Chapter 10 - Tyler
Returning from Concord after attending the meeting with the Bloodclaw Pack and briefly offering Hunter some moral support before his alpha trials commence, the weight of exhaustion hangs heavy on my shoulders.
As much as I want to go home and bask in the comfort of my bed, there's something I must do, and it's all because Hunter's mother gifted me a bouquet of lilies to welcome me to their home.
The gesture was thoughtful, but it bears a burden of being caught between a rock and a hard place. I glance at the flowers I'm carrying, one hand lightly whispering over the white petals, the wavy, smooth texture taking me to a memory in the past.
It was the first time I'd truly given Arianna my undivided attention, after years of barely speaking to her. She'd been at the graveyard visiting her parents’ graves, and it was shortly after Tyson was laid to rest.
I was visiting, too, furious that my older brother had left me with his shoes to fill. I'd been drunk and high on some wolfsbane, and I was yelling at my brother's grave when Arianna heard me.
She'd walked over and offered me some flowers to lay on Tyson's grave.
White lilies, like the ones I'm carrying now.
Her kind gesture quickly sobered me up back then, and that's when we talked, and I felt most vulnerable.
From that night on, I'd wander the graveyard, not to visit Tyson, but for the thrill of the secret rendezvous with Arianna, who was easy to talk to, as well as easy on the eyes.
We'd become friends until the night of my farewell party, when I discovered that I found her irresistible, and just had to taste her kiss before I left.
If I took these home, Arianna might just think it's some sick, twisted joke, playing on the past and taunting her with the very same flowers that she extended as an olive branch to me in my time of need.
She won't see it as an olive branch from me; she's been shunning all my attempts to chip away at the walls she's built around herself.
Sighing, I decide to take these to Tyson's grave instead. At least his spirit will appreciate the gesture, and he might smile down on me.
Lord knows I need that now more than ever, when I've barely made any progress with Arianna. She's short and stubborn and doesn't care about a thing I say or do, and I feel like I'm failing.
It's my heart that threatens to fail altogether when I enter the graveyard through the small rolling gate and see Arianna standing in front of her mother's grave, with her son holding her hand beside her.
There's a part of me that wants to turn around and leave before I'm seen, but I accidentally step on a dry leaf, the crunching sound drawing Arianna's attention as she glances over her shoulder and spots me.
Like a deer caught in the headlights, I freeze, gulping hard when our eyes meet. She notices the bouquet in my hand, her brows furrowing when she lifts her eyes back to mine.
Despite expecting her to say something, I notice the way her eyes are glossed over with tears. She'd probably been telling her son about his grandparents, and it's evoked emotions that don’t let her appear as cold as she's been since she returned.
Seizing the opportunity to do something kind, I step forward as I pick out two lilies from the bouquet, nimbly dodging her hostility by passing the flowers to Noah instead.
“Here ya go, buddy,” I nudge gently, leaning down to whisper in his ear. “I know you've never met them, but I'm sure they'd be grateful for the gift.”
Noah nods, his eyes twinkling with appreciation as he takes the flowers and places one on each of the graves lying side by side. I straighten up and tilt the remaining flowers toward Arianna.
“I didn't do this on purpose, you know,” I whisper as we watch Noah gently tapping each of the flowers and having his own conversation with the graves. “I didn't know you'd be here.”
“Yeah, right,” Arianna scoffs before sniffing to audibly fight back her tears. I glance at her, noticing her throat working as she gulps as if swallowing her emotions and tilting her chin to regain her pride. “We're not your property, Alpha Tyler. You don't need to follow us around.”
I sigh defeatedly as I hang my head without a flicker of pride. “If you must know, I got the flowers as a gift from the pack I visited today. A token of amicability between two packs. I didn't go home ‘cause I didn't want you to see them and think I was being insensitive. I'm not trying to be.”
Arianna turns her face toward me, her eyes flickering with recognition as a frown passes her brows, letting me know she remembers how we first became friends many years ago.
Another opportunity I can seize that compels me to lift a single lily out from the bouquet, and I hold it out toward her as she frowns at it.
“Amicability between friends?” I suggest, but my offer is met with her indifferent shrug as she turns her face away.
“We're not friends, Alpha Tyler,” she grumbles just as Noah comes skipping back.
“I your friend!” he chirps as he snatches the flower from my hand and presses it to his nose.
“Of course, you are, buddy,” I chuckle to break the tension in the air, reaching forward and fluffing out the little boy's hair.
But the tension is still ripe as Arianna remains cold, her walls coming up every time I'm around her.
Sighing despondently as I straighten up, I clear my throat and say, “I'm gonna leave the rest with Tyson.”
“Tryson? Who that?” Noah quizzes as he frowns up at me.
“Tyson,” I correct him with a lighthearted chuckle. “He's my older brother, and just like your grandparents, he's one of the stars shining in the sky.”
Noah nods thoughtfully. “Mama tol’ me they brightest stars.” He enunciated the words with emphasis, his chest puffing out proudly.
“Of course, they are,” I wink at Noah. “It's because you came to visit them tonight.”
“I visit Tyson, he shine bright also!” Noah proudly declares as he steps forward and grabs my hand.
A gasp escapes my lips when the warmth of Noah's fingers spreads through my arm like wildfire—something I've only ever experienced from holding Arianna's hand.
Standing frozen on the spot, as I frown at the little boy in shock, I realize that I'm probably only feeling this way because it's a stark contrast to the coldness I've been receiving from his mother.
He's just a child, and children tend to be magical. That's how Mother used to describe me every time Tyson complained about me following him around when I was Noah's age. I snap out of my daze, chuckling when the memories resurface and tug at my heartstrings.
“Where Tyson?” Noah asks as he curiously scans the graveyard.
I point to two rows down where an extravagant tombstone marks my brother's resting place. “Over there.”
Noah nods firmly and pulls me toward Tyson's grave, then takes the bouquet from my hand and lays it on the heap of soil.
Warm, fuzzy feelings of familiarity spread through me, and perhaps I just needed to feel the warmth I've been desperately craving from Arianna ever since she returned, but my heart swells as Noah takes my hand again.
There's something magical about him, unlike the other kids whom I usually surround myself with when I visit the pack's nursery school.
Perhaps it's because Noah is my true mate's child, and the sincere smile I give him when he tugs my hand with his tiny one allows all the irritation I might have felt to subside.
How could I possibly be upset with Arianna, when she birthed the most beautiful boy with the biggest heart?
A wave of protectiveness envelops me as the boy stares into my eyes so deeply as if he's seeing my soul, and I realize it's because he is, after all, a Moonshine wolf.
There's no doubt in my mind that he'll grow up to be a spectacular werewolf, and if he continues to train in Moonshine, he might even have a chance of winning the trials I plan on holding to find my replacement when I retire.
There's a small flicker of regret between the warm and fuzzy feelings, but I push it aside. There's no point in hanging onto the past or the regret of not seeing my true mate bond through. Perhaps things could have been different, but Arianna must have been happy, and that's all that counts.
“Thanks, buddy,” I whisper as Noah clutches the last flower to his chest, reflecting the protectiveness I feel over him, like it's his most prized possession. He gives me a broad grin in return, and just as he opens his mouth to respond, the sharp siren to warn of danger slices through the air.
My first instinct is to grip Noah's hand tighter, one arm winding across his chest as we turn toward Arianna.
“Take Noah home and hide,” I instruct her, only letting Noah go when Arianna is close enough. “There's a bunker beneath the house. You'll find the trapdoor under the bed in my room.”
Arianna frowns, her eyes wildly disbelieving of my instructions as if there isn't a siren going off to signal a warning.
“We're not hiding there,” she argues. “If there's something out there, it's gonna come for you first. It's gonna come to your house.”
“Arianna…” I warn, straightening up and towering over her.
“We don't know what's out there. But border patrol doesn't just signal the alarm for no reason,” I say sternly, my voice turning deeper as I tap into my alpha authority because of my need to protect both her and her child.
“Take Noah home, now. And hide. Now is not the time to be arguing about this. I am your alpha, and I command you to return to the house.”
My stern tone makes Arianna recoil, and it's almost as if I can feel her pushing herself further behind the walls she keeps up, as if my voice just reminded her of the way I spoke when I rejected her in the past. Her eyes become icy jets of disdain, her lips pressed into a firm line as she makes no further protest and gathers Noah into her arms.
Despite my remorse for speaking to her that way, I need to ensure that they're safe. Once I see Arianna carrying Noah out of the graveyard toward my house, I shift into wolf form and race toward the border where the siren was rung.
“What's going on?” I ask my men as I close in on the group of wolves huddled around a bush.
“Alpha Tyler,” the beta nods as he steps aside to reveal the drained carcass of a wild deer lying on the ground. “It wasn't any of us.”
None of the Moonshine Pack members is allowed to hunt outside of the schedule I've implemented, except for me. Apart from that, there's a stench that fills the air, which doesn't belong to the mountain animal.
I shift into human form to inspect the animal closer, swiping my hand across its bloodied, ripped neck and bringing the blood to my nose. The fresh, metallic smell is filled with something unappetizing, a foul stench of weathered saliva and aged trash coming through.
“Rogues…” I mutter, narrowing my eyes as I scan the area for tracks.
I find them just behind the bush, and recognize the oddly-shaped paw print in the ground, the talons longer than the claws of an ordinary wolf.
The tracks go down toward the west side of the forest, in pairs of two instead of four like an ordinary wolf's paws.
Recognizing the strange, disfigured tracks, I straighten up and turn to my men as they stand behind me in wolf form.
“I've seen these tracks before, while I was in black ops,” I inform them as a chill runs down my spine.
Our squad once encountered a group of mutated rogues, disfigured from years spent packless, homeless, in marshes that left them sick and barely scraping by through life.
They'd gravitate toward each other in small groups of between ten and twenty members, their mutated states turning them into monstrous creatures that roamed the mountains on their hind legs while the rest of their bodies were skeletal and discolored.
Horrid, rabid creatures that were stronger than they should be, and a danger to their own kind, even if they could no longer be identified as werewolves.
‘Mutts,’ we called them, and it was suspected that Tyson lost his life to a villainous beast like this one while he was in black ops five years ago.
My own encounter with the ghastly creatures was nearly fatal, and it served to cement my decision to never take a mate.
Even now, with my true mate back in Portland, my only concern is to keep her and her son safe, along with all the other members of the pack.
“Brutus…” I address my beta, who instantly shifts into human form. “Call for an emergency meeting with everyone in the pack hall. We'll need to put out an alert and stay vigilant. The rogue shouldn't have crossed our borders.”
Brutus nods. “Yes, Alpha Tyler. I'm on it.”
As soon as Brutus turns to the other wolves to hand down instructions, I shift into wolf form and go back through the forest, needing to check if Arianna and Noah are safe where I told them to hide.
Though I have no idea why a rogue entered Moonshine territory, there's a sinking feeling in my chest that danger looms close by. We can't take any chances.