Jayden awoke the next morning, rubbed his eyes and then sat up in bed, blinking a few times so his eyes would adjust to the dim light they came in through the windows. The light seemed as though the sun was blocked by dark clouds.It took him some time to remember what had happened the previous night, and even more to remember the woman who had wished him goodnight.“Melissa?” He called out, suddenly remembering her name.There was silence, and after calling out to her two more times, he wrapped his robe more tightly around himself and opened the door to the cabin.A cold gust of wind hit him in the face like a punch, and he stepped back inside for a while, wiping his face on the sleeve of his robe. He shut the door to go back inside when it dawned on him that the back of his robe was heavier than the rest of the cloth, so he reached back and sure enough, there was a hood hanging behind him.He pulled it over his face and it covered every part of it except his eyes, and then he steppe
Even as Jayden sat in his small cabin, he still wished the words never came true. The longer he stayed at Snowfall, the less he believed what Melissa had told him. He had become almost like a true son of Snowfall in three months, and a year later he barely ever thought of Palm Springs City and the life he had lived there.At Snowfall, it felt like the pack was one large family with Alpha Alfred as their father. The big cabin he had seen on the first day turned out to be a meeting point for every wolf in Snowfall, and the place he had introduced himself when he was over the ‘truth’ Melissa told him.Although some of them were sceptical about accepting a banished rogue wolf into their pack, he received sympathy from Alpha Alfred who vouched for his good behaviour.“Hold me responsible if this lad ever goes wrong. Feel free to depose me as your leader.” The old man had said.And as Jayden had found out in time, no one in Snowfall wanted Alpha Alfred away from the position. They all love
Seeing her lie in his cabin that dark evening as the sun set made him want to ask so many questions. A thousand of them, if he could number them accurately. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be dead?’ ‘Where is our child?’ ‘If you are alive, why did you not come back to me?’ “Prepare yourself for anything.” Melissa had cautioned him. “Some things are better not known, and best remain in the graves where they have been hidden and buried, but when you know them, you must face them.” That was the problem. Jayden was afraid to know. He wasn’t so sure if he wanted to know about it anymore. He was beginning to regret finding her and enlisting the wolves to help him bring her. He was starting to wonder why he did not let her die in the cold snow. “She will come around soon, and before then, you must decide. If you will run away from the truth or face it head-on, and deal with the consequences later. And like I have told you before, you must be careful of what you do when you see her.” Melissa wa
It was already four years since that fateful night. A night he had never wanted to end. It was like being with her all over again, before all of the drama he had gone through, before Alisa and her baby, before the contract, before the trial. But the daylight came with the both of them naked in his bed.He suddenly remembered how Melissa looked when she came into the room that morning and looked about the room, seeming to understand what her happened. Her eyes flashed, and she looked at him questioningly, before a sad expression came over her face. Avana lay asleep in another of his robes in the bed and he stood while he answered Melissa’s questions about how his patient had responded.“I told you to be careful what you do when you see her,” Melissa said when he could read her mind. “What have you done?”“I did what I had to,” Jayden answered her with a smirk on his face. “She is mine once again.”The surprise he felt when he saw Melissa’s eyes cloud over with tears had him confused,
Every time she looked at him, she thought about how he had gone from the timid, shy boy who always wanted to play games with her to this powerful man who carried her child and threw him up in the air, before catching him once again and setting him back on the ground.Of course every one was afraid of Elliott Hansen, or, more afraid to cross the thin line that was his patience. As long as that line remained untouched, he was the kindest person anyone would meet. But the moment it was crossed, he went from being a kind person to a wolf out to kill.It was one of the reasons his pack members loved and respected him. He was like the person you heard the worst about before you came close and found that books truly did not have to be judged by their covers, or the covers people had put on them.“I got all the marks in my test today, Daddy.” Elliott Jr. yelled in his little boyish voice that would need the tough hammer of puberty to get bolder. Alisa smiled, her mind drawn to the fact that
“Why doesn’t Dad stay home with you, Mum? All my other classmates and friends have their parents together. You are always having Dad come around. Why?” Elliott Jr. asked that sunny Saturday morning.Alisa was dumbfounded. She was cutting up carrots into small cubes and throwing them into a pot, cooking some meal for the weekend, and the last thing she had expected was her son coming to ask her that question.“He is busy, child.” She swallowed. “He does not have much time for you... Or me.”He truly did not have much time for her. He didn’t even look at her.One thing she knew was many Lunas and even humans desired him. What she was not so sure of was if he was bedding them. The humans, most probably not— Elliott was not the type of man to break his own rule. The Lunas, maybe. She could not be so sure.“Can I ask him to spend the night with us? I am getting tired of your bedtime story. I want to hear them from him.”Alisa’s eyes widened. Telling stories to him just before she put hi. T
Once again, the meat store in Snowfall was empty. The holes of ice that the meat was always put in to preserve it had now gone empty, and the only evidence left was the bloody smears in them. It was time to go on the hunt once again.Alpha Alfred sounded the howl and all the hunting wolves stormed out of the cabins, assembling in the large one that stood right in the middle of Snowfall. Soon, they were all going out, spreading in different directions, sniffing the air for any game for the hunt. Some wolves were in teams, and the rest hunted alone on their own, lone wolves who hunted in solitary. Jayden was alone as he usually was, sniffing, trying to find something. He had been in a bad fit these past few days, ever since Avana had run away from him, and the more he thought about it, the more sour he became. His evil side was growing stronger in his thoughts by the day, and he figured a little hunt would do him some good to distract him even though so far, he had sniffed nothing yet.
They buried Alpha Alfred in a grave of snow on the edge of the mountain on whose top sat Snowfall. All the wolves in the pack had gone to the burial site in their wolf forms, and they all howled once his body had gone in. Jayden had guessed it was a farewell chant because of how sad they sounded and was glad to learn he had guessed right.The day was quiet for Snowfall. No cubs were dashing through the snow as they usually did, and the big cabin was empty. Jayden himself was at home till evening, sitting by the fire and musing on all the betrayals he had lived through. He felt his blood rushing in his veins, his heart desiring revenge.It was all he ever thought of now. Revenge. Vengeance. Evil thoughts grew inside his head, spreading through his body like a virus, insatiable as an itch no matter how hard he scratched.He wanted to have them pay back in their own coin and plead for their lives. Once it would have worried him that his evil side was upsetting the balance and taking over
TWENTY YEARS LATERIt still stunned Alisa that she was called the Mother of Wolves. You killed the one who killed the King, they told her when Jayden Christopher Wells breathed his last. He should have been King for winning the duel, but we had not honoured him yet when you killed him.Now she had three strong sons. Elliott Jr., who was now twenty-seven, Melissa and Elliott’s son Felix, whom she had adopted, and her third child.The one born because Elliott had deposited one last child in her before his death. For some reason, she had named him Jayden. The Jayden before him had had a good heart in his life but had let evil control him.So it was that Elliott’s son with Jayden’s name was the King of the Winter and the Spring in the end.The snow stopped when Jayden died, but it was known to fall from time to time, in its own season. Palm Springs City was no longer an all-spring city, but snow fell in it now.Humans were still oblivious to the wolves around them, even though the number
Alisa was close to jumping out of her skin when the cub wolf ran into her room.Its fur was black with streaks of white, but somehow she had recognised her son and was even more stunned to see him in a wolf form.Only...He ran off into the night and she had no choice but to follow, but not after throwing on a wolf skin cloak gifted to her by Elliott even though she had dreaded the wolf meetings. It did not worry her as much as the safety of her son did, so she followed, at least to keep him safe.But he was a wolf and she was a human, so she lost him and ended up wondering why she had followed him in the first place. She needed more protection than he did.He would have gone to the rock, she guessed, and Elliott would be there too. She had to be there, to see what was happening, so on and on she continued until she got to the rocks and saw even more wolves bigger than any she had ever seen at the Palm Springs meetings gathered at the foot of the rocks, all looking up.Atop the rocks,
Elliott ran towards the rocks after he had morphed into his wolf form, rage coursing through his body and pushing him to run faster.He remembered something Melissa had told him long ago when he went to see her in Snowfall one last time. It was about being king. “The King of the Winter and the Spring.” She had said, but now he was not too sure if she had told him the truth.The howl. Another wolf was here to challenge him.He was more powerful than many wolves, Elliott knew, but he did not know another wolf with a howl so loud. And the snow in the distance too. What signs were these?The rocks loomed high in the distance, and Elliott could see the wolf atop. His challenger. The one with the howl. All the snow he had seen in the distance melted before him once his paws touched the ground, and the place was back to looking as though no snow had ever been there at all. Only a slick wetness remained to show.He soon came up the rocks, catching the scents of other wolves from the other sid
Jayden thought he would cry and fall to his knees when he saw Palm Springs City in the distance.The city was covered in darkness, a sheet of inky blue sky hanging above it, with yellow lights coming out of square windows. Behind him was the Moon, and it felt to him like a sign of favour from the Moon Goddess.He stopped at the border and took in a deep breath. For a moment, he doubted. He had returned home for vengeance, so he wondered why he felt the fear.Jayden took in a deep breath before he crossed the border gingerly as if expecting to have the ground swallow him when his paw touched the ground. But nothing happened for a moment and then...The wet loamy brown earth beneath his paw froze and small cracking sounds were made as ice covered the ground. He lifted his paw and there was ice under it. He was the Reincarnation of the long-dead Alpha of Snowfall, and now he had brought the snow with him to the city, a city that had never seen snow.His other paw touched the earth once a
They were back on his bed, both reaching their climax at the same time. Alisa’s eyes locked with his as their lips parted from one last kiss, and time seemed to stop for them. She could feel nothing but him inside her, could hear nothing but the sound of his heart beating for her, could taste nothing but his kisses on her lips, could see nothing that was not his eyes and could smell nothing but his scent. All her senses were connected to him, and only him. His finger brushed against the strands of her blonde hair slowly, smoothening it. “Where have you been, my love?” She heard him say softly, as though she was a pigeon in his hand. “How could you see me and not know me, when I have loved you for so many years and through so many lives? Did you forget me so easily?” For some reason she could not explain, she wanted to cry. “I am sorry.” She whispered in response, not knowing why she was sorry or what she was sorry for. All she knew was that she was sorry. “We have loved each ot
Alisa was watching her son cradle his puppy to his chest and plant gentle kisses on its head. It had grown considerably these past two weeks, and though it was still little, she knew it was going to grow big and strong.And for some reason, the puppy reminded her of Elliott. There was a certain shyness it sometimes showed that reminded her of how he used to act when they were together in school, and a certain playfulness too. Elliott had shown neither of both qualities these past few years, but well...“Can I go out to play, Mummy?” Her son asked, interrupting her thoughts.The sun was setting for the evening, and a mild breeze blew as an orange glow lit up the sky. Fine weather, harmless for her boy. “Don’t stay out for too long.” She warned him, but he was far away before she was done talking, carrying his puppy with him. The house was quiet once Alisa was alone, and it made her sad. She was trying to be a strong woman, but that was exactly where it hurt. She was strong, but she
The farther away the wolves of Snowfall went from the beloved mountain they had lived all their lives on, led by their fiery leader with his unusually large form and bright blue eyes, almost bright enough to cast a blue shade on the floor, the lesser snow they found on the ground until all they saw was green, a new and uncomfortable sight to them as their paws and feet found it unfamiliar.They moved through the night, male and female, Beta, Omega, Luna, and cub, treading through the thick woods to avoid being spotted by humans and spending the daytime in caves or in hiding, taking the time to sleep. Hunts were done by night, with their leader Jayden bringing in the largest game, and for a pack where a man’s measure was by the size of his hunt, they could not entirely see any leader better than him.Yet, there was something sinister about him that they all feared. They had gone to sleep only to be woken by the most evil sound they had ever heard, and when they heard it once again, th
It was so strange that it had to be a dream. It could not be real.He was lying on the floor of whatever place this was, that somehow had form to it like a small cell. It was a strange place; bleak, dark and foreboding, with barely any light in it even though he could see the four corners at the top, and how he could see in it was a miracle to him.Jayden was now sure he was dreaming because this place was as dark as the darkest hour of the night.He tried to get up and that was when he saw the form of Melissa’s body in the darkness, lifeless and far gone, and the memories of the previous night began to come back to him in the dream. He stood frozen with his mouth open and watched her sprawled body and the blood that stained the walls of the cell. Her stomach had been torn open, and her innards were spilling out.“I did that,” Jayden whispered to himself.“We did it.” A voice in his head answered him back in another whisper, and the sound echoed all around him, as though it was spoken
“For five hundred years, those of us in Snowfall have remained under the frozen chains of the curse. While you who live in Palm Springs City are slightly less wolf than we are, with your smaller bodies and more time for your little ones to learn to morph, we remain here in the snow, waiting for the curse to break so that we can get the sunshine our fathers dearly wanted.”“And with one King over you all, a King from Palm Springs City,” Jayden added. His body was relaxed now. There was no enormous power struggling to come from his body. Melissa’s words had calmed him down.“Yes. All we want is the sunshine, and a happy place for our children.”“I will lead you there. I was to be King, wasn’t I?”“You were to be King. But many times, fighting to get what is ours only takes it farther away from us. Don’t you think so?”Jayden said nothing in reply.“Do you remember the first blood you shed, Jayden?”It had been Alisa’s parents. He remembered it clearly.“You like to tell yourself you we