2. Thirty- three

I groaned internally as I recalled the sensations I had experienced moments ago, the feeling of falling and floating at the same time, not being able to feel anything, and finally the soft texture of the grass underneath my skin.

I knew where I was and I knew who I was going to meet but the catch was that I had not wanted to meet this person, if you could even call it that, since the last time I saw her.

I had no idea what kick she gets by calling me into her magical land again and again but I wanted these unexplained and frustrating visits to stop once and for all. 

Was that so hard for her to understand? I thought I made it clear the last time we met. I thought she must have got the memo by now.

I laid down on my back and waited for this dream to pass. I closed my eyes and focused on waking up because I didn't want to stay in this fantasy land for another minute.

"Hello, Zara! Long time no see." A soothing voice reached my ears and I groaned out loud. I wasn't going to hide my annoyance so I turned my back on her, my body gliding on the soft and heavenly grass. 

"You know acting like a child is not going to get you anywhere." I huffed and kept ignoring her, like the child I was. Hell, she was thousands of years old, I was a child to her.

"I may be a goddess but I'm not a patient person." Well, good luck lady! You are going to deal with a snappy and irritating Zara tonight.

My parents threatened to disown me at one point in time when I acted the way I was acting. There was no way anyone could break this side of me.

The moon goddess sighed. "It's your wish then." 

As soon as she said those words, I felt my body rising from the ground. I shrieked in surprise but I only kept rising higher from the ground. I couldn't move my arms and legs and I was slowly turned around and came face to face with the moon goddess, in all her white glory. She looked so ethereal and perfect that I couldn't even sneer in disgust at her calm expression. I saw my arms and hands moving and my body took up the lotus posture for sitting and I felt myself being slowly lowered to the ground. It was a peculiar experience to see your hands and legs moving without my brain consciously or subconsciously ordering them to.

"This is so unfair." I pointed out and crossed my arms over my chest because I didn't think I could do anything else right now. The goddess had me sitting Indian style in front of her because it was what she desired and I knew I wasn't going to wake up from this dream until she said whatever she wanted to say.

"You know, I have been thinking since our last encounter and I have realized that I have been unfair to you. I have dragged you into this werewolf mess from your peaceful life and I apologize for it."

I scoffed, not at all phased that she was apologizing to me. "It's been months since I have been suffering and you got that part now." 

"Don't make me tape your mouth shut, Zara. Just listen to what I have to say." She frowned and j rolled my eyes. I couldn't help but notice how amazing she looked even though her eyebrows were scrunched together and her face was set in displeasure.

After observing that I had nothing to say to her apology, she continued with what was on her mind. "You asked me a couple of questions last time we met and I think the least I could do was answer them. It's been some time since then and I figured that times have changed enough for you to be able to understand and come to terms with what I'm going to tell you."

Times have changed? What did she mean by that? Sure, it has been a couple of months since our last encounter but I couldn't come up with anything which changed that drastically to elicit such a response from her. 

But as long as I was getting the answers to my questions, I was willing to stay quiet and let her say her piece. 

"Let me first tell you why this is even happening to you and Harper." I didn't think that I had asked this question but I wasn't going to run my back on extra information.

"It's not just you, I'm afraid. The white wolves are magical, an extremely powerful form of magic because they are my children, in a way as you must know by the story that I told you about the origin of werewolves." I nodded silently, mentally going over the details of the story.

"The exact reasons I can't tell you because they are beyond your capability of understanding because it's a matter of gods. Anyway, long story short, the existence of white wolves is a disbalance in nature and puts the world as we know it, in danger. So, to make everything right, the plan to wipe the race of white wolves from the planet slowly has been put in place for centuries now."

I gazed at her, riveted as the words she was saying finally started to make sense. "Their inability to mate with their mates," I gasped in surprise and looked at the goddess for confirmation.

She smiled in response. "I knew I chose you for a reason." She suddenly had that faraway look in her eyes and continued her tale. "One of the measures we adopted to slow down their race was to reduce their reproductive ability. A white wolf can only be produced when a white wolf impregnates his mate. Any other combination will lead to any other normal wolf. Add this to the difficulties in actually impregnating their mates, the race has slowed down incredibly."

"You are a monster!" I exclaimed as the realization finally washed over me. "Couldn't you have simply washed them out? Make them extinct? Was it necessary to make them go through all this torture? Do you have any idea how much pain you have made the mates go through?" I cried in horror as the image of Sebastian and Eva, Harper's parents came into my mind. Finally, their inability to get pregnant made sense. I recalled how many miscarriages they had to go through to finally carry Harper, and how much strain it had put on their mate bond. I couldn't even imagine what the other white wolves around the world had gone through!

"You said they are your children. What kind of a mother are you to make your children suffer like that?" I shouted, surprised by how inhumane and detached she sounded.

She looked taken aback by my outburst and regret washed over her face for a second before she masked it with a calm and collected expression. A tear rolled down her cheek which evaporated before it could make its way past her plump red lips.

"You don't understand. I didn't have a choice." She said, masking all her emotions with her indifferent facade. I facade I could easily see through.

"You always have a choice!" I whispered as I wondered how much agony and pain, she could have soared her children by taking another step. A much simpler step could have had a greater impact than this. 

Silence washed over us as we took in each other. Now that I knew that she wasn't as perfect as she looked, a sense of power washed over me.

"You know, there are worse things you can do to a person than just straight up killing them. This is one of them." I remarked, gouging her face for any reaction to my words.

Her face turned somber and she whispered, "I know!"

She wiped another tear as soon as it escaped her eye and turned to look at me with the same amount of calmness that she had before. "But what's done is done. It can't be changed. So, now this explains why you and Harper can't have children because Harper will be the last white alpha on this continent. Similarly, the current alphas in the world will be the last of their kind. Their special abilities will die with them." 

My eyes watered as the realization washed over me. "So, Harper had to have his first child with another female because the alpha line has to continue even if the race of the white alphas doesn't."

Her eyes turned sympathetic as she moved her gaze over me.

"Answer me!" I shouted at her. If she was startled by my outburst, she didn't show it.

"I am sorry!" She whispered and the final confirmation was all it took for me to break down into gut-wrenching sobs. My shoulders shook as my helplessness about the situation reared its ugly head.

"You planned this, didn't you?! Harper getting Natalie pregnant?" I sobbed feeling my life was suddenly out of my control.

"That is for you to find out! I can't tell you that. You're not ready for that answer." She turned her back to me and let me cry it out. I didn't know what to say and what to think now that I knew bigger forces were in play in my life. Why the hell was I stuck in the middle of all this?

"Another question you had was your attraction to Ethan. Now that you know that Ethan is supposed to be Harper's scroll keeper, you somewhat understand why he's attracted to you too."

"Ethan's attracted to me?" I whispered; my voice already hoarse from my continuous crying. That's all I have been doing these days, crying, both in reality and in my dreams.

She frowned and looked at me as if I was stupid. "Of course, he is! You wouldn't be lying in his bed if he weren't." She rolled her eyes at my stupidity and I almost did too.

"But that's not the only reason for the attraction between you too. It also stems because of the people you are. There's more to it but I don't think that you are ready to know about it."

I hated when she talked in cryptic words because I could never make sense of whatever she was saying. What did she mean when she said the attraction between us was because of the people we were? Was it her abnormal way of saying that our attraction was normal and didn't have any supernatural meaning or lore behind it?

Before I could ask exactly what she meant, she smiled at me to reassure me. Although I don't think it did a very good job.

"You should go now. I have given you a lot to think about and vice versa." 

As soon as she said those words, a searing pain started in my head. I had only experienced this skull-crushing pain in the earlier days of meeting her in my sleep so I was shocked because I couldn't fathom why I was experiencing it now.

I gasped and woke up from my dream, drenched in sweat. I was immediately pulled into someone's arms and I relaxed because I knew that I was safe.

Ethan gently smoothed a hand over my hair and cradled my head on his shoulder. "Shit! You're shaking." I was? "Was it another nightmare?"

I leaned back from his embrace looked into his eyes and lied. "Yes. Yes, it was."