The Lost Werewolf King's Mate

ONE DAY BEFORE THE WEREWOLF QUEEN'S HEAT REACHES ITS PEAK

"He's not alone!", Mike roared at me through our mindlink.

Phoenix had ripped out of me violently and without any warning whatsoever. The entire car was wrecked and had Mike not been a werewolf, he would have suffered fatal injuries from the wreck she caused.

She and I were flying as high and as fast as we could. Mike and I were not strong enough to take on Raphael and whoever he was with. I didn't need Phoenix to tell me that. I could feel my whole body screaming for me to run.

Mike had somehow managed to climb up my body mid-air and was now on my back while we flew. We managed to get away and we were certainly too far for Raphael to have followed us. At least that's what we thought.

A painful roar ripped out of me when I felt large cold chains wrapping around both of my claws, my wings, my chest and my neck. Whatever this chain was, it was nothing like any other chain. It felt like poison was piercing into every part of my body that the chain touched, and while I could see that it was a huge black chain, it dug into my skin and feathers like a sharp and thin thread. Blood was gushing out of me while I tried to get myself untied.

Mike tried to get the chain off me while I tried to remain in the air, but it seemed to have the same effect on him. Everytime he touched it, he roared from pain and the chain ripped through his skin, but he still continued to try and get it off.

Within minutes, Phoenix and I started tumbling to the ground like a burning star.

"Mike!", I roared at him through our link. "You need to jump off or else you won't survive the fall."

He didn't listen to me and just kept trying to get the chain off. I thought I was going to have to watch him die, but at the last minute, he jumped off my back and shifted into Desert.

My fall resulted in a thunderous noise that shook the ground. The ground beneath me was now a gaping sunken hole with large cracks resulting from the impact. The trees and plants Phoenix and I landed on were all crushed beneath us.

The person torturing me with the chain loosened it and I was able to lift my head. We had fallen from a great height and Phoenix and I had barely survived the fall. Our bones and wings were shattered and we heard every bone breaking the moment we hit the ground.

Desert dug his k-nines into the chain and tried ripping it off, but even he couldn't get it off.

I watched Raphael and the three people he was with stalking us. All I could do was watch them while I waited for my phoenix form to heal.

Desert stopped yanking on the thick black chain the moment Raphael and the others got too close. He growled and roared at them while he guarded me. I was hoping I would heal faster so that I could help him fight these people. He couldn't take them on alone.

Mike and I could both sense the immense power coming from Raphael and the people he was with. It was only four people, but we knew we weren't strong enough to take them on all by ourselves.

The tall and slender beautiful witch with long blonde hair and shiny blue eyes alone was probably as old and as powerful as Agatha. Although she only looked like an 18 year old, her scent and aura made it very clear that she was ancient and strong. Her scent also smelled quite a lot like Agatha's, which only meant she was Agatha's sister and was probably just as skilled as Agatha when it came to witchcraft.

The girl with dark brown hair and dark brown eyes standing next to the witch was definitely a wolf, but something was off about her. Despite the pain I was in, I kept trying to mindlink her and even tried pushing my aura at her, but she kept escaping it. It was like trying to touch smoke. I tried to get her to bend the knee to me or accept my orders through the link, but nothing worked. I could feel her and her wolf curving around my aura and orders. They were avoiding them seamlessly and bending around them like water would bend around a rock. She didn't seem as powerful as the others, but this ability of hers meant she was unpredictable and it meant I couldn't command her to help us or go call for help.

The man who was standing next to Raphael was the worst of them all. He was just as tall and muscular as Raphael. He also had the same silvery white skin and broad shoulders. However, his skin almost had a constant white light emanating from him and his pitch black eyes and long black hair kept moving in slow waves like they had a life of their own. He was the one holding that damn chain in his hand that sent unbearable pain through every pore in my body. There was too much power emanating from him; even more power than Raphael. I was certain that Mike and I would not be able to take him down. Fighting him and Raphael and the witch would be an impossible task.

"What did I tell you, Gabriel?", Raphael smirked while looking right into my eyes. "Isn't Clara magnificent?"

The man named Gabriel inhaled deeply before he answered Raphael. His pitch black eyes got even darker and he suddenly roared as if something inside of him had been shaken awake.

"She smells divine, brother", he growled. "I might take her for myself." He tugged violently on the black chain and it unwrapped itself from my body like its master had called for it. I watched it slither away from me and take the shape of a nightmarish large black serpent. The serpent slowly slithered up its master's body, but some bizarre thing was happening. It kept getting smaller as it made its way up Gabriel's body until it was so small that it looked like a piece of black string that disappeared into the palm of his shiny white hand.

Phoenix and I even momentarily forgot about the excruciating pain we were in while we witnessed the large black chain morph into a large black serpent and then into what resembled a black piece of string.

It was only once that torturous back chain was removed that my phoenix form started to heal properly.

"I said she's mine, Gabe", Raphael teased the white glowing man.

The man chuckled, but kept his eyes fixated on me. "I jest, Ralphie. As long as Clara does what I need her to do, she's all yours."

Gabriel narrowed his eyes and turned his attention to Desert who was snarling at them and then looked at me, the phoenix that was still healing behind the big brown wolf.

He ignored Desert and acted as if he wasn't even there. "What did you say she goes by in this life?", he asked Raphael.

"Elizabeth", Raphael almost whispered and stretched out my name with an amused smirk.

"Elizabeth", Gabriel repeated it and licked his lips.

Desert looked at me and I could tell he too had no idea what these people were talking about. I wasn't healing fast enough. I don't even think I should have survived that fall. The fact that I was alive and that my healing had even kicked in was a miracle. We needed to get out of here.

"This is only her second life", Raphael cocked his head to look at Gabriel, finally releasing me from his cold stare. "Jeremiah and Orion refused to be reincarnated unless Selene needed them to kill me again."

This time the air around us got colder while he glared at Desert and I like we wronged him when we still had no idea what either of them were talking about.

"Calm down, Ralphie", Gabriel said with a sly smile. "Clara here couldn't be reincarnated without her fated mate. As for Selene...", he slowly turned his head to Raphael, "she's finally going to pay for what she did to you."

Phoenix and I decided we had heard enough. We weren't healed yet. In fact, we would probably need an entire hour to heal even with our fast regenerative capacity. But we didn't have that luxury. We had to act now. If not for ourselves, then at least for Mike. I had to find a way to get him out of here.

As if he sensed what I was thinking, Desert lunged himself at Gabriel and I released my flames while I remained in my phoenix form. The flames stretched out in waves to where Raphael and his little entourage were standing. The fire was strong and vicious despite my weakened state. It would at the very least kill the witch and the wolf. At least that's what I hoped for. They were our weakest opponents out of the quartet and hadn't made any attempt to hurt us.

A thick black smoke instantly covered the air as soon as I released my flames. It startled Phoenix and I. The smoke blinded us. We tried repeatedly to engulf our eyes in flames so that we could see, but nothing we did protected our sight from the smoke. We couldn't see and since our vision was compromised, we couldn't risk burning Mike.

I killed every single flame I had dared to unleash on our opponents.

"Mike!", I shouted for him through our link. "Mike! Are you okay?"

I got no answer from him.

"Mike!", I shouted again, but still got no answer.

The black smoke evaporated just as quickly as it had appeared. The scene infront of me sent Phoenix and I into a spiral of pure rage and fury.

None of my flames had burned them. They were all standing there looking amused as if I hadn't just ignored the harrowing pain I was in and unleashed hellfire on them. It didn't take long for me to notice the girl who I was sure of is a wolf with a manic smile on her face. My heart dropped to the floor when I saw her holding two long silver blades that were pierced into Desert.

"I bet you wouldn't expect that from Keyon, would you?", the girl taunted.

It was my turn now to rip out of Phoenix and hold that girl's neck in my hand. Phoenix's claws eagerly forced themselves out of my fingers and pierced through the skin of her neck, the muscles and bones as if it were butter. No wolf could survive that injury. She'd be dead in a matter of seconds.

It was only when the scent of her blood escaped into the cold air that I noticed the unmistakable similarity. She was Keyon's sister.

I ran back to Desert while the girl bled out. I didn't care if she died. No one hurts Mike and gets away with it. I wouldn't let her get away with this and I was most certain that Keyon would agree with me.

Desert slowly started shifting back into his human form. Mike was bleeding. He bleeding so much and his healing wasn't kicking in. Both his shoulders were impaled. I was thankful that he hadn't been stabbed in the chest, but I knew those silver blades were fatal to him. And yet I couldn't pull them out because he would bleed even more and most certainly die.

Phoenix and I could still save him. We were far from the Gryphon kingdom, but even further away from the Werewolf kingdom. We could grab his body and get him to Killian. We were still healing, but we could at least still do that.

Right in the middle of my shift, someone wrapped that hell forsaken chain around me again. My phoenix form retreated inside my human body while I fell to the ground as excruciating pain pumped into me each passing second.

I watched Gabriel walk to the bleeding girl and heal her right infront of my eyes.

I roared at them until my throat felt bloody and raw.

"This is Asha", he said in a sweet and calming voice. "She's the reason you all know of Raphael, but know nothing of me, his brother."

"I'm going to kill every single one of you", I roared while thrashing in Mike's pool of blood.

Gabriel licked his lips. "I don't think so, Elizabeth", he narrowed his eyes at me. "For as long as you are unmarked and unmated by your fated mate, Ralphie and I will remain untouchable."

Phoenix and I were burning with rage. We were going to make them pay for taking Mike and Desert away from us.

Phoenix was thrashing and clawing inside my mind from the pain caused by the chain and the most unbearable pain of all - losing Mike. She roared and thrashed in my head until she tore open a connection that never existed before. The connection burned our insides, but we refused to let it go.

"Killian", I cried through the mindlink.

"Star fire!", he roared with shock.

"Help me." The mindlink was cut off before either of us could utter another word.

The flames I had come to rely on and seek comfort in all disappeared into a cold darkness. There was one tiny flicker left. That small and delicate flame refused to die. It was Phoenix. What she allowed us to do was so unnatural and so impossible that it almost killed her. But she wouldn't die. I wouldn't let her die.

"Still so fierce and temperamental, I see", one of the brothers said jokingly.

The chain was still wrapped around me. I was in so much pain that I even considered dying for a second. I couldn't move. My body wanted to fight this chain and get it it off me, but I couldn't move. I had no strength left. All of it had gone into calling for help. Would he come? Would he perhaps think he was hallucinating? Would he come to the aid of a woman who has constantly rejected him and broken his heart?

"Ralphie, tell your witch to cloack her", a voice said in what seemed to be the far distance."No woman needs to be this stubborn. She needs punishing."

I heard multiple footsteps getting closer to me. I felt someone whisper strange words into my ear.

"She'll be as good as a ghost", a woman's voice boasted. I assumed it was the witch.

I used the last of my strength to look at Mike. There was too much blood. Would he make it?

I felt two people put ice cold hands on my back. I had no fight left in me. No fight left to help Mike.

"I'm going to kill you", I said in what was almost a whisper before little ice particles started forming around me.