Gray Valley

f o u r t y - f o u r

"YOU'RE AWAKE." I didn't know what to expect from him, now that he was awake. If what Anna had said was true and Blayze would be in love with me... Would he be different from before?

"Weslyn," he murmured, reaching up to wrap his arms around me.

"Blayze." He pulled away from me, his eyes fixed on mine.

I had never looked at his eyes closely... But now that he was so close, it was impossible not to stare.

I thought his eyes were deep brown but I was wrong. Maybe they looked brown from afar... Up close, I could see that the depth in his eyes weren't from the colour, brown.

His eyes were partly gray.

The sudden realisation made me snap out of my trance and return my attention to the present.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Were your eyes like that before?"

"What?"

"Your eyes," I repeated. "They're gray around the edges, brown from the centre... But also black."

"Unusual, isn't it?"

"Unusual doesn't start to describe it."

It was far more than unusual. Being a Brown Wolf with gray eyes was impossible. After the Brown Wolf transformation, their hair and eyes, almost instantly become brown. But Blayze's eyes were still gray.

"Yeah..." he trailed off, staring . "I feel like there's something I can't remember."

"What?" I wasn't used to hearing that from someone else.

"As in, I came to this place, the Luna Pack House... And I feel like I came here to say something important, but now I can't seem to remember what it was."

I had almost forgot the four dreaded words that he had said before collapsing

"W-Weslyn you're in d-danger."

He was right. He had come with something important to say... He had come with a warning.

"You came to warn me, saying I was in danger."

His eyes widened at my words, as he seemed to recall what had happened before.

"You are in danger," he replied grimly. "Lucian Bronze and those around him are trying to gain power over the Luna Pack... And the only way to do that, is by overthrowing you."

"And how would they do that?"

"I told you about Lucian, didn't I? I told you about the agreement he made, so he could increase in power and build up an army of Brown Wolves..."

"Yeah, you did."

"That army was made to defeat you."

"But..." I stared at him in disbelief. "Most of the Luna Pack and everyone else thought I was dead. How did he know?"

"How else?" Blayze asked. "Someone told him, Weslyn."

"Who would do something like that?" I believed that my pack was loyal to me; that they would never betray me.

"The Grants," he told me. What? I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"You don't mean Martyn, do you?"

"I don't know about him," Blayze answered. "I've never seen him with Lucian before... But I do know, for sure, that his sister, Maryanne and their father can't be trusted."

I should've known. Who else would have readily betrayed me? The two of them were the only ones who hadn't entirely accepted me as their Alpha.

"But I thought they hated Brown Wolves." I didn't know if it was true, but it definitely seemed like it.

"Maybe they do; maybe they don't," he said. "What matters is that they hate you the most and they would do anything to get rid of you."

I was silent, as I thought of Martyn's words from before.

"Brown Wolves have a shorter life span. Around 40 years of age; maybe even late 30s... They become ill. They physically weaken and also gradually lose there sanity. Often the ill Werewolf would be put down soon afterwards..."

"Wait a minute, doesn't Lucian have the Brown Wolf illness?"

If Lucian was inflicted with the illness, there was no way he would be able to lead a pack, let alone fight me.

"He's been cured."

Cured? I almost started to disagree, when I remembered something. It was so important; I couldn't believe it hadn't crossed my mind.

Mary had left for years on end, just to find a cure for the Brown Wolf illness. And when I had asked her whether she had found it, she had avoided answering me... There was no other explanation for it.

She had cured Lucian Bronze.