[thirty-five]
❆
[Gideon]
"You look like you've seen a ghost."
Brian was lucky I liked him a hell of a lot to let that slide but at the same time he wasn't lying. I had seen a ghost. Of myself that is. There are a lot of unexplainable things about what went on up there in those mountains but I'm okay with that.
I'm okay with not knowing fully what happened to me. It's dead and isn't coming back,much like my father.
When my father came home plagued with that disease I'd really wished he hadn't. I felt angry and appalled that he'd make me end him. It wasn't his fault but that's just how it ended it up. He just wanted to say a proper goodbye to me, to tell me he loved me.His son.
It was his blood, flowing down the river after I had laid him to rest that had drawn the wolves from Eric's pack to us. My mother found me looking down at my father's remains. She didn't know which one of us to go to first. Her dead mate or her murderous son.
She chose me.
And I guess, that's why I fell in love with Maya. She did the same thing,choosing me against better judgement.
"What's that on your neck?" Brian asked, stretching his short self to take a closer look. I pushed his face away. I wasn't going to give him anything good to use against me.
"None of your business."
"Yeah,what are those?" Eric asked. I swatted his hand away too.
"Why do you two smell the same all of sudden?" Eva asked looking between Maya and myself. Unwittingly, I blushed, which helped cover up the bruises on my neck.Dammit.
It was my first time. I remember my father talking about it with me and he didn't spare any details but he didn't elaborate either. I was practically working blind but it didn't feel that way. Everywhere I touched her felt like a discovery.She felt real,warm. Hell, I would never be able to capture her beauty on paper even if I tried. I'd just have to touch her. As long as she was alright with being my eternal muse, that's what I'd do.
"That's none of your business either,Eva." I managed to say to cover my ass but my mother merely smiled not buying it. I wasn't about to tell her I got it on in the woods, basically our backyard.
"Alright,alright.Don't nag the boy to death.We know he's shy." John butt in. He wasn't helping me and only chuckled when I glared at him.
Maya clutched my hand and the adrenaline I'd felt with my embarrassment vanished,replaced with a keen sense of awareness of her.
I squeezed her hand back, almost forgetting that although we were surrounded by most of our family there was one last person she needed to speak to. It was the perfect escape from all the assholes I begrudgingly cared about.
[Maya]
"Mom." I said aloud, pushing aside the curtain.
I opened it to see my mother curled up on one side of the bed, her back to me. She shuffled a bit before facing me. I sat beside her trying to hold back my tears as I stroked her hair. She was alright.
She sat up pulling me in for a hug but her hands wandered like she was feeling for something.
"You feel it don't you?"
She nodded, her fingers trailing over my skin awe really.I'd received my warrior marks She couldn't be possibly be afraid of her own child now.
"Did you hear them?"
"Yes, I heard them all.They started and then they just stopped." She looked up at me.
"I've just killed a lot of people.It was my first time and I don't feel guilty about it." I wondered what she would think of that. Would she think that I was really my father's child? Some undying sense of vengeance worrying my conscious or simply a girl who just wanted grow up to be strong.
"What did you do to her?" I looked over my shoulder at Gideon who just looked uncomfortable. His family had teased him endlessly but it was all in good fun.
"Nothing I didn't already want."
"Well, then don't feel guilty about it.Nobody kills for no reason.It's just easier not thinking about the reason because there really shouldn't be one.And if there is a reason, there should have been a better one to spare that life you took." she told me, squeezing my shoulder. We both knew what it was like for someone you thought you loved to do something so bad that love wasn't strong enough for you for you to forgive them. That was one case we'd both have to live with.
We left her to rest but not before she said, "Thank you,Gideon."
~
"How did you finish him off?" Brian asked excitedly. I looked up from my dinner to look at his face.
"Don't answer that question, Maya, he might have nightmares." Richard said glaring at Brian.
Brian huffed before smiling cheekily, "I will find out eventually and I stopped having nightmares years ago."
"You haven't stopped wetting the bed though." Jana murmured as she sipped from her glass. Brian groaned in embarrassment running his hair through his hands.
Gideon placed his foot under my chair and noisily dragged it closer to him. He placed his arm on my waist, almost taking me off my chair. I didn't protest simply, placing my elbow on his thigh and leaning into him.
Eric laughed at Gideon's antics before being sharply wrapped on the arm by Olivia.
"My body is sore, woman. Spare me." he said rubbing his arm. Olivia rolled her eyes. She was glowing, early pregnancy suited her.
"I want you to hold me like that." she said pointing to us.
John started laughing, "You got your hands full, my boy. I remember your mother. She punched much better pregnant than at any other time."
"All you did was piss me off carrying your son, John." Eva snapped.
"No, personally, I believe you were born angry." John quipped ducking his head as Eva swiped at him.
I laughed at their exchange along with the others.
Nathan and Elaine were given the Alpha position at my former pack. I wasn't too familiar with the couple they had chosen as their Betas but they were suitable. I was invited personally to watch them. I held, their daughter, Elsa in my arms as her Alpha mark was applied to her skin.
It was after that event two years ago that I knew I wanted one of my own.
I placed my hand on my swollen belly, watching Arthur, splash by the edge of the lagoon.
My mother was the first to discover that I was pregnant with Arthur. Eva had asked me whether Gideon was any good, after he'd gotten enough time to practice, and she warned me not to lie either. Jana just cried too happy for words.
We were lazing around in bed when I'd come up with the name.
"Arthur." I'd said, sitting up from my position.I had known all along that is what I wanted to name him once we found it was to be a boy. I wanted to wait until the last possible moment to mention it to Gideon. I didn't want him to think about it, which would then bring about a spell of moping on his part and then complete silence.
Gideon then looked down at our unborn baby, his hand resting on him. He bent down his lips hovering over it, trying to guess where the baby's head could possibly be. Deciding on a spot he murmured softly, "I'll never forgive myself but I hope this can make up for it, Dad." He placed a long kiss on the spot, before looking back up at me.
It would become the first of many times that Gideon would speak to our little Arthur about his grandfather. Whenever Gideon was alone with him in our room, I would wait outside the door listening to him as he recalled his memories. I understood now that, our Arthur, to Gideon would serve as his messenger. In Gideon's eyes, he could apologize to our son in hopes that his father would hear him,acknowledge his pleas. His catharsis.
Arthur had his father's blue eyes. He was a curious little thing, always chasing the wrong things. He wanted to touch everything to,just like his father.He came out with a full head of hair, his hair was more coorse like my own. I became worried when he didn't breathe, after a heavily pregnant pause and my claws sinking into Gideon's arm as he wailed.
I noticed Gideon would disappear when Arthur's familiar scent of excrement would be unleashed.When I caught on to his ploy I dragged him right back to his son for a changing. He cursed all the way through, I had to hope and pray Arthur wouldn't pick anything up from his father's foul mouth.It was like he had gotten worse for some odd reason.
I played with my bronze ring as Gideon picked Arthur up and sat himself down beside me. Arthur patted my belly softly. He always wondered why it always so big. When I was cranky, I would tell him to ask his father and Gideon would tell him to ask me.
Gideon pressed his lips softly against my own before bouncing Arthur on his lap as the ducks waded in the water. Gideon and I no longer had problems with his hunger.My own had dissipated as soon as Arthur was conceived. Gideon's had dwindled considerably also when he first became a father but it still didn't make him any less intimidating to the others.
Tyranny and Tradition. Two things that can easily be mistaken for the other, what is tradition other than a way of life so deeply ingrained within the mind,body and soul that there is no escape. And with no escape, what is tyranny other than the deep seated sense of entitlement to use tradition for your devices. The trick to escaping was understanding the limits to which it may consume you. Damon never found that limit, nor did my father.
Neither of those seemed of much appeal to me. I always wanted to be full like the moon but I'd never thought of accomplishing such a thing. So,nowadays,whenever I reminisced about where I'd come from I looked up at the moon and never felt more alive.
THIS IS AN UNEDITED DRAFT.THANK YOU FOR READING.