Rejected Luna, Rising Alpha

What Rask won't say

“You’ve been out all night” Abram said. It wasn’t a question

“Couldn’t sleep in there” I nodded vaguely towards the house.

“Everything’s too loud, moms crying again. The floorboards creak like gunshots. I could hear a mouse in the wall two rooms away.”

Abram sat besides me, close enough that our shoulders touched. It was an old habit right from when we were kids and our father was still alive.

“I spoke to Rask, after you went to see him”

My head turned, “You went to see him?”

“I went to make sure he wasn’t planning on handling my little sister over to the council Ike some kind of price”

“He wouldn’t tell me much. He just kept saying you need to learn to control your wolf before anyone else finds out what you can do.” He clenched his jaw tightly

“That’s rich, coming from the man who told the whole clearing what I am within twelve hours.”

“ he didn’t tell the whole clearing, he told you, privately.

It’s spreading because two hundred people watched you put a hole through a stone wall from thirty feet away”

“It’s not his fault Anaya, that just what happens when something impossible happens in front of witnesses”

I looked down at my hands.

“I don’t even remember doing any of that. One second i was on the ground, the next-, I don’t know how to do it again, I don’t know how to not do it again either.”

“What if I hurt someone Abram?” I asked with ready eyes.

“Then make sure you learn to control it before it happens” Abram stood, offering his hand to pick me up.

“Now I fought two full seasons on border patrol before Dad died and I had to come home. I know somethings, now they might not be warden things but I’d teach you want I know.”

“You’d do that, train me? What if I hurt you?”

“Stop overthinking Anaya”

“I’m trying Abram”

“Rask thinks it’s a good idea. Says it’s better you learn to control it somewhere quiet than somewhere the whole pack council is watching”

Abram looked worried, like something was troubling him.

“What’s wrong bro?”

“Rask also said something I didn’t like”

“What did he say?”

“He said the last time the wardens family tried to hide her instead of registering her with the ruling family, it didn’t end well for the family”

Abram’s arms tightened on mine before he let go.

“I don’t care Anaya, I’m not handing you over to anyone. We do this quitely, on our own terms”

I felt relieved, like a wound from my chest from the clearing been lifted. It didn’t feel like a bond anymore, it felt like freedom.

“Okay, teach me”

The training started small, Abram had me focus on the him instead of trying to force it, sit with it the way one would sit with an animal who’s trust one was trying to earn rather than taming it.

My first few attempts did nothing. The fifth attempt made training dummy across the yard shudder like something had walked over its grave. The seventh cracked one of its wooden support beams clean in half.

“Good, that’s good. Progress at last” Abram said.

“That dummy didn’t do anything to me.”

“No, but you’re learning you can aim it instead of just leaking it everywhere.”

He circled me slowly, arms crossed, studying me the way he studies his opponents before striking.

“Try again Anaya, smaller this time like you’re cracking a knuckle, not swinging a hammer.”

It took a dozen attempts before I managed anything resembling restraint, a small crack on the dummy’s shoulder instead of splitting it in half. I was drenched in sweat, sweating.

I felt a shadow across the yard from the directions of the tree line, every instinct went coldly alert. Elder Rask stood at the edge of the clearing, alone, watching.

“How long have you been there?” Abram demanded

“Long enough” Rask’s gaze was fixated on me paying no heed to my brother.

“ I haven’t decided anything yet elder, I’m just trying to make sure I don’t accidentally kill someone”

“ A sensible short term goal.” His expression changed.

“ I came to tell you something I should’ve said yesterday but didn’t, never knew how you’d take it”

“Tell me now then.”

“Very well then, the bond you had begun to for. With Karlene Ashford before he rejected it-“ Rask paused,choosing his next words carefully.

“It’s not fully severed, rejections are usually clean, final with no traces left behind but yours isn’t. Now I don’t know if it’s because of what woke in you or because of something in him. It’s not gone child, it’s just there waiting.”

The training yard fell quite.

“Why does it matter?” I asked.

“Because half severed bonds are more dangerous than a whole or broken one, it leaves you both vulnerable in ways neither of you can understand yet. Like it or not but whatever happens with the war that coming, you and Karlene are far from done with each other.”

He turned to go, then paused at the tree line, glancing back at me

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think either of you deserve this but that won’t stop it from happening anyways.”

He turned and left.