Chapter 71
-Johan-
“Welcome back, Johan
I was greeted by that same comforting voice that had become so familiar to me. It was the voice that welcomed me back into the waking world after every death. I had died countless times over by then. I had never thought to count in the first place.
I waited as my vision slowly returned and my eyes adjusted to the darkness around me. Inside the tent, candles flickered.
The orange flames sent warbling circles of light bouncing all over the green canvas folds that encased the healing site in which I lay The light bounced off dozens of glass jars and burned inside the pale woman’s dark eyes.
I smiled at the figure leaning over me, cracking my jaw into place. “My Lady. It’s a pleasure to be back. Her snow-white hair bung over me like a curtain. Her porcelain l*ps had the faintest tint of blue to them like she herself was a corpse of sorts,
She moved aside as I sat up, blinking in the darkened tent as my senses came back to me. The smell of smoke and fire, of burning wood, burning flesh. The rank aroma of dried blood and bubbling fat. Scents I had grown familiar with over my time with the Tally.
They were hardened people. Forged by hardships and suffering Pain and resilience. My blood brothers and sisters, every one of them.
each and
“It’s time,” the Lady Tally spoke as I stretched and flexed my appendages, testing out my rejuvenated strength. “Tomorrow you move out, before dawn.”
I clicked my n*eck and rolled my shoulders, taking pleasure in the powerful muscles that rippled under my skin. “You’re not coming with us”
She got to her feet gracefully. She was always barefoot, no matter how harsh the terrain. Barefoot and clothed in the lightest of flowing garments, always draping down to the floor, always pure white.
The fabric of her dress was stained time and time again by the blood of the monstrous deer that she sacrificed, as well as the blood of our own people. But time and tine again, she somehow managed to wash the material clean until it looked as pure and untouched as freshly fallen snow,
“No,” she said over her shoulder as she began organizing jars on the makeshift table that had been built for her potions. “There’s always the risk of failure, as small as that risk may be, and so I will remain here with some of our soldiers. Should anything happen to you, we will be able to start attew and try again”
I got to my feet and looked down at the small, slender woman who had already begun mixing more of her potent serum for the next shifter soldier waiting outside.
It was a monotonous job, in my opinion, spending most of her days brewing potions and hiding out inside the single claustrophobic tent. But it was a job she seemed to enjoy and take great pride in
“You think we will fail?”
“Of course not. The Tally is the most powerful they have ever been. The Bielke won’t know what hit them. But there’s always a chance, always a risk.”
“I vow to you my Lady, we won’t let you down.”
She paused her tin kering and turned to face me. “I know you won’t. You have been a faithful ally, Johan. I can’t thank you enough I only hope this war will finally bring you some peace of your own.”
Her eyes were soft, a rare sight to behold. Our Lady’s eyes were usually so full of glinting determination, of cutting fury, coll and aloof. Her small acts of gentleness were reserved for those she empathized with.
Rogues on the run from their former packs, each with their own story of heartbreak and betrayal. Other traveling shifters,
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Chapter 71
tired from the constant harassment of parks protecting their territory even from innocent passersby.
1 had seen those eyes once when she had found me in the woods before she had bared her teeth and informed me of a corpse’s inability to talk back
I had no answer for her. My pain was a dull thud in the back of my mind. 1 had one goal and no future beyond that goal. I not longer pursued peace, I didn’t see that as a possibility for someone like me,
I would have my vengeance and then, whatever was to come after would just be extra time. A life I no longer cared to live, a b*dy that could carry me forever so long as I stayed at my Lady’s side. I could see nothing beyond my desire for revenge. I didn’t care for peace.
I could only bow my head until she bid me goodnight.
“Oh and another thing,” she added with a lilting voice before I left. “That shifter you were after? Plato, I believe his name was. We found him a while ago, he’s been shackled to a post outside of Helena’s tent. I was waiting for you to get back to tell
you.
Plato. Another cog in my quest for revenge. Our Lady had been kind enough to allow me a tracking team to hunt him down. I would deal with him after our victory
“Thank you my Lady, I appreciate all of your help in catching the ba stard.”
She nodded to me and turned back to her table of magical artifacts and I took it as my leave to go.
“Tomorrow, Johan,” she said as I exited the canvas tent and strode out into the newest resting place of my second-chance pack “Rally the troops Tomorrow we strike down the Bielke once and for all. Leave no one alive
Leave no one alive. I was ready. I was elated in fact, riding the high of my newly formed b*dy. My powerful b*dy. I was an unstoppable force and tomorrow I would carve a crest of blood across the Bielke territory
And Dorothy. My dead heart could almost beat just thinking about her. The red of her hair. The red of her blood,
Dorothy would finally be mine.
-Dorothy-
The windows blew open with a sudden force as a gust of wind screamed through the empty mansion. I fought the billowing curtains and heaved the window closed before sliding to the floor and cupping my arms around my swollen stomach.
“Don’t cry,” I grumbled to myself as I fought the hot tears that were threatening to pour forth. “Don’t cry, you idiot.”
The finicky window opened once again and slammed shut with a loud bang that had me jumping in my skin and clutching at my exposed stomach. That was enough for me and I dissolved into a puddle of tears between the blue curtains.
“Red? Are you okay in there?” Angie called through the door.
“I’m fine!” I yelled back, mortified at the thought of her seeing me so distressed. I wore one of Ignatius many black t-shirts which I had refused to take off since he had left, and nothing else.
A pregnant ginger crying on the floor was not a very majestic sight to behold. “I’m alright. Just give me a minute
Angie wasn’t convinced and I heard her waiting at the door to hear my sniveling for herself. I kept my mouth shut and forced myself to breathe deeply, quitting my racing nerves.
When I finally heard Angie’s receding footsteps I relaxed back against the wall and stared up at the ceiling
I was coming apart at the seams, a nervous wreck who could do nothing but cry when the window slammed and mope about the big empty house while my mate was off somewhere risking his life.
It was the wasting that was getting to me The wanting and the not knowing Ignanus had kept his mind closed from me unless ablutely necessary so that he wouldn’t lose focus The Last I land from him he had found the Tally’s campout.
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Chapter 71
“There’s so many of them he had said grimly and I shrank into the pillows.
“Come back to me,” I reminded him. “You promised.”
“I know. And I intend to keep that promise. I love you.”
That was a whole day before. I hadn’t heard from him since.
Angie and Rita had tried their best to reassure me but I was inconsolable. I had busied myself helping out at the forge, only there wasn’t much left for a pregnant woman to do there.
I had paid a visit to multiple homes around Bielke territory, introducing myself and comforting families who were afraid of the coming war. There were even some elderly family members who had faced the Tally before. They had nothing good to say about those battles.
I had even visited the prison. Multiple times in fact. I spoke with the prisoners that had been captured during the recent attacks on our land. They didn’t deserve to be there, they were unsuspecting civilians caught in the crossfire of a war they had nothing to do with.
We couldn’t afford to risk releasing them, however, until after the Tally had been dealt with effectively. The last thing we wanted was to offer them more soldiers to throw at us again.
As ironic as it sounded, the safest place for those poor people was right there in the cells where the Tally couldn’t reach them and they couldn’t reach us.
I tried my best to reassure them that we meant them no harm. Most of them looked scared, some of them angry. They all Jooked like they longed to simply go home.
I had spoken with the member of the old elder council who sat in the shadows of his cell and refused to even acknowledge my presence at first. However, he eventually came around when I offered to tell him how his grandson was doing
I had discovered during my house visits that the girl who attacked me had given birth to a baby boy recently.
The elder man was yet to meet his grandchild, as no one was allowed to visit him in his cell. That was a rule that I promised to have changed as soon as possible. He still didn’t like me by the end of our talk, but his face had brightened up a little all
the same.
Lastly, I paid a visit to the Tally shifter. He barely made an effort to raise his head at my approach and he watched me through slitted eyes as I sat down on the other side of the bars.
He wasn’t looking too good at all. His wiry hair was the color of copper and it would have been gorgeous if it wasn’t falling out at an alarming rate.
His skin looked yellow and was pulled taut over his dwindling frame as his muscles broke apart and his b*dy rotted from the inside. Flies buzzed around this side of the cells and the stench had grown tenfold since I had last been in there
“Back again are we? To what do I owe this pleasure?”
I pulled my knees to my chest as best as I could considering the side of my stomach and inspected him through the bars.
“You’re not looking very good.”
You could say I’m running low on my supply.”
“Do you still think it was worth it?”
“Of course I do.”
I stared down at my feet, holding my breath for long periods of time just to avoid inhaling the stench that hung in the air around the man’s cell. “What’s
your name?”
Silence for a moment as he stared at me from hooded eyes. “Why do you care?”
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Chapter 71
men
I shrugged. “I don’t even know why I’m here talking to you. It just occurred to me that I don’t even know your name”
Jason
“Can I ask you something else then, Jason?” I had time to kill and it wouldn’t hurt to learn a little more about why exactly the Tally was so hateful towards the Bielke. “Why did you join them! The Tally. Or were you born into the pack?”
The man, Jason, looked like he wasn’t going to answer me. He closed his eyes and slumped even lower against the back wall of his cell. The stump of his shoulder glistened with sweat and the mere act of lifting a finger seemed too much for his b*dy
to manage.
I was preparing to get up and leave when he spoke, “No, I wasn’t born into the Tally Pack.”
He kept his eyes closed as he talked and his voice was rough and gravelly as ever but there was a melancholic hint of softness. to it when he spoke about his past.
“My mother was a rogue shifter. She ran from her pack and her suitable mate and she took me with her. We got by for a while, just the two of us. But the world is a dangerous place for a woman and a child. I came to learn pretty quickly that, in this world, those are the two worst things to be.
“We were harassed by other small packs whenever we happened to stumble upon their territory.
We always kept moving my mother lived in fear that one day her husband would catch up with us.
“Evenally, we happened upon Bielke territory. I have in fact been around here before. I’ve even spent a night in these cells with my mother once upon a time.
1 had been sitting, suddenly captivated by his story as he went along. It occurred to me that, while these people we fought may present as monsters, the world was never so black and white as we would like to believe that it is.
“How old were you, the last time you were here?”
“Ten? Maybe twelve. I was never entirely sure of my age, we didn’t keep track of things like that. All we knew was survival.. Anyway, the Bielke was obviously suspicious of us, but they were caught up in their own wars and conflict and they could always do with more soldiers.
“That was the double-edged knife of joining the Bielke. You gained protection whilst living on their territory, but you were also expected to fight on the frontlines of their needless battles”
I knew immediately the agreement that he spoke of. It was how Rita had managed to join the Bielke soon after our original pack had been wiped out. She too had fought many wars for the people that I now ruled over.
The shifter still had his eyes closed and aside from his dry, cracked l*ps, he didn’t move a muscle as he continued.
“That was the situation my mother and I found ourselves in upon joining the Bielke. But my mother felt she had no other options.
“She wanted to protect me, and so she gave her life to the Bielke and she died soon after that. Struck down unceremoniously during a battle when the Bielke leaders used their own members as bait to lure in their enemies.
“I was distraught of course, but that mattered little to the Bielke elders. They bickered on whether or not I was old enough to join the battle myself.
“They didn’t care for my safety though, they were more concerned about whether or not I would get in the way. In the end. I didn’t stay to hear their final decision. I sl*pped away that same night and never went back. Until now, that is.”
1 breathed out heavily “That’s when you found the Tally?”
“Yep stumbled into their campsite by arcident one day. I was starving, feral even. I had been living alone in the woods for a few years by then, more woll than boy at that point and still deadly afraid of my own shadow. I thought they were going to kill me, and maybe if I had been a year or two early they might have. But they had a new leader by then
111
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Chapter 71
“Lady Tally”
“That’s right. No one knew where she came from, or why she had such a vendetta against the world itself. But she was passionate, powerful, and fiercely driven. It’s not hard to understand why the group of outlaw shifters would choose to follow her.
59
“She took me in and gave me a purpose, she helped me heal from the years of fear and hatred that had turned me into a cold, uncaring being. She promised me justice and revenge. I owe her my life ten times over.
“It seems you have already given her that, I said quietly, watching the man’s b*dy deforms and morph before my eyes. It happened in increments, but it was happening. “You don’t have much longer. I don’t think”
“No, Jason sighed and a trickle of black blood traced down from the corner of his mouth and dripped off of his chin. “I don’t have much time left. My b*dy can’t hold itself together without our Lady’s magic.”
I swallowed the sudden ache in my throat. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to heal you, Jason. And, even if I let you go now, I doubt you’ll make it back to your own pack in time.”
Jason smiled slightly and his eyes flickered open to gaze at me. “Don’t sweat it, Luna. I accepted my fate the moment I first touched a drop of those potions. I have been ready for this. It’s like you said, I died a long time ago
“Is there anything else I can do for you?”
His laugh sounded like it hurt, it was a hacking cough of a chuckle, and specks of black tar flew from his mouth and speckled
the cell floor.
“It’s hard to believe that I’m speaking to the Luna of the Bielke Pack itself. Maybe there is room for change, maybe you can fix them. I’m sorry I won’t be around to see it?
You know,” he continued, looking down at the large scar on his shoulder. “Now that I’m not riding the high of my magic supply, you’re not so bad little Luna.
“I will always stand by my own people, my blood brothers and sisters, but I wish you well in the coming war. Maybe, in a different life, we can meet again on the same side of the battlefield this time. Allies instead of enemies”
“You’re not my enemy,” I whispered but my words fell on deaf ears. Jason’s eyes had stopped their shifting and the flame behind them had gone out. The shifter had died for the final time
I left the cells soon after that, headed straight back home, and locked myself away with my own stormy thoughts.
Even Angie knew to leave me to my own devices and she resigned herself to hanging around outside the property. occasionally popping in to check that my scent was still present and sometimes offering tea
1 curled myself into a cocoon, wrapping the curtains around me and hiding away. If I stayed in there long enough, maybe I would emerge stronger, maybe my mate would come home.
It was the waiting that was killing me. The waiting and not knowing.
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