© 2014 SilverStream22. All Rights Reserved.

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~STARK~

"Morrisey, please keep in mind that I don't appreciate you clutching onto my bare skin. Your hands are freezing." Jazz grumbled, pulling Lorena's hands off his arm.

"What am I supposed to do?" she whined, "Iris got Draver and he's like a space heater."

Jazz stiffened, turning around. In a quick, fluid movement, he detached Iris from Draver. "Kindly keep your hands off him, Iris. You know that we are spoken for."

"Calm down, calm down." she laughed, "I mean no harm. It's just that it's cold here."

"We're underground, what do you expect?" Alric retorted, a puff of warm air leaving his lips.

"How do you fare, Xerxes?" Jazz's hand settled on my shoulder. 

"I'm fine... Katya however..."

There was a surrounding sigh. 

"I know." Lorena muttered, "I'm worried about her too. Those curse marks... it has to be Kaleesi. How did she find us though?"

"Probably Stark using his bloody affinity." Draver growled from across me.

I kept behind, watching out for them. There was moments when the light didn't appear until a few meters away, something that sent a tidal wave of anger through me. Of course, Winry was as incompetent and arrogant as ever. My shoulders relaxed. However, she did save us from a gory encounter from Orion's followers.

At the sound of slighting earth, I switched my eagle eye vision into an infrared filter, scanning the area around us.

"What's wrong?" Iris concerned, looking around as well.

The shadow of a blue thermal glided by, causing me to blink back into normal vision. "Wraiths. They're in the walls of the tunnel. Don't touch the sides-"

"I can't even see the sides," Lorena exclaimed, "So much for amplified Lycan vision. This is about as dark as-"

"Stark's personality?" Alric joked.

I sent him a wry smile. "Hilarious, you are."

"What can I say? I was gifted with my incredible sense of humor-"

"More like cursed." Draver laughed, his heat ramped up at the slight shiver the dropped through the area.

"Whoa. Big drop in temperature. Stark, visual." Lorena demanded.

I tensed, switching my vision back to infrared. The enclosing walls around us were a bright blue, almost as bright as the sky would be if we weren't under here.

"We've taken a break too long. We should keep moving past them." Jazz insisted, getting prepared to speed off out of our resting spot.

"How? There's a swarm of them trapped in the wall, if we go by them they'll absorb our life force before we can blink, the only one of us you can afford having to be able to touch them is Iris." Lorena muttered. "One brush from me and I'm an old woman six feet under- literally."

"Breathe." Jazz assured us all, though the shaky undertone in his voice wasn't missed by any of us.

I couldn't hold it to him, after all, he was the one who had bad experience with wraiths the most, especially those who lurked underground.

"Stay close." I instructed, our shoulder brushing together or against another's back or front.  I dropped a thermal filter, scanning the wraiths that stalked the walls, just aching for one little touch so we could have our lives taken away in seconds.

"Would now be a bad time to mention how claustrophobic I am?" Draver muttered under his breath.

A laugh ripped from Alric's throat beside me,a hearty one at that; one that sent the depressing gloom of the wraiths sinking back slightly.

"You're just like fire, Draver, a flame that shrivels when entrapped."

"Be glad I'm not like Iris." he gestured to the petite Lycan in front of me who clinged to Lorena.

"Will the both of you silence yourself?" I grumbled, switching back to my default vision. "How am I supposed to keep my concentration with the two of you at each other's neck."

I glanced over my shoulder to scowl disapprovingly at Draver who had Jazz by his side. Suddenly the air changed a wavelength of speed fluttered by, sending us stumbling. The grow knot of negative feelings in my stomach tightened.

"Was that..." Iris blinked slowly.

"Castor's? Yeah. It has to be."  Lorena insisted.

"Then where is he?"

The muscle in my jaw ticked as I clenched my teeth, "Lost. He keeps up with the wavelength he sends out. He must've been going too fast. We need to retrace our steps and find him. He could've strayed off the..."

Iris' heart rate slowed immensely which had me turn my head. 

"Iris?" Lorena cried out, reaching forward to catch her daughter. Alric apprehended her, holding her back from Iris.

I didn't need to have thermal vision to know what was going on. The sliver of light that poured in from the cracks above us showed us all we needed to know: Iris had touched the wall.

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~KATYA~

"Ohhhhhh my Goddess." I breathed, curling my fists in my hair as I paced in quick three step walks, trying my best to come up with possible scenarios as to how I would be able to get the hell out of here.

"Stark's going to kill me." Castor gasped. "I haven't even tried sumo wrestling yet."

I clocked his jaw which hardly fazed him, probably because my aim sucked in pitch black darkness. "Would you pay attention? Please? Jeez."

"I'm trying." he exclaimed. "Not exactly the easiest thing to do. I can't just hatch a plan."

"Try harder!" I insisted. "Ugh, I need some light in here. No joke. Don't you have a second affinity?"

He sighed exasperatedly. "I'm not as lucky as the others."

"What's Stark's affinity?" I blurted, biting my knuckle in nervousness.

"That's not exactly my story to tell, Katya. We have out affinities for a reason. They weren't random...they all have a story behind them. So until Stark tells you what his second affinity is, I can't let you know anything else."

"Fine." I groped around for a wall finding it quicker that I thought. "What about an affinity that I already know he has? Like his eagle vision?"

"I supposed I could enlighten you." he took a deep breath. "Stark doesn't have an affinity just for sight. His eyelids are like filters, they place a new set of...filters, if you will, that inhibit him to see things differently. For example, he has X-ray vision, infrared vision, etc. You get my point?" 

I nodded, temporarily forgetting that  he could see me. Either way, he still continued.

"As a child, Stark got abused a lot. His mother would throw saltwater down his throat when he misbehaved, a punishment that left him dehydrated and begging for water. The dehydration got to a point where he couldn't cry at night anymore. One day, Stark's father just snapped and came home, grabbed a handful of salt, and forced it onto Stark's eyes" I sucked in a breath at the sound of such a crime. "Stark was...blind. For a majority of his life, he was completely and utterly blind. Overtime, he grew a large reputation for blood since he was out to exact revenge on his father once he came back after running away. That's when the Anosova's granted him the affinities of being a Lycan after hearing from the Moon Goddess and he got turned into one...his vision came back, only know it was more enhanced than ever."

"Wait...how exactly do you know all this about Stark?" I frowned.

He chuckled low, "I was there Katya. Throughout his whole childhood. I was there. I was his next door neighbor who rinsed his eyes out and treated his wounds even though I was a complete germophobe. Not to mention one very big detail."

"What? You were partners in science?" I snorted, trying to lighten up the mood.

"No. I was the one who turned him into a werewolf." he stated in all seriousness.

I blinked, trying to absorb the information. "Then, does that mean you're older than him?"

"By a hundred years." he said nonchalantly. "Though Lorena is the oldest of us all. Iris is the youngest. Alric is the second oldest, Jazz and Draver are maternal twins so their both the same age- younger than Stark by two centuries."

"Wow." I breathed."That's...insane."

"Not really. There's always been a level of age gap between us, but we all act like a family. We're more likely to fight friendly than argue throuroughly..though that could be debateable once Stark finds me." Castor's voice had an undertone of worry. "I really hate that I don't have Stark's vision. It would make things a lot more easier than what I have to do."

"What are you talking about?"

"Katya." he set his hands down firmly on my shoulder. "I'm going to retrace our steps and hope that I find our original path. It shouldn't take me more than two minutes. If I'm not back by then, I want you to walk backwards."

"How do I know which direction is backwards?"

He dropped his hands. "Don't you have a sense of direction?"

"Sorry, but I'm not gifted with the limited edition sixth sense that comes with the starter pack for Lycans." I muttered sarcastically.

"Hilarious." Castor replied sourly. "Now, I'm going. Stay here, okay?"

"Su-" I wasn't even done with my word before he took off, the dust kicking up caused me to sneeze loudly. "Great."

I leaned against the wall, doing a mental countdown of how many seconds were left until Castor came back. I pulled my arms into the sleeves of Stark's shirt, cupping my elbows with my hands. It seemed to be getting colder and colder by the second. My fingers were numbing with every passing moment. The darkness was killing me. Without the light, I felt completely...lost. Alone. Dettached.

Now would be a good time to ring up Mikhail and see how Ryker and Ryland were doing, along with sweet little Marie.

I closed my eyes, forcing myself past the barriers that my mind automatically created for old links and memories. Taking a deep breath, I concentrated on livening our link in hopes that my brother would answer. My efforts weren't in vain when I felt the familiar hum of his prescence in the back of my head.

Katya? Mikhail's tender voice echoed. Oh Goddess, Katya, why have you been shutting me out?

I don't know. I haven't contacted you in a while so I guess my mind put borders around our link since it wasn't needed. Anyways, I'm coming back home later than I thought. There's this Ancient vampire hunting me down, Orion, and he wants revenge for what Stark did in the past. They're relocating me to Sicily to get reinforcements, but I promise once this is all over I'll come back as Luna."

Katya...I need to tell you something. 

I frowned. What is it?

I found my mate. Remember Rosalie? From fourth grade? The one who came to tutor you?

I remembered. Since I was homeschooled, my parents told Mikhail to bring smart students to teach me to curriculum since I was scared and shy of any adult. Rosalie was one of the girls Mikhail brought, but he bullied her a lot once he found out that I liked to hang out more with her than him.

Please tell me you're joking.

I could almost sense his wry smile at the thought of this all too familiar conversation. I'm afraid not.

Wait...then does that mean you don't need me anymore?

The line went still for a moment, and I almost thought he cut off our links. The price of the deal was for you to go back to Ireland with him.

And if I don't want to? If I want to stay with you- with my pack? 

Katya, you aren't part of the pack anymore. I could sense the pain in his voice. We're removing your links to us tomorrow. A majority of the pack doesn't want Stark there in the first place, he unsettles them. 

I hardened my tone. Why? Because you believe all those stories you hear about him? All those rumors?

Not all of them are rumors... Mikhail said quietly. 

Shocked with anger, I abruptly cut off out link. My wolf wrestled within me as I struggled to grasp what he said: Not all of them are rumors.

I was astonished. I realized something new...in the beginning, I was the one who doubted Lycans and was quick to believe any gut-wrenching horror about them and Stark in a heartbeat whereas my brother was a bit more on the lenient side.

But I guess it was the opposite now. I was the one defending the Lycans while Mikhail was against them.

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I made a website (hell yeah) called Silver's Sliver : http://silverssliver.weebly.com/

Fanbase name time! The one that won is....SILVERLINGS!

Alright, hope you enjoyed this chapter my Silverlings :)