Spirit Tales (The Millennium Wolves AU)
Chapter Forty-Seven

My head was empty. Everything disappeared, and it was just him, this guy, and me. The man who seemed to be in his early twenties. The man who was beautiful. The man who had wild black hair.

The man who had a pair of green eyes.

My hands shook, and I found myself fighting to rise onto my feet. Clinging on to the tree, I forced myself up, and realized in distant wonder that somehow, my hurt foot wasn’t aching anymore. But I didn’t linger on this thought. I was too busy shaking, staring at the man with wide eyes, and feel pain crawling into my heart.

Fred’ voice was what shattered my thoughts. “We won’t give you anything, Evander,” he said chillingly, “not after what you’ve done in the north and east.”

“But you haven’t even heard me offer,” Evander said, his deep, low voice not resembling at all the voice I knew as a child. But his eyes… His green eyes…

“Let’s hear it,” Apollo said mockingly, “just don’t think it will change anything.”

Evander gave them a bad smile that caused me shivers. No, it can’t be him, it simply can’t be… “I want only one thing. A human, in fact,” he glanced toward the four humans who were sitting, fearfully shaking, on the earth. “And unfortunately, she’s not one of them. We caught a few kids for naught.” His eyes were suddenly on Charlotte, and his green eyes widened. “Although I do recognize one of them.” Then he looked back at Fred.

“Who do you want?” Fred exposed his lips, more scary than I’d ever seen him.

Evadner’s smile turned sinister. “Rosangela Martinelli Wayne.”

Silence spread over the meadow, and I felt myself shaking. My hands grabbed onto the tree harder, because I knew if I didn’t, I would fall down.

“Angela isn’t here,” Strider shot back, his voice breaking the silence. “Besides, why should we bring her to you?”

Evande clucked his tongue. “If you don’t bring her to me, the vision your Seer Saw would come to pass,” Evander folded his arms and arched an eyebrow. “It’s a prophecy that would bring upon you doom. And besides,” he glanced at Charlotte again, and to everyone’s shock, crouched before her. Charlotte squeaked in fear, her watery eyes widening, while flush growing on her face. “I can’t always ask Charlotte Johnson here,” he smiled a beautiful smile just then that made Charlotte’s blush deepen. “Right, Lotte?”

The blood rushed out of my face at once. My previous doubt was gone. No one called Charlotte Lotte. No one but one person…

But before Charlotte could even speak, Fred let out a threatening growl and ran toward Evander. Evander himself rose back up and started running toward Fred, the two raising their hands, readying themselves for attack -

“No!!!”

The scream ripped out of my throat before my brain caught up and I found myself running toward the meadow, leaving my hiding spot behind my saving-grace of a tree. I ran to the two of them, the human and werewolf, while everything around me blurred. I stood between them, my arms spread to the sides, signing them to stop.

And they stopped, looking at me with pure shock. My legs shook, my hands as well, but I could keep myself upright. Meanwhile, Evander got out of the shock and smiled a wide smile.

“I thought you would never come, Rosa.”

I couldn’t breathe. The pain and sorrow tore me apart inside, my thoughts rocketing through my head, and I didn’t know what to do, what to think, how to act. I wanted to break down, but I couldn’t. Not now.

I wouldn’t break down.

“What the hell are you doing here, Angela?!” Fred snapped, losing his trademark cool. “Why the hell didn’t you stay at the college as you should have?!”

“I couldn’t let you come fight them here alone, Frederick!” I shot back, tears in my eyes. When he saw said tears, he froze, and I turned to look at Evander, feeling my heart breaking. “Why?” my voice broke. “Why, Brock?”

Brock Evander Ray stared at me with that wide smile, as though he was proud of something. “I promised you something, and I’m not going to break this promise, my Rosa,” he said smugly, “and now that you’re here, I can keep this promise.”

My lips quivered. “What… what are you talking about?” my hands fell; I was unable to hold myself upright, I was too shook.

He didn’t hesitate when he said, “My promise to marry you, Rosangela.”

I felt complete hysteria coming over me. This can’t be… This can’t be… A mad laughter broke out of me. “You must be joking!” I yelled, my laughter turning into panic. “You cannot be serious!”

“There’s no one more serious than I am, Rosa,” his face turned somber. “I’m going to marry you.”

Suddenly arms were wrapped around me, and Fred pulled me to him. “Over my dead body,” he growled, exposing his teeth like the wolf that lived inside him, and to my shock, out of his shoulder blades a pair of black wings grew with orange streams through them, like a dragon’s wings I’d seen ages ago, when he saved me from a fall.

Brock looked at Fred’s arms, and his face turned murderous. “Take your hands off my woman,” he said quietly, and suddenly his green eyes turned completely black, and a dark wind pulled Fred and me apart, causing everyone else in the forest to go airborne. Screams echoed in the meadow while Brock was left in the middle, the rest landing in a some sort of a circle around him. Including me.

He stopped at once, and the black disappeared from his eyes, the green returning. He smiled smugly and said, “That’s better.” Then he turned to look at me. “And now we will all see if you even bothered waiting for me, or if you turned into a slut and slept with half of the world.” He raised his hand and a stream of the same black wind from before shot toward me. Before I could do anything - run away, block the wind, anything else - the black wind hit me, and I felt my body locking up, as though under a trance.

I couldn’t control it, like I couldn’t control it when Tempest was in charge. Only this time something else controlled it. Something cold, alien… dark. I found myself rising onto my feet, my body bowed unnaturally, walking toward the trees, cutting of a low branch, and stepping toward Brock. I couldn’t stop my body when I went down on my knees before him, my hair down around me, and when my right hand turned so my arm was exposed, and my left hand rose upward, holding the branch tightly, and landing with such strength on my right hand, tearing the skin and veins in it. A scream ripped out of my throat, agonized. The pain was more horrible than anything, having myself cutting my veins, but have it not be really me.

Brock looked at me with disgust, and within seconds my body was free. He pulled up his leg and kicked me so harshly in the stomach, until blood poured out of my mouth. Lying on the ground, shaking uncontrollably, the pain from the injury and inside… I felt like I was done with. “Look what you’ve become, Rosangela,” Brock spat. “You turned into a pathetic, pitiful woman. Cutting your veins? Really? This is the best thing you could do?” the mockingness in his voice was staggering.

“Ruby!” he suddenly called ,and the redhead stepped forward, looking at me with so-called indifference, but her eyes were stormy, not hiding what she was feeling at the moment - and especially the terror, seeing my state. Brock looked at me, his face cold. “Because it was your nineteenth birthday, after all, I’m going to give you a gift. Ruby, heal her.”

“Y-Yes, Evander,” Ruby said and crouched near me, her hands were shaking, and her face pale. She put her hands on me - one on my head and one on my stomach. Sharp pain sliced me up when she closed her eyes and started pouring some kind of power into me. Unlike Brock’s power, that dark, awful power, Ruby’s was soft, warm, comforting, and full of inexplicable happiness, like that of the werewolf healers.

I felt myself getting better, feeling my wounds closing, until I was completely healed. Ruby then rose again, looked shakily at Brock and nodded. Brock smiled. “Now that you’re not as pathetic, there are two ways in which we can do this.

“The first one is for you to come quietly, so we can go away already,” he smiled sinisterly at that. “The second is that you let you friends fight me and my followers to save your skin. Which will you choose, Rosangela?”

Before I could pull myself up from the ground, or say anything, shouts and growls came from everywhere and a battle broke loose. Brock was shoved back by a fire lance from Apollo; Ruby and Charlie were under attack from Ryan and Magnus. The werewolves who were Brock’s, which were many, started fighting Fred, Strider and the Millennium Force. I saw Solomon was here, along with Kyle, Alessando and Lachlan and their Millennium Forces as well. People from college got mixed in the battle as well. The humans looked around in fright, trying to figure out what to do. Even Adria and Louis fought, not to mention Maria, whom I didn’t think she had such fighting capabilities, or Megan and Rachel.

My hands curled into fists. I couldn’t let them fight for me, or because of me, or for any other reason. Because then…

I’m on the floor, crying, helpless, while everyone was burning to death right in front of my eyes.

I couldn’t let my dream come true.

“Your time is up, Frederick Rhodes, the Alpha of the Millennium,” the man said in a voice that made cry uncontrollably.

Fred lowered his head, and Evander lifted his hand, and before I could do anything, a sword came down and cut off Fred’s head from its place, blood sprouted everywhere, Fred’s head resting on the floor.

No… It couldn’t happen…

“What will happen is no one’s fault but Donovan. Not Maxwell England, not Magnus Odin, not Ryan England, not Evander. Only Donovan.”

While the words of the man in the green suite, who’d talked to me in the dream, echoed in my head, I knew there was only thing I could do.

“STOP!”