Chapter 9: Confession

Leora's blood drops, she releases her hold from his and takes a few steps away from him.

"I—I can't do that." Leora says, her thoughts running rapidly in her mind. She starts pacing around him. The sound of leaves crunching beneath her feet, twigs breaking cover the silence as she tries to think of an excuse why she can't. Gideon opens his arms to her hoping she would walk into them for comfort, but her panic overwhelms her and he puts his arms down, approaches her and holds her hands in his.

"I know it's too soon, but if we really want this I want you to meet my pack."

"I can't meet anyone outside my family." she whispers.

"I shouldn't have..." she trails her eyes from his face down to the ground, shoulders shaking, eyes flooded by escaping tears.

"Leora, you're worrying me. What's going on?"

Leora falls to her knees, tears gushing out, wails of sorrow fill her voice as her breaths were ragged in between. Gideon catches her by the elbows. They both settle on the ground as he waits for her to calm down.  He moves her body into a more comfortable position for him to hold her.  He sits her in between his legs and arms, her back to his left arm, her legs over his right leg, cuddling her like a wounded pup.

Her crying was the only thing that could be heard, not a single creature made its usual noise, as if they too knew why she was crying. 

Gideon wipes her tears with his thumbs and kisses her forehead and continued to hold her, sooner enough her crying stopped and ragged breathing was left.

"Leora, you must know this.  Whatever my pack would have said about you, I wouldn't have cared." He leans his head to the side moving close to look into her eyes. "It's you I want to be with for the rest of life. It's funny how fast it is, but that's truly how I feel about you."  Leora looks at him, debating whether to tell him the truth or not. But he deserves better than this.  She pulls away from his hold, crawls away to put a space between them and sits properly across him. 

"Gideon," she takes a deep breath, closes her eyes and braces for his reaction.  "I can't meet anyone else besides you because I was meant to be offered soon to the gods." She opens her eyes, wincing, expecting anger, but what she got amazed her.   His mouth hung open in disbelief, eyebrows scrunched together.  "Wh-- why?"

"It's a very long story. But please believe me when I say I have no choice. My pack kept me close so that no one else would be hurt by this." Her voice cracked amid speaking.  She felt what she never wanted to be, vulnerable.  Every move she made was thought out, even her reckless behavior was thought through, but this... meeting an amazing man and falling in love with him... never did she think it would go this far. All she wanted was to be happy with him and nothing else would have ruined the bubble she created.

He stood up and paced around her as she was still seated.  He asked her questions to reason out why the perfect girl for him had to be doomed. 

"When did this curse happen?"

"Starting from my grandmother."

"What's the curse anyway?"

"To cut short, eldest female offspring only.  My dad was the eldest but male born so it skipped to me. I'm the eldest female among my cousins and I."

"Why though? Why your family? Why couldn't it have been someone else?"

"I don't know Gideon, I just... it's what's planned for me, prophesized about me. I knew about it a long time ago and already accepted it."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you're the greatest thing happening to me and I didn't want to ruin that smile of yours with this.  The moment I met you I knew it felt intense, but I just... you smiled and I wanted to keep seeing you smile.  I wanted to keep the memories of you being happy with me." She wipes her nose and tears with her dress almost breaking into tears.

"Isn't there anything I can do to break that?"

"I don't know. At this point, my family just accepted it and didn't fight the gods anymore."

Leora slowly got up because she started to feel a different presence in the woods.  A faint scent of jasmine hung in the air.

"Listen," she says, he stops pacing and stops right in front of her.  She doesn't look at him, rather looks everywhere else but him. "I didn't think I'd meet you."  She starts to move towards the scent but she’s pulled by the arm, crushed into his chest.

He lifts her chin up with his thumb and presses a kiss over her lips.

She pulls away a little and says, "Stop, I have snot all over me."  He smiles kindly at her and pulls her against him by the waist.  "If you think you can rid of me that easily, you're wrong." His voice lowers a few timbers, "Leora, I love you and I'll do anything to break that curse on you." He nuzzles his lips to the crook of her neck, "If you think a curse will stop you from meeting my pack, you're wrong about that too." He plants a kiss on the base of her neck then stands tall, determined, and a little angry.  He holds her by the shoulders, he levels his eyes on hers.  The scent of jasmine started fading so she puts her guard down a little.

"I love you and I'm breaking this stupid curse."

Feeling overwhelmed she throws her arms around his neck and embraces him tight, as he reciprocates the gesture she steals a kiss on his lips. "I love you, always."

He smiles, and kisses her again. He puts her down and dusts off the dirt from his pants.  He kisses her forehead and walks back to his home, but before Leora could take a step back home Gideon shouts confidently,

"Start telling the gods they're meeting me."

Gideon arrives home and sees his grandma seated on the couch with a teacup in her hand.  A wide grin was replaced with a tight polite smile within a split second. 

"Hi Grandma, how are you feeling?  Why are you up so late?"

He walks to her and kisses the top of her head and walks off towards his room.  Nervous to be caught, his strides were longer and faster. His steps came to a stop when Grandma Olivianna spoke.

"I never asked where you sneak off to, but I need you to stop seeing her, my dear.  It'll only hurt you and scar you for a long time.  You may have deceived your parents, but not me."

Gideon becomes more nervous realizing his grandmother had caught him when he was supposed to be vigilant. Vigilant enough to be aware of anyone who would've come even 10 feet close to them, yet she managed to sneak around him.  Disappointed in his lack of awareness his nervousness turned to anger. What would she know? She doesn't know Leora. She doesn’t know that they're mates. ‘What is she hiding?’ He thinks.

He stands tall and calms himself.

"We'll talk in the morning. Good night." Without looking back, he strides to his room for the night, but Grandma Olivianna shouts to him. "She knew better than to involve you." He closed his door and pondered, what the hell does that mean?

Morning arrives, and Gideon has not slept a wink.  His mind kept going over and over about what Leora told him.  He had written on his notebook about the curse, eventually he started opening up books learning about the different gods they had on the island. He read about Frey and his siblings, but not a lick of sense was made when he was rereading his notes.  “I have such crappy handwriting.”  Sitting on the edge of his bed he grew anxious. 'What if I can’t save her from the curse, what happens to her?  Why won’t her family do anything about it?  Why did they give up saving her?' Questions kept piling one over the other, his thoughts were interrupted by a pillow hitting his face. 

“If you’re up then get out and help out.”  Daniel stands by the doorway holding onto the doorknob preparing to close the door in case Gideon throws the pillow back at him.  Gideon still wearing clothes from last night, sporting bloodshot eyes and messy hair, he just stares at his uncle. ‘I need your help’ he thinks, but the words fail to come out of his mouth. All that came out was a silent plea as his eyes started filling up with tears of frustration and worry.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey.” Daniel approaches him with caution.  He’s more than aware that when his nephew gets emotional like this he has tendencies where he turns into a wolf and fails to return to his human form.  The first time he lost control was when their Grandfather passed. He was really close to Grandpa Gideon and was always so proud to be named after him. Yet when the time came that Grandpa Gideon was taken by the gods, Giddy lost control.  His sadness and frustration turned himself into a wolf. His emotions were blinding his abilities making him vulnerable to stay in the form that he was.  His parents couldn’t even help. Idris was the eldest among his siblings yet never did they lose control.  He was a novice father, what could he have done?

At that time only Grandma Olivianna was able to turn him back.  None of them knew how she did it, but it worked.

This time Daniel doesn’t know what triggered his nephew to be like this. No news was relayed to him when he got up. “Giddy, I need you to calm down and look at me.”

He knelt in front of his nephew, his nephew’s eye remained on the door, holding a tight grip on the notebook turning his knuckles white, his fingers almost piercing through it.

“HEY.” Daniel shouts. Gideon faces him and releases the notebook. Daniel opens it and reads the crappy handwriting and his face is washed over with confusion.

“What the hell is this?” Gideon’s tears now flowing freely on his face. Daniel grabs the blanket, throws it over Giddy’ head and wipes his face with it and left the blanket on his head.  No one ever said he was good at these kinds of things.

“Giddy. Gideon. Answer me. What is this? Is this about the girl you told me about?”

The blanket nods.

“She’s, as you wrote here, cursed?”

The blanket nods.

“Did she tell you about it last night?”

The blanket nods again.

“Is there something you can do about it?”

The blanket shrugs.

Daniel grows a little annoyed talking to a human blanket, he pulls the blanket away seeing Gideon’s face blank from emotion. He sighs and stands while holding the notebook and reads it again.

He looks at his nephew and the notebook.

“Go ask her anything about the curse. Hell, go and meet her pack and ask how the hell you can make their daughter live.  Not a good first impression but there’s no point in sitting here crying when she’s running out of time.”

He pulls his nephew to his feet, eyes filled with a little more determination.

“I’ll explain to your dad about this. But Gideon, you have to be careful. There’s a reason why you never knew about her pack before this.”

Daniel lowers his voice as if he was about to reveal a secret.

“Her pack won’t harm you at first glance. But I need to warn you about her father. He has one hell of a claw.”

With that, Gideon nods, Daniel passes the notebook to him and jumps out the window, not wasting any time.