Chapter 48
Marian reluctantly recalled the last time her father had been in her room, just two days ago.
She had told him that she would always be there for him. She had asked him not to be sad.
And now, here they were, again, and she had done something wrong – again.
Making him sad. Again.
Her father was speaking.
“Good. Gravan, you go first. I too need to hear this,” he said, a steeliness in his voice that made both Marian and Gravan wince.
“Dinka?”
“Yes, Dad,” Dinka replied Nikal, Corien’s wolf, in their mind space.
“Okay. Gravan. Please,” Corien said out loud, closing his eyes as he rested his back against the chair he was seated in, straightening his shoulders.
Gravan glanced away from him, his face drawn.
Marian could sense his hesitation and could feel that he was not at full strength, but she kept quiet, waiting for her uncle to speak.
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“Alpha, Marian asked to know about her time away, the…punishment Alpha Dax exacted. I…I told her,” he stated reluctantly, his eyes averted from Corien, whose eyes remained closed.
Gravan’s face grew more ashen as his eyes darted to his silent friend, mentor, brother, and back to the ground.
Marian held her breath.
Gravan continued speaking as if she were not there.
“I…I explained that she needed to be calm. And she was…for a moment, and…and then…she…” his voice trailed off.
He swallowed.
His skin was grey now. His foot started to tap rapidly, causing his large frame to shake.
Marian’s eyes widened as she stared at his profile from the bed.
“Her eyes changed,” he whispered.
He seemed to be losing weight as she stared at him.
Marian shifted in the bed but remained silent.
“She was in half-shift as she headed out the door. She burst through it without any hesitation. I tried to grab for her, but…she swung at me.”
“She…she threw me to the other end of the room. I woke up in the kitchen.”
“I could hear the noise in the pack link, I could see the Alpha, Alpha Dax, he was…he was facing a wild wolf,” his voice was almost imperceptible now.
But for their wolf ears, no one would have heard what Gravan was saying.
“I could feel the…madness,” he breathed, his eyes focused on the space in front of him as his head shook slowly from side to side.
“I didn’t know who or what was attacking, but he is our Alpha, I had to fight for him.”
“I ran to the gathering, from all the noise in the link, I simply followed the chaos.”
“You know the rest,” he breathed, sinking into his chair.
Corien did not move.
After a moment, his neat brows twitched.
He slowly opened his eyes, inhaling as Nikal rumbled.
Gravan jolted imperceptibly and shifted in his chair, edging away from Corien.
The former pack Alpha stared at his friend, his mentee, his brother, for a long minute.
Corien’s lips parted as the withered wolf gazed straight into his eyes.
“She has to know. She deserves to know,” Gravan breathed, almost pleadingly.
“If she is this reactive, you must tell her now. Tell her now while the blood is still strong.”
“Or will you risk another breakdown?”
“Alpha, I know. I’m sorry. I understand. Believe me.”
Gravan continued speaking without any response or acknowledgement from Corien, his voice getting more agitated as he struggled to stress a point to his silent mentor.
“But this is not a secret. Everyone knows. Only she does not.”
“You HAVE to tell her!” he said insistently, his usually smooth voice gravely, shaking with barely contained urgency.
In his one-man conversation with his friend, he had moved forward on his chair, his whole being facing Corien intently, his bright eyes extra bright from what could only be the fever running through his still-healing body.
“Uncle…” Marian whimpered as she gazed at him.
Gravan’s eyes did not shift from the Alpha.
“Forgive me, Alpha,” he croaked as he stared hopelessly at his mentor.
“Without my permission,” Corien growled, bringing into the physical a conversation that Marian now realized had been happening in a link she had not been invited to.
“She would have found out…” Gravan groaned
“And I would have been the one to tell her!” Corien snarled, rising from his wooden seat and smashing it with a single backward swipe of his left hand.
The chair didn’t even have a chance to hit the wall.
It simply shattered where it stood.
Gravan sat tight-lipped, staring up at the alpha wolf glowering down at him.
Corien’s chest heaved as he fought back his wolf, Nikal.
“You…dare…” Nikal growled, refusing to be caged.
“You…DARE!” he snarled, taking a step toward Gravan.
Gravan went on his knees, his quivering eyes on Nikal’s black ones.
Corien’s features were twisting as Nikal pushed through.
His ears were pointy and hairy, his nose was almost a full snout, his wolf teeth were pushing out, as a sound like an engine emanated from a chest that was threatening to rip through Corien’s fitted button-down shirt.
“Dad!” Marian squeaked; her voice far more high-pitched than she had expected.
She was still completely wrapped, but she could move.
She knew she could break the wrappings, but she also remembered that the very first thing her father had said to her was to stay still.
Looking at him now, literally bursting at the seams, she fought to obey his command, not wanting to add any fuel to the fire.
“Dad, please, wait!” she continued in the same high pitch.
Nikal’s eyes snapped to her, and Marian paled.
She had never seen her father so angry – at her.
Her jaw fell, and a whiny sound escaped from her lips.
Corien’s shoulders shifted, straightening, and his foot pulled back, moving his body away from both Marian on the bed and Gravan on the floor.
He stomped to the large window on the opposite side of the room, effectively turning his back on Gravan and standing directly across from Marian.
“This is not how we were supposed to do this,” Corien said tightly in a distorted voice.
His human voice was mixed in with Nikal’s growling one, making it sound like two people were speaking, with one talking half a second before the other.
It was eerie.
And dangerous.
It was always Human or Wolf, one or the other, in the physical realm. Never both.
Both was a sign of a wolf losing control, losing their mind or their soul.
Either way, it was bad.
Marian stared at her father’s crookedly bent upper torso. He looked as if he were hunchbacked.
She gaped at his heaving shoulders and trembling claw hands.
“Dad, I’m sorry,” she whispered, “please, stop this…”
His head turned to the side, his wolf eyes glaring at her from the side without his face or body turning in her direction.
A very bad sign.