— Kaden —

“On what?” Elaeya asked me.

I shook my head a couple of times. “Let’s just talk first, then we can make decisions.”

She gave me the barest of nods, but the rest of her body stayed a pure statue. Her back was perfectly ramrod straight, her hands laid on her lap, her head looking ahead, at probably nothing in particular. She looked like someone awaiting her execution, with a sort of empty stoicism, and resigned to the end of everything.

I didn’t like looking at her like that. A part of me wanted to go back to a minute ago when she had her head on my shoulder. But answers were needed.

“Are you a spirit wolf?” I asked her.

She nodded in silence.

“Your father, is he an inja werewolf?”

“What is an inja werewolf?” she asked in a dead voice. She doesn’t know?

“A different breed of werewolf,” I explained. “ I’m a lukán, it’s the most common werewolf breed in the world.”

“I don’t know about breeds,” she said not looking at me.

“Different abilities, specialties, affinities, weaknesses,” I said. “Your mother is a hybrid?”

“Yes.”

“Her father is a spirit wolf?”

“Yes.”

“What about her mother?”

She hesitated. “Witch.”

I nodded. “There are a lot of different stories about spirit wolves.”

“I am sure.”

“I know they’ve been hunted, killed to extinction, or close to it. The females were hunted the worst. That they’ve been more than a few horrible things done to them. But it’s worse with hybrids.”

She gave me the slightest of nods.

“Is that what you meant when you told your parents you had to come unless you might die?” I asked her.

“I do not know.”

I felt like a headsman torturing her. It made me feel like crap. She was in my home, on my land, at my complete mercy, and we were both acutely aware of those facts right now.

“So the first priority is to be your safety,” I said. She finally looked at me. “There are two main ways that I know to do it on the scale required. The first is mostly what you and your family did. Hiding, moving around, lying low, using stealth, and the fact that most of the world thinks you don’t exist to your advantage.” She kept looking at me, but said nothing. “The other is to fort-up. Ally with power, have a good defense, plan for possible offensfes. I don’t know if you understand the full scope of those two options. The former can’t be done with a lot of people, the more there is involved the trickier it gets. As long as no one knows, it can be manageable, but the moment the word gets out, you gotta run and disappear and fast. It also means that I can’t do that with you. I have a pack, people, responsibilities. I can give you all the help that you want, but I can’t be by your side while you do this. But if things go wrong and you need a place to hide, or help fighting back, I could do that if we’re able to get in contact in time.

The latter plays more to my strength. I have land that is already protected, warriors, weapons. This is a good defensible position, but we also have a lot to go on the offensive if needed. But I’m not well-positioned to keep your identity hidden here.

It’s possible to keep you hidden to some extent, but you gotta understand that this may be a temporary solution. But this could not happen if we date, even less with you as Luna. Which means there would be a strong possibility for this information to get out, sooner rather than later. And the consequences of this could go far beyond your own security. It could be seen as a power play. It could be seen as a political, or strategical, or military decision. Whatever the reason why we choose this, it might not matter in the grand scheme of things. But you could have an army at your back. And you may find that it can deter a lot of poppycock. It might filter threats to only the most dangerous, but any strong enough to challenge us regardless, could be a lot more to handle that we’d like.

In the end, how we do it, could be even more significant than the path we choose.”

I let that sink in.

“We?” she finally asked, her eyes calculating.

“We’re mates, aren’t we supposed to be in it together?” I asked her.

“It would be a lot simpler for you not to get involved.”

“Probably,” I conceded. “But not getting involved has never been my policy. Not if you ask for help. If you say you want to do this on your own, then I will respect it. But if you ask for protection you will have it. The only way I would deny you would be for you to hurt me or mines. You gave me no reason to leave you when in need.”

She shook her head. “You are wrong, I did hurt you. I do not know how, but it does not change the facts.”

I nodded. “Was this your intentions?”

“No, of course not.” I saw sadness pass through her features for a fleeting moment.

I nodded again. “Then for this, I will ask you only one thing.”

She nodded.

“Give me time, let me heal. Once I’m fine if you want to leave then leave. Let’s reject each other and move on. I won’t deny you help later on if you ask for it, but we can build the life we want freely.”

“I will,” she said.

“Good.”

“What do you want?” she asked me.

I thought about it. I haven’t often ask myself that question. I’ve generally built my choice on what is asked of me, on what needs to be done. What did I want?

“I don’t like basing my decision on a bunch of bullies. It’s not the risk regarding you that will change my choices, but it will affect how I will approach this situation. So for your security at the very least, I want you to be truthful towards me, I will need a lot more information to prepare with what might come next.”

She looked at her hands on her lap but nodded.

“I am worth far more to you in a cage than as a Luna,” she admitted.

That was a pretty dark thought.

“Maybe, maybe not,” I said. “Worth is subjective. And I don’t need more money.”

She smiled but there was a faint sadness behind that smile.

“I suppose you do not,” she said and looked back at me. “But worth can be more than simply money.”

“Sure,” I admitted. “But I’m not sure if getting a mate for what she’s worth on the black market, or politically, is really what I want.”

“What do you want?”

I thought again.

“To keep you safe,” I admitted. “To kiss you. I have difficulty thinking of anything else when you’re around.”

“Me too,” she admitted. “And it scares me.”

“How so?”

“Because a kiss will never be just a kiss.”

I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds. “I guess it won’t.”

I had still difficulties wrapping my mind around how everything was so convoluted and strange, how one person had turned my life upside down for more than two decades, and finally finding her only shed a light on how little disturbances that have been compared to what may come.

“What do you want?” I asked her.

She looked at her hands again. “I do not know, I do not know what I shall do.”

“I didn’t ask what should be done, but what you want to do?”

She looked back at me.

“I am not sure I know how to distinguish the two,” she admitted.

I instinctively pressed my hand on her shoulder rubbing her skin with my thumb, my arm still around her shoulders. She leaned into the touch and eventually, she put her head back on my shoulder. I took one of her hands in my other one. She glided her fingers in between mines. It felt natural, like we’ve done this a thousand times already.

“If we’re not to give us a chance, I’m not sure this is a good idea,” I told her.

“It is not. But staying away is hard,” she said.

“It is,” I admitted. “I’m not sure if I can do it,” I confessed.

She closed her eyes.

“I will not,” she said.

“Will not what?” I asked.

She opened her eyes, and I saw that opalescent glint move through her eyes for a split second.

“I will not stay away from you,” she said. “I will not leave.”

Well, that changed everything.