Silencing Alice

-Rowen-

The forest was silent as the first rays of sunlight made its way through a tangled mass of branches and touched the earth’s crust. It illuminated the leaves that littered the forest floor and gave their crumpled forms an auburn glow.

I stared down at the dried blood that coated my hands and made a halfhearted effort to wipe them on my jeans not really caring if they stained them or not.

The mangled beast at my feet twitched as he gasped out his last desperate breath and I stared into his maniac eyes as the light slowly faded away leaving them glazed over with death. His mouth lay open in a twisted snarl as the blood that poured from his torn out throat stained the earth.

I needed this. Sometimes all the anger and bitterness in me would well up until I couldn’t stand it anymore. The only way I could ever release it was by satisfying my need to kill. I’d stalk the forest at night searching out crazed prey to unleash my rage on.

According to werewolf lore the other half of your soul, your mate, was meant to calm the furious snarls of a werewolfs inner beast. When I found mine, my thirst for blood would subside and I would be balanced. If I never found her, that very same beast would slowly devour my human half until nothing remained but my hunger for death.

We called the werewolves who surrender to the natural instinct of the beast rogues and they are forever doomed to wonder the earth hungering for flesh and blood in their desperate attempt to fill the empty spaces in their souls where the presence of their mate should have been. I had two years before the beast within me devoured me. I could almost hear the ‘tick tock’ of the clock as it slowly ticked away my sanity.

Kicking the corpse away, I turned to leave when I heard it. A small sound carried by the breeze that I might have missed save not for the sweet alluring scent that accompanied it. Mesmerized I turned towards it and inhaled deeply allowing this enticing aroma of pears and juniper berries to fill my lungs. It was so clean this scent, like freshly fallen snow, that I was nearly overcome by how new it was. How it was unlike anything I’ve ever smelt before.

With every step I took the scent grew stronger pulling me towards that addicting source until I was overcome with an urgency, a hunger I was afraid would never subside. I knew that if I could not find the owner of this scent I would go mad and this forest would not survive my rage or the devastation left behind in its wake.

Just when I thought my patience had all but wore thin and the thread holding me from madness would snap, the scent trail ended. Mystified, I stared at the hollowed out dead tree before me afraid that my nose had mislead me. I tasted the air again and discovered that the source of this aroma was just under my nose – literally. Crouching down next to the trees trunk I discovered a small hollowed out space. Excitement and urgency building in my chest, I peered into its depths desperate to find the mystery that lurked within it.

I’m not sure what I was expecting. Whatever I was expecting, it most certainly was not what I found. It was better. Emerald green eyes clouded by the shadows of the small hole she crouched stared fearfully out at me. Her long hair framed her small shoulders as she curled into an even tighter ball and pressed herself further into her hiding hole. One look at this small fairy like creature and I knew that she was mine.

“MATE.” I declared proudly and then I was reaching for her, pulling her to me and crushing her to my chest. Her hair fell around her and caught the sunlight like spun gold, and when I lifted her up into my arms I was surprised at just how small she was. My arms easily encircled her and pinned her to my large frame even as she pushed and tried to tear herself away. Even though I was understanding of her reaction, she was human after all, the other half of me ruled by beast was furious. He wanted me to shout at her to be still and accept us but I reigned him in and only allowed a small growl to erupt from my lips.

My fairy stilled at the sound and the smell of her fear made me redirect my anger at myself for scaring her. When I looked down at her and those mesmerizing green eyes still shrouded in shadows, shadows that were cast by sadness I soon realized, I knew that I could not risk letting her go. She was mine and I would not let her leave me.

*Alice*

This man who clutched me fervently to his chest was like thunder and lightening. His touch was like electricity coursing fire through my veins and his very presence was like thunder ripping open the skies. He was a storm cloud of wind and rain and the wild torrents of his unbridled power crashed down upon me leaving me cold in its downpour.

His eyes stared down at me two deep puddles of murky sky and I found myself curious at the emotions that seemed to battle this stern almost cold man’s face. His black hair framed a strong chiseled face and rested across dark furrowed brows. His long lashes brushed against sun kissed cheeks as he peered down at me and I noticed the long white scar that cut through his left eye brow and ended at the corner of his eye. The scar should have made him ugly but it somehow just ended up making him beautiful in a fierce and strange kind of way.

I wanted to shout at him to let me go to release me from the confines of his arms, but like always the words twisted and got stuck in my throat refusing to budge past my stubborn lips. The more I pounded on his chest and strained to get out of his arms, the more his grasp on me tightened until I was forced to realize that my escape was impossible. Was this a kidnapping?

“What is your name my love?” My captor suddenly asked, and his voice boomed into the silence like angry thunder causing my heart to lurch and freeze momentarily in my chest.

When I didn’t answer he looked down at me and I avoided his storm grey eyes afraid that I’d get lost in them, or worse see a glint of madness in them. When he realized that I didn’t intend to answer he only sighed and continued carefully picking his way through the forest. I wondered where he was taking me. I’ve often wished reading minds had been my power instead of seeing spirits. The dead were harmless. It was the living you had to fear.

I’m not sure how long he carried me. The way the sun climbed into the sky and then dipped below the horizon told me that the day had passed. I’m not sure what scared me more, the fact that I had been kidnapped or that this strange man had carried me the entire day without a single rest.

When his footsteps finally stopped my mind that had become numb suddenly snapped awake. I could feel the large muscles of his arms tense around me like a spring coil ready to snap and very faintly I could hear a low growl reverberate through his chest.

When I looked up at him, his eyes cut through the gloom a vibrant silver and I shrunk away at the sheer intensity of them. Those were not the eyes of man but something else. In them I could see the blood thirsty haze of a beast and the silver of them glared into the waning light like a fierce beam ready to vaporize anything in its wake. I didn’t like those eyes. They made me think of shadows of grey and silver. In them I could see the shadow men dancing on the backs of men and laughing at my fear.

A blood curdling snarl rebounded through the forest and for the first time, I was glad I was not alone. I cut a sharp glance at the man who carried me, curious to see what he was going to do now. His eyes never wavered from the small point in the distance he stared at. A part of me was comforted that he wasn’t scared, but another part had to wonder, who was this man notto be afraid?

When I looked into the forest again, I half expected a large bear to throw itself into our path. When I saw what did emerge from the gloom however, a bear would have been a nice welcome. I’ve never been scared of wolves. Maybe because there was always something darker, bigger, and scarier then wolves prowling the forest at night. I had more things to fear and so wolves never really came up on my top ten list of fears. They did now.

The wolf that stepped out in front of us was larger than any animal I’ve ever seen. He towered above the earth almost the size of a horse, an angry snarl curling his face so that all of his sharp teeth were on display. His beady black eyes cut into me like two pinpricks of hell ready to tear my soul out and devour it whole. His fur was a matted mess of tangled brown fur and I tried not to look to close at the shiny wet substance that coated his snout.

Slowly and deliberately, the man who carried me set me down for the first time all day. The moment my feet touched the ground my knees buckled and I nearly fell but his large hand steadied me and then shoved me protectively behind him. I’m not sure if it was the fear coursing through my veins or the mad hunger that tore open my belly that made me see what I saw next.

Time had almost stood still. It was just the man and the wolf staring eye to eye, sizing each other up in the silent gloom of the forest. Time was still only for a moment before it snapped and the man was no longer a man.

I stumbled back in shock and watched as two wolves tore at each other’s flesh desperate for blood. One was as dark as the night, the other the color of earth. The black one towered over the brown one and I watched in horror as he quickly gained the upper hand and reached its throat. Blood coated the ground and soaked the black wolfs muzzle and I knew that I needed to leave.

Hoping it hadn’t noticed me, I sunk backwards further into the forest before turning around and sprinting as fast as I could. The frilly blue dress I wore kept snagging on the branches around me slowing me down. My shoes kept finding roots and fallen branches to trip over and I scraped my hands multiple times when I crashed to the earth.

I turned to look over my shoulder half expecting to see a beast breathing down my neck when my ankle twisted beneath me and sent me tumbling to the forest floor. I only realized I was at the edge of a very large hill when I started tumbling down it. My arms shot out desperately searching for something to grab a hold of to halt my momentum but they came away empty and I continued to fall. When I hit the bottom the breath was forced from my lungs.

A black fog kept creeping into my vision trying to cloud out the light and I tried to fight it away as I looked up at the blanket of stars that now covered the sky. The black fog was winning and just before I let it take over I thought I saw someone standing at the edge of the hill looking down at me. When I closed my eyes and let the abyss take me I heard a wolfs mournful cry split open the night.