Chapter 71
Chapter 71
“I don’t want to see parts of you. I want you whole.”
Unknown
Ambrose and I talked long into the night.
He told me of his travels after he left the wolf worshippers, and how he learned to master his powers over time – I was pretty sure it was the most he’d ever said to me at once.
“I get that you created wolves,” I said, “But what about mates? Did that happen naturally?”
Ambrose shook his head. “Wolves, as I’m sure you know, mate for life. That’s something the wolf worshippers already lived by as humans…but when I turned them into werewolves, I did not consider how their new animal nature might affect them.”
“What do you mean?”
“A couple of decades after I’d created werewolves, I returned to visit the original tribe of wolf worshippers. They’d grown and produced new werewolves, but they’d also dealt with a lot of in-fighting – particularly when it came to mates. The men were territorial and possessive, and some of them would try to claim the same mate. They were killing each other…so I came up with a solution.” He paused before adding, “There is a witch spell, one that helps a witch find their ‘perfect match’ or soulmate, if you will. With a few modifications, I was able to use this spell on my werewolves.”
“And that’s how we got mates?” I asked.
“The spell made things easier,” he said, “Werewolves were able to recognize their true mates on sight.”
My brain was beginning to hurt after so much information overload, but I still had questions that I wanted answers to.
“What about you?” I asked.
He furrowed his eyebrows. “What about me?”
“I understand your background as a witch and how werewolves came to be, but that doesn’t explain how you’ve got such wolf-y traits. I mean, I’ve seen your canines and your claws – they’re huge.” I paused, gesturing to myself. “Hell, you’ve even got a mate.”
Something sad and painful flashed through his eyes, like I’d slapped him in the face, and I immediately regretted asking the question.
“I’m sorry if –”
“No,” he said, “It’s alright…and you’re not wrong in your assessment. I do have some wolf-ish traits.” He swallowed, narrowing his eyes. “There is one part of the story that I left out.”
I was on the edge of my seat – which happened to be Ambrose’s lap.
“After I turned the wolf worshippers into werewolves,” he started, “I used the same spell on myself. I’d created something new and good when I made werewolves, and I wanted to share in that…I wanted to be the Moon God they’d already begun worshipping me as.” He sighed, “But the spell didn’t work correctly.”
“It didn’t give you a wolf form,” I finished, connecting the dots in my head. “It gave you canines and claws, but no wolf form. No wolf in your head.”
It felt sad to even say it. Even if I hadn’t shifted till I became a teenager, I couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t have my wolf in my head, occasionally piping in. And as annoying as she was sometimes, she was a part of me.
Even when I was alone, I never really was – not with her.
And the fact that Ambrose didn’t have that…it made my heart ache.
“Yes,” he said, “I tried different variations of the spell a few times, but I never had any luck. I’ve come to accept that, while I may have created werewolves, I will never truly be one.”
“I don’t think that’s completely true,” I told him, “Just because you may not have a wolf form doesn’t mean you’re not a wolf. Who’s to say where the line is?” I paused before adding, “You have claws, canines, the ability to mark, even me.”
His eyes flashed with something hungry. “Yes,” he murmured, “I do have you, don’t I?” His hands traced down my waist gently, leaving goosebumps wherever he touched.
“And now I have you,” I replied, “All of you.”
I couldn’t stop myself from leaning close and connecting our lips together. Ambrose and I had always connected physically, but this was the first time it felt as if we’d connected emotionally.
No more questions. No more mystery.
We lingered in the kiss for a few moments, and then he went back to talking. He filled in the rest of the gaps – including how and why he was in a magical coma for nearly a thousand years.
“They ambushed me,” he explained, “I’d gotten distracted with ruling the werewolf world, and I didn’t see the attack coming. The twelve covens banded together to put me down like a feral dog. I didn’t have time to prepare, and their combined power…well, the next thing I knew, I was waking up to your face.”
“But why would they, thousands of years later, decide to put you to sleep?” I asked. “They weren’t around when you killed your coven.”
“What I did that night to Amara and the coven,” Ambrose continued, “It followed me…but nobody knew the real story. They didn’t know that Amara had tried to steal my power. All they knew is that some mysterious ‘Moon God’ had killed an entire coven of witches, and messed with the balance of nature by creating werewolves. I was a threat to them.” Then, he added, “And perhaps I did.”
“Did what?”
“Messed with the balance of nature,” he said, and then his eyes ran over my face, “But even so, I don’t have a regret in the world. My choices led me to you.” The look on his face was suddenly all too intense, and it felt as all the air had been sucked out of the room. “I may be a witch, but it’s not nature I’m pledged to. It’s you. And if something happened to you, I’d shatter any natural balance there is. I’d unleash chaos upon this world.”
It was a powerful statement, but as I looked into Ambrose’s eyes, I didn’t doubt that he was telling the truth.
More than that, I knew it wasn’t an empty promise. If he wanted to unleash chaos on the world, he certainly had the power to do so.