MINE!!" Shew grows with a ferocity that rattles every cell in my body
Have you gone mad?!,
"The boy from the bunker! This is him, this is his scent!"
What?!
"We need to go to him!!"
Her will tries to overtake my body, but thanks to years of fighting her for control I had practiced pushing her consciousness down
'You're not making any sense' As a last resort I tried reasoning with her, holding her back by force was taking everything I had, my body trembled and cold sweat dripped down my brow, fur bursting out my skin was held at bay by the pure power of will leaving my body in a partial shifting stage where wide unruly strands of fur stuck out at odd uneven angles, my spine arched deeply, my limbs twisted and contorted, while every part of my body was in pain
'Calm yourself please!' I begged I'd like to think it was the sternness in my voice and not the tears pouring down my face that snapped her back into her senses
She receded but I could still feel her pacing around restlessly in my mind, I took a few deep breaths, I hadn't had to fight her for control like that in a while, my heart was hammering so loud against my rib cage it made my ears ring, when I finally got a semblance of a normal breathing pattern, I yelled at her
'What was the meaning of that?!'
"MATE!!" She yelled shamelessly
'Are you out of your mind?!Is that why you tried to forcefully shift me? For a reason as flimsy as THAT?!'
"FLIMSY?!!!"
'YES FLIMSY!!, not only have you never met this boy, you believe with enough certainty to consider running into enemy territory for a scent you aren't even sure of!
"Don't you Dare insult me, child!!, I'd know.his scent anywhere! I've followed it through many lifetimes! I've followed him through different bodies, different ages, different minds, I've found him through several of them!"
'By CHANCE!, you've found him in those lives! There are even more lifetimes you didn't! You said so yourself! Even in your last life and the one before that, you didn't find him! Yet now you wish to jump into enemy territory for a scent on a piece of paper, you're DELUSIONAL?!'
"AND YOU'RE A COWARD!, are you going to claim you don't feel it, that tingling sensation in your chest? That fire in your veins, that longing that drags you back to that bunker each night, that feeling of comfort as you roll around in a rotting cot covered in moss as you take desperate gulps of the lingering scents of him that the rain didn't wash away, you want to go to him!"
'I can't just run to chase a ghost, I have a pack to run, WE have a pack to run!'
"How many times must I tell you that I have no loyalty to your flea-ridden pack of sheltered mutts?!"
'This conversation is over!' I slam the link shut like a steel door in her face, a trick I learned over the years, whenever her voice got grating and her emotions got too overwhelming, I learned I could lock her out of my mind by visualizing a steel door shutting the link between us, the more I focus the more locks I add to the door, a lock, a link, a latch till I couldn't hear her anymore!
That selfish female dog!
With finally a moment's peace I grab the Manilla folder, the scent curled around my nose like a drug, it took everything in me not to bring the letter to my nose and inhale deeply, just holding it this close made me dizzy, dizzy enough to consider what Ruwa said, could this be the scent of our mate? Finding your mate was a dime a dozen, a few that did describe it as being hit by lightning, and ones whose mates died were filled with enough grief that they took they died from the shock or took their own lives
The idea of being bound to someone like that was terrifying in its own right, but being bound to someone of the Fracti Luna pack?!, Imagine if this intoxicating scent belonged to the Alpha?, The very thought was comical, if this is my mate I wouldn't be opposed to meeting him, he might be part of their delivery team, or maybe he's in our delivery team, if it'll make Ruwa feel better, I'll send for the delivery team, every single person to have laid a hand on this letter just to shut her up, for now, let's see why they've been sending us letters religiously
I tore open the letter and the scent from the envelope was mind-numbing bing, the scent got stronger and it made my mouth dry, thank God I blocked Ruwa, I'd rather die than have her know the effect this scent had on me
The letter read
To Alpha Ardelean,
We hope this finds you well, the Fracti Luna pack has been trying to open discourse with the Neomenia pack for the last 2 months 1 week, and 2 days, but it seems our prior letters have hit a snag in the delivery chain, if this finds you then we thank our lucky stars
The words sounded civil enough but the underlying layers of contempt at having to repeatedly reach out to us and, then there's the open ridicule of our mail service, making it seem like the issue of the delivery was coming from our end, the kind of pretension you'd expect from a pack of mongrels
As you are aware of the ongoing conflict between our people which was started years ago by our fathers, In case you are unaware, the Fracti Luna pack no longer wishes to engage in meaningless bloodshed, I would appreciate it if you could open discourse on your end so we can come to an amicable agreement
The nerve of this pretentious bastard making it seem like all of this was MY fault!, MY pack wasn't the one that started this in the first place! He has the right to call this a conflict as if we were on equal footing! They started all of this! They brought this fight to OUR borders, they killed and pillaged and stole and now they dare to send a pretty letter and make the US out to be the uncivilized ones for refusing to entertain their nonsense!
A good place to start would be for the Neomenia pack to be willing to revise your borders and return the land you stole from us
Stole from them?!, That land was won by my father fair and square as a spoil of war, my leader led an infiltration to take out their base, and not only they he succeed in pushing them back, but he also captured their land as well, big open fields of fertile land which absorbed into our pack very nicely, there is no way in Hell I was giving him that land, he'd have to pry it out of our cold dead hands
I hope you see how this open correspondence would be good for both of our packs, especially now more than ever that we are dealing with a common enemy, the rogues, they have been wreaking havoc on our borders for months, they are usually uncoordinated and lack any form of structure, but lately, their movements warrant suspicion, and their weapons, they use weapons the likes of which none of us have ever seen, we could ally to push back and maybe even drive them out for good
I hope you will look favorably on our proposal and hope to hear from you soon
Yours Faithfully,
Alpha Bajusz
This is hilarious, no wonder they haven't been attacking our borders lately, they have had their hands full dealing with rouges, the latter part of his letter wreaked desperation, the rogues probably had them at their wits end dealing with their savageness, it serves them right!
A long overdue dose of their own medicine if you ask me, I scrunch up the piece of paper, manila folder and all, and toss it into the trash while whispering good riddance
I knew no good would come from opening that letter if what their Alpha was saying was true, it sounded like the rogues had been on their borders for a while, which is all far west of us, meaning we had an ample enough amount of time to prepare before the rogues got to us if we're lucky, the rogues will tear through the Fracti Luna pack us, in the meantime I'll have to do more research on this moonstone and better equip our soldiers on how to fight against it
I can do that, everything is going to be fine, scooping up my finished paperwork to my chest I kick open my office doors, Alice, my darling secretary, jumped at the sudden sound nearly knocking off her typewriter
"Alpha, let me get that for you.."
"Don't worry Alice dear I was about to…" Just then the elevator and a surprised Mihai walked up to us
" ...ah, just the man I was looking for" I walked up to him, dumping the stack of papers in his hands "The final revision for all the finishing touches for tomorrow's festival!!"
"We're still having the festival?" He didn't sound surprised
"Of course we are, these papers have everything from the parade format to the security rotations"
"What about the letter from the Fracti Luna pack?"
"Oh, that nonsense? I read it, they were demanding their land back, can you imagine the nerve of those fools, a complete waste of our time…" he opened his mouth but closed it back, deciding against saying whatever was on his tongue, he said a lot enough already, best not to push his luck "....if we're done here, I will be going home early today, best to rest you before the big day tomorrow"
I dismissed them both and left them standing in that spot even after the elevator doors closed, I couldn't bring myself to look at Mihai, the disappointment in his eyes just might break the paper-thin resolve I had, thankfully the door between Ruwa and I was still shut, otherwise just might have collapsed.
I chose to go home today, I had a room in the pack house, but sleeping there always put me on edge, we call it a pack house but in actuality, it's a looking senate building where all the pack members come to drop off their complaints, it's also built to house a large number of people in case of an attack with a room specifically for the Alpha, but even when my dad was alive I never liked that room.
The walls were a dull navy blue, the curtains were drab, the carpet was needlessly posh and the bed was so large it felt stupid, The entire room felt like it was made to be slept in, I can say that I have never spent a full night in that room, the one time I tried I couldn't sleep a wink and ended up walking back home that night
My house was thankfully not far from the pack house, it's a fair distance by human standards but as a wolf, I could run there in 3 minutes flat and walk there in 15 without breaking a sweat, which is what I did, I chose to take the scenic route, the night air felt wonderful on my skin, seeing the decorations on the houses as I walked by made me forget it all, the troubles on our borders, The mysterious stone, the intoxicating scent, none of that mattered, just this, this pack, this peace that we fought tooth and nail for, this was everything