Chapter 16
1139 Words
MAETHYS POV
“I’m still trying to understand it,” I said.
That was true.
It wasn’t unpleasant. Not exactly. The pull of the bond was strange, and warm, and unsettling in a way that made me too aware of him whenever he stood close.
But if I wasn’t going to be allowed to stay, I didn’t want to make the pain worse by leaning into something that could be taken away.
“I also don’t know what it means to be…” I stopped.
I knew the word.
It still felt wrong in my mouth.
“Luna?” he offered.
I nodded.
Valik was quiet for a few steps. Not avoiding the answer. Weighing it.
“A Luna leads beside the Alpha,” he said. “But every Luna does it differently. Some are healers. Some are diplomats. Some organize the families, the young, the elders. Some are sharper in conflict than council. The role changes depending on the woman who holds it.”
The word woman made my face warm for reasons I didn’t fully understand.
“So I would have to… talk to people?”
His mouth softened. Almost a smile. “Yes.”
“A lot of people?”
“Yes.”
My stomach tightened.
“Would they look for me?” I asked. “Notice when I walk by?”
“They would notice,” he said carefully. “Not all at once. Not always loudly. But yes. A Luna is not invisible.”
The words settled over me in a strange, uncomfortable way.
Not invisible.
I wasn’t sure if that sounded like a promise or a threat.
“How many people?” I asked, then hesitated as the word came out. “Or wolves? How many wolves are in the pack?”
This time, he did smile.
“People is fine,” he said. “Wolves is fine too.”
The answer loosened something in me.
“We have one hundred twenty-nine wolves in Pine Eclipse.”
I stopped walking for half a second. “One hundred twenty-nine?”
His smile deepened slightly. “Yes.”
“That seems like a lot.”
“For a pack, we are somewhere in the middle. Some have more than double our number. Others have only a few dozen.”
A middle-sized pack.
One hundred twenty-nine people.
One hundred twenty-nine names. Faces. Voices. Problems. Needs.
I tried to imagine keeping track of that many lives and felt dizzy.
“How do you keep that many people in one place?” I asked.
His hand brushed mine as we walked.
Barely.
Probably by accident.
My breath caught anyway.
Valik noticed.
Of course he noticed.
His gaze flicked to my hand, then away again.
He paused before he spoke.
“Not without work,” he said. “Structure matters. Patrols. Food. Housing. Disputes. Training. Territory. Trust.” His eyes moved across the path ahead. “Zach helps with much of that.”
The warmth in my chest thinned a little.
“Zach is a Beta?”
“Yes.”
“So he’s… like your second in command?”
Valik looked at me, surprised. “Yes.”
“My grandmother told me a little about packs,” I said. “Mostly to stay away from them.”
His expression changed.
“What else did she tell you?”
“That they’re led by an Alpha and his Beta. That packs have rules. That borders matter.” I looked down at the path. “And what to do if I was ever caught by one.”
The air between us shifted.
“She was worried about you being caught?” he asked.
I nodded.
“She was worried about a lot of things. She just never explained why.”
Valik went quiet, but he stayed beside me.
I didn’t recall sharing much about my upbringing with anyone. They asked questions about the attacks, about my body, about what I knew. I answered when I could.
But no one had asked much about my life before.
Just what I knew about what was happening now.
The buildings thinned as we walked. Gravel gave way to packed dirt. The air grew cooler beneath the trees, the scent of pine sharper here, mixed with moss and wet bark. Branches knitted overhead, catching the morning light and breaking it into pale strips across the trail.
We walked into the woods, the path narrowing from lack of use.
“Would you mind,” he said quietly, “if I guided you? Some of the paths are less obvious.”
I nodded.
His hand hovered for a moment before settling at my lower back, light but steady.
The world tilted.
Heat bloomed where he touched me, spreading outward in a slow, dizzying wave that made my breath catch.
My skin felt too aware, every nerve suddenly tuned to the space between us, to the fact that he was close — closer than he needed to be.
Something inside me tightened — not painfully, but with startling clarity. Like threads drawing taut. Like alignment. Like standing in the right place without knowing how I’d arrived.
The warmth didn’t stop at my skin. It sank deeper, curling low in my chest and stomach, carrying with it an unfamiliar sense of rightness that unsettled me more than the heat itself.
Wanting crept in before I could stop it. Not sharp. Not desperate. Just… present. A quiet, undeniable pull that made my body ache, wanting him closer.
It felt like slow motion as I turned to face him. His eyes were locked onto me.
The gentle warmth turned hotter as I took him in. is deep brown eyes. The hard line of his jaw. The dark stubble shadowing his face.
I inhaled sharply.
He stilled.
For one suspended heartbeat, neither of us moved.
Then—
“Alpha Valik!”
The shout snapped the moment apart.
A man ran toward us through the trees, clothes rumpled, breath coming in harsh bursts. His eyes were wild as he skidded to a stop.
“Sir,” he panted. “There’s a large group approaching the territory.”
Valik’s hand slid from my back to my wrist, firm now.
“Wolves?” he asked.
“No, sir. They seem… human.”
Valik’s gaze flicked to me, sharp and searching.
“The covens,” he said.
The word meant nothing to me.
And the way his expression shifted told me it should have.
He turned away immediately, pulling us back towards the main part of the grounds.
His voice cutting through the air as he issued orders. Wolves moved at once, urgency rippling outward like a shockwave.
Valik took my hand fully then, no longer asking, and pulled me with him.
We rounded the corner—
And the building ahead of us erupted in flame.
- Writer
