This is some artwork that is just beautiful..thank you, Natasha, for making it...it's a perfect. Also, there are other drawings of Elska that you can check out if you want to join Rachelle's Books. It's a private Facebook group where all the books are discussed.
Furious
Enraged
Dangerous
Aunt Meela's violence turns on my father, who stands in his spot facing her judgment. There is a stench to Aunt Meela's silence as she regards my father in foulness.
Blood drips lazily down my dad's chest, his body battered and bruised. Gouges that haven't healed from his fight with Odin has been torn open to bleed again.
He looks tired to me, which is surprising because my dad never gets tired.
"Why?" Aunt Meela flings the words to him, more of a sickening cry.
"He wouldn't concede." Dad's voice is stern, hard, the Alpha in him answering the question.
"He had no choice, Meela." Uncle Grey's shoulder is dragged down by the weight of his arm. He's also bloody and bruised but his eyes look as if they only hold pain for Aunt Meela's loss, he has no concern with his physical pain. The youngest of her pups have scurried up around my mother's neck with his head buried in her throat, crying softly. My mom has her hands on both their backs rocking them in her arms.
Luki rushes himself forward to cradle Bryon's cooling body in his arms. The big male makes no sound; he doesn't have to, we all understand what this is doing to him.
"We will bury him with my parents." Aunt Meela is looking at Luki who is shaking apart.
"No, he's my mate, I will send him up to the Moon myself. That's my right, and I will have my right on this." Luki speaks to Aunt Meela as if she has no rights to her brother that he holds all the rights because they are mates.
"But he's my brother." Aunt Meela tries to look at him in the eyes, but Luki is only looking into the dead eyes of his mate.
"I don't care, he's my mate, and I will traditionally honor him." Luki's tone harbors a darkening edge of sound. Borson stands up, going to his brother where his hand falls on his shoulder. When Borson bends down, he presses his cheek against Luki's whispering in his ear. When Luki rises picking up Bryon whose limbs are dangling limply at his side. Luki starts to walk away in the direction of the Far North. Borson blocks the view with his body from our family.
"Luki, stop." Aunt Meela tries to take a step forward, but Uncle Grey scoops her up in one arm, "that's his mate, he has the rights to his body, not you." Uncle Grey's words are whispered except I can hear what he's saying. My father comes to stand beside my mother who passes one of the pups to my dad. He holds him close to his neck, soothing the males back who is hiccupping their cries now.
Looking at Shamus his face is red, and his eyes shine with tears that are brimming, my tears are sliding quickly down without restraint. When Shamus turns to go towards Lana's cottage door, Warson is standing in front of it, proud and puffed up. His eyes hold malice, while his teeth are bared in his War. A silver knife held securely in one hand, then placed in his other hand, showing off his skills. Shamus takes a step to the right, Warson matches his step, Shamus takes a step left, Warson moves the same way.
A sentinel is protecting the fortress from the intruder, that is his mother's mate.
Odin marches towards Warson, now two sentinels stand stoically in front of the closed door that houses a wolf lost inside herself.
"I just want to see her, let me see her." Shamus's face still holds the redness of watching his Uncle die from his other's Uncle's teeth.
"She's not in a condition to be seen, Shamus." Luna Bessa now stands in front of the door.
"She's my mate." Shamus starts to balance on the soles of his feet.
"She is but Elska never wanted to come here. She was never part of the Exchange." Luna Bessa holds a polite but firm tone. Odin lets his mother handle this; his body is blocking the way in. Borson now comes to stand next to Odin, shoulder to shoulder, while Warson holds onto his pant leg with the knife still in his hand. Borson's hand gently touches the pups head before squeezing his shoulder.
Ryeson comes to stand with his family as well, I'm left to stand in the middle once again.
"It wouldn't hurt for Shamus just to see her; he won't do anything that would hurt her, right Shamus." Taking a stance shoulder to shoulder with Shamus. Paley comes to now stand with us, facing down a family who has clear intentions not to let anyone through the front door. When I glance back at my mother and father, they have gathered up the rest of Uncle Grey's and Aunt Meela's pups, herding them towards the house. Uncle Grey is holding Aunt Meela while she sobs and sobs out into the air for the gentle breeze to take the sound away on the wind.
"She's staying here with me; her male will also be staying. I claim her as mine." That wasn't what I wanted Shamus to say. Warson throws a Warcry out before he leaps to attack, "I'm not staying," his wild panic matches his eyes. Borson reaches down picks up the pup by the scruff of his collar.
"No one will take you away from me." Borson's voice is stronger than I have ever heard it before, but deep below the firmness, there is an edge of wavering panic. He holds Warson to his chest, "don't let him take me." A shrieking voice filled with terror the pup holds, afraid to be taken away from the only family he knows.
"No one will take you away from us. You'll leave when you're ready to leave." Now Odin is puffing up, becoming hostile. I can't help the look I give him, leave when he's ready, like me, when I was ready? You're never ready to leave your family.
The door to the cottage opens up, Lana the healer marching out. Her hands are shaking.
"Don't you think there has been enough fighting between the packs today? This has to stop. Shamus, Elska will not be staying here. Luna Bessa, you will eventually have to say goodbye to your daughter, just like every other mother that has a daughter mated to a male in another territory. Just like Charlie's parents had to say goodbye, the both of you will need to find the way to say goodbye. It's settled, Elska goes back to the Far North with the understanding she will be coming here to live eventually. Her pup will follow the mother." Lana is neither Luna or Alpha but she holds herself as if she is above them all.
Healer
Luna Bessa's eyes are darted towards the throat of the healer. She's humming within her skin, a flash of fang polishes white teeth outwards. A hostile rumble from the middle of her chest. Warson wiggles free out of his grandfather's embrace to run into the cottage closing the door before a click of the lock is heard. Borson has a clarity of distress on his face that wasn't there before.
"Open the door." Lana turns the nob of her own home for it not to open for her. She shifts herself upwards, before closing her eyes. When she opens her eyes again they are pits of blackness. No light shines out. She has her teeth showing before a rattle inside is heard, she's whispering to the door that's starting to rattle, the whole cottage shaking from within. A scream of the pup before the door unlocks flies open. Warson runs straight lined for Odin who picks him up. The young male climbs up to his neck and curls around it shaking.
"What did you do?" Asking Lana in an awestruck tone.
"Nothing that you can't do, Charlie." She goes inside, the door closes gently behind her without her touching it.
"It's settled then, Elska will come home with us, she will come to you when she's ready." Odin is the one to talk to Shamus.
Both males look towards the other silently before Shamus turns around, Paley on his heels. Neither of them regards me and for an instant, I think they are strangers now to me and it hurts dead center of my chest.
Borson and Bessa go into the cottage with Warson.
Odin and I are standing face to face now. The quiet is hurting me as well, I'm not sure what to say to him. Everything happened too fast, and now everything has just slowed down enough to see it how it all played out.
"I'm upset with you Odin." My words reflex the way my chest feels, hurt and aching.
"No you're not upset with me, you hate me, Charlie. I felt it. I felt your true feeling for me." Odin's body is rigid that mimics his voice.
"I hated what was going on." Trying to explain what I was feeling.
"No, you hated me for what was going on, Charlie." His response is instant.
"You were the reason why everything happened, wasn't it?" I won't back down from this.
"Why did you hold my father back so he couldn't stop my mother from getting to Morvared?" Odin rises to his height that holds his maturity.
"I needed your mother to kill that healer, so I can take Lana as the Far North's." My chest is hurting more now. I can't help way my face shifts to have lips turned down.
"How long has this been planned?" Staring at him in the eyes.
"For years now. There was no way for your father to give Lana to the Far North this was the only way to get her without force." His hands clasped together in front of him, our eyes never leaving the other.
"So you allowed my mother to attack a healer knowing it could bring a war to both packs?" I can't even recognize the force of my rising voice. The betrayal hurts, it cuts itself deep into the marrow of who I am.
"It wouldn't have led to War, I would have just taken over your father's pack if it came to that." Odin's vision never wavers from mine. He's standing in full judgment of me.
Clasping my hands in front of me, trying to mask the tremors.
"Why, Odin? Why keep things from me, your Half?" The words don't hold the appeal it once did, and my tone of voice shows it. Odin's head drops down, he holds his hands tighter together.
Ancient forest greens lose the luster, I can't hide this fact. I can't hide feeling like I'm staring into a traitors eyes.
My half is a traitor.
"If I told you then Morvared would have known, it needed to be done this way, Charlie." Odin's voice falls, his face is starting to hold a look of fear as my growing disgust hammers out of my chest.
"Was Lana involved?"
"Yes," Odin is trying to take a step towards me but I hold out my hand to him.
"Why kill Morvared?"
"She was bad for you, for your Wild. I will always fight for My Half even when My Half doesn't understand what needs to be fought against." Odins says this in a downward tone as if he's no proud of that fact.
"I know what needs to be fought against."
"Do your Charlie? Tell me why didn't you fight against her? She was poisoning your Wild and you did nothing about it. You knew deep down something was wrong, yet you didn't question anything. You kept going back to her home, day after day. I allowed you to try and figure out things yourself but you refused to see what was right in front of your face."
"You allowed me to figure out things myself, you're so generous, My Half." Slow building tempter is starting to bubble out with words that hold a tightness to them.
"You didn't answer my question, why didn't you do anything about it? Why were you allowing your Wild to be poisoned, don't you care about your soul?"
"I never allowed myself to be poisoned."
"Yes you did, every day you decided to go back to her house. Drink from her kettle, you allowed yourself to be poisoned by her."
"Why didn't you tell me this? It could have been avoided." Asking Odin this question.
"Why didn't you recognize what was right in front of your eyes? Back then would you have believed me?"
"I would have believed you." Telling Odin this but the barest of deceit trails out on a sound I'm trying to hide.
"Stop lying to me. It's time to stop lying to yourself, Charlie. You couldn't even make it home in time for dinner yet you say you would have believed me if I said Morvared was evil?" He raises the volume of his talking tone while my ribs feel as if they are crushing themselves inwards, trying to sink into my vital organs.
"Charlie, I'm your path maker. If things need to die in order for you to walk forward, I will always take that threat out. She was a threat to you. You didin't want to see it, but I did. Now you will have Lana by your side. You will become what you are meant to be, and I will fight as hard as I can for you."
"What will I become, Odin?" Throwing my hands up in the air.
"You're going to become the next Moon, Charlie. I will pave the path for you until you understand how to walk on it on your own." His words are spoken in a real belief of what he thinks I can become.
"I just haven't figured out one thing." Odin's eyes focused on mine, unwavering.
"What's that Odin?"
"How do you fight the Moon?"
A snippet from Elska
"Stop looking at me, your eyes are burning my skin." Trying to move away, feeling with my toes first, hitting my knee on a hard surface.
"Would you rather I touched you?" His low voice is heard just to my right shoulder that is on fire. The flesh sizzles in a rush of heat that sinks between the tendon and bone. Turning towards his voice, hands out in front of me, nothing but the air is felt. Eyes are on my left shoulder now, silently burning me from the inside out.