Thalia’s POV
The night Eric died, I felt something inside me die too.
Every time I closed my eyes, I would replay the whole thing all over again.
The moon festival, the walk back to my cabin, the conversations and weird comments he made that rubbed me the wrong but I just let slide.
His forceful entry, the struggle, his attempt to take advantage of me, and then the blood, the gurgling and choking before he eventually died.
I remembered how his eyes never closed, how they stared at me till life left him.
That night I couldn’t sleep; I kept tossing and turning, wondering how I was going to fix this mess.
But most importantly, I was scared.
I was scared of what I had done and how I had done it.
For more than two years, I had been wolfless; I know this because I performed the forbidden ritual that had tethered my wolf to Adonis’ to keep him alive.
So how?
How had long claws erupted from my fingertips?
How had I killed a fully trained warrior in a matter of seconds?
I remained inside Dion’s chambers for days.
I refused to eat or sleep.
“It’s not your fault.” Dion would preach to me every day, but I didn’t respond, because everything was my fault.
If I hadn’t wanted to piss Dion off, if I hadn’t wanted to get his attention and make him jealous, then none of this would have happened.
I wouldn’t even have entertained Eric in the first place.
Over time, the reason for my self-isolation shifted from guilt to fear.
I began to fear what I would do to people; I began to question my own anatomy.
What if the next person I killed was a child?
What if it was Dion?
“You’ve sulked enough.” Dion pulled the curtains open.
I turned to the other side and groaned.
“At this point, you’re just being stubborn.
I need you to stand up now.” He stood beside the bed.
“Don’t tell me how to feel!” I snapped at him, “You have absolutely no idea what I’m going through.”
”I am the Alpha of one of the most feared rogue packs in the whole of this realm, and if you think I got here by verbal negotiations, then you’re wrong.” He reached down and pulled the blanket off my body.
“I got here by making sacrifices, by letting go of things, by blood, through the deaths of many prominent men and women who gave their lives for me, and you think that doesn’t haunt me every day?
You think I don’t hear that in my sleep?
In my ears?
In every decision I make?” his voice cracked a bit when he got to the ending of his sentence.
“If you keep lying here feeling sorry for yourself, you will never survive.
Eric wasn’t a good person to begin with; whatever he got…he deserved.”
He still remained standing by the bed waiting for me to say something to him, but I stayed mute.
After waiting in silence, he eventually sighed.
I felt the edge of the bed press a bit before his voice sounded closer to my ears.
“Whatever you decide to do, and whenever you are ready…
I’ll be right here waiting for you.”
I heard him walk out of the room.
I wanted to call him back; I wanted to let him know that I was ready to move on, I was ready to get back on my feet, but I couldn’t.
It felt like my hands and legs were tied down to the bed and my tongue was being held back.
I felt stuck.
Anytime I opened the room door and looked down, I’d see flowers and decorative stones littered all around the ground by the women and pups of the pack.
And in a way, it made me feel valued, like I was important.
But what if they found out what I did?
Would they still leave flowers if they knew I had murdered one of their own?
Natalie had been able to force her way into Dion’s chambers by climbing through his window after I told her off.
She had been giving me updates on what had been happening in the pack, telling me how the pack members had been awaiting my return.
She had told me that nothing I ever did would make any of them hate me or want me out of the pack, so I blurted out the question at the tip of my tongue without thinking.
“Even if I killed someone?”
Her head tilted lightly as her eyebrows lifted.
She opened her mouth and closed it, too stunned to speak.
“Where is this question coming from?” She finally found her voice.
I opened my mouth to pull the question back, ready to brush it off as a joke, when she laughed out loud.
“YES.” Natalie held my shoulders and shook me hard.
“Thalia, I would support you no matter what you did.
I would even go as far as hiding the body if you wanted me to.”
I swallowed hard on hearing those words.
“I…”
”I know you, Thalia; I know your kind soul.
I’ve spent just a few months with you, and I’ve learnt so much from you.
You can do no wrong in my eyes…but if for any reason you ever killed or would want to kill a man then he probably deserved it.”
Those words shattered something inside of me.
I could feel the crashing weight I’d been carrying for days crack all at once, and the knot around my chest slowly unraveling.
My lungs finally filled with air, a shaky breath escaping my mouth before I could stop it, as a tear slowly slipped down my cheeks.
And then another.
“Do you mean that…?
Do you all mean that?” I wheezed as my vision began to blur.
Quiet sobs spilled from my lips.
I covered my mouth, but it was honestly useless.
The fear, the guilt, the endless dread I’d been swallowing finally broke free.
And for the first time in days…I didn’t feel alone.
Natalie held me close to her chest as my sobs filled the whole room.
I grabbed her shirt like my life depended on it.
“Thank you…Thank you so much…”
After I had calmed down, Natalie pulled me off the bed and dragged me out of Dion’s chambers.
“You need fresh air; you’re looking too pale.” The moment I stepped outside of Dion’s building and onto the grass, I was rushed by every single member of the pack.
Strings of ‘welcomes and we missed you’ filled up the whole place.
The following day, I decided to approach Dion to finally have the conversation about my claws.
I wanted to know what was wrong with me and if this was a negative or positive development.
When I got to the room where he was currently staying, it was empty.
He wasn’t there.
He was probably still outside with the hunters; it was currently hunting season, so the men were mostly outside.
I slipped into the room, deciding to wait for him.
I walked around, admiring the weapons and maps hung all over the walls of the room.
Adonis never allowed me into his war room, claiming I was not worthy enough to be in that space.
My eyes fell on the contents of the large table centered in the room, and my fingers froze over the maps on the table.
I saw different maps, with every route marked in crimson ink signaling guard rotations, blind spots, and even escape trails.
My pulse spiked.
My gaze finally fell to the bottom of the page where a circle was carved around my old pack’s territory.
The BlackFang Pack.
The blood drained from my face first before my heart stopped.
Is this what he had been doing in this room every night?
An invasion?
On my fucking pack?
“Thalia…” Dion’s voice called out from the doorway behind me.