Running With Wolves

We woke with the sun the following morning and the silence in the room spoke more than the words that left our collective lips.
Conan wasn’t happy that I was making him stay behind, Knoll (though silent) was annoyed that we weren’t dealing with the issues in our own backyard, Jasmine a point of letting us all know how disgruntled she was about not only being told to stay behind but that we weren’t all collectively going to go after the black Were right now, Rune’s feelings on everything was a combination of Jasmine and Knoll. Yet all of them said very little because although I was Alpha it was Lukas they were answering to if they tried to fight this trip.

Lukas was determined to try to somehow ‘fix us’ as soon as possible. I was struggling to put my priorities in order and although some people might think otherwise, I knew that this trip was for the best. Lukas and I’s relationship, or lack there of depending on how you look at it, affected the entire pack no matter how much I tried to separate the two; our issues became pack issues.

“It goes without saying that Conan is in charge while I’m gone.” I stated. We had congregated on the edge of our backyard with Falcon Ridge splayed out before us. We had nothing but a single backpack slung over each of our backs containing what few belongs we had packed.

Conan nodded silently and no one contradicted me but several sets of eyes momentarily flickered to Knoll.
Within a true old-fashioned bloodline run pack, technically Knoll would be next in command due to his father’s Alpha blood that ran through his veins. But Conan was the oldest and had the most experience working closely with an Alpha. I was thankful Knoll wouldn’t protest my decision nor broach the subject of bloodlines.

“You all should probably try to begin getting materials together to build within the woods. Its goes without saying Viktor will soon come and when he does this place may no longer be a place we are allowed to call home; we’ll need shelter.”

Jasmine nodded and I could already see the gears in her head turning. “Rune and I are going to make a run into Western to get supplies. Right now it seems we are less likely to find trouble there.”

“Be quick, be quiet, and be invisible.” The two nodded.

“I’m going to repair some of the tree house,” Knoll stated. “Some of the floorboards are rotting out.”

“I’m going to get all of Dad’s tools out of the shed and bring them here. I’ll cut down some of the trees near the tree house to clear the area for a camp site. Hopefully we can use some of that wood to build some sort of shelters.” Conan added.

I nodded as I mentally ran a checklist through my head of all of the things that needed to be said and done.

“We’ll be fine.” My eyes flickered to Rune and she smiled reassuringly. “really, we’ll be okay. Go,” She nodded toward the woods. “Take care of yourselves.”

My eyes shifted to Conan and he nodded subtly getting the message. ’look out for Rune’.

“We should go,” Mia spoke up quietly. “we have a long trip ahead of us.”

I expected there to be some kind of goodbye gesture between Mia and Conan but neither of them so much as looked at one another. Instead Rune reached out and hugged Mia while Conan offered Lukas a one armed hugged mumbling a ’look after them’.

Something subtle had changed around them but I shook off the feeling. “We’ll be back no later than five days.” I announced. I hesitated for a moment not knowing how to turn away from my pack and leave them behind. “I love you all.” How was I suppose to say goodbye?

My eyes flickered involuntarily toward Conan once more to see if there would be any goodbye gesture between the two people who had been a close pair then anyone else in this pack lately.

No one moved, both sides waiting for someone to walk away first. They’d stand there until we disappeared amongst the trees, while I was finding it extremely hard to walk away from my pack and leave them alone; perhaps this was what a mother felt like as her child goes off to school for the first time.

“We should go,” Lukas’ voice was gruff but there was a gentle patience to his tone not restlessness in his voice. Lukas reached for my hand and pulled me away toward the woods, knowing that if he physically did not make my feet start to move they might never on their own.

My eyes looked up to meet his stormy eyes. “They’ll be fine.” He assured as he led me into the Falcon Ridge, our feet crunching beneath the leaf littered ground as we followed Mia deeper. “But words mean nothing, you will never leave them unless someone helps you to.”

I nodded a small smile flickering on my lips. It still somehow surprised me that despite everything I was still an open book to him. It seemed like so much had changed between us, continents had literally and metaphorically separated us, yet he still knew me as perfectly as when we were fourteen; I didn’t know why I still found myself pleasantly surprised by it.

His eyes lingered on me for a moment longer before something flickered across his mind’s eyes and he looked away, his hand falling away from mine and suddenly leaving a gap of cold air that cut between us perfectly.

There it was: The continent that divided us. A place where smoke signals and moors code or other forms of communication that took time and energy to convey little subtle messages were the only means of communication between us.

It was going to be a long trip.

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By four in the afternoon we had found a slow moving river and had decided to stop and rest. I was thankful for the momentary break and instantly found a nice boulder to sit on while I took my shoes off and soaked my unforgiving feet in the cool waters. Lukas was several feet away crouched on the river’s edge. His hands cupped together to collect water before he brought it to his lips. Mia was perched beside me, her feet dangling in the water as well, while she gazed at the map in her lap.

“How far out are we?”

Her finger was tracing soft paths in the old warn paper before she gazed out at our surroundings then up at the sky at the position of the sun.

“With any luck we will be in Lakota territory by this time tomorrow. We’ve made good time so far.” She stated before carefully refolding the map and placing it back in her drawstring bag.

Silence fell between us but it was a different kind of silence then what I seemed to have been submersed in since the fight. It was an easy comfortable silence with no unspoken words, no muted lingering opinions, just the quiet that could exist between friends.

My gaze drifted back toward Lukas when I saw him move out of the corner of my eye. He peeled his grey t-shirt over his head and threw it to the dry ground before splashing water onto his torso. The water made his toned abs gleam against the sun as water droplets made slow lazy trails down his body causing something inside me to stir.

“Maybe it is because I haven’t been around you guys as long as everyone else or maybe I’m the only one willing, or perhaps stupid enough, to ask: Why do you fight it?” My gaze tore away from Lukas reluctantly to face Mia’s patient nonjudgmental gaze. Her eyes filled with a simple curiosity and the ever present kindness in her eyes and the lack of personal opinion I knew she would have on the matter made any words die on my lips; it was hard to let defenses down.

Somehow it was hard to suddenly find the words to be so open to someone who offered no judgment. It is so much easier to clamp up and reveal nothing when you have the justification of knowing that people will think differently of you. But in knowing that they won’t think differently? What stops you from spilling everything, from saying every disgustingly gooey to harshly critical thought on your mind?

I didn’t know the answer; all I knew was that my instant knee jerk reaction was to be guarded. I did not want to live that way anymore yet it seemed to be the only way I knew how to live these days.

“I used to know,” I began quietly my voice no louder than the calming sound of the moving water. “It seems like a lifetime ago that I had my answer. When the worst of my problems was worrying about my own freewill against some stupid ancient story, I knew my answer.”

“And now?”

“Now…” I trailed off looking for the right words to things I had never had any real verbal explanation of. All I had was the feelings in my heart and thoughts in my head that I could never put to words. “Now, my answer isn’t so clear.”

“Do you love him?”

“Of course I love him.”

“Would you die for him?”

“In a heart beat.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

I opened my mouth but no words came out.

“Our Weres hate each other.”

“A minor technicality.” She shrugged.

“A minor-“ I turned to look at her then. “you call that fight a minor technicality?”

“I call it not a good enough reason for your human broken heart to be so jaded. I call it not a good enough reason for you two not to be together.” She looked out across the river then, reflecting on something I didn’t understand. “We cannot define our lives by our Weres. We are human damn it. We have human hearts and human minds, why are we living our day-to-day lives catering to an animal that we let loose once in a blue moon?” she retorted.

I didn’t know how to answer her words but a part of me guessed she wasn’t exactly searching for one. At the same time I could deduce that her statement wasn’t entirely pointed toward me either.

Still, her words rang true.

“I don’t know,” I breathed, stretching out my legs. For the first time I really tried to make an effort to find words to the things I felt in my heart. “Maybe…maybe I’m terrified to be with Lukas and maybe it has nothing to do with Selvie.”

Her gaze met mine, her milk chocolate eyes filled with question and calm curiosity although she said nothing.

“I just—once upon a time I was just terrified of the idea that, as bad as it may sound, Lukas was it for me. I mean…Lukas was everything to me, he will always be everything to me, but the idea that this single boy I’d known my entire life would be it for me, that he would be the one I would marry, have babies, and grow old with, terrified me. I couldn’t make sense of why it scared me so much, I mean, I loved Lukas and yet all I could think was, do I really love him or is it just some Were instinct, some previously decided thing without my input.”
I stared down at my hands, too ashamed of my words to meet Mia’s gaze.
“I rebelled against him for it and anytime I tell anyone this broken record of a story they look at me like I’m an idiot.” I laughed dryly. “Maybe I am an idiot but…no one gets it. It is easy to look at us from the outside and just see the perfect couple but to be told by elders that my life was basically already planned out for me made me instinctually fight against it and inadvertently against Lukas. Somehow my heart and my head translated everything so terribly wrong that I began to lump Lukas in with this poor idea I had of being ordered how to live my life.”

“But that was then.”

“Yes, it was.” I began slowly. “Now I just…There is this part of me that spent so much time trying to push Lukas out of my heart that I don’t know how to let him back in. Meanwhile there is this voice in my head saying there is no time to being thinking about Lukas and love when there is more important things to worry about like finding Chey, or why women are going missing; like suddenly having to be in charge of other lives. Suddenly I have to worry about Mankato and Viktor and a rogue Were. All the while, the other side of my heart doesn’t care how needy or shallow it comes across as, it just wants all of Lukas; to just let him in and live beside him always.” I sighed, taking a breath and a moment to reflect. “I want to let Lukas in I really truly do and I don’t know why there is a part of me that is keeping him at arms length.”

“What do you feel when you push him away?”

I knew my answer immediately and it made my heart hurt and a lump form in my throat.

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

“Yes you do.”

I closed my eyes tiredly.“Mostly…” I licked my lips, my words already leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. “Mostly its this voice in my head saying not to let him close enough to hurt me.”

“Why?” She questioned gently.

“Because I’ve gotten really used to being alone and honestly? I’ve gotten used to it. Its easier to be alone, I don’t have to worry about loosing him.”

“He’d never leave you Sage,” Mia said matter-of-factly, an exasperated edge to her tone. “Hell, even if you two live the rest of your lives like this, which would be terribly tragic, he’d never leave you.”

“Not willingly anyway.” I whispered.

Mia straightened and her gaze became reproachful. I didn’t have to look at her beautiful and kind face to see the sadness and surprise written all over it. I could see her out of my peripheral vision and I closed my eyes—even out of the corner of my eye the look was too much.

“Sage,” She murmured quietly, sadness soaking her words.

My muscles instinctively tightened and she noticed the subtle movement. Mia swallowed and looked away from me; I didn’t want pity.

She didn’t speak again until she was sure she could keep the sadness out of her voice. “Sage you cannot live your life that way because really, that’s not living at all.”

“What way?” I knew the answer but I was a sucker for punishment.

“Locking everyone you love out of your heart so that if something happens it doesn’t hurt as bad.”

Her words hung in the air between us and seemed to sink into my very bones.

“Life is a part of death Sage, it just is. Friends, family, love they’re what make life bearable when it seems impossible. Especially in these times, you should live every day like it is your last—no regrets.”

“You have no regrets?” I questioned doubtfully. Somehow I doubted that. Mia had left her tribe just as I had left my pack those years ago and she had developed as good a skill as I at avoiding the conversation about the things we preferred to steer clear of.

She seemed to hear my thoughts and surprise flashed across her face. “It’s not regret I have, its guilt.” she confessed grudgingly “In my heart I know I have always done what was right for me. But that doesn’t mean I like the way my decisions have sometimes affected other people.”

“You feel guilty for how your decisions affected people?”

“I feel guilty for being calloused enough to not care enough about how my actions have affected them.”

Silence fell between us and I was suddenly filled with confusion. “Wait, what are we talking about here?”

“You.” She stated promptly nodding surely.

“Nice try but that conversation has left with the current beneath our feet I’m afraid.”

Mia frowned as she pushed her feet into the riverbed that was filled with small smooth stones. Everything in her body screamed she wasn’t ready to talk and I’m sure if I poked and prodded enough she would tell me but she had been considerate enough toward me to not push my answers and I would off her the same courtesy.

“Alright a different subject then...I think.” there was a chance it really wasn’t a change of subject but that had not been my intent. “What’s up with you and my brother? It seemed a little frosty between the two of you when we left.”

Mia sighed and stared down at the pebbles between her toes. “I don’t know,” She said. “Truly I don’t. He’s mad that I didn’t ask him to come along but he belongs in Falcon Ridge, the others need him right now.”

“He’s annoyed?”

“That’s just it,” She made an exaggerated shrug. “I don’t know. I asked him if I hurt his feelings and he snapped at me. Apparently a guy admitting that he could have his feelings hurt is an unspeakable topic.”

I tried to imagine how that had led to a less than warm goodbye. It didn’t sound like Conan especially when it came to people he cared for.

“You sure there wasn’t something else?”

Mia’s lips pursed for a moment and she shook her head in annoyance, not at me but an echo of her anger at Conan. “I don’t know,” She laughed dryly at herself and shook her head.. “God I keep saying that.”

“You and me both—story of my life.”

She glanced at me, a flicker of a smile crossed her lips but then it was gone. “We got into some stupid fight and somehow, God knows how, Jasmine got brought into it and Conan just said that maybe I should go and that he didn’t want to come along.”

“He lied.” I stated instantly.

“How do you know?”

“Because Conan loves you. He wanted to come because he wanted to know where you came from. I don’t think he’s mad, I think he’s hurt because he thinks you don’t want him to see that part of your life. He wanted to go, trust me I know my brother.”

Mia pursed her lips, not looking at all happy about my answer and her eyes flickered out across the waters.

“They needed him more. It wasn’t that big of a deal to me, we’ll be home in four days.”

“It’s not about that. You’re his girlfriend and Conan has this quirk about him that makes girls think its either cute or annoying, where he throws everything that he is into his relationships. He wants to share every inch of his life with them; not everyone is wired in a way that automatically reciprocates that idea—you and I for example.”

“I bet Jasmine automatically reciprocates the idea.” She grumbled.

“It’s not about Jasmine.” We were treading on ice now and if I didn’t gently guide Mia off the topic of Jasmine it would open a can of worms that had been closed and buried long ago. When Mia said nothing I tried a different approach to the topic.

“Do you love Conan?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have an regrets about being with him?”

“Of course not.”

“Would you die for him?”

“Yeah.” She hesitated. “but he’d also die for her.” She met my gaze then demanding a response, “Wouldn’t he?” She questioned quietly, her eyes searching mine.
If Mia and I’s friendship had thrived on anything it had been our ability of be unflinchingly honest with one another. So I wouldn’t lie to her now.

“Yeah he would. But he’d die for Rune too and probably Knoll and Lukas for that matter. It goes without saying that he’d die for me. It’s just the way Conan is. Just because he’d die for Jasmine doesn’t mean he loves her more than you its just because she’s Pack.”

“But I’m nothing like her, what do I have that she doesn’t?”

“You didn’t ask him to choose her family over his own when her family was fighting against ours.” I explained. “When Jasmine did that it felt like some sort of betrayal to Conan. He felt like if she had the nerve to ask him that then she really didn’t know him at all—and maybe she never did.”

Mia was silent.

“Do you ever doubt your relationship for one second?”

“No,” She stated instantly. “I love Conan more than anything or anyone. But sometimes I walk in on Jasmine and Conan and I look at them and in spite of myself all I can think is that they’re perfect together and I’m standing in the way of the kind of love you and Lukas have.”

“Conan will never have that kind of love with Jasmine. The only aspect of that that could be true is the fighting and cold shoulder. But the love part? I can’t picture that.”

The lie left a bitter taste in my mouth because the truth was I had pictured it long ago and it had been beautiful—but it had been a beautiful time. It was before the war, before I’d distance myself from Lukas and Jasmine and I were imagining our lives in the future with our boyfriends. We pictured each other happy and in love and married with kids. But it had been a different time and truthfully I could now imagine that same imagine with Mia at Conan’s side and not Jasmine.

If only for this conversation I wish I had never known the time when Jasmine and Conan had been together because, truthfully, they had been perfect together but things changed. Even then Jasmine and Conan didn’t have the sort of love Lukas and I did because if they had they would have still been together. It wasn’t that they loved each other any less than Lukas and I had, it’s just that Jasmine would have been it for Conan and vise versa.

I slung my arm over her shoulder. “He loves you Miakoda, you, not his ex-girlfriend. Just because he is enough of an adult to handle being in the same room as his ex does not mean he is in love with her. I know what my brother looks like in love and trust me he loves you. He smiles in way that he hasn’t since Seneca died and he has you to thank for that.”

Mia looked at me then and there was relief in her eyes and an easy smile on her lips. “Thanks.”

I smiled in response.

“We should get going.” Mia and I both jumped, neither of us realizing that Lukas had moved from down the river to ten feet away.

“Yeah,” Mia said suddenly rising to her feet. “You’re right, we have to walk fourteen miles before nightfall if we’re going to get there on time.”

I didn’t hide the groan.