MATED TO THE NIGHT WOLF (MTTNW)

[40.1] THE 8TH NIGHT WOLF (part-one)

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She is not a mate, She is a witch.

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[SHADE SHADOWS]

Barnabas is right.

The sun refuses to shine by the morrow, and the world is dark. And it stays for three days. At least, I think it has been three days. I can not tell. The hours seem endless.

Perhaps I could count how many times Madam has awoken us but she has not been to our chambers. The last time I saw her, she had called AMA's true name. Now, guards bang at our doors when it is time to wake. If I am to count to that then it is four.

Four days have passed. It feels like a fever.

I pump on mindlessly.

My thoughts are filled with pages and lonely words. I have not opened Xirrians journal since. It is far too emotional that reading those pages has wedged me into such despair that I can not bring myself to read another page.

But even though I do not dare to read, his words have haunted me, night and day. I can not get it out of my head.

Perhaps it's because there is nothing I can do to distract myself.

I've been lonelier than usual the past few days. The master has not come by and as usual, no other master has ventured into the Library. A fact I should be overjoyed by according to Baranabas.

And so, as much as I try to talk to Diane to fill the absence, I can not help but return to thoughts of the journal while I work.

Even when I busy myself with sketches of the Maze, which I have completed, the endless patterns of the edges remind me how pointless Xirrian described life.

How endless it is to breathe, and breathe and breathe.

For no reason but to breathe.

I pause and my hands tightens around the pump. I stare down at the lever gripped in my fists, and my eyes blur. I try to hold it in.

One of the slaves says something but I do not hear, even though my hands continue to pump, as if from memory.

My thoughts are gone.

Xirrian did not have anyone. His childhood reminds me a lot of the Master. He spoke of his exclusion from the other pups. He spoke of how the shadows were his only friends, but even they in the beginning were unkind. They sought to scare him and Whisper dark things in his ears.

That was before he learned to control them. For some shadows are more malicious than others.

With shadows from endless as friends and a court that did nothing but fear him, he could only hope for one thing. One thing that was supposed to be designed to stay beside him, and love him unconditionally, and eventhat was delayed.

My thoughts drift to the master.

He did not respond about his mate. The abruptness by which he left tells me he did not wish to. And the fact that he has not returned in four days.

Perhaps I am overthinking.

He can not keep spending hours aimlessly in my company. He has work, and now that it has been a continuous streak of Dark days, then the Night Wolf is unhappy and The master may be attending to his needs.

He may be staying away simply because of this reason, it is the logical answer, and yet, a part of me wonders if it is because of the question I asked him.