The Devil Wears Prada
This can't be happening. My heart is calling out for him so desperately.
This is a nightmare. I will wake up anytime now, and I will be in our room, in our comfy bed, with his arms around me. He will gaze at me with those beautiful, unusual silver-gray eyes of his from under his long, dark, sooty eyelashes. His hair will be all mussed with a few locks falling over his forehead. He will smile at me with those sensual, firm yet soft lips of his. He will laugh that deep laugh that always leaves me weak at the knees once I tell him about this nightmare. He will sooth away my fears with his warm hug and amazing kisses.
None of this is real. None of this is real. Yet the cold, hard cement floor underneath me feels so real. How long have I been here? Can't be too long since I can see light filtering in from the gaping roof.
The thought of not being with Constantine again makes my heart feels like it's shattering into tiny million pieces. I know I wouldn't survive it.
Then another thought comes to my mind. What if I didn't survive this? What would happen to my mate? Constantine would lose it. They would have to kill him. They would have to kill all of my pack— Caspian, Lazarus, Serena. NO! My heart weeps for them all.
With all my might, I try to move my hands and my feet. Move! Damn it! My toes move a little bit, and my fingers twitch, but nothing else. That's not going to help me. I feel so weak and pathetic lying here not able to move a muscle.
I try to phase, reaching out to my Ezra, but I can't feel her. It feels empty like she's not even there.
I hear footsteps approaching before the door swings open.
“Well, look at what we have here,” says a familiar voice.
Standing on the threshold, all decked up in a designer dress and shoes, is Milan. She looks out of place here in her printed silk dress that hugs the curve of her body perfectly, a dark leather, purse hanging from her arm, and her black, expensive high heels. Her shiny, raven black hair is swept back in an elegant chignon.
She steps inside and her nose wrinkled in distaste as she looks around the tiny room. She stops a couple of feet away from me and looks down at me with her head tilted to the side.
“Awww... look at you. Lying there in the dirt.” Her mouth puckers up, and her eyebrows turn up in a mock-pity expression. Her eyes glitter with malice and glee. “Pathetic looks pretty on you.”
Something catches her eyes, and she squats down next to me. “What is that?” She leans in and picks my left hand up. “Is that what I think it is? Did he give this to you?” hSe looks closer at the ring Constantine gave me. “It is, isn't it? This is the ring. Oh, he waited so long to give it to someone. It's so beautiful!”
Her beautifully manicured fingers touch the ring softly as if caressing it. Then they close around it, trying to pull the ring off my finger.
NO! I close my fingers into a fist, determine not to let her have something that symbolizes our love and our bond. My fingers are still very weak though. She pries my fingers open very easily. She laughs as she wrenches the ring off my finger very roughly, leaving a long red mark of her fingernail on the back of my hand and my ring finger.
She slips it on her ring finger and holds it up to the light with a sigh. “Absolutely gorgeous!” She breathes. “You don't need it anymore. It's such a waste on you anyway. It should've been mine right from the very beginning.”
Constantine. My heart is breaking. I hope he could feel how much I long for him and love him. My eyes are blurred by tears.
“Awww... honey, are you crying? Tsk tsk. You should never cry over a man. Didn't your mother teach you that?
“Oh, don't you worry about him, I'll take good care of him for you. It might take a bit of time, but he'll forget about you. You won't expect him to remember you forever, would you? Of course, not. You would want him to be happy and I'll make him a very happy man. I'll make sure he becomes a king too.”
“Bitch!” I manage to slur out. I shocked myself that I was able to say that out loud.
“Oh, you're able to speak now. The effect of the helenalin toxin is wearing off very quickly, I see. We would have to do something about that soon. Too bad you're a lycan now. If you're still a werewolf, the toxin would've killed you the moment it entered your system. You should be proud, toxins from any regular wolfsbanes wouldn't work on us lycans. It's Aconitum Lycoctonum. I traveled all the way to Belarus and Ukraine to find it.”
“Milan!” says Logan at the door. Mia is standing beside him with a sour expression on her face. “We've done what you've asked.”
“Good!” says Milan, straightening up. She glances at a slim gold watch on her wrist. I notice she's been looking at it as if she's waiting for someone.
“You sure that thing that we sprayed will mask our scents?” asks Mia. Her voice is loaded with skepticism and mistrust.
“I told you to do something and you do it, mutt. I'm a lycan. Don't you dare question me,” snaps Milan. She glares at Mia who glares right back for a second before she lowers her head in submission. Lycan's dominance is even stronger than that of an alpha.
It's strange that I can only smell a very faint scent of Milan, though I can smell Logan and Mia just fine.
“Well, we've done all you've asked of us,” says Logan, breaking the silence. “Now, are you going to turn her back into a werewolf as she was before?”
“Wait a minute!” yells Mia, suddenly raising her head back up. Her eyes move from Logan to Milan. “You said you were going to kill her. You didn't say anything about turning her back into a werewolf.”
Milan starts laughing. “Oh, you stupid mutt. Of course, I'm going to get rid of her.”
“But that wasn't our agreement! You said you were going to turn her. You said you weren't going to hurt her,” yells Logan. His posture changed like he's about to charge.
Milan laughs harder. “I lied! There's no way anybody can turn her back into a werewolf. She's a lycan now and she's going to die a lycan.”
Beside him, Mia is smiling wide.
“No, you promised you won't hurt her! I won't let you touch her,” he growls.
“Oh, you won't let me?” Milan raises an eyebrow, looking at Logan with her eyes narrow warningly. “You're forgetting your place, werewolf.”
“You're all gonna die,” I mutter. It came out in a slur, but I'm sure they all can understand me.
“Shut up, bitch! You're the one who's going to die!” snaps Mia.
“My mate will kill all of you and your family. The whole pack will die.” I force out. It sounds clearer this time.
“I said shut up!” yells Mia, taking a step towards where I'm lying on the floor. Logan pushes her back roughly.
Milan laughs. “She's right. Constantine will wipe the whole city,” she agrees. Her eyes shine with pride.
“The stuff that I asked you to spray, they masked my scent. Your scent though would be all over the place. I will be gone by the time Constantine exacts his revenge and brings his wrath down on everything in his path. Good thing a raging lycan won't be asking questions. He'll just follow your scent and kill. There's nowhere for you to run.”
Mia's face blanched. Did she really think that she was going to get away with this?
Milan once again glances at her watch then she looks at Mia who seems frozen on the spot. Logan is still glaring at her in anger.
“If I were you, I'd start running now.” She mock-whisper to Mia and Logan. “Not that it would do you any good. You'd be the first he would go after and shred to pieces. This whole place reeks of you two.”
Her eyes shine with excitement and glee. “I suggest you start running to the pack house. The whole place would be in a rubble. It will be bathed in blood before midnight tonight.”
That seems to bring Mia out of whatever shocked trance she was under when she finally realized what she had done. She leaps out through the open door and just takes off.
“I'm sorry, Genesis. I didn't mean for you to get hurt.” Logan suddenly turns to me. His blue eyes are pleading me to forgive him.
Logan suddenly jumps on Milan, grabbing her around the neck with both hands. She grabs his han,d and I can hear crunching sounds. She's broken his fingers to disentangle his hands from around her slender neck. She swipes him back with one arm. The little room shakes when Logan hit the wall hard. His body falls and crumples on the floor at an odd angle. I wonder if he's still breathing.
Her impeccable chignon came undone in the little scuffle. She flicks her hair back in annoyance.
“You won't get away with this.” My speech sounds almost normal. I can move my hands now, though I try not to let her notice this.
Milan looks at me and smiles proudly. “I have and I will. I had gotten away with it before and I will again,” she announces.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, you're so stupid.” She sighs in exasperation. “Antonia, remember? Who do you think got rid of her? It was messy. Messier than I thought it would be. Oh, it's so hard to kill a lycan!” she complains. “Do you know a lycan can only be killed by severing the spine from the body? Do you have any idea how hard it is to do that? That trusting bitch put up a good fight, had blood and guts and bones all over my dress and shoes. My beautiful dress and shoes! Ruined! ” She scowls at the inconvenience.
Goddess! This bitch is crazier than I thought!
“Don't you worry, I've since learned my lesson. This time I won't get my fingers dirty.” She smiles as she gazes lovingly at my ring on her finger again.
Stupid bitch! I hope my mate will see that ring on her finger after I'm gone and finish her off...in the most painful way.
This woman is so set on my mate and the crown, she can't even see straight.
She killed Antonia. My heart weeps for the girl I'll never get to meet.
“What happens when you find your erasthai? Don't you want to wait for him?” I want to keep her talking. I want her to still be here when my mate finds us. I want him to kill her even if I wasn't alive anymore to see it.
“My erasthai?” She laughs bitterly. “I've found my erasthai! I found him over a century ago. A French peasant boy. A human! No matter how beautiful he was. I can't have a human for a mate! I am a born lycan! I am destined for greatness. I should be the queen!”
I narrow my eyes, looking at her with contempt when a sudden thought occurs to me.” What did you do to him?”
“I didn't do anything to him. A bunch of rogue werewolves was there, at the edge of the forest, just waiting to maul him. Those big beautiful, brown eyes pleaded with me to save him, but I left him there and let them kill him. They killed him. I watched them from afar. I watched them rip him apart.”
How could she do that? How could she? I'd die if anything like that happened to Constantine. That or I'd go insane! Was that what had driven her to be the mad woman in front of me now?
My sensitive hearing is back. I can hear footsteps approaching. My hope for rescue goes up until the cold wind blows in through the open doorway. Unfamiliar and unpleasant smell assault my nose.
Milan sniffs the air and smiles. “Now then. I have to get going. Before I go, I'm going to have to pump in more toxin into you.” She produces a beautiful leather case from inside her Louis Vuitton purse. “You didn't think that it escaped my notice that you can almost stand up by now, do you?”
From inside the case, she takes out a syringe.
No! I will not be helpless again. I try to move. There's no point of pretending that I still can't move a muscle now.
“You realize they're going to kill him once he's out of control and goes on a rampage, don't you?” I push myself up into a sitting position. My legs are still weak, but at least I can move them now.
“They can't kill him, he's the future king. Besides, I'll be there for him. I'll bring him back. I'll get him back in control.” She advances towards me.
“Only I can bring him back in control. He's going to kill you when he sees you.”
“No, he won't kill me. He won't hurt me. He loves me. You see, we have a connection. Constantine and I.” Her voice sounds confident, but there's a look of desperation and obsession in her eyes.
I shuffle back, dragging my behind across the floor until my back hits the wall behind me. I push myself up with the aid of the wall.
“Don't be such a baby, this won't hurt a bit,” Milan says as she advances closer. My eyes are fixed on the needle in her hand.
My limbs feel heavy still. I have no illusions. There is no way I can win this fight with Milan now.
She grabs my arm in a tight grip, and I pull back, trying to get away from the needle.
A figure jumps over and knocks Milan sideways.
“Stupid mutt!” she yells as she gets back on her feet, dusting off her dress.
Logan is kneeling on the floor with both hands supporting his weight.
“Stay away from her,” he growls. He looks like he's about to phase.
“I've had enough of your interference,” she growls back. She pounces on him and tears into him before I can blink. It is savage and brutal and quick. Then she tosses his lifeless body into the corner of the room.
She straightens up, and blood is dripping from her mouth and her hands.
“Damn it! Now look at what he made me do,” she complains, trying to wipe the blood off the front of her dress. That only makes it worse as her fingers are covered in blood. “My new Prada, ruined!”
Logan is a crumpled, bloody mess on the floor. The pool of blood underneath him is growing bigger. His golden blond hair is wet and red with blood underneath him. His sea blue eyes are open, staring vacantly at me. The shine is gone from his eyes.