43- Shadows of Eldoria
POV Lunara Grimwald:
Few people in the world irritated me enough to make me seek revenge. Until then, only Alessio and Thalira were on my list.
Could I ignore Edric’s pack, let go of the fact that they despised and hated me? I could. But nothing on this Earth would surpass Thalira’s disgust when she saw me conquering each one of them.
And besides, there was Elowen. My sister needed a safe home, just like I did, and as long as Alessio wasn’t eliminated or I couldn’t detach myself from Edric, Eldoria had to serve for the both of us.
It had been a little over a week since Alessio’s wolves had shown up, ever since the dear alpha decapitated them and took their heads home as a romantic gift for me.
In the meantime, I had become more reclusive, recovering from the public humiliation Thalira had put me through. I reread my book a few more times, helped Nicoleta with household chores, and bathed in the lake, which, by the way, had become my favorite part of the whole village. It was silent, sort of exclusive, since no one went there besides me, and… it was the only place where I truly felt happy in the entire village.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" I whispered to Lyris as we advanced through the forest.
She snorted.
"Some will still be hostile toward you," she revealed, kicking a few leaves with the tip of her boot, making them flutter around us. "They don’t believe Thalira ruined your cakes. She’s part of the pack. Between believing a she-wolf who arrived yesterday or one who has lived with them for years, what do you think?"
I bit my lower lip, pondering.
"Still, it doesn’t make things any better," I murmured.
After I ran away from the school, Lyris and Celindra spoke with all the mothers and stated that the cakes had been sabotaged. Lyris even said she had tasted one and that it was delicious. It wasn’t true, but she saw Andrei try one and love it.
Some mothers, however, preferred to keep avoiding me, ignoring me most of the time, while others greeted me, but nothing more than that.
As for me, I had already moved past the situation. My only purpose was to rise above it all and thus take my revenge on Thalira. The first part was already done, now came the second.
And this was an excellent opportunity.
Earlier, Lyris had gone to Edric’s house and invited me to join her. The females and the pups of the village were going into the forest to show the little wolf cubs how to find things through scent, using their sharpened senses. They wouldn’t learn to hunt yet, since they hadn’t gone through the transformation.
For a second, a single second, I thought about refusing. My quota of humiliation was already full. But then I remembered that, besides revenge, I had my sister, and whether I liked it or not, the village was a good place for us both.
She sighed.
"I’m sorry that Thalira did what she did. I know how hard you worked to prepare those cakes."
I rubbed my sweaty neck, wiping the droplets with my hand.
The day was hot, the sun rays seeping through the tall treetops burned my skin. If it weren’t for the commitment, I’d be at the lake, under the shade of a tree, reading my book between dips.
"I’ve already moved on," I stated. She looked at me. "I swear. I was really upset, but... now I just want to move forward and try to earn their trust somehow. I don’t expect to be accepted, I just hope to be respected."
She bit the inside of her cheeks.
"You could talk to Edric. If he shows any... good feelings about you in front of them, they’ll learn to respect you."
An exasperated laugh slipped from my lips.
"Better chance of hell freezing over."
"It would be easier, if you hadn’t clawed his mark off. Edric is a very proud male and you hit him right in the ego."
"I’m sorry his masculinity is so fragile."
She tried to hold it in. She took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling. Once, twice, three times. Before bursting into laughter that drew a few glances our way.
"Girl, you really are crazy." She shook her head and ran her fingertips across the corners of her eyes, wiping a few tears.
"I’m not crazy, I just have nothing left to lose. I don’t fear Edric, he can do whatever the hell he wants to me, nothing shakes me anymore."
He didn’t know about Elowen. He couldn’t use her as my weakness. I was so... exhausted with all this. With being humiliated, despised, and rejected, that I didn’t fear his rage. I just... didn’t care anymore.
Hopelessness or not. That’s how I felt.
"I’m sorry, Lunara," she said, and I felt the truth in every word. "Edric has been like this since Catalina’s death."
I cast her a look and lifted my lips in a sincere smile that didn’t reach my eyes.
"Edric is a broken male. And because of that, he tries to break me too. But there’s something about me he doesn’t know."
Her dark brows furrowed.
"And what’s that?"
"You can’t destroy what’s already not whole," I revealed, shrugging, brushing off the weight of it. "Alessio got there before him."
She blinked, frozen, as if she couldn’t react, perplexed. I quickened my steps, moving ahead of her and closer to the group.
There was a small group of pups, male and female, around ten to thirteen years old. Celindra stood before them, reading a small list of items that had been hidden throughout the forest, while the mothers, leaning against the trees, watched, anxious and hopeful for their pups’ victory.
I felt Lyris approach me.
"I thought there would be more pups," I confessed, keeping my eyes on them. "I mean, for such a large pack. In my old one, the number of pups seemed bigger, even though the pack itself wasn’t."
The Eldoria pack wasn’t small compared to most of the packs I knew. It had a reasonable population, but... the number of pups didn’t make sense, it didn’t add up.
"We have fertility problems," Lyris confessed. My eyes widened and I turned to her.
"You do?"
"We can only reproduce if the partner is our predestined one, that’s why there aren’t many pups. Some wolves find their mate, but others don’t, and so they never reproduce."
Finding a destined mate was so rare, so difficult. Our wild nature already acted on its own so we could reproduce. But... what Lyris was saying went against everything I believed.
"I don’t know if I can understand how that works," I confessed. She laughed.
"Don’t even try. It’s just something... our people suffer with."
"And is it easy to find a predestined mate like that?" I asked.
"In my old pack it was kind of a legend, so rare it was."
"It’s not easy, but about a third manage to find their destined mate and reproduce. That’s why our pack is neither big nor small."