The Red Moon's Daughter

Clayton

-Clayton POV-

I was looking out of the window of my office on the fourth floor of the palace, where the view of my private garden was breathtaking, but I was not actually seeing it. My mind was far away, thinking. My birthday was last week. I was already 93 years old. Yes, I looked like a 32-year-old man, and I felt like one, to be honest, but I was feeling all those years in my soul. I was still very young considering the many years a werewolf could live, but that did not mean that I could not feel anxious about time passing me by.

I have accomplished many things as the King of Wolves, and many more as a man. But still, I could not find my mate. I had traveled all around Abraxas looking for her the last few years, and I was starting to lose hope.

I was a cold and hard man, and sometimes I thought that not finding her was for the best; I had nothing to give her emotionally. But then those cold, lonely nights caught up to me... when I felt that I had so much to give and nobody to receive it.

Long ago, I almost took a chosen mate from the many lovers that I had, feeling the pressure of my peers and the council of elders. I was by no means a saint and had enjoyed the company of beautiful women to fill the void that not finding my mate had left in me. During that time, I was still a new king. An arrogant and uninterested new king.

But, only one week before the wedding, the Moon Goddess had come to me in a dream. I was in my garden, the same garden that I was looking at, with the full moon high in the night sky and a warm breeze warming my skin. Standing in front of me, the shine of the moon fell upon her divine figure, her golden eyes reprimanding me.

-Be patient, my son – she told me - you are not ready to receive your mate yet. Do not make a mistake because the outside pressure is too much. You are the strongest of all. Do not let anybody undermine you and remove you from the path that I created for you. Do not let them take you away from the precious blessing that is the mate bond –

-But then when will I meet my mate? I need her now –

-No, you do not need her yet. You are not ready to receive her. She is so, so unique, and you are still too immature. You won’t be able to appreciate the amazing gift that I am giving you. You are selfish, spoiled, and irresponsible. You think you are a big wolf but look at the mistake that you are about to make. Look at how you are disrespecting your goddess. You are not ready for her –

It was hard to hear those words coming from the Moon Goddess. I knew she was right, but I was so arrogant that I refused to accept them. Nobody dared talk to me like that.

-You are wrong! I am ready! I am the King Alpha! – I exclaimed, my ego wounded and slashing at her.

-How dare you talk to me like that?! – The Moon Goddess screamed and the ground shook under my feet. Her eyes shining red like blood – You are no king! You are just a pup! Learn your place! –

Her aura expanded and I kneeled, ashamed of offending my goddess. I could not stop looking at her red eyes until she calmed down and they went back to their beautiful golden color.

-Clayton, I don’t want to see you fail – she said in a gentler tone now – but you must learn your own way to become the best version of yourself. I am here to guide you, but this path is your own and you are responsible for your own actions. Once you have learned to be true to yourself, I will give you my most precious gift. I made her with so much love, I made her so special, that she deserves a mate that can understand what he is receiving. And you are not yet that mate. Work hard to deserve her – it was her final word

She started to vanish in a cloud of smoke, and I started to panic, feeling the weight of reality pushing me back.

-But what do I have to do, Moon Goddess? – I asked on my knees – Please! Tell me! –

-Be true to who you are, and to what you believe in – she whispered.

I jolted awake that night, sweating as if I had run for days, and with a new vision of myself. I looked at the she-wolf that was sleeping next to me in bed and felt ashamed once more. That was the place for my Queen, and some random she-wolf was occupying it.

With resolve, I picked her up, ignoring her complaints of being manhandled like that, and threw her out of my suite. She banged on the door like a lunatic, but I turned and went back to my room.

After that, I realized what a shallow life I had been living. I had been ignoring my duties because there was always someone else to do them. I hadn’t trained with my guards and army in many years because I was “the strongest of them all”, and now I was out of shape and had lost the partnership and respect of my warriors.

That was 60 years ago. I made many mistakes, and it took a lot to fix them, but they made me stronger, wise, and worthy of my title. And yet, my mate was nowhere to be found.

A knock on the door brought me back to the present. My Beta, Raul, entered the room with a frown on his face. He was my best friend, but during official matters, he took his role very seriously.

-It happened again on a pack on the east coast – Raul said, standing in front of my desk.

-How many survivors? –

-About half the pack – Raul answered – They had good warriors, but it was a small pack –

I looked out into the garden again, containing the fury inside of my body. The rogues had been forming a rebellion and attacking several packs in different areas of my territory. I knew they were being led by someone offering them a hefty reward, but the questioning of the few prisoners that they were able to capture always came back empty – nobody knew who this mysterious man was, only that they called him the “Rogue King”.

-Send 15 warriors to each pack for support and protection. We don’t know which pack they will attack next, but we know that they have not attacked the same pack twice, so send double the number of warriors to the packs that have not been attacked – I turned to look at Raul again – Order the Alphas to send us a detailed report of the attack. Tell them to interview everyone about what happened; the more details the better, nothing must be left out… even the smallest detail can help us understand what is going on –

This was getting out of control, and I was extremely frustrated because I was not getting the answers that I wanted. I felt like the situation could escape my grasp any minute now, and I was not protecting my subjects properly.

-Yes, Your Highness – Raul nodded – We also received an answer from the Mageia City. The Supreme Witch has accepted to send a party to meet with us in Lazuline. They have been hunting for a warlock that has been committing some crimes, and she believes that he might be connected to our problem -

With time, the rogues have gotten better at sneaking in and attacking, and now I was suspecting that a warlock was working with them since they have been able to mask their scents to enter undetected into the pack’s territories lately. I shared my thoughts with Marsha, the Supreme Witch, and it seemed that I was not wrong.

-Very well, when do they want to meet? –

-Next week. Enough time for us to reach Lazuline if we leave tomorrow and survey the area before the meeting –

-Prepare our party, then. We are leaving tomorrow -

-Yes, Your Highness – Raul bowed once more and left me alone again.

I sat at my desk trying to concentrate on the paper in front of me.

For a few days now, my soul kept fluttering with the ominous feeling that something important was about to happen. My beast was restless, knocking on my mind several times a day to growl at me, look at my surroundings like a vigilante evaluating the area, and retreating to the back of my mind again. He had become a quiet and moody wolf, only pacing and waiting. In the last year, I had to change and go running alone, because my wolf had turned violent and a risk to whoever was close to me. I knew that if I kept living without my mate, my wolf could turn feral, and I would lose my mind.

Rumors were starting to spread about me. That I was getting more explosive, more impatient, more violent. Word got out about what I did to the last rogue that we captured. The truth was that I had lost control of my beast that day in the dungeons – what I did to that rogue was overkill. There was not a part of his body that I had not ripped the skin off; I had gouged his eyeballs out, taken all his teeth, removed his claws, and tied him to the bars of the prison in a dangerous position, so when I forced him to shift, all his limbs would snap out of his torso.

If people found out that I was losing control, my crown could be in danger.

My dreams were filled with green eyes with specks of gold, and I kept hoping that it was a signal that my mate was close. But I was scared that she would arrive too late.