Running With Wolves

Lukas was as silent and stealthy as his wolf as he followed Keya back up the path to the community. Unlike before, Keya did not pass the RVs without a second glance as she had when they’d originally passed by them.
Now she stopped just outside one in particular. It was a dingy shade of beige with chipped paint, a shattered taillight and broken front step that was tucked somewhere in the middle of the clustered mobile homes.
“This is where we keep our archives.” But Keya made no move to open the door as she informed him of this information.

“Are you going in?”

“No,” She smiled kindly at him. “the information in those walls are for you and Sage alone. You two require information that will take you down a different path than I.”

Lukas nodded and reached for the door as Keya turned away.

“Wait! Keya,” She turned toward him quizzically. “what is the lineage that replaced Salvia’s family?”

Without hesitation she replied. “Constantinescu.” She nodded then turned around the corner of the RV and disappeared from sight.

He took a deep breath, hesitating for only a moment, before he turned the handle and opened the door, the scent of old paper filling his nose.

He felt like he should feel different, like the information Keya had just offered him should have left some kind of physical imprint upon him. Yet he felt no differently, Lukas found himself still feeling like he and Sage were walking blind into things that had been kept hidden from; old stories from hundreds of years ago had not felt to Luke as though they had helped their current predicament.

The door creaked open its complaint as Lukas crossed its threshold and he stood there for a moment blinking, trying to make his eyes adjust from the sunny day outside to the dark exterior of the RV. The place had a musky old stagnant smell to it that only untouched ancient books could bring with it. Everywhere Lukas looked were rows and piles of books; books upon shelves, books upon makeshift shelves, staked ten, twelve, fourteen books high on the floor. How had Keya managed to accumulate all of these?
He moved with care as he stepped around and between piles of books until something caught his eye that gave him pause. She was there, sitting crisscross on the floor, with piles of books towering around her. Books were left open in a circle around her while in her lap was a leatherback book her finger was currently skimming through. Her auburn hair was tossed up in a messy bun, her eyebrows slightly pulled together, and her lips settling in a small frown, her signature look of uninterrupted concentration.
For a moment he just gazed at her. She was Sage, she didn’t always play well with others, most days than not she was having a ‘bad hair day’, she could be stubborn and spiteful and she drove him crazy but at the end of the day Sage was his—at least he still hoped.

“Sage,”

Her name on his lips broke her concentration and her cobalt eyes shot up in surprise to stare at him.

“Luke,” There was relief and exhaustion in her voice but the light in her eyes that suddenly appeared made something settle inside Luke. While clear relief shone across her face at the image of him, there was also apprehension there as well.

He recalled the fight they’d had and the way he had yelled at her and suddenly he felt wary. He would not blame her if it took her a good long while to forgive him and he could not blame her—he’d been an asshole and he knew it.

On tired fatigued legs Sage stood but she made no move to toward him nor to speak.

Lukas opened and closed his mouths several times trying to find the right words he meant to say. How exactly did one go about saying that he had never meant the words he’d said, he’d never meant it when he said he’d given up on his soulmate—that he’d find someone else.

“I’m sorry,”

Pain flashed across her eyes and she looked away silently.

“I didn’t meant what I had said,” He tried, struggling for his voice. He was ten feet away from her but he’d never felt farther away.

“No,” Her voice was very quiet as her eyes closed. “It’s no less than I deserve, or you deserve.”

Lukas swallowed hard looking wary. “What do you mean?”

She did not look at him as she spoke. “You deserve someone who can make you happy, Luke. You deserve to laugh and enjoy life, to settle down and have kids and not have to worry that every day is life or death—you don’t deserve to be tethered to someone that’s terrified of love.”

Lukas was silent and utterly still. He wanted to tell her that nothing mattered without her. That his life would never feel fulfilled without her in it. He’d take the life or death, the worry, the arguing as long as it meant he had her. But right now his mind was ringing with her words ’not someone who is terrified of love’.”

“Sage…” he did not no where to begin or how to word the things he meant to say. “I don’t think it is a lack of love or devotion for one another that keeps us apart.”

“its me,” She stated miserably.

“No,” he hissed vehemently. “It’s not.” He stepped toward her daringly and her eyes shifted to him uneasily, though she made no move to stop him. “You love me,” he stated and she swallowed hard, “and I love you. What separates us is the fact that we can keep each other safe if we are apart…I don’t think that’s true anymore, or that it was, in fact, ever true. Everything up until this point you have blamed, in one way or another, upon yourself as though you have caused any of these problems.”

“But I-“

“You remember things don’t you, things that are not yours to remember.” Her lips clamped shut and she suddenly looked like a scared doe about to run. “Keya told me a story, the story of Razvan and Salvia. Some of the things made me feel like de ja vu, things I couldn’t quite remember but felt familiar. Sometimes when I’m alone, or when Razvan is just beneath the surface I feel it.” Judging by her reaction Lukas knew he was right. He cocked his head to the side as he gazed at her. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

She was quiet, her jaw locked, her eyes wide with surprise as they glazed over with tears. “Do you know what it is like to feel completely crazy? To know how you feel and then have those things shadowed by someone who isn’t you but you still feel what they feel? I felt crazy. I am crazy.”

“No crazier than I.” He countered. Her eyes fell and silence settled between them. “What happened to Razvan was not your fault.” He stated quietly. A feeling nagged within Sage that he was not quite speaking to her. “Razvan made his own decisions, he knew the possible consequences but he made them anyway because of love.” Her eyes changed, became wider and a more vibrant shade of blue—wolfishly so.“It wasn’t her fault, your, fault what happened to him. She could never have known what fate would take the two of them.” He walked carefully toward her and cupped her face with one hand. “Forgive yourself.” He murmured and she blinked up at him in silence. “You had your love, let me have mine.” She stared up at him for a moment unseeing and then she blinked rapidly her eyes becoming the deeper more familiar blue he remembered and she looked up at him in wonder. She gazed down at her hands flexing them and ringing them out. Sage took a deep breath and stared up at him,

“What did you just do?”

“I don’t know?”

“I feel,” She rotated her head working out a kink in her neck. “Lighter.”

“Salvia abandoned her friends and family for love. When Razvan was taking I doubt she ever found any real console.”

“No, I think you’re right.”

Quiet settled like a blanket over them. “I’m sorry for the things I said. I was just frustrated and exhausted—I should never have said what I did.”

“I deserved it. Leading you on then pushing it away—I could hardly blame you.”

Regret and sadness pooled in his eyes and her thumb traced over his lips. “I forgive you.” She said, knowing he needed to hear the words.

His muscles relaxed but he still looked upset. She leaned up and placed a ghost of kiss on his lips. “Forgive me?” She questioned.

In answer he kissed her full on the mouth, the two of them grinning like fools. His hands fell around her hips and for a brief second he judged her reaction to see if it was okay but she leaned into him encouragingly. “Just don’t run off on me again okay? I don’t think my heart could take it.”

Her head fell against his chest and she hugged him tightly. “Promise.”