Calix wakes up to someone lightly rubbing his arm with something warm and damp, the smell of sanitizer and alcohol coating the air. Slowly coming to his senses, he suddenly jerks his hand toward the person next to him and grabs their hand, hearing a familiar shriek.
He opens his eyes to see Amira crouching on the floor with gauze and bandages all around her. "You must have been really out of it, you didn't even sense me walking in." She grins.
"What are you doing here? Why aren't you resting?" He panics and stands up, but everything in the room begins spinning and he sits right back down.
"You overdid it during your fight and now that you've given yourself the proper time to relax, your body is going to feel all of that damage. I already asked one of the pack doctors to come by after you wake up, it's almost morning anyway."
She finishes dressing one of the bandages on his arm.
"Take off your shirt," she says.
Calix smirks. "Trying to take advantage of a vulnerable man, are we?"
She scoffs and smacks his shoulder. "Don't play coy, just do as I say before your wounds get infected."
"I guarantee half of them have already begun to heal." He says this but still does as she asks and strips off his shirt, revealing the multiple bites and scratch marks covering his chest and stomach.
Her eyes begin to tear up as she looks at his battered body, not thinking it was that bad until she sees it with her own eyes.
"Let me get the doctor," she mumbles and turns away.
Calix grabs her hand and pulls her on top of him to wrap his arms around her waist and nuzzle against her neck.
"You aren't leaving my side, not now or ever again," he whispers.
She gasps and pushes him away when he nibbles on her collarbone.
"I have school, I can't be with you 24/7, that's ridiculous."
He brushes his fingers over the spots where her skin was once torn, not even a scar remaining now to remind him of one of many times he has almost lost her in the short time they have had together.
"If I could chain you to my side without consequences, would you let me?" he asks. There is no hint of teasing in his tone, his amber eyes dark and serious.
"You really would, wouldn't you?" She smiles and kisses his forehead. "I don't think I would mind having just you for the rest of my life, but we both know that isn't plausible. We still have a lot to experience together and a long time to experience it."
"Amira, you've seen what life is like living by my side. I have already faced the possibility of losing you several times–"
She places her hands on either side of his face. "And we've managed every time, whether by choice or chance. Isolating me in this room will do nothing but kill me from the inside out instead. Is that what you want?"
He grabs one hand and puts it over his mouth, covering her palm with butterfly kisses.
"Is that what you want? You're already in too deep, I'm afraid even now if you say no, I'll have trouble letting you go."
"Then why even ask me?" She giggles.
"Because I like to think I will do whatever you tell me, but I don't believe letting you go is a command from my Luna that I will ever obey."
Her eyes widen when he says this, her cheeks and neck turning a dark shade of red.
"Well, let's not jump to anything right away, I still need to graduate college before I take on any more responsibilities."
"Will you still go to work with your father once you do graduate? Or would you rather come and work for me?" Calix grins and wiggles his brows.
She slaps his chest playfully. "As tempting as that sounds, I made a promise to my father and I'm actually looking forward to working with him. Now that the past of my family history has been revealed, it has given me a lot more appreciation for my father. He took on a child that he knew belonged to another man, one that wasn't like him, so he had no idea what he was in for, but I remember him being there for every major and minor moment in my life."
She stops and smiles wistfully. "This has left me wondering what my biological father was like, and how he came to fall in love with my mother."
"What would you say to him if you ever got the chance?" Calix asks.
"I would like to know why he did it, why he risked his family and my mother's happiness for something he knew could never happen."
He laughs silently. "In a way, I think you can understand how he felt. The saying 'love is blind' is a very true to phrase, when someone loves another deeply enough, it can blind them to all the negative things surrounding them and only want to focus on the good. They don't want to think about the inevitable future, they want to live in the blissful moment they are in."
"Are you referring to Isaac and I?" Amira frowns.
"You may not believe it, but that idiot did fall deeply in love with you, enough to blind him to the consequences of the relationship, knowing you are a human, and he will find his mate one day in someone else, but he held onto the hope that it would be you and blinded himself to everything else telling him you wouldn't be."
"Would you have been able to tell that we wouldn't have been mates right away? I can at least understand where his hope came from, but you are right that it was a relationship doomed from the start," she mutters and drops her head in shame.
He tilts her head back up to meet his smouldering gaze.
"We as werewolves are known as the protectors of the Moon Goddess, Mene. The Alpha of our packs are her commanders, and their members are her soldiers. Together we are all her children and as her children, she wants nothing but happiness and prosperity for us, bestowing upon us bonded mates for life, each of them unique in their own way to our needs and desires."
Amira frowns and nods her head slowly. "I'm kind of getting what you mean."
"I would have known right away that you were never meant to be Isaac's mate, you are someone who is far too strong for him. A mate will balance each other out, in both strength and weakness. Where you lack, your mate will make up, to form the perfect bond."
"Now that makes no sense. If that were the case, how did I end up as your mate? What do I have that you lack?" She glares at him.
"It doesn't have to be as simple as that. Where I am impatient, you are patient. Where you are angered, I am compassionate. I believe we are equally matched in many areas, and my Goddess Mene knew I needed a strong and courageous Luna to rule alongside me, to help me become the ultimate warrior and protector." Calix kisses her cheek lightly, moving down to her neck and chest.
"It seems like you had everything before you met me," she whispers.
"Nothing can compare to what your existence gives me. I could barely call what I was doing before as 'living', more like moving through life using whatever was handed to me. I have a reason to breathe when I wake up in the morning, a reason to improve my life every day because you are now my life, and everything I do is driven by your existence."
Amira's eyes gloss over with tears, and she tries her best to blink them away.
"You shouldn't live just for me," she says.
"Is that not better than living for nothing? Why can't you be the center of my world?"
"Because there are tons of other things that you should be living for, like your pack and your family."
Calix kisses her chest again before laying his head down in the crook of her neck. "I will always do what is right for my pack because it is my obligation, it is the only thing I have been raised to do. But it could all disappear tomorrow, and as long as I have you, my life will continue to have meaning and purpose. You can never disappear."
She chuckles but bites her lip as she contemplates his words. If he had said that to her a few months ago, she wouldn't have been able to reassure him that she would stick around, but they have come so much farther than she thought they ever would, she really can't imagine her life without him anymore.
"Where can I go where you won't find me?" she says, referring to the words he once muttered to her locked in his college classroom.
He growls and nips her neck. "I will chase you to the ends of the Earth, I promise you that."
She leans down to give him a long and loving kiss.
"I promise to always be there. I love you, Calix."
THE END