Page 24 of The Alpha Wolf Defying Fate

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” she said as she hugged her knees to her chest and rocked to the melody of the river.

“What kind of river do you think this is?” I asked humming along to the sound of the river. “It sounds like it’s singing. Given that most of the Forgotten Realm is meant to be filled with creatures and places thought to be stories, or simply forgotten completely, makes you wonder if this river is something special as well.”

She looked out at the river and frowned. “It does seem a bit magical, doesn’t it? I thought it was in my head that it sounded like it was singing.”

I shook my head. “I hear it too.”

“What about the River Lethe?” she asked. She turned to me with a smile again. “Isn’t it said that it calls the dead to it’s waters for them to drink and forget the life they left behind to go onto their next?”

I laughed and nodded. “Yeah, I guess we’d better not drink from its waters then. Kind of negates the reason we made camp here though.”

“Why would we have to avoid drinking the water?” she asked, then broke out with a laugh. “We’re not dead. It shouldn’t affect us.”

I chuckled and gave a shrug. “Who ever said it only effects the dead?”

She looked out into the river then and frowned. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing we still have water from the last lake we camped near then.”

I nodded as I laid back and looked up into the moonlit sky.

“As beautiful as this river looks with the moonlight, nothing can ever compare to the real thing by the ocean’s sky surrounded by the stars,” I said, not quite realizing I had said it all out loud.

Sasha laid back beside me, her chestnut hair fanning around her head like a halo of honey against the green grass. I watched her from the corner of my eyes, my attention completely pulled from the beauty of the sky by the very beauty that was her.

The bond drowned out the babbles of the river, its song long forgotten as if I drank of its waters. Though nothing could be as potent to my mind than just looking at her. She was the most deadly and beautiful creature in this land when it came to me. No matter how much I tried to fight it or tried to deny it, she was under my skin.

“It is beautiful,” she finally whispered. It had felt like a century since I began to look at her. My mind not so much noticing the silence as it had just enjoyed being lost in fantasies I’d long forgotten.

“How do moon witches treat the moon? Don’t you have some special rituals or something?”

I chuckled, peeling my eyes away from her and back up to the moon in the sky.

“No,” I said. “We treat the moon like any other witch. We have a gathering under the full moon and the new moon for every cycle just like any other coven. We just happen to be able to get a little more magic from the moon is all. Especially my family line with the moon eyes.”

She sat up and looked down at me, her eyes sparkling like sapphires as she stared into my eyes. “I always thought it was a coincidence, or the reason why you were called moon witches. Do all of you have the same-colored eyes?”

I shook my head. “No, my mother and uncle both have their father’s brown eyes. It wasn’t unusual for the eye color to skip a generation. Not common, but not unusual. Mostly, only my family’s direct line has the color. Allegedly from the days that Alkmene would stare at the moon with longing for its power. The day she finally gained it, because her eyes had been so filled with the moon’s reflection, they took on it’s color and shine as its power filled her body.”

“Haven’t you asked her if that’s what happened? You said that she appeared to your uncle and gave him those trials, right.” I could see the genuine interest in her eyes as she asked.

I hesitated before answering, a small voice still rebelling at sharing anything more with her about my family. History and secrets we had long kept within our family only. Why I was so willing to share it with her now, I couldn’t explain.

‘She is family,’my wolf growled in my head.‘She is our mate; therefore, she is family.’

I sighed, unable to argue with him. The bond was deepening, its grasp clawing away at any of my resistance.

“Alkmene hasn’t appeared to any of us again. My uncle had had a one-track mind when he met with her. At first, he was focused on getting his magic back. Then, after Alkmene took Otsana, his priorities shifted. Either way, he didn’t exactly think to ask questions of our history.”

Her eyes widened. “Alkmene took his magicandhis mate?”

I laughed and nodded. “Yeah, she takes tough love to a whole new level. Which I guess makes her not visiting anyone else as a good thing. Because when she’s not teaching us lessons, she’s loving us from afar.”

Sasha smiled. “Still, it is amazing to be able to track your family line all the way to the beginning of magic.”

“Well,” I said, tilting my head from side to side. “It’s more like the beginning of witches. The magic was already there. The creatures that we encounter here, all of them, had magic long before we did. The Fates and those like them had their magic even longer. No mortal can claim lineage to the beginning of magic.”

She frowned. “Well, still. To be able to know your family history that far back. I gotta admit, I’m jealous.”

I smirked and sat up, nudging her with my shoulder playfully. It was hard not to notice the shocks of electricity as they ignited from such an innocent and simple touch, even harder to ignore.

---