Ayn's Healing

Chapter 27 - Ayn

Claws extend around my hand faster than I can process what is going on, and tear themselves from my grip, leaving red lines on my skin. I see the silver wolf's frame with the corner of my eye, his growl is deafening but short, quickly replaced by the sound of gnashing teeth. By the time I turn around, two beasts are towering against each other, ears pulled back and fangs fully exposed.

I am screaming into Storm's mind to stop, but the path to his awareness is blocked for me. I take a hurried step towards the bodies now rolling in the grass, only for Timo to grab my both arms and pull me against him.

"You can't go there."

I try to wriggle out of the Beta's grip to cover my ears, but I cannot. I therefore unwillingly learn how a tear in Kari's muscles sounds when it's made with teeth.

"They have to fight it out. It has been long due," Timo gives his best shot at speaking in a comforting voice.

But they are father and son, they cannot hurt each other in this way, I say as my eyes take in the image of two beasts biting mercilessly into flesh, fangs dripping with blood, before my eyelids shut themselves tightly to block the horror. Inside myself it is not better, my tree is swaying madly, disoriented between my mate's pain and my own at the sight of him.

My core burns with compulsion to stay and heal whatever is left from the wolves when they are done. Another part of me wants to get out of here, far from here.

"Let me go, Timo."

"No. You cannot interfere in this."

"I don't want to interfere. I want to leave."

"You shouldn't." He releases my wrists and his voice is now low, a bare whisper in my ear. "Look at all of them, watching. Look.at.them.Ayn."

Most shifters' eyes carry subdued interest. Even the females are observing the fight calmly, none of them flinches in disgust as blood taints Storm's fur in shades of brown. And some of them are discretely watching me.

Is this perhaps their future Luna? Would a Luna leave her mate's side?

Just when I am thinking that I cannot possibly hurt more, Timo's words cut through my soul.

"Maybe you don't care about your mate, but now you are part of the pack. You should at least care who is your Alpha."

Storm brings Rock one more time to the ground, snarling angrily as he is sinking his canines in the other wolf's back. A black neck, from which furry skin is hanging torn, stretches in submission. Xander then shifts, a mountain of a male lying limp on the grass with empty eyes.

My hands are scratched and my wrists are bruised, I notice, as Timo instantly steps away from me under Storm's furious gaze.

He's all rilled up the new leader, his torn hind leg doesn't seem to bother him, he is ready to use his fangs again and again to protect what is his. The silver wolf pushes himself gently against my hip, trying to get his head under my arm.

I have no wish to praise his work, so I silently allow him to do his thing, rub his scent on me until he is satisfied, bend his warriors' neck with a growl that makes the earth under my feet vibrate, and finally shift into his human form.

Kari doesn't seem disappointed by my lack of excitement. Unlike his wolf, he holds little pride in his eyes. He blinks in acknowledgement to Timo's bow. The Beta cannot punch his arm or slap his back anymore, now there is hierarchy to be respected between them.

I slide away, towards Xander. His wolf is doing a good job healing him, I see the injury in his bone marrow is already slowly closing. I could speed it up a bit though, and I'm ready to cup the back of his neck, when, for the twentieth time today, a shifter's hand wraps around my arm. This time it is my mate's. My mate, who pulls me to my feet, informing me that the former Alpha can heal himself.

There is a wish to curse out loud and tear myself away from him, but there are eyes watching and I generally detest drama, more than I detest Kari right now. I do clench my fist, to avoid holding his hand, and the walk across the training field is silent. My mate is limping slightly and luckily for him, I can't walk very fast either.

"You are not happy," he observes when we reach the path through the forest and I sit down on the carpet of pine needles, to offer myself the healing touch.

"Do I have to congratulate you for almost killing your father?"

"I didn't plan it like this. Actually, you weren't even supposed to see this. Nobody was supposed to see this. This should have been a private affair.

But Xander...well, he's what he is. Now it's done."

"So you are now the Alpha?"

"In a way, but Xander still needs to transfer me the pack mind."

"Do you have to fight him again?" I ask, soul frozen at the possibility that today's happening was just a preview of what is to come.

"No, we'll do that peacefully, during the pack transfer ceremony. Which should happen quite soon now. My mother will not be pleased."

Of course, the Alpha who holds the pack mind was defeated in combat. There is instability at the top of the food chain, wolves don't do well with that, they need the safety of the hierarchy and the ranks.

I need another kind of safety, an answer to some questions that have been repeating themselves in my mind since Storm bit through  Rock's throat.

"Kari, if somebody challenges your decisions...will you fight them like this?"

„Yes." There is a terrifying self-evidence in his monosyllabic answer.

„Will you fight me like this?"

"What?? No!! What crazy talk is this, Ayn?" I wince under his loudness and he takes notice, balancing back to the usual soft tone he uses with me. "We might argue sometimes, like regular humans do, we can train together if you ever want to, but Goddess no, mates don't fight like this."

"And Kari, if we have a son...will he have to fight you like this?"

His arm moulds my body into his, and his whisper is filled with delight.

"You want to carry my pups?"

"Answer my question, please."

His dark green eyes close slightly, his eyelashes fluttering once before casting their shadow on his cheek.

"You know, Ayn, I...am already a father."

It's my turn to hold tightly onto Kari's hand. He has never spoken to me about his loss until now. It's shamefully easy to forget that those whose child is taken away too soon don't stop being parents.

"I was granted little time with my daughter, but I have felt her grow in her mother's womb. Before I sensed the baby was a female, I had the same thoughts as you. Will this pup have to fight me one day in the name of pack tradition?

I have talked about it with Xander at the time, but he was adamant this test is necessary for the health of the pack. I told him it's not the Wolves' Way and most packs don't do it. As usual, he called me coward and weak, and I then spent four months of the six Lara was pregnant somewhere at Pass Three, training to fight him.

I wasn't there to provide for my mate's cravings...I missed my daughter's first moves...I would have probably also missed the birth if my mother wouldn't have used her Luna ask on him."

His voice cracks with the sound of crushed dreams. I now understand his wish, to give Xander the time and heal himself, so that he, Kari, can also heal from more than today's battle wounds.

"So, to your question, I will train our son and his wolf in combat, because this is what I have to do as a father. But I will not make him fight me for the pack mind."

Our kiss is short, because Kari groans in pain when I carelessly lie against his leg.

"May I?" I ask, extending my hand, lowering it towards his thigh.

"Don't bother. You'll have to do it again once I tell my mother what happened and how she has to organize our ceremony as soon as possible."

"I will heal you as many times as you need, future Alpha." I whisper, and I am relieved to see the sadness in his smile disappearing under my touch.