Luna of Mine (5 page)

“
Are you
alright?” a kind, smooth voice asked.

Alina’s eyes suddenly
became of little worry as she righted herself to see a tall man,
wearing the crest of the Alpha on his arm, standing in front of
her. He smiled down at her and handed her a swatch of fabric. “The
air can get very thick during the busiest time of the day,” he told
her.

She nodded and took the
offered piece using it to quickly wipe away the moisture that had
gathered in her eyes. Once she was not looking through a blur of
tears, she could see that the man before her was attractive and had
a kind smile. She heard shuffling behind him and watched as he
looked over his shoulder and nodded his head. She followed his line
of sight, and her mouth dropped open as she realized who stood some
distance away, though close enough that she had no trouble
identifying him.

From the black clothing,
that only the royals wore, to the piercing blue eyes he was known
for, Alina realized that she was seeing the Alpha’s son for the
first time. He was talking with a vendor, an older woman, who,
being a Canis lupis, must have been very old to appear anywhere
over the age of thirty-five. He handed her some money. When she
attempted to give him some of her produce, he shook his head and
pressed a kiss to her hand. Her heart clenched at his generosity
and the obvious affection the woman had in her eyes for Vasile. As
he turned back in her direction, she saw his dazzling smile only
for a minute, and then his face was back to its neutral state that
every dominant male seemed to wear.

“
Please
keep that.” The man in front of her lightly touched the hand that
held the cloth. She looked back at him, and it was an effort to
turn her gaze away from Vasile. “I wouldn’t want you to endure any
more discomfort from the crowded street.”

Alina smiled up at him.
“Thank you.” She bowed her head and tilted it ever so slightly as
to show that she knew he was dominant to her, but she did not
belong to him and therefore would not fully bear her throat to him.
He watched her for a second longer and then turned and walked
towards Vasile, and, now that she wasn’t completely focused on the
young heir, she saw that he and the other men were dressed in a
similar fashion. Those must have been the Alpha’s top wolves. She
would not call them guards because it would be perceived as a sign
of weakness if Vasile walked through the market under the
protection of others. He walked out in front, with one nearly
walking even with him and the rest behind him, making them appear
more like companions. The protective way in which he maneuvered his
body in front of the men showed that he was the one doing the
guarding. He was not weak and he need not hide behind any
other.

A
lina opened her eyes. She realized she was on the bed in the
small home of her parents and no longer in the busy streets of the
market staring after a future she could never have. She sat up and
stretched her tired limbs, her vivid dreams having kept her from
getting a good night sleep.

“I
thought you might sleep the day away,” her mother’s voice came from
the kitchen.

Alina walked into the
small area and watched as Georgeta expertly twisted dough that
would become the bread for their evening meal. Her hands were
strong from long hours working. The skin, tough and callused, still
looked young and beautiful but obviously the hands were of one who
worked the land. Alina looked down at her own hands and realized
that, though they were still soft, they were showing the beginning
signs of the effects of hard labor, even on a werewolf.

“
What is
going through that busy head of yours?” her mother
asked.

Alina lowered her hands
and slipped them behind her back feeling as though she had been
caught swiping a bite of pie before dinner.

“Father said the new Alpha
is visiting the villages,” she answered nonchalantly. Her mother
knew her better than that, not to mention had seen Alina’s reaction
to the few times she had seen Vasile.

“
You
have changed much since the last time you saw
him.”

“
That is
what your mate said,” Alina’s eyes sparkled with humor. “He seems
to think that there is a possibility that Vasile could be
my
mate.”

“
And what
is so
impossible
about that? Although you are still young for the
mating signs to appear, your sixteenth birthday is not too far off,
so it is not an impossibility that he could be your mate or that
the signs would begin to appear.”

“
I am
more likely to be the mate of that old mare in the field than the
mate of a royal, let alone the Alpha of our pack. And for the signs
to appear even before I am sixteen seems quite doubtful.” Alina
stepped up to the front door. It was open, as usual during the
summer months. Her mother loved the fresh air and the sounds of
nature. Alina knew it called to her wolf, just as it did her
own.

“
It is
not like you to be so unsure of yourself, of your worth, Alina,”
Georgeta’s voice chided her softly. “Vasile would be a blessed wolf
if he were to have the honor of you being his true
mate.”

“
You
have to say that; you are my mother,” Alina
sighed.

“
Maybe.”
She felt her mother's arm come around her shoulders and pull her
close, the familiar scent of spices enveloping her. “Or maybe I am
just the smartest female in all the land. Either way, I am
right.”

Alina laughed. “And humble
too.”

Weeks passed as Alina went
about her usual routine. She laid out each evening in her field
staring at the sky, dreaming of her future, wishing for the
impossible. With every passing day she grew more and more anxious
of the Alpha’s arrival. Some nervous part of her did not want him
to come and wished that he would just bypass them all together. But
then another part of her, namely her wolf, waited with baited
breath for him to arrive. She had thought one night that maybe he
had not shown up thus far because he had found his true mate in one
of the other villages. This had put her wolf in a rage that ended
with her phasing, running, and hunting until the possessive
jealousy had finally cooled. When Alina returned to her human form,
she was shaken by the intense feelings her wolf had for Vasile, a
man whom she had never even spoken with. Could it mean that he was
indeed her mate, or did she just have an unhealthy fascination with
what she could not have? Unfortunately, there was nothing she could
do but wait.

A thought hit her suddenly
just as she decided to let the worry go. “What if I
really
am his mate?” she
spoke into the dark night. “What then?” The Great Luna’s words
replayed in her mind. “
Be ready, child,
the one I have for you comes with much darkness, much baggage, and
he will need your goodness. For without you, his darkness will rule
and he will destroy the Canis lupis race.”

Alina sat up abruptly.Her
heart threatened to beat out of her chest as moisture collected on
her neck and in the palm of her hands. Vasile was bound to have
baggage; he lost his brother and now his parents. She knew that the
males of her race struggled with the darkness that their beast
brought with them until their true mate filled them with their
light. How much darkness would the deaths of three family members
deposit in a man’s already dimming soul with no one to help him
bear it? And an even better question, 'Was she ready to be a mate
to one such as that?'

Romanian Proverb # 4

Nu vrea sã
audã.

There are none so deaf as
those that will not hear.

“
Y
our hospitality is greatly
appreciated, Louis.” Vasile thanked the family once again for
allowing him to stay with them during his visit to their village.
He stepped out into the cool evening air and stretched. His third,
Ion, and fourth, Nicu, were waiting for him near the edge of the
village. He had decided to travel at night for a couple of days so
that they could hunt. The only down side to this decision was that
they sometimes had to ask for clothes in the communities they came
upon. Not that any of them protested giving their Alpha clothes,
but it was irritating to him to be an imposition on his
people.

“That went well,” Ion said
just as Vasile reached them.

“
So far
there have been none attempting to challenge me, which is making my
life somewhat easier for the time being,” Vasile agreed. “I am
surprised to see the state of things in some of these villages,” he
confessed. “I am afraid I have not been diligent about monitoring
our lands, even when my father was still alive. I did not know that
the outer parts of the pack were suffering so. I guess that was one
way in which my father’s madness was beginning to show in his
inability to care for his pack and to protect them.” He pinched the
bridge of his nose as the realization of just how much damage his
father had done to their pack became clear. “When we get to the
next village, Nicu, send one of the young males back to the castle.
Have him tell Alin to send out financial aid, food, clothes, and
anything else to the last four villages we visited. We will
probably have to do the same to the village we are about to see.”
Nicu nodded and Vasile could see the relief in the wolf’s eyes. He
was a dominant as well and it was natural for him to want to
protect those in his pack.

They had been traveling
around their territory for more than four weeks now, staying for
several days in each village they came upon. Anghel had been right.
His pack had needed reassurance that they were still intact and
that there wouldn’t be anarchy or a hundred challenges among the
males vying for the Alpha position.

As much as Vasile hated
lying to his pack, it was necessary. Sadly, with every telling, the
story came easier and easier to his lips. He had repeated the tale
so often now he was beginning to believe it himself. Anghel and he
had come up with the simplest story possible. Vasile knew that the
more intricate the lie, the harder to keep it straight. He
explained that his father had been managing the boarders of the
territory as he often did. When he did not return to the castle by
midnight, Vasile took it upon himself to go look for him. He found
him three miles away, his throat had been ripped open, and the
artery there severed. He had bled out much too quickly to heal
himself. Vasile had caught the scent of a bear, maybe two. He had
held his father for quite a while before any of the other wolves
had shown up causing his scent to mask that of the killers. Wolves
and bears were natural enemies, and though it was horrific to lose
their Alpha, they would not retaliate against predators engaging
their natural instincts.

What he did not say was
that his father had been growing more and more restless, which is
why he had been running the boarders of their territory. When
Vasile found him, it wasn’t with his throat torn out by a deadly
animal. It was with a fae blade still in his hand, which he had
used to slit his own throat. Vasile had no idea how his father came
upon such a treasure as the blade, but he imagined the fae had no
idea that it had been in his possession. When his father had not
come home by midnight, Darciana had asked him to go look for his
father. She knew that if something was wrong she would not want the
others to find him first because they would wonder why she was not
suffering as well.

Vasile had found his
father three miles from the pack castle. After the initial shock
had worn off he had hurried back to his mother and gave her the
devastating news. Tears ran down her cheeks but she did not weep as
he had expected her to. Instead, she rummaged around in a drawer of
her bureau. He turned to growl at her but it froze in his throat.
She held a vile of clear liquid in her hand. She looked up at him
and the tears in her eyes were part sadness and part regret. There
were a million things she wanted to say to him, he could see it,
but she did not.

“
Your
father and I prepared for this. We knew that one day sooner or
later one of us would pass on to the next life. I have to die with
him, Vasile,” she told him. “If the pack finds out that he deceived
them there will dominants crawling all over this castle to
challenge you. I will not do that to you, not when this is our
fault in the first place.” She opened the vial and stared at the
contents. The look on her face was not one of fear, but of resolve.
“I love you, son. Your father loved you. Regardless of our bond,
you were a result of our love and that made up for anything
lacking.”

“
Wait!”
He lunged at her, fully understanding her intent. He was too late.
She upturned the little bottle and swallowed the contents down
before he could reach her.

Vasile had held his
mother’s body in his arms and wept for them both. It was a tragedy,
but one that he could not bring himself to blame them for because
his father had lived longer because of Daciana, and they had borne
him from their love. How could he blame them?

He had returned to his
father’s body before morning, allowing his mother’s to be found. He
knew that as soon as his mother’s body was discovered, Stefan’s top
three wolves would be on the hunt for their perished Alpha. He knew
that before they arrived he had to make his father’s death look
like a terrible accident, a fight between predators which Stefan
had lost. Vasile did the hardest thing he has ever done in his
life. To protect his father’s legacy and his mother’s virtue he did
what he needed to in order to make his father’s body look as though
he had been attacked. He could still taste Stefan’s blood in his
mouth from where he had torn his throat open. He had to cover up
the evidence of the slit, and the only way to do that was to
destroy it. So he had phased and let his wolf take over in order to
make his story plausible.