Chapter 145 Mysty VS Mystal

Chapter 145 Mysty VS Mystal
MYSTAL -

Kaol's mother shook her head lightly and took another step forward.
“I could’ve sworn the Capitol had killed ya. Alex said Alpha Leo be a kind king, and he’d written to him about your bravery, demandin’ ya be sent back, but… to see ya here now…” She moved up to her, a soft smile on her face. Mystal's emotions were expanding within her chest to a point of anxiety. "Alive."
Mystal let her touch her face. Something she didn't let anyone do. Touch wasn't allowed. It brought too much confusion with it.
But the look of care that filled her features kept Mystal standing lock still as the woman inspected her.
"M-mother." Kaol's face was pinched and he met her eyes briefly. She thought she saw realization in them as they widened, but then he shook his head and moved up to his mother. "You can't just invade people like that. This is Mystal. She's a guard for Luna Eysa."
At his words, she pulled her hands back and turned to him briefly before looking back to Mystal.
"You became a guard? How fitting."
Kaol gently grabbed her shoulders and pulled her to him. "Let's get you back to bed."
"No. No. Alex would expect me to check her."
"Pa is gone, Mom. He wouldn't know Mystal."
She spun in his arms and looked back at her. "Mystal? Is that your full name? I think Mysty suits ya better."
Then she turned and made her around the corner, but Mystal's eyes weren't on her.
They were on Kaol, who stood frozen. His arms in the air where he'd been holding his mother. Slowly, his eyes came back to her, and for the first time, she saw recognition in them.
Mystal's heart was in her throat. She hadn't heard that name since the last time she was here.
The snow was high on the ground, and the cold had seeped into the small home. Kaol's father had sat beside her as he placed sharp, thin needles along her low belly, where the bandit's blade had sunk deep. The heat had made the skin red and angry, and he was telling her that she needed to focus on healing, and he'd said her name softly. Just like Kaol's mother had just done.
"I-" Mystal started, but her voice was cut off and stuck in her throat around her heart and the anxiety that built there.
She watched his mouth tighten slightly as his brows came together, and his head angled to the side.
The eyes he gave her were sharp, and she knew he was seeing the young girl who used to follow him around the village when they were younger.
Mystal squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. She was the personal guard of a Luna, and she was no longer the scared, love-struck girl he knew.
Slowly, his arms dropped, and his body went still.
Finally, his mouth closed, and an emotion she couldn't place flickered across his features. It looked like hurt, but he had nothing to be hurt over, and the thought made anger purse her lips together.
"What?" she asked, more forcefully that she meant.
It was silent for one agonizing moment before he asked, "Why didn’t you ever come back?"
His question landed harder than she expected, and she opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out.
Not now.
She wasn't ready for this conversation just yet
She felt like a fox in a snare, and she wanted to turn and run as far away as possible.
Instead, her jaw clenched, and she closed her eyes so she didn't have to see his.
They held too much of... something... something that she couldn't look at as she answered him.
“I was taken to the Capitol.”
"I know. I was there." His words were clipped and full of emotion, and they cut deeper than she wanted them to.
"But you weren't there for what came next." She said, as she opened her eyes and looked at the wall of the living room. There was a large, barely patched hole in it, and she tracked the hardened clay.
"And what was that?" He asked.
She didn’t answer right away. She couldn't.
Her mind rejected the question at first, and her fingers curled slightly at her side.
Finally, she said, “Training.” It came out quiet and controlled.
Kaol didn’t move. “That doesn’t tell me anything.”
Why does he care? She couldn't help but think as she stayed staring at the wall.
Her mind went back to cold mornings, being woken up with even colder water being thrown on her before sunrise, and the recollection triggered the very thing the cold had been used to achieve: weapons don’t have emotion.
As her mind snapped into the mode of a trained weapon, her wolf lifted her head inside Mystal, and warmth spread through her, steady and strong, giving her the strength she needed to stay grounded.
Fenny. She thought, leaning into her wolf.
When she was ready, she continued. “Cold mornings.” The words felt like sand in her throat, but she got them out. "And colder emotions from the trainers."
He didn't respond, and she couldn't help but pull her gaze from the wall and over to him.
His eyes seemed to bore into her soul, and she let the silence stretch between them.
“Long days in the sandpit.” Her jaw tightened slightly. “Learning how to fall without making a sound.”
Finally, Kaol's expression shifted. It was barely perceptible, but she caught it.
“Blisters didn’t matter.” She flexed her hand once, as if she could still feel it. “Neither did bruises.”
He didn't say anything, just kept watching her.
"We ran until our legs gave out." Her voice dipped then, as she remembered the exhaustion and the painful ground as she fell against it. “Then getting dragged back up to do it all over again.”
He inhaled deeply before asking, "We?" But she ignored it.
"Until eventually, I stopped feeling the pain and became what they wanted." She swallowed hard, past the emotions that were still betraying her. "A quiet, observant guard who could stand for hours without complaint and could shove my blade wherever I was told."
She watched his features jerk as his body stilled, and something silver flashed in the backs of his eyes, and for just a flicker of a moment, she saw his wolf looking at her.
Then it was gone, and his eyes traveled down her face and body.
She couldn't help but wonder what it was that he saw.
Did he still see the girl who bled all over his house?
Or did he see the strong, capable guard who could kill without emotion?
She grabbed the hilt of her sword, as if it could give her the strength she needed to take his stare without flinching.
"Coming back here wasn't a choice I was permitted."
Suddenly, Gina came back into the room, and Kaol took a step away, his gaze finally turning away from her.
"This is yours, isn't it?" She asked Mystal, lifting a small pendant, and at the sight of it, Mystal's breath left her.