SIXTEEN

**ARTEMIS**
I scanned the room for any semblance of escape. A red silk curtain hung on one wall, I didn't stop to think as I pulled it open. I assumed that behind it would be a curtain... I was so, so wrong.

I took a few steps back in shock, but then spun around as a low, rumbling growl shook the very floor I stood upon came from behind me.

***

It was her.

It was me.

It was us.

The girl in the painting had hair so pale it looked white, like a ghost of what once was. Her hair only made her faded lilac eyes stand out more.

It was me.

A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips, I couldn't look away.

That was, until his roar so loud it shook the very ground I stood upon.

"Get out!" He boomed.

My eyes darted around like a bird trapped in a cage, there was no escape except the doorway he was blocking. I couldn't look away from his glowing gold eyes, lips pulled back in a vicious snarl, revealing straight white teeth and pointed canines.

He stalked forwards, seeming to cover the ground in seconds. I stumbled back until my back collided with the wall, a small whimper left my lips as his face was so close I turned away, unable to look him in the eyes.

I knew the exact distance between us, six inches, his warm and laboured breath fanned my neck, I could almost feel his chest heaving against mine he was so close, part of me wished he was closer, the deepest most primal and sinful parts of me that I buried deep down.
A shiver ran down my spine and the hairs in the back of my neck stood on end at the thought. If it was so wrong, but why did it feel so right?

I expected him to shout, to scream, to tear me to shreds. I braced myself for the chaos to come, squeezing my eyes closed and preparing myself for my imminent demise.

But when he spoke his voice was deadly calm and that was what scared me the most. "How did you get in here?"

The calm before the storm.
He was a ticking time bomb, just waiting to explode.

"The door was unlocked." I whimpered. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"Enough." He barked.

Maybe I was suicidal, I don't exactly know what came over me but bravery seemed to swell in my chest as I found the courage to ask the question that hammered my mind.

"Who is she?"

His usually stoic face broke, only for a second but I caught it, I held it, I savoured if. The second of softness, one second was all it took for me to see how hurt this man was.

"You know who she is." He said carefully.

His guard was up and stronger than ever when he pushed away from me, slumping down at his desk and pulling out a cigarette from one of the draws, lighting and taking a long, drawn out inhale with trained fingers. How many times had he done that? I wondered.

I let out a breath of relief, maybe I would live to see another day.

"Mare." I whispered.

But why would he have a picture of her. My heart clenched painfully in my chest as Marus' words replayed over and over and over in my mind. A broken record that had been playing on repeat since he told me.

My parents, my sister. My family. Torn apart in a blaze.

"How did she die.." I asked sheepishly, I already knew but I needed to hear it again to make sure I wasn't dreaming. I hoped I was. I hoped I would wake up from this nightmare and be back in my old bed, Mare and my parents beside me.

"A fire." He said coldly, holding his head in his hands. I watched as a thin trail of smoke spiralled from the cigarette. It was beautiful in a way, I watched the pale grey wisp as it travelled upwards, sky bound. It never made its destination before it faded into nothingness. The inevitable oblivion.
"We lost almost half of our people."

"But how did it even start?" My chest ached. Everything within me ached. I ached.

He looked up, taking another deep draw of the cigarette and reached into one of his desk draws, pulling out a bottle of amber liquid and two glasses.

"Mare." He said bluntly, pouring the golden water into each glass, before pushing one towards me and keeping the other for himself. "Mare killed them."

The whiskey had an edge of smoke embedded beneath the amber hyde. Like a fire it burned my throat and warmed my belly, flames licked their way up my throat and in some sick way I found myself enjoying the feeling.

I had been burnt before.

Like the fire Mare started.

"I don't believe it." I said dumbfounded, I hadn't regained many memories other than the faces and names of my family but I knew enough to know that this wasn't true. It couldn't be... could it?

He drank deeply, the dark look in his eye proved that his demons could swim too, just like mine. No amount of alcohol could drown them at this point. He was too far gone.

We both were. I no longer sipped the bitter sweet honeysuckle from the glass, I drank greedily, letting it warm me from the inside out. I pushed my empty glass back and watched carefully as he refilled it, a little more this time. He had rolled his white shirt up to his elbows, revealing sinfully strong olive skin that had me feeling some kind of way...

Enough. None of that.

I fingered the baby blue silk that clung to my torso. "How did she do it?" I asked cautiously.

His nostrils flared ever so slightly as he forced himself to recall. "She always liked to play with fire." He drawled with some kind of emotion that I couldn't quite trace. Malice? Regret? Sadness? Or something entirely separate.

"She liked to play with matches, she enjoyed watching the flames.." Another empty glass met with mahogany. "Until one day she took it too far.." He was quiet for so long I didn't know if he was going to continue, his face creased, deep in thought. "They couldn't tell if it was an accident or not.."

Every word he spoke was careful and calculated, not a single word would be needlessly spilt. "Her burnt out matches were found in the forest by the trackers days later.. She set the place alight," I had never seen such deep rooted pain before. "With mother's and their pups asleep in their beds." His anger was tangible, it permeated the air, thick and heavy and hot. I watched his fists clenched and unclench. "And do you know what she did then?"

I stayed silent, I didn't even dare look him in the eye for fear of what I might see looking back at me.

"She fucking ran." He hissed, the scent of whiskey and cigarettes rolled off of him in waves. "She left them all to die!"

She ran. Mare was a coward. My eldest sister was a murderer. My dead sister.

But how did she die? What was her fate? Was it truly deserved...

My voice broke as I took in a shuddering breath. "What happened to her?"

In an instant his vacant mask returned, void of emotion except his cold hard glare that felt as though it was piercing holes into my skin.
The wind crawled and with it a creeping cold strangled the air, and bit at my exposed skin with its sharp jaws.

I dared to look him in the eye and I wished that I hadn't. His eyes didn't seem to glow anymore, in fact they didn't even appear gold as they once had. Now they were a blackened grey, like the ash left after a fire. No spark. No light. No hope for another flame. Just... empty.

"I killed her."

A glass shattered against the hard wood floor, a thousand shards of iridescent glass flying across the floor. It took me a moment to realise it was me in fact that had dropped it, it slipped from my grasp as my hands grew slack and all semblance of strength left my body.

What?..
Cold hard truth shook the foundations of everything that I thought I knew. Every wall around me came crashing down, crumbling to ash and dust that devoured every bitter sweet lie in their wake, leaving them battered and bloody.

Truth became lies. Lies became truth. Lines were blurred and lines were erased. New lines were drawn. Lines were crossed.

Nothing would ever be the same again.

I couldn't help the way my hands shook, or the way my voice trembled as I spoke the only word that echoed through the cavernous empty space between us. "What?"

*****
As promised in the last chapters A/N here is a little extract of THICKER THAN BLOOD, (the book that will begin being published on wattpad after AMORA is finished)

She died.

Torn apart by the jaws of a monster.

The beast of grief awoke within me to tear mercilessly at my eyes and throat.
-She was gone and it was all his fault.

I had thought about ending it all, I wanted to join her. What I wouldn't give just to see her one last time... but she would never forgive me if I took my life over hers. I set the bloodied dagger down, instead I would use it to slit his throat.
I would watch as he bled out, I would make him beg.

After all, what could be greater than a King?

A dead King.

***

Walls came crashing down, bricks turned into thick clouds of smoke and dust that devoured everything in their path. Flames engorged our houses, our crops destroyed by the heavy footed troops, our lives and families torn apart by bloodied teeth and claws.

All is ash, all is blood.

My friends bodies lay scattered, some dead some alive. All would be soon. We all would.

I scrambled for cover, dirt and rocks biting into my marred palms as I clambered over the cold earth, away from the wolf's body I had just killed and behind what had once been my home. Now only rubble remained.

I had to make it to the temple. I had to.
Grandmother and the other elders were at prayer at the time of the attack, whilst I was training in the field. I managed to fight a few of them off, even kill a couple, but we were no match.

Training to kill creatures like the ones attacking us.

The had the element of surprise, managed to easily over throw the majority of our pack, slaughtered our best worriers without preliminaries or hesitation. They didn't care if they had families, husbands, wives... children.

My pack, Aurum Arbor was not known for their fighters like they were. It wasn't a fight. It wasn't a war. It was a slaughter.

Aurum Arbor was a pack descended from the goddess, and they hated us for it. They hated us and everything we stood for, everything we believed in.

The elders would guard the temple with their lives, for the sanctity of what lay inside.

The great oak, said to be planted by the goddess herself, from which the first man and women were born of its seed. It was old beyond time and held a kind of hallowed balance to my people. The anchor of our world, it kept us humble, kept us sane.

My people worshipped it, for it's distinct golden leaves. It was born from the goddess.

The great oak was the most spiritual connection we had to the goddess. The elders were said to be able to communicate with the goddess through the roots of the tree.

Chilling screams cut through the low hanging haze of the premature twilight, more death followed.