Chapter 280: Vulnerability

Zagan gave a high-pitched whistle to his lycans who were already departing the immediate area, indicating to them where to gather next.

The Alpha and the male trailing him were still following the Luna's scent, which would cause them some confusion for awhile when they were unable to continue tracking her. That would buy Zagan's crew enough time to find her and depart without further incident. There were already too many casualties tonight for his taste.

The young guard the Luna had referred to as Finn was one unfortunate casualty. But he had walked into a nest of other lycans disguising their scent, so it was unavoidable. Zagan had to swoop in and quietly slice his throat, catching the poor male's head before it hit the ground in order to avoid any unnecessary noise.

If his team had carried out that execution, it would have involved snarls and growls and males turning into wolves—all kinds of chaotic noise that would have drawn attention and made a mess. This way, the death also mimicked the guards in the dungeon. It was a pattern that could be conveniently explained away. It was the lore of Samhain. Or it was the curse of an alyko Luna. The pack would think of something to fit the circumstances.

Finn's behavior was admirable. A small part of Zagan that he would rather ignore pricked with warmth at the still unbeating organ in his chest. It was a side effect of drinking blood that he hated. It brought these tendencies toward emotion that he couldn't entirely control, and when he caught that male's head in his arms, the shock and disappointment at having failed at his task to protect the Luna he was guarding still evident in the lycan's glossy eyes, a part of Zagan ached for him.

"You were brave. You did not fail young one. I cannot be stopped," he whispered words of assurance that sounded alien to his own ears, but that was because they were propelled by Zosime's blood. Zosime's emotions. He had to accept the tradeoff of using her strength while gaining her sentimental vulnerability.

Zosime. He sighed again, feeling the cold wintery breath escape his lungs. Zosime was another matter he was going to have to figure out, but he was pleased to have her back. Perhaps that was simply because he was feeling nostalgic and now… emotional as well. But she didn't deserve to be mauled by Andreas like that. She was exquisite. He had put a lot of work into her, and it wasn't something he did often.

Zosime was the closest he had come to attaining one of his own kind from a turned alyko. It wasn't something he even tried anymore, but she had so little ability at the time that it was either try to create something useful from her or exterminate her. And for some reason he couldn't kill her.

Who knows what blood he had been feasting on at the time to sway him like that, but it ended up being beneficial. She was nearly emotionless. She was highly intelligent and analytical. She required no sleep and couldn't be injured through normal means, much like him. But the fact that she was not fully vampiric meant there was one weakness she needed to be given that he did not share: she must have an avenue of death.

What was so brilliant was that Zagan was able to engineer it for her, and in this case too, he had been swayed by some underlying alien emotions that he couldn't fully understand. It was almost what he would imagine might be… paternal.

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In any case, he made it so that Zosime would be allowed to reenter her previous alyko mindset and vulnerable physical being when someone attempted to seek that physicality from her—when someone sought to pierce through her cold, robotic exterior to touch the trapped alyko inside. But it could only be one specific person, otherwise all the work Zagan had poured into her would be lost quite easily the moment anyone attempted to even harm her in the most innocent of ways.

So he waited to finalize that part of her vampiric-alyko creation until the right person came along who he could program for her. Until that time, she was like a machine, learning and experimenting, gathering as much knowledge as she could about the fascinating world around her. It was a joy to watch her, honestly. When the time finally came when he had to make her forget him, again he… felt something. A kind of sadness, he supposed. Blood be damned.

Andreas had seemed like the right person to offer her to. He and the other two elders had presented Zagan with an enticing deal for all the alyko in their pack that went around the Alpha and Luna's objections. Prior to Andreas' offer, it truly appeared that he was going to have to destroy the whole pack just to get the alyko the Hallowells had at the time, because he couldn't go back on the threat and Derek and Genevieve were not budging. They seemed willing to sacrifice everyone rather than give up only a select few. It was truly madness in Zagan's eyes.

He was practically pulling his hair out at the thought of having to wipe out the whole pack. What a bloody mess that would be, and it wouldn't go unnoticed. He did not anticipate that Derek and Genevieve would refuse. But refuse they did. And he was left planning a mass execution until Andreas came along.

So at the time it seemed that Andreas deserved Zosime. Back then, it was time for Zosime to move on, and she was helpful to the Hallowell pack—able to continue her work in what fascinated her until Andreas could offer her more… a real life. Something Zagan could never have nor give her.

In that time, Zosime was able to arrange a team to set up the the marking and tracking of alyko through the map, discovering more about their genetics… all things Zagan had suggested to Andreas that she would be good at. It was quite the success until he realized that she had not been taken care of the way he had hoped.

When he arrived at the pack today, scouting out what his team was walking into, he noticed her absence. And then when she appeared in one of the windows of the pack house, stitches covering her face, he realized what had happened.

Had Andreas mated with her, she would not have remembered Zagan. Her memories and intelligence would have been the same, but the swell of emotions and the return to her natural physical state would have fixed on the male who she was gifted to. That was how Zagan had arranged it.

Instead, Andreas snatched all of that away from her. Everything she had been given was gone when the singular being who was capable of reaching past the cold, nearly emotionless exterior did so with the sole purpose to harm her.

Zagan's eyes went back to their dull, lifeless grey as he jumped down from his perch to reconvene with his team.. It was better not to be open to the vulnerability of hope or emotions.

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