Eclipse On Alpha

Chapter-5

[Zane Eliezer’s POV]

Since the day I remember, not for once have I felt anything except rage. I saw everyone around me smile, cry, and show various emotions I did not know of. I asked my mother about others and she told me I was special and those emotions weren't made for me. There was always an emptiness in my heart and a story in my mind. I started learning emotions and understanding them and thought one day I might feel them. But except rage, no emotion ever showed up in me.

In that story, I smiled a lot. So I tried copying it in the mirror, but my face didn’t twitch. I tried crying. Even one tear from within me would be enough to keep me going, but I never felt what people call sadness. They said one cried when they were sad. But I never had the urge to be sad. Soon, I gave up trying to copy the emotions and accept that they weren’t made for me. It was until I was introduced to music, when I put my thoughts into words and they took the form of a song, a new world opened to me. My music made others around me smile. I knew people smiled when they were happy, so I assumed I was happy too. Sometimes, they cried, and I assumed they were sad and so was my music.

Music defined emotions in a whole different way for me. All the things I couldn’t say out loud in real life, my songs said it all. It allowed me to come out from my constant state of rage and lower it. Days, months and years passed by and I was adapting. I developed a habit of looking at the door of the palace before I went to sleep. It became a routine and then a habit, “prince, are you waiting for someone?” One of my maids asked one day. That made me question if I was longing for someone to enter through that door?

“What does waiting feel like?” I asked her. She tensed her brows as if she was having some difficulty in thinking, “don’t strain your mind if you don’t have an answer.”

“No prince, it’s difficult to explain what waiting feels like. It’s something we just feel. You can say that it is something like setting a bird free and then watching the sky in the hope of seeing it flying back to you.” I looked at her.

“Hope? What is that?”

She smiled, but that smile differed from normal smiles. In normal smiles, when people feel happy, their face muscles lay relaxed while the way she smiles her muscles were tensed. I learned over time that this happened when someone was nervous. Feeling one emotion was an arduous task for me, but strangely, people easily exhibited a combination of emotions. At times, it became very difficult for me to understand them, their faces and physical changes because the emotions I learned were all tangled, like endless knots in a rope. I undid one knot, and the mess got messier. That triggered the rage within me and I lost control over my body. During that time, I hurt people without thinking about what they would feel. My rage dominated me and I transformed into my wolf form. When I woke up after those episodes, usually I would be covered in blood that wasn’t mine.

Mother stopped me from going out and the people who visited me were strictly to cover their faces so I couldn’t judge their emotion and strain myself. When I went outside, I turned on my blue vision. Blue vision is the ability of the wolf inside me. It allows me to see the world in black, white and grey. The white parts are usually dazzling and all the faces are illuminating with blinding white light. So, I can’t see faces when my blue vision is working. It was a mechanism my body created to stop my wrath from taking over me.

I went on hunts and the pressure of understanding emotions lowered. My music accompanied me when I was the only one around. Mother invited some ladies to the palace to be my bride. I found no reason to get married, so I tried to decline, but my mother said, “building a family is an instinct of wolves. Finding your mate might help you go with your instincts rather than wasting your time on learning about emotions.”

I had no opinion on that matter. If reproducing was an instinct like rage, I thought it might help me in some way. Rage had taught me a lot of things about myself first. I was trying hard for something and failing every time. I didn’t feel the weight of it, but failing made me realise I didn’t like it. Second, killing people was built on me, but my body repelled that urge. And last, music was the way I could suppress my rage.

Everyone around me talked about ugly bride. I wondered what that was supposed to mean. I read in books that ugly means displeasing to look at, but I didn’t understand what displeasing meant. Beautiful was the opposite of ugly, but I didn’t understand what that was. I had no opinion on that either. For me, the bride was the person who would help me discover my other instinct. Maybe accompany me with the music at most.

It was until I entered the ballroom; I took that as a duty. As soon as my eyes went on certain someone behind the translucent curtain, a spark went through my body. I was confused about what had triggered it. An uneasiness struggled its way to my chest and my curiosity about those foreign activities in my body took over me.

One by one I danced with every girl and finally it was her. I held her hand and her warmth transferred to my skin. When I kissed her hand, a few sparks appeared in my eyes. It was as if something within me was being triggered. When she came close to me and held onto me, my body was set on sparks, millions of them running through my nerves with every second and every step. Was it the instinct mother was talking about? I had no clue because when I touched the other ladies; I felt nothing. The flood of heat and electricity surged in me because of her. If it was my reproduction instinct, it could have worked with other ladies too, but something was special about her.

Those fresh changes in my body were so strange that no matter what knowledge I put to use, I couldn’t make out what was happening to me. Her grip around me tightened and my will to bring her close intensified. It was something other than my instinct that was driving me to dance with her endlessly. The discomfort in her eyes when she looked at me blurred my vision. Before I knew I was crying. Tears were one thing I waited for and I didn’t even have to force them. They flowed out effortlessly.

Just because she was near me, I could cry. Was I sad? If so, why?

A strange urge of protection ruled me when she fainted. I picked her up in my arms and brought her to my room. The urge ceased when I saw her safe and conscious again. I wanted to keep her by my side. I didn’t want Irene to leave me. She looked at my harp, so I thought it might become a reason for us to stay together. When she said she heard my song, heat rose to my cheeks. Somehow my body was reacting to her presence and her words, even the slightest motion of her eyes, the slow parting of her lips.

We sat together, and I started singing for her. Her face looked so peaceful and bright. It was also for her that my wolf allowed the blue vision to fade. Her eyes looked worn out and tense, but as my song went on, it seemed as if they softened and a serene smile appeared on her face. Amidst the song, she expressed her thoughts and her wish to see my face.

“Y-you are him!” She exclaimed.

“Him?”

“This can’t be. It can't be real. All those dreams weren’t my fantasy? You are real, so t-that means…” her voice cracked, and she broke into tears. Reacting to her, my eyes became misty instantly. An urge took over me again, and I pulled her into my embrace. She hugged me back tighter, “w-who are you?” She asked releasing a trembling breath.

“Zane Eliezer,” I said.

“Why did you save me?” I didn’t understand what she was referring to. But her sobs were suffusing the uneasiness in my body again.

“I don’t understand. When did I?” I asked, gulping.

“What was your name? I don’t understand… Why did you save me? We didn’t even know each other, so why?” She looked at me. It was as if the pain from her heart was transferred into mine. I wiped her tears and stroked her back. I didn’t know why I started sweating.

Cradling her head to rest on my chest, I enveloped her neck with my palm. I didn’t know why I said what I did. “We’ll be safe now. So don’t worry, I will protect you.”

“Please tell me your name…” her voice trembled.

“My name? I wonder what my name is? I don’t have an answer to your question because I don’t know my name — the name you want to know.”

She pulled herself out of my embrace, looked into my eyes and shifted back. Wiping her tears, briskly, she tensed her body, “I-I am sorry, prince. I don’t know… w-what got over me suddenly. I didn’t mean to…”

“Why did your tears make me cry?” Both of us were filled with questions and we could not answer each other. She had her storms within her and I had mine. We were resonating, but we weren’t creating a soft melody. She kept on asking for a name I didn’t know or, more accurately, didn’t remember. And I kept on asking myself and her why I could flood myself with foreign sensations when she was around. We had just met, but it seemed we had known each other for ages.

“P-Prince, I think I should leave now,” she got up and I got up with her. I held her hand and pulled her into my arms.

“Don’t go. Stay with me.” I was trying to keep her close to me, but the reason was clearly not what I thought it was. It wasn’t curiosity, but like the maid said, she was the bird I was hoping to see in the empty sky. I was waiting for her.

She squirmed for sometime, then stopped and closed her eyes. “I-I don’t know how to explain things to you. But can you please not talk about things between us to anyone else? Not even the king and the queen. I am completely confused right now. All this time, I saw you in my dreams in conditions I can’t even speak and today you come to me in reality. Please prince, keep us private.”

“You have my words. No words we exchange will ever be repeated by me to other ears.” I looked at her. The strain around my eyes disappeared, and they felt as light as a feather.

She averted her eyes and nodded. Her physical movements said she was nervous. “You should rest.” I said. She flinched and headed to the door. “Rest in my room. In front of my eyes.” She gasped faintly and looked at me, tensing her brows. “Sleep on the bed.”

She stared at it, her eyeballs moving restlessly. “I-I can’t… I…”

“You are my mate. You have the right to sleep there. If you are worried that my reproduction instincts might overtake, don’t worry. I have many foreign sensations to interpret than exploring my instincts.”

She looked at me immediately, quite uncomfortable. I wondered what that expression was. Her cheeks were red, her breaths were shallow, and her eyes were tense. Fidgeting, she looked away, “h-how can you say something like that so… openly?”

“I don’t understand. What is wrong with that? Isn’t reproduction instinct one of the dominating characters in all the species found so far? Even if I say that in some cover, it will still be the same.” She sighed and went under the blanket. Soon I laid beside her.

“P-prince… um… are you… going to sleep here?”

I nodded, placing my head on the pillow next to her, “I can look at you the whole night.”

“Why will you? I am ugly, you shouldn’t.”

“Explain to me what that word means and why should I not look at you when you are ugly? Does having a scar on your face refer to being ugly? If so, I don’t have any urge to not look at you. Rather, the way you make me feel, I want to always keep you in my sight.”

She drooped her eyes and wriggled under the blanket. I wasn’t able to make out the reasons for the way she behaved, but at least I knew my wait had ended because that night I had no urge to look at the door of the palace.