Pack Possessed, page 2
part #4 of Thrown to the Wolves Series
Xander tentatively picks up where Ash left off, and Damian keeps his attention firmly on the volatile demon in front of us instead of his father. “Human bodies weren’t made to contain demonic energy, for two souls to reside in the same body, and it resulted in... complications. Each branch of demon manifested as a different beast, becoming what we now refer to as shifters. The Nightmares became wolves, while the others took on a wide variety of forms. Our children only take after one of their parents, but some of their abilities have become amplified by merging the demonic bloodlines since we can only reproduce with other demons, and others diluted to the point they’re barely more than the shifters of lore.”
A throbbing takes up residence in my temple, and I exhale a slow breath. “If you think that Ash is right, then why did you conspire against him in an attempt to hide me?”
Ash cocks his head, looking past me. “Yes, Xander, please share.”
His voice only slightly wavers as he whispers, “I didn’t think it was possible to bring her back, that in your grief and rage you just needed to hold onto the hope in order to keep putting one foot in front of the other. But then you pulled it off and I-” he sighs. “I’m tired. The war was hell on all of us back then, and I can’t go through that again.”
My ears ring as the heat in my veins turns against me, making my entire body feel flushed, and I subtly lean into Hunter.
Hot to cold with his temperament, Xander clears his throat, standing straighter. “Sabrina shouldn’t have to die for our freedom when she wasn’t the one that imprisoned us. Once the human inside of my vessel faded away, it took some time to adjust to the limits of this body, but it’s been mine for centuries. The need to be free isn’t as important as it once was.”
That’s why the color in their eyes holds steady; there is no ‘other half’ warring for dominance. It’s simply them, at home in someone else’s body.
Once, I lamented being a defective supernatural. Now, I have everything I could only ever dream of. People that love me, are willing to fight for me, and abilities that took my mundane life to the next level and filled it with magic and chaos, but I don’t particularly like my current reality either. If we’re all possessed not just by demons, but ones that were dubbed the moniker of Nightmares? Maybe that’s why I subconsciously destroyed every good thing that came my way before Emmy, especially if the demon in my head was lamenting the fact that she was the reason everyone was cursed and we didn’t deserve to be happy. Being miserable and alone is far safer than the pain that comes from having someone you love being used against you.
The more my grasp on reality slipped through my fingers, the more I pushed back, when I should have embraced the sense of peace that comes from accepting that everything holding us back is an imaginary construct.
One of the biggest sources of suffering for humans is failing at the hundreds of expectations society has in place for us. No matter how hard we try, it’s never enough. But what if we accept that those standards are bullshit, that they don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things? Then, there’s nothing to hold us back.
If you opt out of the game, the only rules you need to play by are your own.
Running my hand soothingly over Slade’s back this time, I narrow my eyes on Ash’s face. His eyes may not give him away like the rest of us, but everyone has a tell. “You were messing with our heads before; what’s to say you aren’t still? Just attempting to manipulate us in the normal sense of the words?”
He shrugs a single shoulder, ignoring the warning snap of Reid’s teeth as he extends a hand in offering, though he keeps his distance, remaining in the threshold. “See for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
“I have no interest in taking anything from you to sit around in my brain like a Trojan horse.”
The grin he gives me is blinding in its intensity. “I’d expect nothing less. You always were the only one who could give me a run for my money; I’ve missed this.” Dropping his hand, he cracks his neck from side to side as he turns to step out onto the porch. “Just keep in mind, Sabrina, that the age-old phrase ‘better the devil you know’ is a crock of shit. Like the rest of us, that little demon in your head has her own motives. You should always take anything that anyone tells you with a grain of salt. Ultimately, every story told is biased by the one telling it.”
Chuckling, he descends the steps. “And in the company of Nightmares, you can’t trust what you see with your own eyes, as they aren’t solely yours, are they? Even if you choose not to help us for our sake, at least do yourself a favor and consider what this predicament we’re in means for you. Our kind will always be drawn to you now that there’s nothing dampening Aurelia’s power. They may not understand why, but they can sense that you have the ability to free them from their prisons. Whether you kill me or not doesn’t change a thing in that regard.”
Striding across the yard, he calls, “Not that it holds any weight to you, but I give my word that I can coach you through how to free them without destroying the humans in the process. I’ve been planning this for hundreds of years, Sabrina; do you really think all of my experimenting with that drug was simply to bypass the mate curse aspect and make the best of a bad situation?”
He doesn’t bother to turn around as he fades into the tree line at the edge of the clearing. “Take a few weeks to think things over, we have time yet. Even if you’re growing stronger by the day, you still have a ways to go before you’ll be able to do what we need, if your dramatic exit from Shadow Ridge is anything to go by. So, in the meantime, decide what kind of life you want to live. One at odds with yourself, always on the run, or a peaceful life where you can settle down with your mates and everything you deserve? When you have your answer, you know where to find me.”
Chapter 2
Damian
My inner demon is furious, ranting and raving to the point I can’t even hear myself think. Yet, when I can finally bring myself to speak, my voice is completely steady and calm. “Two minutes.” Something splinters in my brain as the image of the man I strived to emulate my entire life fractures in front of me. “You have two minutes to give me a damn good explanation, and save me the ‘blissful ignorance’ bullshit this time. There’s plenty you could have still clued me in on while glossing over the worst of it.”
Pity takes residence in my father’s garnet eyes; fucking pity. “You were one of the few left that had any hope for a better future at all. I couldn’t crush it, turn you into one of the depressed zombies like the rest of them.”
Bo is the first to shift back, yanking Sabrina away from Hunter to crush against his chest and setting off a chain reaction of the others shifting back. Reid’s indignant scoff is coupled by Hunter’s demand of, “Were you under his influence all this time? Ash fucking with your head like the rest of us?”
His whispered reply echoes like a shock wave, rendering not only the entire room silent, but even the hitchhiker camped out in my brain. “No.”
It lasts for all of a heartbeat before my volatile counterpart surges to the forefront and snaps our hand out to wrap around my father’s throat, slamming him against the nearest wall. “So you knew.” The last remaining framed photograph on the wall crashes to the ground, the glass shattering. “All this time, you knew what he was doing to me, to us, and you stood by and did nothing?!”
Sabrina fused my warring halves together to where I finally felt whole, even if it’s been a whole lot of heartache at times, but right now, I’ve never felt so detached. Lost. I’m honestly relieved that there’s someone in my head to take control, allowing me the mercy of falling apart for a few minutes without letting anyone else down.
“What would you have me do?” He doesn’t fight me, and somehow, that actually makes it worse. “You’ve seen what the man’s capable of, how he can manipulate everyone he comes in contact with; with or without his abilities. He’s conned thousands of people into doing unforgivable things long before you were born, and by the time we realized how he used us... it was too late. We’re cursed in so many ways, Damian. Imprisoned, jumping through hoops for the chance at a mate, immortal unless our bodies are injured beyond repair.”
My ears perk up at that bit, and I nearly ask the question on the tip of my tongue before realizing the answer myself. I’ve never seen a wolf die of old age. Our lives are too brutal to reach old age. And the females whose mates precede them in death? They may choose to follow them into the grave, or take new mates, but once their second set has fallen, they don’t have the will to go through that agony again. They die of broken hearts as much as we die when losing ours.
Unless you have something to make your life worth living, immortality is the greatest curse of all; trapped in a state of perpetual, never-ending pain.
Sabrina settles a hand on my arm, and the raging monster lurking beneath my skin stills immediately. Agonizingly slowly, he removes one finger at a time until he’s released his death grip on my father’s throat, taking a step away. Dad scrubs a hand over the red marks, growing more resigned as the minutes tick by. Clenching and unclenching our fist, my inner demon assuages a fraction of his indignant fury by finally wrapping an arm around Sabrina’s waist, pulling her tightly into our side and taking a couple of slow, deep breaths, leeching off of her presence.
The only thing in my life that needs to make sense, I already have; her. The rest simply needs to be endured.
“Ash’s power. How does it work exactly?” The cold demand falls from my mouth without my influence, and it’s a harsh reminder that I need to pull myself together when it doesn’t upset me like before. As opposed to the last time he took over my vocal cords, this doesn’t feel invasive or nauseating. It’s a mercy that I’m grateful for, and from the corner of my eye, I glance at Cinjin.
People like us... we’re better off not being left alone with our thoughts. Having someone that’s willing to fight for you when you need help is a gift that most people will never have.
Clearing his throat, my father runs a shaky hand through his onyx hair. “That’s... complicated. Our abilities are more nuanced than the other demons’.”
At my unamused face, he clears his throat, glancing around and wincing as he sees the damage from his freak out. “Your mother is going to kill me,” he mutters under his breath, beginning to straighten up while he attempts to explain. And all the while, the eight of us are glaring at the demon in our midst with varying degrees of distrust, disbelief, and disdain.
“You know how you act differently depending on who you’re around?” He flips the table upright, staring dejectedly down at the jagged crack running the length of the surface. “That’s the simplest way to describe it. We subconsciously read people better than anyone else is capable of. We see who they are at their core, know how to behave to get what we want out of them. We notice everything they’re lacking without actively trying, have the ability to become their missing piece while also adopting enough of their mannerisms that we aren’t their polar opposite, but everything they need while maintaining enough similarities to be compatible.”
My fingers tighten on Sabrina’s hip as a series of memories flash through my mind’s eye. Of her being as terrible of a thrill seeker as Cinjin when she’s around him, more likely to cave into spontaneous impulses. How she picked up Slade’s habit of pinching the bridge of his nose and tilting her head to the heavens in search of patience. Sniping right back at Hunter, being Boden’s damsel in distress, subdued and analytical around Reid. Feeding off of Kaige’s energy in search of inner peace, while also the first to fucking snap and incinerate a man with her bare hands, to encourage us all that our first bonding activity should be a mass murdering spree. And the way she gets just as obsessed as I do once she sets her mind on something.
She claims she’d never sacrifice herself for our sake, but she nearly got herself killed saving Hunter, and ran herself into the ground helping the Hawthornes in various ways. Now, she’s standing here despite every way we fucked up not to save our packs, but the seven of us from retaliation from her fathers, and is ready to go out in a blaze of glory in an attempt to kill Acheron simply out of spite. Sabrina is a walking, talking contradiction, because... they’re right.
The Nightmare shacked up in my mate’s body has her own agenda, and while Sabrina may not sacrifice herself for us, she absolutely would do so out of pure spite. The two of them together are a volatile combination of deceptive innocence, and total destruction.
“We get in people’s heads, but it’s not something we actively do, just something we-” my father growls in frustration, tossing a broken chair leg into the pile of debris and scrubbing a hand down his face. “It’s who we are.”
Looking around the wreckage, his face falls, turning his focus onto his hands as shadowy tendrils weave between his fingers like glitching snakes. “The only thing you can really see is when we manipulate energy like this, but over the centuries, our kind faded into shadows of their former selves. Stories stopped being passed down because those that still remembered decided it was a mercy if our children didn't know what they were supposed to be, but would never become as we lost hope that the curse was temporary. I haven’t even seen anyone with those forms besides myself and Ash until you guys shifted. There’s so much demonic energy in your bodies, it twisted your wolves to accommodate it, just like ours.”
He meets my eye. “Acheron excelled at slipping into their heads while their guards were down, and he’s learned how to throw people off guard in their waking hours now as well. He plants seeds of doubt, turns people against each other so they’ll do part of the work for him diminishing their forces. He’ll slip images into people’s heads and convince them that they’re memories instead of simply dreams. He’s the first true Nightmare in every sense of the word, and has only gotten stronger over time now that he’s turned the tomb of our fallen brethren into a monument of suffering, a source of strength for himself and any alpha on this mountain as much as it’s a soul-sucking wasteland for the rest.”
“It’s why he has to keep everyone here in a clear divide pitted against each other,” Reid murmurs, as if speaking to himself without realizing instead of any of us. “Otherwise, with this many miserable people, their alphas would have the ability to become a real problem, even if not what he’d consider a threat.” Giving up on making sense of the chaos around him, Xander nods in confirmation, not that Reid notices.
Slade asks, “Why aren’t you filled to the brim with power, then? Of anyone, you’d be the best shot at stopping him.”
My father doesn’t look at Slade, but at Sabrina -or rather, Aurelia- as he answers, “After seeing how well that worked out for you, what chance did I stand? Even then, I did try once, when Damian was born. But I took on more than I was capable of handling, and it broke me; you know better than anyone what that’s like. Yet, where you spent centuries getting a break from that man and licking your wounds, I had to do terrible things in order to stay in his good graces to keep my family alive. You were right, okay? I’m sorry it took me so long to see that.”
None of us know what to say to that, leaving the room in a pensively silent moment heavily laden with sadness, hopelessness, and a hell of a lot of regret. Everything could have played out so differently if my father had been as determined to save me from Ash’s influence as he was Sabrina, if Kaige’s fathers hadn't rebelled against the idea of him being chosen to be her mate long before any of us ever knew her name.
“The stories.” My inner voice is a tortured lament, desperately seeking an outlet for his barely restrained anger. “Ash planted the idea of Sabrina long before we ever knew she existed, getting us hooked on the idea of what she represented so when he dangled the bait, we’d fall into his trap; hook, line, and sinker. He knew what we’d do better than we did.”
Nearly inaudibly, he whispers, “I hate this. I hate that loving her means that he wins.”
The temperature suddenly plummets with the cold fury in Kaige’s voice. “Did you know, Xander, that the person Ash sent us to kill was the man that stepped up to be Sabrina’s father, to raise her?” The smoky energy on my father’s hands stutters out of existence. “The one person that was keeping her safe and happy out there in the human world, safe from Annika.”
While Kaige stalks forward, my father holds his ground, but not with his head held high. He simply stares, ready to meet his maker without a trace of fear on his face. The man that cared for my pack before I was old enough to replace him, who taught me to help heal people over killing them whenever possible.
I’ve never seen him shift. And after he was done teaching me how to give away energy instead of just taking it, I don’t think I’ve seen him heal anyone, always encouraging me to do it for practice. How have I never seen how broken he was before?
“...Because that was the one thing he could actually protect you from.”
Kaige stops inches away. “By removing him from the picture, it set the course for all of her interactions with humans to be shitty ones so she'd be more sympathetic to Ash’s cause when push came to shove. And you stood by and let us all get played.”
As he rakes a hand through his disheveled hair, the tendrils reappear on his torso this time; a mass of violently churning, demonic ropes crisscrossing his body. “What the fuck did you expect me to do? Ash is the original Boogeyman, but rather than lurk beneath the bed, he’s the monster that hides in plain sight. The one time I stood up to him, he shattered me so completely, it takes everything I have to keep the energy build up from destroying this body.” His gaze hardens. “And as you are well aware, he doesn’t have any qualms about using someone’s family against them. It wouldn’t have only been my head if I’d tried again, it would have been Damian’s, or my mate’s. If you think that anyone can stop Acheron Wilder from getting what he wants, you’re in for a rude awakening.”
