New Wolf novel Chapter 104

Wait a minute...

You don't respond to your own pain. It's when someone else gets hurt that the beast rips through.

It all a plan this entire time. It wasn't the man getting killed I was supposed to respond to, I had no attachment to him or the situation. It was Troy's pain. I knew him, I enjoyed his company, it was more personal.

I can believe he did that so it could help me? He killed her, knowing what it would do to him, so I could become his Queen. He did it so I could save everyone, so I could end the war. But no one would know the true cause of our victory. No one would know that he sacrifice a part of his soul to save them. It wasn't fair. He was going to suffer and it wasn't fair.

Why would you do something so stupid! So stupid! Stupid!

I reached onto the path a lot faster than I expected. My body felt lighter, stronger, more driven. I felt like something horrible was going to happen if I couldn't get to him. I know what it feels like to take another's life but his wounds were fresh, mine was was just a memory. They should have told me about this because I would have talked him out if it. I damn would have tried harder.

I damn would have.

When I broke through the branches that barricaded the path, I saw it, spinning rapidly as the one he made in his hand earlier. But this tornado was bigger, and it looked to have swallowed him. He was looming over the grave he made so sullenly and motionless, that I wondered if he was alive. Tornados don't have oxygen in the eye, and, Troy was the eye.

I had half expected to be picked up and thrown away but I didn't even feel the force of the wind anymore. My mind and eyes were locked on Troy and nothing else. I had broken pass the skin of the tornado and was about to cross into the ring of the eye when I heard Alaric behind me. But as soon as I turned to him, he froze.

"Hanna, you're..." He trailed off, something looking to have dawned upon him. I whirled back around and step into the center. I can see why Troy was in here now; it was peaceful, it was quite, it was calming.

As I took a step towards him, his back visibly stiffened. "She begged me, you know?" He started. "She wanted to be buried. Right after I stabbed her, the shock in her eyes almost paralyzed me. She didn't see me coming, she didn't even get a chance to fight back. I knew what she was, and I knew if I didn't do it she'd be quick to kill me. But it wasn't her fault she was like that, she didn't know anything else. All my life I had to do a lot of things I had no control over. But I couldn't take it anymore and that's why I left. I had vowed to myself that I'd never kill another child again, no matter the circumstances, but you needed this more than me."

"No, I didn't."

"Some of us need to make sacrifices."

"But why'd it had to be you? Why'd it had to be this? I don't want this to kill you. I know how much the feel can rip a person apart."

His head lowered and I felt the tears hit my hands before his fists tighten under my grip. My heart broke for him. "I want to forget," he admitted. "Just this once."

For once in my life, I actually knew what to do. I remembered how my mother always made me forget that I ever knew her, that she was even in my life. It's the least I could do for him.

I placed both of my hands at the side of his head and brought his face up to mine. "It's okay," I said, surprising myself at how angelic my voice sounded. I kissed his forehead, ushering out a wave of calmness from myself into him. "It's okay," I said again.