FYI, this is the very last Draken/Little Luna chapter. I almost didn't write it at all, but there were things from this timeline that needed to be explained, and I felt this was the best way to do it. Oh, and I think some of you believed I have been misspelling "chit" in previous chapters. I wasn't trying to call her a shit, though Draken totally would. Chit is an older word meaning a girl who lacks respect. :) Also, THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO VOTE AND COMMENT!!! It is because of you that I continue to write this story. Truly.
Oh, and after much debate I decided to change the rating on Wolf Prints to Mature. There will be cussing. You have been warned. :)
I do not own the picture.
Chapter 19- The Alpha's Favorite Toy
Wolves weren't supposed to be cute. I'd seen enough to know. They certainly weren't supposed to appear so tame. If you ignored the way the pup watched my every move with the such detail, you might have missed the subtle clues that branded her a predator.
She sat completely docile in front of me. Innocent. Tail flicking occasionally. This had to be one of her first shifts, but she didn't look the least bit phased, as if it was normal thing for children to turn into puppies and prowl the night alone.
Resentment tore at my gut at how easily she had dismissed me as a threat and was searching for other, more dangerous sounds that prowled the night. Her gaze was set on me, but one ear was cocked to the side. Half of her attention scouring the woods around us.
Had the night not been so deafeningly silent, I might not have taken notice of the tiny fur ball stalking behind me. She moved with the grace of a hunter, though she was so small I could have picked her up and cradled in my hands.
Not that I wanted to.
I was barely containing my resentment at the realization she had nearly successfully snuck up on me. If she took any pride in doing so, it didn't show. She sat on her hindquarters, ears perked, head cocked slightly to the side. The silver in her eyes was an eerie shade I had to force myself to meet. Swirls of ebony almost made them appear to be swirling. Moving. She was the same odd titanium shade the moon could turn when it was at its highest. When the breeze picked up and ruffled her fur it appeared luminescent. Glowing.
Luna. The kid was appropriately named.
She had been so intelligent in the way she tracked my location, I begrudgingly had to give her due respect. She must have circled around back, trotted through the nearby creek to dilute her scent, and worked her way slowly toward me from downwind, where I wouldn't be able to easily smell her coming. She prowled soundlessly, picking her way with incredible caution. Not a single leaf stirred. Not a twig snapped.
I would have heard it had she made a mistake.
Even her breathing was level. Even. Nearly nonexistent. She lifted a single paw off the ground and swiped it through the air. A greeting, if ever I saw one in wolf form.
It must have been that inkling of respect that simmered my anger to something manageable. Maybe she wouldn't be so absolutely terrible to train.
We were far enough away from her backyard that a human wouldn't have been able to hear a door open and swing shut. Neither of us moved an inch. Judging by the tiny, almost unnoticeable twitch of her ear, she was aware of someone calling out to her. She paused, as if testing to see what move I would make before ruffling her fur and picking a silent path towards home. I followed without a word exchanged, but halted at the tree line.
A woman was waiting with a blanket in one hand and a stuffed bear in the other. The pup yipped, tail wagging happily at the sight. With care I didn't know a wolf to be capable of, she gingerly pulled the toy animal from the woman's hand and held it proudly in her mouth. The woman was laughing. She leaned forward to scratch the pup's furry head and draped the blanket over wolf shoulders.
It took a few minutes of hard concentration and a few pained moans before the tiny wolf was able to transform into a frowning human girl. She clutched the blanket around her body and unhappily released the toy to the woman, who held it slightly out of reach above her head.
"Go get dressed and you can have it back." The woman promised, a smile curving her lips upward.
The child was not nearly as happy. Her bottom lip jutted out in a pout, but she was breathing heavily from her shift to human and didn't put up too much of a fight. "Why can't I just stay a wolf?"
From the woman's sigh I guessed this was an argument they had before. She dropped to her knees so they were at eye level and cupped the girl's chubby cheeks in her hands. "Because I would miss seeing this beautiful face."
"Oh." She didn't look convinced, but allowed herself to be picked up and held in the woman's arms.
It was fairly obvious they were related. Both of them had the same color hair and eyes, but they looked nothing alike. Her mother was human pretty, I decided. Her hair was shorter than her daughter's. It lacked the otherworldly shine the child had, and her dull eyes couldn't even compare. Luna's sparked with a wild intelligence no human would have.
Those same feral eyes didn't even scan the woods before locking in on my location. "You can come out now, mister."
The human woman frowned down at her child. "Who are you talking to, sweetheart?"
"The strange man. He's back again, but he's hiding." Her voice lowered to a whisper that I could plainly hear. "I think he's afraid of me."
It took me a moment of denial to come to terms with the fact that she was referring to me. My answering growl was for her ears only. No point scaring the human unnecessarily. I slide a blade out of the sheath strapped to my belt, more from habit than anything else, and tossed it into the air a few times before sliding it back in place.
Me. Scared. Of a little fur ball? She's lucky I didn't step on her earlier.
Fear tasted sweet on my tongue as the human's apprehension rose. She put Luna on the ground and stood in front of her protectively. With a gentle push toward the door, the woman indicated that Luna should go inside. I was surprised when she went without argument.
It was only the two of us now. She bravely called out to me, though there was a tremble that accompanied her voice. "Who are you?"
I stepped out of the shadows, and breath caught in her throat as she sized me up.
Good. This was how people were supposed to act around me.
She made a firm stand, chin lifted proudly despite the apprehension. "Who are you?" She asked again.
"My name is Draken." I saw no reason why I shouldn't admit this much.
"Are you here to kill my daughter?" Judging by the way she held herself, if I replied that I was, I would be forced to go through her to get the child.
Not like that would be difficult. She was a human.
I shook my head. It was my turn to size her up. This woman had ensnared one of the most powerful werewolves I've ever known. What could she have done to make him fall so desperately in love with her? She looked like any other human woman to me. Nothing special.
"I see." She nodded then, fear fading. "Did he send you?"
"He did." There was no question about who she was referring to.
She took a deep, shuddering breath that seemed to weigh a million pounds. "Is Altair ever going to come see her? Us?"
"No." I didn't plan to elaborate until she gave me a withering look that would have made Luna proud. For some reason, I relented. "When Luna began showing signs of not having a human, her father killed a lot of very powerful people who wanted her executed. He's a wanted criminal. They won't stop looking for him, and if their search leads them here..." I shrugged, letting her reach her own conclusion.
It took a few seconds for that to sink in. "This is absurd. How can they want to kill her? She's a child!"
"She's a Wolf." I corrected.
"She's my daughter."
Que evil half smirk. I was so good at those. "Your daughter could kill a human and feel no remorse. What do you plan to do when one day you tell her to clean her room, and she doesn't want to? How will you deal with that knowing she might rip your throat out for trying to dominate her?"
The look she sent me was steel and iron. Unbendable. "I am aware that no one wants to believe this, but she has a conscience. She can feel things. She loves me, and understands compassion. I've seen it!"
She was on a rant, but I cut her off. "She loves you only because she claims you as part of her Pack."
"And!" She continued firmly, pretending I hadn't interrupted. "I know everyone believes she is more dangerous because she is an Alpha."
"Alpha!" I laughed then. Sort of. In any case it was a dark chuckle that made her shut the hell up. Humans were so stupid. This one didn't even understand what she was talking about. "Being an Alpha doesn't make her stronger. The only thing it does is make her immune to Commands." I rolled my eyes to the sky. Why was I even explaining this? I couldn't decide who I wanted to kill more. This stupid human or her damn kid.
"But..." She broke off. Trying to think of a better argument. "She's so small. Even if she was an ordinary wolf she would probably be a runt. I'm telling you she's not dangerous! She would never hurt me."
"She is a wolf." I didn't need a better argument than those four words, but she was obviously expected one. This was a losing battle. I tugged on the collar of my black trench coat, fingers twitching for the familiar weight of my favorite blade.
Painful seconds ticked by with unbearable slowness. Where was the little chit? I hadn't come to argue with this human. I had come to argue with Luna.
"I've been teaching her." The human broke the silence.
A slow, sarcastic smile. I knew it to be anything but friendly. "What?" I asked.
Her mother jutted her chin out in determination. "I'm a human by species, and a psychiatrist by profession. If anyone can teach her how to act normal, it's me."
I growled and took a threatening step forward. "You're teaching her to act like a human?" I spit the word out like it left a nasty aftertaste.
She matched my anger with her own. "I'm training her to camouflage her instincts so werewolves don't hunt her like a dog!"
I almost laughed. This situation was ridiculous. "How, exactly, are you doing this?"
"Visualization." She sounded downright proud of herself. "When Altair left us here, he gave me some herbs I made into a tea every morning. For a while it kept her from shifting. But as you can plainly see," she waved her hand in a vague direction of the surrounding woods I had just come from, "it stopped working."
"And?" I prompted, bored.
"And so I have had to consider different options!" She sounded exhausted. "It was all I could think to do. Make her visualize a wolf in her mind. Leash it. Give her a definite line to separate what a human versus a wolf would do. It seems to be working. She's not nearly as dangerous as she was."
"Dangerous?" I scoffed. There was no way I would admit that I understood completely. She was a fur ball. A tiny chit with eyes too big for her face a disrespectfulness that made me want to pitch her off a very high cliff. No way could I think of that as dangerous. Or, rather, no way I could admit it.
The woman smirked like I said something funny. With surprisingly fast reflexes – for a human – she leaned down to scoop of the bear Luna had been cuddling with earlier and tossed it to me.
I snatched it out of the air, if only because I refused to dodge a flying toy. It was soft in my fingers despite the remnants of slobber, and it squeaked a high pitched sound as I clutched too firmly, a hard plastic ball buried inside it's chest the culprit.
Luna was a blur. The door was pushed open with so much force it was thrown off its hinges. It flipped twice through the air before sliding to a stop in the grass. The girl herself settled much closer to me, about three feet away. Again, I was not afraid, but she was growling rather fiercely.
Dressed now, she had traded in the blanket for a pink sundress with yellow flowers. Her hair remained uncombed, tumbling down her back in disarray. She stood on bare feet, poised in a crouch as if preparing to pounce. I couldn't help noticing there was more wolf to her now than there had been when she stood on four legs.
She hadn't blinked, I realized. Not once. She was completely frozen but for the steady stream of harsh sounds bubbling up from her throat. I mimicked her immobile state, glad she wasn't looking at me, but at what I held in my hand.
She wanted the bear, but she looked for all the world like she would attack if I so much as twitched.
I hadn't realized I looked to the woman for direction until after I did so. Unlike me, she was relaxed, arms folded across her chest, smiling. No, I recognized a hidden laugh when I saw one. She was laughing. At me!
Now I understood where Luna got some of her more insufferable qualities.
"Luna." The woman approached the child slowly, finally pitying me. "Remember what we have been working on? You're human now. Is this how a human would act?"
I was convinced Luna was so far gone she wasn't listening, until finally she shook her head, eyes still firmly trained on what I held in my hand.
Her mother was at her side now, leaning down in the soil. Not touching the girl, but close enough to share body heat. "Picture her. Leash the wolf in your mind, Luna. You can't act like this. Not as a human."
Perturbed, the girl finally huffed and stood up straight. She reached a tiny hand out to me, palm up. Waiting. "Give him back to me."
"Luna!" Her mother chided.
The girl finally met my eyes. It seemed to take great effort on her part. She gritted her teeth. "Please."
The word was more growl than human speech, but I very slowly held it out to her anyway, glad to be rid of it. No one would die today. Not over the ownership of a stuffed animal.
Happy didn't begin to describe the child as she hugged the bear to her chest. She smiled up at me like she hadn't been prepared to rip my head from my body moments ago. I looked at her mother, asking a silent question. She shrugged and rose from the ground. "It's a dog toy." She explained. "I've been buying her dolls and plastic ponies her whole life. I don't know why it took me so long to realize this was a better option."
I was the only one to notice the little girl open her mouth, poised to nibble on one fuzzy bear ear. There must have been a strange look on my face, because when Luna noticed me watching she snapped her mouth shut. A stain of pink flushed her cheeks.
Not normal human behavior, Luna.
"Fine." I addressed her mother, ignoring the mishap. "You teach her how to be human." I would teach her how to survive when that failed.
Because it would fail. She was a wolf. No amount of mental chains and visualization was going to overpower basic instincts completely.
"Can he stay for dinner?" Luna suddenly asked her mother, as if I would want to eat a meal with them.
The human answered before I could shoot down the idea. "Well, I don't know. I don't normally invite strange men who stalk my daughter to have dinner with us."
The growl came unbidden. I was not stalking! I didn't even want to be here!
Luna pivoted. It was the only indication given that she was about to attack. A graceful step forward. A flurry of silken hair. Any slower and I wouldn't have been able to catch her tiny fist as it sailed through the air, aimed at the highest point on my leg she could reach.
"Don't growl at my mommy!" She chided, freeing her hand from my grasp with a firm tug. She was off balance only because she refused to release the bear in her other hand, and she stumbled a few steps. Overall, it wasn't a bad right hook. My fist that caught her hand stung, just a little.
"Who needs a guard dog?" Her mother muttered under her breath to no one in particular. "I have a kid."
I decided to ignore the human and growled at Luna. Appreciatively, this time. "Not bad. Next time drop the toy before coming for me."
She wasn't impressed. Something flashed across her doe eyes, but it was gone before I could analyze it. "You're going to be one of those weird old guys who sits on his porch and yells at kids who get too close to his front yard, aren't you?"
I took a deep breath, counting off the reasons why I shouldn't kill her in my head.
"Why do you always look so mad?" She wondered.
"Because seeing you pisses me off."
A tiny finger pointed at my face with conviction. "I don't like you."
"Bloody hell! I thought we established this already." I glared down at her. "I don't like you either."
Her mom placed a hand on the girl's head when she tried to take a step in my direction.
"See?" Luna wasn't done. She looked to the woman. "He's not very nice. I told you he needs a mommy."
I clenched my hands, prepared to hash it out with the chit, but she was staring up at me again. Unblinking. Stuffed bear cuddled safely in her slender arms. And her eyes were way too damn big for her face! Words died in my throat.
Stupid. Cheeky. Little. Chit.
Bloody fucking hell! I hated this kid. I really did.
"Careful." I was cautioned by the woman. She must have noticed I was reaching my breaking point. "My daughter bites."
Luna's face fell at the words. "Mommy's mad at me." She admitted.
The human was nodding, her shoulder length hair bobbing in the faint breeze. "Why don't you to tell him what you did to the neighbor boy, Lulu?"
"I only wanted to play with him. He called me weird!" She argued, fingers clenching fake fur in anger.
"So you..." Her mom let the sentence hang for Luna to finish.
She huffed. Frowned. Nibbled her bottom lip. Glared at something far away in the sky. "I bit him." She finally confessed in a tiny voice.
Apparently that wasn't the entire story. "And?" The human woman prodded again.
"I punched him in the face." She said this with shameless pride. She made a fist and punched the air, a tiny smile fighting to break free on her lips. "Just like you showed me!" She was entirely too pleased with herself. When I offered no hint of approval, the smile faltered. "He said I was weird." She repeated, as if it was normal to get angry and bite people.
Of course, for a wolf, it was.
"You are weird." I deadpanned.
"This is not funny!" The woman stopped whatever argument was about to transpire between us, hand firmly on her daughter's shoulder. "I had to make her apologize to the boy's father."
Luna shrugged again. "He wasn't mad. Adam was nice." She hissed the last word at me, as if I should take the hint.
Adam?
"Like adults are supposed to be." She finished muttering under her breath. Unaware my attention had taken a turn.
"That's not the point, Luna!" Her mother sighed, suddenly glaring at me. "And you shouldn't be teaching her violence is the answer!"
Was I seriously being scolded right now? I hadn't been scolded in...I wasn't sure I had ever been scolded!
Wait a second.
Luna had done that too, hadn't she?
Bloody hell! I was done. This was as much as I could take. I was seriously going to kill someone if I stayed another moment.
Without even considering a farewell, I turned around and walked off as fast as I dared, heading for the heart of the forest. Something tugged me to a stop before I made it too far in. It was Luna. I could tell from the lack of noticeable footsteps.
"Aren't we going to train again?"
Somehow I held back yet another growl before pulling out of her grasp and continuing on my way. "Some other night." I yelled back to the girl from over my shoulder.
"Okay!" She called back to me. "See you next time!"
That night would never come.
When I did return, the house smelled of blood and death. The girl would be a ghost. It took quite a few years and more than a few favors to track her down. She was about ten by then, though she was still much the same girl I had known before. She was, however, behind silver coated bars.
The cell was small and dark. No windows were installed to offer outside light, and the only bulb in the musty room had most likely burned out ages ago. She was curled up in a corner, staring at the wall. Somewhere since I had lost touch with her she had lost all her baby fat and grown much taller. She was dirty, and her hair hung in greasy knots. The familiar light in her eyes had dimmed, and it took me a moment to think of something encouraging to say.
"Bloody hell, love. You look pathetic."
Inspiration never was my strong point.
No movement led me to believe that she heard what I said, or even realized I was here. Yet somehow I knew she was very much aware.
I took a large step closer to inspect the cage. "Luckily, I've come to rescue you."
That got her attention. Her head snapped to the side like she had been struck. Slowly, and with far less dexterity than I knew her to be capable of, she stood. A timid smile stretched across her face. I wasn't sure what change she had undertaken that made her appear more human, but whatever she was doing, it worked. Gone was the feral aura that she wore as a child.
It wasn't until she reached to nervously play with a strand of muddy hair that I understood what she was doing. Luna was playing human. Quite convincingly.
Looks like her mother's plan had worked. I wondered how many mental chains were restricting her imaginary wolf right now.
"Are we leaving this Pack?" She asked, frowning slightly.
"No." I shut her down cold. That wasn't a possibility. There were too many guards watching the borders right now, and Luna was not a good enough fighter to hold her own. This Pack might hate her, but she was a female who could shift, and they obviously didn't know she was fully wolf or she would be dead already. They weren't going to kill her. We would wait for a better opportunity. "You attacked the Alpha's son. Gave him a nasty scar across his neck." With a finger I indicated a line across my own, from right ear to left collarbone. I couldn't stop my smile at the thought. It hadn't been a wound meant only to maim. The girl had obviously learned something from me. "Next time finish the job."
The human façade fell from her face like ice melting in lava. Her hands relaxed at her side, head cocked like a wolf will do when curious. "I was going to." She sounded so sure of herself, cold and detached. "Probably would have if his Alpha father hadn't come and thrown me into a tree."
Without answering, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a single key. I dangled it in front of her face before unlocking her cage and kicking the door open.
Though she was clearly free, she refused to step out and instead simply stared at me. "They're just going to let you take me out of here?"
I nodded. "Temporarily joined the pack on some kind of trial run. I struck a deal. My job is you."
"I doubt Mason's going to be okay with you taking me for a walk after I just tried to kill his son."
"He won't know." My assurance didn't rest well with Luna. I tried again. "I found a clearing to the west that isn't patrolled often. The Alpha will be...busy for at least the next hour. Let's go."
This time I didn't give her a choice. My hand circled around her arm, and I pulled her roughly behind me.
"If you can learn to fake some submission to the great and powerful Alpha, I might even be able to get you out of that cell." I turned a hard right that led to a seldom used back door down a narrow hallway, Luna still trailing behind me.
"Where are we going?" She asked.
"To train."
We were almost to the clearing before she spoke again. "Did you at least bring me candy this time?"
She didn't see it coming when I grasped my hand around her slim neck and hurled her head first over my shoulder and into the dirt.
She came to coughing and wheezing and clutched her head, growling low. "You could have just said no."
Time hadn't changed anything, apparently. I still really hated this kid.