The Moon Pulls Me Towards Her

I. 2

Do you want to know something about unconsciousness? You don't remember a thing, from before you were unconscious - nothing about what happened before you were gone. It's all blank.

But you do remember things from while you were unconscious. Sometimes, one drifts in and out of unconsciousness, and those things you remember from being awake, you can't tell apart from what you dreamt. Little bits and pieces, people talking to you, sometimes just a few words, sometimes entire sentences or sequences, of someone talking - sometimes to you, even though you aren't awake. I have a faint feeling of something warm, and of someone pinching my arm quite hard... of someone who sat at my bedside telling me stories, though I cannot remember a word.

I am fairly sure, that I will remember waking up to see Alec's worried expression for the rest of my life.

Alec said, that I had been found just a few yards outside the garden of the pack doctor. I have no clue how I went there. I felt certain that someone lifted me, carried me to some place, but I don't know who it could be. Alec said that I probably have crawled, as I was covered in mud. He said, that when Bryan had returned with Oliver, he had not known what had happened to me. Everyone had feared the worst. Bryan had said, that he had stopped feeling my presence, and had thought that I had died. Alec said that half the pack had spend the next day searching for me, but that I was found, two mornings after the rogue attack. Unconscious, but alive. Oliver was the one, who had not made it. Oh, Oliver...

I must have cried out in my sleep. I am covered in sweat and Dr. Angel - Angelica Porter, the pack doctor - is leaning over me with a worried expression on her face.

"Are you all right, miss Isa?" She says.

"I'm fine," I answer, but my voice is weak. I had a bad dream. I smile at her, and she gives me a face, which means that my smile is not convincing.

"I'm all right. I was just a bad dream. Nothing more."

I sigh. The past week has been anything but ordinary. It has been a wake nightmare, and my dreams of late haven't been much better.

"You're sad," Dr. Angel says. "You're thinking about young Oliver."

"Yes," I say, though I'm not sure. The loss I feel is not that of a friend. It is rater like a loss of a family member - like, when mother died. I don't tell Dr. Angel that, like most of the pack, she doesn't know our story, mine and Alec's that is.

"I miss him" I say, meaning Oliver.

"So do we all, miss Isa" says Dr. Angel. "He was one of the best of us, wasn't he?"

Although she phrased it as a question, I know that it is not.

"He was," I agree, sobbing. "He really was."

The truth is that I don't quite understand it. I don't remember much of the fight. But I do have some sense for logic, and I know that something in this doesn't make sense. Oliver was a strong wolf, the Alfa's son, and yet he died. I was no match for him, or any wolf, and I survived.

"You are going to the burial?" Dr. Angel says.

"You can't keep me in bed!" I respond, louder than I intended. Dr. Angel looks confused for at moment, blinking, then looks to me and shrugs.

"I suppose I can not." She smiles.

It has been a week since the fight, and I am still not healing properly. As I have no wolf, I don't heal with the same speed as those who have one. All the other pack members were fully healed, but I am still bound to a bed.

Strictly speaking, I don't need to be in bed anymore, but Alec wants me to stay at the hospital. Dr. Angel says that the wound in my left shoulder is nasty, that it will never heal like other wounds, and Alec is not taking any chances. Most wounds don't leave scars, but this one will, she says.

I touch my left shoulder and make a small involuntary sound. It is still sore, but not painful. I let my fingers follow the outside of my arm, until my fingers find the sling, that my left arm rests in, at my elbow. I run my fingers up my arm again, I stop when I reach the bandages, below the wound, located on my trapezius muscle and the side of my neck, and let my fingers follow the collarbone instead.

I broke my left collarbone in the fight, but that is almost healed, which is incredibly fast, for someone without a wolf. Actually, most of my other wounds have healed fast. This has led Dr. Angel to say, that it probably won't be long before I will shift.

Now, shifting doesn't mean the same to me. I still long for it, but there are other things that need to be done before I can think of it. Moving on from the tragedy, for one.

Two hours after my conversation with Dr. Angel, Alec comes to pick me up.

He wears a black blazer over black trousers and a dark grey tee. He has brought a black dress for me. It has a high neck to cover the bandages. I change into the dress in silence, and Alec - Moon bless him - brushes my hair, braids it and pins the braid into a bun.

"There," he says, as he ties a black ribbon around the edge of the bun. "You're done."

I smile at him. "Yeah," I say, sadness shoving in my voice "Let's go."

Today, at dusk, the pack buries Oliver. I sit on a bench in the burial ground. Alec is on my right. On his right is Maia. She is openly crying.

The Alfa stands in front of the entire pack. I think everyone is here, either seated on the benches or standing at the back or on the sides. As the Alfa's family, we sit on the first bench. No more than a few yards away from my feet, the ground opens into a grave. Oliver’s grave. Robert sits behind me, he holds Joy tight. Bryan is on her other side. He is not well.

The Alfa gives a speech. It is an emotional one, but I can't listen. I look down at my feet. I understand why Bryan is not well. He blames himself. I heard the whispers too.

Some say, that Bryan should have defended Oliver with his own life. I think he tried, but there will always be the ones saying otherwise. There will also be those who ask: How could Oliver Skylan, son of Alfa Lucas Skylan of the Blue Moon pack die, while Isabeal, the girl with no wolf, live? I don't know the answer. Maybe the rogues thought I had died and let me be? Or maybe Oliver was their target, so I didn't matter to them?

I take a deep breath. There will always also be those, who notice the coincidence that I am Alec's sister. And that Alec, is married to the only surviving child of the Alfa. And they will call it a conspiracy we made - after all, we are outsiders. We were not born into the Pack - the Pack took us in, when our mother died. We came to the Pack House when I was 14 years old, after Alec and I had lived four months in the woods. I didn't know where we were going, and Alec probably hadn't know either. Until one day, where he suddenly knew. And we came here.

When we came close, Alec told me to hide, so I hid while he talked to two people. They were questioning him, and not believing his answers, given their looks. They were wolves, though I did not know so at the time. Then Maia came, she probably meant to ask the men who the newcomer was, but then her eyes met Alec's, and they both burst out "Mate!"

That settled the matter.

The two other wolves were quite astonished. They stood there, looking at Alec and Maia, who were openly staring at each other. Then Maia asked him to come to the Pack House, and Alec gestured for me to come too. I ran to his side, scared by the others, and we walked to the house.

I couldn't help noticing one of the men saying to the other:

"That was odd. Two little wolves, and I didn't even smell them."

I snap out of my thoughts. It was the day when I first met Oliver. Now I am present at his burial.

I look up. The Alfa is still speaking. It is some analogy about the kitchen. In the midst of the grief the pack laughs. I know why. If someone had a fondness for food, pastries in particular, and who would always run to the kitchen whenever the smell of freshly baked pastries met his nostrils... It would be Oliver. The entire pack know that. I smile. We went to the kitchen and ate sweet berry pies on my first day here. I shake my head, unable to do anything about the memories welling up in my mind. Old days in the Pack House, or the woods, birthdays, pranks and traps we put up for Alec. I sigh as the tears fill my eyes.

Thinking back, it was easier for me to get accepted by my friends, than it was to get the pack to accept us as their own, so that Alec could mark Maia. I look at her through my tears. Now, she has a scar on the side of her neck that she is proud of wearing. The mark of Alec's teeth, from when he claimed her, to be his mate.

The Alfa has finished his speech. I paid attention to about half of it, so I know that it was well off. Then he lets out a howl. The rest of the pack follow his lead, their voices full of sorrow. We are saying goodbye to one of those, we all loved the most.

The sun has set, and in the dark the moon rises into the sky. It is a full moon.

I won't be able to climb onto the roof tonight, but I have a question for the Moon anyway.

Moon, why did you let me live and not Oliver.