As Varg spat the still-twitching arm onto the floor like a piece of trash, I wiped the stale vampire blood from my face. But he didn't stop. With his coarse and massive hands, he grabbed Rita by her neon-blue hair and forced her to her knees in the middle of her own pool of blood. The wolf pack waiting outside flooded in at a single snarl from the Alpha.
The vampires had lost their noble and sterile posture; they were now smeared with the mire of Alberta. As the wolves forced silver-inlaid shackles onto their wrists at Varg's command, I didn't even care about the searing sizzle of silver against their flesh or their shrill cries. My only concern was my friends.
Chloe, Dominic, and Melanie were not shackled, but they were trembling like captives under the shadows of the massive wolves surrounding them. While the mud on Dominic's face was being washed away by his sweat of terror, every time Varg's eyes landed on them, it felt as if a death warrant was being signed.
"Varg, please!" I screamed, falling to my knees. My skin was stained with mud and blood, but my dignity didn't matter. "Let them go... They are not to blame! They only wanted to save me, to take me home. Take them to the border; they will never set foot on these lands again! I promise, they will forget this, they will forget me... Just spare their lives!"
Varg slowly turned toward me. The scarred tissue on his body was swollen with rage, and the burning embers in his eyes became sharp enough to pierce my soul. He looked down at me as if I were the most worthless creature in Alberta.
"You want me to let them go home?" Varg said, his voice coarse and gravelly enough to crack all the ice in Alberta.
"These weak bald monkeys who drew you here like bait, who violated my borders? The price for every living thing that breathes without permission on my land is death, Vespera. And you doubled that price by allowing what is mine to leak out."
I fell at Varg's feet. My fingers clutched his bloody and muddy boots. "Please!" I sobbed.
"I beg of you! They are my only family. If you kill them, there will be nothing left of me. I'll do whatever you want... Lock me in that dark room until I die if you want, whip me every day, tear my soul out! But do not leave them to die in these snows!"
Varg leaned down and gripped my jaw with a hardness that made my bones ache. When he forced my face up to his, I saw my own helplessness within that absolute darkness in his eyes.
"Are you offering a bargain, freak?" he growled right into my face. "Are you giving up your own freedom, those far away dreams you love so much, for their lives? Do you accept never seeing daylight again, living only in my shadow?"
"Yes," I said, my voice fading into a soulless surrender. "I accept. Just let them go... Take them to somewhere safe."
Varg lifted me from the ground in one single move and threw me over his shoulder like a lifeless trophy. "Take them to the border!" he roared at his pack.
"But if this freak ever smells their scent again, I will hang them all in pieces in the forest!"
As Vespera, jolted on Varg's hard shoulder as I was carried to the castle, what I left behind wasn't just New York; it was the last fragments of my humanity. When the massive doors of the castle closed behind us, a damp silence took its place. When Varg lowered me from his shoulder and left me on the ice-cold stone floor, I felt the strength in my knees was gone.
"You ran from me!" he thundered, looming over me like a nightmare.
"I locked those doors to protect you, but you ran to your executioner for those weak friends of yours! Weren't you ashamed to beg me for their lives?"
Supporting myself against the wall, I looked at him. "Why are you so angry, Varg?" I whispered. "I am not your sacred Luna. I am just a freak, a mistake to you. Why does my leaving hurt you so much? Why does the escape of a prisoner make you so vicious?"
The hard expression on Varg's face faltered for a moment. The burning embers in his eyes were replaced by a dark well. He took a step toward me, his hand rose; as if he wanted to silence me but couldn't.
"Why?" he growled, his voice lower but more searing this time. "Because you... You are the only hell I cannot escape."
He couldn't finish his sentence. My head fell back, and the world began to spin slowly around me. Just as I was about to hit the stone floor, I felt his massive, coarse, and wounded arms around me. He lifted me as lightly as a feather. Before I closed my eyes completely, I felt his sharp breath, smelling of blood and soot, against my neck.
"You think you're escaping me, freak..." he whispered, his voice fragile as a confession this time. "Yet in this storm, I am the one who cannot escape you. In my own home, under my own laws... I am the only one who cannot escape you."
He pressed me tighter against his chest. The warmth from his wounded chest seeped into my muddy and frozen skin.
As I sank into the peaceful darkness of unconsciousness, the last thing I heard was the irregular, violent beat of his heart.