LEUKAS

It was hard to reconcile the man I was six months ago to this version of myself. Sometimes I wondered if it was what Jason had warned me about; that I’d gone mad somehow, but the seemingly permanent state of euphoria that had engulfed me since Aleks and I had spoken and I had made an effort to forgive her and to let go of all the negative emptions I had towards her, was exhilarating. It felt like I was actually happy for the first time in a very long while and it was an addictive feeling.

It wasn't just the freedom of knowing that Aleks wasn't some woman who had used me for whatever when I had felt such a kinship with her, it was also being near my family for such an extended time for the first time in almost ten years. Part of me had forgotten how close we once were; how much love and respect we had for each other. It was nice not being so alone anymore and getting to know my younger siblings.

But mostly, it was my children. My love for Adrian and Elena elated me and healed me in so many ways it was hard for me to believe they were real. I loved Elena with her seemingly naïve nature which hid her intelligence and wrapped absolutely everyone around her finger, much to Harpah's grudging respect and love.

And I adored Adrian with his sarcastic and slightly prickly nature which actually hid an insanely intelligent and incredibly loyal boy who reminded me a bit of a younger Atlas and would make a great alpha one day.

Atlas and my relationship was also better than it had ever been and I was starting to believe that despite his own reluctance and my slight envy of him, Atlas would make a better Alpha than I ever would have. Kim and I were also getting along at a much more personal level. Only my relationship with Amethyste remained strained because she would never forgive me for leaving and abandoning the family, as she called it, so much so that she refused to come to Abattohn while I was there. Although it hurt, it didn't bring me down much because something was changing inside me, and even though I knew it was because, somewhere along the line, I’d let my guard down and stopped blocking out all those parts of mine that were infected with darkness all those years ago, I had no idea how to stop it. I had little desire to.

It was my renewed sex drive. After the ordeal with the woman who wouldn't be named, I was a teenager in a new city and I almost immediately met one of the most gorgeous women in the world so my sex drive was on fire. I was having sex at every turn and getting aroused frequently and it was fun. After Aleks, my desire for sex waned significantly although it still remained. I was so set on not losing control and keeping a tight leash on everything within me that had been so shaken when Aleks left that I only had the most vanilla sex and sexual fantasies.

Now, a demon had been released within me and my sexual cravings were dirtier and much more intense than they had ever been. And even though I was having sex with all these women who constantly threw themselves at me and had since we were teens and I wasn't interested, Aleks was who I truly desired. I had come to realize that it was quite possible, more than likely really, that at one point, Aleks had been made to be forever loved and romanced by me; to be my mate. But my head was clearer now and I wasn't in denial anymore, so I knew very well that even though she once was that to me, she wasn't anymore.

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Turns out all I’d needed to sort out all the mess inside my head about who and what I’d become was to be around what was once my pack and all the magic that heavily saturated the air. It's like all the mess that I didn't even realize was inside my head was suddenly sorted and I was healing. Changing within, but healing. The dark priests and the necromancer magi who had taken me had been very thorough in their work, but they hadn't accounted for the fact that my parents were two of the most powerful beings in Azzuire; my mother the High Priestess of all magic, good and bad, and my father; the son of the most powerful and the only sanctioned necromancer in any world; the High Priest of Death, sometimes known as the Grim Reaper; Kayn Dacre.

I'd had to forget the ordeal I went through in order to move on and not be so scared, but something about having the love of my kids and Aleks so close to me had unlocked all the memories, not as terrifying trauma, but as some hard facts. The horrific ceremony I was put through when I was eighteen was known only by a few people. Most of the people at the scene were killed, but even before that, the ritual was a deeply secret one that needed only the strongest mind to be able to process it. It had entailed a boy, me, being sacrificed slowly over the span of a month, from one new moon to another, through the most hellish of tortures that should have made me slowly lose my mind and will until I became obsessed with nothing but blood and pleasing my master. For some reason it hadn't worked that way. My wolf had somehow absorbed all the madness and bloodlust until it turned into what all of me was supposed to become before I had died. I'd learnt immediately how to build blocks around the creature that was once my wolf and block out all of those things that had made me what I was. But something had changed after my conversation with Aleks, I had no idea what it was though.

Maybe I wanted to protect her from all the things she's been through so badly that I had gradually let go of all the chains that held my soul, or maybe I wanted to be the kind of parent who wasn't so scared of his past and other people that I had simply let down my protective walls and let the locked up version of me, the stronger and the darker version of me that could protect my kids from anything, seep through. I just hadn't foreseen just how much that version of mine was fixated on Aleksander. She may have been my wolfs mate, but all the love and sweet admiration that my wolf would have given its mate had been tainted until all that was left of it was a desire to mark, to dominate and to own. It was almost laughable now that I’d ever thought I’d loved her in that way.

Fortunately, I hadn't completely lost myself to the beast within, and I mostly had my rational mind; the rational mind that allowed me to have so much love and tenderness towards my family. That rational mind afforded me some saner feelings towards Aleks. I liked her personality, her smile, her mothering of our children and her innate sweetness. I enjoyed her presence and I had a desire to be friends with her, to tease her and to make her laugh. My other side had nothing but predatory and lustful thoughts towards her. The other side of me wanted to sink my cock deep into her and sear her inside out, make sure that no other man ever deigned to lay their eyes on her ever again, all the while sinking my teeth into her skin and sustaining myself with nothing but her blood and her hot cunt for the rest of my life. I knew that Jason had noticed the change in me because the sigils he drew on me had begun to change. They calmed the beast. They protected my rational mind and they were why I didn't just take what I wanted from Aleksander, consequences be damned. I was behaving and taking out all the want I had for every single bit of her body on all the other willing women. I was managing, just about, but I was. Until I wasn't.