Chapter 181: A Better Place
Lucian’s POV
I thought I had a chance to get over what I had lost, and now my wife, my Luna, was dead.
She died in my arms, in my presence.
I had to get back to Winterwood with her dead body. This was an unexpected attack. I never saw it coming. There I was, trying to win Selene back, mad with it, and I had left the one I was married to, the one I had vowed to give my life to.
"We have to go now, Alpha," Valerie kept calling out to me, and I wasn’t answering. I was lost in thought with Celeste in my arms.
"Alpha, we need to go home now!" she shouted this time, and I came to my senses. She helped me carry Celeste’s body. I had been blind, and now I could see, but I had lost her. There was still chaos and scattering everywhere, and everyone was facing their own dead and mourning. I didn’t see Selene again. The cries were loud and heartfelt. All they had wanted was a promise of tomorrow, and it had been taken from them.
Alpha Roran and Luna Sienna had died in front of me. They were shot, and they didn’t even try to move. They had given up on life, welcomed the bullet, and died. I rushed to the car with Valerie, who was holding Celeste. At least there was still a car for us to go to.
I never knew I would hold my wife lifeless in my hands after this festival. I regretted coming to this shit festival. I hadn’t even mated with anybody. I had just fucked Celeste once, and now she was dead.
My hands, feet and clothes were stained with blood. I didn’t leave her alone in the car.
Valerie gave me a handkerchief to wipe my tears and the liquid coming out of my nose.
"It’s fine, Valerie," I said to her.
We got to Winterwood, and the elders welcomed us. They saw me in tears and blood.
"Lucian, what happened?"
"There was an attack on Icefang during the festival, and this..." Valerie couldn’t even complete the sentence.
The guards wanted to help me get Celeste off my body, but I didn’t let them. At least this could be a testament to the fact that I had been such a fool, and that I had not appreciated or valued what I had.
Selene was never going to be mine, and Celeste, who was mine, had been taken away from me.
"She is dead. Our Luna," one of the elders confirmed, and there was immediate devastation on their faces and in their sighs.
I lifted her, and she felt heavy. No, she wasn’t. My heart was, and I couldn’t gather strength into my hands.
I walked up the stairs, and I had taken only five steps before I fell with her.
The guards came, took her from me and lifted me up.
Where I was taking her to, I didn’t know. I just wanted to cry and mourn more.
"This won’t bring her back, Alpha. Let her go," one of the elders said.
𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂
"It’s my fault!" I shouted.
The elders were shocked.
"It’s my fault she’s dead! She was brought into my life, and a sweet, promising young wolf was killed, all because of ahhhhh!"
I started punching the wall outside. I punched it, and as usual, Valerie came to save me again.
"I don’t deserve to be alive. I should be the one dead, and she would be alive," I said.
"Don’t say that, Alpha. It’s not your fault. No one knew this would happen," she consoled me for a long time before I agreed to go inside the chambers.
The guards took her to the morgue, and I went to freshen up. I had bruises and blisters all over my hands, my fists in particular.
Valerie monitored me the whole time.
I washed the blood off my body with water, and as it came off, I remembered everything that had happened in that scene. One minute we were all happy, drinking and having dinner, and I was thinking of other ways to get Selene into a corner and convince her that I still loved her. In a split second, everywhere was filled with smoke, which blurred my vision. All the guards in our vicinity had been taken down, and just like that, guns were pointed at us.
He spoke to Selene as though he knew her. He was the same person I had saved Selene from, Draven. She called out his name, her betrothed mate.
No! He was there to kill her, and he ended up killing my Luna instead.
Nothing was ever the same with Selene around.
From the way he spoke, he had come there because of her. Why did they always want her? And why did other innocent people always end up suffering because of her?
The flashes of memory were traumatizing to me. I couldn’t stay in the bathroom any longer. It felt like I was drowning.
I quickly came out with my towel on.
"What happened?" Valerie asked, as though I were in an emergency.
"It’s like she’s calling out to me, Celeste. I can feel it like a vibration in my bones."
"No, she can’t, Alpha. She’s dead," Valerie said.
I didn’t have hydrophobia, but for the first time, I was scared of water.
It looked like I wasn’t coming out of this anytime soon. Maybe it would be the PTSD that ended up killing me.
I dressed and went downstairs. The elders were already waiting for me, dressed in white.
"It has to be tonight," one of them said.
I knew they were talking about her burial.
I cried, and I still followed them down to the corner where they had prepared for her to be buried.
There were lights and flowers everywhere. She was wrapped in a white cloth and placed in a coffin.
"You will tell her your final words before we put her into the ground," one of them said.
I was given a sceptre to speak into, and I was to put it in her coffin when I was done talking.
The ground was dug, and only my close chamber people were present, along with the elders.
They were going to announce to the entire territory that she was dead and already buried.
Her face was left open for me to see, and it looked like the stars, shining. Even a blind person would have seen it when he came into contact with this beauty.
And all I could wish was that if there was a place better than heaven, she would go there and live on, my celestial Luna.