Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Parker
Four days. That's how long he ran. Four goddamned, miserable, frozen, fucking days. Fuck.
Cross is a mess. He's half starved from running for days on end without eating and worn from being out in the cold for so long.
I think the best adjective to describe him right now is haggard.
He'll spend the next week feeling even more miserable than he was during the rut; mostly due to the guilt of what he put me through.
I'm fine. Mostly. I'm probably haggard, too, but it doesn't matter.
More than anything, I'm tired. We can't go on like this.
We both know it. This was the worst rut he's ever been through because of Eugenia Barrett's heat and they're just going to keep getting worse.
Part of me wants to drag his ass to her pack's territory and be done with it, but most of me wants to grab him and run as far and and as fast as we can in the opposite direction.
Keep running until we get to the ocean. Maybe if we leave the continent and put a body of water between her and us … Maybe that would be enough.
I can lie to myself as easily now as I could back then. I can lie and lie and lie. It won't change anything. There will never be enough space, land or water, to keep him from running to her. And I'll always run after him.
“I'm sorry,” Cross says for the twentieth time. He's hunched by the fireplace with a blanket draped around his shoulders. “I don't know how to stop it from happening. I'm sorry.”
“You can't help it, Cross.” I shrug one shoulder and offer him as much of a smile as my cracked lips will allow. “Stop apologizing.”
“It isn't right.”
I don't have a helpful or productive response to that.
It's the truth. Nothing about this is right, and we're both starting to feel the effects.
Cross's wolf is becoming, for lack of a better word, reluctant.
Things are changing when we shift for runs or to hunt.
We used to spend half the time chasing each other around and play-fighting, but the past few runs have been different.
My wolf is just as dopey and happy to see Cross and his wolf as he ever is, but Cross's wolf has seemed a little aloof.
I can almost feel the distance forming between us by the mile and I hate it.
That distance will turn into a chasm if we let it, and then I won't be able to get him to come back with me. He'll just keep running.
My throat thickens, tightening at the thought of losing him. I swallow, trying to force the heaviness from my mind and heart, but it won't dissipate. I'm not ready to give up yet. I'm not ready to lose him. I'll keep fighting for him until I don't have any fight left inside me.
“What if,” Cross takes a shaky breath. “What if we caged me? You could lock me in one of the cells until it's over.”
Yeah. I could. The cells under the pack house are built to hold a feral.
They're strong enough to hold Cross when I can't. But it would be torture.
For him and for me. Locking me inside the cell with him won't help.
We'd likely fight to the point of my absolute submission, to the point of breaking me, and I don't know what would happen after that.
I don't know if there would be any coming back from that for either of us.
“We could.” I nod slowly. “We could. But you don't know how you are. You can't see you from the outside. I could never leave you to suffer alone like that.”
“It would be better than me coming back to myself to find you like this. It's getting worse every time, Parker. You know it is.”
I nod again. This is the start of the same circular conversation we always have after this happens.
I don't have it in me to have it this time, though.
“Nothing we say will change anything. The only way out of this for us is to either leave and go as far from here as we can, or for you to go to her and pray to the Goddess that she's understanding.”
“No,” he snarls, a little of the wildness from his rut still laced though his voice. He takes a breath and tries again. “That won't work, Parker. I'm not leaving you. You're mine. Nothing will change that. Not now or ever.”
We leave the conversation where it is. We don't discuss what's happening with his wolf, and he refuses to discuss Eugenia. I can't force him to talk about these things, but one thing is for certain. If we don't figure this out and find a solution, we'll both be ruined.
***
Alpha Cross doesn't leave the conversation be. He aggressively inserts himself into it over the next few months until Drew loses his temper.
“The Summit is coming up, Drew. In six weeks. I'm getting old, son. You should have already taken my place.”
Cross slaps his palm on the table. “I know, Dad. I know when the Summit is.”
“Then why haven't you put any effort into making things right?”
Cross's nostrils flare with the long breath he takes before he responds. “I've already made it clear that I'm not giving up Parker.”
“It isn't about Parker anymore, Drew,” his dad continues. “Keep Parker. Nobody cares about that. Keep him. At this point you both deserve each other. The problem is that the Elders won't accept you as the Alpha of this pack until you claim your Luna. Keep Parker, Drew, but take your Luna.”
This is a new spin on the argument. Up until now, Alpha Cross has been bluntly insistent that Drew can't be Alpha while having me.
For years we thought it was because we're both male, which directly goes against tradition.
Even when we were young, deep down, we knew that Drew couldn't have me and a Luna at the same time and that's what made his choice to reject Eugenia so much more devastating.
Now he's saying Drew could have had both this whole time, and I can't keep quiet.
“Keep me?” I scoff. “Keep me. But what about the shame of it? Upsetting tradition? What do you mean, keep me?”
Alpha Cross sighs and sits down at the table across from Drew.
“You, both of you, have wanted to make this about something it isn't for years.
Nobody cares about your relationship. I don't want to hear about what happens between you and my son, but I wouldn't want to hear about it if you were female, either.
That's nothing any parent wants the details of.
None of the other Alphas care about your relationship, either.
What they care about, what we all care about, is war between the packs.
The only reason our pack and the Barrett pack stopped fighting is because that girl was born.
“You were boys, young boys. I doubt you remember.
War or not, Alpha Barrett and I both had to go to to the Summit.
That's the way of things, as you'll soon learn. I took my family with me, as well as my Second and his family, as required by the Elders. Eugenia was barely a week old. She started crying during one of the meetings and Drew left my side to go to hers. The moment Drew got close to her, she stopped crying. Every time he walked away from her she was inconsolable and he was no better. He checked on her every night and every morning. Everyone could see what was happening. We could all see that they were Goddess-blessed. How could we continue the fight between our packs if our children were destined to be a match?”
He's right. I don't remember that, but I was four years old so I probably wouldn't remember it. I don't remember ever hearing any stories about it, either. “What did I do?”
“What do you think you did, Parker? You followed him like you always have.
He sat next to her basket singing songs and telling little stories and you stood in front of them, ready to fight any adult who tried to stop it.
We all assumed you would likely be Drew's Second, but that moment solidified any assumptions into fact.
We were all so hopeful that we drew up the treaties and started planning for a merging of packs.
I don't know what happened between that moment and the claiming ceremony, but you've seen the results.
You know how bad things are getting. If Drew isn't going to claim Eugenia as he should have, then he needs to find another Luna to strengthen the pack. Eugenia will need to find another Alpha to strengthen her pack. And then...”
War. None of us wants to say it out loud. Hearing the story of it makes me feel even worse that I already do. It's all because of us. War between the packs could become a reality again and it would all be because of us.
“Let her, then,” Drew grits. “Let her find another Alpha. We can find another way to peace.”
“And what about you, son? Will you find another Luna?”
Drew's expression hardens briefly but he shakes it off. “If I have to. We can find another road to maintain peace.”
Alpha Cross smiles sadly. “The only reason we've had peace at all is because you and Eugenia Barrett are a Goddess-blessed natural pair.”
It takes Drew a few days to think through that conversation and decide what bothers him the most. Unsurprisingly, it's what his father said about finding a different Luna.
He wants to argue about it, but I've also been thinking about the conversation and I have my own opinions.
We've been going back and forth about the entirety of the situation since we woke up and neither of us are going to back down.
“I shouldn't have to bow down to these draconic rules. I shouldn't have to find a Luna just to appease the Elders,” Cross grunts as he lifts his end of the log. “We can find another way to peace.”
I bend my knees and lift my end, forming words around the effort required to lift this thing. “What are we doing right now, Cross?”
“One thing doesn't have anything to do with the other.”
“Just answer.” I don't want to share him, but I do want our pack to be healthy and strong. And so does he.
“Clearing Jana's garden.”