My bare feet were dipping into the snow, I walk on my tiptoes against the biting cold. So cold it's just a burn, pins and needles start prickling the undersides. I am demolishing the pristine white, clashing against my skin which looks oddly pink against this sharp lighting.
His hand presses into my back for a fleeting moment, even striking warmth and hope into my chest through the red silk robe draped over my body, too big. My mind is poisoned by him but I can't see that. He's just a boy with bright eyes, guiding me to punishment.
When I look up at him, eyes portraying my hopefulness, he glares down at me and moves away.
"I brought her Alpha, elders, men. I brought my mate to punishment." Said like a confession. His voice isn't quite deep yet, he's only sixteen winters. The Luna hasn't had a hand in his full change yet. She's letting him see more. See me as a pup just a little longer. He doesn't though, just keeps looking on, ignoring Her.
I look up to the night sky where the moon peers from the clouds, shining the full light onto the clear of woods where us wolves have gathered.
It's just the Alpha, four males of high power, a son, and me. The males stand in a half circle around the tub of icy river water. A tarnished silver basin used for answers. They are going to try to subdue my wolf side.
This thought makes me panic, and my tears are still hot on my cheeks, but I have to deal. I looked at another male that wasn't Blu. Shivering, I keep my arms around myself, trying to contain my shame from spilling from my belly.
This was a private shame and these males were going to freeze it out of me, wash away all the poison in my head, willing me to talk to a male that wasn't my own. All because I had spoken to him first.
I broke the laws, I deserve the punishment.
"Drop the robe, female." Alpha Parsim's voice is loud over the empty, stagnant clearing. It has stopped snowing, but I wonder if the sky will cry for me tonight? In pity.
I'm bare beneath, like the trees that line the forest, all their leaves dropped in quiet resignation of winter. I too, might join them in scattered assembly on the ground. Later to be buried.
Stepping forward, I let the robe of bloody silk, slip from my shoulders and drop to the snow in a puddle. I take another step, and another, looking down at the blackness in the basin.
The water is murky and winter like, ready to steal all my warmth and guilt a like. This is my cleanse.
I'm going on my fifteenth winter on Earth, and I think the moon wants me back. I'm already too cold to move my fingers and toes with ease. So I just stay still, watching the water.
"This is your punishment for speaking without being spoken to, for speaking out to a male not your own when my son is right here, he is your mate! You're a slut, filthy scum in this pack. You stain our laws black." Alpha grabs my hair, yanking back, revealing my neck to him. I don't say anything, just keep my eyes shut. My skin is bumped and taut from the cold, my ribs are prominent from days tied to the pole, my teeth are chattering. I can't find it in me to care about this little extra they have prepared. "This is for being a female out of line. For talking so nastily to me and your very own mate. I should've killed you years ago. When your mother disobeyed me the first time. You're a scar on my back."
His last words were only low enough for me to hear, but he has revealed things to me. I am a regret of his, bad blood in his pack. He hates me. He hates females.
Males won't fight females because that is weakness, but they will punish them. How severe that might be? It depends.
Soon I am lifted into the air and placed in the large tub. I hiss out at the cold, the hiss quickly becoming a yell, a cry. I cry for my mate, begging him to help. I catch him looking away, a hard look on his face.
The water is so intense it burns, drawing me into its grasp as it swallows up my screams, hands pushing me under from above, holding me below the surface. The water steals everything from me.
I thrash at first, and then I can't, because the freeze has claimed my muscles and rendered them useless.
So I lay in the water as the blackness seeps into my mouth and throat. I can see their blurred faces above and the bright moon becoming hidden by clouds. She can't bare to watch. I went to cry out for my real mother, she can't save me. Her hands are tied in this one, she can only serve fate, not present.
My eyes slip shut, this cold is compacting me together, stopping all life and function as winter usually does. A wolf doesn't hibernate, but I might. Forever.
My veins are slowing their currents, the blood chilling and the bones aching. My lungs burning up from the lack of air. A wolf, drowning.
My mind slips out of the tub and it's like I'm looking down on all. Watching them hold me under, watching Blu stand by, horror on his face. I look to the forest at the edge of the clearing and it's beckoning me closer. Yet, so is the moon, so large somewhere up above me. Does she recognize this?
I don't know when they pull me up, but my heartbeat is barely there. I can hear everything they say, but it means nothing.
He's screaming. "-and you promised you wouldn't kill her! You promised! Look at her! Her lips are blue, her fingers, her toes! She isn't good enough for skin! She's a wolf! Just let her go! I'll reject her!"
"You think she would survive any better in the woods on her own? This pack hates her, but I can assure you, Luna hates her more. Why else do you think I would have ideas like this? They're a gift of her many Muses. Think, pup! Why else??" Alpha yelling back at his only son. "She wants the forest! More than anyone else here! Why would I reward her with something so high on her lists? She is dangerous to this pack's hierarchy! She's just a female and she's sick!"
"She's going to die anyways."
"True, someday. It's in the books. But you will reject her anyways, I never want to see you with this female. She will not be the designated bitch of this pack. Not of my pack, and not ever. Now go."
The blackness has slipped over me, a numbness so heavy, I wonder if I might not feel anything ever again.
---
Head shooting up, I inhale deeply, trying to draw air into my frozen lungs. Sobbing as I clutch my chest. My nightmares have returned again. Memories and thoughts and fears all bundled into one sleepless night. Darkness hasn't favored me in so long.
I hold my head in my arms and shake, everything I have held within threatening to spill. My last few months in my old pack had been the worst yet. I feared something equally punishing might rear it's head in my path of choices to make.
I think of how Blu delivered me to the ice tub.
I think of how I can't remember a word he said after. I'm terrified. I'm hurt. I'm torn. And I can't let anyone see.
"You talk about the cold in your sleep."
My head whips up and I glare at Jack. How did he get in here?
"I came to check on you a bit ago but you were asleep. And then I just stayed."
My lower lip still wobbling, I just stare at him. "Get out." My voice is raw and weak. I hate it.
"What did they do to you, Montana?"
I growl at him, getting up to face him where he stands in this small room. "I said get out!"
He comes closer instead, reaching out and offering me warmth as his hands grip my upper arms. His long fingers not yet work hardened, he's still a growing male, thin and lanky. I notice my rib is much more healed than hours before. It mustn't have been that long if the room is still washed in night light.
His hand reaches up to touch my cheek, so gentle and okay. I can't help but close my eyes. No one has ever touched me feeling so calm. I've only felt anger. Inflicted anger.
I don't realize I'm shivering until he has draped a blanket over my shoulders and secured in a tight grasp at my front. Jack moves my hands to grip the blanket together before helping me over to the bed and laying me back, I stare up at him. I feel weak and hopeless, but more so I feel tired and worn. I feel too old to be almost sixteen winters.
"You don't have to bottle up around me, Tana. I want to know you. I want to help. I love you."
He's so genuine, so apparent and together. I believe him. "You love me?"
"Yes. Do you love me?"
"Yes." I don't want to hesitate. I don't want Blu. I want Jack, he's my real mate. Why else would the Luna have provided me with him?
"Don't tell anyone yet, Tana. We're only two young wolves, no one will side with us yet."
"The moon will. She'll side with us, if I'm happy." I tell him this, I'm so sure.
Jack's eyes don't say he believes me, but he smiles and nods anyways. "Of course Luna will. If this is what we want."
I nod and he draws me into his arms, kneeling on my bed, the one I never use. His touch is the only male touch I can stand.
"You've been sleeping for almost a day and a half. My father wants you to try something new today. How's your rib?" This is news to me, how odd to think I had been sleeping for mere hours when in reality I've lost a day.
Blinking a few times, I reach down, pressing my fingers to it. "Sore, but fine." I lift up my shirt to see the bruising in its final stage.
I feel his eyes trace over my stomach before reverting to my eyes that are directly on his.
"Busted." He says.
"What?"
"Let's go, I have something to show you."
"You always have something to show me." I reach forward and take his hand as he leads me out of the room. He's the only one besides John who can tow me around. Because Jack and John know, and no one else does. Plus I don't mind Jack's hands, they're nice.
"Lucky for you," He laughs, "If it weren't for me you would only train, and a well rounded wolf doesn't only know how to bite. They are cultured too."
"I don't just bite, I hunt. I am a well round- rounde- I'm a good wolf! I-"
"Why do I bother sometimes?" Jack shakes his head, but he quirks his mouth in a up tilted way, I know this look, he's amused... Or content. I've only seen it when he's around me. "Do you always take things so literal- nevermind."
Pushing open a door, Jack leads me into a room that smells of him. Mostly pine and laundry soap with some sort of fake scented musk that's a little too strong... I look over to see him moving some things around a little haphazardly... Like he doesn't want me to see. Clearing the piles of random things in the corners of his room. This male is messy.
I catch a glimpse of underwear, something I do just fine without. And some sort of spray bottle. Probably the source of that musk.
"Sit." Waving his hand towards his messy nest of a bed, I smile a little as I sit on the edge nearest the door. "Relax, you'll like this."
I do, sort of, sitting back on his bed feels awkward, I don't know how to relax.
I resort to watching him instead, who cares anyways. He's messing around with these large round disks, setting up a little case that makes a click and a hiss as it comes to life. I can feel the furrow form between my brows as he sets one of those disks down on the case.
There's a moment of steady silence before noise bustles into the air like a sigh. It's slow, lot's of low tones that tickle my ears. I watch the little case, getting up to see the disk spin round and round.
"What is this?"
"A record player. The song is an old classic. A little southeast special. The Blues. Don't say anything, just close your eyes and listen." I don't see the end of his smile because I'm closing my eyes and listening in to the sound pouring from the little speakers.
It's gruff and melancholy, slowly building to something more before diving low again. The deep male voice singing with all his might.
When the song is over, a dull hiss in its wake, I open my eyes to see Jack watching. He steps over to me, looking down at my face before his hands reach out and grasping me close, pressing his lips to mine.
When he pulls away, I'm left staring him in the eyes as he stares right back. There's no dominance, no aggression, just two wolves in love. Equal ground.
"That, little wolf, is classic blues. I'm getting a CD player for your room, I'll teach you how to use it, start a little collection for you. You can come listen to records with me whenever you want, though." Jack smiles. "You can sleep here too, if you're ever having nightmares. I'm just down the hall."
I nod as he steps up to me, standing over me, it makes me itch inside, a nervous tick. Swallowing the irrational feeling, I refrain from rolling my neck as my teeth clench.
"Dance with me."
"Dance?" I ask.
"Yes, movement to music with another." He doesn't give me a chance for response as he pulls me to my feet and tugs my body close. The music is picking up and so is he.
His hands are molding to my waist, curving my back, holding me steady as we move, rubbing up on eachother, he spins me once, then twice, then again, on and on until we are dizzy. I laugh and hold my head but he doesn't stop there, this crazy male is on the move again. Grabbing me around the waist he picks me up and flops on the bed, still Jack doesn't stop there.
Standing up, he grabs my hands and tows me to my feet, moving so fast.
We stand on his bed as he circles around me, rubbing his scent into my skin, I stand still, letting him mark my clothing that has slowly became more bearable.
Stopping behind me, one hand creeps around my belly to grasp my opposite hip, the other slides up my throat to grasp my jaw as he tilts my head back gently. Lips press to mine and my eyes flutter shut, the music slowing behind us. We're too enveloped to care.
Leaning back into him, I feel so warm, so much safer than ever before. Nothing can compete with this wolf's touch.
We lay back on his bed, on our backs, hand in hand. I watch out his window as light slowly seeps color into the sky, the moon falling behind the distant mountain crests as if her job has been done for the night.
Song: Sunshine is Gone by Melodiesinfonie
wow, you're still here reading? I'm impressed. thank you so much for all the support, votes, and likes. these chapters are currently building blocks, all our characters babies, seeming counter-proactive... but... trust me.