Chapter 52

I didn't expect to find serious things so funny while drunk. Even being dragged by Skye after he interrupted my moment with Raygar.

Skye has returned me to his residence, and now stands me at the end of his bed while he paces, furious as I smile lopsided. I'm naked and wet and cold, but I'm at his mercy and his anger is somewhat helping to warm me from the inside.

"I am the Luna of Wolf Dominion though," I whisper, keeping steady enough but happy to rub it in, "So yeah, Skye, I spread the truth in Cracklen about us –"

"IT MAKES US VULNERABLE TO ATTACK, RYDER!" Skye uses his death sentencing snarl, freezing up and looking over at me as if I've just planted a bomb right under Wolf Dominion.

It was just the truth!

I take in Skye's stance and his aggression – so intense he can't move as he looks at me, beyond his capacity to figure me out.

I say nothing and this seems to infuriate him more.

"Vulnerable how?" I ask, sultry.

"I regret telling you this now…" Skye seems to regret it, even as he tells me straight, "You're the last human on Genesis. Well, you and the girl; Fyre," Whatever. Just like what that young man said in Cracklen, selling oil. Humans were 'extinct'. We were all humans, however. So, it didn't matter. So, I don't react. "You're not raging to kill me?" Skye dares to taunt me, "You have nothing to say now?"

"You know so little of our reality," I answer him, my speech slurred but my logic correct, "We're not so different, you and I, we –"

At that moment, however, Skye gets a call from his office.

He abruptly turns to exit his bedroom, confused by the late call but keen to answer it.

As he stalks off, I stumble to the windows.

I lean my forehead against the cool glass and breathe unsteady.

I try to balance myself as I gaze down at the moonlit dessert and Dry Canyon.

Windswept sand blows, billowing high, obscuring most of the ground except… I see… a person. One… person. Huh?

Slender and heavily robed, with long red locks blowing wild in the wind.

She's trekking through dry sand all alone.

I –

Meri – ?

"What do you mean the lights are all off?" I hear Skye hiss from the office, "Are you –"

Thump.

I hear a heavy fall.

Wait a second.

I turn and attempt to sprint into Skye's office in time.

"No!" I witness Skye slouched over the office desk – out cold.

Behind him, Hades holds a clear injection.

His neck is stitched closed from where I stabbed him. His face has bruises from where I pummelled him with my fists.

Skye doesn't look dead. He's breathing. I can relax a bit on that detail.

As I scowl at and back up from Hades, however, I almost trip over my heavy metal left foot. I hate being drunk. Hades is watching me with dilated pupils.

"Stay," Hades snarls, "Don't move… Ryder. Calm down."

All around us, as Hades warns me – the dim lights in Skye's residence flicker then burn out.

We're left in nothing but moonlight.

It's eerie.

Suddenly the familiar buzz in the air is gone too and a deep unsettling silence remains.

"What's happening?" I ask Hades, my gut turning as my instincts tell me danger.

"If you leave this space you'll get slaughtered," Hades gruffly tells me, "Stay here with me."

"Skye, is he –?"

"Alive. For now. You have questions. First know this, I stay free, I'm always a Shade – always, it's how I survive, even if I lie," Hades points his thumb to his throat, "Although… you nearly –"

I don't care about that anymore.

"What's really going on, Hades? What do you want? And why did I see Lemeri outside?" I point to the window.

"Princess Meri?" Hades raises a brow, "Bait – for Raygar," as he explains I quickly walk over to gaze out the window again.

I can see Raygar already running out there with Rrot by his side.

Hades comes up behind me to look out the window with me. He places a hand on my shoulder. Friendly isn't the right word. More like… consolation.

"Wait for it," Hades whispers in my ear.

As I wait, nothing happens.

My eyes remain glued to the scene, however, thinking the worst may happen.

I mean… it might but… I… in this moment at least, the thought of Raygar being hurt or Skye being vulnerable right now – it makes me mad.

I don't want them dead.

I stay tense, with Hades' heavy hand on my shoulder.

"What am I looking for?" I whisper, confused.

"You won't miss it, I promise you that," Hades sounds reserved, "I'm sorry, Ryder."

"For what?" I ask, monotone.

"I really think you have the guts to be a good Shade – I could have shown you much more… now it's too late for that, you're well in your rank. Luna. For the last ten minutes of your chance anyway."

Nothing of interest is happening to Raygar and Lemeri uniting emotionally in the desert, so I turn to Hades slowly, and he watches me intense with his emerald green eyes.

Snake.

Although, apparently, he is an Omega wolf. Rouge and untrustworthy?

"Last. Ten. Minutes?" I ask Hades for confirmation, sobering up a little bit with that intense statement.

"Listen. Long story short. Skye took my counsel to his detriment," Hades admits, his eyes blinking slow, "To align Wolf with Cat Dominion. Watch and see," he encourages me to look out the window.

I turn from him to look down again.

I finally see some shadows moving around the sand dunes, while Rrot starts circling Raygar and Lemeri, snarling, spit flying.

"Is it an ambush?" I whisper.

"Worse," Hades is almost breathless with the sight, "Rrot is about to get slaughtered. He'll be the first."

"It'll take a lot of cats to do that…" I start to eat my words as I see the shadows emerge. Not slow – but insanely fast. And huge. Huge! Huge cats, "…Cat Dominion were able to make big cats…? A Company of Cats?" my words turn dry in my throat.

I watch.

And I can't stop watching.

I can practically hear Raygar's scream from here.

Rrot's massive form is not just jumped. He's suffocated by muscle weight alone from a Company of Cats, all lions – and promptly slaughtered.

It's too fast.

The blood of the infamous Wolf Beast dries into the sand, turning it crimson.

Rrot is dead in seconds.

Raygar has collapsed with Lemeri holding him close.

I have to look away now.

"It's fucked up, but –" Hades words become a sudden distant echo as I feel a sharp tug at my heart strings.

Pull.

Immense pain and distress.

Help me.

Xrat?!

Somehow without any practice for 12 months, with just one call of distress from my Wolf Beast, I am torn from my consciousness and thrust into his brain.

Hades catches my fallen human body – while Xrat and Skye pull me in.

I centre myself.

I see the Den from Xrat's eyes.

I share his brain with Skye, we share his consciousness and eyes.

The 'Help me' was a worded message from Skye himself. Desperate.

Highgrade Nesting just outside where Xrat is stuck behind a wall, is already infiltrated by a huge big cat.

Vorth remains, he faces off a Lion equal to his size.

Vorth is already limping from one attack to his side, but he's not dead yet.

But he's about to be. He's too old now.

What's the hell happened? I ask Skye.

We're losing the Dominion to a Cat Kind surprise take-over.

How, I thought you were friends with them?

We were but – it's too late to reminisce about mistakes. We're all going to die, Ryder. I'm sorry. They're here to kill us all.

Hades would have slaughtered us, you and I – but he didn't.

Skye's reply to me is disturbing – his response sends chills through me; Prepare then, we're going to die painfully if we're wanted alive.

Not if I can help it.

I answer Skye without any direct knowledge of how to achieve victory.

All I know is I've failed too many times to fail again.

It was my turn to achieve.

I see Xrat's paw is able to open this wall, at his command. Our command. When ready.

I make my plan now.

I'll lead, I command Skye and Xrat.

Ryder, you don't have to pretend. We're over, Luna – I'm sorry – it's the truth.

We might be. But not Xrat. No one else I love is going to die. We're going to get him to safety. We're going to save him.

We'll still die.

He's all we need. I trust his design – you made him stronger than Vorth and look at the fight Vorth is putting up against that lion.

We both focus on Vorth, managing to roll off the lion, who claws into his ribs, even managing to tear off an ear and cause heavy bleeding by the head, to mess with the lion's sight.

Vastian was in control from the calculated movements in his Wolf Beast.

The brawl will last a while before he's dead.

It was enough of a distraction – to get Xrat away.

It was time to do something I was great at my whole life.

It was time to run away.