KALIA
"Run away Kalia, get out of here now!" I heard an unfamiliar voice call out to me from the fire that had gone up in heavy flames with smoke everywhere.
I held onto my teddy bear a little tighter as I tried to decipher who it was and why she was telling me to run.
"Go out and find help! I’m right behind you." She yelled at me continuously and I obliged.
Just then, I heard a tiny crack on the ceiling followed by a long trail of broken sounds as though something was about to drop, something heavy.
Slowly, as if magneted to do so, I raised up my head to the ceiling to see what was going on.
"Kalia!" The voice came again and just before the wood on the ceiling fell on me, someone quickly pushed me out of the way.
I hit my head forcefully on the nearest wall before plummeting to the bare ground as blood tricked down the side of my face.
The ceiling came crashing down in a split second and with tears in my blurry eyes, I watched it all go up in flames.
A tall figure dressed in all black from head to toe approached me from the fire but my eyes were too blurry to make out anything or who it was.
"M-Mommy?" I called out and slowly tried to reach out to the person with shaky and trembling hands.
"W-Who is t-there? H-elp me please!" I whispered in a small voice.
The person crouched down next to me, murmuring softly. "Die Kalia. Don’t even try to make it out of here alive."
"You and your mother should just die and if by any chance you ever survive this, I’ll keep coming back to kill you until you eventually wind up dead, I promise!" She said with an air of finality.
With that being said, she stood up from her feet and walked away. She was a woman and that’s all I could make out from her voice before she disappeared into the flames.
The smoke from the flames enveloped me and before I knew it, I gave into the darkness.
"No!" I shook my head from side to side. "Come back! Don’t leave me here to die! Please come back." I cried out desperately, shaking, hyperventilating in pain and fright.
"Kalia!" I heard a voice from my subconscious.
"Get up Kalia! Get up now. Kalia!" The voice came again and again and without warning, I snapped my eyes forcefully.
I was sweating profusely and my bed the bed was soaked as though it was thrown into a river.
"Help me!" I wailed, tears falling down my eyes like twin rivers. I felt strong hands pull me towards themselves in a deep embrace.
"Hey, it’s okay." He whispered soothingly. "Calm down Kalia. Take a deep breath. It’s just a dream. You’re awake now."
"Darren?" I called out in a tiny voice as I wrapped my hands around his neck tightly as if my life depended on it.
"Yes Kalia. It’s me and you have nothing to be afraid of." He consoled me.
"Thank you for waking up and coming back to me. Thank you for not dying on me Kalia, thank you." He whispered softly while I tried to process what he meant by that statement.
Was I supposed to die? Was he expecting me to die? And if he did then why?
Fluttering my eyes close, I sniffed in his cologne and his musky scent hit my nostrils.
That was weird and utterly strange. I never knew that his scent was so intoxicating—so compelling. Wait! What’s going on right now. What’s happening to me?
I pushed myself away from his strong hold as I stared at him confused.
"W-Why is you your scent so strong today? W-What happened to you?" I asked with an inquisitive face.
"What do you mean?" He answered my question with another question.
"You smell different and it’s messing up with my insides." I voiced out the words without thinking about it or giving it a second thought.
"Why am I picking up your scent? I’m not supposed to. What is happening to me?" I muttered the last statement to myself.
Ever since I met Darren and moved in with him, I wasn’t able to pick up the scent of his wolf and that was because I didn’t have my wolf.
I am a wolfless Omega but today, for the first time in ages, I could smell his pheromones and somehow, it made me feel different, it made me feel a certain kind of way that I couldn’t understand. A certain kind of way that I had never felt before.
"Kalia I—" He reached out to hold me but I shifted back. I winced at my reaction when I felt the burning sensation of something painful on my neck.
Placing my hands on my neck, I trailed my fingers over the spot and that’s when the memories of last night came back rushing and flooding through my head like a tidal wave.
I forced myself out of bed and slowly approached the full length mirror in the bedroom. I stood in front of it to see mine and Darren’s reflection as well as the bite mark on my neck.
"He bit me." I mumbled to myself. "Y-You bit me? You marked me?" I turned to face him but he couldn’t bring himself to look me in the eye.
"Now I remember everything..." I trailed off expecting him to at least say something to defend himself but he didn’t. He couldn’t.
Yesterday he had marked me and I went unconscious. Was that the reason why he was thanking me for not dying? Was that the reason why he was being this way?
"How could you?" I asked, fresh tears spilling from my eyes. "Why would you do something like this to me Darren? I trusted you?"
"Kalia, I can explain."
"Explain?" I flared up in anger. "Explain what exactly? That you didn’t have any other choice and decided to mark me without my permission?" I questioned fiercely. My eyes shining saucers.
"Kalia—"
"It was supposed to be a contract marriage between us Darren." I cut him short.
"We were only supposed to get married as a means of getting back at my family and your stepbrother. It wasn’t supposed to be the real deal so why would you mark me?"
"You have to believe me that I never wanted to. It was never my intention to do this to you but it was a spur of the moment and I couldn’t control myself."
I scoffed with tears falling down my eyes in droplets. "So what? You just go around marking people because you couldn’t control yourself? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?"
He went silent and I could see the pain that reflected in his eyes as he stared right back at me.
I could tell that he wanted to say something to me but why couldn’t he? Why was he in pain when I’m the one who was marked against her will?
"I never meant to do it, you have to believe me." He went on. "I went out of control and I just followed my wolf’s basic instincts at that time. You just happened to be another victim of my mistake and I’m truly sorry for my actions. If there’s any way that i can make it up to you then—"
"Another victim?" I asked in disbelief as he stared at me gobsmacked as if he had just said something that he wasn’t supposed to say. My ears couldn’t believe what I just heard.
"So there are more and I’m just one of them? What happened to the other victims? What are you not telling me? What is going on?"
He shook his head negatively. His eyes going sad as though he didn’t want to remember. As though he was forcing himself to forget everything.
"Forget about it Kalia. I just want you to know that I’m sorry and that I never meant for anything of this to happen." He said to me and before I could ask another question, he briskly walked out the door and slammed it shut.
The minute he left, plopped to the ground and wept. He didn’t even give me an explanation. If anything, I think I deserved that much.
He was the one who marked me and not the other way round. I never asked for anything of this. My plan was to get back at my family but now, this ruins and complicates everything.
Him marking me means that I will be forced to get married to him. It means that he has claimed me.
It means that he had chosen me as a wife and that he had officially performed the first marriage rites. He would’ve chosen another way to talk and convince his parents instead of doing this to me.
I didn’t want to get married again. Not after what Callum had done to me before. I only wanted to change my fate and ruined the lives of the people that hurt me so why is all of this happening?
I had trusted Darren with my entire life so why would he do this to me? Why would he ruin this life for me in this manner?
Maybe doing all of this from the start was a very bad idea. I shouldn’t have taken this path.
"You have betrayed me today by doing this Darren and I will never forgive you for this." I whispered to myself as the pain took over my body, releasing tremors after tremors for the second time.