Chapter 11. Angel of Death
I tried to open my eyes but they were so heavy. As heavy as my chest felt, as it heaved attempting to, simply, get air into my lungs; just breathing each breath was accompanied by a piercing, stabbing, pain in my side and back
My body was too heavy to move. I had been certain that I had heard footsteps, and then heard talking. It was a bell-like voice which I had heard. I was so sure I heard it.
Once something began shaking my shoulder lightly, with all the strength which remained in my body I willed my eyes to open.
They had truly felt, like lifting concrete shutters. My body was fighting against all of my movments.
The scent of blood whafted strongly all around... it was my blood. Unmistakeably.
I was aware of just how injured I was. How much Lorcan had layed into me with each claw and each of his bites. I was at death's door and I accepted it.
While my eyes were open, I couldn't see anything clearly. My vision was badly clouded and I could only make out the difference between vague shapes, light and shadow. My eyes rolled and I coughed, and a metallic copper taste poured into my mouth. As I spluttered up blood, my eyes rolled even more violently in their sockets.
I was just to injured... to close to deaths door that I wasn't able to control any of my movements. No matter how much I wrestled for control.
Squeezing my eyes shut again, I continued to splutter up more blood with each cough. I was as dead as any werewolf could be.
That I had been an Alpha, in this condition was laughable or pitiful. Depending on who was watching me right now. I prayed that they were going to put me out of my misery and give me a swift end.
Opening my mouth to ask them to end it, I just coughed up more blood. A weeze was drowned with a gurgle of blood. Nothing audiable came out. What Alpha would want their end in such a way as this? With any luck, it would be a bear or couger that had found me. I wasn't dead so I'd still be a sufficiant meal for them. They wouldn't turn their nose up.
Willing my eyes open again, one last time... I wanted to see who, or hopefully what.. was going to give me my ending. Blood now added a red and pink hue to my vision.
What I could make out was the fiigure of a woman. My eyes still could not focus but I could tell that she was a she by the shape of her sihlloette. Draped head to toe in a swathe of darkness. Except a pale face with eyes the light colour of the sky. They were fuzzy and I cound't, for all the life remaining in me, steady myself enough to look at her propertly. She was made up of fuzzy blobs. There were large shadow shapes behind her... wings? I thought to myself.
At this point and time I had forgot all about the existance of harpy... they rarely came into contact with werewolves anyway. What would one solo harpy be doing all the way out here? No, it wouldn't make any sense.
This had to be a figmant of death. Was the girm reaper truly a woman all along? All the depictions of death portrayed a skeleton like figure cloaked in a black shrowed. This figure was cloaked in darkness with a pale face... but a definet female figure by the way the shadows clung to her. Did she have a face at all? I couldn't tell. Everything was fuzzy blobs of colour still.
I came to accept that this likely was the reaper... and accepted that the reaper was a woman.
The wings didn't seem to be fully unfurled. Their steps were light and the drum of my own pulse in my ear drowned out anything else. The footsteps of this thing was very light. Then, what else would... what else should one expect from a reaper?
The reaper has come to take my soul. I was okay with it. I was going to die... it wasn't a great death for an Alpha, never mind a death for an Alpha of the Crimson Blood-Hounds. Really, it was pathetic. I Nikolas was going to have my soul whisked away... I wonder what it was going to feel like? When my soul left my body.
This is Nikolas' first encounter with Sephora. He thinks he truly is dead and that Sephora is an Angel of Death come to take his soul away. He was delarias from the severities of the injuries inflicted on him by his Beta's surpise attack.
As Sephora takes him into her arms and carries him into the skies... he, at that point is convinced he is dead. He stayed concious until the point he had been in the air for a few minutes.
He then passed out on flying route back to the Raven Kingdom, & the royal castle. Fully accepting that he was dead.