Love as Bitter as It Ever Was

Kale’s POV

13 years.

13 years of war and we were losing.

We had what they wanted so we didn’t attack we just defended.

Nearly every pack of wolves has been attacked.

We’ve had to pull our forces now, the wolves on the front line getting younger and younger.

This is all for her.

Even in her death I’m protecting her.

I had taken over the leadership of the pack ten years ago.

My father forced me to take a wife and now we have a child.

Emily was nice enough and she was pretty but I couldn’t ignore the love I still felt for Kailli.

Her body lying behind the waterfall was what this whole war was about.

My father advised me in the beginning when I became leader to just give them her body.

I couldn’t.

They were the ones who had killed her, she died to protect me and now I would die to protect her even if it was just her body.

“It’s time,” Hayden told me, my right hand man.

He was about the only one who really understood my whole reason for this. Vampires had killed his mate and he fought with them just to get her body back.

He still had scars from their claws and some from their fangs I think, they spanned across his face and chest.

Donovan was coming to once more give me the choice, give Kailli’s body back or die.

I had heard that he too was going to marry, I wonder if he was as happy about marrying as I was?

I knew Emily loved me but she hated me at the same time. She hated having to compete especially with someone who was dead, she kept reminding me.

“Kale I think it might me time…” Hayden trailed off as we walked to the meeting grounds, the grounds it all happened on 13 years ago.

The grounds were still a mutual zone, no ones and everyone’s.

“What?!” I stopped in my tracks and spun to face him.

Hayden had promised that he would protect her body with me as long as he still had faith in what we were doing.

“We’re all going to die” his eyes pleaded with me, “Think of your son” he whispered.

My son, my heir, my little ray of light. I loved him as much as I loved Kailli but of course in different ways.

“Is there no hope?” my voice was feeble, I never thought it would come to this, never.

He didn’t answer me he just looked at me with those sad eyes. He didn’t have a family of his own but he had become like an uncle to my son.

I walked on thinking about the situation. If Hayden was saying we should give back her body then I think he might be right.

Donovan was there waiting already.

His face had become hard, his voice more rough.

Every year we would meet here and every year he grew graver. He didn’t age supposedly but I swear he was.

“Donovan” I acknowledged him, “Kale” he had stopped calling me mutt about five years ago, why? I don’t know.

“Same as always” he looked bored he probably expected the same answer out of me as it had been for 13 years.

“I’ll take you to her” I just managed out and a look of surprise crossed his face, he nearly lost his footing but then quickly righted it.

“You’re giving her up?” he was really surprised. He knew we were losing but I don’t think he thought I would give her up, it had been 13 long hard years.

“I have to think of the best for my pack” I didn’t look at him, I looked into the forest behind him, anywhere but his delightful face.

“Let’s go,” he sounded happier, his voice lighter. I looked to his face and I was astonished.

I had never seen him happy, not once. Whenever I saw him he was always in pain or angry, never happy.

I lead him to the waterfall and stood at the edge of it. The woods had grown a little more and covered more of the area around it.

No one but me had ever been here. I hadn’t actually been here for about five years, it became too hard.

I used to come and sit by her cold body and talked to her, especially when the war got tough I needed to remind myself why I was fighting.

Five years ago Emily gave birth to my son, Kyle. Since then it had become harder.

I see the danger that I have caused in the world, a world my son is going to grow up in and I’m the one creating it, for her.

“She’s through there” I nodded my head towards the waterfall.

“This isn’t some kind of trap is it?” he glared at me, that would have been a good idea now that I think about it.

“No, she lays where the water falls like the blood that flowed from her” I had said this to him many times just to confuse him.

I swear he sent people to search every waterfall in the country but this was so small and secluded that hardly anyone knew of it.

He jumped into the water and following him was his guard. I saw as one of their heads cut the falls and then they were in.

Shouts echoed from the inside and I became confused.

I drove into the pool and then came up just under the falls so it fell on my back.

As I looked onto the stone floor there was no body there anymore, there was nothing.

“What happened? Where’d she go?” I looked up at them, they must have found her hidden her and then acted like she wasn’t here.

“Is this some kind of trick mutt?” he sneered at me, no longer happy and looking grave and older again.

“No! She was here! I laid her here 13 years ago and the last time I came to visit five years ago she was here!”

There was no way she could have disappeared by herself. It was safe in here, no animal could get in here, they must have done something.

“Playing dumb isn’t going to work now mutt. Her body or I end this war with the blood of your dogs!” he was angrier than ever.

“I swear on my life and my families that she was here!” this wasn’t going as I had planned.

“It will be yours and your families life that pays, you’re all dead you hear, no more chances.” And with that he was gone.

I sat where I remember where her body used to lie. There was a slight discolouration of the rock, it was darker where her body was.

Donovan was determined now and there was absolutely nothing I could do, we were dead, I should have given her body back a long time ago now I was going to pay.