Hades' Cursed Luna

Hades

I stirred awake, the sun burning my eyes, making them water. I let out a yawn just as footsteps approached me from behind.

"Finally," Kael's voice invaded the haze as I rose. "You slept like a baby."

I faced him to see an easy smile on his lips. I raised my head to gauge the time. Through the canopy of trees, the sun peaked through. It was at its climax meaning by my estimation, it was noon.

Like I expected, immediately after clearing Harlem just as the sun peeked through the horizon and we had landed in the woods of the outskirts of the Silverpine pack's industrial city—I was knocked out cold from exhaustion and the strenuous exertion.

Two rescue missions in one night during our escape mission had taken its toll.

I yawned again as Kael handed me a bottle.

My stomach churned at the simple thought of chugging water down my parched throat. I needed something more—blood.

I already made the gesture to refuse the bottle when Kael cut me off by turning the cap.

I stilled, red haze flaring in my vision as I finally actually looked down at the contents of the bottle he had been holding out to me. Red thick liquid that sent my mouth into a watering frenzy.

I grabbed it and chugged it. It went down like poorly refined beer but satisfied an itch that nothing else could.

"We can't have you ripping into the necks of our passengers," he stated like I was gulping down bloodwine and not game's blood. There was no point hiding from Kael, not when he would simply adapt. Even when I didn't want him to.

"How are they?" I panted once I had drained the contents of the bottle.

"They have both eaten," he informed, kicking at a dried, brown leaf. "Made sure they ate light so they don't break your back tonight."

A rumble reached my ears and my eyes sharpened on him. "Have you not eaten?" I asked.

His expression did not shift even as he lied to me. "I ate just a little but you know how much of a glutton Ajax can be." The lie slipped out of his lips like they were lubricated with oil.

My eyes narrowed. "Kael..."

"About the route that she talked about, the one we have to use tonight if we are going to get to Obsidian before daybreak," he effortlessly spun the conversation to a different topic.

I knew what he was doing and he knew that I knew what he was doing. For a moment, we were locked in a stare before I relented with a sigh. I would force some food into him later before nightfall.

"What did she say?" I asked. "What secret path don't we know about?"

The casual easiness of his posture bled out as his expression turned serious. "You have to hear this yourself. Maybe the reason our spy network has been unable to uncover anything substantial for almost a decade from his residence, the Lunar Heights. She knows a lot more than we could have ever anticipated. I'm starting to think it was fate that brought her across our path."

Without another word, he turned around and walked away and I followed. Apprehension breathing under my skin as I tried to prepare for what we were about to learn.

We reached the camp site, both of them—the boy and his sister—huddled together. They raised their heads as we approached.

The woman instantly paled, pulling the boy in closer. Then her expression shuttered as if she caught herself, and she spoke. "Good afternoon," she muttered, her voice shaking slightly.

There was nothing good about the afternoon. But I nodded in acknowledgment of her greeting.

The boy blinked up at me seemingly unaffected by my presence. "Hello," he greeted as I sat with Kael doing the same beside him.

"Hello," I returned.

"You look like that bad Alpha on the television," he remarked, the woman gasping and slamming her hand on his mouth.

I smiled, knowing well that there was no bad ruler who didn't use propaganda. And he was not wrong. What felt like a lifetime ago, I wanted the entire population decimated.

I had changed. That was what I wanted to believe. Thanks to Eve.

Longing stirred anew, the dull ache in my chest sharpening. "Maybe we look alike," I offered.

Then my eyes met the woman's. "State your name, your real full name." The words were a threat wrapped in something softer.

She braced her shoulders, swallowing thickly. "My full name is Theadosia Weiss, Thea for short."

Both Kael and I stiffened where we sat as the name went off like a grenade. The surname was familiar to me, it was one I would never forget.

Kael glanced at me like he knew what I was thinking. Weiss was somehow not that rare but still, could it all be a coincidence?

Colonel Victor Weiss had been one of the most ruthless in the last war that I had ever coordinated with Leon when he was still alive. He had gained a reputation amongst our Gammas for his strategy and the masterful art of surprise as a military tool.

But that was until he simply disappeared soon after the stalemate between our packs two years before Leon died. He seemed to just vanish, never to be seen again on the field.

Thea's face was suspicious too as she assessed us. "Yes, Colonel Victor Weiss was my father."

We both blinked, but I found my tongue quickly. "But the man in the picture you showed us looks nothing like him."

"The wars changed him, twisted him until he couldn't recognize himself anymore," she blurted, her voice hard like we had offended her. "He wanted to come home to us, but..." Her lips trembled but she bit them. Hard enough for her face to darken. "I will give you the full story."

"We are all ears."

"Soon after Micah was born, my parents were forced to conscript or they would face consequences. They both left home and served the three years together and survived. It should have ended that way until my mother's battalion was in trouble and my father shared a strategy that turned the tides in our favor."

He might as well have painted himself neon green. "That put him in the sights of the higher-ups."

She nodded, clenching her hands until her knuckles turned white. "Lily was sixteen and they promised him she would be exempted from military service if he served as Lieutenant Colonel and with his good OER, he was soon promoted to Colonel."

I could attest that his Officer Evaluation Report would be impeccable. He was one of the best military officers in Darius's Gamma regiment. "He would keep rising in the ranks but he didn't want that."

"Yes, but it was impossible by then." Her face turned grave. "He was invited by Alpha Darius himself."