Page 6 of The Aurora Marelup Complete Saga Omnibus

Part of me is sorry we did it. The other part, the part that is all wolf, is sorry too; just not that the woman is dead. She’s sorry it took so long to find the fucker.

"I’m sorry, D. I’m a monster... She’s stronger... She’s never been able to take over completely before. I need to go find the rest of the remains." I release a slow breath and take my pillow out of its pillowcase.

"Watch out, Andre. I need to take the head with me." Reaching down, I scoop up the head. Blood drips from the exposed arteries as well as what is left of the neck. Tendons and part of the spinal cord dangle beneath the ribbons of blood-covered flesh. After examining what was left of the neck, I determined my wolf had bitten her head off—what a way to go. I sniff at the scalp and recognize the scent. It’s the same one that set me off the other day. My wolf had hunted down the woman that Dimitri slept with.

Andre loses it, shifting into his golden eagle, he shoots out the window. Honestly, I can’t blame him. He’s more of a pacifist than Dimitri and me. I don’t expect the boys to help me clean up my mess. I’m just wondering what else I have done in the last forty-eight hours where I’m missing time.

"Aurora?" Dimitri snaps me out of my inner monologue. "I'll help you search. I... I know you didn’t do this.” Shaking his head, he seems to reconsider his statement. “I mean, I know you wouldn’t have done it if you were aware of what was going on." His strong thick arms encircle me as he squeezes me to his chest, holding me. I wonder which one of us he is trying to comfort, him or me? I can’t help but cry when Dimitri embraces me. I feel like a monster, yet here he is holding me. Slowly he releases me from the hug, and we both look at the double doors leading to the patio. We open the door and walk out onto the deck—more dried bloody paw prints. We follow my tracks into the woods, and about a thousand yards from the house, we find the woman's remains.

She was absolutely shredded. Bone fragments littered the ground, as well as chunks of muscle and sinew haphazardly thrown about. It was as if my wolf had a hunk of meat in her mouth, and thrashed her head violently around sending pieces flying. Slivers of flesh and blood clots hung like tinsel off of the pine tree bark. The one small Douglas fir had her large and small intestines draped upon its boughs like a garland. What was left of the woman’s clothing was ripped to shreds and hung like tinsel.

Further away on a small balsam fir tree, hands and feet hung off the boughs by their tendons. I’m guessing my wolf was feeling rather festive towards the end of her destruction. I stand there admiring her handy work, though maybe admiring is the wrong word for it. While I’m deep in thought, staring at the gut garland, Dimitri moves to stand next to me. I turn to look at him, and he’s three shades of green and appears to be on the verge of wanting to puke. Gently I rub his shoulder, and he jumps back, startled by the contact. I let out a slow, sad sigh as I look around, taking in the full magnitude of what my wolf has done.

Scavengers were up in the trees, some with chunks in their talon’s others just with bloody beaks. I shift and start digging a deep hole. My solution to the problem is to dig deep and bury everything. Dimitri realizes what I’m doing and shifts to help out. His bear is shoveling the dirt into a pile off to the side after I shoot it out of the hole I had made. Once the hole is deep enough, I shift back to my human form and begin throwing chunks into the hole. This is a forensic nightmare. It has become a fucked up scavenger hunt for all the missing pieces. I start singing “Dem Bones” to make sure I’m not missing any body parts.

“Really, Aurora? You think this is fucking funny?” Dimitri is pissed. He honestly thought I was making a mockery of what we were doing. To be frank, I was so busy I didn’t notice when he had shifted back to his human form.

“No, D, I don't think this is funny. It’s the only fucking song I know to remember all the fucking body parts,” I say softly as I pull the gut garland off the tree.

Dimitri was so angry he shifted back to his bear and returned to what he was doing. His reaction was rather upsetting to me. As much as he says it’s not my fault, I know deep down he blames me. I remove the last of the hanging body ornaments then shift back to my wolf to continue cleaning. I claw up chunks of bloody moss and scraps of bark. If it has blood on it, it is going into the hole. After about two hours, and several searches in circles as far out as eighty yards from ground zero, we began to fill the hole in. Thankfully it was a ton easier to fill the hole in than it was to dig the fucking thing.

I suddenly feel a surge of energy run through my body, and it brings me to my knees. The surge was so powerful, it forced my shift back to my human form. What is happening to me? I feel like my blood is on fire. It feels like my wolf is ripping my body apart from the inside. I use a young ash tree to stand, only to fall back to the ground. Screaming out in agony, my voice a mix of my human and wolf.

Dimitri rushes over and shifts back to human. His large hands rest on my narrow ribcage, gently rubbing the muscle. The entire length of my body is going in and out of spasms each time the wave of power passes over me. My wolf’s fur ripples across my skin as each power surge hits me. Skin-to-skin contact seems to take some of the pain away, but not all of it. I can tell he is in pain too but is trying to hide it.

"It’s time, Aurora... You’re ascending, which means your heat is about to start. We need to get you home." All I could really dois nod and close my eyes tightly. I feel like I’m going to die. As the pain increases, I notice it’s starting to affect Dimitri; he can’t stand either. He’s in my hell with me. I scoot, so my back leans against his body, seeking any kind of comfort. My eyes snap open when I hear a branch break. It’s Andre, he is back in human form, and he’s notably concerned. Dimitri quickly explains to Andre what’s happening to both of us.

He approaches me and scoops me up into his arms. "Come on, baby girl, let’s get you some of that special tea and get you settled into bed for a very long nap." I snuggle against his bare chest and plant my forehead against his neck. His arms band tightly around me as we walk. As he carries me home he’s able to feel just how strongly the spasms are. Every time one hits, he stops and tightens his grip on me. The poor man doesn’t know what to do for a few reasons. Firstly, I know for a fact he's not used to holding a naked woman. Secondly, I’m not sure if he's ever witnessed an ascension before.

I need something, anything, and a nap sounded wonderful compared to the pain I’m currently in. I close my eyes and trust Andre to take care of me. We make it back to the house and through my double doors. In our absence, Andre had already cleaned up my room and changed my bedding. He gently lays me down on my soft bed, just in the nick of time, before the next spasm rips through my body. I scream and arch my back, lifting off of the bed. My muscles tense and burn from the exertion. Sweat breaks out along my entire length and runs off of me in streams; my bedding is soaked.

I hear a heavy thud, and Dimitri cries out at about the same time my pain spikes. There is nothing I can do to help him or myself at this point. He must have been on the phone because Andre quickly takes it from him.

"Elena, it’s Andre... Aurora is ascending, and it’s affecting the big guy too. Can you make it here? Yeah, I have the tea, I’mbrewing her some now. She lost something, like at least twelve hours yesterday, and her wolf went all homicidal." I can hear him pacing my room, and then he goes down the hallway.

Eventually, I feel the side of the bed dip and open my eyes to see Dimitri; he looks like shit. I feel like I’ve been put through a food processor, I can’t imagine what he’s feeling because of our bond. "I’m so sorry, D... If I could sever the bond so you wouldn’t suffer, I would." Guilt was suddenly all I was feeling at the moment, a soft lull in the sea of pain I was in.

Dimitri raises his large hand and rests it on my sweaty cheek. "Don’t worry, little one, we bears are tough. We can survive anything. As for the bond," he takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "That will only be severed when you choose your first mate. That's something we don’t want you to rush... that bond is forever. I don’t want to see what happened to your mother happen to you." He looks down and away before getting up to sit in the recliner near the bed.

"What do you mean, D? Are you saying my mother was forced?" I quickly sit up straight and stare at him, my wolf flares to the front at that thought. She doesn’t like the idea of being forced to do anything.

"Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying happened. Vlad, her Lycan mate, forced their bond, so he was the first mate. Her second mate, Mikhail, wasn’t met with any resistance, and he was a bear like me. Nicodeamus, your mother’s third mate, was a true mate. Their animals loved each other. He was an Ice Dragon. Your mom’s fourth mate, Liam, was a Dire Wolf, and he met with no resistance either." He stares at his hands as he explains my mother’s history, and then it dawns on me.

"Wait! Only a true mate can produce offspring." My eyes were focused on my hand as I shifted it.

"Nico is the reason my fur is white, isn’t it?" I look away from my hand to Dimitri, and he nods slowly. Shit, my father is a dragon. Who knows how fucking long I’ll live now?

Footsteps sound down the hallway. I look up to see Andre with the tea in his hands. Soft scents of lavender, honey, and hibiscus drift to me. There are a few underlying scents mingled in that I can’t identify. "Baby girl,” Andre says as he gently caresses my cheek. “Elena said it's time to start drinking the tea she gave us. Without a mate, she says your temperament will be unpredictable.” Andre looks down at the tea, his sadness tugging at my heartstrings. “She said she needs to make several phone calls, and in three days' time, at the end of your cycle, she'll be here with the last, single Lycan males she can find." Slowly, he extends his hand out to me, offering the tea.

I carefully take it and drink deeply. It honestly doesn’t taste too bad—honey always makes everything better, in my opinion. "If that’s what she thinks is best, then I shall sleep. I don’t want D suffering because of me." I offer him a sad smile before looking back to Andre. "Question for you… if, in theory, a suitable mate was presented to me, how will I know?" I mean seriously, I have two very good-looking males in front of me—granted one is gay, the other straight but my wolf is drawn to one and not the other. It’s an honest curiosity.

Dimitri decides to answer me. "Your mother said it was like seeing a rainbow for the first time—like breathing.” Dimitri gets a dreamy looks in his eyes. “Everything just clicked. That’s how she described meeting your father." He watches me carefully, trying to gauge my reaction.

"I understand. Thank you, D." Without warning, I start to yawn. My eyes drift to my glass before I raise the remaining tea to my lips and finish it off. I yawn again before lying back down and snuggling myself deep into my blankets. "Wake me when Elena arrives.“ I yawn once more before falling into a deep sleep.Over the next three days, I only wake for short periods of time to eat and use the restroom before being given another glass of tea.

CHAPTER 6

Aurora

---