Chasing the Beast

TERRIN

The alpha of the lycans walked with me to the border, sharing with me what exactly a mating bond was and, more precisely, what it was to the lycans. Although the bond itself didn’t invoke love, it did prompt need.

It heightened emotions directed at your mate so that love was much intensified—but so was anger. That was why when lycan mates fought it wasn’t easy to get over it.

The bond also allowed the mates to easily read each other’s emotions. Only lots of practice could keep your mate from not feeling them.

I knew he was telling me this in the hope that I could use it, but truthfully, it only made me feel worse.

I had really hurt Syn, and what Hakota was telling me was it would be no easy feat to fix it.

Assuming I could even pull him out of The Wild, he may never forgive me or take me back.

Aside from that, I still had my own fair share of anger.

None of this would have happened if he had just told me whatever he was hiding instead of keeping secrets. He was partly to blame too.

Our bond had been too weak, too new to withstand the lies.

I hadn’t marked him or mated with him, so I wasn’t sure if we could even be considered mated yet. I asked Hakota at what stage I would turn into a lycan.

The alpha only laughed. “You don’t really ‘turn’ into a lycan,” he said. “All the bite does is extend your lifespan.

“For a werewolf–lycan pair, the bite will tie your lives together so that, essentially, you share the longer lifespan—which would be the lycan’s. When the lycan dies, so does their mate. It keeps the werewolf from going Wild.

“Werewolves can’t survive very long without their lycan mates. Sharing a life span with them—a soul, really—connects them on a very deep level. It’s not that werewolves are necessarily weaker, just more dependent.”

I froze long before Hakota noticed I was freaking out silently. “If you are worried about Heidi becoming a lycan, don’t be. Only a born lycan can turn a werewolf.”

“I don’t care about Heidi!” I exclaimed. “I’m worried that if Syn dies, I die!”

Hakota shrugged. “It’s hard to say in your case. You’ve only completed one of three steps.”

He clasped my shoulder and offered me a small smile. “Bring him back, and you won’t have to worry about it.”

I just blinked at him, my mouth opening and closing yet unable to form a single word.

The alpha pointed behind me. “Continue this way until you reach a forest. Coda told me that’s where he’s been lurking around.”

“Wait, that’s it?” I demanded. “What if I can’t find him? What if he’s left?”

Hakota only looked at me grimly. “He’ll find you, Terrin.”

There was not an ounce of doubt in his words, which made me suspicious. “How can you be so sure?”

The alpha’s face hardened as he mentally battled with himself.

He had a closed-off expression in place, not allowing me to see even a hint of what he was thinking. Finally, his lips parted, not to give an explanation but to ask a question of his own.

“Don’t you wonder why he left the Old Kingdom and came here?”

I rubbed my arm as I tried to think of a possible reason Syn would have done so. Now that he mentioned it, it was a bit strange.

“I am impressed he made it all the way here without getting distracted and losing control entirely,” the lycan continued when I didn’t answer. “Syn left because whatever sanity that he had told him to protect you.

“When we go Wild, it’s because we are severely hurt. In The Wild, our only mission is to take out the threat, which is usually the cause of what turned us Wild in the first place.” He looked at me pointedly.

“Me,” I breathed.

Syn would come for me to kill me. “Why are you telling me this?” I panicked. “You’re sending me to my death!”

The alpha took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m telling you because you need to know what you are walking into. Your life is your own. It is not mine to risk.”

“I don’t want to die,” I whispered after a moment.

Hakota raised a brow. “Do you believe he will actually kill you? Do you have such little faith in his love for you?”

I gaped at him. “You just told me he runs on pure instinct to eliminate the threat, which is me.”

“Do you think his instinct to kill you outweighs his purpose to love you?”

I didn’t know. After everything that had happened between us, it seemed likely that my death awaited me if I were to continue. But did I dare to doubt him again?

Doubt had caused this whole mess. I grimaced, my mind already made up. “You sound like Roshan,” I murmured as I walked past the alpha of the lycans, heading to the place my mate was said to be.

I didn’t turn back. I said no last words to the alpha. I just walked, not allowing myself the opportunity to hesitate.

I owed this to Syn. If he killed me, so be it.

Syn had spent so long chasing me that it seemed only fair that I was the one chasing him now. So I forced myself forward, my feet guiding me. I was pulled in this direction, Lune guiding me to my lycan mate.

I didn’t let myself think, knowing it would be too dangerous. The moment I started thinking, I would overthink, and my overthinking would lead me to doubt, and my doubt would keep me from reaching my destination.

I could not turn tail and run this time. I had caused this mess, and it was my responsibility to fix it.

And knowing this was partially my fault, I forced myself to look at the dead bodies that had been torn apart by a beast, a monster I had created. Syn was taking his pain out on innocent people.

I knew every face I saw should have been my own, each wound should have been on my body, had been meant for me. This was the fate that awaited me, but still I continued.

I kept onward, following Lune’s direction, discovering every person my mate had slain, shouldering the guilt.

I stopped at every corpse, sinking to my knees, murmuring a quick prayer to the gods for them and whispering an apology.

It wasn’t fair that the gods treated our lives like nothing, that we were so easily used as pawns in their game.

Lune had no problem sacrificing werewolves to teach a lesson. This was a lesson Lune was teaching me, teaching the werewolves. Her bonds were not to be messed with.

Her children would exact their wrath if they were not given what they were owed. This was her punishment for my pride.

The gods were forcing me to behold the consequences of my actions, to carry this guilt for the rest of my life—however short it may be as it was bound to end soon.

The lycan following me in the shadows told me so.

I knew he was tracking me, knew my mate was watching me from the shadows as I knelt over the dead, but I did not dare to turn to look. It was not time for our confrontation yet, not before I led him out of the Lunar Kingdom.

Which I did, instinctively knowing when I had seen all of the carnage and destruction he had caused. I let the gods use me, allowed Lune to use me as bait to lure her child out of danger.

I feared he would leave, that he would stop following me. I couldn’t let him return to the Lunar Kingdom where Coda had promised to kill him.

I wanted to see his face again, even if it was for the last time and even if it wasn’t really him behind those eyes. But I also feared he would keep following, that I would have to meet empty eyes consumed by a beast.

I didn’t want to see what I had done to him. So all I did was keep walking, somehow knowing that the moment I stopped would be the moment I would face him.

Every step got harder, my muscles locking up, my knees going weak.

I was weary, exhausted from these five days without my mate, suffering in heartbreak. Guilt ate me alive, and I cried silently, putting one foot in front of the other.

As if my own emotions weren’t enough to handle, Syn’s were suffocating me.

With Syn so close, I could feel his rage and his grief. I knew it wasn’t him anymore, just a beast I had provoked and unleashed.

He was so full of hate. It was an emotion that felt like red-hot fire burning through me. I didn’t know how I knew that’s what it was, but I did. It was pure anger.

And the constricting tightness closing around my throat like a hand and the squeezing of my heart in an icy cold grip—that was the pain of a broken heart. The intensity of it nearly brought me to my knees.

I was forced to stop walking, to hunch over with my hands braced just above my knees as I tried to keep myself upright and just breathe.

It crushed me to know that it was I who made him feel such things so strongly.

It broke me that assumptions, lack of communication, and bitter pasts kept us from coming together to form a future, that they cost me my mate. Syn was gone, maybe forever, because of it.

And it was that thought that made my legs give out. I fell to my knees, sobbing. I would never see the male I loved again. The last face I’d see would not be his.

It would be a stranger wearing his face, and those eyes holding his soul would be different. It was nothing less than what I deserved. I grieved the loss of my mate, grieved for the male I had killed.

He came out upon hearing my cries, four heavy paws thudding across the earth as he plodded forward. I slowly dragged my eyes up from the ground to behold the massive wolf before me.

I blinked through my tears, focusing my vision. Staring into those dark pits that were his eyes, I knew that he understood that the creature before him was the cause of his suffering.

His lips pulled back from his muzzle, baring sharp teeth as a low growl sounded from his throat.

I whimpered, dropping my gaze back to the ground and bowing my head, accepting my fate.

As he leapt at me, claws unsheathed and teeth bared, all I could do was wish that I had seen his true face one last time.