Written in her Stars

°☆•Three•☆°

Lear

He watched Enya walk beyond the sand coloured castle walls gilded by the long rays of the setting sun, the almost invisible door she used to sneak outside, erasing her from his view. Turning around, he ran quickly through the maze of the ancient apple trees into the eaves of the forest then, so no one from the castle would notice his presence, feeling more than knowing that he wasn't welcome.

Pausing briefly in the deep shadows almost as dark as his wolf's fur to cast one last look at the faint outline of the closed door, Lear pushed his legs into a wild run, matching their speed to that of his racing thoughts, and worries. 

Each time when Enya came out to meet him, a part of him was afraid to bring her back home afterwards, perceiving, somehow, that her father might punish her for stealing out of the castle and shifting without his permission. She had never admitted anything like it, but she had told him how her father had tried to suppress her werewolf side when she was younger, in order to make her become a pure magician like her brothers. That's when she started to dislike her magic, which she had enjoyed until then, hated it so much now that she was almost incapable of using it...

She didn't need any magic to be a perfect woman, and a werewolf, Lear mused, his mind rushing back to their afternoon, the precious memories making him feel impatient for their next stolen moments. If only she would suggest running away with him, now, without waiting to become of age so he could ask her father for her hand in marriage... Lear didn't believe that king Magnus will give his only daughter, his eldest child to him, a simple werewolf, not after what some of his friends, whose parents and grandparents were old enough to remember it, had told him about the man. This waiting felt like a waste of time. It would change nothing; they would run together in secret anyway in the end.

If he didn't value her so much, he would have suggested it himself... But his mate wasn't an ordinary werewolf; she was half magician, a princess who had been trained to become a queen, and running from home was simply under her. Lear was certain that it would make her feel like running away from responsibilities that had been bestowed upon her shoulders the moment she was born... He knew how she felt because he would feel the same way should it have to be him to have to run from the pack; he, the future alpha, a leader so many souls relied upon.

And it wasn't just that. Her father would turn the kingdom upside down to find her, and there was his father to consider, too. He would accept Enya in the pack with her father's permission; he had promised that to Lear. But without? Would he turn the entire pack against the king if the man didn't approve of his daughter's actions?

Lear shook those disturbing thoughts off, focusing on the forest encompassing the castle, watching it morph into another, this expanse of trees belonging to the many werewolf packs of the kingdom. He liked this part more, it was wild, ancient and unkempt, untouched by Magnus' magic and imbued with smells absent in the vicinity of the castle-- those of age-old trees half devoured by moss and lichen, silent witnesses of the long gone past, grass scorched by sunshine in some places but turned into swamp in others, wild beasts larger and more dangerous than the herds of deer and flocks of birds living in the woods under the castle's walls, and wolves. There was an infinity of scents belonging to werewolves interwoven into the canopy of smells surrounding him, each wolf possessing a different perfume, those vaguelly resembling each other in some ways grouped together in the patches of the primordial forest where the different packs lived, drifting through his mind as he ran through, guiding him home. 

But none of them was similar to Enya's scent; she was unique. Without her running at his side, even the forest he loved looked less appealing. He was addicted to her, he admitted to himself with an inner smile, his wolf incapable of smiling making him want to shift into his human form and let his mind stroll back to his moments with his mate, grinning like a fool. 

Long minutes of the fastest run he was capable of later, Lear finally skidded to a stop by a tall rock formation standing by a brook outlining the southern border of the Blue Moon Pack's territory. He was at home.

He shifted, sighing his longing for Enya even as he reached into the crevice in the damp rock where he kept his clothes in this place, similar to but nowhere near as charming as their secret spot by the waterfall. Days, if not weeks, would pass before they would meet again... He couldn't exist like this much longer; he needed her at his si...

"Where have you been, Lear? You've been gone the entire day, your mother has been worried!" A voice disturbed his despairing thoughts. 

"Father," Lear greeted the man appearing from behind the enormous pine tree growing by the rocks even as he pulled his clothes on. 

His eyebrows knitted in surprise and confusion; his father was the last person Lear was expecting to meet here. But he forced himself into the calm coolness appropriate for the alpha's only son and heir, who had done nothing wrong. He was innocent of anything his father, apparently, came all the way out here to accuse him of. 

"I was with my mate, as every time I leave our territory, you know that well," he stated the obvious. 

"I told you to be careful around that girl until we hear from the king, didn't I?"

"You did tell me, and I was, I would never hurt her in any way, we love each other, Father. She loves me as much as I love her, we can't wait for her to become of age so we can finally..." Lear took a deep breath, frustration flaring. His father knew all this, and so did his mother and most of their pack.

"I received a messanger from the castle today," his father continued, his voice unusually cold, his words brisk. "King Magnus doesn't wish to have another werewolf in his family. He asked me to tell you to leave his daughter alone. No, he didn't ask. He threatened." 

The regal looking old man stared into Lear's eyes strictly, his ice blue gaze melting at seeing the hurt his words had caused to his beloved son displayed in his dark eyes. Mutely, Lear allowed him to pull him in, permitted the old man's arms searching for the child in the man's body to hold him as he whispered in his ear, his heartbreak mirroring that of his son seeping through his voice as he whispered, "You mustn't meet her again."

As soon as those words reached his ears and travelled onto his mind, Lear pushed his unprotesting father away, the pain caused by the words he had been forced to deliver wreaking havoc in his mind and body, in his wolf, in his entire being. He just found out that the simple idea, just the image of a possibility of having to renounce his mate, caused him the worst suffering imaginable.

"No. Ask anything else of me, Father, but not this!" Lear called.

The old man's eyes filled with tears he didn't try to conceal from his son. "You know me well, Lear. If it were for me, I would never ask you to renounce your mate, whoever she may be." He inhaled deeply before he continued, the action showing Lear more clearly than his words could tell that the alpha had taken his decision already and nothing would change it. "But her father doesn't agree. Her father, who happens to be our king... Do you understand what this means?"

Lear shook his head in refusal, rather than lack of understanding, but his father continued nonetheless. 

"Should you keep seeing her, you might bring war upon the whole kingdom. Magnus is a cruel man, I'm sure you know that as well as I do. Will you take suffering and deaths that can be easily avoided upon your conscience? Will you make the whole kingdom suffer for the two of you?"

"I... I will, if I must," Lear said. "The kingdom, the people mean nothing to me compared to Enya. If I can't have her, I don't care..."

"Lear, that thought is unworthy of the future alpha of the Blue Moon Pack!" his father called. "Don't make me force you to obey, son, I'm still your alpha!"

There was nothing Lear could say or do that wouldn't make matters worse right now. He needed time to think. And he needed to see Enya again; they would sort this out together. 

No one would dare to keep them apart. They had been written in each other's stars whether their parents liked it or not.