Chapter 68
The guys led me up the escalators to a room, not really explaining much along the way, but I have even more questions when I enter to see a gargoyle sitting casually on a chair as a man whimpers in another. Tears streak his aged face, and his hands shake in his lap as he looks down at them. It’s only when he looks up do I start to spiral
“Marius?”
“Envy?” He says, confused. Looking me up and down, before landing on the dark, misting crown upon my head. Ife sucks in a sharp breath. “Are you alive?”
“I am…and you…are not.”
“You know him?” Xavier asks, placing a hand on my lower back.
“Yeah…” My heart hammers, and my brain feels like it’s about to pop. Images, flashes of my childhood, I don’t recognise flood through my brain. I step further into Xavier’s embrace.
“What’s happening to her?” He says frantically as I struggle to find a coherent sentence.
“She’s remembering.” I hear a voice, but it feels distant, strange, foggy even, and then I’m sucked into the darkness. It feels like I’m watching a movie, but I’m a part of it.
A world surrounds me that looks like Tolaris pack lands, a little girl runs past me with long black hair, and she turns to look past me…no, it is me, that little girl, that’s me. I couldn’t be more than three at this point, and I’m running from Marius as he laughs.
“Come back here, Envy! We can’t leave our post!”
Little me laughs, ducking through trees with great speed.
The image flickers; it’s different now. I’m playing with two little pups in the garden, before rogues swarm from every direction. Pack members scream and fall, guards do their best to hold them off, but one breaks through the line and comes straight for us, his jaw wide as he tears through one of the boys‘ throats. A wolf, one I know well, Felix, quickly runs towards us, countering the attack and throwing down the rogue with force before snapping its neck. He shifts, cradling the pup as the other little pup cries, covered in his friend’s blood. “Shhh, son, come here,” Felix says softly as a tear slides down his face. Little Theo crawls to his dad, hiding his face in his shoulder as Felix brushes soft locks of hair away from the other boy…Zion. That’s Zion who’s dying. I remember it now. My younger self crawls towards the trio, resting a hand on Zion’s stomach. Closing her eyes, she begins to glow a soft blue hue, and the blood coating his body begins to seep backwards, returning to its place. Zion’s chest begins to rise and fall slowly and steadily as Felix watches with wide
eyes.
“Daddy…she’s magic.” Theo gasps.
“Yes, she is.” A loud commanding voice says behind them. My younger self startles, hands withdrawing as she opens her eyes and beams with a smile so wide at Alpha Marcus.
1…I fixed him, Alpha!”
Alpha Marcus kneels before me, putting a hand on my shoulder as his eyes darken and a sinister smile spreads across his face.
“I knew it was you.” He grabs my little arm with enough force that I shriek and thrash in his hold, but he pays me no mind as he drags me away from the carnage. My little hands outstretched to Felix, who is rooted on the ground holding Theo and Zion.
“They told me you would come here,”
“Who?!” Little me cries out.
“The witches,”
The images flicker and distort until I’m pulled from the darkness, raking in as much breath as I can. I find myself on my back on the floor, my mates hovering over me, as well as the gargoyle.
“Love!” Haiden says, quickly sliding myself under my head to cradle it.
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Chapter 68
“Alpha Marcus!” I stutter out.
“We saw,” Levi states.
The gargoyle gives me a wary smile. “My apologies, my Queen. The Kings requested to see into your mind.”
“Is that all you saw? Is there more?!” I say, sitting up quickly. A little too quickly, as the room spins with dizziness.
“Your mind…some memories, I can sense a block, something dark. I can only assume blood magic has been used.” She says.
“You mean to tell me someone has taken my memories?”
“Not taken, no. They’ve just blocked you from accessing them. Seeing Marius here must have cracked the spell slightly.”
“So how do we destroy it completely?” Xavier asks, helping me off the floor and sitting me on his lap in a chair across from a very anxious–looking Marius.
“I’m not sure, my lord. I think now that it has been cracked, it’s only a matter of time before the rest flood through.”
I manage to sit up a little straighter to look directly at Marius.
“What happened to you? You were there one day and gone the next…I never saw you again.”
“Oh, little Envy…I am so sorry.”
Four growls rumble through the room, and Levi says sternly, “You’ll address her properly. As your Queen.”
“Sorry.” Marius stutters, and I glare at each of my mates before politely asking him to continue.
He tells me about his version of events that day. About how Alpha Marcus had ordered the execution of the children, explaining that he found what he was looking for and was no longer in need of the others. Marius had planned to get the kids out, but had to move up the timeframe. He just wasn’t quick enough.
*I failed them. I failed you. I could have at least gotten you free, gotten you away from the pack.”
“You didn’t fail…you did your best and that’s all you could do. I do have to ask, though. If Marius was collecting children, why wasn’t I placed with them? Why was I out in the pack with everyone else?”
He smiles softly. “When you were found, just off the border, there had been a mysterious fire that had ravaged through that part of the woods, but there you were, sitting in the middle of a green patch of grass, completely untouched. No one could understand how it was that you were unharmed or how the life around you was thriving, but when Beta Felix took you to the Alpha, explaining what we saw, he said you were to be raised by the warriors. We were all told not to get too attached, but to keep a close eye on you and if anything, strange or unnatural occurred, to let him know.”
“And then I saved Zion’s life…” I say connecting the dots while Marius nods.
“He was waiting to see if you really were special, as we all believed.”
and I showed him…”
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