Silent Soul

***This is a sequel to Shattered Soul. You can read this book out of order but it is not suggested as there are parts and characters from the first book that will help in understanding it. This book does have adult themes and s****l content, along with themes of abuse, rape, and violence. Reader discretion is advised. If you have read the first book, thank you for checking out this one and hearing Rorick and Amaryllis’s story. I promise you, you will see Kade and Riley again along with the others but I wanted to make sure Rorick and Ryl got their chance too. I hope you come to love them as much as Kade and Riley. The book will start regular posting April 1rst, and this prologue is a placeholder. Please enjoy!*** Rorick People say that death is peaceful, quiet, and easy. They say that living is the hardest part of life, and when it ends, it’s simple. The heart stops, the lungs don’t pull in air, the brain shows you memories, and then you fade into the embrace of the Goddess. Death is simple. They lied. Not all deaths are easy. Not all deaths end you in the embrace of the Goddess. Sometimes it’s painful. Sometimes it's brutal. Sometimes, it's in betrayal. I know I’m dead. I remember my death so clearly. I knew of the corruption in the Varner line. It was too deep to weed out. It needed to be completely destroyed, even if that meant hurting the people I love the most. It was not an easy job, but it was necessary. The Council was plotting to control the Souls and were searching for them. I was being used to discover the first. I had to stop them. So I watched the life leave my mother’s eyes as I wrapped my fingers around her neck. I bit back tears as I thought of all the precious moments she gave me. All the smiles and love that were all false and now painted with a sickening oily tint in my mind. I heard my father’s cry, saw the moment his life ended when her heart stopped. He wasn’t hard to kill afterward. It was a swift stab through the heart. I didn’t expect Kora to get word out to her son Tyson. I didn’t expect a young wolf, a child, to be able to defeat me in battle. It was an odd feeling that passed over me fighting the oldest of my younger siblings. His twin, Hayden was never much of a fighter. He was easily dispatched and was to be the next to die if it wasn’t for Kayden. He had a fire in him that I never knew about. He wasn’t as graceful as a seasoned warrior but there had been a reason I had chosen him as my Beta, and it was my mistake for underestimating him. He has been there, inches from death. I only needed one more swipe of my paws. His blood was pooling onto the yard, soaking into the earth. He was growing weaker, slower, and I just needed one last blow until my wolf whispered into my ear and made me hesitate. Until, for a moment, Kade’s power fluctuated and I could feel him becoming the new Alpha. He one move, he had me by the neck and in the next moment I felt nothing below my jaw. I was alive long enough to see Kade shift back. I watched as his hazel eyes filled with tears as he screamed my name, apologizing over and over again. I wanted to smile at him, tell him I was so sorry that he had to die but that I was still proud of how he defended his siblings as my vision unfocused, the dark creeping in until I only saw Kade through a pin point of sight. The young teen, so small and lanky, not yet grown into his strength, reached for me and stroked my face as he screamed for me one last time. Then it all went black. There was no surviving a broken neck for a wolf. Then why the hell can I feel myself coming back? There are voices somewhere. The sounds are distorted and muted, difficult to make out. I wanted to open my eyes but that wasn’t possible, they wouldn’t respond. Nothing was responding and a sudden feeling of panic crept into my chest. I was never one to be claustrophobic but I felt trapped in my own body, unable to move, to speak, to hear. It was all suffocating. Wolf! Are you here? I screamed as loud as I could into my mind. Nothing. There was no response. Is this hell? I wondered. I wouldn’t be surprised. I was prepared for hell to save my pack, my race. The sounds, though still muted, were becoming clearer as suddenly every nerve ending in my body was on fire. Whatever was locking my body down was released and I felt myself jerk up though I still had no voice. I opened my mouth in a silent scream but no sound came out as every part of me was burning. This is definitely hell! “The spell is working.” A woman’s voice said. I still could not open my eyes and I tried ot focus on the voice, but the pain was growing in an intensity I did not think possible. “Good. Another few hours and he should wake up.” Hours! I’m going to be burning like this for hours? I wanted ot beg for mercy, beg for them to end this torture. I could feel my wolf starting to wake, stirring from the empty void like how I did but something about him felt off, wrong. Changed. The pain was too much to focus on though. “I just received news from the wolf. She just told me he is alive, and has announced his return to the throne…with the first Soul.” I heard something slam into the floor, and felt the breeze of something pass by my side. The air felt good on my burning body. “Wright?” The one snapped. I was able to tell her voice was deeper, richer. It made me imagine an older woman. “Captured. He will most likely stand trial, and most likely tell them what he knows. He must have know who she was. Camille was right to suspect him.” The room fell silent and I found myself begging them to talk more. I needed something to distract myself, anything, from this pain. “Then it’s a good thing we brought him back.” I felt soft fingers stroke my face and I wanted to turn into them. Something about that voice was familiar. It was as if it was from a dream in a previous life. Something dangerous. Something wrong. A voice murmured inside my head. That was not my wolf, but at the same time it was. Not a wolf. No longer a wolf. He murmured. My mind, so fuzzy I could not understand what he meant. “Do you think this wolf can complete it this time? He failed the first time.” The second voice questioned. That one was definitely younger. “Not a wolf.” The first said, a smile in her voice. “No longer a wolf.” The burning was starting to subside though my arms and legs still would not move, my eyes would not open. What does she mean not a wolf? Yes I am a werewolf. You are my wolf, right? No. I tried to think how that was possible. Maybe through death, my wolf didn’t come back with me? Then, what are you? “I thought he was the Alpha King? What is he if he is not a wolf?” The younger voice echoed my question. Neither the voice in my head nor the woman answered for a long moment. I thought I was left alone again to suffer in the void until she finally spoke up. “Magic strong enough to bring the dead back to life has an effect on that life. Werewolves typically are able to heal from these corruptions, but Necromancy is too powerful to heal completely. We won’t know if the spell worked until he is awake. He has the potential to be mentally unstable and simply be a mindless pawn.” “And if he is stable?” “Then you are looking at the first Lycanthrope in over three hundred years. And you will see why these corruptions were hunted down and slaughtered centuries ago. One could rip apart whole packs and covens. There has never been one with Royal blood. This one has the power to finish the job he failed all those years ago.” I remembered reading about Lycans. I felt the beast in my head, stirring, growing stronger. Is that what you are? Are you a Lycan? Yes. It whispered. I felt fear twist my stomach and grief over my wolf. Are you him, or are you something new? I wondered. It was silent for a long while. Both. What does that mean? I demanded, trying to keep the conversation going so I had something to focus on through the pain. Same as you, I have died, I came back, I have changed. We are not a wolf any longer. I am a Lycan. The way he worded it was wrong. He made it sound like we were separate entities, not the same creature anymore. Why did you say it like that? I demanded. The beast chuckled and I felt it stir. "How will we know if his mind is intact?" The young woman asked. Necromancer probably. Or an appearance to the other one. The older woman chuckled. "That's the fun part." She whispered. "Wolves have their beast as separate but part of them. They can whisper in their mind, be a part of them but also individual. It's what keeps them civil, a separation of the human and animal mind. Lycans don't do that." The beast grew, I could feel him filling every corner of my mind, splitting my head in two. "Instead, the two halves war. We will know the victor when he wakes. If it's the man, his mind will remain intact, and if it's the beast, he will be of no use to us. A mindless animal in a never-ending blood lust." I felt the fear creep into my chest as the beast repaired to battle. "What happens to the loser?" The young woman asked. I wish she hadn't. I never got an answer but I knew what it was. A growl rang through my head as the beast unleashed its rage on my mind. No, death was not peaceful, and neither was the second time.