Blood

Chapter Twenty-One: Scrambled

I feel odd.

The presence of so many non-pack wolves is throwing me off. I can barely to the edges of the packlands sense if everything is as it should be. Something that's become natural to me in Zev's absence. I take a moment to feel the packlands, breathing deeply.

For the first time in a long while I sleep in the pack house. In our room, Zev and I's. It's almost suffocating. Being wrapped wholly in his scent, it nearly drives my wolf to madness. She feels the bond more each day. They say the heart grows fonder in absence, it's bullshit. It just hurts more. Although I suppose it would be different for the humans which are the originators of the phrase. And I suppose that my wolf longs more for Zev now that he's out of reach.

The flashing lights. The blaring noise. The density of bodies. The movement. It's all overwhelming. I push through the crowd of sweaty humans and make my way to the pack table where I can just pick up on the scent of wolves. There's no one there.

They must have moved on recently. Or they ran away from my incoming scent. As i think to myself I sit down at the booth and catch on to whose scent it is. It's defiantly of my pack, but I can't quite place it to a person. They're probably up to something that the pack would frown upon.

I push the thought away and let myself be emerged into the human environment around me. Nothing else has quite the same effect, drowning out reality. The drugs couldn't do it. The comfort of the pack wouldn't do it. But for mere moments, the humans could. Their laid back mindsets. Their ignorance to the world. Their complete lack of fear towards an apex predator. It's refreshing. It's intriguing. But only for a moment before I remember once again, reality isn't humans. My reality isn't that simple.

Leaving the scene of humans is always just as refreshing as it is a let down. They're idiotic as intelligent creatures go, caught up within themselves. But they are interesting. Especially the smart ones. The ones that would understand and accept us non-humans for what we are. The ones who wouldn't call us monsters if they knew.

I jolt awake and get in a sigh before the stabbing pain hits me. Cursing Zev and soul mates I sprint to the bathroom. I'm dumping the contents of my stomach and a pile of blood into the tub. Not my preferred location, but easier to clean than the floor. Eventually only traces of blood are coming up and I hear the door behind me. Oh how the alpha blood in me is pissed off. Only my mate should see me so weak. When my wolf figures out it's Darryl for me both of us calm down. He's our surrogate pup, but he's not impressionable so he's okay.

"Alpha! Luna!" Darryl exclaims and he shoots over to my side.

And then he shifts. He shifts in the fucking bathroom. Are you kidding me. I glare at him and his wolf starts licking at my face, trying to figure out what's wrong. I deeply growl at him and he backs away, if only slightly. I hate being fussed over. Probably the reason the Moon Goddess stuck me with the heartless bastard alpha.

I turn the shower on and watch as the blood and bile slowly wash away. I turn it off, spray some bleach and then scrub. No need for the bathroom to smell like acid forever. Through the corner of my eye I see Darryl's wolf slinking out of the bathroom, hopefully to shift back. Once I'm done scrubbing I run the water again and dunk my head under. Faster to do this than manually wash my face.

When I come out, sopping wet from my encounter with the shower, I see that Darryl is in fact, still a wolf. He's sitting on the trunk at the foot of the bed. I growl and shake my head. Then slip around him and grab the clothes I'd brought here for tomorrow, or more like today now. Three in the morning is in fact a new day, and terribly too early at that. I go back to the bathroom change and then head over to Darryl.

"Go shift and dress yourself," I command.

He pauses for a moment and then complies, trotting off down the hallway. A half hour or so later I check up on him and see that he's fallen asleep once again. Taking the suddenly gained moment of solitude, I head to the library.

I head straight to the trap door and quietly peel it open. With time it's gotten easier to open as I've both learned to best techniques and the hinges have loosened from the wear. I jump down and land as softly as I can manage. I head to my book, the one I can actually read and light the lantern. I lightly blow off the dust that's collected since I was last down here and begin. I've been slowly translating the book into modern language, as the book itself is in the old language. Sometimes I get stuck, and I'm often confused but I'm slowly modernizing the text.

So far the book doesn't seem to be about much special but a few times it's mentioned an apocalypse and other unrelated times women, sometimes even clothed in white. I'm trying to price the clues together, as either this was a telling of the future and is what's happening now, or this has happened before. Which ever I'm sure it has some helpful hints that could inform me, and the others, of what we're exactly facing.

My eyelids start dropping, and the next thing I know I'm waking up to the sounds of the house awaking. I'm glad I've gotten in some extra sleep but I'm also annoyed because I have to head up. I plan to keep this my secret for a while longer.

I hear someone entering the library right as I'm shutting the trap door. Quickly and quietly I slide it shut and then walk out of the isle. I see a younger male walk in. I nod to him, and respectfully he hates his neck to me. I pass by him and head up to Zev's office.

When I open the door Darryl is leaning against the desk with his arms crossed. He looks upset, to say the least. I walk around him and his gaze follows me.

"Where were you Alpha Luna?" He asks.

"The library," I answer truthfully, even if it's not the whole story.

"You've been in the library since three in the morning?" He questions.

"Yes," I say. Expanding I add, "I fell asleep while working so I didn't even finish up either."

I get to working and he leans against the wall to the right of the door. "Are you okay?" He asks out of the blue a while later.

"I'm fine," I fib.

"No you're not," he retorts.

"Then don't ask," I brush him off.

I glance at the time and shoot up. I have less than four minutes to get down to the training grounds to watch over the warriors at work. I sprint out and Darryl follows behind me quickly. I get there with less than a few seconds to spare. I sweep my vision over the wolves and am relieved that I don't have to deal with any of the Valentine wolves showing up uninvited. They may be our allies because of the alpha's working together, but wolves are know to fight each other. It's in our dna.

Ronan comes up to me and bares his neck respectfully, "Luna, I hope everything is alright. Everything has been going smoothly so far."

I glance down at my ruffled clothes and shrug it off. It's not exactly the first time I've show up in clothes that are ruffled from sleep, it's just I'm just usually not covered in dust as well. So that's why Darryl was suspicious. I watch over the training for almost an hour and then excuse myself. I head up to the cabin and start working on the kittens morning meal. I find them curled up with each other still and lightly chuckle. I'm going to hate it when I have to return them to the wild. At least I still have a few months before then. Then again that might make it worse.

I need time to think so once they're happily eating I head out to the back where I have a mountain of wood to chop. It's therapeutic, but I too often hit the wrong spot and make a bad split. I start working on it and allow myself to submerge into my thoughts, while still keeping enough attention around me and wat the borders to be safe.

/// AN ///
Drawing was my attempt at Cas' wolf head. It's okayish...

This chapter was a struggle... but here it is...