Awakening The Silver Wolf

staying away

Bella POV

The days that followed, I actually didn't go back to the training ground.

At first, I was excited. A traitorous creature in my mind was over the moon that we could get Asher to train us.

Then Leon's words came back to me.

He was right. I was planning to leave so why keep getting entangled with Asher? I was hurting him with my back and forth and that was the last thing I wanted to do to someone who had shown me nothing but kindness.

So I stayed away.

Luna had been restless too, pacing in my head from time to time and saying nothing when I questioned her. I had also noticed that the pack seemed to be on high alert.

Warriors doubled at the borders. At first I thought it had something to do with the rogues Leon had mentioned… until hushed conversations that stopped the moment I walked into a room happened.

There seemed to be an invisible energy humming beneath everything that I couldn't name but could feel.

With the blood moon arriving in days and bored to death, I finally decided to hit the training ground to let off some steam.

I did not expect Asher to be there.

He was working through combinations with two senior warriors, looking fully composed and absorbed.

He hadn't noticed me yet.

I almost turned back but eventually decided against it.

If he somehow noticed, he would think I was avoiding him. Which I was to some extent but wanted to keep that to myself.

Instead, I found a corner of the ground and started my own warmup, keeping my distance and minding my business.

That my little space lasted about ten minutes.

"Your left side is open." Asher's voice came from behind me.

I turned around and our eyes collided.

Asher stood there, slightly out of breath from his own session and a towel over one shoulder.

"I was warming up." I replied, trying to sound as normal as possible. Luna stirred in my mind,her excitement unconcealed.

After being distant for the past few days, all it took was Asher’s presence to have her purring and wagging her tail? What a disloyal companion!

"I know that but still,your left side was still open." Asher pressed.

I stared at him and he waited, as if he was expecting me to throw a sarcastic comment.

Well, I would have done that if it was a week ago.

I exhaled and turned back to face the open space.

"Show me then." I said.

“ With pleasure.” Asher replied and I swear I felt a smile in those words.

He was a good trainer. I had to admit that after a few minutes and several pointers.

He was also patient in a way that didn't feel like patience.

It felt more like he simply had no interest in rushing something worth doing properly. He corrected my form without making it feel like a correction. He adjusted my stance with brief instructions that actually made sense.

We went through combinations slowly at first then faster as I found my footing.

Then he suggested we spar.

I should have said no because that was the most logical answer. I was supposed to keep my distance and of course, he was an alpha and I was an omega. The difference in strength was so huge.

However, I said yes because logic and I seemed to be mortal enemies.

When we started sparring, Asher was careful with me.

I could feel him holding back and that somehow annoyed me enough to push harder than I probably should have. We went back and forth, neither of us pulling any punches beyond what was safe.

Then I tried a move that didn't land the way I planned and I ended up losing my balance.

Asher caught me before I hit the ground

He wrapped one arm around my waist, the other braced and we ended up frozen in a position where neither of us was quite sure how to separate without making it more awkward than it already was.

Asher was very close, I became very aware of that fact approximately one second too late.

Up close, his features were… I looked away immediately then looked back because I couldn't help it.

His jawline was a work of art and the way his eyes had gone completely still looking down at me.

I looked away again.

"Are you done?" He asked quietly.

"Done with what?" I asked, half distracted by the view gracing my eyes.

"Appreciating the view." He answered. "Or do you need more time?"

I stepped back so fast I nearly lost my footing again.

"I was not…" I started to bake some half assed lie but Asher cut me off.

"It's fine." He said, the almost-smile doing that thing at the corner of his mouth. "I don't mind."

"I was checking if you were going to drop me." I said flatly.

"For about thirty seconds?" He pressed, his eyebrows raised. He didn't believe that. Of course he wouldn't. I wouldn't believe such a shallow lie too.

"I have trust issues." I tried to slither myself out of the embarrassment

Asher pressed his lips together.

I folded my arms and looked somewhere else entirely and told myself the heat on my face was from training.

“ Okay, you were testing me.” Asher finally conceded which surprised me. As the Alpha king, he actually gave in?

I didn't press further, happy that we could move on to the next conversation that didn't need me convincing him I wasn't captivated by his handsome face.

We stopped to catch our breath near the edge of the training ground.

I reached for the water flask and handed it to him first without thinking. He took it with a brief look that I pretended not to notice.

The sky above the treeline had taken that appearance again…the heaviness I had been noticing for days.

"The blood moon is coming." I said, more to myself than to him.

"In three days." Asher confirmed.

I looked up at the sky. "I have never actually gotten to experience it properly. The blood moon. Back in my former pack I was always too busy with duties to stop and look up." I paused. "I heard it's when our wolves are at their strongest."

"It is." He agreed yet something in his tone made me glance at him.

"For most of us." He added quietly.

I frowned. "What does that mean?"

Asher was quiet for a moment then…

"We are the strongest on the red moon." He said. "But for some of us, that strength comes at a cost." He looked at the sky and something moved behind his eyes that he didn't bother hiding quickly enough. "To some of us, the blood moon is a tragedy."

I opened my mouth to ask what he meant but before I could, something happened.

Asher went very still and his hand came up and pressed flat against his chest.

His jaw tightened and he let out a sharp controlled breath through his nose.

"Asher." I called, rushing to him before I decided to move. "What's wrong?" I asked, panic clawing inside me.

I turned around to call out someone to help only to realise that we were the only remaining people in the whole training ground.

I was not an official member of this pack so I didn't have the channel to mind link the others to ask for help.

"Nothing." He said immediately.

"That was not nothing." I reached for his arm. "Let me…" he stopped me before I could finish.

"Bella…" his voice sounded strained and pained.

"Let me see." I said firmly.

Asher looked at me for a second then exhaled and moved his hand.

I pushed the collar of his training shirt aside slightly and stopped at the sight.

Black veins were spreading from the center of his chest outward like cracks in stone.

They were not many but they were there and unmistakable.

Something about seeing them made my stomach drop in a way I wasn't prepared for.

"What is that?" I asked quietly.

"An old ailment." Asher replied, straightening and pulling his collar back into place.

He did it with a finality that told me the subject was closing whether I liked it or not. "It acts up sometimes. It's nothing to worry about." He added, like that should assure me.

It didn't.

I stared at him.

"That did not look like nothing." I said, the greedy me trying to get him to say more.

"I'm fine Bella." Asher insisted.

"You clutched your chest…"

"I am fine." He said again, softer this time. His eyes finding mine and holding them with a steadiness that should have made me back down.

It didn't with Luna pacing around my head like a mad person.

"Asher." I said.

"Don't." He said gently. "Not right now."

I searched his face and he looked back at me.

For just a moment, the Alpha King was entirely absent and it was just a man asking me quietly to let something go.

I let it go but I filed every single detail away.

The black veins.

“To some of us, the blood moon is a tragedy.”

Especially that sentence.