Alpha Forbidden Luna

Episode 3: The Boy In The Forest

POV: Lena

The water was extraordinary.

She understood within the first

minute of being in it why it was

called healing water and not simply

warm water or comfortable water

or any of the more ordinary descriptions

that would have been accurate but

insufficient. It was warm the way

things were warm when the warmth

was intentional rather than incidental,

specific and complete and moving

through her from the point of contact

outward in the specific way of something

that knew where it was needed and

was going there directly.

Her chest felt different almost immediately.

The deep ache of water in places

water was not supposed to be began

to ease with a gradualness that

she could track, could feel moving

in real time from worse to better

in a way that no medicine she had

encountered in twenty one years

of living in a pack that had not

prioritized her access to healing

had ever moved.

She stood in the water to her

waist with the shift floating

around her and her arms at her

sides and her wrists submerged

and tried not to think about how

close Caden Black was standing.

He was approximately three feet away.

She was extremely aware of the

three feet.

His hand was against her upper

back. Not holding her. Simply

present. The contact point through

the wet cotton of the shift where

the healing was visibly faster

than the places his hand was not

touching. She could feel the

difference and the difference was

significant and she was filing

this information under things

that required explanation when

she had the capacity for more

questions than she currently had.

She looked at her wrists under

the water.

The marks from the chains were

fading. Not gone. But fading with

the specific quality of something

moving in a direction at a speed

that was visible to the naked eye

and that should not have been

possible without significant time

or significant intervention.

This was significant intervention.

"The amulet," she said.

His hand on her back did not move.

"Yes," he said.

"You have one that matches mine."

"Yes."

She kept her eyes on the water

and the fading marks and the

specific gold quality of the

light moving through it.

"Tell me," she said.

He was quiet for a moment. Not

the quiet of someone deciding

whether to answer. The quiet of

someone deciding where to start.

"I was eleven years old," he said.

"My father was Alpha of the Blood

Moon Pack and I was his heir and

we were conducting a border patrol

on the eastern edge of the territory

when a rival pack attacked. It

was not a significant attack. A

skirmish. The kind that happened

regularly at contested borders

in those years." He paused. "I

was separated from the patrol

group in the confusion. I took

a wound to my head that was

significant enough to affect my

orientation and I ended up in

the forest on the wrong side of

the border in Silver Creek adjacent

territory with no way to signal

my position and diminishing ability

to stay conscious."

She was listening with the specific

quality of attention she gave to

things that mattered.

"It was winter," he said. "The

temperature dropped after dark.

I was losing blood and I was

losing consciousness and I had

made my peace with the probability

that I was not going to be found

before both of those processes

completed." He paused again.

"Then someone found me."

She felt something move through

her chest that was not the healing

water and was not the warmth of

his hand on her back and was not

anything she was going to examine

in the middle of a healing pool

at what appeared to be approximately

midnight.

"She was small," he said. "She

should not have been in the forest

at that hour. She was not from

any pack I recognized from her

scent. She had no wolf that I

could detect." He said the last

part carefully. Without the quality

that the Silver Creek Pack attached

to the same information when they

said it. "She pulled branches off

me. I do not know how long that

took. I was not fully conscious

for all of it. She cleaned the

wound on my head with river water

that must have been extremely cold

and she talked to me when I was

losing consciousness to keep me

present." He paused. "I have been

told by people with more medical

knowledge than I had at eleven

that the talking was what kept

me alive. That staying conscious

through the night was the difference

between surviving the blood loss

and not."

Lena stood in the healing water

and felt the marks on her wrists

continue to fade and listened

to a story she had a version of

from the other side and felt the

specific quality of something

very large settling into a space

she had not known was waiting for it.

"Before I lost consciousness

completely," he said, "I had one

thing to give her. My father had

given me two amulets the day I

was named heir. Old stone. Made

by the pack elder from rock that

was said to respond to significant

power. He told me to keep one

and give one to the person most

worthy of it when I found them."

His voice was very even. "I pressed

it into her hand. I told her it

would keep her safe."

The healing pool was completely quiet.

"She was gone when my father's

patrol found me at first light,"

he said. "I was delirious for

three days. When I came back to

myself the first thing I told

my father was that a girl had

saved my life and I did not know

her name." He paused. "He sent

people to look. They found the

place in the forest. They found

evidence of someone having been

there through the night. They

did not find her."

Lena looked at the amulet resting

against her chest through the wet

cotton of the shift.

"How long have you been looking?"

she said.

"Seventeen years," he said.

She turned to look at him.

He was looking at her with those

dark eyes that she had been unable

to read since the gates and that

she was beginning to understand

were not unreadable because he

was hiding what was in them but

because what was in them was

several things simultaneously and

she had not yet developed the

specific fluency required to read

all of them at once.

"I was nine years old," she said.

"I was not supposed to be in the

forest that night. I had gone

further than I was allowed because

the house had been particularly

difficult that day and the forest

was the only place that felt like

it did not require anything from

me." She held his gaze. "I found

a boy bleeding under a fallen

tree and I stayed because it was

the obvious thing to do. I did

not know who he was. I did not

know what pack he was from. I

just knew he needed someone to

stay and I stayed."

Something moved through his expression.

"You left before morning," he said.

"I knew I had been away too long.

I was afraid of what Diana would

do if she realized I had been

in the forest all night." She

looked at the amulet again. "I

did not know anyone was looking

for me. I thought he probably

died anyway. I hoped he did not.

I thought about it for years

after and hoped he did not."

The words landed in the healing

pool and sat there in the gold light.

"He did not," Caden said quietly.

She looked at him.

There was a long moment where

neither of them spoke and the

water moved around them with

its slow intentional warmth and

the marks on her wrists were

almost gone now and her chest

did not hurt with every breath

anymore and the healing pool

was doing what it had been built

to do while the two people standing

in it did something that no pool

had been built to facilitate but

that was happening anyway.

They were finding each other.

Not the way you found people

in the ordinary daily accumulation

of shared time and proximity.

The way you found something you

had not known was lost until

the moment you stopped being

separated from it and the specific

quality of the separation became

retroactively visible.

"The question you answered at

the door of my room," she said.

"They were executed for putting

their hands on what is mine."

She held his gaze steadily. "What

does that mean."

He looked at her with both things

in his eyes simultaneously. The

Alpha and the man who had been

eleven years old and bleeding

and had given away the most

significant thing he owned to

a girl whose name he did not know.

"It means," he said carefully,

"that there are things I need

to explain to you about mate

bonds and what my wolf has been

doing since you walked through

my gates that will require you

to sit down and possibly also

to eat something because you

are considerably thinner than

you should be and I have been

thinking about that since I

carried you from the pool and

I would prefer to have that

conversation when you have had

a meal and dry clothes and are

not standing in a healing pool

at midnight."

She stared at him.

There was so much in that sentence

that she needed to address that

she did not know where to begin

so she began with the practical

end of it.

"Dry clothes," she said.

"Yes."

"And food."

"The kitchen staff have been

notified."

"And then you are going to explain

what your wolf has been doing."

"Yes."

She looked at him for a long moment.

She thought about seventeen years

of a man looking for a face in

crowds. She thought about an amulet

pressed into her hand in a dark

forest and the instruction that

had come with it that she had

carried for twelve years without

fully understanding why she had

believed it so completely.

It will keep you safe.

She looked at the water around

her and her wrists that were

almost healed and the man standing

three feet away who had jumped

into a pool without hesitation

for her and had sat in a chair

beside her fire for an entire

day and who was now telling her

she needed to eat something with

the specific careful tone of someone

who had noticed she was thin and

had feelings about it that he

was managing the expression of.

She thought about coming here

expecting to die.

"Alright," she said.

She moved toward the steps at

the edge of the pool.

He was there before she reached

them. Not pulling her or guiding

her. Simply present at the edge

with a large dry towel that someone

had left folded on the bench and

his eyes directed at the wall

beside him rather than at her

and she stepped out of the water

and took the towel and wrapped

it around herself and stood for

a moment with the warm weight

of it and the specific quality

of being cared for in a way she

had not experienced before by

anyone in twenty one years and

felt something she was not going

to name yet shift in the exact

center of her chest.

"Caden," she said.

He looked at her.

"Thank you," she said. "For

the pool. And for the chair

beside the fire." She held his

gaze. "And for jumping into

the water."

He looked at her with everything

in his eyes at once.

"Do not thank me for that,"

he said quietly. "I will always

jump into the water."

She held his gaze for one more

moment.

Then she walked toward the door

and the corridor and the dry

clothes and the food that was

waiting and the conversation

about mate bonds that she was

going to need to sit down for.

Behind her she heard him follow.

And somewhere in the pack house

above them in a room that appeared

completely ordinary a wolf who

had watched everything at the

training pool that morning sat

in the dark and thought about

what they had seen and what it

meant for the plan they had been

building and picked up the burner

phone behind the loose stone panel

in the east wing wall.

Their fingers hesitated over it.

Then they put it back.

Not yet.

They needed to understand what

they were dealing with first.

The wolfless girl had not died

in the pool.

The Alpha had jumped in after her.

And his eyes had been red.