Chapter 68
Julian
Celebrations sweep the packlands as if it’s the Harvest Moon.
Songs, cheers, and howls sail through the night sky as the pack celebrates our victory—but not without paying homage to the lives lost to win it.
The wolves we lost hadn’t had an end as tragic as the Blood Stone’s Pack members, but we mourned their losses all the same.
That’s another thing we’ll have to do after a full casualty report is given—pay our respects to their families. We already had to the pack as a whole, but personal visits would be needed, perhaps in the morning.
For now, Aiden and I stand side by side in the lone, silent room in the pack’s healing ward. Outside, chaos floods the halls as our injured are tended to, but in here, there is only us and the still-sleeping child.
I stare at the pup while he breathes softly, blissfully unaware of everything that happened around him.
Once Idris laid eyes on the child, she’d been prepared to take him back to the Council’s stronghold, where they could care for him until they figured out which pack he was taken from. That was fine with me, but then Aiden refused to let him go.
Arms wrapped around the small child, he’d glared at Idris as if she was a new enemy. To her surprise, and mine, he refused to let anyone other than me near the boy before proclaiming that our pack would take care of him until his origins were uncovered.
He reasoned that after all the pup had endured, he shouldn’t be put through a strenuous journey across the country, and that at least in our pack, he could be around other pups while we waited.
The logic was sound, but I knew, having lived through it himself, Aiden just wanted to be the familiar face the child saw when he eventually woke.
So here we stood.
We don’t have to. There’s surely someone else who can tend to him and call us when he wakes, but then there would be nothing else for us to do. We were in no mood for celebrations, which meant we could only go home and sit in the aftermath of everything we just survived.
I can’t do that. Maybe Aiden can, but I can’t. So, watching the child it is.
Strong fingers tighten around mine and my shoulders drop automatically as the tension slips away, helping me take a deeper breath than the short gasps I’ve been filtering through.
He doesn’t say anything, and I’m grateful for it.
I know eventually I’ll have to talk about it, but I’m barely standing as it is. It’s exhaustion in my weary bones and a pileup in my mind that’s about to break, and I don’t think there’s much more that I can take.
What I can do is this one simple thing—be here for this pup.
A twitch of a finger focuses our attention on the boy as his steady breaths stutter for the first time.
I straighten, and so does Aiden, but we don’t approach the bed that’s too big for his tiny frame.
He’s too small, with bones pressing against his pale, bruised skin, and overgrown, shaggy, jet-black hair.
He shifts as he stirs, and as his small face crumples, I hold my breath.
“He’s dangerous,” Aiden warns under his breath.
“He’s a child, Aiden,” I retort dryly.
“A dangerous one,” he mumbles as I watch all-too-familiar black eyes flutter open.
For a moment, I can’t breathe because I’m looking at an imperfect replica of my mate’s eyes, but instead of the near-golden hints found in his, the pup’s black eyes have an olive sheen that’s wonderful in its own way.
Blinking slowly, he moves in a daze before his mind seems to catch up to his body and those heavy eyes dart open. He’s on his feet a moment later, already poised to fight or run, even as his thin legs shake beneath him.
My heart crumbles in my chest as I watch him search the room frantically—looking for an exit or a weapon? We’d removed everything dangerous, and he seems to realise that, because he makes a dash for the door.
He tugs at the knob but it’s locked, something I’d only done to keep others out. But when he backs himself into a corner and looks at us with frightened eyes, shame names me a fool.
“We don’t want to hurt you,” I whisper, stooping down slowly so I’m not looming over him. “We’re not rogues.” I make my eyes glow, and the second he spots blue, he takes his first real breath. “You’re safe.”
Lips clamped shut, the boy doesn’t say a word while his eyes dart between us, but at least he’s not shaking as terribly anymore. I lick my lips, searching for what to say or ask next. I’d never been good with kids, but after all he went through, what did you even say?
“For future reference, kid,” Aiden suddenly grumbles, “when someone is saving you, don’t try to kill them.”
The kid looks up at my foolish mate, and his round eyes quickly widen with recognition before he bares his teeth and glares at Aiden.
Aiden gasps as if it wasn’t completely deserved, but before he can get into it with a child, I nudge his leg and point down. Reluctantly, he stoops down and wisely stays silent this time.
“What’s your name?” I ask as I turn back to the pup. He only stares at me. I try the little sign language I know, but that just makes him stare at my fingers instead. Okay, new game plan. “I’m Julian. This is Aiden. We are the alphas of the Dark Moon Pack.”
I doubt he knows our new pack name, but I hope speaking to him with some credibility helps him trust us. If it does, it doesn’t show because he remains silent in his claimed corner.
“Maybe he’s mute or doesn’t speak English,” Aiden mumbles, but the child frowns at him, quickly dismissing that theory. Aiden frowns back, and I resist the urge to sigh.
“What is your pack name? Do you know it?” I ask. Still nothing. “If you tell us, we can find your family and help you get home.”
Those dark olive eyes stay on me, but a gloss slips over them as tears gather. A second later, his little face crumples, and Alex whines miserably as we place grief and loss—so easy to spot now as it wells inside me.
We should get a healer to talk to him, I tell Aiden through our link as I struggle to fight against my own tears. I don’t want us to say the wrong thing and make this worse.
Aiden’s frown deepens, but he knows, as I do, that we have healers better equipped to deal with this sort of thing, and he’s clearly unresponsive to us.
Okay, he replies with obvious reluctance, but I want to stay close.
Of course, I agree before updating the head healer on the situation through our pack link.
Minutes later, the light under the door is shadowed by a waiting figure, which causes the boy to scramble away from the door. He only realises that he’s moving towards us when he’s almost within our reach and quickly goes scrambling back for the bed.
The shadows in the room seem to darken as I stare at him with a heavy heart. He’s living in terror, and there’s nothing we can do to help.
“The person outside is a healer,” I inform as gently as I can. “That’s someone who’s really smart and knows how to make us feel better.” Aiden and I slowly straighten as I speak to him. “They’re going to talk to you and try to help you. If you speak to them, hopefully, we can help find your home.”
Panic flashes in his dark eyes as he looks between us and the door, but still, the child remains silent as his small hands clutch the sheets beneath him. Stifling my sigh, I open the door and take the time to introduce the healer.
We stay close in the room, watching as the boy remains withdrawn until the healer sits down beside him. She wears a kind smile, but it might as well be a sneer with the way the trembling pup scrambles to the other side of the bed.
He looks to us, and in our bond, I feel the same impulse rising in me as it does in Aiden—the one that says to help him. But among all the other emotions coursing through us, neither of us gives in to it. We can’t help him right now.
“We’ll be close,” Aiden promises as we step outside the door. I don’t know if he says it to the healer or the boy, but only the healer nods before we close the door behind us.
Outside, the noise we’d briefly escaped when we first arrived swallows us whole.
The light is too bright, the groans too sharp, and it’s like we never had that brief respite.
Despite it, Aiden and I wordlessly make our way through it, heading for the waiting room at the end of the hall.
We’re almost at the green sofas when a scream pierces the air.
I turn so quickly my neck twinges, but I don’t need to take a step because the boy darts from the room before I can.
He looks around from side to side before he spots us, and then he’s running towards us at full speed.
His eyes are anxious and scared, but he doesn’t stop until he slams into Aiden’s leg.
My heart slams against my chest as I watch him wrap his arms around Aiden and hold on for dear life. I look up in confusion, only to spot the healer clutching a bloody hand as she rushes out of the room. A proper glance down at the boy reveals red-tinted lips.
He fell from the bed. I only tried to help him, Alpha, the healer promises as she strides over, stopping when I raise a hand.
Wait for a moment, I instruct while I watch Aiden stoop.
“You’re a real fighter, huh?” he mumbles while he wipes the pup’s lips. Surprisingly, the boy doesn’t draw away, but stays right where he is, staring up at Aiden. “Do you want to stay with us?”
My eyes bulge, but then the boy nods for the first time, and any argument I have dies on my tongue.
Aiden picks the boy up with a full-toothed grin and plants him on his hip as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. The boy wraps his little arms around his neck and stares at Aiden before he turns and blinks back at me.
I startle at the attention and his sudden change of heart, but maintain his gaze. I wait for him to hide like most kids do when facing me, but this one doesn’t. His stare remains firm.
I look at Aiden next, giving him a look that conveys all the things I can’t say in front of the pup.