LEUKAS

Fletcher had disappeared a while back and even though I told myself I wasn’t; I was pissed off because I had been making rounds all over the room hoping to find Aleks but I couldn’t find her of the slimy guy Malarkee. My imagination was going wild imagining all the kinds of things they could have snuck off to do and I was ready to leave the damned party no matter what the tabloids would think. The room was crawling with cameras and journalists who had been hounding me all night, asking how I felt about Atlas ‘taking my birth right’ and I was over it. I wanted to leave and go home to cuddle with my kids, maybe do Elena’s hair and try out all the styles I’d been cramming from YouTube, whatever, but I was about done. Lanthe and Jason were also working the crowd, smiling and moving from person to person, making small talk. They’d already made some opening remarks of welcome and they would be up for their last speech as Alphas after Atlas’ own speech, which was when Jason would hand Atlas the gauntlet.

Speaking of Atlas, I frowned when I realized I hadn’t seen him in a while and I could see Kristin mingling with the Vampire Coven Mistress a little further from me and Hunter was also looking worriedly around the room. I approached him as inconspicuously as I could, hoping I wasn’t broadcasting my worry to the surrounding cameras.

“Where’s Atlas?” I asked him behind my glass. I could see that some people were staring to murmur, all of them wanting a piece of the other guest of honor.

“I was wondering too. The last time I saw him he was going to talk to Aleksander, I haven’t seen him since.”

Before I could voice my concerns, a slim young man wearing a waiter’s costume sidled up to us, thrusting a tray of drinks in our faces. Despite the glamor, I recognized Marlakee’s shrewd eyes and confident posture immediately.

“What the…”

“Where’s Aleks? She’s been gone for a while now and your mother is worried.” he said seriously, the smile eerily painted on his face despite the fact that he was talking. My first instinct was to balk at the use of her shortened name because it seemed a bit forward for a woman he’d met just two minutes ago but I could sense a weird undertone in his voice.

Hunter answered before I could which on its own proved how anxious he was. “She messaged Atlas and asked that they meet at the storeroom.”

“That’s impossible. She lost her phone before we even left the house and some waiter appeared a while back and said Atlas wanted to see her at the storeroom. Something is not right. I’m going to leave and go there now, you guys follow me as naturally as possible. We can’t draw attention to ourselves because people are getting suspicious and they want a scandal. We need to get Atlas here as soon as possible.” He said before bowing at us slightly and walking away, stopping only when he was intercepted by one of the patrons asking for a drink refill.

Hunter looked worried but he blanked his expression and walked away slowly, and after a while, with a sense of dread and foreboding, I followed behind him and towards the storeroom. As soon as we were away from prying eyes, the three of us broke into a run until we arrived at the door, which was magically sealed and made impenetrable with a stench of black magic and another underlying tone.

“What’s that?” I found myself asking Malarkee, who cursed while Hunter sniffed the air curiously, looking confused.

“That’s wolfsbane. It’s rare and very light in scent but It will turn him completely feral. And if he’s there with Aleks...” he didn’t have to finish, Hunter and I already banging on the door to no avail. Malarkee muttered a few words which sounded like some spell and the door swung open. He did not hesitate tackling a half-shifted and growling Atlas who looked as beat up as the entire room was messed up, and just as angry as he stood a few feet away from Aleks who looked to be severely bleeding and was barely holding on to two sharp chair pieces of broken furniture.

I immediately ran over to Aleks, staring helplessly at her bloody body which seemed to have taken quite a few claws all over her lower body. Her shoulders was the worse though as the dress had been torn and the skin was completely ripped off and was bleeding profusely. The fact that she was somehow still standing was beyond staggering and I had a series of urges to throw up, to scream and to kill my brother who had been knocked out sometime while I was gaping at my mangled….Aleks. Despite the fact that I’d been struck dumb, when she sagged into my with a pained and barely audible whimper, I caught her as gently as I could.

Stolen story; please report.

“It’s okay now. You’re okay.” I whispered as much to her as to myself even as I watched Malarkee frown over the body of my unconscious brother whom I had mixed feelings about at the moment, before he turned to me and gave an appraising look at Aleks.

“She’s losing a lot of blood and Atlas will also go into a self induced comatose if I don’t attend to him now. I can’t save both of them and obviously Atlas is my priority as long as I’m here so what I can do is transport you home right now and come back for Atlas so he can do his speech in time. You'll have to heal her.” He said as he came over to us and laid his hands purposefully on both of us.

“But I can't…..” I began but was suddenly engulfed in a cloud of the spicy and somehow cloyingly sweet scent of green hellfire, before I found myself in the main study room of the main house.

“You can and you will. Or you can explain to your children that you let their mother die because of your identity issues. It's of no consequence to me.” He declared before disappearing in another ring of fire, leaving the surprisingly nice scent of fire in his wake.

The woman in my arms was rapidly losing blood and the dress I’d so admired earlier on was darker and drenched in said blood, at least the parts of it that hadn't been savagely ripped of. Aleks herself was barely awake and I knew that I had to act fast or she would truly die. I knew I was capable of healing her and taking away all her pain because the creature within was salivating at all the pain and the suffering that she was emitting, and even though it typically had no burning desire to keep the victim alive after absorbing all the bad things and the misery, I knew I wouldn't go to far with her and hurt her.

But I also feared opening yet another inch of the gate behind which I kept the creature within. I feared what It would mean on the long run. It was like living with an addict within me and suddenly having to take just a smidgen of drugs for whatever reason, and I feared I would be unable to stop after that. I had a literal psychopathic creature within me and bringing him even step out had been a mistake. I feared that further interaction would be….detrimental to me and to everyone.

But looking at Aleks, so pale and at the brink of death….I had no choice. Because despite the fact that she scared the hell out of me and even the creature within me, she was my children's mother and my friend. I couldn't let her die. Bending over and easily picking her up, I led her pliant body to the leather couch and laid her onto it. Her eyes were barely open then, her body movements less frequent and the gash in her arm was horrifying to look at. It spurred me on.

Closing my eyes, I stretched towards her body which although still was tensed with pain and her chest was heaving with erratic breath. I thought it would be harder for me since I had never used the beast inside in a similar way or for any reason really. It was in fact disturbingly easy. My body didn't tense and there wasn't some struggle to free what was inside from the cage, instead the shadohs slithered easily from the pores of my hands and engulfed her body in a cloud of cold and mobile darkness, a darkness which was an extension of myself. I could feel it easily seep into her soft and pliant body, not unlike the way I had last week and the thought gave me chills and a flare of want and need, because despite the circumstances, bring inside her like that was an incredibly erotic process.

The shadohs were drawn to the source of the pain, eager to absorb all of the negative emotions and in no time, Aleks' face were smoothed of the pain, her breathing returning to a more steady rate. With only my will, I spread the shadohs throughout her body, shuddering when she let out a moan of pleasure, and willed them to mend were they were drawn to the pain. All her ailments and the damages to her body; every scratch and gash were healed and all the insides of a body touched with some dark extension of myself, right before my eyes, and her body arched with what seemed like pleasure that came from deep within while my own body thrummed with unmitigated lust and unfiltered power.

“Leukas!” she gasped, her leg rising and bending, the dizzying smell of her arousal permeating the air. I blinked myself back from the tempting haze of the power I felt, power that teased and tempted me with all the possibilities, and immediately drew every part of the shadohs out of Aleks' body, and back into the prison behind my mind, a prison in which they belonged.

Aleks' healed body slumped on the couch and for a while all was silent save for both our breathing, both of us undoubtedly processing what happened. When her eyes finally reopened, Aleks gave me a tentative and tired smile, a smile which I couldn't help but return.

“Thank you for….thank you. I feel…I feel so good.” She said with a smile. I took her hand and pressed a kiss on its back.

“You’re welcome.” I responded and for a while we just stared at each other, our thoughts running all over the place. When her smile faded and she gently pried her hand from mine, I knew it was time we addressed the elephant in the room.