Chapter 7 : Body Pains and an Elder

*Tiessa*

The next morning, I didn’t leave the room. There were more important things for me to focus on than just walking around.

I told Varon that I needed some time to think about what he offered me. But a part of me wondered if I already knew my answer. He was offering aid to my pack, food, and medicine. Would I really turn that down?

And why would I? Just so that I could say I never mated with him? What was the point of that?

I frowned as a pain pushed through my mid-section. I froze, holding my body still. But as I did so, the pain froze too. It was like it was trying to move through me, and I had halted it. I let go of the tenseness of my body, and pain exploded through me again.

But this time it moved, and I kept myself still as it passed through me.

I gently touched my stomach and my arms. I hadn’t been hurt, and the pain came on suddenly. What could it be?

In our world, I knew better than to just ignore or write anything off as a chance. Especially not pain.

If I felt it even one more time, I would go to the healer. This may not be my pack, and I may not be comfortable with them yet, but a healer was a healer, and they were not going to let me die. I was the Luna here.

I took a deep breath and tried to gather my thoughts again. I made my way to the edge of the bed where a bench was placed. I sat down on the velvet cushion above the bed and forced myself to breathe.

It was an offer that Varon had come with, not a threat. But I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if I refused.

Nothing, my mind told me. I was his mate, even if it wasn’t honored by the Moon. He wouldn’t kill me, he wouldn’t take the chance that it wouldn’t end his own life anyway. But then again, this was the man that had killed his father, so how could I really be sure?

Another piece of pain shot through me.

I called for Lily, and she came to my side quickly. I told her what I had felt twice, and she told me of a healer that would be able to help. I didn’t wait for anything else, I just told her to take me there immediately.

The healer’s house wasn’t far from us, and we walked the distance. Thankfully, no pain came through me as we walked.

Lily went ahead of me and explained my condition. The healer herself came out of the house to greet me and took me back inside her home.

It was a living room that looked more like an apothecary than anything else.

“I will need to check your body,” the wolf told me gently. “Your lady tells me that you’ve been suffering body pains.”

I nodded, and she began pressing on me, instructing me to tell her when it hurt. I promised I would, but there was no change in anything. The pain had stopped.

“I would guess that you are with child,” the woman said, a soft smile on her face. “So newly mated. But that would have been pure longing on my side. You have no signs of it. And I have lived in this pack long enough to know the signs. Birthed enough Alphas, and heirs to Alphas too.”

Her words caught me off guard, and I turned to her, where she was pressing along my back and ribs.

“You’re an Elder,” I said softly, staring at her with wonder. “You don’t look like an Elder.”

“And yet I am,” the woman said, laughing. “I am almost as old as Iliana, though it will take some time before I am the eldest in the pack.”

I stared at her skin, as smooth and wrinkle-free as my own. We lived long lives, there was no doubt about that, and we healed quickly and aged slowly. But we still aged. And this woman didn’t look like she had.

“You look…” I began, unsure of how to phrase the words.

“My gift from the Moon,” she murmured, touching her skin. “I will outlive my children, already they look older than me.”

I gasped.

“I’ve never heard of a gift like that before,” I told her honestly. “I mean, I’ve heard rumors, but nothing as sure as this.”

“It is a rare gift,” the woman admitted, nodding softly. “Even in our pack. But it is not without its limits. I will look like this until it is my time to die. And then I will age all my hundreds of years at once.”

I listened to her with rapt attention. I couldn’t imagine that. It should not be an easy life if I was honest.

“Your gift is healing,” I murmured, though it was more of a question than a statement.

“Hmm,” she hummed. “Yes, and no. Once they’re done with me, wolves are generally healed. But I do very little of the healing. My ability lets my touch act as a bit of a booster. I only accelerate what is already there. Your body is already healing itself, or trying to, at least. And all I do is help it along with that.”

It was such a simple explanation for such an incredible gift.

“I bring an ordinary wolf's healing ability more in line with an Alpha's,” she said. “But nothing quite like Varon’s ability.”

I frowned, focusing my attention on her.

“What do you mean?” I asked her. “What is Varon’s ability?”

I heard about him having control of thunder and the earth. I didn’t know that he could heal too.

“Varon’s healing is greater than most Alphas,” the Elder explained. “He is the one the Moon has blessed a thousand times. Though not at his mating ceremony, it seemed.”

It was impossible for anyone not to know that. The entire pack had been present at our mating ceremony when nothing happened.

“Incidentally,” the woman continued, “that brings us back to our discussion here. Your pain is nothing physically wrong with you.”

But I had felt the searing pain through my body. It was hard to believe her when I had felt a sharp stabbing everywhere a few minutes before.

“The pain you’re feeling,” the woman said, not giving me the chance to object, “is because you’re not joined to this pack. And you are already cut off from your own since your Alpha gave you away. You are a lone wolf, even though we call you Luna here. The pain will persist and strengthen the longer you are a lone wolf without an Alpha.”

“I don’t understand,” I said with a frown. “What can I do? How do I fix this?”

The woman regarded me for a moment before speaking again.

“Varon came to us with much the same complaint.” The Elder watched me intently. “And now you both seem to want to fix something that never even existed in the first place.”

She was speaking in riddles now, and it was hard for me to understand anything that she said. But she was an Elder, and I could wait for her to explain herself, or the explanation would come to me on its own.

“You didn't make a deal with Varon,” she explained. “You are like two ships, passing in the night in opposite directions. For a moment, you are in the same spot, but you differ in direction and purpose. There is no unification for something like that.”

I pursed my lips.

“I agreed to come here,” I told her.

“Under threat of life?” she asked with a raised brow. “Did he threaten to kill you, to make you complicit? You are an Omega, you could have outrun his wolves. You could outrun the guard wolves now. And you have reason enough to. I can only imagine that he has threatened you to make you stay.”

I took a deep breath and then shook my head.

“He threatened my pack,” I told her simply. “If I tried to run away.”

“And in what world does that constitute an agreement?” she asked me softly. “An agreement is a free choice on both sides. What wolf has a free choice when their entire pack’s lives are under threat? I am surprised that Varon didn’t notice that himself,” she said, the last part in the softest voice that I had ever heard.

I didn’t answer her, and then she had nothing more to say to me. She gave me some drops that would help with the pain, but she could do nothing more for me. So she sent me on my way.

I went back to the Alpha’s house and made my way quickly up to the bedroom. I was tempted to go back to the balcony to stand in the light of the moon again. But I spoke to Varon last night and the Elder today, and I knew now that there would really be no point to that.

It was useless to ask the Moon to bless our union when there was no union. We bit each other beneath the moon, but like the two ships, our direction, and purpose wasn’t the same. The Elder was right.

I spent the rest of the afternoon laying on the bed drifting in and out of sleep. I had no idea what to do, and I knew exactly what to do at the same time. But I didn’t want to acknowledge it.

Though, my subconscious had no such hesitations. I dreamt of one thing, over and over again. I saw Varon and me standing beneath the moon, holding our hands together, blood dripping from them.

No matter what I did, I couldn’t shake the dream.

I woke up with a subtle movement beside me. I struggled to wake up properly for a moment, and I just stared at Varon's form as he strode into the room.

He was strong; it was clear from the way he moved. And he knew how to fight. He walked lightly on the earth, barely leaving footprints as he moved. He knew how to control his body. And he was built strong, not just big.

He would have healthy sons and daughters, I was sure of it. If I had to choose a mate, without thinking of my heart in any way, I would have chosen him.

But I had never been one to exclude my heart. It was a part of me, as much as my body and mind. The only problem was that I didn’t have the luxury of making a decision that went in accordance with my entire heart any longer.

I would have to settle for something that gave me most of what I was looking for.

Mating with Varon, and agreeing to his demands, meant a few things. It meant food and medicine for my pack, and it meant health and safety for me.

It meant finding a mate that I would have chosen in every way but my heart.

That was the one thing that I was going to have to sacrifice.

Varon turned to me on the bed, tilting his head just so as he regarded me.

“You made a decision,” he guessed, though it was more than a simple guess.

One of his abilities then. Being able to sense the rough meaning of someone’s thoughts.

“I did,” I told him simply.

He just waited for my answer. But I had the feeling that he already knew what it was going to be.

“I agree,” I said. “Take food and medicine to my pack. And I will give you an heir.”