The King's Luna

Chapter 6: Vows Made

Recap:
"Son, I think she's right. I promise she'll be safe with me, but it is time for you to change back, there are many things we have to talk about." He picks up a pile of clothing from the chair he was sitting on and throws them to John. John catches them between his many teeth and stalks out of the room.
"So Claire would you like to tell me what happened?" Asks the King.
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"Well...
What happened was...
I... uh... Okay." I breathe in deeply to try to calm my nerves. I look towards the and I continue. I've been getting bullied for a while, an--

The king interrupts me saying, "How long is a while?"

"I don't know, about two years now." I answer back

"And why didn't you tell anyone? John would have easily dealt with the situation."

"I know that, but I wanted to take care of it myself."

"What did you do?"

"Well first I just ignored them. I thought that they would eventually get bored with me and leave me alone, but they just kept going at it, and it actually started to hurt my feelings, I cried so much that first year. But I soon got very tired of the constant crying they caused me so I started to dish back what they gave me, and I gotta say I was pretty good at it. For a while that worked, and they would actually leave me alone, but then they decided to take it up a notch, and physically hurt me instead. And since I have never been one for violence all I could really do was avoided them. But I am 12 now and I did not want to go through another year of looking over my shoulder at school, So on my birthday I finally decided to do something about it, even if there were consequences, I had to do it."

"What Did you do?" He asks while walking towards the door and closing it, making sure we had privacy. I think he knows where my story is going, but I still really don't want to tell him what I did.
I sit up straighter on the bed and grab a pure white pillow from behind me. I pull it into my lap and look down at it, thinking.
If I tell him the truth, he'll be disappointed in me, and I don't think I can handle that. But on the other hand I'd take disappointment over anger any day, and if John were here I'd receive a lot of anger.
John can get so angry sometimes .... Okay, Claire moment of truth. You are going to tell the King what you did now and everything will be okay, besides what's the worse that could happen?

I finally look up at my Alpha, who has been waiting patiently for the truth. I take a deep breath to calm my nerves, look him straight in the eye and I tell him.

"I connected my soul with Emily's, and I took her bad emotions away." as soon as those words fall from my lips, the door to my room barges open and John comes storming in yelling, "YOU DID WHAT!!??!!" Which he of course is directing at me, but I hardly notice the words he's saying, because in just two days John has changed a lot... and it's weird.

"Whoah?" I whisper, looking at him in wonder, wanting so desperately to get a closer look at him.

I raise my voice a little, "Why do you look so different?"

John stops abruptly and captures me with his gaze, as he slowly stalks towards me, he says in a scarily calm voice, "that's what you're worried about? Do you know you could have died today, that I thought you were going to die?"

"Well, I didn't think it wou----"

"Exactly!" He growls in a low voice, cutting me off. "You didn't think! Do you know how scared I was when I saw you lying there on the ground, with your blood everywhere, and no idea if you were even breathing!"

"I'm sorry," I say quietly, staring down at my pillow feeling absolutely terrible about what I put everyone through. All I wanted was to stop getting bullied, but instead, I just made a mess of everything. On top of that, the strain I'm feeling from the negative emotions is finally taking its toll on me. I think I lost the feeling in my legs a couple of minLongutes ago and I feel like I'm burning up from the inside. I NEED TO GET OUTSIDE!

Suddenly I feel John's hand on my forehead like he knew about my discomfort.

"Claire, what's wrong? Why are you so hot?" He says, lifting my head up so he can get a better look at me. Just as I am about to open my mouth to answer him, I feel a sharp pinch in my stomach and it causes me to cry out in pain.

"Aaaaaahhhhh!!!!!!!!!"

"CLAIRE?!!!" John yells desperately "Tell me what's wrong."

I breathe in deeply to try and control the pain. "I need to get outside" I whisper, "I didn't have time before I got hit in the head to release the emotions"

"Can you walk?" He asks quickly while removing the covers from my body.

"No," I say in a frustrated voice when he'd removed all the coverings. At this John springs into action. He reaches under me and picks me up bridal style and runs out of my room, then out of the hospital and heads towards the forest.

As he is running he asks, "How far should I go."

"To the center, I've held it in too long," I answer back with my eyes closed, loving the feeling of the airbrushing my face.

When we get to the middle of the forest John gently places me on the ground, and since this is not the first time he has seen me do this, he knows that he has to move back, so he does. I dig my fingers into the soft earth and I let go. The bad emotions flow right out of me and into the ground, and as they do, a peaceful breeze sweeps the forest waking all the creatures up and at one the forest is awake, and I am at peace.

I slowly get up and look all around me, "I think that this is the most beautiful place in the world" I whisper to John who is sitting in front of a gigantic tree. John sighs and says "I think you're right." I start to walk towards him and he gestures for me to sit right beside him.

Soooooo" I say after sitting down next to him, "You went through your first shift."

"Yes I did"

"Well, Did it hurt?"

"Not as much as I thought it would."

"Oh, that's good! What caused it to happen so early anyway?"

John sighs, then says in a low voice, "I was angry. Angry that you were hurt and that I wasn't there to protect you, angry at you for getting hurt and angry that there were so many people surrounding you that I couldn't protect you from, and that's all I wanted, to protect you with every inch of my being. The next thing I knew I was a wolf."

"John, you can't protect me all the time!"

John looks at me directly in the eye and says in a low voice, "Yes I can and I will. I will always protect you, no matter what. It's my job and mine alone to protect you, so that's what I'm going to do, got that?
"But what if something happens and you can't protect me?"I ask quietly, resting my head on his shoulder. He brings me closer to him and bends his head to whisper in my ear, saying "I will find you, and then I'll kill the person who took you away from me."