*Arealla*"Whether it's trustworthy, I can't answer to that," she said, shaking her head. "I have no idea as to the truthfulness of the source. But how I know, that question I can answer. I know that you're from the Diamante Pack, because the Alpha and Luna are at our door, claiming that you're their long lost daughter."I stared at Liana. How could that be true? But before I could ask her anything further, she turned to Marcus."They've requested passage as the rules denote," she told him. "Shall I see that everything is arranged?"Marcus looked at her for a moment, and then nodded tersely.I had no idea what that meant. I had no idea what the rules of passage were, but now was not the time for me to object to anything. And now was definitely not the time for me to demand answers.I needed to speak to these wolves that were claiming to be my parents.Both of them wolves. And an Alpha and Luna pair, too. There was no way that I would ever have imagined that. But then agai
*Arealla*I nodded as I spoke. No one hauled a baby blanket around to put on a kidnapped baby, and anyone who would kidnap a baby would just grab the baby with its blanket. If I was found with a blanket around me, there shouldn't be a blanket left in the crib.Nothing these people were saying was making any kind of sense."The only thing that makes any kind of rationale in their defence in all of this," I said, continuing my point. "Is that it just makes no sense for them to be lying.""Not entirely," Ben interjected. "We don't know their motive yet. And as long as we don't know that, then we can't say that they have no reason to lie."I hadn't thought of it like that just yet."We need to go back to them," Marcus said, pushing himself up from the seat that he was in."What are you going to tell them?" Ben asked his Alpha.Marcus pursed his lips."We won't accept that Arealla is from them," he said simply. "They have provided no evidence. But besides that, I think tha
*Arealla*"And if it is not honored," Tessa growled. "Then I will take my daughter back. I will drag her back to the pack by her fur if I have to."I wanted to snarl at the man and woman that had just given us that ultimatum. But my thoughts surprised me a little. Us. I thought of myself as part of this pack now. In the moment, it felt like it had just come out.But the more that I thought about it, the truer it felt. I was part of this pack. Like Liana was. Like Ben was. Like Marcus was.It was the wolves of this pack that had protected me, that had brought me back here. Back home. It was wolves of this pack that were helping me to discover where I came from. But there was no doubt that now, I was part of them.And I didn't take too kindly to being told that I was going to be removed from them.And there was no way that I was going to accept that I could be bought."How dare you," I stared at the man and woman.I expected Marcus to stop me. But I wouldn't have let him.
*Arealla*I stared in shock at the little boy that had just climbed out of the very small hole in the floor."As you can see, I'm not in any danger at all," the boy said, coming inside the room properly. "Oh, and they just lied to you."He squeezed his little body through the hole in the wall, and then with a little further effort, pushed himself out of it.I had never seen him before. But I was kind of glad that I hadn't. If I hadn't known who he was, before seeing him, I would have said that he was Marcus' son. He was an almost exact likeness to him, down to the brown hair, down to the amber eyes.I almost expected his eyes to glow red in a moment."Jake!" Marcus exclaimed, running to his nephew, he scooped him up in his arms.And if I had seen him behave with Jake like this, I would have said that he was his son.For a moment, I got a flash of what the future could be. If Marcus and I ever had any children of our own. If the mate bond ever became more than just the p
*Arealla*I remained in place as Marcus ordered his guards to have Gregor and Tessa brought back in. I wondered what they thought was going to happen.We waited the full three hours out. We didn't want them to think that we had given in so quickly. And we also didn't want them to think that we had reached some kind of easy resolution.It had just been better to make sure that we just stayed the entire wait time out, and then we called them back.It also gave Ben a good amount of time to make headway with his plan. They also probably wouldn't notice that he was gone. After a three hour debate, the rational thing to conclude would be that someone needed to see something being done around the pack.But we weren't going to give them that long to notice his absence in any case.The truth was that we needed to keep them talking for as long as we could. And to get as much information out of them as we could. That was going to be a little difficult. They had already tried to cut to
*Arealla*"That pack is our sworn enemy," Marcus said with a sigh, wiping a hand over his face. "It might actually have been better for you to just have been a human."I stared at Marcus for a moment before I spoke. There was something so wrong with his words. It didn't match up with what he had told me earlier.I understood the reticence he had against the Diamante Pack."I don't understand," I told Marcus. "They weren't on your map. They weren't counted as an enemy pack. I don't even remember their territory."But as I said it, I thought back to the huge piece of land that had been unmarked on the map. Marcus had given no name and no explanation for it. Could that have been the Crystal Mist Pack?"We don't classify them really as an enemy," Marcus went on to explain. "Because we don't recognize their autonomy."I frowned."How long have they been declaring themselves independent?" I asked."A hundred years," Marcus shrugged. "Give or take."I stared at him in shoc
*Arealla*I hated that he had reduced me to this. I hated that this was what I had become. But here I was, crying on my bed. Brought to tears because of a boy.Well, a man. A wolf. I wasn't entirely sure. And that was what stung the most of all of this.He was supposed to be my mate. It had been one thing when the weakness from the mate bond came because of me. It was one thing when I was the reason that we weren't connected. But I had an excuse.I had been raised human, completely unaware of the wolf world. I had thought that was what I was. I had never had any reason to think otherwise. And then, when my wolf had come to me, every part of being a wolf had come slowly. It had been hard and difficult to draw each part of the wolf out of me.I had never once thought that I would be able to get to the point where I could communicate through the mate bond, like every other mated wolf could. I had never even thought that I would be able to consolidate the bond.And then, I had
*Arealla*"I lost a mate," he answered simply. "I was hurt that you weren't mine. That you weren't my mate. Because I did truly love you."I almost called him a liar. But then I thought back to what Liana had told me a while ago. She had been speaking about Marcus at the time, telling me how rare a true mate bond was. And how I should value it, how Marcus was trying to be grateful for a gift that he was given, that was behaving more like a curse.She had been trying to make me see Marcus' predicament. And I had. I had well and truly seen the position that Marcus was in, and the position that I had put him in.But now that I thought about it, her words were just as applicable to Jason. He had no assurances that he was ever going to get a true mate, a bonding blessed by the Moon Goddess. He could very well have decided, like so many other wolves, that he was going to choose one for himself, so that he didn't have to spend his life alone.And then that had been taken from him
*Arealla*The month passed slowly. But it did pass.The time without Marcus had been nothing less than torture. And what was worse was that it was by my own hand and his decision. But while it made it worse, it was also the only thing that kept me sane. We could go back to each other at any time we wished.I could go back to the Dark Moon. Or he could come here. Well, he probably couldn't come here. They would very likely kill him for setting foot on our land. But there was a great chance that he could just come to the edge of the border and someone would come and tell us that he was there.I trusted that they wouldn't just kill my mate at the border.Though, I had to prepare myself in case it happened. I would go insane, I knew that much. From the countless times Marcus had tried to make me understand everything, back when we thought that I was just a mere human.I would go insane. But I wouldn't allow myself to hurt anyone. Other than the ones that hurt him. And then it w
*Arealla*I stared at him as he spoke. I had never once seen his expression so open, it was like I was staring at his heart."I want nothing more than to just keep you here with me," Marcus said again. "I want to keep you safe so that nothing happens to you, so that you are never in need of any of them healing you. I want to give you everything that I have to offer. I want to keep you a part of this pack."Marcus spoke easily, and I could hear the truth of his words."But that would not make either of us happy," he said again, shaking his head. "We would come to regret what we had done. I am Alpha, and you are Luna. Our pack needs us. Both of our packs. They are fractured into two pieces, but they are one. And we have the chance now to fix it, to make it whole again. And if we turn away from this now, then we will blame ourselves and each other for the rest of our lives."I knew that he was speaking the truth, it was just that it was too hard to have to accept right now. Marc
*Arealla*"What is the third option?" I asked Marcus.Because I knew him. I knew that there had to be something that made sense. There was no way that Marcus was going to put impossible choices in front of me. And definitely not ones where I just died either way.Marcus took a deep breath. And I knew that I wasn't going to like what he had to say."Go back with them," Marcus started to say."Marcus!" I threw my hands up in the air as I spun away from him. "What part of that makes sense?"It was the same thing as option number two. And it meant that we would both just be in excruciating pain. It meant that we would just suffer.Not to mention, it was the exact thing that I just didn't want to do. I didn't want to go back with them, I didn't want to go back to the Crystal Mist. And who would?If I went back with them, it meant that I would have to go back to the people that had just thrown me away. And I would have to forsake the ones that had taken me in. And that just w
*Arealla*I turned to Marcus. I would give him the few minutes that he asked for, but there was nothing that he could say that would make me change my mind.These wolves had thrown me away. They had so many options, so many choices before them. And they had chosen to just give me away to a random human.They could have given me to Marcus' parents. They could have at least tried to get my wolf back. But they didn't. They wouldn't. They would rather have made their daughter an orphan, surrender her to the humans, than do anything that might seem like it was giving in to their enemy.Not even for their daughter's life.There was nothing that Marcus could say that would make me overlook that. I would move the earth for him. But I wouldn't go back to them. Not after the Moon Goddess had guided me to him, and brought me back to the Dark Moon despite all of Vanessa and Thibault's efforts to separate me from him and the pack.I would tell Marcus all of that, and I would say it befo
*Arealla*My mother's story was sad, and I truly felt for her. But it wasn't everything. She was keeping some things back, and I wasn't ready to let that happen. I had been waiting for so long to hear the truth of everything, I wasn't about to accept any half-hearted truths right now."Okay," I told her while still sitting on the bed beneath the moon. "But how did I end up with Lucille?"I didn't share any exact details about anything Lucille had told me about my origin. I wanted to see if the stories matched, and I didn't want to give Vanessa anything that she would be able to use to fill in any of the blanks."That part of the story is still a ways off," Vanessa answered, and I could tell that part of what she was telling was absolutely the truth. "And there is so much to tell before that."And then she turned away from me, looking into the distance of the horizon, where the dark earth met the black sky.Vanessa didn't speak immediately again, but none of us pushed her. W
*Arealla*The world was jarring, after being in the Moon Sleep for so long. The Goddess had come to me again. This time, she had stayed so very long. She wouldn't say if I would survive or not, and I don't think it was because she hadn't known. I think it was because she had wanted to give me the chance to see for myself.But she had answered more than a few of my questions. Especially those about myself, and where I came from.I should have gone to the Moon that much sooner.But now she was gone, and I was staring up at the woman that was my mother.I pushed myself into a sitting position, with Marcus cautiously helping me. But I didn't need the help. I knew that I had been dying, that I had been weaker. But everything was different now. I could feel my mother's blood coursing through my veins. It was like liquid gold, healing and spinning everything into place.Once I was sitting, I regarded my mother. She looked so much like me. We had the same eyes, the same lips, the s
*Marcus*"Follow me," I told her. There was no need for any further arguments or discussions, and there was no time.I had no idea how long it would be before Arealla would succumb to her wounds. So we moved quickly to the room that she was being kept in.I entered first and turned to watch as Vanessa came into the room. I wanted to see what her reaction would be, and I wondered if I would be able to gauge any new knowledge from that.But even as Vanessa entered the room and went straight to Arealla's side, nothing in her face changed. And I learned nothing new.The woman regarded Arealla silently for a moment before speaking."It's poison," Vanessa said, looking down at her daughter. "Someone has poisoned her, I'm not sure that I could say what the poison even is, but it looks painful. She will die from it if she isn't given the antidote."I pursed my lips. That was something that every single wolf knew. That was what I had delivered in the message. The woman had been st
*Marcus*The woman still kept her hood covering her face. Her cloak was dark green and heavy, the kind that would be good enough to sleep on, the kind that would protect the wearer through everything.It was little more than an accessory, given that we were wolves, and impervious to all of those things either way.She didn't want to show her face.I had seen her before, but years ago, when I had still been a child. And I didn't remember her, but even if I had, I doubted that it would help in any way. She had probably changed since then. We all had.She spoke very little, and even when she spoke, she acknowledged nothing and gave nothing away."I have not summoned you," I told her simply, denying her words and the implied meaning. "I sent a request to every Alpha and Luna from every pack. And with that request, there was a condition. The same condition that is attached for breaking treaty, for entering pack lands unwarranted. A simple request and simple condition, in our wor
*Marcus*The notice was prepared almost immediately, with Ben overseeing its creation. But sending it out was proving to be more difficult than its writing. It wasn't such a simple matter of just dispatching the letter.Our pack lands had borders, and between the borders were no man's lands, places where no pack laid claim to and no wolf lived in. It was the safest way for the packs to exist since it limited fighting between the packs. It was the way that we had done it always, and it had always protected us.But it also made communication harder. Almost impossible.And some packs were worse than others.But we still tried. I would try every possible avenue to save my mate.We took heralds to the borders of every pack territory that we could reach. Thankfully, we didn't have to cross into any pack's territory to reach any other pack, that would have been a nightmare in and of itself, and I had no solution to that. It wasn't something that we had to encounter. The Dark Road