Fighting by Anaya Phoenix (black books to read txt) 📕

“It doesn’t matter, all that matters is that you’re back and I have half a mind to kick your ass.” She pinched my arm and I sucked in air through my teeth. That actually hurt and I looked at my arm.

“That was really close to getting blood out of me, you little piece of poop.” She rolled her eyes and glared at me and I did the same, not caring about Ander. Somebody had hit her and they would not get away with it so easily. Our staring contest was cut short when Cara slammed into and a bunch of other people. There were too many scents for me not to look behind me. I heard the satisfied little chuckle that Libby gave out and narrowed my eyes, she never chuckled. She either giggled or full out laughed. I fully turned and laughed at the small army of children that hugged me before looking up at the glares of all the eldest children: Jesse, Alissa, Anna, and Izzy.

“I assume your brother’s angry with me?”

“You’re worried about his anger? I am absolutely pissed at you, leaving me here without so much as a warning or anything! You put your life in danger and forgot that there was people here that actually depend on you!”

“Mom and dad were worried sick, mom all together stopped eating and dad damn near tore this whole place down because of it!”

“Training was really tight and we had to use the Master twins, which go down as easily as anyone would’ve hoped really. Shifters almost stopped coming to training, and there were a lot more fights than there should’ve been under any circumstances. It was a shit fest down here!”

“I’m just here to tell you that I had to pick up the slack with the wolves and I would love it if my paycheck could be direct deposited instead of a check.” I glared at Izzy as she smirked at me before realizing that they were all right. It was a selfish thing to do, but I hadn’t meant to get caught.

“Look, I don’t question why you guys do things-“

“That’s wrong.”

“Most of what you talk to me about is questioning me.”

“Yeah, no you do.”

“You’re quite an asshole, pardon the French.”

“Don’t question why I had to do what I had to do.” I looked each one of them in the eyes but put no power behind it, now I was just a sister and a friend appealing to them.

“Questioning or not, I still want my paycheck. A lot of broken bones thanks to your wolves and your siblings.”

“They don’t need training, I trained them all myself when I was going through with it.” Her eyes narrowed and all of them chortled and looked down and away from her.

“COWS, THE LOT OF YA! NEVER DOING ANYTHING FOR YOU MANGY ANIMALS AGAIN, COUNT ME OUT ON THE WHOLE WAR FIASCO!!” She lifted her arms and flipped us all off as she stormed off, slowly the smile returned to my face. I looked at Jesse and raised a brow, tilting my head back to Libby.

“She’s grown up since you were gone, wants us all to know it don’t you Libby?” There was a soft growl and she walked around me, facing Jesse head on.

“She doesn’t like to be talked about like she’s not here. I can do whatever the hell I want!”

“She gets into fights with the dragons, fights she, sometimes, knows good and god damn well she can’t win. I feel like she does it just to give us all heart attacks.”

“It’s like she’s got prison mentality, she goes to the biggest baddest lizard who’ll actually fight her, which isn’t many, and punch them until they fight her back.” Cara said exasperatedly. I didn’t have to look at Libby to know it to be true, I just wanted to know why at this point.

“It’s like a prison down here, there’s no new circulation of air. And I’m tired of people looking at me like I’m some fragile piece of china that, if handled too hard, is gonna crack into a million pieces! I’m strong!”

“Tell her what you did to Mason.” Alissa said softly, the anger from her face smoothing as she looked at her youngest sister. My eyes snapped to hers then, she didn’t look down she just stared at me.

“What the hell did you do Libby?” I asked then, dread settling into my heart as I thought of the worst.

“He was trying to stop me, he kept coming in my room at night and just staring at me whenever I had fought. He wouldn’t say anything, just kept looking at my face and all my bruises. But he wouldn’t talk to me for anything! He avoided me like the plague and whenever we were close he’d try to get away from me as much as possible and I got sick of it! Coddled by my own mate.” Her face scrunched in disgust even as tears filled her eyes.

“I had no choice but to break the bond-“

“No.”

“It wasn’t fair to me to be held on a string by someone I love. Dreams of actually living a life with him haunted me because I knew they would never come true. He kept me too far for this to go anywhere. I wouldn’t let myself become a victim of a loveless mating.”

“Elizabeth.”

“No, no, no, no! I couldn’t take it anymore!” She looked to me then, her wolf was out and her eyes were watery.

“Did you think about how it might’ve felt on him?”

“All I ever think about is him and I’m tired of it. When I broke it off there was so much relief. I couldn’t feel him anymore, he wasn’t there all the time with his thoughts and his emotions.”

“Mason is a vampire, born to the highest born vampire still alive. It’s not safe to give something that old something to love so fiercely. That’s what the mate bond does, all the love and the emotion that the wolf has was imposed on him. He’s born in darkness, it’s a constant companion for him. For him, you were the only thing stopping it from taking over. That’s why vampires who aren’t old enough to control their urges don’t stay up here for too long. The darkness calls to them and, if they’re not strong enough, they succumb to it.” I rubbed my face and groaned then, knowing that there was a huge problem on my hands that I would need to fix. Jumping from one demon problem to a vampire problem was not how I planned to spend my first day back. I wouldn’t bother Filly, she’d gone through as much shit as I had. With a mournful groan I walked and sniffed my way to the hyena, knowing good and well that I was not going to do this alone.

     The hyena didn’t have a choice in the matter, he knew that and didn’t try to put up a fight. I’d found him standing on the training field and cocked my head. He was just standing there, looking out at it. There was nobody there, and all the training equipment had been put to the side. At the moment it just looked like an empty football field. It smelled different from the last time I was here, it smelled like more hardship. Blood had been spilt on the floors and tears had been dried. He turned to face me, his eyes a bright burning amber.

“We have to go fix a vampire problem.” I said not unkindly, he just stared at me and slowly his eyes bled back to the green I knew them to be. He nodded and I turned on my heel, hiding my confusion well and trusting that he’d follow me. Mason and the rest of the Masters had been linked up with my pack when I’d learned they could be trusted, but since they weren’t wolf I wasn’t able to talk directly to them through any sort of link. I could only feel about as to where they were, but they were able to turn that off if they didn’t want to be found. I already knew that he’d turn it off, I don’t know why I expected anything less. When he turned that off it left the tiniest trace for me to follow, it didn’t feel like he wasn’t there it just made it seem like he was farther than he actually was.

     I stopped at a corridor that went two different ways. One of them was to the showering area and another lead to another branch of rooms, I closed my eyes and focused hard. It would be difficult for Mason to hide from me, if I had been any lesser wolf he easily would’ve been able to hide from my highly trained nose. I felt around the link, it helped gather that he was in the shower area, but I sniffed just to be sure. I wasn’t able to gather if he’d tricked me because the scent was so faint but I highly doubted he did. I walked toward the shower area until I stood in the threshold of it and looked around. We were under ground, so there was no indoor plumbing. What we had was similar to a hot spring, the water source came from up above and due to the internal heat of the Earth it was heated up. But it wasn’t so unbearably hot that my skin wanted to peel off, or so cool that it was unpleasant. I growled slightly in my throat, thinking that he had managed to trick me. We couldn’t smell past water, so this was very much a dead end. At the sound of my growl he lifted from the water, his icy eyes landing on me through the wet strands of black hair.

“I want to talk.” He stared at me, his chest moving slowly as he breathed in and out, in and out.

“Mason, please. You have to talk about it, otherwise it’ll tear you in half.”

“I’ve kept a whole lot to myself.” I was surprised by his voice, the complete normality of it. He didn’t seem to be stressed or worried, he just seemed to be there.

“Why don’t you let that out?” Shay the Hyena said softly, moving to stand next to me but still very much behind me. Mason looked to him then and his brow crinkled before a smirk lit his face.

“It seems your hyena has arrived, your war can’t be far behind.”

“Don’t change the subject. You need to talk it out, you won’t be able to hold this in.”

“I think I’ll be fine, I’m a child of the night. What’s the worst that could happen.”

“Black holes.”

“Excuse me?”

“Black holes are stars that keep sucking inward until it collapses on itself and brings everything down with it. If not for you, do it for Libby.” At her name his eyes seemed to harden more and he slowly moved out of the water.

“Everything I’ve done has been for Elizabeth. I’m tired of her not appreciating it, her and that entire crockpot you call your family.” I licked my lips and opened the link to the Hyena, letting him know what I was about to do would be a real risk and apologized for throwing him into this.

“The only thing you’ve done for Libby is hurt her. Wolves feel more, she feels more, than you ever could.” His jaw clenched along with my fist but I wouldn’t look away. This was the only way.

“I did everything I could for her. You know what I am, Luna. You know what my kind does to anything good. She was good, Luna. She was this pure little lilac, she would’ve only been tainted by me, by my darkness. You know that!”

“You