THE MOON CHILD

Chapter 2 - Mate

PRESENT 

“You are different Hope like he was,” she said continuing to look at the rose garden.

“You feel the same way he used to feel, you are as smart as he was and as compassionate as he was”.

She turned towards me and holding my hands and said “you are human like him” wondering at her statement, she knew I was not a human, she believed me when I said I could sometimes feel the wolf soul inside me.

Although I could not shift, I had developed other abilities, I could run fast, even faster than most of the werewolves, I could jump very high, I was very strong for a human, I could even engage in one to one combat with warriors in my pack. 

If I held someone’s hand and concentrate I could tell what they were feeling and till what intensity, I could tell if someone was lying or scared or happy.

My learning capabilities were also out of ordinary, I could learn any skill, language or technique just by reading about it once or being explained or taught only once. I also had an eidetic memory. I was a hybrid human-wolf.

Werewolves usually shifted by the age of 16 and got connected to their wolves but I couldn’t.

When I turned 16 I felt my wolf soul come into existence even though I could not shift or talk to my wolf. My mother was worried, the pack doctors and research team had no answers to that, at first they thought that I was a moonwalker, it is a kind of wolf shapeshifter that only shift during full moons and had no connection or control over their wolves but that was also out of the scene when I did not shift on the full moon.

 To them, my abilities were also a rare case and could be a possible result of me being a human-werewolf hybrid. Mom said I had my intelligence from my dad. He could also learn things very easily.

Mom along with the research team decided to keep the wolf thing a secret until we find an answer to it. People tend to resist anything they did not understand and hence she felt hiding it was the best option.

ALPHA MEETING

Today there was supposed be an alpha meeting, I had been accompanying my mother in her meetings ever since I turned 16. 

Even though not everyone approved of me being in those meetings not only for the similar reasons they disapproved of my mother but also because I was not a werewolf, my mother took me there as her bodyguard. 

Some of the alphas were still in denial of a female being in charge while others came to terms with it; some even started appreciating the way my mother worked and improved the financial and other aspects of our pack.

I was sitting there in the lobby when I felt something unusual. It was a sweet smell of lemongrass, strawberry, and rain. I felt my stomach flutter. 

I got up to see where the smell was coming from but before I could understand it was gone leaving me in a state of confusion. I shook my head and followed my mother into the meeting room.

There, I felt it again but it was stronger this time. I felt uneasy. It was a good kind of uneasy, hard to explain. I turned around to look; it was him, my eyes locked with his.

I couldn’t believe it, my heart was pounding because of Sam, Alpha Ameual’s son. Everything around us froze. He stood up and came close to me before I could understand anything or before my mom or anyone else present in the meeting room could react and said “MINE!!”.

It was silent for a few moments, everyone was looking at us. I saw him shaking his head like he was trying to gain his senses back; I was still looking at him motionless when his eyes connected to mine.

“No way!!” I said turning towards my mother, I gave her a disappointed look and ran out of the meeting room as fast as I could till I could no longer feel his sweet smell.

I was in the jogging park 3 kilometers from the hotel. This was neutral territory, all the alpha meetings, all the compromises, new changes or conferences took place in this territory, it came directly under the council and no violence between any pack was allowed here, anyone behaving otherwise would have to face consequences.

 We studied in the school situated in this territory, Sam was in my class. All the alpha, beta and delta children along with the children of wolves at important positions of all the 18 packs studied here. It was done to increase communication and understanding.

I sat down on the bench, curling my legs on to my chest hugging it, burying my face in between my legs, I mumbled out of utter irritation “no way, that stupid asshole is my mate”.

I was angry and frustrated. I looked up into the sky, the weather started to change. It was about to rain I guess. 

Ever since I turned 16 my luck seemed to be connected with the weather, somehow I was never sad on a bright sunny day however on the days the weather was cloudy or gloomy, something will happen that will make me sad. I felt like the weather manipulated me.