Page 15 of Alpha's Fate

“I agree, but our terms need to be respected as well.” I said softly, rubbing the soap through my hair thoroughly. “We can’t just be bowled over and give in to every whim and will of every pack. Just like we were saying earlier it makes no sense for us to just roll over. If we do that for them we have to do that for every Pack and honestly? We can’t. We have to stay strong on our boundaries. They absolutely cannot have the right to come and go on our land with no consequences.” I said, switching it up to condition my hair. I moved over to Weston with the soap and a cloth, starting to bathe him as I waited for the conditioner to do whatever it was that it did.

“That’s very true as well. Annoyingly I can see both sides of the issue here. They want resources and I want to give it to them, but it has to be fair. It has to be.” Weston sighed, wrapping an arm around me as I moved to wash his front. Once he was clean he moved in for a kiss, earning another smile from me. That he was so affectionate without reservation really made me happy.

Neither of us seemed the type in person, but our physical intimacy, even as chaste as a kiss was, made me feel like we were thriving. It meant the world to me. In public we never really did anything like we did when we were alone- holding hands, kissing, hugging- it was all reserved just for us. My heart beat for him every moment of every day, but every kiss and touch made me feel so alive and happy. Being truly loved for who I was by a man I loved unconditionally in return left me feeling so vulnerably happy.

“We’ll settle on terms today or we’ll leave.” I said softly. “We can prepare for any negative consequences on the way home. I’m exhausted of this and I want to go home.” I admitted, leaning on him when he pulled me in for a hug.

“Things are going to work out, I promise,” he murmured, rubbing my back. “We’ll be going home soon.”

“The eldritch camping trip does have to end at some point,” I smiled up at him and he returned it, dipping me back into the water so I could rinse the conditioner from my hair. I sighed as I came back up and kissed him again, already feeling better for having gotten clean. I rinsed the soap from my body with my hands before finally stepping out of the river and back into the loam of the forest floor.

Weston exited the river soon after, following me. We had no towels so our option was to wriggle into our clothes soaking wet. Before I had a chance to put a bra on Weston approached me from behind and placed lotioned hands on my shoulders.

“Let me just get out some of these knots,” he breathed into my ear and I tilted my head back to smile up at him.

“If you insist,” I teased, grinning at him and he smiled back. I savored his fingers on my skin, sliding over the tension I’d held onto for days. It felt amazing, just working out the knots and kinks in my muscles with his fingers alone. “I don’t know how you do it, but it feels amazing.” I said softly, smiling as he slid his hands down to my biceps before he wrapped his arms around me to just hold me from behind. I loved it so much. The warmth of him and his muscled chest pressed against me. I never felt safer than when I was wrapped up in him. In spite of the whispers on the wind I felt like here I could just revel in my feeling of care and love, cuddling back into him.

Eventually we parted and finished dressing. Even now after all of our affection and love I knew that we still had work to do. Today we either made a pact or we prepared for whatever would come with the fallout of a failed partnership. It was do or die time and I was prepared for whatever would happen. Once we were dressed and fed with all of our things packed up and safe we headed back out toward the encampment of the Unseen Pack. We walked in silence, but I could sense the resolve from the man beside me. We were both prepared.

As we approached their territory we were met by the wolves again. They came up to us directly and acted as our silent escorts back to the broken tableau laying across the dilapidated headstones. In that moment I admired the faded and rough hewn carvings of the people of the ghostly village we sat in. I found my way to the headstone I’d sat at the night before and pulled the notebook out, opened it, and clicked my pen, setting everything down.

“We’ve discussed it this morning and we’ve come to the decision that we either come to an agreement today or we leave.” I said, interlocking my fingers and setting my hands on the makeshift table. “We, as Alphas of our Pack, have to get back to our people.” I said, and the shadow woman stared with her formless white eyes, nodding once before Weston reached under the table and retrieved the original contract from its safe space. He unrolled it and held it down with the stones from yesterday.

“So,” he started. “We’re unwilling to allow you free reign in our territory. I know this seems to be a point of contention for you and your Pack. We would suggest that instead we have messengers on both sides so that when you need something from us you have a way to contact us without breaching our terms. Our team would have someone on standby to accept messages from you and we would ask for safe passage from our estate to the edge of your Pack’s territory, where they would be met by members of your Pack to discuss our reasons for contact. In this way we can speak to one another and arrange meetings between us.”

“It’s our hope that you will understand that as we respect your authority and autonomy you respect ours in return. We’re not proposing anything but an equal partnership that is respectful of boundaries on both sides,” I explained. “This is our proposal. You may accept or reject it, but it is what we are offering to you,”I said, my voice firm and determined even in the face of the empty stares of the people before us.

“We have only one request,” the woman spoke, her voice a breathy whisper. “We want to be free.”

Chapter sixteen

Weston

“Free?” I asked, immediately set on edge. “You’re free now. We’re not trying to pull anything over on you.” I said softly.

“Free from the curse,” her voice echoed through the clearing in whispers on the wind. “You’ve claimed you have resources that could help us. We want access to these resources… we want to be able to walk in the sun again.”

I sat in silence, Cora beside me with her face carefully neutral while I knew I looked concerned. We knew about the curse, of course, but we also hadn’t been certain of the nature of it. We didn’t know if it had anything to do with the Unseen until that point, but clearly it did. It seemed like they might be the focal point of it. My heart beat a little faster as I looked at her, her form shifting and drifting in the wind. I was getting used to it, I realized. It was one of those things where exposure seemed to be working its magic on me.

“Are you the focus of the curse?” Cora asked softly, a compassionate expression crossing her face. “We’ve been studying it but we’re not certain of the details yet. Part of the reason we came was that we suspected that something like this may have been the case. What can we do to help you?” She asked, and I looked from her back to the shadow woman.

“We don’t know. We don’t have any answers. This is why we are asking you for your help.” Her ethereal voice echoed through my mind.

“Tell us what you know about the curse,” Cora said, picking her pen up to take notes.

“The curse is ancient and powerful. An enemy from the distant past cursed us, another entity, powerful and vile,” one of the other shadows spoke, voice like the moaning of the wind through the trees.

“We were left like this, like shadows, banished to the darkness away from the world. This was a curse of immense power. It came to us like black lightning striking down our homes and our people. When we awoke we were this way. Our lives destroyed, our people dead, us unable to bury them. Our existence has been forced into the shadows, into the darkness of this damned wood where we wait in agony for someone to help us,” she said, and I couldn’t help but feel terrible for them. My heart broke as shespoke. I couldn’t imagine being trapped and having to watch your dead rot away slowly until they were nothing but dust.

“Our eldest were here when the curse was cast. They don’t speak, simply laying as wolves where they fell last. It’s horrible to see such despair inside of those once so resilient and strong,” I couldn’t really tell where the voices were coming from anymore. They all sounded thin and weak and it seemed like their whispers danced around through the trees in such a way that they quickly became indistinguishable. The forest, once eerie and unsettling, now simply felt sad and lonely. My heart broke for these people entirely, but I tried to keep my face just concerned. I didn’t want to look like I was falling apart if they were going to trust us with this monumental task, something they so clearly longed for desperately.

“So what I’m starting to understand is that you weren’t all here at the time the curse was cast. Is that correct?” Cora asked, and there was a slight motion from the center figure, the woman we had been speaking to the whole time.

“We come from everywhere and everywhen,” she confirmed. “Sometimes the forest’s curse takes those within it and brings us here. Only the elders were here when the curse was cast. Only they know all of the details.”

“I’d like to try to speak to them. Maybe one of them will find some connection with us and we can learn more,” I said, setting my hands on the table as Cora took her notes beside me. There was a long silence where they seemed to be whispering amongst one another, the sound like rustling leaves in the trees. I sat in their quiet whispering just taking in the sensations. The whispering on the wind, the faint scent of death and decay, the feeling of mist all around me, the taste of iron in the air- the feel of the stone beneath my hands. It all felt so cold and lonely that I found myself sinking down into it as we waited in silence.

“We can take you to them, but we don’t believe they’ll speak to you. You must excuse their state- we aren’t even given the dignity of death. We must exist in this state in perpetuity, lost and drifting in the wind. They are the oldest, the saddest, and the only ones left who remember. They are wasted thin and barely corporeal and yet they are forced to exist, to remember, without the respite of sleep or death.” She whispered, and I nodded seriously.

---