Chapter 8 – When Taken by the Dark Fate Free Online

Filed to story: When Taken by the Dark Fate Free Online >>

All I heard was screaming. It was the only thing I could do as I watched in helpless horror as the Leo pack converged on my father’s body and tore him to pieces.

I wasn’t the only one screaming though. As I scrambled back, trying to get as far away from the blood and sinew, Jackie rushed forward, screaming and snarling at the death of her mate. It was too late though—Dad was gone, and she was taken next. I tore my gaze away as the Leos descended on her, my terror quickly turning to a desperate need to escape and survive. The Leo alpha’s roar was finally wearing off, or maybe it was the shock of the rejection, but I could finally move again.

As I struggled to my feet, the world around me turned to chaos. Everyone was running, screaming, and shifting. The Sun Witches were gone, and both the Leo and Cancer packs were fighting in the middle of the clearing where we’d just had the mating ritual. I couldn’t understand how things had turned so fast, or how I went from getting a mate to being an orphan in seconds. All I knew was I had to find Wesley and get the fuck out of here.

Aries, Scorpio, and Taurus pack members joined the fray, slaughtering members of the Cancer pack all around me under the command of the Leos. Where were our Cancer allies? They’d abandoned us the second they’d smelled trouble, showing just how little the packs cared for loyalty or honor. Now my pack—no, former pack—was outnumbered and being picked off one by one. While I wasn’t overly fond of anyone in Cancer except my brother, that didn’t mean I wanted to see them dead.

I yelled Wesley’s name, trying to find him in the battle. I couldn’t see him among the Cancer pack shifters falling left and right. I narrowly dodged an Aries wolf using their ram charge on a shifter who used to babysit me. The Cancer wolf fell to the ground, whimpering pitifully. I stuttered to a halt in front of her, trying to see if I could help somehow, and her dark eyes rolled up at me. They pleaded with me, though I wasn’t sure if they were telling me to help—or to run.

The Aries shifter turned his gaze on me, snarling, and I quickly ducked out of the way as another one joined him. They pounced on the wolf I’d tried to help, and all I could do was turn and run before they got me too. I tripped over a dead wolf, nearly falling, but somehow managed to stay on my feet as tears streamed down my face. Other wolves were trying to flee too, but the Leos were taking them all down. They didn’t want any Cancer shifters escaping the massacre.

The Ophiuchus pack didn’t even need to start a war. We’d done it ourselves.

Where were the Sun Witches during all of this? The Convergence was supposed to be neutral territory and fighting wasn’t allowed, but they weren’t protecting us or doing anything to try to stop this madness. Theyhad betrayed us, just as much as the other packs had.

“Wesley!” I screamed, trying to crane my neck above the fighters. I scanned the crowd for his familiar face, praying and hoping that he had somehow escaped the initial violence. I hadn’t seen him go down, but that didn’t mean anything. It had all happened so fast, I could have missed it.

Then I saw him.

“Wesley!” I yelled again, charging toward him. I had no clue how I made it through that many frenzied shifters without getting a scratch on me, but somehow I reached his side. He looked half-crazed, blood splattered across half of his face—our father’s blood. His hands had turned to claws, but otherwise, he was still in human form, barking out orders to the Cancer shifters fighting around him.

“Ayla!” He let out a relieved sigh, though his face remained grim. “You have to get out of here!”

“I’m not leaving you,” I said, drawing up whatever remained of my strength. “You’re all I have left.”

As I said the words, movement caught at the corner of my eye, drawing my attention toward some approaching shifters. Scorpio wolves, extremely deadly with their pack’s signature poison claws and tails. I wouldn’t stand a chance against them without Cancer armor.

Wesley shoved me behind him as the Scorpios moved to surround us. “Go! I’ll be right behind you!”

I stumbled back, then turned and ran, narrowly avoiding the slash of a Scorpio’s poison claws. I thought Wesley was right at my heels, but when I glanced behind me, I saw him fighting the shifters, holding them at bay so I could escape. My chest tightened and a ragged cry escaped me as half a dozen Scorpio shifters converged on him at once, burying him under a sea of fur and fangs. I let out another broken scream as he fell beneath them, snarling all the way down.

“No!” I tried to rush forward to save him, even though it would probably mean my death too.

Suddenly pain exploded in my side, and I dropped to my knees, keeling over and landing hard in the dirt. I gasped in a breath and looked up to find Jordan standing over me, a snarl on his face. He’d punched me directly in the stomach, using his shifter strength and my own forward momentum to make it even worse.

“I can’t kill you,” he said, sneering down at me. “But I’m going to really enjoy making you suffer.”

“What?” I managed to gasp out, my head spinning.

He looked at me with disgust, and I noticed his hands were bloody. “The bond. No matter how much I despise you, it’s still there. Mates can’t kill each other.”

“But you rejected me.” I’d thought he had broken the mate bond between us, but as I looked up at him, I realized he’d only torn it. Being near him again made the connection strengthen, and the pull I felt toward him returned. Everything in me wanted to stand up and draw him close to me, and my limbs actually trembled with the effort to resist the pull. It was fucking torture, and I hated that I still wanted him this much. He’d made it abundantly clear that the feeling wasn’t mutual—and I would never be with him after what the Leos had done. “You killed my pack!”

“They’re not your pack anymore,” Jordan said, his voice cruel as he got that jab in.

“Why?” I asked, gesturing at the chaos around us. “Why do this? Just because I’m your mate?”

He lifted his chin. “We were already planning to take down the Cancer pack at the end of the Convergence. Our mating bond just sped up the timeline.”

Rage boiled in me, knowing this had all been planned from the beginning. I tried to stand up, to defend my former pack, but Jordan was quick to knock me down again with his massive strength.

He put his knee on my chest, pinning me down. His face was downright psychotic as he leaned close and whispered in my ear, “I’ll make you suffer for even thinking you could be good enough for me. For believing I’d ever take a half-human mutt as my mate.”

His weight was heavy on my chest, and the words knocked out whatever breath remained in my lungs. Even though I hated him more than I’d hated anyone before, including all the bullies in my pack, the fucking mating bond still hummed inside me to the tune of mine mine mine

I tried to shove him off, but he stood in one smooth motion and kicked me in the ribs hard enough that I saw stars. I was no stranger to beatings like this, but it felt like every other person had been holding back until now, pulling their punches and softening their blows.

Not my mate though. He wanted me to suffer.

I gasped in another breath as I tried to get away from him. I could hardly see, eyes blurred with tears as I crawled toward the woods. The forest was within reach, and it gave me the last burst of strength my exhausted body needed to move forward.

“You really think you can escape?” Jordan asked, as his foot fell again. I heard the crunch of my bones, so loud it seemed to echo around the clearing, and I let out a ragged scream. My knee felt like it was on fire. I didn’t know what exactly he’d done to it, but I suspected it wouldn’t hold my weight. Not for very long anyway.

The pain cleared my head of any remaining pull toward Jordan, and it gave me the push I need to kick out with my good leg, catching him completely off guard. It wasn’t strong enough to ground him, but it unbalanced him enough to give me a split second of extra time. That was all I needed.

With adrenaline fueling me, I pulled myself to my feet, pain lancing through my injured leg. It held me, barely, and I ground my teeth through the agony. I wasn’t about to let this asshole win.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” I said, low and sure. Jordan looked almost surprised by my words as if he expected me to cower before him. He was just like the other bullies, but I always got up again.

With some effort, I shifted into my wolf form. I wasn’t really sure how to do it on my own, but I let my instincts take over, and they told me I’d be better off on four legs than two. Once the white fur covered me, I snapped at Jordan, but instead of staying to fight like every cell in my body was screaming at me to do, I turned tail and ran. Or rather, limped away. I couldn’t take him on, not injured like this, especially with the mate bond making everything so difficult. Which meant I had to escape.

I rushed toward the forest, hoping it would provide me some cover and safety. I’d hiked through it earlier, and I bet I knew it better than Jordan did. Four legs made it easier for me to ignore my injured knee, and once I succumbed to my animal instincts I started loping along at a decent pace. I could feel the healing power trying to mend my leg, but I was so exhausted, I knew it wouldn’t be able to do much until after I’d rested. I was tapped out.

I reached the cover of the forest, but I wasn’t fast enough. Jordan was right behind me, hot on my tail. He wasn’t injured, and he would catch up to me easily. Something in my gut told me he wouldn’t let me get away this time. I’d caught him off guard, and he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

I glanced around, wolf’s eyes taking in sharper details than my human ones could. The moon was high, casting enough light that the whole forest was practically illuminated to my enhanced senses. I heard the rustle of the wind in the trees and the distant sound of the waterfall. I’d need to hide somewhere, but where?

I headed deeper into the forest, intent on finding the perfect place. My wolf nose smelled something like an old fire, and I chased after it and found a cave. I was about to head inside when I realized Jordan would be able to smell it too—and probably me as well. Fuck. There was nowhere to hide.

I had to keep running.

With panic racing through my veins, I headed deeper into the forest, with no thought for anything except escape. Behind me, the screams, snarls, and moans from the clearing faded away, and I wondered if any of my former pack was still alive.

I glanced over my shoulder as I bounded up a set of boulders, almost missing a step with my injured leg. For a moment, I thought I’d finally escaped Jordan, but then a large red wolf burst through the brush with a growl and leaped into the air behind me.

I scrambled up, trying to outrun him, but he was faster, stronger, and had the advantage. He slammed into my side, knocking me clean off the rocks and back onto the forest floor. I fell on my back, breath leaving me in a huge whuff. I was stunned enough to not move for a few moments as Jordan leaped back down to me, his sharp fangs snapping at my neck.

In his wolf form, he was much larger than me, but I rolled out of the way at the last moment, defying those powerful jaws. He might have been strong, but I was quick, even when injured. And I’d had a lot of practice escaping bullies before.

When he turned on me again, he opened his jaws and used his Leo roar to make me cower. It was like my limbs defied my brain, making me crouch down, my head lowering in submission while I whimpered. In my mind, I was fighting as hard as I could to stand tall and fight, but my body refused to listen to me.

Jordan shifted back to his human form, and his naked, muscular body gleamed under the moonlight. “You can’t even get away in your wolf form,” he said, as he loomed over me. “Pitiful. This is why we don’t breed with humans. You’re Cancer’s biggest failure, and trust me, the list is long.”

My limbs unlocked, allowing me to stand once more on four legs and shake off some of his control. I was in full panic mode, heart pounding with the need to flee, but he was really pissing me off too, the way he was laying on the half-breed talk so thick I could choke on it. It wasn’t my fault I’d been born half-human. All I’d ever wanted was a better life—and he’d taken that chance from me.

As I stepped back into a patch of moonlight, that darkness locked inside me awoke, coiling with my hatred for my mate and the entire Leo pack for what they’d done. Jordan strode toward me, his hands turning to claws as he prepared to attack me again, but I wasn’t going to let him have the satisfaction. A flash of cold, dark power burst through me, washing away the pain and the exhaustion, filling me to the brim before spilling out into the forest.

Then the world shifted.I blinked and found myself twenty feet away from Jordan, whose back was to me now. My pure white paws illuminated in another patch of moonlight as I glanced around, wondering how I’d gotten here. Had I blacked out? Were my injuries that bad?

Jordan looked just as confused, swiveling his head around as he searched for me. Then he caught sight of me and his face changed, growing murderous once again. He shifted back into wolf form and bounded toward me at a speed I couldn’t hope to match.

Panic filled me again, and I glanced up at the moon, praying to the goddess to help me. Power burst out of me just as Jordan pounced, and then I was standing someplace else, with the moon still shining down on my white fur.

Could it be?Somehow I was jumping between patches of moonlight without moving a muscle. I had no idea how or why, but when I looked up at the moon again for guidance, the magic took me away again, carrying me deep into the forest, away from Jordan. Soon I couldn’t even smell my mate, and I realized I’d finally lost him for the first time since he’d attacked me in the clearing.

Just as quickly as it had come upon me, the strange power left in a rush. The extra strength it had provided me left me swaying on my feet, almost ready to collapse. I didn’t dare shift back to my human form.

I glanced around but didn’t recognize this part of the forest. I had no clue where to go, but knew I couldn’t stay here either. Jordan would keep searching for me.

I limped along, still putting as little pressure on my injured knee as I could. It ground as I walked, awful noises that set my teeth on edge. I was almost ready to collapse and call it a night, right here in the middle of the forest with my enemy still stalking me, when a faint whiff of scent caught my attention. Even though I’d only smelled it once in wolf form, it was as familiar to me as my own. Mira. Thank goodness for my new wolf senses. I’d never have caught that with my human nose.

Mira was with the Pisces pack, and though they’d fled before the massacre started, they’d still be allied with Cancer. Hopefully. Going to them was a better alternative than staying here and praying that Jordan wouldn’t catch up to me. My mind made up, with grim determination the only thing driving me, I bounded toward the scent.