What The Moon Could Not Control

The Alpha's Fear

The rejection felt like a bitter aftertaste left in my mouth.

I walked away from the temple without looking back, because if I did, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from changing my mind. Seeing the brokenness in her face would have forced me to revoke my choice, to forget the reason for the rejection in the first place, and I could not afford that.

I had left behind me a chaotic eruption in the chambers with answers that my people will never get, at least not yet. The guards follow me at a distance, knowing better not to approach in my tensed-up state, where my riled-up wolf from within might show up in defense.

I barely made it to the Alpha estate with my wolf clawing hard to make it out into the open. I have to lock myself in my chambers as I am fighting to keep my wolf from coming out in a very angry state, feeling like he wants to attack me for the decision I earlier made, depriving him of a mate, and also disrupting the order of things in the pack.

With the moon silent, the elders are pounding at my door constantly, seeking an explanation that I am not ready to give. Dealing with my wolf and the elders from behind the door, my head feels like it will implode at this point, weakening my body.

Morcant is the most persistent of the elders, demanding from outside my door that I reverse the rejection, that I put order back into the pack.

What feels like sitting in the dark for weeks has only been 2 days. I can still feel the broken mate bond, like a severed limb that remembers there was more to it, a feeling of losing something that i had all along but didn't realize I needed until it was too late.

Time had passed since the ceremony happened, but I can still feel her, our connection, like a whisper of awareness that something still lingers. There is something different to this feeling, though, like a shift towards uncertainty. The bond is changing, and that shouldn’t be happening.

Finally, out of my chambers, I went through the pack grounds, and I saw the effect of the Moon going silent. Some of my people have been unable to shift into their wolf form since that night, which is causing a problem with their human body. There is a reverse to the mate bonds that were made on that night. There is chaos in the hierarchy among the elders as everyone is trying to push for different solutions to be created.

It almost feels like she shouldn't have existed.

With all that is happening now, I remember what my grandmother told me long before now, that there were mistakes the Moon couldn't erase, secrets buried for far too long.

A memory I cannot forget, but still doesn’t make sense even till now.

All that is happening in the pack now is not a new occurrence. There have been other moments over the years when the presence of Omegas unsettled the pack, wolves who went feral without a cause, mate bonds wrongly created. Some of the irregularities never reached me, as some of the Omegas were missing from reports, and birth records were sealed. Morcant made sure of that.

Lyra wasn’t the first anomaly, but she was the first one I couldn’t ignore; it felt personal. Her records were the ones that couldn’t stay buried.

I had convinced myself that distance was for protection. That keeping her in the dark, keeping her weak, was the only way to keep her safe. Never fully allowing her to understand the effect of being an Omega.

The Moon obviously had other plans by making her my mate, a twist of fate I would never have seen coming. Forcing me to fully face what she could be.

I rejected her instead. I had to break the bond before it could fully form. I had to keep her away as far as I could, because proximity to her meant exposure, that she'd start asking questions, discovering things about herself that I was supposed to prevent.

My plan worked, as she was broken because the mate bond was no more, and she was exiled from the pack, far away from her getting answers from within. Because of this, I experienced some form of peace.

Then I felt it. Her powers were awakening, an unknown I had no access to or knowledge of.

It was like watching a door open that I'd spent my entire life trying to keep locked. I could feel her far into the borderlands, feel her experiencing something new about herself. I felt an old magic from her that I had come across once when my father was an alpha, aligning with her powers.

,

I needed to find her fast. I needed to feel her up close, to understand what was changing in her, so I could stop what might erupt before it was too late.

I finally tracked her down, far into the borderlands, and she was almost recognizable. Apparently, three months out in the wild, surviving on your own, without a pack, can transform you into something fierce. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to imagine what a strong Luna she could have been to the pack.

Realization set in, how she felt now, and the confidence in her eyes meant that it would be harder for me to deal with her & the problem brewing in the shadows.

I confessed to her that I was wrong about a lot of things. I could not admit how everything that is happening has affected me that I could not control, dreading the unknown.

In that silence between us, I really felt our connection a bit stronger, felt the intensity of her powers, but not fully understanding what that meant. I could not ask what was changing inside of her, so she did not suspect that I had an idea of what was happening.

Before I am compelled to say anything else, or the bond fully pulls at us, I turn to leave. My body moves, but my wolf is hesitant, reluctant in a way that makes my chest feel tight, but I run back into the forest, towards the pack territory.

Lyra’s presence still lingers as i run deeper into the trees. I sense a shift again in her powers. The trees feel stalled, and the ground beneath my feet feels unnaturally quiet.

My wolf senses something else ahead of us in our tracks, a familiar scent, and then I hear it.

“Kael” Morcant calls out to me, without showing himself at first, and this stops me in my tracks.

Morcant proceeds to make himself visible as he walks slowly towards me.

“The woods have not felt this silent since the last time the Moon withdrew itself, which was years ago," Morcant exclaims.

Deciding to ignore the obvious realization in Morcant’s tone, I walked past him. He didn’t try to stop me, but before I could even get farther away, he said something that made me stop and turn towards him.

“Not only is the woods reacting, but something in her has already begun," Morcant continues calmly as he stares at the forest.

For the first time, I wonder if I have only been reacting to the inevitable, mistaking it for control that I thought I had.

“Whatever is happening to Lyra now, Alpha, you should know that she is already ahead of you,” Morcant says, dangerously calm.

And without another glance, Morcant disappears into the woods, leaving me frozen where I stand.