Claimed│✓

THIRTY-SIX: FULL MOON

[thirty-five]

❆

[Gideon]

"You look like you've seen a ghost."

Brian was lucky I liked him a hell of a lot to let that slide but at the same time he wasn't lying. I had seen a ghost. Of myself that is. There are a lot of unexplainable things about what went on up there in those mountains but I'm okay with that.

I'm okay with not knowing fully what happened to me. It's dead and isn't coming back,much like my father.

When my father came home plagued with that disease I'd really wished he hadn't. I felt angry and appalled that he'd make me end him. It wasn't his fault but that's just how it ended it up. He just wanted to say a proper goodbye to me, to tell me he loved me.His son.

It was his blood, flowing down the river after I had laid him to rest that had drawn the wolves from Eric's pack to us. My mother found me looking down at my father's remains. She didn't know which one of us to go to first. Her dead mate or her murderous son.

She chose me.

And I guess, that's why I fell in love with Maya. She did the same thing,choosing me against better judgement.

"What's that on your neck?" Brian asked, stretching his short self to take a closer look. I pushed his face away. I wasn't going to give him anything good to use against me.

"None of your business."

"Yeah,what are those?" Eric asked. I swatted his hand away too.

"Why do you two smell the same all of sudden?" Eva asked looking between Maya and myself. Unwittingly, I blushed, which helped cover up the bruises on my neck.Dammit.

It was my first time. I remember my father talking about it with me and he didn't spare any details but he didn't elaborate either. I was practically working blind but it didn't feel that way. Everywhere I touched her felt like a discovery.She felt real,warm. Hell, I would never be able to capture her beauty on paper even if I tried. I'd just have to touch her. As long as she was alright with being my eternal muse, that's what I'd do.

"That's none of your business either,Eva." I managed to say to cover my ass but my mother merely smiled not buying it. I wasn't about to tell her I got it on in the woods, basically our backyard.

"Alright,alright.Don't nag the boy to death.We know he's shy." John butt in. He wasn't helping me and only chuckled when I glared at him.

Maya clutched my hand and the adrenaline I'd felt with my embarrassment vanished,replaced with a keen sense of awareness of her.

I squeezed her hand back, almost forgetting that although we were surrounded by most of our family there was one last person she needed to speak to. It was the perfect escape from all the assholes I begrudgingly cared about.

[Maya]

"Mom." I said aloud, pushing aside the curtain.

I opened it to see my mother curled up on one side of the bed, her back to me. She shuffled a bit before facing me. I sat beside her trying to hold back my tears as I stroked her hair. She was alright.

She sat up pulling me in for a hug but her hands wandered like she was feeling for something.

"You feel it don't you?"

She nodded, her fingers trailing over my skin awe really.I'd received my warrior marks She couldn't be possibly be afraid of her own child now.

"Did you hear them?"