Page 27 of The Wolf Moon

“An Alpha I challenged and killed,” He admitted, much to my surprise. I hadn’t expected anything from him, but then maybe he had finally decided to stop ignoring me since I had stopped being as much of a pain as I tended to be.

“Why did you kill them?” I hesitated, realizing I was talking about what I saw in the visions I had, “I mean… couldn’t you have just ordered them to submit to you? They wouldn’t have been able to fight you.”

“Death is final. It leaves no options for future challenges. I took the present scars and prevented future ones,” He answered sharply.

“Are you sure you prevented any? I mean, you have so many scars,” I said humorously before reaching out to touch the scars that riddled the flesh of his chest and arms curiously. I expected him to respond angrily, but he remained quiet and unmoving as I inspected his skin carefully. “I have my scars as well.”

I reached for my top, lifting it until the scars from the Wolf Moon were apparent on my stomach. I ignored those and instead directed his attention to one jagged scar higher up on my side. I grabbed his hand and placed it on the scar without thinking about it. His touch was warm and vibrant like electricity. I tensed under it, but pushed my words forward.

“The trees around my village had limbs so thick you couldn’t see the sky beyond them. I used to climb them. I saw wild creatures move from tree to tree and thought I could manage to do the same. But one time, the branch broke under me and I fell down. I was really high up and I landed wrong. A piece of the limb broke off into my side,” I explained my story to him before lowering my shirt nervously, “It’s not nearly as interesting as fighting, I guess.”

When Roman didn’t react, I continued.

“My little brother is clumsier. He fell off the roof of one of my neighbors and broke his leg. Many people in my village thought it would dissuade him from following my father’s footsteps in his line of work, but even with a bum leg, he would hobble behind my father determinedly. My mother used to scold him all the time,” I laughed lightly at the memory, “‘Gregory, stay off of that leg or else I’ll break it myself!’”

I paused, watching Roman as he watched me. Ask him, I demanded of myself, but I knew it would be like poking a bear. I hesitated for a few moments.

“Did you have family?” I managed in a whisper despite already knowing the answer.

Roman closed his eyes slowly and opened them again, his face expressionless. Yet I knew he was struggling with his own thoughts. I could imagine him determining the pros and cons of speaking to me at all about anything personal. He finally answered.

“I did once,” He stated honestly. “Milena…”

“I know, ‘Go to sleep’,” I frowned, associating the name with trouble.

“Yes, that too,” Roman mused with sudden amusement. He then set his face into one of thoughtful seriousness. “To answer your question from before, I don’t use that ability unless I have to.”

I hesitated, taking a moment to realize he meant the ability he shared with me. I watched him for a moment.

“Our villages aren’t allowed to contact,” I stated cryptically, looking away as I began to admit something I never had told another soul before, “We survive off of our farms and crops. The rest of it came from hunts. If we could trade with other villages, we might not have struggled as much as we did.” I hesitated to get to the point.

“I found out I could… sway the wildlife a few years ago. I considered the idea of making them come to me, of collecting meat for my village in large amounts, but the thought of using that ability against them like that… it felt like cheating,” I said carefully before looking at Roman once again.

“A few years ago?” He abruptly asked, his interest suddenly piqued in response. I looked at him, watching his discomfort with confusion.

“Yes,” I said simply. It was an innocent enough fact.

“I thought it started on the night of the hunt,” He continued carefully. When I didn’t respond, he sighed with irritation. Then, he reached out to brush his fingers over my face just briefly. I froze with surprise. “What a mystery you are, Mila.”

I found his words strange. If anyone was the mystery here, it was Roman Stone.

Thirteen

Chapter 12

The fever set in only a few days before the full moon and with it came the fatigue. Soon after that, a dull ache began to pulse from the mark on my neck. My appetite became nonexistent, which as a person who deeply appreciated food was alarming in itself.

As time moved forward, I began to feel more and more aware of my own heartbeat. It throbbed in my fingertips, rushed blood loudly in my ears, and pushed painfully through the ache that was only growing with each breath. I’d never been sick before. It was one of the few blessings I’d received in life. While my little brother would shiver and whimper in the night, I was impervious to such times of weakness, until now.

If I was uncertain of Roman’s ability to empathize with my pain, the certainty came not long after I became unable to hide it myself. He looked paler each time I caught a glance of him, but also angrier. Soon, he refused to see me at all, either hiding out downstairs or at another house altogether. My only pleasure was that every heavy, painful thud of my heart echoed across my mark and to the bond connecting me to him. He would feel it to the end.

Despite trying to be brave myself, with time the fear only grew within me. My skin was damp with sweat and heated by the fever which licked at my flesh like an increasingly growing flame. Some would beg to find relief, to walk into the light or darkness that waited after this life, but I was fierce in my own fears. I didn’t want to die. I hadn’t wanted to die in the hunt, nor the challenge afterwards, and that sentiment only followed me through the pain the mark brought with it.

Time blurred. The sun rose and fell. The moon grew fuller among the stars.

And finally, I felt a slur in awareness. It was as if in a moment, time both went forward and back again. Sounds echoed around me before muting entirely. The pain was both intense and nonexistent. I was aware of my own heartbeat and also aware that it intended to stop.

I gasped, sitting up sharply in Roman’s bed. I panted heavily, my limbs trembling from weakness. It took me a moment to take in my surroundings; the dark of the room with only the moonlight shining in from an open window. I knew if I stayed where I was, I would die here in this same room. I wanted more than anything to go home.

---