Moonlight Run

Three

On Wednesday morning my alarm didn’t go off, or I had snoozed too many times through it. I couldn’t be sure which. But when I saw the face of my clock read 7:10am, I panicked. I had just twenty minutes to get to training on the other side of the compound. By the time I’d changed into my leggings and tank, I realized I only had an underwire bra on-hand. I didn’t have time to search around for a sports bra. I cursed myself as I sprinted to the gymnasium with the uncomfortable undergarment on.

As I laced up my shoes outside of the doors, and took a swig of my water bottle, I entered the gym as quietly as I could so I could sneak up to join the others at the back row. No one had turned to look around, but already it felt like the whole room was gossiping. It took me a moment to realize, as I took my place beside Pipa, that she was speaking excitedly with Phoebe. No one even seemed to have noticed I’d arrived late, which was something I’d generally be written up for. It was strange.

Even stranger, was that Pipa hadn’t much cared for Phoebe. So I was surprised to see the two chatting in such a friendly manner.

“Hey,” I whispered. “What’s going on? Where are the trainers?”

I noticed that neither Nikolai or Dimitri were at the front of the group yet. As two of the four wolves that led monday-wednesday-friday training, they were always here before the rest of the pack.

“Yeah, big situation up at the Manor.” Phoebe said.

“Oh?” I furrowed my brow curiously.

Pipa leaned into me, but nodded her head over towards the girl that sat off to my right. She was all the way in the corner, as if she was avoiding everyone.

“Major drama went down last night with the Rhodes sisters. You haven’t heard?”

I shook my head to say no, and she continued. “So, Dahlia turned twenty-one last week, okay…”

I nodded, remembering the party. “Yeah, I was at the party Friday. it was a pretty good time.”

She looked taken aback for a moment. “You were? Okay, thanks for the invite…” She shook her head in a brief moment of disbelief. “Well, anyways, guess what happened while we were locked up?”

I shrugged, “I’m guessing she found her mate?” I began to take a drink from my water bottle.

“Yeah… and it’s Nero.”

I immediately spit the water all over the mat in front of me. A few nearby people looked back at me, including Dahlia. Shìt. “Wait —” I leaned in closer to them, lowering my voice to a mere whisper. “We’re talking about Lily’s Nero?”

“Lily and Nero had come over to meet with her parents over dinner, I guess they were there to talk about plans for their Buck and Doe party… Dahlia walks into the dining room, she and Nero lock eyes, and boom, it’s mating season. All hell breaks loose between the Rhodes sisters. And now Lily’s missing. She just peaced out last night.”

“Holy shìt. This close to the wedding?”

“I bet the council is losing it.” Phoebe remarked. “Honestly, how do you screw this up?”

“I’m telling you, that’s just another reason why the matchmaking idea is stupid. I don’t know why people can’t be bothered to just let women find their mates when it happens. These council members are out here trying to play matchmaker as soon as a she-wolf doesn’t immediately find her mate because they failed basic Anatomy and think our eggs are going to shrivel up as soon as we start inching towards thirty. And look what happens.”

“So what’s going to happen to Lily?” I asked with concern.

“Who knows, they have to find her first.”

“You know,” Phoebe said. “Nero was from my pack down in Pilot Mountain originally. I heard that poor girl’s parents had taken her to visit every pack from Maine to Oklahoma, hoping to find her mate over the last couple years. And that’s more than Nero’s parents ever bothered to do for him… his dad used to tell him no she-wolf was ever gonna want a prissy-boy wolf like him and beat him within half an inch of his life.”

Pipa cringed. “I don’t know much about Nero, but I know if Lily’s true mate is out there, he’s a rogue for sure. Her parents have helped her look under every rock and in every chimney, too.”

I nodded sympathetically. I’d heard the same. And once Lily turned twenty-three this past winter, her parents wasted no time soliciting the council for their infamous ‘matchmaking’ services.

She-wolves who were having difficulty finding their mates could be placed with unmated wolves who’d had similar luck; others were even placed with wolves who’d lost their mates. Nero was a twenty-seven year old bachelor when the council determined he and Lily would be a good fit for one another. They’d been planning for a June wedding for next month.

“Do you think since their parents threw all this money at the wedding that they’ll just go through with it, but swap out the bride?” Pipa asked with a laugh.

Phoebe cackled. I groaned, shaking my head at her.

“Too soon?”

***

After a few minutes more, Nikolai and Dimitri, along with a few other trainers, entered the gym. The chatter began to stop and the room felt silent when Nikolai took his place front and center, patiently holding his hands behind his back. We all fell in, taking the same pose, staring straight ahead. I could feel his eyes scanning the room as he did when each training day began, making sure we were ready and waiting at attention. I let my gaze wander and we met eyes at the same time. He raised a brow at me, and I returned my eyes to the front of the room, looking past him.

“Brothers, sisters, today our training is going to look very different. Today one of our own is missing. Lily Rhodes is somewhere in our woods. We know this, because our border patrol hasn’t found her, and our cameras haven’t seen her near the compound, either. Today, we take to the woods to find her. Please know this; she is emotional, she is imaginably distraught, but she is otherwise unarmed, and we want to take special care to bring her home, and remind her she is a valued member of this pack. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” we all said in unison.

“Make two lines in front of myself and Dimitri, we’ll pass on individual instructions on where you should look before you leave. Move.”

I sighed. I didn’t particularly want to face off with Nikolai so soon after yesterday, but I also tried my best to avoid Dimitri. Today, the latter felt more approachable, so I found myself in his line. When it was my turn to step up, he nearly dropped his clipboard.

“Hi, um, Isa,” He looked nervously back down to the clipboard in his hands. “Looks like we’ve got you going southeast, back towards the village with… Dahlia.” He looked past me and motioned to Dahlia, two places behind me in line.

“Dimitri, is that wise?”

He narrowed his eyes at my question. “Nikolai’s orders. He seems to think she’ll be helpful in locating her.”

Dahlia came to stand next to me just then. She had a few inches on me and looked down over her right shoulder, so as to miss my gaze.

“Dahlia,” Dimitri began. “You’re just going to take Isa here with you back to your neighborhood, maybe walk her around the perimeter of the house, and see if she can help you nail down the scent, okay?”

Dahlia nodded slowly, and we headed out together. When we emerged back into the light and I began to work my tank top off over my head, she cringed. “Can we run there instead? I don’t really want to shift… my wolf and I aren’t exactly getting along right now.”

I pulled my tank top back down into place. “Yeah, sure. Hey…”

I put my hand on her arm, hopeful she wouldn’t shove me off. “Let’s be honest, Lily’s smart and if she doesn’t want to be found, I’m not sure any of us are going to find her anytime soon, you know? So if we just walk in the direction of the village… and happen to talk along the way in whatever way helps you? That’s okay with me.”

She bit her lip nervously.

“If it’s okay with you, too, I mean.”

After a minute she nodded and met my eye for the first time.

I gave her a reassuring smile. “Alright,” I said. “Let’s head out then.”

***

After a while, Dahlia began to open up.

“And I’m not even sure she was mad at me… she almost seemed angry at my parents.”

“That makes sense to me,” I said. “Think about it, they’re the ones who arranged for her to be paired with Nero. She’s been spending months getting to know him, readying herself to make a life with someone who was otherwise a perfect stranger… pretty much just to make them happy. And it blew up in her face and now she feels like a walking punchline, I’m sure...”

“But she’s not the one they should be laughing at. It should be me. I wrecked all this. This is all my fault.” Dahlia cringed.

“Dahlia, you didn’t do anything but exist. Your parents, and people in this pack who think like them, they’re the ones at fault here… for trying to push their ideas about how your sister should be existing as a woman in her twenties. The matching system is flawed. Every day perfectly good mates are rejected or married off to other wolves because of it. Things would be much easier if people would just be left to be who they are.”

“That would be easier, wouldn’t it?”

“They like to pretend they’re so devout… but if that were true, why would they create policies, like ‘a pack wolf can’t mate with a rogue wolf’ for example, that spit in the face of the moon goddess herself? If she thought those two individuals were meant to be together, then who are we to question it?”

Dahlia nodded. “This is true. And yet…”

She stopped walking.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I’m not convinced the moon goddess chose right for me either,”

“You couldn’t feel the pull towards Nero?”

“Kind of. But…” she took a deep breath. “Okay, I know we’re not as close as we used to be, but… I need to tell someone… I’ve always sort of thought of myself as bisexual, I guess. But in the way that I probably lean more towards women than I do towards men.” She braced herself, as if waiting for a verbal beratement from me.

“Oh, Dahlia.” I extended my arm to her, putting it around her shoulder. “I’m so glad you felt like you could share that with me.” I thought carefully for a moment before I spoke, “And look… I would never want to be a person who outed someone that wasn’t ready yet—”

Dahlia gasped. “Please don’t tell anyone, Isadora. It’ll just make things—”

“No, you misunderstand. Let me finish…” I sighed. “I’m just saying… I’m not sure that the road necessarily travels one way for Nero, either.”

Her eyes went wide with realization and she broke into laughter. “You know, when Lily first met him this spring, and she called to tell me about him, she said as much, too.” After her laughter subsided she fell quiet for a moment. “But if that’s so, why would the moon goddess put a girl that likes girls with a boy that doesn’t like girls?”

I considered my words and she c****d her head to the side as she waited for my reply. “Best guess?” I offered. She nodded for me to go on. “Maybe she knew that you two both just needed someone else that would understand you, more than you needed a mate.”

Her eyes went wide, and they began to water.

I gripped her shoulder reassuringly. “No one gets to decide what your life with Nero looks like, Dahlia.”

She threw her arms around me this time and we both laughed together, then we continued our walk around the neighborhood while we got a chance to really catch up. And while I’d hoped we would find Lily soon, I was grateful for this time with Dahlia, feeling closer to my former childhood friend than I had in a long time.

***

We were a little more than an hour into the search when Alpha Phineas’ voice came across our mind link. “Miss Rhodes has been found. Everyone please report back to the gymnasium for check in before returning to your homes, school, and work. Thank you for your assistance.”

Dahlia looked at me nervously.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“I’m scared to see her.”

“Lily loves you, Dahlia. You’re her little sister. Just be yourself. I can’t promise your parents will give you their support, but she will, and I bet Nero will, too.”

When we got back to the gymnasium and checked in, Dahlia’s parents were waiting there for her. “Your sister is in the infirmary,” Dimitri said. “Your parents wanted you to come with them to see her.”

“Is she okay?” She asked. Dimitri’s eyes fell to the ground. “I think it’s best if you hear it from them.” He exhaled slowly.

Dahlia waved a goodbye to me over her shoulder and as they walked away I directed my attention back to Dimitri. “What’s that about?”

He bit the inside of his cheek, and I added, “I know that you know. What happened to Lily then?”

Dimitri tossed the clipboard to the ground and sat cross legged on the floor, propping himself up on his wrists behind him. “Apparently Lily had a run in with her true mate a few months back, but it was after she’d already been matched with Nero.”

I sat down across from him, putting my right elbow on my knee and resting my head as I listened to him.

“He was a rogue, Isa... She didn’t tell anyone, but she hadn’t rejected him yet either — said she was working up to it, waiting ‘til the wedding got close, I guess. But then when everything happened last night…”

I clutched my chest. “She went to him?”

He nodded solemnly, his eyes fell to the ground.

“Oh no. What happened?”

“He’s gone now,” Dimitri said quietly. “Phoebe and Bianca found them together… linked Alpha Phineas… He sent Nikolai to see to it, personally.”

I gasped, covering my mouth. “Oh, Lily…”

“Yeah, I guess she’s a bit of a mess.” His eyes finally met mine. “I can’t imagine losing two mates in two days. One’s enough…”

“We were never mates, Dimitri,” I brought myself to my feet and he followed suit. I bent to pick my water bottle off the ground, and I felt his hands grip down on my hips behind me.

“You know, I haven’t stopped wanting you, Isadora.” He pulled himself into my hips. Although he wasn’t the tallest of wolves, standing at only 5’8, he still seemed to tower over me from behind, and I could feel his hardness digging into my lower back. “You’ll always be my first love… and I’m not sure those feelings are ever going to go away.”

I brushed his hands off my sides and stepped out from his grasp, turning back around to face him. “Have you marked her yet?”

He sighed and looked to the ceiling. “No, she’s… a bit traditional in that way.”

I nodded. “It’ll go away.” I made my way toward the gymnasium doors.

“What if I don’t want it to?” He called after me.

I stopped where I stood, but I didn’t turn around to face him as I said, “I guess it’s a good thing the moon goddess doesn’t give a f**k about what we want.”

I heard him kick something, probably his water bottle, across the room. I’m pretty sure that it exploded upon impact when it met the wall, but I continued out the metal doors without looking back just the same.