Mate Made In Hell

What Is It You Choose?

But what is all this fear of and opposition to oblivion? What is the matter with soft Darkness, the dreamless sleep? - James Thurbe.

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"This is not over." Arabella whispered to Vincent's fading back, as she felt the darkness creeping, slowly closing over her. A beautiful, warm darkness. Without the clutter of memories. With a soft sigh, she welcomed the darkness and floated off towards the nothingness.

Arabella looked pale in the soft moonlight. It was getting dark. Even at the bed of her death, even when her body was mangled, she looked beautiful. Glowing. If Vincent had stayed, he would have seen it... but he was long gone.

She looked like she was taking a long, resting nap, even though her body was trashed.

Like a sleeping beauty, waiting for her prince to kiss her and rescue her from the curse of sleep.

Her prince—no, he was just a slimy toad— was the one who had put her to sleep.

She felt herself floating away towards the darkness. She was dead. There was no pain, no suffering in death. She embraced it.

She would rather be dead than stay alive and feel the pain of the death of her pack, her family.

And her reality of life was... that her mate was a cruel bästard and those four long weeks she had spent with him were a fúcking lie.

Death was easy. Death was liberating. She enjoyed the darkness as she floated weightlessly in space. There was nothing tying her down.

She didn't know where she was floating off, too. She had never much thought about how life would be after she died.

And then something flickered around her. The darkness was soon replaced by a dancing blue glow. It was warm, but Arabella didn't want the light. She loved the darkness. She wanted to get lost in the darkness.

"Your time, Arabella, is not over. You have so much to do. Do you want to go back?" A woman appeared in front of her. She had long blue hair flowing down her back. Her eyes were like glittering stars. And she glowed silver and blue.

"Moon Goddess?" Arabella blinked. This was strange.

She didn't expect this when she died. But now that she was standing in front of this ethereal looking woman, all Arabella wanted to do was punch her in the nose and be done with it. She was the reason for all of Arabella's problems.

"Do you want to go back?" Selene's voice was like a soft melancholic song. Arabella gritted her teeth.

"Why would I go back there? There is only death and pain and suffering there!" Arabella hissed at the woman. She wanted to punch the solemn looking woman in her face, but she didn't give into the temptation. "I have no one there. You are the reason for that."

"Because... there is something else waiting for you there, Arabella. Something better and bigger. Your destiny is not in this plane. It is waiting back in Euretya. If you choose life-"

Arabella cackled. Yes. Cackled. Her eyes watered as she wiped her tears off with broken fingers. The tears were from laughter.

The Goddess was freaking mad, if she thought Arabella was going to trust anything she did or said! Arabella had trusted her once, blindly, and she was dead. Her brother, her best friend... everyone was dead.

"f**k you. I don't trust you. You gave me Vincent and I trusted you with all my heart. Now, look where I am. Dead! My whole world was gone in an instant. I don't want to go back to that place. I politely decline the offer, bītch." Arabella scoffed as she stared at the woman.

"But Arabella, this is--"

"Tut, tut. Stop. I am not in the mood to hear you go blah, blah, blabbity blah. My head is pounding and my body is broken. Send me to wherever the dead wolf goes to. I have no energy to even listen to you." Arabella said with a wince.

"But do you really want to end it here? What about Vincent's betrayal? Don't you want to teach him a lesson?" Selene asked, as if she gave two fūcks about that!

Arabella didn't believe that she cared. She was the one who had chosen Vincent for her... and what an obnoxious, cruel gift it was!

"Not my job." Arabella said with a scowl. She knew what this wicked woman was steering her into. Of course, just thinking about Vincent made her feel the overwhelming rage, but she was also so damn tired. She just wanted to go to sleep.

Arabella didn't want to go back. Not even if this crazy bītch gave her a million gold coins and some. "Inyene will take care of it. She is the goddess of justice. And I trust her more than I trust you, Selene." Arabella scowled at the woman floating next to her.

The moon goddess sighed. "You need convincing." She said as she closed her eyes and started to chant in a tongue that was unrecognizable.

A golden orb appeared next to Arabella and then it became another angelic woman.

"I am the goddess of resurrection." The woman had soft blonde hair, and she looked like an angel. "If you so please, I can offer you another life."

Before Arabella could answer, another dark red spherule joined them. Arabella was already dead, but she felt like she was going to die soon if this continued. She was tired. She just wished she could peacefully pass away, but here she was, trapped amidst bored goddesses. Didn't they have something important to do?

"And I am the goddess of death."

"Well. This is nice and all, to meet all of you, but I just want to die peacefully. I don't want this stupid intervention. I think you are all fūcking bored!" Arabella sneered at the three creatures floating around her. They looked like they had hailed from heaven. Maybe they were. Their beauty was blinding, their glow was all-encompassing and they were all wasting her time.

"I only need your help, Goddess of death," Arabella said as she looked at the woman in the black dress. "Now, why don't you do your job and let's get this over with?" Arabella clapped her hands.

"You see.." She started, "I would love to end this. I love taking life and filling my realm of souls, but Maseir is such a stuck-up bītch and she is a stickler for rules. She wants you to choose after thinking about it carefully, and so you will choose." Goddess of death looked sullen. "If you choose death in the end, I will gladly take you away."

"But I was dead, just before this one-" Arabella pointed an accusing finger at the blue-haired woman. The fûcking moon goddess. "She is the one who woke me up."

Selene sighed as if it was all too much for her.

"You are not allowed to sigh. I am the only one who is allowed to sigh." Arabella growled. "I feel like you are all bored and have nothing else to do, but I am not changing my mind. Let me follow my brother." Arabella's voice was begging when she finished it.

She wanted to see Adam and Becca and Lois. She wanted to hug them and tell them sorry. Adam... kind, loving Adam, who was as much a father as he was a brother. Becca, a sister, a best friend. Lois was just as much a brother to her as he was to Becca.

"Vincent led you on. He lied to you. If he had rejected you, you would have taken it like the warrior you are. You would have moved on and lived with your pack. Instead, he took your family away from you, he broke you and then left you in the cold to die. Don't you want your revenge?" Another man joined them.

"Who in the hell are you?" Arabella slapped her hand against her head. This was getting ridiculous.

"I am the God of vengeance." He said and Arabella stared at him and nodded her head, suddenly feeling the anger inside her. It was like a hot volcano...

If Vincent had rejected her, she would have taken it like the warrior she had trained to be. But instead, he slaughtered her family, her friends and he left her to die in the cold. Alone, and afraid.

Of course, she would have nothing left if she chose to go back, but she would have one thing. She would have her revenge. She could destroy Vincent and Jacqueline and watch as their lives went up in flames.

"I don't know." Arabella was thinking now. Maybe she should go back. She had initially tried to run away, because she wanted to live to avenge her family... but the bleak things waiting for her...

"Let me show you something, Arabella," he said, a gleam in his eyes and he waved his hand around as he spoke words she couldn't understand. An orange flame burst from his finger and then Arabella was floating above a big, massive room, looking at it from above.

Vincent's study. The big mahogany table on it was familiar.

She looked down and there he was... the man she had loved, she had trusted to be there for her, the man who had become her nightmare. Finding a mate should be a happy day, but finding this man had become the destruction of her family, her pack.

When they first met, when they first kissed, he was her dream. He was everything she had ever wanted and then, without a forewarning, he had turned into a monster.

Vincent was sitting in the leatherette chair, sipping on his favorite gold wolven whiskey. His face was soft, and in the shadows, he looked handsome. He stared at the little gold flakes floating inside the clear crystal glass, looking to be thinking about something.

Was he thinking about her? Did he regret it, at least a little?

And then Arabella saw Jacqueline walking in with a soft red coat wrapped around her body. She stood in front of Vincent and opened her coat, letting it pool down her body, and then she was naked in the yellow light. Her breast gleamed and she seductively smiled at Vincent.

Vincent's eyes flashed in desire and then he was on Jacqueline like a rabid wolf. His hands were everywhere on her, and Arabella wanted to look away, but she couldn't move.

She wanted to kill them both, right there. She stretched her palms outwards as she tried to sla.sh at them, and screamed in agitation when she couldn't.

"I want to kill them." She hissed as pain assaulted her already stinging body.

It was vulgar, filthy... they made s*x like they wanted to kill each other. It was cruel, it was disgusting and Arabella felt her broken heart hardening at the sight of Vincent filling another woman.

"Get me away from here. Get me out." Arabella screamed as she thrashed around and then she was back in the soft darkness, floating in the emptiness, once again.

"He is celebrating. He is celebrating my death." Arabella growled, her voice cold and aloof. Her soft green eyes were dark, filled with malice and fury.

"And so he is. Grab that anger. Let it make you stronger. And then you will show him hell." His voice was seductive.

Arabella was tempted. Oh, she was.

"Please, what she needs is healing. Not revenge. What she needs is to find the strength to move on." Goddess of resurrections said and hescoffed, his eyes teasingly scanning the goddess of resurrection.

"Gielah, you soft, gullible creature... sometimes, you can only heal when an eye is taken for an eye." He said with a wink.

His glowing eyes found Arabella's, and she felt the need for vengeance burning inside her.

"So, what is it you choose?" The Moon Goddess asked.

If Arabella closed her eyes tighter, she could vividly feel the pointed claws slashing through her broken skin. She could still feel the hot blood gushing out of her, hot and pungent. She could almost sense the vibration of the agonizing scream.

Vincent and Jacqueline. They were fûcking each other over her dead body.

Anger grew.

"You will beg me, Vincent, beg me to finish you." Arabella's voice was a promise.

"Send me back. Send me back. My life's not over yet! My destiny is... killing him!"

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