Silence is the most powerful scream
Elorcan Werewolf 11
One Month Ago
Lorcan watched as the spines of the guards snapped with a surety to rival death's inevitable appearance himself. The darkness wrecked havoc, de-rooting trees around the castle grounds and slamming into entrances. An ominous wind screeched along the fading sunlight, those managing to near him collapsing to the ground, thick rivers of blood pouring out of their ears.
A massacre of those in his bloodlust.
A divine retribution for daring to cast him out.
A welcome for Hellas's realm.
With a glance towards the newly installed barricaded, Lorcan pushed his will of shadowed obscurity into the silver force. Large dents imprinted onto the wall, and seconds later, the ground shuddered as the barrier collapsed against the marbled floor.
Lorcan stepped through the rubble, stalking towards the center meeting room. Here, the Lycans hung back, heads bowed and eyes cast down. A warning had been issued, and they would obey.
His hand violently jerked the golden knob to the side and pushed the hardened door forward. Silence sagged across the immaculate room as soon as he stepped in.
Five pairs of eyes landed on him, the Alpha Lycan rigidly sitting at the head of the chair. Fenrhys sprawled lazily at the left side, goblets of wine surrounding him. A flicker of something deeper with wronged remembrance flickered through Lorcan's head, but he dismissed the amiss feeling and flexed his aching back muscles.
"I'm leaving for Morath," Lorcan said abruptly, striding to the right, empty seat—his spot—at the head of the table. He did not sit down, but calmly gazed at the Prince Rowan Whitethorn with a menace that would have cowed a lesser man.
Fenrhys choked on his wine, Gavriel crossing his arms. Vaughan merely arched a brow, Connal's face pinching slightly.
"Your ban does not end until you can prove to my mate that you are in control." Rowan's words echoed across the room. His hands clenched, and Lorcan knew he was restraining the order to further his banishment.
"Having half of her pack members end up in the infirmary and killing our guards probably isn't the best way to do it," Fenrhys chimed in.
"Wrecking Sollomere into a ground of ashes hardly demonstrates control," Vaughan added.
"You also broke the covenant searching for Elide Lochan," Gavriel observed.
Rowan's eyes twitched, his resolve slowly chipping away. Lorcan warily threw up his shields, ignoring the tension wading through the air.
"That's why you're travelling to Morath," Connal mused. "To find your mate."
Lorcan didn't bother to object to his pack members. Today marked a month in which Elide Lochan, his mate, had disappeared. A month of futile, ceaseless searching, of unending longing and loneliness. A month of wandering through a parallel trail of sorrows and agony, restless wishes never answered.
The Alpha Lycan shook his head. "You destroyed the Shadow Market. Our connections there have ceased."
"And what if the chance that Yellowlegs poison harmed your mate?" Lorcan growled. "In which you had no control over?"
No control.
The Lycan's worst fear.
Whether losing control to their feral wolf side or having dark magic posses them, Lycans eluded any poison, liquid, or scenario that would test their control.
Because absolute control meant absolute power.
To control others, Lycans had to control themselves.
And Lorcan had not been in control one month ago.
Rowan Whitethorn released a burdensome sigh and exhaled quickly. "I revoke your suspension. I grant you full privileges and rights to travel to Morath and do what business you need to do."
Full control.
His friend, the Alpha, the King—Rowan Whitethorn was giving him full control and access to his actions and the extent of the consequences.
For his mate, for the other half of his soul, for Elide Lochan.
Lorcan bowed his head in acknowledgement, the only recognition and expression of gratitude the Lycan Alpha would receive. When Rowan held out his hand, Lorcan clasped it.
Gavriel cautiously looked between the Prince and the Commander. Finally, he said, "I suppose you need a few nuclear arms, silver covers, and a shit ton of wolfsbane?"
Fenrhys gave them a wolfish grin. "Imagine the terror on Morath's face when they see the cadre united."
Connal slowly smiled. "Morath's time has come to an end."
Avoidance of the Pack that had violently sucked the former ruling off the throne, had notoriously experimented on the supernatural, had utilized brutal tactics to remain their power didn't reach for from the Lycans.
Ultimatum after ultimatum, the Morath Pack had ignored the cadre's warnings.
Now that a direct threat to one of their own had been issued, Morath could burn. Legally within the borders of the covenant, annihilating the pack appealed to the Lycan on another level.
Yet—before more plans could stipulate, Lorcan slammed his shield into the iron table, the hollowing sound causing the five pairs of eyes to once again land on him.
"I go alone," he firmly stated.
Silence. Then—
"Absolutely absurd," Vaughun snarled. "You'll die. Morath broke Maeve's legions. What do you stand a chance?"
Cold froze through the air at the mention of the former Lycan queen's name. A curse, an abomination, an infamy. The stinging of lashes whispered in haunting strokes across his back, the silver cell of insanity unfolding within Lorcan's mind.
The true savagery—
Connal snarled, a thunderous growl building leaking out. "Say the bitch's name one more time, and I'll tear out your throat."
Fenrhys teleported next to his brother, and laid a hand against Vaughun's chest.
Rowan loosed a bark, and Connal slouched against his seat in submission. The Alpha turned towards his commander, an unfathomable look sketched across his face.
"We have every reason to be concerned. Especially when it concerns another's welfare. We do not know what lurks in Morath, save for death."
Lorcan stared at his pack with eyes of the soulless. He had already wasted too much valuable time loitering. The darkness summoned an abstraction into reality, Hellas's raw power pulsing around him. Lorcan swung the convened hatchet in his hand, the craving for his mate ushering senseless violence through his veins.
Rowan raised a brow at the burst of power emanating from Lorcan.
Before the Prince of Lycans could speak, Lorcan answered the call of darkness webbing through him, his onyx eyes perceiving more than he'd ever before.
"What—" Gavriel started.
"When your gift is Death, you no longer fear him." Hellas' might flowed to him.
Lorcan welcomed the sheer control pulsating through every inch and cell.
His voice sounded far away as he spoke with an ancient, long-feared and worshipped guttural tone. "Death is my ally. Mine to control."
His.
Death had always belong to him.
It was life instead that slipped through his fingers, the facets and faces of true existence evading him.
An integral part of living would not escape him one more time: his mate.
Elide Lochan.
Lorcan stalked out of the castle, the darkness cascading through him and around him in large streams and flares.
Two Months Ago
Lorcan laid in his bed, breathing heavily.
Pain lanced through every pore. Grogginess laced his vision. Lead settled in every muscle.
His wolf roared at him to visit his mate—that he would be content and pliant if he could just settle his eyes on her lithe form or soak in her scent even from afar. Her presence, if utilized correctly, would be the worst type of military tactic used against him. She would be his downfall, and she would not know.
His fingers brushed against papyrus scrawled with loops of elegant curls and spirals, a golden and flaming embroider filling the edges. In another realm, perhaps he could have been the prince charming, showing up to the ball completely unannounced with his finest clothes, locking eyes with Elide, and asking her for the first dance.
He would have kissed the top of her hand and charmed his way into her heart; she would return his affections, and they would have their lives carried out by fate as perfect mates.
But he was Death's Right Hand.
And she was a living Angel.
This was not a fairytale in which the maiden lived happily ever.
This was reality in which the maiden either was massacred from the vices through violence or was forged into the sculpture created by the monsters.
This lie was that if the maiden followed her mind, then she would not follow love.
The truth was that if the maiden followed her heart, then she would lose her mind.
He lived with forgotten violence and remembered cruelty brimming from every surface. She lived with colored perceptions and warm neutrals on a floating canvas.
His thoughts were polluted with fabrications that belonged to the Devil's Mind, hers a beautiful universe waiting to be seen.
A creak broke his melancholy.
The doorknob slowly twisted in a torturously slow manner, and Lorcan grimaced in pain as he glanced towards the entrance. If Fenrhys was about to mock the misery of a state he was in just one more time—
A soft, ever-familiar voice filled the room, the sound almost hesitant.
"Lorcan?"
Lorcan hissed in response. The scent that did not belong to his mate seeped into the room. It was an unwelcomed scent, one he constantly regretted and condoned, one he believed better off in the grave, even if royalty. It was a persistent scent that lingered in front of his doors and followed him through the hallways, one that drove his wolf into insanity.
A doe-eyed female leaned in the doorway, eyes sweeping through the darkness. Those gentle orbs locked in his direction when he loosed a grunt, his chest heaving with pain.
"Get out," he rasped. "You are unwelcome here."
Lorcan winced in the cover of darkness and and snarled lowly as the quiet padding of footsteps filled his room.
She did not listen.
A soft glow lit his room, the burning wax chasing away the deep shadows. He closed his eyes with the sweeping light, his nose twitching from the candle's aroma.
The female trespassing into his room stirred the bloodthirsty side of him. She either him as his canines slide out or wished to die as growl thundered in the base of his throat.
A hand caressed his forehead, and Lorcan flinched.
"I said. Get. Out." Warnings after warnings, and she still paid no heed.
The tips of her fingers touched his lips, and she clucked her tongue once. "That's no way to treat an old friend."
He had once thought she knew the line between his animalistic needs and her loose fantasies. She had been nothing more than a body to satiate the Lycan's feral side, nothing less than a body to use and manipulate. Not a friend, not a lover, not his mate. Nothing more than a passing acquaintance.
The intruding female brushed back her hair, revealing the pale column of her throat, and gracefully settled herself onto his duvet sheets. "You need to relax, Lorcan Salvaterre. You've been through so much. I can help you."
"You know nothing." He knew the way she said his name was meant to entice him. He knew the purr in her lilt was meant to arouse him. She knew that he was in a vulnerable state.
His eyes managed to catch the flash of a quick smile she flashed.
"I know you have a mate." She stroked his chest, coaxing his shirt's buttons apart. His arms were full of inflexible lead to stop her. His mind seemed to seep into an abyss of murkiness no stroke or kick could save. "And that she does not want you. But I do."
All the dates Elide had accepted. All the males that had pawed at her. All the stares lusting after her. The flowers and smiles endowed towards her. The invisible blood on his hands—is that what she saw? What his history to full of gruesome atrocities that she would not consider the future?
Lorcan's body laid rigid and paralyzed as the other female's nails raked across his hardened skin, each strike a burning sensation. He didn't know if it was because his wolf side was rejecting her touch or because his body was still coping with his mate's loss.
He wanted Elide Lochan. He wanted her without her cold eyes that chipped him away slowly, with her inviting ones that made him feel worth more than destruction. He wanted her with warm smiles that drove away the darkness, without her frowns that made him fall to his knees. He wanted her with open arms, without her closed walls.
He did not want this woman in his room and her unwarranted advances. Eons later from when they had first met within the forest, and he still did not want her. The one female he wanted and needed, desired to cherish and protect, hold and soothe—did not want him. The path in waging wars had kept him forbid him from entertaining any facet of the elation life had to offer. Yet when he had laid eyes upon Elide, even through the dark night as she had raced through the trees, expertly wielded the car, saw the fierce determination of hope and compassion in those reflections, Lorcan had known that Elide Lochan was the most beautiful, untouched piece of art his eyes had ever laid upon. There would be expensive, lavish masterpieces, but there would not be the kind-hearted, impossible Elide Lochan, a beacon to him.
His mate.
So he managed to stare at the doe-eyed female with coldness centuries had crafted, a glance full of censure.
"You forget that I do not want you." He struggled to keep his eyes open, the phantom hand of sleep lulling him into another realm.
"So you've said," the royal female said. Lorcan could make out the form of a goblet in her hand, her lips pressed against the edge. "And I respect that."
"Do you now?" He did not have the energy to raise a brow or move an arm to break her neck.
A sharp, curt nod. "So I propose one last toast. To what we had. To what past we shared. To us."
Lorcan warily eyed the goblet, and then the princess Lycan that had pursued him for an eternity. He could have said that they had nothing, their past worthless, that there was no 'us'. But his tongue was ash in his mouth and his bones were tired. Of fighting physically and sparring verbally.
"Is that all?" he managed to scrape out.
The princess twirled a strand of her hair, and sat on his lap. "Yes."
They had toasted often, during galas and balls and masquerades. She had always plucked flutes of champagne for him, saying he needed to work on his image. The royal had always clinked her glass against his in a possessive way, Lorcan always brushing her off.
Drinking was nothing new. But the glint in her eyes—that was something new.
"Do you swear to cease your advancements towards me and my mate? To allow us to find peace between us? To raise no harm against Elide Lochan?"
The she-wolf raised a dainty brow, and pressed the ruby-studded goblet into his clammy hand. "I, Essar, in the name of the Bright Lady, swear to fulfill the promise."
The princess Lycan held her back straight and watched as Lorcan gripped the base of the goblet. Essar slowly brought his hand to his lips as his arm remained unwilling, his wolf snarling in protest.
Before he could leash in his feral side or question his wolf's sudden thrashing, Essar tipped the goblet into his slightly parted mouth, shoving the steaming liquid down his throat. Lorcan gagged, and felt the marks of where she had scratched him respond with searing pain. His body convulsed as the princess Lycan shoved a hand around his throat, forcing every drop down.
His wolf quieted, and his body flared with pain for several seconds until a blurred daze fell across him. He could consciously hear purring, and feel a warm body pressed against his. There was an itching at the back of his mind, something holding him back. An irking of sorts scratched at him, but nonsensical thoughts like cotton clogged his brain.
There was something wrong, something forcing him still and compliant. His mind struggled to cut down every barrier, but there was a hint of dark magic that had his will recoil.
Something tepid pressed against his lips, a hand fingering the hair at the nape of his neck. There was a sound of creaking, and then a scent appeared that had the cotton in his head blowing away.
His eyes snapped open. He turned his head towards the door.
Lorcan knew then by the figure in his lap and the figure at the door he had irrevocably fucked up.
And that by the flash of betrayal and hurt contorting across his mate's face, he had broken the maiden. And that by the whisper of her scent that fled from the room and the familiar sound of bones cracking and howling, he had sculpted the maiden into a monster.
And from there, the poison of Yellowleg's Death, bewitched with dark magic and control remained stagnant within his veins, swirling through every notch and crevice, an invasion of his mind and will and muscle.