Stubborn and the Mutt

twenty nine | Malacai

"Okay. So do you maybe want to tell me how you decided not to tell me something as major as you being an Alpha? And how this works for me? What it means for me."

"I think if many people had the role of being a future Alpha, believe me when I say they'd have boasted and basked in the idea. For me, it's different. It's not what I wanted. It was never something I wanted but because of life being a pain in the ass, along with my father being the greatest father the world could ask for, turns out, I have to be an Alpha or things would just get complicated."

I shift a bit, now crossing my legs and ensuring the blanket covers the good-goods.

He sighs softly. "Okay, so I should give you the context. It's a lot, though."

"We have time."

He smiles, nods, then makes himself extra comfortable. "So... basically, I should start from the beginning. I had a brother. Twin brother, actually. I'm the youngest between the both of us. His name was Malacai. We looked so different." He chuckles at the thought. "Looked exactly like my mother, except a male version. Brown eyes, the light hair. He even acted a lot like her. Tender, gentle. Patient. Understanding. All the qualities of a good Alpha. Stern, but the good kind of stern. The pack loved him. He was what they needed, and it was quite different considering when my father was Alpha— he still is, but I mean back then, he was feared. Borderline feared as in they were scared of him, not out of respect but of actual fear. My father can act irrational."

"So your brother was the opposite."

"Exactly. A breath of fresh air. Since he was young. So, of course when the pack understood that he'd be the new future alpha, you can imagine the wave of satisfaction in the pack. It made sense and everyone impatiently waited for the day to happen. Me? Well, I could care less. I knew I was never going to be an alpha, and I swear, I was fine with that. I was proud of my brother. Sure at times we'd never get along, argued about stupid things and my father would take my side and my mother could take Malacai's side. But I could care less about the role of being an alpha. When he went into training, I was busy fooling around with the other kids. Didn't matter because when we got along, we got along so well."

I nod slowly, scooting closer a bit. "So... what happened to him? You're busy using passed tense, so... what happened?"

Micah sighed heavily, rubbing his fingers against his chin. "Remember that disease I told you about? Jis'burentse. That deadly illness." He waits for me to nod as confirmation that I remember. "Well, yeah. He contracted that. No one really knew when or how. The signs were there but we never paid attention to it, only because he used to play it off like it was nothing. Headaches. Body pains. Laziness. Physical exhaustion. He played it off easily, so we never took it seriously. But it got worse. Week after week, it got worse. He... wow."

I frown and my heart aches as I watch how he gently removes the comb hair band thing, and let's his hair fall over his face so easily. I scoot closer, hoping I could provide him comfort.

Maybe he's never really spoken about this?

I place my hand on his knee, to which he immediately takes hold of and holds it to his lips. He gently placed pecks on each knuckle, which confuses me because it's me who should be providing him comfort yet he's affectionate like he's trying to comfort me.

I relate. He lost his brother. I lost my sister. We have a scary thing in common. I cared more about what my role as Luna would he, but this took another turn.

"Maybe we can change the topic?"

"I don't mind talking about it." He sighs softly. "He then stopped coming out of his room. His training would cut short. He would stop eating much, bathing much. He lost a lot of weight. Didn't have an appetite but you can imagine the hunger pangs he felt. He was really going through it. That's when we decided we'd get a doctor in to see what the problem is. She then told us, after a few days of doing tests, that he had it. That he's had it for long and he's far into it. There's no cure, they weren't even sure how to help him. He's a wolf, wolves heal fast naturally, but this killed his blood cells quicker than his body could heal. You can't even imagine how he looked when he shifted."