The Lycan King & I

Eight.

Sleep evades me another night. I toss and and turn until my legs are tangled in the sheets. It wasn't that I wasn't tired, I was exhausted. My eyes burned for rest, but I just simply could not fall asleep. Was it fear? Was it the howls of the wind? Was it the name Ben?

It feels like I've just closed my eyes when the noises of breakfast preparations stir me awakeI dress quickly, I am lucky that I have the red hat to cover my dirty hair. Travel was starting to show on me.

I squint in at the brightness as I step out of my tent. It isn't snowing anymore. It's yet the air feels even colder than last night, the tip of my nose is already numbing.

"Good morning," I am greeted by Wells, who is tending to the fire. I take a seat on a log and bow my head slightly in greeting.

"Good morning, Eliette." I hadn't realized my head had nodded to the side, he appraoches me with a plate, handing it to me before sitting beside me with his own.

"How did you sleep?" He asks curiously.

"Fine, my King." That couldn't be further from the truth.

I keep my head bowed as the two dig into their plates, it seems to be some type of sausage, a heavy preparation of little potatoes and fruit. They comment casually back and forth to one another.

The King clears his throat next to me, "You can eat your breakfast, Eliette, I didn't put anything in it." I flinch slightly at his comment. Put anything in it? That idea hadn't even crossed my mind until now.

"I mean, it's safe for humans." The King clarifies.

My eyes lowered submissively. I take a deep breath in, "I-it's wrong for underlings to eat before  Wolves are finished with their meal." My voice sounds so pathetically weak.

There's a long silence.

"That is...." The King begins, and my head shoots up to him. His eyes are shut and he is taking long, deep breaths. After a few moments, he opens his eyes. "That is not... that is a thing of the past, I want you to erase that from your mind."

"Yes, my King." I nod compliantly.

"In fact," I watch as the King sets his plate down on the ground. "We are done eating. Right Wells?" Wells stops his fork mid-bite and copies the Kings actions at once.

I feel incredibly awkward as the two watch me, I couldn't eat under their scrutiny.

"Cmon," The King encourages, nodding his head, "I know you like fruit."

I pick up my knife and take a few cautious bites of the fruit, slowly eating all  the pears and cherries. The rest feel too heavy for the morning. I set down my plate in the snow. It isn't until I've put the plate down that the King announces it's time to get on the road.

My sleep catches up with me as we escape the cold for the car. Wells is driving, Axle no where to be seen, likely my fault. I  hear Wells announce that we should arrive by the end of the day, before my eyes cement shut. I drift off into a deep sleep.

I'm startled awake by a particularly jolting bump in the road. I blink a few times, I can guess what I was dreaming about by the single world chanting relentlessly in my head, Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben.

I whip my head to look at the king. He is blinking in the same way I am. He was just sleeping as well. The idea of us both sleeping- and waking, at the same time felt very intimate. I blush.

"Sorry." Wells grumbles from the front, "Good morning Sleeping Beauties, how was the nap?"

"Don't start," The King warning is groggy.

I'm almost alarmed at how I am still singing his name in my head. It wouldn't stop echoing, it was just begging to be said. My lips longed to test out the word on my tongue. Chalking it up to the fogginess of just waking up, my lips betray me.

"Ben," I whisper, my mind eased at finally admitting the word out loud. The temptation was not lying one bit.

Shit. What did I just do? My gaze snaps to the King; his eyes are wide as mine. Wide awake now, I guess.

"Yes," He nods eagerly, "Yes, you may call me that."

I am mortified. I hang my head low as the blush on my cheeks intensifies. Feeling his eyes on me makes me pull my hair over my face in embarrassment.

"So..." Wells interjects from the front seat. "... I don't know what they teach to the cubs down South, but you're got your hands full with Queenie there, Benjamin."

"Underlings do not have mates with underlings." The King impatiently explains. I can tell he's impatient by the crinkle in the corner of his thick eyelashes.

"She didn't even know how someone knows who their mate is!"

"What did they teach you?" I feel the King's eyes pan over to me curiously.

I'm quiet, I didn't like the pressure that came with his undivided gaze.

"Cmon, you had such a pretty voice last night....when we were just talking, and doing nothing else,"  Wells amends his sentiments at Benjamin's warning growl.

He snarls an undecipherable mutter before I feel his eyes on me again. "Please tell me?"

"M-mates bite." I stutter, I felt like I had to respond. The slight pleading in his tone and gaze awakened a need within me to calm him, to care for his confusion.

I worry I've said the wrong thing after a long pause follows. I guess it technically is the wrong thing because they they both break out in chuckles, like it's the most childish thing they've heard. Maybe it is.

"You mean marking," Wells chastises.

"Biting." I disagree quietly.

"Marking," The King corrects, "It's not like you're eating someone. It's binding souls together, it's a very intimate thing."

"It's a beauty... and such a ruthless bitch." Wells sounds like he's speaking from experience.

"The bond, he means." The King assures me, "Not the marking." 

"Ruthless?" I question.

"The bond is very strong," The King explains, "And sometimes it needs to be ruthless, it depending on the pair. It evolves to what the relationship needs it to be."

"Needs it to be," I repeat, not understanding. Humans didn't have all of this, we just dated and got married.

"Yes." The King confirms. I still don't understand.

"H-how else can you tell?" I ask quietly, I felt like I was speaking out of turn. I wasn't convinced that I was the mate of the King. It didn't seem possible, I was a lowly human. He was royalty. I was weak, he was a beast.

"There's a lot of ways one can tell who their mate is," Wells says, "But normally first by smell. Once you get the scent of your mate, you're a goner."

The question doesn't really do much to convince me that I am the supposed soulmate of the highest ranking wolf in the Continent. I didn't have heightened sense, I couldn't tell anyone apart by smell alone.

"From there it's all just instinct." The King shrugs. "The bond starts at first attraction and grows stronger from there."

"There's a reason your  not a teacher, Benjamin." Wells chimes in from the front seat. "Okay Queenie, how have you really been sleeping the past few nights?"

I guess the bags under my eyes are more evident than I thought.

"I'll take the way you two drooled earlier as my answer." Wells snorts. "The bond turned you into sleeping beauties today." I am still not following.

"Most mates need to sleep next to one another, at least until they've marked one another. It's the bonds way of making them reliant on one another." The King explains, understanding the confused look on my face. I let that sink in, It is true that I haven't slept much the past few nights. And it is true, as soon as I stepped into the car, slumber finally found me.

"I'm a human," I whisper.

"You aren't a human, you're a Luna now." Wells smiles cheerfully through the rear-view mirror.

"It's a mistake," I shake my head, panic settling in my chest.

"Why do you say that, Eliette?" The King asks patiently, like he really wants to understand.

"I-I'm not a wolf, I wasn't born a Luna." It's clear and simple to me. Wolf's lived with the idea that everyone was born into their role in the pack, everything was destined. Alphas were born into the Alpha bloodline, I was born to Underlings.

"Luna aren't born, they're made." Wells recites, like it's a lesson everyone should know. It probably was a lesson everyone should know. Another reminder of how uneducated and unrefined I was compared to these strange creatures.

"It will all make more sense once we arrive home." The King assures me.

"Yeah, then you'll get your protector, and join the pack, go through the Luna Rituals." Wells adds, "And be marked, of course." 

Marked? Rituals? Protector? I don't even know where to start with the questions. I dig my fingernails painfully into my palms to try to avoid the panic settling in my chest, the pain helps me cling to my sanity.

"Enough." The King cautions, and I feel as if he is aware of my current anxiety.

"I think Val's going to be her protector," Wells continues as if the King hadn't just issued him a warning.

"Really." I can practically hear the gears turning in the King's head.

"Makes sense to me." He shrugs, "If it's not me or Axle, it has to to be Val."

"Valerie is Axle's mate," Alpha Benjamin explains to me, I wonder momentarily if he will grow tired of having to explain every detail of the North to me. I felt that most of my questions were probably common knowledge to them. "She is our highest ranking she-wolf warrior."

It fit in the puzzle that Axle was mates with a warrior. I bet she was just as tough as him. We don't get to speak any more as a lone, stark howl calls in the far distance. I gasp, bonking my head painfully on the window as I squint in the receding sunlight to find the culprit.

Was the howler going to hunt us? Or was he one of us?

"It's okay," The kings calm voice pulls me away from the glass and back into the reality of the car. I realize with a wince that I've broke skin on my hands with my nails. I smooth them out on my thighs. "He's part on my pack. We've crossed the boarder."

I look out the window again, this didn't look like a town. It looked like the same dense trees we'd been driving through for days.

"It's still a ways before we reach the Kingdom." Wells tells me. "Better get used to the howls, Queenie."

"They're howling to welcome us back." The King interprets, "They can feel when their leaders are home, they can sense it. Don't you feel it?" His knees bounce excitedly against the leather seats, I probably would have tried to mentally save the image of his eagerness had I not flinched at another howl.

"F-feel what?" I stutter, meeting his eyes for the first time it felt like that day. Not that I was counting.

He mimes to me him closing his eyes, and I frown as the blue disappears. But I copy. I take a deep breath in to calm after another howl greets us. Then I feel it.

It's a slight.... murmur. A slight current in the back of my mind. A sense of, what was it? Completion? Fulfillment? Welcome? It was so slight, the feelings were mine. But they were someone elses too... like we were sharing it. I opened my eyes, shaking my head. I felt a little sick, that was weird.

"The Pack's complete," Wells grins.

"They're happy we've found our Luna." King Benjamin's words are just for me. I know this because his voice is low. I wanted to keep them in my trunk forever. But they fade away as more howls join the first one sporadically. His next words aren't for me, they're for Wells. "Have Val prepared."

"Yes, Alpha."