Chapter 4

Instantly, I got a reply via the link.

‘Lia, are you okay? It took you a while to get to me. Did anyone recognize you? Are you in any problem?’

That was my uncle for you, always so panicky despite being much older than I am. Or should I say generations because I wasn’t even sure of his age. I wouldn’t blame him, though. I was the only one he got and me, him.

I made a slight chuckle through the link, even going as far as laughing out loud unintentionally. No matter how antisocial I was, that didn’t prevent me from getting a good laugh now and then. And my uncle sure did always give me the opportunity to do so. ‘Do you really think anyone’s going to recognize me?  It’s not like they know I actually did survive that incident,’ I told him, suppressing the urge to laugh at him again. Since my mind was working with my physical self, a smile had been plastered on my face already.

‘We can’t be too sure. They might be pretending for all we know. You—’

‘Uncle,’ I interrupt him, ‘don’t worry about me. I’m going to be fine. Besides, I’ve got Anya to protect me if anything goes wrong, so keep your mind at rest,’

My uncle sighs. And I could tell from that sigh that he was greatly concerned for me. I guess that was the main reason I was glad I had him as my uncle. Constantly so worried for me.

‘All the same, I need you to be careful,’ he says. ‘We can’t allow anything to jeopardize this mission, so be sure to keep me updated always. I’m guessing you’ll be back at the packhouse today, is that right?’

I shake my head even though I know he can’t see me do that. ‘I don’t think so. It could be until tomorrow. But I’ll inform you on whatever decision I make,’ I tell him.

‘Okay, Lia. May the moon goddess be with you,’

‘And you too, uncle.’

Soon as the conversation ended, I instantly blocked the mind link again. I had to as it wasn’t time for me to keep it open permanently. I don’t know why I was doing that, though, but I felt like it was the right thing to do since it was the first time I would be here. Once I become a permanent member here, which I believed would happen in the coming days, then I wouldn’t mind doing the needful.

The man I call my uncle... he is Gregory Paul. And he used to be my father’s beta.

I know it’s a little bit of wonder why I’m mentioning someone from my pack when I said the whole pack had been extincted. As it is a surprise for you, so it was for me when I first found out too. However, I’m going to make things clearer.

During the extinction of the Blood Moon pack, which apparently was the name of my pack, there was one other person that had survived besides me. I didn’t mention this before, and I didn’t know over the years that I had grown up in the human territory, but I honestly wasn’t the only one who had survived then. The said person, who now is my uncle, had been fortunate not to be present when the crisis had occurred as he had been on a mission which my father had ordered him to do.

I hadn’t been aware of his existence not until a day after my sixteenth birthday which was two years ago. So for eight whole years, I had believed I was the only one that had survived from my pack.

I had been out in the woods on that very day to try out my new powers as a shifter, mainly because my wolf in my head had urged me to do so. I won’t lie; making your first shift as a wolf was the most harrowing experience one could ever imagine. The unbearable pain one would feel while going through it was something I really couldn’t explain. But I could describe it as the breaking down and repairing of one's bones at the same time if that even made sense to say. I do remember even weeping while the shift had taken place, just to tell how unbearable it had been.

My wolf had been more than happy to come out for the first time. But due to the unbearable feeling I had experienced and my being in pain after the shift, she couldn’t move around just yet. We were basically sharing the same body so as I felt pain, so did she.

Instead of just staying there idle, I had taken time to admire my new form in the mirror laid back on a tree, the one I had brought with me. It was a large mirror, so I was able to see most of the features. My wolf was massively large, having a silver color accompanied with patches of cream on the fur, just like my hair color. Yes, I was a blonde. But call me that, and I would rip your eyes out.

‘You’re beautiful,’ I didn’t even realize when I had blurted those words via the mind link I shared with my wolf. It had instantly sent a glee to my wolf, who pawed on the ground merrily.

His presence that day had come as a shock to me. Due to me acquiring a new form, my senses had become heightened. It had enabled me to perceive even the faintest of smells. So discovering the presence of someone like me in a human territory was something I hadn’t expected. Not in many years. Well, who knows if the said person had been with me all along without me even knowing.

Looking around in my wolf form, I tried to trace the scent at that time to where it was coming from, even though I still couldn’t move from the spot I was in. I discovered that the scent I was tracing was similar to the one emitting from me. Why it was that way, I couldn’t say.

I wasn’t even bothered about the scent being similar to mine. Instead, I was concerned about the possibility of the owner of the scent being on my trail for long now without me knowing. If the person really could mask his presence away from me for so long, then I might be in danger; that was what I believed. I wouldn’t even be able to fend for myself as I still felt weak after just making my first shift.

‘I see you can sense me now.’

I had unexpectedly heard that voice inside of my head. It felt like a link I didn’t know was there all along. And for a moment, I had been shocked. Was that me, I had mentally asked myself. But I had known that wasn’t my voice in my head. For goodness sake, I didn’t sound any masculine as that. However, I chose not to panic. It could have been a spur of the moment. I held on to that, not until I could hear the same voice in my head again.

‘You can sense me, so I am real..’

‘Anya, do you hear that too?’ I had asked my wolf, who seemed confused as I was. And yes, Anya was the name given to my wolf. Or she had actually called herself, whatever the name implies. But imagine the surprise I had when I realized this morning that we shared the same initials.

‘Yes, I can. It seems someone is making a mind link with you,’ my wolf noted.

Yeah, I guessed that already. But the big question was who it could be?’

I didn’t even know I had a mind link all along with anyone, so it was still strange to me. Maybe not acquiring my new form before was what led me to be unaware of the link.

My little knowledge about the mind link made me know it was something the wolf packs made use of to enable them to communicate faster with each other. And I do know it could only be used among members of a specific pack alone, so this got me wondering about who was able to use the link with me when I am no longer with any pack. My whole pack was dead for crying out loud.

‘Who are you? Show yourself!’ I had made use of the link to talk back to whoever had been communicating with me. I needed to know just who it was as the unknown person was giving me the creeps. At the same time, Anya had growled as she was getting irritated too.

And when he finally showed himself to me, I realized he looked familiar. He was a middle-aged-looking man with this somewhat authoritative aura. He had a gentle smile on his face, and with the way he was looking at me, I felt no fear. He opened his mouth to speak, and the words he had said that day were the eyeopener to who he was.

“I have been waiting for this day, Adaliah. It is time for you to take back that which was taken from you,”

That day, which was exactly two years ago, he took me under him and became my guidance. And I am what I am today because of him.

The use of ‘uncle’ had kind of gotten used to me in the two years I’ve been with him even though he was not my uncle. And just as I have gotten used to calling him uncle, he also got used to calling me Lia, which was coined out of my name: Adaliah.

My mind suddenly drifted to the thought of my mate. His smooth-shaven face filled my mind like a plague. And there was this sudden urge to have him here with me even though he hadn’t been gone for too long.

And as I sat there alone in my thoughts, I knew this mission wasn’t going to be any easy.