C H A P T E R 25

Valentina Dove Blackclaw

has been a month that the fair golden haired Werewolf girl has been away from her own Mate. Her body has healed but her heartache has grown with each passing day that she is without him. Knowing that a Werewolf without their Mate will die and the Wolf inside is having a hard time keeping itself alive for being far too long without their Mate will kill the Wolf that will eventually be the end of her too. However the month has not been in vain.

Refugees of her old Pack as well as other Packs were staying in caves near a mountain that she had never heard of before and her Alpha had taken her there only a week ago and she was able to meet the people that she had seen her whole life. Though so many were missing and the pain in her heart kept growing because she knows so many are dead and so many lives have been lost. Mates ripped away from one another, and once a Mate is without the other one they too fall for the same fate; death.

Valentina sits on a rock that is just by the cave's mouth, hidden from view but she can see anyone who comes close. The dead silence of the forest that surrounds more than half of the mountain keeps her thoughts running of everything and anything. Staring out into nothing as she sits there, playing with grass that she picks up from the ground or branches that she finds, anything to keep her hands busy and not doing anything else. And she does whatever she can to distract herself from planning an escape to run back to her Mate.

She lets out a sigh as she watches out into the wilderness, wishing she could run out there and be free as a Wolf but knows it will never happen, at least not for her. It pains her deeply to see other Werewolves stretch their legs and run in the forest like they all were born to do while she cannot even do that for she has never shifted and it is highly unlikely that she will ever be able to shift at all. "You look deep in thoughts?" A voice comes beside her as a person sits down next to her.

In the corners of her eyes, Valentina sees a girl named Melanie, a year older than her and belonged in the same Pack. Melanie was never one of the popular kids but never one of bullied ones, she just stayed out of other people's business and she kept to herself. However over the last week she and Valentina has been getting close to one other and none know why, not even them. "I suppose I am" The ice blue-eyed girl speaks, she doesn't need to look at the girl to know that she is worried about her and perhaps she should be.

Melanie takes her hand and holds it tight, something that she does to show that she is there and she is not leaving. "Sometimes the things that keep us comfort are the ones that tear us down" She speaks as she too looks out into the forest. Melanie's raven black hair in her pixie cut state is all over the place from her just waking up in the morning and has had no time to brush through the tangles and neither does she plan on doing that any time soon. "My mom used to say that if I even let myself think of giving up then I had no change at all for I had already decided I'd given up" She says.

"I decided that no matter what I would always do my best to focus on the best of things even when it is clear that the odds are not in my favor but if I don't try then I never know if something were to happen and perhaps I might surprise myself even" She says, her pale green eyes staring out into the forest, not necessarily at anything like Valentina who is just staring yet never truly seeing.

Valentina them breaks her gaze with the forest and looks at the older one beside her on the rock that is big enough to have both of them sitting. She doesn't know much about this girl but realizes that she might not have had it that easy as she always thought but one never knows. "Giving up sounds perfect to my ears right about now" Valentina says after a moment or two had passed and once Melanie takes a look in her eyes, it is visible for her and everyone else to see that Valentina has given up, on what? She and they do not know.

None of them know that the person that ordered their attack is the one that is her Mate and she is not going to tell anyone if she has anything to say about it. "Don't say that, no matter what situation we're in and how much pain and misery we have been through the best we can do is have hope and keep on with our lives" Melanie tells her, though it would take a miracle for anyone to convince the girl to have hope now, now that she is slowly and painfully dying along with her own Wolf.

The trees are more inviting than Valentina would ever know so without a word she stands up from the rock and walks towards the trees, not knowing if Melanie is following her or not but at this point she doesn't really care. "Hope is lost and so am I" She whispers to herself as she walks deeper into the forest. Not necessarily getting away from the other girl but because she just feels like she has given up, her heart is shattered and it can only be mended by one person who is far away from her.

The beauty in the trees is what the ice blue-eyed girl has had over the last month, they keep her company and she cannot explain it but she feels safe in their presence. Perhaps it is the fact that she is missing her Mate and she needs to feel some sort of security and safety or because all the danger has passed by her and she is no longer bleeding anywhere nor is she hurt anywhere (except for her heart and soul), though whatever the reason is, she is safe.

Sitting down by a tree she lets out a sigh. Her fingers playing with the grass, and all Valentina can do is remember how she sat in the grass with the sun in her back and spoke to him while he stayed in his tent, away from the sun. She can still remember every word that he spoke to her and she can still remember how she was starting to feel around him, the feelings that have become clear to her over the last couple of weeks; Valentina has fallen in love with the ruthless Vampire King Vladimir and there is no denying it now.

And while her heart is always wanting to be near him and run to his Kingdom she knows that while they are Mates they do not belong together, even when her feelings scream at her that she does love him more than she can ever explain they are species that are at war and he would rather have her dead than share a bond together. The very thought about it nearly tears her apart from the inside. The salty tears sting her eyes as she looks down at the ground, with blurry vision from the water.

"The only way to defeat the darkness is to turn on the light" Melanie speaks. She walks over to Valentina and sits down beside her. The two of them might be a bit close yet there are still things neither is sharing and neither do plan on sharing that with each other. "But the light needs a source to turn on while the darkness does not. It will always win and there is no point in fighting it or finding the light source" Valentina tells her, her sad mood is truly not helping the black haired girl at all who is doing everything that she can to protect her.

The longer that she is without her Mate she will fall into Depression before it will eventually take her life and she will be no more, the battle that she has tried to fight will be won but she will not be the winner. "That is the truth..." Melanie trials off as she takes Valentina's hand into hers and holds it to comfort the girl. The two of them are close yet not that much but she still does care for her, and in times that they are in, people need one another and Valentina needs someone to tell her that it will be all right.

The air around them is soft and yet so light as no breeze nor any cold can find them where they are under a tree, the large branches and leaves shielding them from anything that were to happen and the trunk hiding them from sight. None would ever know the two of them were even by the tree at all. "What happened to you?" Valentina asks her after a moment or two, knowing she can't share what happened to her when their Pack was attacked.

Though she realizes that the two of them are rather similar, perhaps in more ways than one. Melanie understood what she meant by that question and knows she is referring to what happened that night, the night that changed everyone's lives for the worse. "I was asleep when it happened, I had been awake for twenty-four hours and I was exhausted, as soon as I got a little bit of break and went to sleep I woke up by the screams. You know the rest" She tells her, not going into the detail of what happened afterwords nor knows where she was all the time or if she was with the refugees this while time.

"I can still hear the screams" Valentina says, finally looking up at the black haired girl with the saddest look that she has ever made. "I can still see everything so clearly in my head as if I'm still living it and perhaps I am, perhaps all of it is still happening and I'm just having hallucinations from blood loss or something else" She continues. There are times that she wakes up in the middle of the night like if she were back at the Pack house, but there are also times where she wakes up in that dungeon.

However sometimes she gets dreams where she is sitting on a throne beside him and ruling over Werewolves as well as Vampires and there is peace between them, because of them. Yet as soon as she wakes up she realizes that it is all just a twisted fantasy that Valentina knows will never become reality, not when she is dying and he is far away from her. "I feel the same way. I don't want to believe that this happened to us, but as much as I try to picture what was happening before I can barely remember it" Melanie says.

Maybe it were the similarities that the two of them share but both of them felt a fraction of peace while sitting under that tree and just being there for one another, something that is rare in the world that they live in now, or maybe it was the fact that the two of them have already lost everything and just need someone to talk to. But they found that fraction of peace and neither of them wanted to let go of it.

Night falls quicker than she can know and soon she is back inside the cave and lying down on her small space where she has a dirty mattress and a blanket but no pillow. The cover is rather thin and often it does not keep her warm but she had requested to be near the fire that is lit and it was granted to her. She along with twenty others are near that fire and each one is able to become warm over the night, those who are further away from the fire have thicker covers.

Lying down on her back she stares up at the cave ceiling. The darkness does make it hard to see the stone yet she can still see it, if she looks hard enough. Valentina does not know if she will be able to sleep this night as well as any other nights. Waking up each and every night with only him on her mind. The Wolf inside her is trying to tell her to run to him, to find her Mate and confess her love for him and let him know that she wants to be with him and tell him all about their Mate connection.

Her eyes blink slowly as the water in them is building up into salty tears that softly and silently run down the sides of her face. There have been so many times that she has wanted to leave this place and follow her heart but how can she leave to be with the man that is responsible for her own people, her own kind to be in the situation that they are in. Fighting every single day just to survive and struggling through it all. The pain that they have to endure each and every day.

She would not be able to handle that and that is why she stays. To do something, help them in some way. Valentina might not know how she can help but she is there for them if they need her and she will do whatever it takes to help them, to build what they once had. The ceiling is not much but it does make her not feel so alone as she does. The sounds around her are either the crackling from the dancing flame or the snores from someone in the cave but those sounds her ears ignore and block.

The sounds did not matter to her as she laid there. Her body so close to the fire yet shivering. Not because of the cold and not even because of the fear that still lurks within her bones but because of how she is slowly dying in front of everyone and none of them see it. Perhaps because she has kept it hidden well but she can't help but think that they don't even care that much about her. To those people she's an Omega, she means nothing, she was nothing and perhaps that is the only thing on their mind when they see her.

Never even realizing that she too has suffered loss and she has suffered and she has been to Hell and back and like them she has survived and she still stands there before them. Not for a very long time yet she is still there and she is still fighting. Losing hope but she still fights, for what? She doesn't know. Valentina's ice blue eyes stare up at the stone, watching as the slightly wet rock is shaped, so rough but it has created some incredible. It is the reason for why they can hide and it shields them from the outside world.

Sleep did not find the golden haired girl and neither would it as her mind kept racing and her eyes refused to close. Everything weighed down on her like if the ceiling of the cave was on top of her, crushing her, holding her down where she is alive yet still dying. It suffocates her and makes her feel like she is walking into fire and her flesh and bones are burning but she does not die, the pain becomes unbearable for her to handle yet breath still lives inside her.

"Can't sleep" A voice whispers to her, a small child. A young boy around six years old had sat down near the fire. His clothes ripped and dirty. His face littered with pink scar lines. He does not smile as he looks at Valentina. She sits up on the mattress and looks at him. His eyes alone show how much pain he has gone through and out has not been easy. "Nope" She answers as she sits closer to him, leaving the covers behind on the mattress. The heat from the fire is intense but her body seems too like it anyway.

In a normal situation she would ask this little boy if he were all right or if he were lost but asking someone that will only make things worse because none of them are all right and all of them are lost in some way. "Your know what helps me always fall asleep quickly?" She asks him and he turns to look at her as he had previously been looking at the dancing flame, that continues to put up a show for them even when it knows that not many are watching yet at the same time everyone is enjoying the fire.

"What?" He asks her. "And don't say counting sheep" He says and she lets out a light chuckle. "No, it's not that. My father taught me that if I wanted to fall asleep quicker that I would have to imagine myself ten years from now. Imagining my life, what I will be doing. The clothes that I will wear, the job that I will have. Just thinking about it made me always fall asleep quick" She tells him and he smiles a bit but she could tell that he's still sad, his eyes show it all.

Valentina is not sure what runs through his mind at the moment. "But it doesn't work, you're still awake" He says and she looks into the fire. The soft flames brining her comfort in ways that she can't seem to explain. Nor does she know how she can explain to this child what is happening to her and why she is not sleeping. "It does work, but I suppose I'm getting too old for it" She says, deciding that was better to say than saying that she was dying from the inside or telling him everything.

She does not want to bring more darkness to this young boy, he has already been through more pain than anyone needs at this age and he most likely has lost someone he cared for. Everyone have that in common there, they all have lost at least one person to death. "Will it get better?" He then asks her. A question he has probably asked so many adults and they have all told him that it would but he can tell they are lying to him. "I don't know" She answers and it is the truth. She will not be there to see the outcome of what will happen in the near future but perhaps there are things that she can do to help those who will be.

"What happened to your dad?" He asks. While the question does shock her and she was not prepared for it she knows that it is an answer she is not ready to say out loud. "He died in battle" She simply says and the ice blue-eyed girl is not going to go further into the details of it. Over the last month she has learned for of her father and that he was truly mad and he did start all of it. Maybe it is the reason she stays, to fix the mistakes that her father made.

"I'm sorry. My father took his life when my mother died" He says and she gaps when he said that. "Don't worry, I don't remember them. I was two years old. My aunt told me that I never needed them, I was better off with her. That the only reason I'm strong is because I stayed with her" He says and Valentina takes his hand. "You're not strong because you're with her, you're strong because you have overcome so much and you have fought your way to the top" She tells him.

"You are so brave and strong that the world will one day tremble beneath your feet. Never forget the strength that lives inside you" She says. The words were perhaps meant for the both of them in this moment but as she spoke them the hope that had formed inside her heart is slowly growing stronger and her happiness too. What Valentina did not expect was that he hugs her and for the first time she feels like she is actually loved, it has been a long time that she has felt like that.

"Will you be my new mommy?" He asks her and she freezes but then a smile comes to her lips and she wraps her arms around him and hugs him. "I would be delighted" She speaks and it is the truth. In just a couple of minutes she has really bonded with this young child and their Wolves have connected too. It brings this warmth into her heart when she had believed she would die with a cold heart from the heartache that she has had top suffer through.

She feels happy, or as happy as she can be in this situation and she is lucky to have found him but a forever growing worry forms inside her mind. In not that long Valentina is going to be taking her last breath and this poor boy will be left alone once again, it is clear to her that his aunt did not make it and he has no one. He's all alone and she doesn't want that to happen. "What's your name?" She asks him after a moment of her just holding him near the fire but when he doesn't answer her she looks down to see that he is sleeping soundly.

The Werewolf girl might never know what truly had put him to sleep, her idea or the hug or something entirely different. However one thing is clear to her, things have changed for her and her life may never be the same after this and now she has something or rather someone to fight for. She wants to live to be able to take care of him, to show him a better life, to give him a life that she did not have and a better future.