"... someone hold Alpha down. He's going on a rampage..."
"... we've found his brother! He's here!"
"...Ethan, stop! We have Cody. He's safe..."
"... dear Luna! The wild wolves are going into the city!"
"... son, stop! It's over! Please call the natives back. They won't listen to anyone. Ethan!"
Faceless voices swirled around Ethan. They whispered strange words, trying to pull him out of the abyss.
No! Get away!
Ethan balled himself into a small corner. He did not want to leave the darkness. Something terrible awaited him out there. He knew it. He could feel it even if everything else was all jumbled up in his head.
The pitch-black abyss protected him. It was safe in here.... wherever this was.
Where am I?
The noise died down. An eerie silence enveloped him. Shadows shifted. Dim, hazy shapes shuffled around him.
Around or above?
He could not tell if he was standing or lying down. His eyelids fluttered, and he lifted a hand to where he thought his face was. It was dark and blurry, but the images brightened with every blink of his eyelids.
Slowly, he made out his fingers. Then, his arms. His bare legs and pale feet.
He was standing.
Ethan wiggled his toes in the damp, dark soil. Then, a thick tree trunk appeared to his right. His eyes trailed up to the luscious, needle-like green pine leaves. They swayed in the breezeless air, waving greetings to the luminous orb hanging low in the sky.
Oh. She's gorgeous.
Ethan had never seen Luna so close and so big. She was near enough that the treetops almost brushed her radiant surface. Her bright light lit up the pine forest floor like daytime.
He drew a deep breath.
Luna's rays calmed his heart and cleared the nagging worry at the edges of his memory. She was so warm and beautiful that he would not mind staring at her for an eternity.
Is that music?
Ethan thought he heard a faint lyrical tune like a woman humming. But when he paused to listen, the only sound was a soft breeze sifting through the leaves. And yet, naked as he was, he felt no wind on his skin.
Shaking his head, he went back to gazing at Luna.
She had shifted. And as he watched, she slowly slid across the night sky, graceful as a swan.
"No, come back." He croaked. His throat was itchy and dry. He picked up his feet after her, arms held out to clear the branches out of his way. "Come back! Please."
He rounded a thick trunk, stepped over a log, and stumbled when his foot found only air.
The forest floor sloped sharply from there. Instinctively, Ethan grabbed onto the wood before gravity rolled him the rest of the way down. The humming came again —a faint song floating on the wind, tickling his ear.
He looked down, where the tune drifted from, and gasped. "Wow."
An endless shimmering water swirled below with no end in sight. The lazy waves were slow and gentle, hypnotic in their dance. Light flickered and twinkled on the glassy surface like little fairies. Ethan might have thought it was the moon's reflection, but the top glowed all the way to the horizon, where it kissed the sky.
YOU ARE READING
Blooded Mate
Fantasy[[MATURE CONTENT]] Pack, family, mate. Loyalty, respect, honor. These are the words that form the foundation of the wolf society. At six years old, Ethan had to choose between his Alpha title and his survival on the night of his father's death. As a...
