The Luna Who Burned The Pack

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Um what he just say?

I look at Curran again, really look at him. His dark eyes look scary, and his whole body, something that looks out of a nightmare. Yet even though I am scared, I still feel the safest I have. I know exactly how strange that sounds, yet I am powerless against these feelings, so I don’t even try to fight it.

And what does he mean by I look so goddamn delectable?

I ignore the words, and inch slowly towards the bed so I can have a seat. I have a feeling that any fast movement right now will bear terrible consequences.

It happens the moment I sit.

Curran lets out a howl and every single wolf in his pack answers back. And then everything goes so silent that you could hear a pin drop. If I were not witnessing it, I would declare anyone who told the tale as a liar.

The shadow beast didn’t come out of Curran the way normal wolves shifted – breaking bones and a terrifying rearrangement of their entire anatomy. No.

The shadow beast emerges like it’s pouring out of him. A cloud of black smoke surrounds him and he’s impossible to see through it. I don’t know how certain I am, but a part of me sees clearly that this is magic.

It feels familiar to me somehow, like a language I could previously speak but forgot how to. But I push all of that to the side. Now is not the time. I watch as Curran goes from man to beast, and it’s the most beautiful transformation I’ve ever witnessed in my life.

The shadow beast is a large, massive thing. Bigger than any wolf I have ever seen before. I can imagine an alpha wolf standing beside it and getting dwarfed. Its black fur is black because we don’t have a word for its color.

A light eating black, it moves like smoke and bleeds light from its surroundings so that even though it’s black, it still shimmers whenever you lay eyes on it. Like a predator who has no care for camouflage because it will always catch its prey.

I sit as still as I can manage on the bed because I don’t want to catch the beast’s attention. A part of me knows that the Curran I know is long gone, and I’m left locked in a room with the most dangerous predator I’ve ever come across.

I climb the bed, pull my legs in, and wrap my hands around them. And that is the moment the beast sees me. I look into its eyes and what I find makes me c**k my head. Its eyes are void-silver, and in them I see many emotions in something that should be thoughtless. Something that shouldn’t have any.

The beast approaches me warily, as if it doesn’t know what to make of me. After all, a predator knows that prey is meant to run, to hide, to shrink itself. Yet, I do none of those. Of course it is curious.

It starts to circle the bed, and I can’t help but be awed by how it moves. Its body is liquid in its fluidity and I am entranced.

Suddenly, it leaps onto the bed, and I am able to suppress my scream. I don’t even know how. I would normally scream if something like that had happened in Blood moon, and my heart will be trying its best to leap out of my chest. But right now, my heart isn’t beating too fast. and I’m not scared either.

The beast settles on the bed and stares at me as if I am a firefly in a bottle. Might as well be. I am intrigued after all. Everything I was warned to watch out for is not happening. Maybe what Curran did need all this while was a non-lupine near him during the full moons.

“Guess you’re not all scary after all, hmm?” I smile at it, and it blinks those silver eyes at me slowly as if trying to understand why I am talking to him.

“You know, when Curran saved me, I hope he can’t hear me right now, by the way. Keep him out, will you?” I don’t expect any reaction to my words, but the beast barks a huff at me and settles into the blankets.

“When he saved me from my old pack, I didn’t expect to come here and be made a bride. And after he made me his bride, I expected him to show his true colors now that I was his, but he has been nothing but kind to me. And I didn’t know how I could possibly pay him back. But I think I know just how to do it right now. You and I, I think we’d be fast buddies, yeah?”

It howls, and I giggle. Taking a chance, I scoot closer and expect it to attempt to bite my head off, but it just watched me. When I get close enough, I stretch a hand out to pet it and know I’m definitely crossing boundaries that would set Curran’s hair on fire, but there is something inside me pushing me to do this, and I always trust my gut.

My hand eventually lands on the shadow beast’s head, and it feels like running your hand through a river of cool feather. It snuggles into my palm and I giggle. I finally just lie down beside it, and though I’m dwarfed by its size, I still run my hand through its fur. And that’s when I notice my hand. My right hand. The same wrist that had blazed when Curran grabbed it before. It was on fire now; a band of reddish gold lines wrapped around my wrist in a design I couldn’t understand.

The beast sniffs and my wrist, and I can swear that in that moment, Curran fights his way to the surface and looks at me with terrified eyes that are also filled with awe. But the look disappears as soon as it appears.

And then the beast lets out a whine, a sound so human it breaks something inside me. And then without fanfare, it crawls off the bed and curls up at the end of the bed. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have said it was keeping watch over me.

And with the knowledge that I am safe, I drift off.

I wake up to a hand gently caressing my face and open my eyes slowly to find Currans’s tired face smiling at me.

“Hey. You're awake,” I raise a hand to his face and stroke it gently.

He's still looking at me with that strange expression, as if he can’t quite believe me. “You stayed.”

“Of course I stayed.”

And with another beautiful smile wasted at me, Curran collapses.