by Quinn Loftis
Nu vrea sã audã.
There are none so deaf as those that will not hear.
“Your hospitality is greatly appreciated, Louis.” Vasile thanked the family once again for allowing him to stay with them during his visit to their village. He stepped out into the cool evening air and stretched. His third, Ion, and fourth, Nicu, were waiting for him near the edge of the village. He had decided to travel at night for a couple of days so that they could hunt. The only down side to this decision was that they sometimes had to ask for clothes in the communities they came upon. Not that any of them protested giving their Alpha clothes, but it was irritating to him to be an imposition on his people.
“That went well,” Ion said just as Vasile reached them.
“So far there have been none attempting to challenge me, which is making my life somewhat easier for the time being,” Vasile agreed. “I am surprised to see the state of things in some of these villages,” he confessed. “I am afraid I have not been diligent about monitoring our lands, even when my father was still alive. I did not know that the outer parts of the pack were suffering so. I guess that was one way in which my father’s madness was beginning to show in his inability to care for his pack and to protect them.” He pinched the bridge of his nose as the realization of just how much damage his father had done to their pack became clear. “When we get to the next village, Nicu, send one of the young males back to the castle. Have him tell Alin to send out financial aid, food, clothes, and anything else to the last four villages we visited. We will probably have to do the same to the village we are about to see.” Nicu nodded and Vasile could see the relief in the wolf’s eyes. He was a dominant as well and it was natural for him to want to protect those in his pack.
They had been traveling around their territory for more than four weeks now, staying for several days in each village they came upon. Anghel had been right. His pack had needed reassurance that they were still intact and that there wouldn’t be anarchy or a hundred challenges among the males vying for the Alpha position.
As much as Vasile hated lying to his pack, it was necessary. Sadly, with every telling, the story came easier and easier to his lips. He had repeated the tale so often now he was beginning to believe it himself. Anghel and he had come up with the simplest story possible. Vasile knew that the more intricate the lie, the harder to keep it straight. He explained that his father had been managing the boarders of the territory as he often did. When he did not return to the castle by midnight, Vasile took it upon himself to go look for him. He found him three miles away, his throat had been ripped open, and the artery there severed. He had bled out much too quickly to heal himself. Vasile had caught the scent of a bear, maybe two. He had held his father for quite a while before any of the other wolves had shown up causing his scent to mask that of the killers. Wolves and bears were natural enemies, and though it was horrific to lose their Alpha, they would not retaliate against predators engaging their natural instincts.
What he did not say was that his father had been growing more and more restless, which is why he had been running the boarders of their territory. When Vasile found him, it wasn’t with his throat torn out by a deadly animal. It was with a fae blade still in his hand, which he had used to slit his own throat. Vasile had no idea how his father came upon such a treasure as the blade, but he imagined the fae had no idea that it had been in his possession. When his father had not come home by midnight, Darciana had asked him to go look for his father. She knew that if something was wrong she would not want the others to find him first because they would wonder why she was not suffering as well.
Vasile had found his father three miles from the pack castle. After the initial shock had worn off he had hurried back to his mother and gave her the devastating news. Tears ran down her cheeks but she did not weep as he had expected her to. Instead, she rummaged around in a drawer of her bureau. He turned to growl at her but it froze in his throat. She held a vile of clear liquid in her hand. She looked up at him and the tears in her eyes were part sadness and part regret. There were a million things she wanted to say to him, he could see it, but she did not.
“Your father and I prepared for this. We knew that one day sooner or later one of us would pass on to the next life. I have to die with him, Vasile,” she told him. “If the pack finds out that he deceived them there will dominants crawling all over this castle to challenge you. I will not do that to you, not when this is our fault in the first place.” She opened the vial and stared at the contents. The look on her face was not one of fear, but of resolve. “I love you, son. Your father loved you. Regardless of our bond, you were a result of our love and that made up for anything lacking.”
“Wait!” He lunged at her, fully understanding her intent. He was too late. She upturned the little bottle and swallowed the contents down before he could reach her.
Vasile had held his mother’s body in his arms and wept for them both. It was a tragedy, but one that he could not bring himself to blame them for because his father had lived longer because of Daciana, and they had borne him from their love. How could he blame them?
He had returned to his father’s body before morning, allowing his mother’s to be found. He knew that as soon as his mother’s body was discovered, Stefan’s top three wolves would be on the hunt for their perished Alpha. He knew that before they arrived he had to make his father’s death look like a terrible accident, a fight between predators which Stefan had lost. Vasile did the hardest thing he has ever done in his life. To protect his father’s legacy and his mother’s virtue he did what he needed to in order to make his father’s body look as though he had been attacked. He could still taste Stefan’s blood in his mouth from where he had torn his throat open. He had to cover up the evidence of the slit, and the only way to do that was to destroy it. So he had phased and let his wolf take over in order to make his story plausible.
When they finally found them, Vasile was holding his father tight against him, and he didn’t have to pretend to be broken. He wept openly and sincerely. He mourned for his father’s madness and suffering, and he grieved for his mother’s sacrifice. Alin, Ion, and Nicu mourned with him. Their howls filling the early morning air. As they carried his father’s body back to the castle to be prepared for burial with his mother, Vasile wondered if he would be able to fill the hole his parents had left. Even with his madness, Stefan had been a good Alpha. Vasile was not sure he would be able to live up to the legacy his father had left.
“There is only one village left, Alpha.” Nicu’s voice jarred him from the memory. “It is the furthest from the castle. If I remember correctly the most dominant among them is Petre Sala.”
Something about the name made Vasile’s wolf perk up, though he was sure he had not met the man. The males that lived in the villages were not dominant enough to be a part of the top wolves that trained as warriors on a regular basis and patrolled the territory when necessary. The violence that was necessary for a warrior to carry out had to be swift and without hesitation, and often the less dominant the wolf, the more likely the hesitation. If these males did not come to the castle, then Vasile seldom met them, though his father probably had. Vasile took in a deep breath, filling his lungs with the warm night air. He had a sudden eagerness to get to this village, and he had learned long ago not to argue with his gut feeling.
“Hunt on the way; I do not want us hungry and eating up all of their hard earned food.” Vasile phased, not bothering to remove his clothes, and took off in a run. His legs stretched and popped as he adjusted to being in his wolf form. The wind in his face, rippling through his pelt, was refreshing, like waking from a much needed nap. He saw Ion and Nicu out of the corner of his eyes on either side of his flanks. Though they ran faster than even their cousins the full blooded wolves, their feet were light and nearly silent as they raced across the forest. Before they hit the edge of the final village, they had each caught their meals and devoured them, appeasing their wolves’ desire for the hunt to co
ntinue. It was still several hours until dawn so Vasile and his two wolves curled up close together in the hollow of a tree. Three human males probably would balk at the idea of sleeping so close, but wolves were different. They thrived on touch, mate or pack. It was necessary. He was slowly settling into the power that had begun to fill him shortly after his father’s death and allowed it to cover them, ensuring they would be safe while they slept.
Vasile’s eyes snapped open and his massive head jerked up as the light of the early morning sun broke over the horizon and began to filter through the tree branches. It was not the light that had woken him, it was a voice. He waited, desperate to hear it again though he did not understand why. He could hear the pounding of his heart and the steady breathing of his pack mates. Leaves rustled as the wind danced through them and critters scurried about searching for their morning food. Still he waited. His wolf was a patient hunter, and the man had learned to trust him during a pursuit. There, his wolf growled pricking their ears up drawing his attention to a soft, barely audible hum. Vasile was sure that not even the angels could sound as beautiful as the quiet melody that glided through his ears and into his soul. His lips turned up as his wolf smiled. They both knew there was only one person on earth that could ever make them respond in such a way. Mate, his wolf rumbled with a desire that matched his own.
Alina pulled up the sleeves of her dress as she dropped one of her father’s shirts into the wash barrel. She picked up the bar of lye soap and began scrubbing the material, covering it in the cleaner. As she began running the shirt up and down the wash board, she started humming one of her favorite lullabies that her mother had sung to her when she was a child. She stopped humming to scrub four times roughly, and then the humming resumed as she swished the shirt around in the water. She repeated this several times before she finally took the shirt out to the pump to rinse. The wisps of her hair had fallen out of the braid she had woven it into that morning, and she brushed them away with her wrist smearing water across her forehead.
It was a beautiful day. Alina smiled as she looked up to see birds twirling in the air swooping down and snatching up unsuspecting insects. Her father and mother had gone to one of their neighbors’ homes to check on Drist, one of the younger males. He had gotten a poisonous thorn stuck in his paw on a hunt not too long ago, and without a healer to dispel the poison, they had to resort to more mundane ways of treating him. She was lost in thought as she went about her daily chores. She gathered more clothes to wash and hung them up as she finished with each one. She did not hear the wolves approach as she scrubbed and hummed her last shirt clean. She wrung it out after rinsing it and spun around frolicking as if she were ten again and not nearly sixteen. Her feet froze and her breath caught as her eyes landed on the figures before her.
All of a sudden she felt thoughts pouring into her mind that were not her own, and she tried desperately not to reveal to the three wolves, especially the massive blue eyed one, that she was receiving them.
Slowly, she assumed not to frighten her, they made their way to some of the clothing that had already dried, and each wolf tugged down a pair of trousers with their muzzles. They started to phase right there, and Alina gasped as she spun around giving them her back. Many of the wolves were comfortable phasing in front of each other, but Alina had never liked being naked in front of anyone, pack or not.
“We are decent. You may turn around now, female.” His rich, deep voice rumbled, causing a shiver to run down her spine. She did not miss the amusement that laced his tone. Alina gritted her teeth. He thought it was funny that she was embarrassed by their nudity.
She could feel him attempting to communicate with her through her thoughts but she shut him out. She was not ready for this. She tried to still her rapidly beating heart as she turned around slowly. And when her eyes landed on the three men she took an involuntary step back, not because they were shirtless―and all-be-it quite nicely formed, but because of who they were. She recognized the one who had given her that cloth to wipe her eyes so many years ago, and behind the stern demeanor, she could still see the kindness he possessed. A low growl brought her attention back to the real threat. Their Alpha was finally here. After weeks of waiting and fretting and yearning, there he stood less than thirty feet away. When she looked at his face, she saw something that she only ever saw on mated males, possessive jealousy.
No, she thought to herself sternly. It cannot be.
“Luna.” Vasile’s voice caressed her skin and she fought to keep the moan that rose up inside of her silent. “Mina.” Her eyes widened as she realized he had not said that one out loud.
She shook her head at him and started to take another step back, but the one who had helped her in the market place held up his hand to stop her. “You know better than to run from a predator.”
His warning seemed to snap her out of her flight mode, and she took a deep breath and steadied herself. For now she would just continue on as if they had shown up and nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. “My father and mother are at the neighbor’s house tending to one of the young males,” she explained making sure to keep her eyes from staying on Vasile for too long. “They should be back shortly if you want to wait.” Silently she begged them not to. “Or I can point you in the direction of the meeting place.”
“We will wait, Mina.” Vasile smiled and it was breathtaking.
Alina decided then and there that if she never saw another sunset or sunrise in her life it would be alright as long as she got to see his smile every day. The smirk that over took his lips told her that he had caught her thoughts. She tried to close the bond that had burst open between them the minute she had seen him but he was much stronger than her and he refused to be blocked. Irritated by his smugness and her inability to act unaffected by him she shrugged. “By all means, make yourselves at home.” She motioned towards their small cottage and tried not to cringe at the idea of him seeing just how slight it was, a house where she did not even have her own room. She did not hold it against her parents. They were doing the best they could and they loved her dearly. Love made up for a whole multitude of wants that could not be met. “You will have to excuse me, I am supposed to be meeting a friend in a few minutes. There is bread on the table if you are hungry.” She turned to go but had to stop abruptly to keep from slamming into the massive man who had suddenly appeared in front of her. Her head tilted back and she looked up to see a frown staring back at her. Someone so beautiful should never frown, she thought. His face smoothed immediately. Now she was frowning.
“I wish you to stay,” Vasile said softly, but she did not miss the command in it. As she stared at him―his dark hair long enough that she could see the subtle wave in it, his high cheekbones, straight nose, and strong jaw making him indescribably handsome―she wondered if anyone had ever told him no before. If not, there was a first time for everything.
“I wish to go,” she responded sweetly. She heard the chastising groans behind her from the other two males. Though it was hard, she managed not to roll her eyes.
“You know who I am,” he stated firmly.
“Yes, Alpha,” she said as she lowered her eyes and tilted her chin up revealing her neck, admitting her submission even though what she really wanted to do was stomp his foot as hard as she could and then run. Bearing the vulnerable places to a predator was always a risk. He darted forward and bit down on her neck not hard enough to break the skin but enough to capture her full attention. She held very still. Her wolf stirred, she smelled him, and he called to her. Alina fought her wolf for control refusing to allow her to purr at his attention or flop on her back bearing her belly like a love sick puppy.
She still was not convinced, despite the connection of their minds, that he was her mate. He was the Alpha, royalty, and lived in a whole different world, despite living in the same territory as her. How could she ever measure up to all of the grand things he had probably been exposed to all of his life? How could she compare to the she-wolfs who did
not scrub their own laundry but instead hired pixies who had been shunned from their realm to do it? They did not have dry skin, or chipped nails, but she did. She could not be his; there had to be some mistake. No matter how much she had wanted this very thing, seeing him here in all his glory and power, she knew that she was not his equal and mates were always equals.
After several seconds that felt like hours passed, he released her and stepped back but was still closer than he had been. She could not look at him, not after all that she was sure he had seen in her mind. Though she was fully dressed, she had never felt so naked, so vulnerable, in all her life. His warm hand under her chin lifted her face until she had no choice but to look at him. His eyes glowed and she swallowed hard as she stared at Vasile’s wolf.
“Yes,” he growled. “I am Alpha, but I am more than that to you, Alina.” His head tilted ever so slightly to the side. “How old are you?” His eyes seemed to travel down her form and the obvious intimacy in his stare heated her cheeks.
She shook her head as much as she could with him holding her chin. “I am nearly sixteen. So you see there has been a mistake. I cannot possibly be what you are suggesting; I am not of age.”
Her experience with the males in her race had taught her that when they began to snarl, growl, and slam things around, it was best to leave them be. The dominants especially lived on the edge of violence at all times as the beast inside of him yearned to take over. But as she watched the male in front of her go very, very still, she realized that there was something worse than seeing a male lose control. She knew without a doubt that the carefully contained rage before her was much more dangerous than any growling or snarling he might do.
“Vasile,” one of the males called out. “You are frightening her. Is that what you want?” She figured he must have stepped closer because his voice was louder though he had not raised it. When Vasile’s head snapped up to pin the wolf with his gaze, Alina nearly groaned. Surely, this male knew his Alpha better than that. Surely, he understood that when the wolf is peering out of the man’s face it's typically not an invitation to have a reasonable conversation.
