By moonlight's shadow

Chapter 52

When I am most awake, most present in the moment, every sense of nature converges into a single energetic joy. It is as if there is a feeling passing between each living thing, a bond that is tangible and blended, a melody beyond the range of ears but available for the heart. And so, as the each leaf moves in the wind, a part of me does also. It is the togetherness of what is separate, the glue in the universe. This world is quite astonishing, when you claw your way out of the mire of dysfunction. When you first peek over the horizon and see nature without the haze of discontent. Without any filter, with the naked eye and the brain open to the beauty of this reality, amazement comes. It is the amazement of the baby when they first meet a dog, or see a leaf move in the wind. And when you see those simple things, when you can in love with the small, everything gets so much better. The larger things become almost overwhelming, the sense of love so much stronger. It is then you realise that before you lived a half-life, greyed and without the warmth each human is born with.

It's not that I like nature, it's that I'm in love with it. I love the mountains, the snow, the trees and the animals. To imagine this world destroyed is to leave my soul without breath.

Upon the hill I stand as still as the trees, not totally frozen, for just as their budded twigs move so does my long hair. My eyes are closed. Tousled auburn ribbons whip about my face; blown by air as fresh as any after a rainstorm. After several deep breaths I take in the view, from here the fields are laid out like one of Nanna's quilts. But instead of her magentas and cyans it is the earthen colours of early spring. There are ploughed fields of brown and the pastures that are still dull rather than having the bright hue of new growth. It's too early for this hill to have flowers, but I know if I kneel on the wet blades there will already be the tightly folded petals in their green casings, swelling, ready to bloom.

A smile flashed across her face from beneath reams of hair. It created slight dimples and creases that moved her freckles. Even though it was gone quickly, it was still there. She dipped her head down;

I knew that she was watching me. The love of my life, although she was a little more than a child, yet she was more mature than any woman I have ever met. Rhea Masterson. I have seen her looking at me from the past few weeks before everything went upside down. Did she know that I was her mate? Was it already something that Alpha Lukas had informed her sister before hand but he would never do something like that.

She was back from the Academy of Druids and I was supposed to be having dinner with them. The smell of the chicken being roasted and grilled on the barbecue that Alpha Lukas had set up in his porch was something which was wafting through the air and making me even more hungry that I already was. But the moment that I came close to Rhea I could smell something. And the very thought of her being vulnerable made me go mad with rage.

“What happened to you Rhea?” I asked as she raised her brows at my question.

“What? Nothing happened to me Charlie…can’t you see? I am perfectly fine,” she replied doing a twirl. She was wearing a short skirt and a tank top both in shades of green making me remember the colour of the forest just after the rain.

Casting her eyes to the side, I could see the shape of her face like a silhouette. It gracefully moved up and over her cheek bones then slanted sharply at her mouth. Being milk bottle white only gave her an extremely ethereal quality that glowed out of her near translucent skin.

She would say that she was fine but I knew that it was not. There was something wrong with her smell which was fast getting masked by her musk which I was inhaling like an i***t instead of focusing on something else. Something had happened and something had happened soon, there was this smell of hidden anger which I could sense along with the satisfaction of winning. But the odour of vulnerability was the thing which worried me the most. I knew that Alpha Lukas had told me that she was not yet ready to be mated with anyone. And she was supposed to grow tolerant of my presence in her life before I burst her with this news but something told me that it was not only me that was so foolishly in love with her.

She looked at me as if she was ready to eat me up. The lust was clear in her eyes and I could smell her desire. It was not the one like you would see in the eyes of grown up women rather this was the kind of lust where you would know that even though she wants you she is utterly innocent of any such knowledge. This desire was to be wanted as much as she wanted you. It was a yearning that she wanted you to teach everything that you wanted her to do to you. It was this plea that she would never say, a plea that she wanted you to be her first. Her first lover and her best friend.

And I wanted to become the man she wanted me to be.

Rhea’s POV

Charlie turned around. I sucked in a sharp breath as his shirtless torso was exposed to me. Gawking wouldn't quite describe my state. I was shocked, stunned, flabbergasted, amazed, wonderstruck, mesmerized by his physique. It was like nothing I've ever seen before. His body was drool-worthy. He had a chiseled chest and the skin on it was glowing healthily. His abdominals were sculptured to perfection as his six-packs pop, instantly giving off the impression that he came out of a Calvin Klein shoot. I won't even forget about his arms for years. His biceps were the size of my head yet lean and his triceps looked like diamonds - really rare ones, indeed - and completing his masterpiece of a bodice, his shoulders, round and protruding, give his whole look a new flavor. I want to extend my hands and touch, but I also don't want to creep him out. Look at me, notice me, know me, LOVE me- I kept begging him mentally, hoping that it shows in my eyes and that he would be able to decipher my feelings.

I was a young girl, a small thing of fourteen. Who would even want to look at me? Except for might be the fact that I was the sister of the Alpha and a damn good fighter.

He always returned a smile when he caught an admiring glance, but the manner in which Charlie behaved could only say that his heart had long been taken. Probably, he gave it away to a girl that fell for him in the winter time; and he kept her love sacred. That was what I thought since he always looked at me like a man who looks at his sister. But I did not have any brotherly feelings for Charlie. Not to the remotest corner of my heart.

But when he asked me today that what was wrong with me my heart skipped a bit. He seemed to be smelling something on me. But I don’t know how he could, since I had already changed my clothes and taken a quick shower as Lukas was grilling the marinated chicken pieces. He refused my offers of help saying that it was his day of cooking and he was taking care of me.

Charlie looked at me in a strange way. Like I felt that he was looking at me, at me as a person for the first time in my life. I don’t want to believe the stories of romance that the girls in my older class gushed about so much but I could seriously feel butterflies in my stomach creating a strange feeling at the pit.

“Is there anything which has happened today at the new school you have joined Rhea? Something which might be bothering you but you do not want to tell Alpha Lukas?” asked Charlie and my head snapped up at him for I could not believe my ears that he was speaking to me so softly.

“Why would you think that there is something which might be bothering me Charlie Boy?” I asked using the nick name that he hated so much but this time instead of growling he smiled at me and my heart stopped beating.

And then he gives me a smile that just seems so genuinely sweet with just the right touch of shyness that unexpected warmth rushes through me.

I remembered reading this line in The Hunger Games and this was the only appropriate thing that I could have thought about just for this moment.

“You might be able to fool your brother Little Ant but I know that you are hiding something and I also know that I would not have to go far to know what is it that you are not telling me. Just a run through the woods is more than enough to expose your secrets. And then I would have to tell your brother, won’t i?” he asked me with a glint in his eyes which felt more like flirting than blackmail but I knew that I had to resist him some how.

“Are you seriously blackmailing me? And that too with telling my brother?” I asked with a grin which confused him.

“Not blackmail but I would say that I am strongly suggesting you to be forthcoming with me or…” he left the sentence hanging midair.

“Or else what? You will rat me out to my brother?” asked I as he grimaced. And I laughed out loud drawing the attention of my brother who was coming towards us with cans of beer and juice in his hand.

“What is so funny? Tell me the joke as well, won’t you?” asked my brother as Charlie readily accepted the can of beer from him and opened it with a pop drinking a swig so that he would not have to answer.

“Oh it’s nothing Brother…come and have a seat…drink your beers and I shall check on the chicken pieces,” said I as I got up and took the can of cranberry juice from him. Even though all my wolf friends had tasted beer but I never found the urge to drink that beverage even when it was so readily available to me. As I stood up and walked to where the grill had been set up, I turned once at Charlie who was still looking at me and I winked. I had no idea what made me do something saucy like that but the effect on the intended person was going to be so instantaneous I did not know. Charlie blanched at me and then choked on the beer which he had already gulped and the beer sprayed out of his nose and mouth and my brother jumped out of the seat just in moment to avoid getting drenched.

I laughed out loud as I turned towards the house and walked towards the grill. The pieces of chicken were almost done.