Iron Heart

Chapter 3 - Balkin & Leah

Balkin     My luck right, I finally found my mate, and she’s already mated? Not to mention, Leah seemed to be quite a bit older than me too. Why would the moon goddess do this? Did I do something to make her feel like I shouldn’t be mated?

    Not to mention Leah didn’t seem to be acknowledging the pull at all, even making a point to give me both her last names. Maybe the goddess made a mistake this time. It had never happened before, but perhaps it does happen and we just never really knew about it.

    Regardless, I was now walking with her to Paleclaw, and I would have to think of how I was going to explain to Cersy what’s going on. I couldn’t believe she had not only found her mate, but it was an Alpha of another pack. I was happy for her, but it meant that she definitely wasn’t going to be able to take over Ironfang like my parents had hoped, as I had hoped. Not without it becoming Paleclaw..that thought scared me. How would Paleclaw treat that many Fresh Bloods? Especially after the history, our packs have.

    “Can I ask how Cersy and the Nihildum are doing?” I couldn’t help myself from asking, she must have seen the concern on my face.

    “They’re doing great actually, they were released and given homes the same day Alpha Raven discovered Cersy was his mate. It was rather romantic, even if the whole pack thought he was crazy at first. But they’ve been here almost a week, and none of them have caused any trouble, Cersy should officially become Luna soon. The whole pack is anxious for it.” I couldn’t help it, I loved her voice, she could talk all day and I wouldn’t mind. Her hair was braided in one long braid down her back, with her honor beads or feathers replaced with wrapped string. She must be a mother, the string is usually a project the children share when they’re working on textile development.

    My mother wasn’t a warrior, but I made one for her when I was four anyways, and she still wore it even now. The braid was also normally reserved for retired wolves as well. But Leah obviously hadn't retired yet, she was escorting me after all, and she was a little young for that by my guess.

    Her hair was jet black, and her eyes a silver-grey, I frowned a little when I saw the mark on her neck. It looked like it hadn’t healed in the proper way like her mate hadn’t sealed it after marking her, how horrid. I didn’t even know the male, or her for that matter, but I wanted to hurt him severely. To mistreat your mate was against the primal laws of the land. And not sealing the bite, can lead to infections that were life-threatening, just because of how deep our canines reached. It wasn’t something he could do on accident either, the blood that would follow would force her to be hospitalized within the hour.

    And yet she was with him and had pups that braided her hair for her. Maybe that was why the moon goddess had done this, maybe Leah’s current mate was unfit for her. But it wasn’t really my place to say anything, Phux’s Pits I shouldn’t even be thinking about it.

    Rurmis was pacing in my head, growling rather loudly, I hadn’t ever felt him being so agitated before. He was always so laid back, ‘You okay buddy?’ I had to ask him.

    ‘Am I okay? Am I OKAY?’ He snapped, raising his tone into a howl in my head, ‘My mate is trapped with a wolf that is harming her, OF COURSE I’M NOT OKAY’

    ‘We don’t know their situation Rury’ I tried to calm him, but he only got louder, it was giving me a painful headache, more than I’d ever felt before. I had to put a hand to my forehead.

    ‘DON’T KNOW THEIR SITUATION?’ His growls and howling was thundering in my head, ‘I can feel her pain Bal!’

    ‘What do you mean? That’s impossible,’ Now it felt like Rury was running into walls or something in my mind, it hurt like hell, and I had to brace against a tree.

    “You okay?” Leah put a hand on my shoulder, looking genuinely concerned, and that sent Rury even more feral. I had never had to deal with this before, I had never had to control Rury, he was always so docile. I usually had to push him on board for things, without my pushing Rury wasn’t even aggressive enough to have become Delta.

    “It’s my wolf, I don’t know what’s happening, I’m sorry but can we stop?” I had only just met this woman, and by all rights she should be treating me like a type of prisoner, calling reinforcements or..something. But instead, she just nodded and helped me sit down.

    “Is there anything in your pack that can help?” She asked, already pulling it off my back, I let her do so and leaned back against the tree. I shook my head, there wasn’t any medicine in there.

    “Only food and water, no medicine, Rurmis has never acted like this before.” I had to close my eyes to try to lessen the pain, as it felt like Rury was trying to break out of my skull itself.

    ‘I can feel that her wolf is in pain, but I can’t talk to her, please...let me talk to her.’ Rurmis calmed down enough to ask, probably realising I wouldn’t be letting him break out of my head. At least not without causing me immense pain.

    ‘I’ll talk to Leah,’ I opened my eyes, “I’m sorry this is going to sound crazy, but Rurmis is saying he must meet your wolf again, he somehow thinks she’s in pain.”

    Leah looked absolutely befuddled, but didn’t run away or smack me so that must be a good sign, “Let me talk to her.”

Leah     ‘Nuren? You okay?’ I tried calling, but I couldn’t hear her answer me, so I signaled to Balkin I was going to meditate for a bit, and he seemed to understand. It was then I went back into my mind, giving myself a form in that space so I could try to find Nuren. I had never really had this happen before, sure I had practiced coming back here to comfort Nuren after one of Kahn’s fits. Mostly because she always seemed to take it worse than me, apparently his wolf Viper joined in.

    I traveled through the garden Nuren and I had created, apparently, other wolves didn’t do this kind of thing, create landscapes in their heads for their wolves. But I had so much trouble controlling Nuren when I was young, she had the power to even push me out of our human form back then. Something my parents at the time never believed. Saying it was impossible for a wolf to do that.

    So I made a mindscape, I had access to the internet back then, and I had read about humans doing similar things with the others that resided in their heads. Even though they didn’t have wolves like us, they had a better way of dealing with my problems than my own kind.

    I found her curled up in the gazebo we had made, she was also a wolf with a human form which others never believed as well. But I guess it was more like an in-between form. She had wolf-like features this way, ears, and tail, and instead of hair on her head it was long fur in the place hair usually was. It was combed down to look like hair as well, but you knew when you touched it that it was definitely fur.

    But it looked like Rurmis was right, somehow; Nuren was crying into her arms, knees pulled up to her chest. I went to sit beside her, “You okay?” I put my hand on her back, rubbing it in circles. For a moment she just cried harder, “You know Rurmis is feeling your pain, you’re giving poor Balkin major headaches right now.”

    She sniffled, rubbing the tears from her eyes as she looked at me, “He is? I didn’t know he could feel me too, I could sense him through you Leah. I didn’t understand it, and the farther I reached I realized too late that my connection with Viper was thinning. It wasn’t till he showed up here that I found out, and he..he..”

    She didn’t have to continue, I knew exactly what had happened when Viper showed up. That was the problem with the mate bond we found out, because of the space we created, they didn’t have to meet on the outside for Viper to get to her physically. He could waltz right in here whenever he wanted, we had looked for ways to stop him, but the only way was to sever the bond entirely.

    I pulled her into my arms, and right on cue Viper waltzed into our head, he was a rather normal wolf in werewolf terms. He stopped when he saw I was holding Nuren, “So the cheater is being protected by her human now, I should probably let Kahn know..” Before I could retort, Nuren broke from my arms.

    “I’m not a cheater! You know I’m not like that, and I already told you when you were here earlier.”

    He scoffed, waltzing into the building I stood in between him and Nuren before he could nip her ankles or do other harm. He always tried to make her fall down when he was in this form. He couldn’t stand her being above him.

    “Kahn won’t let you leave him you know,” He sneered, sitting down and seeming to inspect his paw, “If you leave, he’ll lose his Sentinel rank and he won’t allow that, he’d rather be widowed.”

    That was the boldest threat Viper had ever said to us, never had he implied Kahn would kill us, just hurt or maim maybe.

    “I haven’t even acknowledged to bond with Balkin to him, what are you going to say.” I retorted, and Viper gave me a hard look.

     “As soon as he knows the goddess gave you a second mate, he’ll do whatever is necessary to keep you. And you know as well as me that he doesn’t trust your word, sweetheart.”

    I stiffened, I was getting really tired of this life, I had been with Kahn for ten years now. And the only happiness I had gotten out of it was my pups; Aura, Kai, and Arthur. When Kahn had swept me off my feet on my eighteenth birthday I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, Khan was four years older than me, and the way he had his eye on me for so long was downright creepy.

    And the way Viper was acting now, about losing his Sentinel title, and the moon goddess giving me a second chance...something really wasn’t adding up. The more I thought about it, the less I felt like Kahn was meant to be my mate.

    “I’m going to need time, get out of here Viper, I don’t care what you tell Kahn.” Viper smiled, and left our mind, I turned to Nuren, “I’m going to let you out to calm Rurmis. I’m going to need to ask permission to visit the moon goddesses temple, I need one of her seers to guide me.”

    We both left the mindscape then, Nuren coming out into her full wolf, now that I was able to see outside again; I could see Rurmis take over as soon as I shifted, luckily I think Nuren saved our clothes this time.

    It was time to mind-link Alira, I would ask Raven later about seeing the Seer; he might not be able to spare me, especially when war was brewing.

    I told Alira the basics of what had occurred; finding an Ironfang wolf, that he requested safe harbor and that he brought information for the Alpha and Luna. Alira seemed happy to meet us at the border and reassured me she will deliver Balkin to the Alpha as soon as possible. Though she found it strange for me to question such things, something was nagging me to not let Balkin be left in the prison alone or even holding any sort.

    Viper’s threat felt very real to me, it didn’t feel like posturing, and so we ran. I was surprised how well Rurmis kept up with Nuren. But I suppose it made sense when considering their namesakes. Rurmis was named after the God of Animals, and Nuren was named after Nunren the Goddess of the Hunt, it fit that they were similar speeds if their name sakes fit them at all.

    We were able to make it back during nightfall, Alira was waiting for us luckily, in this dark...I shouldn’t be thinking like that. Khan was still a ranked pack member, he wouldn’t stoop like that… ‘He’s more likely to challenge Balkin to a duel,’ Nuren piped in, I don’t know if that was supposed to reassure me or not.