Two Halves of a Whole

Chapter 28

Sattira woke to the smell of freshly made waffles covered in strawberries with whipped cream as Lugos stood next to the bed holding a tray. She sat up and excepted the tray and was surprised when she took a sip of the coffee and found he had made it exactly the way she liked it. She watched as he sat next to her with his own tray.

“You didn’t have to get me breakfast in bed,” she told him as she munched on a piece of crisp bacon.

“I know but it is important to our wolves to take care of their mates. Nothing makes my wolf happier than taking care of you,” he told her as he watched a light blush form on her cheeks. His wolf gave a satisfied growl in his mind.

They ate their breakfast and made plans to ask their friends to join them for a run. He wanted her wolf to be comfortable and get a chance to run with pack members.

She stepped into the bathroom to shower and get ready for their run. When she stood in front of the mirror her eyes moved to where Lugos marked her and a gasp left her.

Lugos felt her shock through the bond and rushed into the bathroom to check on her, worried as to what had startled her. He stopped in his tracks when he saw her reflection.

The mark he made when his bite released it’s magic had left behind the face of a wolf with one half of the face being his light buff colored wolf with a silver eye while the other half of the face was Sattira’s Mahogany red wolf with an emerald green eye making his chest swell with pride. The part that had caused their shock was the symbol right above their combined wolf face.

He quickly removed his shirt to see the mark he wore was in fact a mirror image of hers. He ran his fingertips over the symbol above their wolves that seemed to be made from moonlight as it shimmered against his skin. It looked like two pictures had been cut in half and the wrong halves were put back together. The symbol above his wolf’s face was a full moon cut in half and attached to the half sun above Sattira’s wolf face.

The goddesses have blessed our mate bond, his wolf sounded in his head.

When their eyes meet in the mirror they were full of wonder. Not only had Selene blessed their bond but her sister had as well. This was something no one had ever heard of before.

“Until we know more about what it means keep your mark covered,” he advised his mate. “There are still so many people here we don’t know well enough to share this with.”

Sattira understood he was just trying to protect her but at the same time she was hurt and wished to wear his mark proudly for everyone to see. Hiding it almost felt like they were ashamed of the bond they shared. Lugos felt her feelings through the bond and pulled her to him, sending all his feelings through their bond to drive away her hurt.

“Won’t our friends see our mark when we shift to run with them?” She was a little nervous if their mark got this reaction from her mate what her friends’ reactions would be.

“We will shift in the woods to make it easier to hide. They will smell us being newly mated and avoid looking too closely anyway because newly mated pairs can be very jealous of each other,” he told her.

“Ok, let me put on something easy to take off,” she told him moving out of his embrace and towards the door of her walk in closet.

Lugos took one more look at the shimmering moonlight symbol in the mirror before putting on his shirt making sure the mark wasn’t visible through the fabric then walked beck into the bedroom to wait for his mate.

As they walked from their room to the woods their wolves became more excited at the prospect of going for a run with each other. Lugos and Sattira walked a few steps away from their friends to take off their clothes. When they were completely shifted they turned to look at each other’s wolves only to realize that they were a bit bigger than they were before they marked each other.

Emma’s wolf was a beautiful silvery white and with her silvery gray eyes she was quite striking next to the bluish black wolf with the ice blue eyes of her mate. Sattira was in awe of how beautiful they looked standing next to each other.

“You were right, their wolves are striking next to each other.” She couldn’t help but wonder if his light buff and her mahogany red wolf looked as striking together.

“They do but no wolf is as gorgeous as yours,” Lugos told her as he eyed her wolf with wonder.

A game of chase soon ensued between them. Sattira was surprised at how quick her wolf was, Lugos was the only one who was close to being able to catch up with her. She soon found herself being chased by everyone as she spent her time dodging and swerving to avoid everyone else. Just when they finally thought they had her cornered she made a leap into the air only to twist in mid air so she landed just outside of the area everyone else was crowded around. By the time they had finally run themselves out enough it was almost time for lunch so they made their way back to their clothes and changed.

They made their way into the pack house where Lugos invited her friends to join them at the head table. Her friends all seemed excited to be given such an honor. The Alpha and Luna seemed thrilled to have them at the table.

Alpha Stephan asked after her friends’ families by name. Her friends seemed excited that someone so important would remember them. Sattira felt a lot of admiration for how the older Alpha went out of his way to make her friends feel important. She wondered if she would really be worthy to help Lugos lead his pack one day, hopefully not too soon though. She felt she had so much she needed to learn first.

She was almost done with her meal when Alpha Todd sat down at the table. She had been busy and had almost forgotten about her Grandfather. After learning that he was lied to for all those years to keep him away from Eva she had wanted to talk with him. She felt guilty that she hadn’t made time for him already.

He glanced at her nervously as if he was unsure if he should say something. She smiled warmly at him. From what she had learned of alphas they were confident and tried to avoid showing weakness.

“I have been wanting to talk with you before you leave. I thought it might be nice to learn more about my birth family,” she told Alpha Todd. “I thought maybe after dinner if you still wanted to talk.”

“I would like that very much,” Alpha Todd told her. His face lit up, “will your mate be joining us?”

“How did you know?” She was confused. “We haven’t really told anyone yet.”

“When you mate and mark each other your smell changes to other wolves. It help prevent mistakes with unmated wolves so fights are less apt to break out,” Emma offered.

“Oh, so we really can’t continue to hide it anymore,” Sattira told them as she blushed.

“I actually have something to do after dinner but I can walk you to his room so you can speak privately,” Lugos told her. She could feel his disappointment through the bond at missing out on hanging out with them.

“Why are you so disappointed,” she asked him through their shared link.

“The Dalton’s are like Werewolf royalty. Everyone might seem all relaxed sitting here eating but you would be surprised how many of the people at this table are secretly freaking out right now. Emma already secretly snapped a picture for her pack website so her pack can sit around being jealous,” he chuckled as he told on his cousin.

“Wow, I almost feel bad for not knowing who he was,” she told.

Their little group had finished eating and was getting ready for training so she said her farewells to those at the table. The walk to the training area was filled with their friends gushing over the fact she was a wolf from the Dalton bloodline.

“With all the legends you are related to you could almost be Mythical Being Royalty. You don’t happen to have a relative from the Shay family of Elves or the Moonglow family of fairies,” Nina giggled.

“At this rate I wouldn’t be surprised,” Lugos teased.

“As far as I know only werewolves and mages,” Sattira told them. “And Beverly’s parents were supposed to be purists unless it was on the Dalton side I would be surprised.”

“The Dalton line is one of the founding bloodlines of our kind. You are the first anyone has ever heard of even born outside of a mate bond in their line,” Sean told her.

They had reached the training area and started their warmup routine. They did some sparring and Sattira was happy to find it was easier to use her ability to slow everything down than the day before. Her special ability to command them seemed more natural for her to use the more she used it. They added in sparring in wolf form for which everyone shifted in the bathroom, making it easier to keep their marks hidden.

Sattira’s wolf was lightning fast at sparring and surprised everyone by easily beating Emma’s wolf. It was almost as if she had trained her whole life. Sattira credited it to all the martial arts training she did growing up. She claimed it must have helped her wolf to already understand some basic moves that carried over when she fought shifted. Lugos thought it probably had something to do with their mate marks and the gifts she seemed to have gotten from the moon goddess but he didn’t say anything to contradict her.

All too soon they were sprawled out on the training mats panting hard from their sparring session. They slowly started to make their way to shift back and change so they could all get cleaned up for dinner.

After they had showed Sattira and Lugos were alone in their room talking about their after dinner plans.

“So if you are not going to be with me what did you have planned for after we eat?” She had wanted to ask earlier but didn’t know if he would be able to say anything in front of their friends.

“I will be meeting with my parents. With Rob and his parents no longer filling the Gamma position and Julie no longer an option as a trainer I have to go over options for replacements.”

There was regret in his voice, these had been his pack mates and that made them his family and he had known them most of his life. Their betrayal hurt so bad he had really struggled to control his anger over it. Had he not had his mate he wasn’t sure his wolf wouldn’t have lost it already.

“Do you have any ideas of who you might choose,” she said as she combed her long thick hair.

“I have been watching Danny and Jacob when we have trained and if they keep training with us I think they might be able to fill those spots. Of course if I make Danny my Gamma he will need to take some tactical training and battle classes so he learns battle strategies as it becomes his job to help lead the defense of the pack if we are ever attacked,” he explained.

“What about Nina and Kim?” She tried not to be offended that he hadn’t mentioned offering them a position.

“As Danny’s mate Nina would be a Gamma as well. She is actually pretty good for not being a ranked member. She has definitely put in the training and made it easier for me to consider Danny and Nina for this kind of promotion. Kim has potential but will need a lot of work so I thought giving Jacob a pack trainer position still ranks him up. He sometimes helps out in training the pups so he would have earned it eventually.” He hoped she understood he wasn’t trying to be critical of her friends but he had to consider what was best for the pack.

“Oh,” was all she said. She actually felt stupid for the brief thought she had of his choice being because of Danny and Jacob being male. He had been considering Julie before her betrayal, after all.

He thought about kissing her as he saw the look of guilt flash across her face but he was already having a hard time not locking their door and taking her right there. Having marked her had made his wolf happier but it did nothing to lessen his desire for her. Too bad they both had things to do after they ate.

They ate their meal in the dining hall with they ranked pack members and those members of the Council that had stayed to help with the Eric Dire issue.

When Sattira had asked why the Council had to be involved. Lugos had explained that any action taken against another pack had to go through the Council to help prevent all out war between some of the more power hungry Alphas and their packs because it risks humans discovering the truth about them all.

Apparently any issues within a pack can be handled by the Alpha as long as it doesn’t go against the rights of the pack members. Rogues give up all rights the moment they trespass onto pack lands but if an Alpha allows a rogue to remain on pack grounds for more than a week they gain the temporary rights of an omega ranked wolf.

This rule had apparently been made after an alpha had made members of his packs rogues and captured them so he could reduce them to slaves. This was so appalling that the Alpha was stripped of his rank and made a rogue by the Council as an example to others that such behavior was inexcusable.

Sattira had been so lost in thought that she didn’t realize when they were both finished eating. Lugos checked the time and offered to walk her to Alpha Todd’s room.