Love Rising

Athena

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!! I wake with a jolt as my alarm is basically screaming at me to get up. I'm covered in sweat like I ran a marathon in my sleep. That dream..it felt so real. I felt like I was actually there in the forest, I was holding the moon goddesses hand!

I felt her hand in mine, Her fingers were interwined with mine! I can still feel how soft her hand was..But it couldnt have been real. I remember going to bed last night, laying in my bed thinking and eventually falling asleep. Obviously it was just a dream, my imagination just going wild for once, I mean as if the goddess would ever visit me! Breathe-in! Breathe-out! Okay, I'm now convinced that it was just a dream and I can quit inspecting my hand like its gonna fall off any minute. Looking over at my window seat, I can see Micah is still asleep. I'm surprised my alarm didn't wake him up. As I carefully climb out of bed, I tip toe to the shower so I can get the dream out of my mind and focus on other things. Silently closing the bathroom door, I reach into the shower to turn on the hot water and quickly get undressed. The hot water feels heavenly on my skin and I can already feel the dream being pushed to the back of mind. Reaching over to grab my loofah and favorite vanilla honey body wash, I notice what looks like a dirt patch on my wrist. Where did that come from? I immediately start scrubbing my wrist and the rest of my body to the point im covered in suds and start rinsing off under the spray. I notice once all the soap is gone that under the patch of dirt that was there, is now a small tattoo, It's the outline of a wolf and the moon. This is getting weird,where did the tattoo come from? I'm starting to freak out,my heart is beating rapidly, Its starting to feel like I cant breathe. COME ON! Breathe in- breathe out! Calm down Marie,just think about this! I keep chanting this in my head until I finally calm down. I look at the tattoo again and I think about my dream last night. This couldn't have been because of the dream..could it? Is this even possible? What if I'm just going crazy? My thoughts are not helping me right now. Breathe in-Breathe out! That's much better! So lets say that im not crazy and that the goddess did in fact visit me in my dream last night. She told me not to trust anyone unless my wolf said it was okay, but I haven't heard my wolf yet. No one can hear their wolf till they are 18. We shift at 15 for the first time,and our wolves can whine,howl and even growl but they cant speak until we are considered fully mature which is at 18. Since I can't hear my wolf, this is obviously a sign that it was in fact just a harmless dream and more than likely Micah decided to draw on me while I was asleep. This is the logical explanantion and I'm sticking with it..no one can tell me otherwise. Glad to know that I got stuck with someone who is in denial! Getting completely startled, I slipped and fell on the bathroom floor. "OH MY GODDESS! I really am going crazy! My mind is talking back to me!" Carefully getting up off the floor, I walk to the sink and begin wiping the condensation from the mirror. You're not going crazy! It's not your mind talking back to you, although technically I'm in your mind. We share your body..I'm your WOLF. Looking back in the mirror at me is not my typical blue eyes, no my eyes are purple and I do mean like glow purple! Quickly, I turn around with my back facing the mirror. This cannot be happening..can't be happening. Yes it can my dear. I'm here, It was no dream. Selene told you that I would be talking to you much sooner than your 18th birthday. I needed to be able to communicate with you. My name is Athena, the goddess chose me for you, I have been your wolf since birth, I am the same brown wolf you shifted into on your 15th brithday, the only difference is that I'm talking to you earlier than normal. Consider it an early birthday present from Selene herself. An early birthday present?! I don't think so, in my dream she made it seem like something was happening. She doesn't just grant early communication for no reason..at least I don't think so. You're right! She doesn't just do that but I didn't want you freaking out all over again. Something is coming, you need to be prepared and I can help you. We can communicate now, BUT you cannot tell anyone! This will be a secret until I know who can be trusted. okay, fair enough. I wouldn't want people to look at me like I've lost my mind anyways. No one would believe me if I told them the goddess came to me in a dream or that I can already speak to you. Good. Now go get dressed! We have a lot to do.

After drying off I walk into my room and go to my walk in closet where I proceed to get ready for training this morning. After getting dressed I go to where Micah is sleeping and try to shake him awake. He doesn't budge, just snores even louder than before. Alright, he wants to be that way then I will get him to wake up! I walk to my brothers room to get Alex. *knock knock* "Hey Alex, are you awake?" "Yes, come in!" Opening the door, I see Alex getting dressed and I can hear the shower running so I'm assuming that Dylan is in the shower. "Alex, I can't get Micah to wake up. I shook him for a long time and he didn't move! He just started snoring louder, if thats even possible!" Smirking my way Alex stops getting dressed and says,"Don't worry, I'll get him up! Just go downstairs and get some breakfast. Mom and Dad aren't home this morning but they should be back later tonight. We will meet you down there." "Great! Just don't do anything mean to him, I'll see you in a minute."

Once I'm down stairs, I go straight for the kitchen and grab a protein shake with a banana. Training starts in 20 mins so the guys better hurry up or we will be late! Five minutes later, the guys all come running down the stairs, I shouldn't even say running because it sounded more like a stampede with cussing. Apparently they decided to race to the bottom and the last one down had to buy lunch. Alex tripped Dylan who caught himself at the last second,but still bumped into Micah,flinging him into the banister. Micah shook it off then ran after his mate and brother, grabbed both of their shirts and TRIED to pull them backwards (didn't work), they were running too fast and that caused Micah to get flung forwards into both of them and then they rolled the rest of the way down the stairs. This resulted in them ending up in a huge ball of tangled limbs in the hallway. Holding in my laugh I ask,"Who is hurt? Attempt to raise your hand.." All 3 of their heads snap to me and I attempt to act serious with one brow raised with my arms crossed. Micah raises his hand and with the saddest face he can muster says,"Does my ego count?" Me,Alex and Dylan all proceed to start full on belly laughing! They all stand up and check to make sure nothing is broken or bleeding. Alex tells me no one won so they dont know who is going to buy lunch now. "Well.. I know one thing is for sure. NOT IT!!!" and I run out the door and to the training ground as fast as possible with all 3 guys behind me!

After training and going home to shower, we all meet up at the library to do our research. We all decided it is best to split up into 2 groups so one group can look up pack law and the other can attempt to look up a book on how alpha commands work. I wanted to be paired with Dylan but he says he is paired with Alex so they couldn't be distracted by Micah and me. I guess I understand that, we do need to concentrate and I doubt none of us would get anything done if we were paired with our mate. LIE. What do you mean lie? I know I wouldn't be able to do anything if I had to stare at Dylan. I didn't say that you were lying, I said LIE as in I think, no, I KNOW that he is lying. How do you know he was lying? He could very well be telling the truth.. His tone was off in the way he said it and it doesn't seem right about him caring if you're a distraction. Mates want to be distracted by eachother and don't want to be separated from the other. So it's just not sitting right with me. Okay, but he is used to be separated from me, he hasn't been allowed to be near me since he found out I'm his mate. I don't feel the need to be around him constantly. You don't because you can't feel the bond yet, you're not 18. Do you feel the bond with him? I mean I wasn't suppose to have you until I was 18 but here you are..

It doesn't work that way. The goddess matured me early so I could be with you now. I can't feel the bond at all with him but I can feel your attraction to him. What Athena says gives me quite a bit to think about. I guess I'll just have to wait till I'm 18 to know but I really hope he wasn't lying and just didn't want to be paired up with me.

Micah and I search through a bunch of different sections and we managed to find both topics in our section so we took 2 books each back to our table and started to look through them. He was looking at one about pack law while I was looking at Alpha commands. It was actually pretty fascinating. Alpha commands aren't just about the rank but the magic in the wolf. The stronger the magic, the stronger the wolf and stronger the command is. The alphas magic is typically the strongest so he can command anyone, then a beta can command anyone below him,then gamma but anything below that typically can't command anyone else thats why there is really only 3 titles in a pack, not including a luna who has the same authority as the Alpha. What could make a command not work though...as i'm flipping through the pages nothing is catching my eye. Everything it says, I already know. Rank,magic,illness. AGE. Age? It doesn't say that in here. How could age be a factor and it not be written down in the books, wouldn't that be something we should know? Not Necessarily, what do you think would happen if everyone knew this information? There would be more wars over packs. When they find out after a certain age, that if the current alpha doesn't pass on the alpha title,they become weaker and start to lose their ability. So you think the alpha is starting to lose his ability because he is past a certain age? How do you know this information? It doesn't matter how, just know that most wolves aren't privy to that sort of information. To answer your other question, yes I think he should've passed on the title a year or so ago. The longer he waits the weaker his magic will get. We better hope that no one finds this out before he can pass the title to his son or else there will be wars to claim this pack and land. Well what should we tell the guys? I can't tell them the command didn't work because of age because I'm sure they will want to read it in the book but its not in here and I can't tell them that you told me. We tell them that we couldn't find anything in the book that we didn't already know. Hopefully Micah found something in pack law that can keep the guys occupied on that instead. I hope so too.

6 hours later and more than half of the pack law section, Micah finds the book that contains the more recent laws pertaining to mates. Dylan and Alex walk to our table as Micah begins to read about the mate law. "Any adult wolf who has an under age mate, may not tell their mate till they are 18, and fully matured. The mate must be able to feel the sparks for themselves as well as have their wolf confirm the mate bond. If an adult wolf tells their underage mate the truth, many different scenarios can occur: The underage mate could bond faster, The mate could rebel the bond,The wolf will hold back the maturing process,The wolf could mature too fast then cause the human have defects. Defects include: possibly unable to reproduce/sterile, Go into heat too quickly,not go into heat at all,will no longer be able to shift into wolf form and may not be able to shift back into human form. The law will uphold this so no wolf can deceive the other and create a false bond with someone under age. If you mark an under age wolf before they can feel the bond then their real mate will lose them and not have another unless the goddess provides them with a new one. Even after being marked by a fake mate your wolf will sense your real mate(if in the same area) for 1 hour then it will fade. Once you have been marked there is no undoing it. Any wolf that gets caught deceiving someone under age will be sentenced to death after trial by the council." "Did anyone else get goosebumps after reading that or was it just me?"says Micah. I definitely got goosebumps but I didn't want to say that outloud either. I'm sure all of us felt that way because this rule was broken between all of us. Micah and I are not matured yet,so what if these things happen to us? I can feel Dylans eyes on me and he must know that I'm thinking about all of this because he says,"Don't worry Marie, everything is going to be okay. There is loop holes to this law and technically nothing was broken. Plus, I don't think any of this is true..I think it's mean't to scare us." He's right, this is not true. The elders wrote it to scare anyone who wanted to tell their mate early or someone who wanted to deceive another so they would think that the mate couldn't reproduce,etc. "I think we need to talk to our parents about this law..They were teenagers when it was written so they will know the truth." Everyone agreed. Now tonight, we are going to gather our parents for dinner and ask them.