Fang War

30 ☽

The sway of the box truck leads Lila's tears to stray from their previously fallen path.

Makeup trails down. The makeup, she'd never wear in a previous life in Vegas. Now, she's all dark, thick, a mask she finally lifted tonight. She's a mess like the rest of them in the back of the truck. Concealed, from the outside world that meant to cause them harm.

Lila's hands clutch onto that of Adonis. He's human again, the man she now remembers with the veil of Zachary's mental manipulations long gone.

To Adonis' throat, a rag dripping crimson holds from the one they called Hunter. His eyes haven't lifted from that wound, as he's trying to control the bleeding of the wound that would prove instantly fatal to any mere human. A human, like herself, who once ran from a throne room of antlers that she remembers him from—like most of the werewolves sharing the chilled space.

Hunter trembles in his own rage, one meant for her as he accuses, "This is all your fault...if you just would've stayed away..."

The only warmth in this new prison comes from Lila's tears that fill her brown eyes to near-blindness until they spill out from her own words.

"I know, I didn't mean for any of this to happen."

"It isn't her fault, Hunter," Benjamin, the voice of the alpha tells not just Hunter, but them all in a tone much softer than he normally takes. In his arm, his beloved, his mate, clings for her own life in the fortress of his arms. At his side, his little brother, the adorable Bentley who shared the same tears in his eyes that the alpha was doing so hard to fight against.

Benjamin speaks on, "It's the vampires, as it always was and always will be. From what I've been hearing among them, it's Lila who we should thank for our freedom."

Lila dares to meet the eyes of the alpha. Intense eyes, that once glowered from in his throne room and readied to kill her once upon a time. Benjamin says to her, "Thank you."

Lila nods, shame bearing heavy at the back of her head where great tension grew. She hangs her head from the weight. With Adonis' hand in hers, her thumb lovingly moves over the darker skin she caresses.

Hunter says merely above a whisper, "We just have to get them both to Grace. She will fix this."

Grace, the elderly wolf, and matriarch Lila took an immediate liking to back at their house. How she hoped Hunter was right that she could help them.

"What about the vampers with us? We can't trust them in our house, can we?" Young Bentley asks.

Before Hunter can take his opportunity to perpetuate the paranoia, the alpha commands, "Kyler is driving. If it's a trap, he'll be the first to get us away. They've also risked everything—and although I'd like to take my own shot at that leech Julien for torturing me—for now, my revenge will have to wait. Family first, revenge later."

"I think we can trust them," Lila adds, not meaning to meddle in their business, but now their business was her own, "Amelie and Julien helped me through a lot. They're over the life of the Vasiles...they want freedom just as much as any of us."

A quiet falls over the back of the truck as each rusted axel shrieks and every pelt of rain against metal fills the silence.

Lila watches Hunter lift the sopping rag off of Adonis' throat and there, she hears the words that causes all of them to look up with hope.

"He's healing, quickly," Hunter gives the news that shows Adonis will be well before long.

Glancing over to the frail, lifeless Morganna fighting for her last breaths, Lila's heart breaks all over again in seeing the state of the alpha female has not changed. It's written on Benjamin's stoic face as it draws down at each sharp corner—he's losing her and with it, his strength to hold it together. He breaks, sobbing as Lila would think a being built like him couldn't. His forehead presses against Morganna's forehead as he prays, begs, and wills her to live.