CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

**OLIVER**
I burst out of the house in a frenzy and stared around me as chaos broke out, women holding on to their children running for safety, warriors running towards the perimeter. My eyes drank in the ongoing bloodshed.
Around me, dead bodies lay. Dead wolves, dismembered parts, heads separated from their bodies and lay lifeless on the ground, trampled on as the living tried to get to safety.
“What the fuck is going on?!” I asked myself, as I beheld the chaos.
Half-shifted wolves ran through the pack, eyes a pitch-black color, tearing through anything they laid their hands on. Our warriors putting up a brave fight…and seemingly losing. Worry and panic weighed heavy in my heart as I immediately thought of Gabriel. I looked around; hoping to catch a glimpse of Gabriel, hoping that he wasn’t one of the dead wolves.
As though hearing my thoughts, he came up behind me and pulled me back and behind a car.
“What is happening?” I asked.
Gabriel was breathing heavily, his eyes shining a golden color, his fangs extended and claws drawn.
“We’re under attack,” he answered.
“I can fucking see that! From who?!”
He shook his head and looked around the corner at the carnage still ongoing. “Get to safety, Oliver. I’ll find you when all this is over…”
He made to leave but I grabbed his hand and pulled him down. “Gabriel, no…”
His hand tangled in my hair and he pulled me in for a kiss. His lips smashed onto mine with an urgency that was almost new to me.
“I love you.”
And with those touching words, Gabriel killed over the car, leaving me there to think about my next course of action. Behind me, the screams intensified, and the fear inside me rose, my mind ran agog with possibilities and all the ways I could help the situation. I stood carefully and looked around, noticing that no one knew anywhere safe to run to.
I stood at the intersection and began to lead people into the forest, deciding that the river was a better place for safety. Soon, I had gathered most of the pack members and we began our journey through an unfamiliar path in the forest. Our clothes snagged on branches and ripped, our feet struck on stone, and twigs snapped back in our faces as we forged our way through the forest. I could hear the silent tears, the heavy breathing, the fear that held them captive…that held me captive. I wondered what those were. If they were sent here by the man that had showed himself to me in my room. I wondered what the end goal was, were they tired of waiting for the other packs to surrender me to them?
I sighed in relief as the river came into view, the still and silence of the river welcoming its people. I looked around, hoping that whatever the threat was, Gabriel and his warriors would be able to repel them.
I swore under my breath as the air began to fill with black smoke. A very familiar black smoke, the same one that had filled my room the other night. I watched helplessly as everyone began to fall to the soft earth, unconscious. Soon, the smoke covered the clouds, allowing very little light through. The hairs at the back of my neck rose, and my heart began to beat an unsteady rhythm in my chest. Panic filled my soul and my hands became clammy with sweat.
Soft footfalls echoed through the smoke, and a man walked through it, supporting himself on a snake-shaped cane with the head of a cobra as its handle. He was tall, about a head taller than I was, and his eyes held a strange red color. He was blonde, and graying at the temples. His eyes looked around, as though assessing this environment and finding it distasteful.
“We meet again…Oliver,” the man said, smiling widely at me.
“Who are you?” I asked with a shaky breath. “What do you want? Why are you here? Why are you after me?!”
The man chuckled. “So many questions, young man, don’t you think?”
“I think you should get out of this place with your minions and never return!!”
The strange man gasped and raised his hand to his chest in a hurt expression. “Here I was thinking that you would be happy to meet me as well.”
“I think you should get out of this place!!” I said again.
“Oh, but I can’t do that,” he replied. “I haven’t collected what it was I came for. What belongs to my family…what belongs to me. Something you have stolen.”
My brows furrowed in confusion. “What nonsense are you talking about? I didn’t take anything from you! I don’t even know you…you must have the wrong person.”
“No,” he answered. “It’s you alright.”
“What did I steal from you?”
The strange man opens his mouth to answer but they’re interrupted by the sound of running feet. We both turn our heads as my mother and Sasha burst out of the footpath, holding on to each other and breathing heavily. My mother swore under her breath as she looked at everyone around and pushed Sasha behind her, her eyes met mine, and I could see worry and a whole lot of questions reflected in them.
“What the fuck is going on?” She asked.
To my shock, and my mother’s dismay, Sasha runs out from behind her and runs headfirst towards the strange man. Fear immediately turned to confusion as he enveloped her in a hug and placed a loving kiss on her forehead.
“I’ve missed you so much, Dad,” Sasha said and pouted. “Where have you been?”
My jaw dropped, and my eyes threatened to pop out of its socket. My eyes flew to my mother who was also looking at the duo in shock, her eyes widening at the display. Her gaze softened and tears gathered in her eyes, her lips quivered and her legs shook, as though they were about to give out.
“Hello, Sasha,” he said. “It’s been a while. You don’t seem too happy to see me.”
And then it clicked. This was Joshua, the man she had told me about. What was he talking about by taking what was stolen from him? I was halfway across the world when they got together.
“Joshua…”
His name rolled off my mother’s tongue like a song…like a prayer. Her voice held longing and pain. The pain of remembrance, the pain of love gained and love lost. I watched her, her jagged breathing, her wet eyes, her quivering lips. And I watched him, his eyes held a tenderness that had been decisively missing since the beginning of our discourse, a tenderness that was reserved only for the ones you loved.
My eyes strayed to Sasha and I swore again. Why hadn’t I suspected that she would have something to do with this? After all the attempts at sabotage and usurping. I wondered where Gabriel was, and how he was doing. Explaining this to him later would be very funny. I watched in disbelief as Joshua strayed over to my mother, and gently took her face in his hand.
“You’re still as beautiful as ever, Sasha…”
“Joshua…”
My mouth opened in disbelief and I watched as Joshua cupped my mother’s face and lowered his head to hers. My mother sighed as Joshua claimed her lips in a kiss. Sasha stood there smiling cheekily, and giggling like a high school teenager who just got asked to prom.
I watched as my mother continued to look up at him, tears rolling down her cheeks. At that moment, she seemed incapable of words. They stood there with Joshua gently wiping the tears from her cheeks and whispering soothing, comforting words to her. They were in a world of their own, a world where they were the only ones who existed. I had never seen my mother like this, so vulnerable, even more, vulnerable than when she had told me about this man, and I began to wonder if things would have been different if she hadn’t met my father if she had met this man first. Things would have been different had she divorced my father.
In the distance, I could hear the voice of Gabriel screaming out my name, his voice echoing through the forest to the river. That seemed to break them out of their reverie. Joshua’s face moved from being soft and endearing to strong and stormy. It was as though he just remembered what it was he had come here for. He swore under his breath and looked in the direction of the voice.
“It would seem we’re done here,” he said and wrapped his hand around my mother’s waist. “It’s time to leave. Sasha, take care of him.”
I had forgotten about Sasha -my half-sister’s- existence. And in the time it had taken him to make that statement, Sasha had crept up behind me, and the last thing I saw was a huge stick taking a swing at my head.