I am the Night - the last She-Wolf

Chapter 6 - The Girl

Nathaniel POV

“You are supposed to lay off that leg!” Zeek says with the usual smug smile on his face.

I turn my head away from the window overlooking the urban part of the city. I’ve made it home a couple of days ago. Barely. I was losing too much blood and exhaustion from running for two days straight got the better of me.

Zeek -my friend and right-hand man- found me dying in the snow. Luckily my will to live was stronger than my body's lack of strength.

With a heavy sigh, I glance down at my leg. It’s pretty messed up from the trap. It’s healing, but it takes longer due to the wolfsbane those Hunters lace their traps with.

It slows me down. I hate to be slow. I hate everything about this situation. I hate how I feel ever since that night.

I can’t figure out why the girl helped me. She wasn’t afraid of me. A little maybe but not enough.

I am annoyed that I can’t get her out of my head. That I can’t stop wondering who the hell she was and where she came from.

From the looks of her scars, she had a close encounter with one of my kind before. It must have been anything but pleasant. The thought of someone trying to hurt her enrages me. It makes me restless.

“What’s going on with you? You’ve been brooding for three days now. Are you pissed they got you? It happens to the best of us,” Zeek chuckles.

It happens to those who are reckless and stupid enough to get caught in a Hunter's trap. It does not happen to me!

“I got distracted,” I mutter and stare out of the window again. Wondering what happened to the girl. Mika. The distraction. I still can’t figure out why I followed her scent. I didn’t even realize it was her I was drawn to until it was too late.

“You weren’t supposed to get that close to the compound anyway.”

“I am aware,” I hiss under my breath and start pacing again. I can’t stop. Not even the pain in my shredded leg can keep me still.

“So why did you? You weren’t planning on taking down the village all by yourself, were you? And make me miss out on all the fun?”

“I wasn’t going to do anything and we both know taking down a city full of Hunters is not a two-man job.”

“No. It’s plain stupid to do that,” he laughs. I don’t know why I’m friends with him. On days like this, his good nature is annoying as hell. It pushes my patience to its limits. Especially nowadays. I am on edge ever since I got back to the city.

I growl at him. Zeek just chuckles and lounges on the bed that I am supposed to be resting in. “You’re grumpier than usual.”

“I’m in pain,” I say matter-of-factly. We both know that’s no explanation. Pain never stopped me from doing anything. There is something else bothering me. A strange feeling that doesn’t quite belong to me.

I felt it when she touched me. It was like a rubber band snapped back into place. It hit me full force and ever since I can’t stop thinking about that night and the way her silver eyes looked at me.

“Stop pacing and get some rest,” Zeek sighs and pats my empty bed, “don’t make me come get you,” he warns teasingly.

“I can’t,” I sigh and run a hand through my hair.

“Why? What really happened out there?”

“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” a new, yet familiar voice says. At the sound of it, Zeek jumps out of the bed and bows to the man entering the room.

“Alpha,” he says respectfully, while I watch the man cross through my apartment with a confident stride.

The leader of our pack- the man who raised me- looks perfectly groomed as always. A dark blue suit and a silver tie matched his hair. His Green eyes glow in the dim light of the room.

With sure, unfaltering steps he heads for the armchair close by and gracefully sits down. Straightening his suit jacket, before he fixes his gaze on me.

“You are supposed to rest,” he states, a hit of worry in his voice.

“I can’t,” I sigh and try to keep still under his probing stare. He wants to hear the whole story of what happened. I hesitate a moment before I limp over to the bed Zeek just vacated.

“What were you doing that close to the Hunters’ compound?” he asks.

“I got closer than I intended to,” I say, “I caught the scent of something that wasn’t supposed to be there. I couldn’t stop myself.”

“What was it? One of ours?” I wish I had such a good excuse. A wolf in trouble. A rescue mission. But it was not. It was just me not thinking straight.

“No,” I shake my head, “I didn’t know what it was until I saw-,” I stop myself from adding the her. It sounds pathetic. Even to my own ears. “I got distracted and stepped right into the Hunters’ trap.”

“That’s very unusual for you,” Alpha Blake says, “what did you see, Nathaniel?”

“A girl,” I sigh.

Zeek huffs out a laugh, “are you serious? You got yourself trapped because you saw a lady? Are you that-,” the Alpha growls, and immediately Zeek shuts up.

“I’m not sure if she was a Hunter,” I continue, remembering that she was wearing a jacket Hunters usually wear. It smelled of someone else though. Maybe she’s a thief and that’s why they were after her.

“They don’t train females,” Blake says matter-of-factly.

“She was wearing their uniform,” I shrug, “she said it wasn’t hers though.”

“Wait, you talked to her?” Zeek can’t help but ask.

“She talked to me,” I say with a little shrug. I try to hide the fact that her bravery makes me proud.

Proud of a stranger. How bizarre is that?

“Were you in your human form?” the Alpha asks but I shake my head. “And she wasn’t afraid of you?” He seems stunned.

Humans usually have the same reaction to us. It’s either fear or rage. Usually both and usually it doesn’t end too well for them. So, most of them decide to flee instead of attack. They leave that to the Hunters.

“Not enough to stay away. She freed me from the trap. There was something about her I can’t put my finger on. I’m not sure she was human.”

“A half-blood maybe?” Zeek suggests.

“No,” I say shaking my head, “it was something else.”

Between her soft pleads not to kill her while she helped me, I remember her mentioning something about my kind and how she’s not the biggest fan. I assumed it had something to do with the fact that she came from Hunter's village, but then there were those scars.

Permanent marks on her skin. Put there by claws.

“She wore scars,” I add thoughtfully and run my fingers along my jaw following the same line that marked her skin. “I think she was attacked by a Rogue.”

“And she survived?” Zeek asks surprised, “Rogues don’t do that. They take them or they kill them.”

“I don’t know,” I say with a little shrug, “all I know is that she was different. She was neither Hunter nor was she a wolf.”

“That would be impossible,” the Alpha states with a sad expression on his face.

For the past centuries -give or take- our race never produced any female offspring. Only males are born with a wolf. Females either won’t survive or they are born human. We call them half-bloods.

There was something about Mika though. I wonder if she was bitten by a rogue wolf. It is possible to turn men into something that resembles a wolf. They will never be like us, but as our history reports, packs used to turn humans to fight their wars.

But never in the history of the Lycan kind was it possible to turn a female. They would perish most cruelly. Their bodies are too weak to survive the change. So how could she still be alive?

“Do you think she is a shifter?” I hear the Alpha's voice in my mind.

“All I know is that she saved me and that she was running from the Hunters,” I answer out loud.

“Maybe she was a prisoner there?!” Zeek tries but something tells me that she wasn’t. At least not until she ran and stumbled across me. I bet helping me didn’t make her life any easier. Especially when my wolf decided to protect her from that Hunter.

It still makes my skin crawl. His scent was all over her and for that alone, I wanted him dead.

No. She was no prisoner. She was something else. Maybe his lover. The thought of his hands on her makes my wolf growl furiously. A reaction I couldn’t hide from my friend and the Alpha. They both stare at me, demanding an explanation for my unfound growling.

“She touched me,” I say, which causes Zeek to chuckle like the immature person he is. I ignore him and keep my eyes on Blake. “It felt... strange. I want to say “painful”, but it wasn’t painful at all. It startled me though.”

Silence falls over the room and I can tell that everyone is thinking the same thing. If a wolf finds his mate he is automatically drawn to her. He recognizes her scent and her touch. But it can’t be!

Only the Alpha will be blessed with a mate. And she needs to be a Lycan. Neither am I an Alpha nor is she a pure-blooded Lycan.

“It can’t be, can it?” I ask worried and excited at the same time.

Just as Blake is about to answer my question I feel a jolt of pain shoot through my body. It’s not my pain. It comes from someone else which makes it ten times worse. With a grunt, I sink to my knees as an invisible force hits me.

Both the Alpha and Zeek stand up watching me huff out in pain.

“What’s wrong?” Zeek’s voice thundering in my head. I can tell he’s worried but right now I just want him to shut up.

I grit my teeth trying to make sense of this. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I can hear the whisper of a scream. I know she is in pain.

“What is happening?” Blake asks and walks over to me, carefully placing his hand on my shoulder for support.

“She… She’s in pain!” I groan as I feel her distress burning me from the inside out.

“My Goddess,” Blake says stunned, but I barely register his voice and more. Too focused on the pain. “You can feel her?”

“What the heck does that mean?” Zeek asks in awe.

“The girl is his mate!” Blake states and I think he sounds proud, while I just want this horrible feeling to stop. “You have to separate yourself from her emotions,” he says and a strange silence falls over the room. Silence, except for the frantic sound of someone else's heartbeat in my chest.

“It. Can’t. Be,” I groan rubbing my chest, hoping to get rid of this agonizing feeling.

A pack used to consist of family members. Only the Alpha was allowed to mate with the female Alpha the goddess blessed him with. It was her way to ensure the consistency of our race.

When our numbers shrank, we decided to mix it up a little. Cross-breed between the packs, mate with humans. We wanted to create stronger and bigger packs, but ingenuity always brings forth those who refuse to evolve. Our structures fell apart.

Some wolves created backward packs, with their own ideology. They started to attack humans. Fighting for the purity of our blood. But we wouldn’t have survived without the humans. Not even those we now call Rogues.

I was born one of them. Born in the wild. Born to a cruel and ruthless pack of monsters. My mother was a half-blood. I don’t know much about her life before she was captured by Rogues. Holding her hostage and forcing her to have their offspring.

After I was born, she escaped. With me. She made it to the mountains, where she stumbled upon Alpha Blake. She begged him to take me. To raise me to be a good person. A good wolf.

She died shortly after. She lost her mind. That’s what I’ve been told. I can’t even begin to imagine what she’s been through at my biological father's claws.

“Nate,” Blake says and steps closer, his hand firmly on my shoulder, “you can still reject her,” he suggests hesitantly.

“No,” Zeek interferes, “no, he can’t!”

The Alpha growls low under his breath to keep Zeek in his place.

“With all due respect, Sir, it has been a long time since we heard of someone having a mate. Rejecting her would probably piss off the Goddess and I don’t think we can handle any more of her rath.”

Our kind used to be blessed by the Moon Goddess herself. We were born from her essence and thrived with it.

Nowadays I’m not so sure the faith in her is justified. Her love for our kind turned sour. She left us to fend for ourselves and it’s been a struggle ever since.

“That may be right,” Alpha says, his eyes on me, “but it is Nathaniel's choice.”

“Just... how can I fade this out? For now at least,” I ask, not sure how to feel about this. I don’t want it, yet I feel like there’s a truth to Zeek's words.

I don’t know what to do. I’m no Alpha. I’m not sure why this would happen to me of all people. I’m nobody. Just lucky enough to be raised by an Alpha. A fine one at that. He’s been a good father to me. I don’t want to fight him for this position. I don’t want it. I’m a soldier. I’m not a leader.

“You won’t be able to completely shut it out. You’ll always feel her, but you can try to separate yourself from her emotions.”

“How?” I ask through gritted teeth as her screams become louder. Ringing in my head. Making the hairs on my arms stand.

I can feel a shudder run through me and that familiar ache in my bones, right before I shift into a wolf. My wolf is howling for her. He fights me to get to her. Help her.

“For now, there’s only one way. I’m sorry!” Blake says and a second later I’m knocked out. His fist connected with my head, sending me spiraling through familiar darkness. It swallows all sound. It shuts up the wolf inside and lets me rest for a moment.

Deep down, somewhere in the back of my mind, I can still feel her though. Feel her breathing and slowly slipping from consciousness. Her heartbeat settled for a quick but steady pace.

“Everything will be alright,” says an ancient female voice in my head. I don’t know who she is, but my wolf purrs at the sound of her softly spoken words.