Wolven Rising: Untold Stories

GR-13: First Confessions

Alana

"So, what did you want to talk about?" I asked, bouncing on my toes. We were outdoors, walking toward the greenhouses by the light of the moon. So far, Shasta had been silent. At first, I figured he just wanted to get out of earshot of the packhouse, but we'd already put over a hundred yards between it and us, and he still wasn't saying anything. I was starting to get antsy.

"I..." Shasta trailed off, and was silent again. He stopped walking when we reached a big oak tree that I used to swing in when I was young, except now the swing was long gone. I stopped too, feeling the cushion of fallen leaves beneath my feet, looking at him expectantly.

His brows were furrowed, and he looked almost angry. "What's wrong?" I asked quietly, all my earlier giddiness gone. I had never seen him like this before. Not directed towards me, anyway.

"H-how did you like the second book?" Shasta stammered.

"Oh! I think I liked it even better than the first," I exclaimed, even though I felt a little bit of disappointment settle in my stomach. Of course, he only wanted to talk about the books he'd been lending me. What else did I have to offer?

"Yeah? What did you like about it?" He asked. His face was taut with tension.

"I think it was partly because it went beyond the Wizard of Oz," I replied, settling in on a stone bench under the tree, hoping to make him feel more at ease. "It felt more brand new, like I had the opportunity to let my imagination flow more freely, instead of comparing it to another story."

He nodded. "I liked that about it, too."

"Is...that what you brought me out here to talk about?" I asked carefully. It was starting to become clear that there was something else he wanted to say. But I had no idea what it could be.

"Ugh, no. I guess..." He shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck.

"...you guess?" I pressed gently, keeping my inner turmoil tucked away deep inside. What was he trying to say?

"I guess, I'm wondering what's going on here," he finally said with a huff.

"What's...going...on...here?" I repeated faintly, one word at a time, as if that could help me process it better. What was he trying to say?

Shasta sighed. "I guess I was just...never mind. Obviously, I was mistaken. I'll see you around." He turned to leave.

"Wait!" I cried, jumping up and throwing my hand out to catch his arm. He looked at my fingers circling his forearm with wide eyes, but I maintained my grip. He couldn't leave. Not now. "I want to give you an answer, I just don't really know what you're asking."

"Are you eighteen?"

"What? No, I'm seventeen," I said, caught off guard by the abrupt change in the conversation. "I'll be eighteen in a few months."

Shasta closed his eyes, and some of the tightness in his face relaxed. "Goddess help me."

"Is that bad?" I asked anxiously. "I mean, I'm not sure why it would be—"

"No, it's not bad. Definitely not bad," he said huskily, sagging against the tree trunk. His eyes were still closed.

My stomach was full of butterflies at that point. If he was happy I wasn't eighteen, then maybe...

"Look, I'm probably the dumbest guy alive for doing this, but I'm gonna lay it on the line," Shasta said, opening his eyes and fixing me with an intense gaze, a deep dark blue in the moonlit night. "This week has been the best one I've had in a long time. You might think it's because we're finally here and taking steps to become an official pack, but that's not all of it, not by a long shot."

He inhaled deeply, but kept his eyes on me. "It's you, Alana. I've enjoyed talking to you, getting to know you. I think you're sweet, kind, and the best sort of person there is. I guess what I'm trying to say is...I like you."

My breath hitched, and I stared into his eyes, mesmerized, not quite believing what I was hearing. Shasta stared back, as if committing every detail of my face to memory. Then he broke eye contact and sighed. "But the thing is, there are a plethora of things getting in the way of that, the first of which being the fact that my feelings are one-sided—"

"They're not," I interrupted quietly.

"...They're not?" Shasta echoed hopefully.

My hand, which was still on his arm, slid down to take his hand. "They're not," I whispered.

Shasta closed his eyes again, and his hand tightened over mine. "Goddess, Alana, you're killing me."

"What? How?" I asked anxiously. I didn't want to be the cause of any pain for him.

"Because you're not eighteen, yet!" Shasta burst out, gripping my hand even more tightly. "And once you turn eighteen, we could easily find out that we're not mates."

"But we could find out that we are—"

"Not to mention the fact that your family probably wouldn't approve, and rightly so, since I'm nowhere near good enough for you!" Shasta talked over me.

"Don't you dare say that!" I said vehemently, taking him by surprise. "You're more than good enough! You are so good, Shasta, I know you, I can tell."

Shasta sighed, then his grip on my hand slackened. I let it drop back to his side, cupping the dissipating warmth from his skin in my palms. "You don't know me, Alana. You don't know how I used to be. If you knew..."

"Then tell me," I pleaded, thinking about Kendria's vague statement about his history earlier in the day. "Please, tell me. I want to understand."

But he pressed his lips into a thin line, refusing to say anything further. "If you don't tell me, I'll find out for myself," I said, my bottom lip quivering. He couldn't shut down on me now, not when we were so close to...something. I wasn't sure what it was, but I was going to do everything in my power to get there. "And then I'll prove to you that it doesn't matter."

A panicked look crossed Shasta's face, and he shook his head violently. "No! Please don't do that. Please."

I stared at him, hugging my body. "I'll only do that if I have to. If you tell me, then it won't be necessary. But I won't stop fighting for you. Even if you're the person I'm fighting."

Shasta looked at me with an agonized expression. "Alana," he said brokenly, ducking his head. "Alana," he whispered my name again. When he finally looked back up, I could tell his eyes were rimmed with red even in the dark. "I...you already know I was orphaned in the massacre."

"Yes," I said, reaching out and grabbing his hand again for support.

He stared at our joined hands, carefully bringing his fingers up to stroke the back of my hand, like I was the most delicate thing he'd ever touched. I shivered a little. "What you don't know is that I'm the reason they're dead."

"How can that be possible? They were killed by rogues. You told me so," I said, his words simply not computing in my mind.

"They were," Shasta said lowly. "But...my dad tried to get me to go to the safe house. But I wouldn't go. The time he wasted, trying to make me go, cost him and my mom their lives. I basically killed them. And my unborn sibling."

My heart broke for him. I didn't even know he lost his sibling, too. "Shasta," I said, trapping his hand between mine and squeezing it. "It wasn't your fault."

"Yes it was!" He burst out. "I robbed them of any chance they had of escaping." He slid down the tree, collapsing in a heap at the base of the trunk.

I knelt down in front of him. "No. It wasn't." He shook his head, refusing to believe me. I heaved a shuddering breath, knowing that what I was going to say would hurt, even though I hoped it would also help. "Shasta, you are one of a dozen who got away. Kendria and Luna Adina only managed to rescue you because you were in the safe room of the packhouse. Everyone else was killed. No matter the timing, they would not have made it. They would have still stayed and fought for their pack. They were always going to die."

"Not everyone else died," he mumbled.

I blinked. "What?"

"Some others survived, but were captured and enslaved by Silas and his rogues," Shasta said bitterly. "We've managed to free some of them in the last three years, but there's still at least a dozen in there, subject to horror and pain on a daily basis."

His voice broke at the end, and I gathered him into my arms while he wept. His shoulders heaved, and I felt the wetness of his tears seep through the sleeve of my sweater. My heart ached for his, and the fact that he'd been carrying this unthinkable burden all these years that he shouldn't have had to carry. All those people that died, those that were still struggling in captivity, they were all too much for one person to bear.

Eventually, he stopped, and sat still in my embrace. "Goddess, you even smell sweet," Shasta mumbled into my sweater.

The comment came so out of left field that I laughed. "Maybe it's my sugar scrub?"

"Yeah, maybe," he said, lifting his head. "Sorry. I didn't mean to go down such a dark path."

"It's more than okay, please don't apologize for how you feel. I'm here for you, whatever you need," I said softly.

Shasta sighed, and looked at me with an expression that I couldn't decipher. "That's what I'm afraid of," he whispered huskily.

---

Shasta

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I paced back and forth in my room, far too restless to even try to sleep, but unable to wander freely after dragging Alana out into the night. I couldn't believe I did that. What was I thinking? Her whole family was right there, and here I was, showing up at the door after the sun went down and asking to talk to their daughter. Me, hardly more than a stranger and a rogue, no less! She likes me.

That conversation with Alana went completely differently than I had planned. All I wanted to do was see what she thought of the second book, and ask if she was really comfortable speaking to me in public like she did earlier. Right?

You're a terrible liar, even to yourself, Hunter griped.

Shut up, I said, blocking him out. I hated how he always seemed to be right. True, I had told myself that's all I wanted to know. But who was I kidding? The second I got the chance, I jumped to what I had really wanted to know. She wasn't eighteen yet. There was a chance she could be our mate. She likes me.

Except she still didn't really know me.

I meant to tell her about my past with other girls. I really did. But the stuff about my parents just slipped out. I didn't even really feel responsible for their deaths anymore. Most of the time. But, in the heat of the moment, I chickened out. I was such a coward. Why couldn't I just say it? She likes me.

The fear of losing her, once a hazy disappointment, was now a palpable terror. Now that I knew she was interested in me, too—though I doubted it was anywhere near the feelings I was developing for her—I knew that I wouldn't be able to walk away. Not now.

What if we are not her mate? Hunter asked, fighting past the block I put on him.

I don't want to think about that right now, I growled at him. Can't you be optimistic?

Sorry, Hunter said, and I could tell he was being sincere. I just don't want to see you get hurt.

Wouldn't you be hurt too?

Not the same way, if she's not our mate, he explained. I'm wired to only connect with my mate. Will I be disappointed if Alana is not the vessel for the other half of my soul? Perhaps. But it means she was not meant to be.

Very poetic.

I read what you read, remember? We have a literary soul when we feel like it.

What if we asked her to be our mate anyway? I said desperately, not liking the words even as I thought them.

No, Hunter growled. You would only be robbing both her and yourself of the chance of discovering your true mate and being able to accept them wholeheartedly with no obstacles. It wouldn't be the same, and could end in heartbreak anyway.

I sighed. I don't know what to do, Hunter. Should I even tell her about my past? It'd be pointless if we're not mates.

I think you need to man up and tell her, Hunter said. If she is our mate, she deserves to know. We don't want to blindside her or trap her.

But...what if she rejects us?

She won't. Hunter growled. But...if she did, at least our bond wouldn't be built on a lie.

I turned off the light and forced myself to go to bed. The thing was, I wasn't sure my past was enough for Alana to reject me, if it turned out we were mates. But I was worried that it would break her in other ways. What if she accepted me, but couldn't get over it in her tender, sweet, innocent heart? What if it slowly destroyed her from the inside out, driving an invisible wedge between us, forcing us apart?

There's only one way to find out, Hunter said sleepily. The sooner, the better, in my opinion.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say you sound smug right now.

Well, I did tell you all your s****l encounters would come back to bite you in the ass, didn't I?

You could have just said 'I told you so.'

I told you so.

Shut up.

I rolled over and faced the window. The moon was bright, but it seemed so separate and far away through the panes of glass. Selene, I thought, using the name my mother used to give the Moon Goddess. I really am sorry for everything I did. I'm not asking you to make Alana my mate, since that would be selfish. But I am asking that you help her to have a long and happy life. And if, by some chance, I'm lucky enough that you chose to give me the precious gift of Alana as my mate, that you can help ease any pain she will surely feel when I tell her that I was weak and did not remain faithful to the bond. That's all I want. For her to be happy, no matter what it takes. No matter what she decides to do. She deserves that.

The moon remained as impassive as before, but I felt a little better. I know Selene heard me. And with such a kind, sweet person like Alana, there was no way she would ignore my request.