As night falls
~
Accalia
~

Every movement, tread or subtle breath Accalia attempted to make, she was intercepted and blocked.

No wolf or man could come remotely close to her except one.

Lycus whisked her behind him again, mangling his claws across another's torso and they fell limp to the floor from blood loss.

Another fighter came to her right, running at her full speed, but Lycus was too quick and had Accalia out of the way and before her feet touched the ground, that wolf was dead too.

"Lycus, you have to let me fight!" Accalia grumbled at him, steadying her legs to the ground. 

His beastly head rounded on her and shook his head, blood dribbling on his long snout.

He meekly grunted at Accalia and swept her up in the air as more wolves hounded them with all efforts to take out the Alpha and Luna of the Fenris pack.

All enemies were taken out by Lycus's hand, his claws embedding into hot blood and a spray of crimson painted across the Fenris pairing like a scatter of rain.

The odour of rotting flesh and metal was enough for Accalia to want to bring up all that she had consumed throughout the day.  

So much slaying, too much bloodshed.

Lycus placed her back on the uneven battlefield and she swayed against him, paying her sole attention to his flecks of amber that coursed through the pitiless black of his eyes.

"You need to stop protecting me." Accalia forced out and scanned her surroundings apprehensively, hoping she had a brief moment in these unfortunate times.

Lycus was overbearing, rewriting the past and trying to quench the guilt that continued to eat away at him since they first met. He didn't ask for Cole to scratch her and he most certainly didn't ask for Accalia.

He couldn't be her shield and protector forever.

But Lycus wouldn't have it, wouldn't listen to what she had to say and shook his head back and forth, his ears turning down in disapproval.

His feral attitude spoke of objection and he came closer to her, the essence of the souls he took and claimed by his hands reeking off him.

Lycus jutted a pointy claw at Accalia's chest, where her heartbeat was beneath blood and bones and before the words could slip out of his mouth, a body collided with Accalia and a hound of werewolves descended upon Lycus.

Smashing into the hard ground, Accalia's sword flew out of her hand and the world around her spun.

Lycus's pleading roar swept in and out of her ears as she rolled against the dirt and blood in a continuous cycle, the body on top of her having no desire to stop.

Once she settled against fallen leaves and torn limbs, a boot clashed with her ribs.

Accalia coughed on her pain, choking for air and she fell flat against her back. She swore she could still hear the pleas and roars of her mate, but that shortly fell into nothingness.

The same boot landed on her chest and pressed down, taking out the remaining air Accalia dreamt of taking into her lungs.

And befell upon Accalia were strands of honey-blonde hair dancing across her face.

"Me—Melina." Accalia choked out and clenched her fingers around the she-wolf's boot, attempting to pry her off.

That striking face came closer and Melina gleamed, her lips painted berry red. "The very same. How's life treating you, Accalia?"

"Swell." Accalia wheezed out and pushed harder against the boot from crushing her chest.

Melina laughed, her sun-kissed skin glistening against her moonlight, but she was bound to something much worse. The recent months shaped her into a worse mould of herself. More beautiful, but with deadlier intentions. 

"You must be acquainted with Adriana, I'm guessing?" Accalia said through clenched teeth.

Melina clucked her tongue. "You must be even closer to Lycus, I'm assuming? I can smell him all over you like a bad rash. How is he anyway? I just saw him, but the wolves lunged at him like hyenas on a lion."

Accalia's heart jolted and Melina smirked, her head coming closer to sniff out Accalia's frightening anxieties.

Thrax and Zenith aligned one way or another, mingling their pack members as one to ensure a levelled battle against a pack like Fenris. Why not combine lycans and werewolves? The untamed and feral?

"Where's your brother?" Accalia asked Melina.

If she was graced with one Thrax lycan, Accalia couldn't help but shake inside over what the brother would have installed for her. They had a long-time vendetta against not only her but Cadence and Lycus too.

The hope of where Lycus was filled Accalia with such fear she couldn't lay still, she couldn't hear him, she couldn't feel him near. And Cadence, her only surviving cousin ... they would want a fearless hunter like her, to wipe out all the strength she carried and change it into terror.

"Dead," Melina stated bluntly.

Accalia pondered if that was some effort of a sick joke.

"Why are you in such a rush to leave?" Melina pouted at Accalia who attempted to release herself of the lycan's brute strength that weighed her down.

"I need to—"

"Get to Lycus?" Melina questioned and a devilish grin swayed across her plump lips. "You don't have to worry about him, he doesn't belong to you anymore."

Accalia disregarded the she-wolf's spiteful words, knowing her to be full of filthy lies and vengeance. No other lycan or werewolf charged at her, only Melina and Accalia knew the killer was rounding on her prey.

The lycans and werewolves would gladly let Melina have the first bite of the hunter that had been the cause of her frustration.

"Neat scar." Accalia snapped, looking at the jagged and misaligned scar mangled across her arm. She would have to tell Cadence about it ...

A hand thundered across Accalia's face and the world above her swayed, white lights flashing through her vision.

"You have one too, bitch." Melina spat poisonously and the harder she pressed down, the deeper Accalia felt her thread to life slipping away.

"By the way, where is that cousin of yours? I wouldn't mind visiting her." Melina hissed through her elongated canines and those pools of honey eyes swelled into obsidian.

Cadence would very much appreciate her visit. The Larren hunter didn't like leaving a job unfinished.

Accalia spluttered on her words. "Cade—Cadence is here — guarding Cole in one of the dungeons."

That garnered Melina's attention and she loosened her weight, lifting her head to sniff out Accalia's cousin.

Accalia seized her chance, grabbing the back of Melina's heel and the front of her boot. Twisting it away from her, with much strength she could muster, Melina's ankle snapped and a crack flew into the air.

Eyes rounding in shock, Melina stumbled back and her screams sounded off like an alarm.

Ignoring the stinging in her chest and stiff joints, Accalia jumped back to her feet. Her sword was nowhere near her and neither was Lycus.

Scampering for anything on the ground, her shaky hand found a rock.

Before Melina could reach the floor in pain from her twisted ankle, Accalia did it for her and smashed the rock across her head.

Mind racing, Accalia couldn't concentrate on looking back to Melina, to ensure if she was injured with a hole on the side of her head or wiped out cold – she had to find Lycus.

Retracing the fall she endured, Accalia ran back up the hill and backtracked her way to where she was ripped away from Lycus.

She almost fell to her knees. Her body stung, but nothing could compare to the sting digging a hole into her chest, leaving an empty and unexplainable sensation.

A storm of bodies paved the way across the clearing, none moving and all decaying. Their bodies didn't know whether to cling to their human side or the lycan that granted them this curse in the first place.

Nevertheless, their bodies phased back bare and human.

"Lycus?" Accalia called out, her voice echoing back to her. "Lycus?"

She was met with a still silence, her body filling with biting nausea that made her eyes water.

Around the scattered and dismembered bodies, Accalia searched. Inspecting and identifying every rotting corpse that covered the huge and wide clearing. She came across warriors, and enemies — she was surrounded by a cloud of the aftermath.

None were him, none with features like him, none with amber eyes and dark hair that reminded her of the dark sky were him. None of these fallen Fenris fighters and enemies was Lycus.

Hysteria took hold of her, her throat closing up even as screams for her mate tore out of her throat.

"LYCUS!"

Accalia was answered with the outcry of her voice, strangled and desperate. Her mouth ripped open once more and she stumbled around helplessly, her limbs becoming leaden and heavy – she wanted to fall.

"Accalia!"

Her lasting hope shortened into bittersweetness and Tala threw her arms around her, hugging her tight.

Accalia resisted the urge to cry out in pain, a shoot of ache stabbing into her ribs and chest.

Tala pulled away, clutching her arm that looked bent in a twisted angle and scanned Accalia shakily.

"The Thrax and Canus have fallen back, our people were fighting them and then suddenly they were given orders to head back across the border. Accalia, they're gone." Tala said and wiped at her crimson face, wincing at the gashes imprinted on her skin.

That explained why no one was around in the clearing, they fled, and they ran from the war they caused.

Accalia felt like she was zoning out, her mind swirling but managed to shake her head. "Tala, it's Lycus – I don't know where he is. I lost him when Melina got to me."

Tala's expression changed and she clutched Accalia's wrists in a death grip. "N–no, that can't be, Accalia."

It pained her to explain it again, but she did, her words heaving in discomfort the more she told the Beta.

Tala rounded past her and dashed down the hill where Accalia left Melina.

Accalia followed after, not bearing another soul lost and found the bloody rock beside scattered sticks and leaves.

A tormented roar wailed out of the Beta's mouth and she shook with anger like she never had before.

"She's not there!" Tala yelled and bent down, brushing her hand across the blood-stained rock and leaving her nose to catch a scent. "She went to the entrance of the territory, like everyone else. We have to follow her tracks."

"What about Lycus?" That was all Accalia could think about.

Tala wiped her mouth nervously and submitted her eyes to the ground, her face deepening with despair. "I just caught it. His scent leads to the entrance of the Fenris pack too ..."

The pain in Accalia's chest deepened as if someone stabbed her, shattering a fragment of her into tiny, crystalline pieces.

Without speaking, Tala led them through the scents Melina and every other moon-bound creature left in their wake.

Accalia mustered up enough air in her lungs to realise a rib or two had been shattered against Melina's impact.

Beaten and bloodied, the girls continued their trek through the woods and slowly, other Fenris members began to emerge, showing that a part of them was still alive despite the evidence that would ensure any normal human being's demise.

"I could smell both Thrax and Canus wolves — but they had been called back." One wolf explained to the Beta, bowing his head lowly as he hissed through the pain. "We cannot find our Alpha."

"Go to the dungeons," Accalia exclaimed to the male wolf and others behind him. They made no move and she raised her sword at them, surprising herself more than anyone around her.

She couldn't take on the whereabouts of her mate being at a loss, let alone wounds dragging her in and out of reality and then the bitter hate these wolves have toward her for being a hunter. They had to get over it.

"Go check the dungeon where Cole is located, make sure he wasn't freed!" Accalia ordered fiercely and reluctantly, several wolves scattered in the direction where Cole and Accalia's people would be. Dead or alive, she didn't want to dare consider it.

Would they try to get to Rexton? Would his scent leave a potent trail anyone and everyone could follow? Lycus and Cadence left no tracks behind when they confined them, did they? Adriana was a leader Accalia didn't envision, having the ability to manipulate two Alphas to her liking. What would stop her from snatching up Rexton?

Accalia and Tala took off in the other direction, running at a pace both could manage as Tala clutched her arm and Accalia gripped her side, the adrenaline wearing off.

Tala skidded to a stop and lifted her nose, eyes glowing in the night. "They went over the border minutes ago – look, there are footsteps!"

Amidst the dreary darkness, Tala would be able to see much better than Accalia.

Trails of dirt left in paw prints, footsteps and dragged tracks, they bounded over the border. They dashed across the highway and everything changed. The moon beamed brighter, humanity drew closer and Lycus's scent went ... cold.

It vanished once they crossed into the other forest, with no footprints, scents and everything in between. As if it was never there to begin with.

"Nothing. Nothing." Tala shouted, stalking the edge of the highway where cars and trucks blazed back and forth. "I can't smell him anymore. They're gone. How could this happen?"

They came up empty-handed, no blood left, no tracks to follow ... nothing.

Horror painted across Accalia's face and all could be seen as Lycus's bloodied traces he left behind back near the highway like a ghost and she couldn't help but weep before them, her tears mingling with his blood.

~

One more chapter.

— Caranyx.