The Lunar Destiny Series

Chapter 20

My parents left around ten o’ clock. Before they left, my mom made sure that she pressed the issue of me coming to visit more often. After such a tension filled dinner, Lio and I got comfortable in my bed.

My head was resting on his bare chest, my right hand on his abs. He had one arm around my waist and the other tucked under his head.

“So what did you think of my parents?”

I watched his expression as he answered.

“They seem like very good people, I like them. I can see that they love you very much. You come from a good family.”

He said kissing the top of my head.

“I’m relieved to hear it. I thought they might have scared you off.” I snuggled against him more.

“Not a chance. Do you have anything planned for tomorrow?”

He asked with a hopeful chime to his voice.

“Me and Celeste are going to have a ladies night. We’re going to the nail salon and then to see a movie.” I said, smiling up at him.

The next day, Celeste and I met up at the mall sometime around 7:30 pm. The weather was always more comfortable after the sun went down in the summer, so we would usually wait until sun down before going out anywhere. The humidity was finally starting to show mercy.

I was wearing an olive green mini skirt with a canary yellow blouse and yellow sandals; the sandals had a three inch heel on them so they weren’t killing my feet as I walked around. Celeste was wearing a sky blue sleeveless dress with matching high heels that really brought out the crystal blue of her eyes. She’d pulled her long, golden curls into a ponytail to show the ruffles around her neck from the dress. A pair of silver dolphin earrings with a small blue gem for a ball on the noses completed her look. I was only wearing one piece of jewelry, the necklace that Lio had bought me.

The mall was surprisingly busy for a Sunday night; you couldn’t walk past people without nearly bumping into them.

“Is it me, or is everyone in the city here tonight?” Celeste asked me while she looked around at everyone ahead of us.

“Yeah no kidding, I was just thinking the same thing. Anyway, which movie did you want to go see?” I said looking over at her briefly.

“Hmm. That’s going to be a hard decision to make. There’s so many that look good right now.” She said.

“Come on Celeste you do this all of the time. Just pick any one.” I said crossing my arms over my chest.

“Did you see the trailer for, ‘The Sons of Jara’?”

She asked with a grin.

“No, but obviously you did and there was something you liked about it.” I said with a suspicious grin. She nodded eagerly.

“There were hot guys fighting in an arena. That was all I needed to see.”

I shook my head. That was Celeste for you.

“Alright, but if this movie is shitty I’m getting my refund back from YOU.” I said smiling. She knew me well enough to know that even though I was smiling, I was dead serious about getting my refund back from her wallet.

The Sons of Jara movie was a decent flick so Celeste got to keep her money. It was about the sons of a famous gladiator competing in an arena to become the new arena warrior. Not my type of movie but I was just happy to spend time with Celeste.

We parted ways in the parking ramp behind the mall. She had been lucky to find a spot closer to the entrance on the first floor when I was unlucky and ended up on the second level. I maneuvered my way through the sea of cars and I could see mine parked between an old Buick LeSaber and a newer model Honda. I walked up to the driver’s side door of my car while fishing through my purse to find my keys. I had too much crap in here to find anything to be honest.

The sounds of heels clicking echoed around the parking lot made me stop digging through my purse. I started to turn around but before I could, someone hit me in the back of the head with something hard enough to knock me on my ass. I only managed to get a glimpse of a pair of black high heels before losing consciousness. The last thing I remembered seeing was a long pair of fair skinned legs.

I regained consciousness but I had no idea how long I had been out cold. My vision was slightly blurry when I opened my eyes and my head felt like it had split in half. What must have woken me up was how cold I felt. I was freezing cold like I had just been pulled out of an ice cold lake. Suddenly, I was splashed with a bucket of ice water. I gasped from the shock of the cold water and the feeling of small ice chips sliding down my body. I looked down at myself to see that someone had stripped me down to my bra & underwear. Victoria’s secret was out for the world to see.

My wrists and ankles were bound with thick rope, but my feet weren’t touching the ground. I looked up to see that I was hanging from an iron bar built into the cement ceiling. The extra slack from the rope that bound my hands was tied securely around the bar.

“Finally awake?”

I quickly looked back down to see the face that went with that familiar voice. The tall, golden blonde nightmare I knew as Lolita was smiling up at me with plum colored lips and an empty bucket in her left hand. The other hand was on her hip showing off freshly polished nails. She was wearing a plum colored leather dress that exposed her stomach. I looked lower to her feet and remembered seeing those same black high heels before I passed out. I was shivering uncontrollably. I had no idea how long she had been splashing me with ice water.

“Oh goody, I was starting to think I’d put you in a coma. That wouldn’t be much fun for me if you couldn’t see everything I’m about to do to you…” She said.

She set the bucket down on the cement floor and I could see that the entire floor was glistening with water. There wasn’t anything significant about this cement room aside from a single wooden table against the far right wall. It was covered with shiny, sharp weapons spread out on a black cloth. The floor even had a drain in the center of it. This was a room designed for torture and now, I was going to be the latest victim. I didn’t even want to know how many people had probably died down here.

“Why…Are…You, doing this?” I asked, barely able to speak while shivering.

She walked up to me still smiling wickedly.

“Did I not make that clear last time we saw each other? As long as Vasilios intends to make you his mate, I can never get close to him again. I saw the proof that you are Vasilios’s mate, I can’t suffer you to live now.” Her smile faded at the end of her sentence.

She reached up and placed her hand on my hip and with the other she pulled the rim of my panties down slightly.

“W-What are you doing!?”

I yelled at her but she just ignored me. Her plump lips curled into a small smile while she stared down at my pelvic region to examine my birth mark.

How was this even happening right now?

Someone had to know something was wrong by now. I’d told Celeste that I would call her when I got home so here’s hoping she was having a panic attack and calling everyone hysterically. What troubled me more than anything was how Lolita found me. There’s no way she could have known I would be at the mall and leaving at that time. Had the leopards and her pack been secretly watching me?

“Once I took a peek at this, there was no reason to doubt anymore. You will die tonight, slowly. After the last breath leaves your body, my wolves will devour your mangled corpse piece by little piece until there’s nothing left to identify you. Hmm, but perhaps I should cut off the flesh of your birth mark to show Lio when I see him…”

She said letting go of me then.

“Please Lolita! D-Don’t do this! Let me go!”

I yelled at her in between shivers. They weren’t as bad now since I was genuinely terrified. My body’s survival instincts had kicked in trying to warm me up. What could I do? If I screamed it wouldn’t help. I had no friends here.

I watched her walk over to the table with her torture tools and look at them. She was trying to decide which one to use, God help me.

“…Lolita, if you do this…You can forget about any chance that you think you have of getting Lio back. He’ll kill you for this.”

She ignored me and picked up an eight inch hunting knife.

“Probably. Or he’ll be so grief stricken that he comes back into my arms. A new beginning…”

She said almost whispering that last bit.

Turning towards me again, she walked up to me. She put the tip of the blade to my sternum and dragged the blade down. I screamed louder than I ever had in my life. She stopped the blade on my left hip bone and pulled away swiftly. The wound stung terribly so I knew she hadn’t gone too deep but it hurt like hell. Lolita was breathing heavily, watching the blood trickle from the wound.

“I must admit, it is hard not to bury my mouth into that wound and rip you open; But you don’t deserve a quick death, oh no… You are taking away the life I always envisioned for myself! I won’t let you have him!” She screamed at me before she started slashing at my body with the knife again.

Each time she cut me I screamed as loud as my vocal cords would allow me to, hoping and praying that someone would save me from her. I stopped screaming and crying. My eyes felt so heavy all of a sudden. Lolita stopped cutting me, dropping the blade to the floor. It hit the cement with a loud clanking sound. I heard her sigh before she walked a slow circle around me. I tried to look over my shoulder and see what she was doing but I couldn’t. A freezing cold bucket of ice water came splashing down over my head. I gasped raggedly and almost started choking before my forceful shivering returned.

“I can’t have you passing out on me now. I want you to feel everything…” She said as she walked around in front of me again.

I watched her looking down at her nails as if she was checking for damage; Unbelievable. She had more concern for her manicure than my life.

Lolita looked over towards the doorway but no one was there. I assumed she had heard something that my human ears couldn’t. I couldn’t hear anything but the sounds of my teeth clattering against each other because I was freezing.

“He’s finally made an appearance…” She said before smiling.

“It sounds like he’ll be coming down to me instead of me meeting him.” She said looking over at me.

By ‘him’ I knew she was talking about Lio. That’s when I finally heard the sounds of claws against the cement stairs, along with the sound of growling. He was in wolf form by the sounds of things. I had no idea how large the stairway was but if he could charge down here in wolf form this house must have been huge. The room we were in was very spacious but I wasn’t sure how well he would fit in here. Lio came into view, dashing into the room. His entire body blocked the doorway and his large tail covered a large area of the floor beneath him. The room wasn’t well lit but the silver in his fur still gleamed.

Lio was baring his fangs at her angrily, slowly stalking towards her. Lolita grinned.

“You look so upset, my sweet. I’m only doing what any woman in my situation would do. Besides, I’m not the only one you should be furious with. There seems to be someone among your pack that hates your precious Astraia as much as I do.”

Lio snapped his jaws at her and she flinched a little.

“If you want her back alive, you’re going to have to go through me!” She shouted at him.

Lio growled louder then and that’s when Lolita began to shift. I’d never stuck around to watch the process before but it wasn’t something I would be able to forget easily. Her face elongated into a muzzle, her bones started reconstructing themselves making all sorts of painful cracking sounds. Her leather dress snapped like a thin rubber band and fell to the floor. Fur flowed out of her skin and was an even shinier, golden blonde than her hair in human form. A golden wolf.

When she had finished shifting I could see that she was slightly smaller than Lio build wise. Height wise she was just as huge. Those pure emerald eyes looked even fiercer in her wolf form. She happened to be closer to me than Lio was and that made me extremely nervous. She had done enough damage with just a hunting knife. If she wanted to she could claw my body into ribbons with one swipe.

He growled at her and stomped one of his paws against the floor. She growled back and suddenly rushed him. Lio leaned back on his hind legs and slashed at her, the tops of his ears brushing the ceiling. His claws made contact with her nose and she made a sound between a whine and a whimper before she rushed at him again.

Lio opened his mouth wide as he charged towards her and sunk his teeth into the side of her neck, taking her down to the floor. They were thrashing around and clawing each other but they were moving so fast that I couldn’t see who was injuring who the most. As I watched them fighting to the death, I wondered if there would only be more of this and only this. Lio’s past lovers kept causing problems for us, for me. So far they all wanted me out of the way so they could try to win Lio’s heart again. In some sick twisted way I could understand. I’d never met anyone like Lio, he was everything I ever wanted and needed. The thought of losing him in any way was unbearable.

My deep thoughts were interrupted when I saw Lolita suddenly become airborne. Blood sprayed out from under her and she hit the cement wall on the left side of the room before sliding down to the floor convulsing. Lio jumped towards her before she could make any sudden moves and locked his jaws onto her throat once again. His jaws violently shook her head back and forth and the sounds of bones breaking could be heard. Another small fountain of blood spurted from his mouth before he released her. She started to revert back to human form and I could see that her head was nearly severed. A long, gaping wound went down the front of her body. Her insides were hanging out onto the floor; Blood and darker fluids were flowing out of her and slowly heading towards the drain.

I turned my head, unable to bear the site for more than a few seconds. Lio’s paws and some of his fur was covered with her blood.

I could hear him pacing back and forth growling. I risked another look at Lolita’s mangled body to see that she had stopped convulsing. She was very still now and her chest didn’t rise and fall anymore. He’d killed her. I sighed with relief before I started to cry. I was in pain, freezing, and I was tired; so tired.

Lio turned his large fury head towards me and started making soft whimpering sounds.

He was big enough that once he had turned around to face me, his nose was inches away from my ruined torso. His warm breaths made me shiver even more but they felt good. I looked down at him and saw his long wet tongue slide out of his mouth. He began gently licking the wounds with long strokes. I cringed each time his tongue slid over the wounds, but soon the pain was a distant memory. I looked down at each wound he had licked and to my astonishment they were closing up. He was healing me the same way he had before.

After a few minutes, the licking stopped and I stared down at myself. All of the wounds were closed up and only light scar tissue could be seen now. Lio raised his head up and the tips of his fluffy ears brushed the ceiling, slightly bending. He started to shift back into his human form. Once he was human again, he was still covered with Lolita’s blood and some of his own.

A look of pain and anguish was on his face as he walked up to me. He untied the ropes at my ankles and then the ones at my wrists. He caught me in his arms when I was released from the iron bar. Lio was so warm against my icy skin. He picked me up bridal style and held me against him protectively. I snuggled in against his chest trying to get warm. My hair clung to my face like pesky spider webs did when you walked into them, but I was too traumatized to care.

“…Astraia, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry…” He kept apologizing over and over to me.

Lio took me from that cursed torture chamber and back upstairs. The sight before me was definitely memorable. Some of Lolita’s people were a slaughtered mess on the living room floor, while others were kneeling submissively. Lio’s people had them surrounded. Naremi came running over to us like a worried mother. Naremi seemed to care about me more than the others in Lio’s pack did.

“Vasilios, are you hurt?” She asked.

“No. Not physically anyway...” He said solemnly. She then looked down at me and touched my shoulder.

“You’ll be alright now. We’ll take care of you.”

She said, sounding as if she were on the verge of tears.

I looked up at Lio and his facial expression was full of bitterness and anger as he looked around at Lolita’s people.

“I’ve slain your Queen, and now all of you belong to me. Whether or not you decide to come with my pack tonight, I am your king. Things are going to be done very differently. I can promise you that. Since your queen kidnapped and tortured my future mate, you will all be severely punished. Lolita’s death wasn’t nearly enough to sate me...” He said.

Lolita’s wolves were now Lio’s; the irony was only too cruel. He’d saved my life again and now others would suffer because of their queen’s actions. Lio loved Lolita; I knew he still did even as he spoke so passionately about revenge. I think that he would always love her. The fact that my life meant more to him than hers made me realize something that I should have always known; he loved me the most. Killing a woman he loved who was also one of his kind couldn't have been easy. I knew that he would carry that pain forever. Even still, he wasn’t showing any remorse or guilt. Did he really kill without hesitation so easily? Or was Lolita’s actions so unforgiveable that his love for her quickly turned to hate? Perhaps it was both. Either way I looked at it, their bittersweet story ended with death.