The Alpha's Gamble - Chapter 82: Chapter 82
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MADELINE
Maybe it was the reaper’s final blow, cutting into my back, taking my soul to an eternity of peace or misery. Whatever it was, wherever I went, it couldn’t possibly be worse than what existed for me here. I’m not sure what I expected death to feel like, but this searing pain cutting through my bones and my skin peeling from my flesh was absurdly incomprehensible. Death was supposed to be the end—the final destination. No pain, no suffering.
What the fuck?
My eyes shot open, and the fireflies gathered under the parted wake of my mouth while my screams disturbed the nightly silence that people depended on for peace. My peace was down there, on the bottom of the mountain, a flat surface from which my remains would never be completely washed, but any remembrance of me would be. The name would be cleaned. The face. The memories. All would be gone, all were down there, so why the fuck was I not?
The blade pulled me back. Please, God, let it be him, let it be the reaper coming for me finally. Give me the pain and the suffering, just as long as you take me away from here. I’ve read about him, not in history books or anything, but in mythology where the main character comes when your time is up, carrying a blade on top of a long shaft, cloaked in black, and a hood to cover his skeletonized face. Nowhere in the books did it say that he growled when he came for you. Yet, an earth-rumbling, baritone growl pushed the forces of the atoms around us, bending air like waves in the sea. I flew back, landing on the ground. Rocks and dirt embedded in my wounds, my blood splattered around me like a Celtic symbol, and the wetness covered my back in a pool of crimson and pain.
Arduous pulses waved down my back, and I felt the cuts, the exposed flesh being poked and probed, and I squirmed like a fish out of water.
“Maddie,” a guttural voice dripped in my ears.
“Just fucking kill me.” Why was the reaper having a conversation with me? The shadow covered my view of the starlit sky. Cloaked and hooded. A blackness that mimicked the night. I tried to focus my vision, to see him, whoever this bastard was that was taking his sweet time claiming my soul. Clearing up above me was a face I’d seen many times before, mostly as a child when he tucked me in.
“Why on earth would you do that?” A deep voice I hardly recognized. It wasn’t one I’d heard before. One thing was clear, though, no reaper was coming for my soul tonight and that thought alone scared the living shit out of me more than any angry man ever could.
When he came closer, leaning down, no, falling, I prepared for impact. A hit, maybe, or a hug. My father’s knees sank into the stone, his kneecaps strong but still cracked against the mountain’s shield, and he pressed his face against my neck, dug his hands under my head, and cradled me like a child. Like he never did when I was a child. Wet traces paved my skin, gathering in a small pool in the dip of my neck.
I looked through the strands of his hair covering my face, covering the stars, and I didn’t blink, I couldn’t. It wasn’t painful anymore, the wounds. Even with my father’s weight pushing me down, I wasn’t bothered by the pain. Something else enveloped me. It pulled me like gravity against the earth, and I gazed with a void I had never felt. Everything I was and tried for seeped out with the blood pooling around us.
My father’s sobs gurgled in my ears, and I heard him, I felt him, but I couldn’t understand him. I should be upset, it should be me who cries and begs to be held in the arms of safety. It should be me.
“I’m tired, Daddy.” The whisper was coated with the last few sprinkles of strength, leaving me.
“That’s okay,” he raised his head and cradled me closer, speaking with conviction and strain. “I’m not. I’m not tired. I’ll be the strength for us both.” My hair gathered in bundles of knots in his fingers, and I looked out over the cliff from under his arm.
A nasty crack in my head shifted my focus and Nasha lifted her paw, her claws sharp and spread as she dug them down and slit my mind open. At least that’s what it felt like.
“Ah, shit!” I grabbed my head, pulling my hair. It was in the way and I needed to cut that fucking wolf out of my skull.
“Maddie?” my dad leaned back when I pulled my legs up and slammed my forehead against my knees.
“Stop!” But she didn’t.
“Stop what? What’s happening, Madeline?” I would take ten alarms blasting my eardrums with different sounds out of sync over the broken record in my head.
“Nasha, what the fuck?!” She wasn’t answering, but the image of her, the distorted way her fur moved like the pixels were failing, her color fading into the background momentarily, was followed by an echo of white noise brushing through my mind and only growing louder by the millisecond. Nasha growled, distant and vague, but it broke the waves of the sound, and I squeezed my eyes shut, begging for it to end.
“I don’t know what’s happening to her—”
“What’s—” I heard their voices, couldn’t place them, and couldn’t care less, but voices were talking around me. All I could focus on was the sounds trying to blow my head up from the inside, and I swore the rocks were about to be covered in brain.
Maybe it was the reaper’s final blow, cutting into my back, taking my soul to an eternity of peace or misery. Whatever it was, wherever I went, it couldn’t possibly be worse than what existed for me here. I’m not sure what I expected death to feel like, but this searing pain cutting through my bones and my skin peeling from my flesh was absurdly incomprehensible. Death was supposed to be the end—the final destination. No pain, no suffering.
What the fuck?
My eyes shot open, and the fireflies gathered under the parted wake of my mouth while my screams disturbed the nightly silence that people depended on for peace. My peace was down there, on the bottom of the mountain, a flat surface from which my remains would never be completely washed, but any remembrance of me would be. The name would be cleaned. The face. The memories. All would be gone, all were down there, so why the fuck was I not?
The blade pulled me back. Please, God, let it be him, let it be the reaper coming for me finally. Give me the pain and the suffering, just as long as you take me away from here. I’ve read about him, not in history books or anything, but in mythology where the main character comes when your time is up, carrying a blade on top of a long shaft, cloaked in black, and a hood to cover his skeletonized face. Nowhere in the books did it say that he growled when he came for you. Yet, an earth-rumbling, baritone growl pushed the forces of the atoms around us, bending air like waves in the sea. I flew back, landing on the ground. Rocks and dirt embedded in my wounds, my blood splattered around me like a Celtic symbol, and the wetness covered my back in a pool of crimson and pain.
Arduous pulses waved down my back, and I felt the cuts, the exposed flesh being poked and probed, and I squirmed like a fish out of water.
“Maddie,” a guttural voice dripped in my ears.
“Just fucking kill me.” Why was the reaper having a conversation with me? The shadow covered my view of the starlit sky. Cloaked and hooded. A blackness that mimicked the night. I tried to focus my vision, to see him, whoever this bastard was that was taking his sweet time claiming my soul. Clearing up above me was a face I’d seen many times before, mostly as a child when he tucked me in.
“Why on earth would you do that?” A deep voice I hardly recognized. It wasn’t one I’d heard before. One thing was clear, though, no reaper was coming for my soul tonight and that thought alone scared the living shit out of me more than any angry man ever could.
When he came closer, leaning down, no, falling, I prepared for impact. A hit, maybe, or a hug. My father’s knees sank into the stone, his kneecaps strong but still cracked against the mountain’s shield, and he pressed his face against my neck, dug his hands under my head, and cradled me like a child. Like he never did when I was a child. Wet traces paved my skin, gathering in a small pool in the dip of my neck.
I looked through the strands of his hair covering my face, covering the stars, and I didn’t blink, I couldn’t. It wasn’t painful anymore, the wounds. Even with my father’s weight pushing me down, I wasn’t bothered by the pain. Something else enveloped me. It pulled me like gravity against the earth, and I gazed with a void I had never felt. Everything I was and tried for seeped out with the blood pooling around us.
My father’s sobs gurgled in my ears, and I heard him, I felt him, but I couldn’t understand him. I should be upset, it should be me who cries and begs to be held in the arms of safety. It should be me.
“I’m tired, Daddy.” The whisper was coated with the last few sprinkles of strength, leaving me.
“That’s okay,” he raised his head and cradled me closer, speaking with conviction and strain. “I’m not. I’m not tired. I’ll be the strength for us both.” My hair gathered in bundles of knots in his fingers, and I looked out over the cliff from under his arm.
A nasty crack in my head shifted my focus and Nasha lifted her paw, her claws sharp and spread as she dug them down and slit my mind open. At least that’s what it felt like.
“Ah, shit!” I grabbed my head, pulling my hair. It was in the way and I needed to cut that fucking wolf out of my skull.
“Maddie?” my dad leaned back when I pulled my legs up and slammed my forehead against my knees.
“Stop!” But she didn’t.
“Stop what? What’s happening, Madeline?” I would take ten alarms blasting my eardrums with different sounds out of sync over the broken record in my head.
“Nasha, what the fuck?!” She wasn’t answering, but the image of her, the distorted way her fur moved like the pixels were failing, her color fading into the background momentarily, was followed by an echo of white noise brushing through my mind and only growing louder by the millisecond. Nasha growled, distant and vague, but it broke the waves of the sound, and I squeezed my eyes shut, begging for it to end.
“I don’t know what’s happening to her—”
“What’s—” I heard their voices, couldn’t place them, and couldn’t care less, but voices were talking around me. All I could focus on was the sounds trying to blow my head up from the inside, and I swore the rocks were about to be covered in brain.
End of The Alpha's Gamble Chapter 82. Continue reading Chapter 83 or return to The Alpha's Gamble book page.