I sat back down on the bed, convinced.
"We were talking about a bond," I said as I was making myself comfortable for the rest of the conversation. He went back to where he sat a few moments earlier too.
"It's not a very good time to talk about this," he chin-pointed towards the open door behind him.
Was he concerned about Sophie hearing us all the way from the kitchen?
That wasn't possible.
He gave me a serious look. "A bond isn't decisive." He shook his head twice. "The one thing I wanted to postpone for later…" he spoke in a low voice; it was more likely directed at himself than me.
That was it, I've had enough. "Is this you not pushing me away now?" my voice came out a bit too harsh.
"Okay, then, you're spoken for," he muttered.
Spoken for.
As in… an arranged marriage?!
"What the fu-" I couldn't believe my ears; I must've heard him wrong. But then I remember something that wasn't important enough for me to keep track of. Until now, that is.
Elizabeth kept implying that I was taken. No, she went further than that, she told me that I didn't belong to her.
I looked at my brother, horrified. He rolled his eyes at me. "Hence why I wanted to postpone this one in particular." I didn't realize my jaw was slightly open until he reached out and closed it for me with his index finger. He gave me two pats on the cheek, the way my father did when he tried to cheer us up.
"Last time we came to Anchorage, Theo, do you remember that?" He asked softly. But there was something between the lines.
"It was around 7 years ago, right before the camping trips started." He looked at me, measuring my expression for a long moment.
"This wasn't my question, Theo."
He was creeping me out now!
"Will you say things the way they are already!" I whisper-shouted at him, worrying about Sophie hearing us now too.
He sighed.
"Yes, camping trips started back then. But we could've set camp in one of the many campgrounds and sites here, right?" He rubbed his chin, waiting for me to arrive somewhere again.
I never really thought about that, to be honest. When I looked back at Li's face, I realized that I made the wrong conclusion, this wasn't him making implications and throwing them my way, he was stalling because whatever the subject was, he was worried about me.
I was done being weak. It wasn't me.
"Spill it, Li."
"…I think he suppressed your memories of that incident; because you remember things from before." He said.
"What incident. What memories. What's that got to do with being engaged to someone…somewhere!"
What was real in my life anymore?
My brother mirrored my depressing thoughts, visibly hunching again.
"I remember it as if it was yesterday, you were turning ten a few days later and it was all that you ever talked about." He smiled, but it quickly faded away.
"It was in the middle of the night when you disappeared, I learned later on that dad was meeting with his Beta at the time, and mom," he cringed then swallowed, "I remember shaking her until my hands hurt," his pupils dilated darkening his green eyes, it was his frightened expression that I hadn't seen in ages.
"She was a ragdoll." He whispered.
I decided to man up for the both of us, I pasted my poker face on, the one I never needed to wear when I was around him.
"We believe he was the one who took you, the door to the house was left open and your shoes were left outside. Your footsteps were still visible over the snow, you walked in a certain line, not once changing your direction indicating that you got lost or were trying to find your way back." He rubbed his face roughly with his hands and then left them there for a long moment, when he removed them, his face was very red.
"It was my mistake. Dad asked me to watch over you before he left, but I got distracted, I can't even remember what was it that took my attention away from you."
He must've been around thirteen years old at that time.
I opened my mouth to object, but he didn't let me. "I ran after you until my body gave up, it was the first time I shifted into my wolf's form..." The images of the man turning into a beast flashed in front of me, how painful it looked.
I closed my eyes not wanting to think about my 13 years old brother going through an ordeal like that, all alone.
He was only a boy, running after his lost brother.
"It was the best and the worst thing that ever happened to me." He chuckled darkly, following the line my thoughts were taking without having to hear them out loud.
"I'm sorry." That was all I managed to say.
"I thought I died back then," he laughed again. "I decided I would haunt and bring you back, regardless."
It was my turn to chuckle darkly. He and I were brothers alright.
"I felt the same when I went after mom as a ghost too."
He looked at me, his expression taking a tone darker.
"You finish your story first; I'll tell you everything after that," I promised. He nodded to that thoughtfully.
"Tracking you was much easier, instead of going after your footsteps that were barely visible with the blizzard that hit Anchorage that evening, your scent was already imprinted in me. Oh, and the temperature no longer bothered me." Unlike the positive things he kept on listing, his eyes looked more frightened than the way they did a while earlier.
"She came to your rescue before I did." He said.
Who? Elizabeth?
"I heard her before I saw her."
His eyes softened as he fixed his wandering gaze on me; his expression softened too.
"I'll never forget it as long as I live, arriving at that clearing and seeing my brother, barefoot, sitting over the snow on his butt," he paused, "your eyes were on the white pup that stood close to you, and was growling at an invisible force, somewhere I couldn't see." A smile played on his lips, "It was the bravest thing I had ever seen."
I had no recollection whatsoever of what he was going on about.
"The pup's growls quickly turned into hiccups when I stepped into the picture." He laughed. "I think I scared her more than whatever she was trying to protect you from."
"She?" I tried to recall a white pup. Instead, the image of a magnificent white wolf that yelped when I hit my head came into my view.
"She," I said again, but it was very different this time around.
What would it mean to me if the white pup from my forgotten past and the one that I saw recently in my backyard were one of the same?
What would it change?