Javier

prologue

-HIM-

I stared into those pitch black, inhumane eyes of the lycan with whom I had grown up. He growled at me, daring me to step closer.

I clenched my jaw as I looked at the dead body dangling from his arms. It was wrapped in parchment. The body was wrapped in a fashion one would wrap gifts. 

It was the most cynical thing I had ever seen in my whole existence. But what made the situation worse was that the dead body had an identity and it was forever lost forever. 

The lycan growled at me again as he held the body closer to his. He didn't want me to get closer to him. It was his mate. 

She was dead.

Her head dangled back lifelessly, making me sick to the stomach. I could see her face clearly. It was pale. Her eyes were sunken and dark. Her eyelids were sewed shut, hinting away the absence of eyeballs in their socket.

Stitches covered her lips. Another row of the same marked the edge of her hairline. They had cut her and taken out almost everything. She was long dead and the lycan who held her dearly in front of me would follow the same fate as hers soon.

What made me sicker was that I was the one who had to do it. I had to kill him. My own friend. 

“Sean,” I muttered but I was greeted back with a primal growl. He had lost it. His mate was dead and so was he the moment he had found her in this hellhole.

We were raiding a vampire coven. We found this place with hollow dead bodies and other vile things that those bloodsuckers were stocking up. They were locating and stealing the mates of unmated and mated lycans. They wanted to get to us through our mates and it was working. 

By doing this, they were successfully destroying the lycanthrope council. Many had fallen prey to this already. 

I had come across this before and it was dreadful for me to have found myself in this situation again. It reminded me of the past from which I was trying so hard to run.

With my fists clenched, I stepped closer to the mad lycan. I did not miss how he had tried to mark his dead mate in the hopes that she would come alive. The sight was very disturbing to me.

I was doing everything to forget what had happened in my past but here I was, facing the same demons again. I let out my claws, ready to attack my friend. 

The loss of a mate was too overpowering for a lycan. Most of the time, they ended up losing touch with reality and went insane. Whenever it happened, lots of innocents died. To avoid this, they had to be killed. 

It was the most painful and the hardest thing to do. 

Sean’s lycan growled at me warningly as he watched me step closer to him. With a deep breath, I lunged at him, facing my past again…

“Mom,” My whisper was shushed by a thundering roar from the lycan before me. It was powerful enough to have shaken the walls of our house.

I watched in terror as she tried to reach for me. I had never seen her like that. She was always caring and gentle with me. Never had I ever heard her raise her voice on anyone but she now stood in front of me with all the sole motive to kill me. 

As she roared in my face again, I shivered. I did not know what to do. Dad was not home for days. He had gone on a mission. It was just me and her.

Her claws came out as she fixed her hungry eyes on me. She was suddenly this entire different being. She looked my mother but I knew that the beast in her had killed her human. The sheer look of hatred and thirst from my blood made my skin erupt with goosebumps. 

“Mom, it’s me,” I tried again with a weak and shaky voice. Instead of listening to me, she picked me up and threw me against the wall. I hit it hard before landing on the floor with a loud thud. I groaned as I tried to get up. I saw black dots appear in my vision and my ears were ringing.

I shook my head as I tried to get up but the ringing was still there. Soon, I realized that it was the telephone. Someone was calling. I saw her step in front of me with that same bloodthirsty look decorating her face.

As she tried to reach for me, I dodged and rushed to the other room before shutting the door close. A loud screech was all I heard before she banged on the door, almost throwing it off its hinges. 

My heart raced in my chest. I couldn’t believe my mother wanted to kill me. I was in shock. The ringing of the phone broke me from my trance before I reached for it.

“Hello,” A deep voice spoke on the other end, “Is this Devillers’ residence?” The voice asked professionally. Behind me, my mother’s lycan hit the door constantly. It was going to fall off soon.

“Yes,” I breathed. Silence followed on the line while my mother’s struggle to take down the door and her growls rattled my young soul.

“Are you Jacob Devillers’ son?” The voice asked grimly. I swallowed before I answered, “Yes,”

“An unfortunate thing happened to your father. He is no more,” My whole world came crashing down with the door that my mother kept banging on. I didn’t know what to do. I was young and alone.

I decided to let my lycan out. I was still learning to phase. It was painful and unnerving but what stood in front of me was a demon… in my mother’s body. 

I knew I had to do it. I couldn’t wait for help. It would be too late. She would have killed me and the whole neighbourhood by the time they could get here. 

Without thinking next, I reached for the ancestral sword that hung on the wall of our living room with its blinding shine and pride. It had once belonged to my great grandfather before being passed down. 

As back as I could remember, I had always wanted to own it and slay enemies with it but killing my mother with it was something I could have never imagined. 

My vision was blurred with my unshed tears as I took the sword off the wall. I swallowed a sob as I slipped my hand in its handle and turned around to face the demon in my mother's body. 

"Please... forgive me," I sobbed before as I tightened fingers around it, "I will always love y-" I wasn't done speaking when she lunged at me. I squeezed my eyes shut and roared with every ounce of energy in my body before swinging the sword hard at her. 

She couldn’t stand the sharpness of the sword. It didn't take me long to kill her. She was gone very soon. Tears streamed down my eyes as I watched her blood slowly spilt all over the floor. 

It was on my hands too and I knew it was always going to be there, burning my skin and torturing my soul. 

I looked down to find Sean’s lycan lying lifeless in front of me. His dead mate’s body laid not far away from him. My hands were moist, covered with his blood. 

I had done it again.

It was the second time. I knew that it would happen again and when it does, it would be me and my mate...