton whispered to the crew and pointed a distance ahead. "A cabin. Cole's scent leads to it. His home."

They headed that way on Rexton's observation, the view of the wolves and lycans fading as did the imagery of people in cages, lycans fights and bonfires getting out of control.

The cabin sat on a huge hill, fit like a kingdom with its king overlooking his domain.

The music of throaty moans, skin tearing and shouts drifted away, the mere crunch of leaves beneath their feet overlapping everything in their path.

Cadence preferred it, it made her anticipate any approaching movement that could come their way.

"This is indeed Cole's home," Rexton lifted his head, nostrils inhaling as his jaw locked. "His scent is everywhere, but there is no one around the area besides us."

They drew closer as their quiet footing waltzed up the creaky steps to the deck. The two-story cabin was chipped in paint and cracked in the woodwork that held the home together.

"I can't come in."

Everyone rounded on Alexene, but no one complained. Cadence found it much more fitting she sat out and watched.

"Why?" Accalia asked.

Alexene grinned maliciously, white teeth set straight. "Vampiric reasons, I can't enter without an invitation from the owner — kind of like opening the gates to hell, you need to ask. Would you want to welcome a demon into your home?"

Cadence passed an annoyed glance to Tristan who shoved the front door open, dust whacking through and into the night.

"But Rexton can come in?" Accalia questioned with a quizzical brow.

"Rexton can, yes. But—" Alexene paused, blood red spreading across the white of her eyes and she charged at the door, stopping at the invisible line that prevented her from crossing it. "Rexton, tell me you smell that."

Rexton crossed the threshold of the door and hesitated, spinning back on Alexene with a wild look warping across his features.

Cadence bit back a gasp. His eyes, the blackness of a lycan painting where the white would be and the red tainting his amber irises.

"A vampire was here," Rexton confirmed and stepped into the house, not waiting for anyone. Tristan didn't hesitate in following after him, gun loaded and at the ready.

Cadence's throat dried up and she pinned Alexene with a dark glower. "What does he mean by that?"

Alexene sighed, surprised herself as she took steps away from the door and peered out to the Canus lands. "Vampires don't generally have a scent because they are dead. But, of course, when feeding, they give off a metallic scent — the smell of blood."

Cadence scanned Cole's lands, how horrid and dark it looked compared to any other packs she had come across.

"Maybe he killed someone," Cadence voiced out and grabbed her crossbow off her shoulder. "Maybe he ate them."

Alexene laughed without a trace of humour and turned on Cadence, eyes flaring with reluctance.

"You would like to think that. Vampires are rare these days, Cadence Larren, I would know and I know that a vampire was in that house, with Cole, and for whatever reason that may be, it is not a good one."

Cadence's shoulders sagged with a staggering fusion of wanting to punch or stake someone.

Alexene hopped off the deck and gestured for Cadence to go into the house. "I'm going to observe the surrounding area, you go into that house and make sure you don't get lost."

Alexene blurred away and Cadence attempted to mull over the conversation she shared with the vampire she had grown to despise.

"Cadence, I'm sorry," Accalia mumbled from behind her.

This wasn't a conversation Cadence wanted to have.

"Seems to be a lot of them going around," Cadence turned on her heel and faced her cousin, a sneer growing on her face. "Accalia, I really don't want to hear it."

Accalia slumped against the wall and crossed her arms. "Well, you're gonna hear it!"

A sharpness took over Accalia's voice like heat thawing ice and she marched up to Cadence. "I care about that boy, I care about what he has gone through and what he has done. He went from being locked in a cage for years, to being locked up still. Isolated from the world, from his brothers — Lycus won't even acknowledge him. And being isolated from you ... he cares about you, to him, you're his saviour."

Saviour, Cadence wanted to laugh. She never meant to save him and if she knew what it would lead up to, she would have gladly let him rot in that cage.

"I'm not his saviour, that's all Alexene." Cadence spat and scanned the woods, not wanting her voice to attract unwanted attention.

"Do you remember your nightmares?"

Cadence's head filled with a dull ache. The ache of screams and shouts shattered through her skull. She remembered it. How could she forget it?

She could never forget her screams echoing with Rexton Fenris's, his cries of desperation and deliverance. The cries of wanting to be freed.

"Un-fucking-fortunately."

Accalia nodded, faintly brushing her neck and Cadence recoiled, remembering the memory of nearly slicing her cousin's neck open from the torturous dreams.

"You were tied to him through your dreams, Cadence. Whatever he went through, you went through it with him. You felt his pain, his screams and his desire to leave that place. And you know what you did? You freed him from it."

Cadence rolled her eyes and clucked her tongue, not wanting to hear the painted lies of hiding the bitter truth. "I freed him because your life was at stake, Accalia. Remember that. I did all of this so you guys wouldn't die. Stop twisting everything around to fit a narrative that I saved him because I didn't."

Accalia's smile faded from her lips, brown eyes dulling as she stepped across the threshold of Cole's home. "He may not sleep, Cadence, but he isn't living a nightmare anymore. You stopped that."

Her cousin slipped into the house and strolled down the door, clasping the sword like it was her protector from whatever loomed within.

Cadence lined up an arrow and stepped inside the cabin, a cold air brushing over her.

She peeked in every room she walked by and noticed how unoccupied they looked — that was if it wasn't for the claw marks slashed into the walls and floorboards torn up.

Cole's lycan form wouldn't be able to handle the confines of a house. There was a reason Lycus's bedroom was in the corner of the manor and near the woods.

The markings of a lycan strayed the house, paw prints staining the ground in mud and dried-up blood that had turned brown.

Cadence grimaced, inclining her head into a room that was a study and untouched by the claws of a lycan. She stepped inside, the air becoming clearer and not as forbidding.

It was saturated in brown shades, the curtains dancing with the wind from the open window and in the corner of the room sat a table with scattered papers and aged photos on it.

Cadence picked up a photo and shooed the dust off it.

The edges were crisped and crinkled, the colour stained, but it showed perfectly who was in the image.

Cole and someone who looked similar to Erisa. Pale skin, blue-eyed but without the fine lines of coldness.

There was a snark in her features, a siren song playing at her pretty blue eyes with the sideway look she offered Cole as he stared straight ahead at the camera with a bright grin on his lips. He looked human next to her.

Cadence turned the photo around and slanted in inky writing wrote: My mate forever, Jenny.

"So this is she, huh?" Cadence brooded and slammed the photo back on the table. "You will be with her soon. Don't you worry."

Cadence left the study and peered down the hall, stopping in her tracks. The hybrid was pacing every corner of the house and stopped right in front of Cadence.

"What's wrong?" Cadence demanded, looking over the serious lines carved into his face.

Rexton's features softened. "The vampire scent, it's barely here — nearly nonexistent. Whoever it was, they left days ago."

Cadence huffed, shaking her head. A vampire was invited into the house by the owner. They would have crossed into the territory by permission of the Alpha.

Why would Cole have contact with vampires? Unless, of course, one got in contact with him.

Alexene approached Cadence, but not before stalking and spying on her. Perhaps this one did the same to Cole.

For what reason? That question deepened into further uncertainty and Cadence looked to Rexton for a solution.

"Where's Accalia and Tristan?" Cadence asked curtly.

Rexton swivelled his head around and looked upwards. "Accalia just left one of the rooms and Tristan is talking to her. They are both fine — although, there is a lot of dust in here."

Cadence met his gaze once more and she cleared her throat, tearing her eyes away.

"Where is Alexene?" Rexton asked Cadence.

"Seeing as she can't come in, she went around the area to see what she could find."

Rexton nodded, a long and drawn-out silence flowing between them.

"You know," Rexton said in a muffled whisper after a few beats drifted by. "When I am around you, all I can hear is your heartbeat at times, nothing else. It can be quite distracting."

Cadence's lips parted to snap a retort, but sounds echoed from upstairs, the voices of Tristan and Accalia replaced whatever was going to topple out of Cadence's tongue and she paid attention to the dust dancing along the air as their steps crept from upstairs.

"Look what we got here," a voice crooned from down the hall like a phantom. "Fresh meat."

Cadence whipped around, her throat dry and she levelled her arrow at the werewolf standing outside of the cabin door. His greasy hair and slashed face revealed a leery grin and he crept through the threshold shamelessly.

They weren't careful enough in the land of uncaring creatures. Canus wolves don't care for right or wrong. They have free will to do whatever they please, it was the freedom they devoured and control they hated.

"Going to shoot me, little bitch. Fucking try it, I'll bite your boy toy next to you before you can." The werewolf snarled and his claws flexed out from his nails, eyes glowing orange.

Cadence halted at the wolf's vulgar mouth, observing him before subtly glancing at Rexton.

Rexton's hand went to grab Cadence, to pull her behind him or throw her into the snarling wolf, she didn't know.

The movement wasn't welcomed and the wolf launched into the air, mouth bared open to bite into the skin.

His canines could have reached Rexton and Cadence could have let it happen. In the back of her mind, she wished she had.

Cadence let that arrow fly. The silver point flew for what felt like forever, time slowing and speared right between the wolf's glowing eyes.

Those orbs faded into meek brown and a thud followed as he collapsed, no cries of pain or screams because his life already met its end.

Cadence clenched her jaw, brows drawing together to confirm the body didn't twitch or stir. She stalked up to the dead wolf and wretched her arrow from his head, blood spewing out in a bloody splatter.

"You killed him." Rexton choked out and backed into a wall, his Adam's apple bobbing with anxiety.

"And Cole will see it," Cadence affirmed and wiped the blood on her jeans, grimacing in disgust at werewolf filth being on her clothes. "We can't get rid of the body, he will smell the blood and scent anyway."

Cadence whipped around on instinct and angled the crossbow directly at her cousins. She stammered out a breath of relief.

Tristan could mask the horror but Accalia couldn't, her eyes rounded in fear and she was fighting the urge to crumble as Rexton had.

"What the fuck happened?" Tristan snapped and sent an angry look to Rexton.

Cadence gestured her weapon at Rexton. "I stopped a werewolf from killing one of us."

"And you couldn't handle yourself, big guy?" Tristan demanded of Rexton, who, at his terrifying height looked sheltered and small as he slid down to the floor.

"She killed him before I could do anything," Rexton explained and frantically blinked. "She—she didn't hesitate."

Tristan ran a hand through his messy bun and pointed his finger at Rexton, sizing him up. "Get yourself up, man. You see Cadence falling to the floor? Nah, she did what needed to be done and protected you."

Rexton nodded shakily and forced himself to his feet, knees shaking. "I haven't seen death in a long time, it was best to forget such ordeals."

Cadence could agree with that, but not in a world like this that fixated on death. If they were normal humans, with no supernatural abilities or training in combat, they would be dead.

Cadence didn't want that and that was why she didn't care about killing the disgusting werewolf.

"We have to leave," Accalia mumbled and stepped to Rexton's side, giving him a lasting glance before giving the same concern to Cadence. "This has gotten far too dangerous. They could trace us if we stay any longer."

Cadence shook her head and kicked the body to the side to let them pass. "Our scents will throw them off course when we hit the road."

The four of them left the cabin, ignoring the dead wolf and what would become of them because of his demise.

Alexene whooshed in front of them at high speed, with bloody hands and a brazen look written on her face.

Everyone halted.

"Oh, come on! I said no killing!" Tristan yelled and threw his hands in the air.

Alexene took everyone in and immediately inhaled, her thin lips twisting into a smile. "I smell blood. Fess up, who did it?"

Cadence pointed at herself and Alexene laughed into the air.

"Of course, why wouldn't it be Cadence Larren?"

"Well, what's your excuse?" Cadence fired back.

"Two werewolves discovered me as I was looking around the perimeter. I ripped their hearts out and tossed their bodies outside of the pack. I was hoping they would believe they went missing but seeing as you also killed one, I doubt that plan will come into effect." Alexene explained tersely.

Ripping hearts out from someone's chest must be Alexene's symbol. It was displayed in her previous acts of killing werewolves and lycans — her way of a swift death.

She must tear their hearts out because she lacked one.

"Why, what was your excuse?" Alexene questioned tauntingly with a glint in her red eyes.

Cadence motioned to Rexton. "A werewolf was going to attack him."

No laughter came out of Alexene's mouth and she straightened up, looking between Cadence and Rexton. "You protected him."

Cadence grunted in response.

They travelled downhill, sticking close to the tree line and in the shadows that protected them. Closer to the chaos of music, shouts and moans that echoed throughout the pack like thunder cracking down on earth, they wove through the many gaps of trees that would lead them away from the blood they created.

None of them looked back, the Canus wolves would soon smell the deaths of their pack members and Cole Canus would be left with the urge to hunt down whoever left the bodies to rot.

~

If you feel this was done too easily, that's kind of the point. The Canus pack are known for being careless and chaotic.

They're not like the other packs where wolves station every corner and edge of the territory to protect and guard. They simply don't care and I hope I executed it properly.

— Caranyx.