Filed To Story: Destined Bond with My Forbidden Alpha Novel (Alpha Alexander & Selene)
“He felt drawn here because his heart is raw and he sought comfort from what he sees as the personification of the Goddess’s blessing through the bond,” she sighed, looking around. “And because he dreams of marrying his mate here. But he doesn’t believe it will ever happen.”
Selene looked away.
“But I did call you here because he was already here.”
Selene looked back at Lily.
“I told you to talk to your brother,” Lily shrugged. “You were taking too long.”
Selene sighed and turned away, she looked around and realized that the sphere was gone.
“Where are they?” she asked.
“Where they belong, for now,” Lily replied.
“Where is that?”
Lily considered before answering.
“Before I was made into a wolf,” she began, looking around as though she expected to be stopped. “I had a gift. It was very rare and unique among… my people. But both my brother and I shared the gift.”
“What kind of gift?” Selene asked.
“We could hear the voices of the dead.”
Selene’s eyes went wide.
“At least, we thought we could,” Lily smiled. “I learned much later that what we heard was the memories they left behind.”
“Among all of my descendants, not one of them had this gift. At least not until, you.”
、 “What?” Selene asked. “But I don’t… I can’t…”
“It’s true your gift is not the same as mine was, I heard them everywhere, but you only hear the ones that remain with me.”
“What?”
“The voices you hear… the lights you saw before. They are my descendants, but only a piece of each of them,” she said. “They lived their lives, and when they died, they took their place alongside the Goddess to be born anew.”
Selene sat down on the stones where she and Axel had first sat to talk.
“But, left behind were their memories, the moments that meant the most in their lives. Those powerful emotions and beliefs. The victories, the celebrations… the defeats and the losses.”
Lily paused, looking at the flowers that grew along the water.
“Do you know what happens to a memory over time?”
Selene shook her head.
“It twists and bends, folds in on itself and suddenly becomes something entirely different,” she said. “What about emotions? Do you know what the most powerful and lasting emotions are?”
“Love?” Selene asked.
“Is it?” Lily asked with a sad smile. “It should be.”
Selene felt the grief in Lily’s voice.
“What is it then?” she asked.
“It’s the darker stuff,” Lily replied softly. “Anger, depression, fear, anxiety…. Happiness and love, excitement… they are strong, but they need to be fed. They need to move forward and experience life in order to grow and flourish.
“But when you can’t move forward, when your time has ended and you are just a memory of a life once lived. It’s hard to hold on to the good things. The memory of a feeling is hardly the same as the real thing.
“Sometimes, the memory of joy or happiness is worse than torture. It can leave a void of longing and depression, twisting the memory again and again until it has been reshaped into a nightmare.”
Selene suddenly felt her heart pounding in her chest.
“So they… your descendants are–”
“Shadows of the past,” Lily finished her thought. “Long-held grudges, regrets, all-consuming hatred… all the dark thoughts and fears of the former Alphas of Winter.”
Selene swallowed. The dark thoughts and fears of the former Alphas of Winter. That was whom she had accepted.
“Why didn’t you warn me?” Selene asked, her heart pounding in her ears.
“I didn’t know,” Lily said. “Not at first.”
Lily sat down in front of Selene.
“When you called me to you, and you brought all the others as separate entities… it was strange. I hadn’t been separated from them since before I died. I wasn’t focused on the reason it had happened or the consequences of it.
“But when I saw that you could hear them, I tried to call them back into me. It worked, but only for a little while. They got stronger, and I got weaker. Their voices overpowered mine. You started listening to them.”
She took a breath.
“And then they distracted me,” she said sadly, “I tried to get you to focus on your own thoughts but–”
“Tried to get me to focus on my own thoughts?” Selene scoffed. “Why not just tell me what was happening to me? Why all the cryptic bullshit!”
“You have known their voices in your mind for only a few months, I have been surrounded by them for a thousand years!” Lily snarled as she rose to her feet.
Selene recoiled at the sudden change in Lily, but she recovered quickly.
“I thought I was losing my mind!” she shouted back. “I said horrible things to my brother, I tried to hurt people! You could have done something, but you didn’t!”
Lily growled and moved closer to Selene.
“Do you ever get tired of feeling like you are the only one suffering?!” Lily shouted, her eyes glowing brightly with the bright white light of the moon.
Selene was frozen in place, all around her, the air felt thick and heavy. Almost all of the warmth and color had been sucked away, and she found herself standing in a sepia-toned version of Lily’s Rest.
Before her, Lily breathed hard. Her armor was disheveled and cracked in many places. Her face was covered in blood and bruises.
“What’s happening?” Selene asked hesitantly.
“You are not the only person that suffers,” Lily whispered. “I have tried to help you, I have tried to protect you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The voices you hear are only three or four, but there are hundreds!” Lily answered. “While those three whisper in your ear and you listen, I stay here and defend her from all the rest!”
Lily pointed her sword, and Selene followed it with her eyes, gasping at what she saw.
On the ground, lying on the stone floor covered in patches of dried blood and dirt was a large white wolf.
The wolf opened its eyes, and it sniffed the air. Then, it lifted its head and looked at Selene. Their hazel eyes met. Selene felt something inside of her, a connection that stretched between them.
“My Luna….?” Selene whispered.
She took a step forward, but the wolf growled. Then, with some effort, it got to its feet and limped away.
“She doesn’t recognize you,” Lily whispered.
“But… “
“Are you any different?” Lily asked.
Selene looked back at Lily.
“What?”
“Do you still recognize yourself?”
Lily’s voice faded as the world around Selene returned and she found herself back where she started, alone.
Wyatt and his father, and his father’s father before them had all used the same system for the northern and southern territories of Winter.
They had divided the duties between the Alpha and the Beta. The southern wolves recognized the Alpha as their pack leader, but it was the Beta that actually handled their concerns and problems on a day-to-day basis.
Axel did not agree with this system.
Saul was a great man and would lead the southern territories well, but Axel wanted a more united Winter. Especially as they prepared for war.
He knew that he would not be able to oversee all of Winter, even if he did agree to all the upgraded communications and monitoring systems that Galen had tried to pitch him over the last several weeks.
But what he could do was utilize more than just Saul as a territorial leader.
Throughout Winter there was the north and south, but with the landscape being what it was, even within the two halves, there were smaller communities. Each of these had its own natural leaders.
Axel gathered those leaders and offered them official rank as Betas. Saul would still be considered his right-hand man and the primary contact for the south, but each Beta would represent their community in meetings held every two weeks.
When Wyatt had heard the plan, he was, at first, concerned about the change in structure and leadership. But once he had seen the way that Axel handled himself, the way that his betas reported to him, Wyatt understood that his methods were a thing of the past, and Axel was taking Winter into the future.
His son had become a strong and worthy Alpha in a short time, and he looked forward to the future he would bring for Winter.
“We’ve gotten word of at least two ambushes near Burning Ember and Broken Crag,” Saul reported to Axel. “No casualties, just a few injuries.”
“Did Jonas have an opinion on the reason?” Axel asked.
Saul looked at the report and sighed.
“I’d rather not read it,” he replied. “Suffice it to say, he believes they are random and underwhelming.”
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?