Chapter 41 - Healing the Broken Alpha
Lenora
I followed Aunt Maggie out the back door into a beautiful, wild-looking garden. The beds were arranged in concentric circles, but that was the only order. Every kind of herb, flower, shrub and even small trees seemed to have been planted at random, and yet I knew it wasn’t random at all. It was too beautiful to be an accident.
The old dwarf apple tree still put out a few fruits on its gnarled branches, while a climbing rose used the trunk to draw itself upward toward the sky. Another bed was overrun with lilies of the valley, while still another was a riot of color of petunias in white, pink, and deep purple around clumps of bright yellow and orange marigolds. Moon flowers opened their white trumpets amongst the day’s closed morning glories. The sky was dark, and the flowers perfumed the night air so sweetly.
Maggie trailed her fingers over the leaves of a shrub that I couldn’t identify, and smiled at the plant like it was a child she was caressing. “You know, I was worried when I heard that River was going to take a chosen mate,” she confessed, but the words were softened when she turned that motherly smile on me. “River is like a son to me. Well, naturally, he is my nephew, but he was so small when his mother left…I took care of him until Darian found another mate.”
She walked a little farther, following a path toward the innermost circle, where a small marble bench had been placed under a trellis of honeysuckle. There was a potted lemon tree next to a stone birdbath a few feet away.
Maggie sat down and patted the bench next to her. “I always hoped he would find his fated mate,” She continued, “Of course, I still hold out the same hope for Zachary as well. But, now that I’ve seen the two of you together…I can see that River has made a wise choice. You are good for him, Lenora.”
I felt my cheeks warm under her compliment, even as I sat down next to her on the cool stone slab.
She took a deep breath in through her nose and let it out slowly. “I guess it hasn’t been easy for you,” she reached over and patted my hand. “I can’t imagine marrying or mating a stranger. Especially an Alpha like River. But I can tell that he truly cares about you. And you have such a calming influence on him. It's quite remarkable, actually.”
Even from our place in the garden, I could still hear the men arguing in the house. Their voices drifted out through the open windows, polluting the night air with their vitriol. I winced as I heard someone thump the table, and River’s voice grew louder, almost shouting.
Beside me, Maggie shook her head. “Men! I suppose I better go in and try to keep the peace. You can just relax out here a while longer if you like, dear,” she offered kindly.
“Thank you,” I answered. “I think…just a few minutes more.” I knew I was being a coward. Maggie had just complimented me on my ability to help River stay calm, but here I was hiding in the garden while he was ranting and raving in her dining room. I watched Maggie’s strong back disappear in the door. I could tell when she entered the dining room, because the men’s voices grew quiet again.
I stood and continued to wander around the garden, making my way slowly to the back of the circle, nearer to the dark edge of the pine forest that surrounded the grounds.
It was an old growth forest. The trunks of the trees were huge and the canopy above was so thick that the moonlight couldn’t penetrate. Even with my excellent night vision, I could barely discern the trunk from the branches, the forest floor from the darkness all around.
An eerie feeling of foreboding crept over me, even as I took one step, and then another into the trees. Like something in the darkness was calling me, drawing me to enter the wood, against the instinct that told me to turn quickly and return to the house.
I hadn’t gone far, maybe fifty feet, when I felt, rather than saw, a presence, somewhere deeper in the forest. I lifted my nose, but I couldn’t detect anything, except the faint scent of crushed herbs. Mint, thyme, sage and lavender. It was like someone had stomped through one of Maggie’s herb beds.
And then rolled in it to cover their scent.
Despite myself, I stepped closer to the unknown. I couldn’t help myself. It was as though my wolf was in a daze, pressing forward whether I wanted to or not. The closer I got, the more I felt the darkness pressing in on me, heavy, foreboding, and sad…
Unbearably sad, like I had just stepped into a palpable cloud of depression and misery.
Something shifted in the dark, and I froze. Straining my eyes to see the black-on-black shape of a man, crouching near the base of an old oak. His face turned toward me, but I couldn’t make out his features. I could tell it was a man by the breadth of his shoulders, and I could see that his hair was long and matted into dreads. He seemed to have a long, overgrown and tangled beard as well.
I was terrified. I could feel my heart beating wildly in my chest, and my breathing was rapid and shallow. Goosebumps were rising along my arms, and my neck felt tingly with adrenaline. A cold sweat glazed my brow.
Yet I still stepped closer.
“Hello?” my voice squeaked a bit in my nervousness. I stood with my feet wide, and my arms out like I was trying to keep balance. I wondered if I could shift quickly into my wolf and escape if the stranger in the woods made an aggressive move.
The man shifted, and I had the sense that he must be quite large. Even squatting the way he was, he was almost as tall as I.
A breeze stirred the tree limbs above, and for a moment, moonlight filtered through. I could almost make out a long nose, and the vague outline of wide eyes under bushy brows, and a flash of white smile that stretched wide under so much facial hair. The man was so dirty, and it was so dark, I couldn’t even tell what color his hair was.
It was the face of a man, but the smile of a child…and I had the haunting feeling that I knew it well.
“River?” I whispered.
The man flinched like I had slapped him.