Bronze

Chapter 19

Kane

Katherine was laying beside me, snuggled up in the blanket. It was around midnight, the owls were out hunting and the mice were feeding on grass. 

They are stupid mice, I thought rolling on my side. 

I couldn't sleep. As much as I tried, I couldn't get my mind to stop working and allow me to sleep. Racing from one thought to the other, it kept me awake. 

What was I going to do about Markus?

He may be small, but he was wise with age. He knew of strategies and tactics that I'd never heard of before. Not to mention his alliance with the Crimson Pack. Out of the four main packs of the world, that one scared me the most. 

Trained like assassins, the Crimson pack prefers using fast snake-like agility as opposed to brute strength. They sneak in shadows and strike when the moment is right. If anyone could defeat me, it would be Alpha Isaac and his pack of assassins. 

I got up from bed, seeing as though I wasn't sleeping tonight, and made my way to the window where I watched the early stages of the night. 

Late twilight had always been my favorite time of day. It's a time when the light from the sky appears diffused and often pinkish. The sun is below the horizon, but its rays are scattered by Earth's atmosphere to create a citrus gradient with the deep blue of the night sky.

It reminded me of my mother. She had always been a night owl in her youth, staying up late into the night watching the stars. She claimed to be able to speak with them, the stars, and even said they directed her to my father. 

They met on a clear night like today. In the mists of the forest, far from either pack- my mother hailing from South America near Brazil in the Crystal pack, and my father from Canada, soon to be alpha of the Bronze pack- they met on the top of a clearing. My mother had been visiting her relatives in the Bronze pack, an aunt and uncle, and my father had just finished an argument with my grandfather. 

She told me when I was no more than six that the stars themselves guided her deep into the forest that night, their voices like small children's laughing and beckoning. When she came to a small clearing, miles from the packhouse, it was there that she saw a great, black wolf drinking from a pond in the moonlight. 

They had their claiming ceremony in the same exact spot they met, where Leah and I were claimed, the rock in which they first linked being turned into their alter. 

Every year since their death, I would place a sacred white rose on that same altar, praying that they were at peace with the Moon Goddess. When Leah buried the flower, watching her tender fingers delicately cover it with dirt as to not break it, my heart soared. Not from the mate bond, but from my own feelings for her. 

It was the day I fell in love with her. Just that small act sealed my fate and tied my heart to hers. 

Looking out now, my eyes drifting in the direction of that alter, I realized what a fool I was for marking her. She wasn't ready; I wasn't ready to blindly jump from the security I already had. But even though I was scared to risk myself, the thought of losing her to Lander scared me even more. It frightened me to the point where I gave up control to the most basic instinct I had just to ensure she would always stay with me. 

Though I could sense her, feel her, connect with her better than I ever could before, she felt miles away. She was lost to me now, gone like a bloomed dandelion in the wind. 

Katherine stirred, rolling over to her back, then on her other side so her front was facing me. She slowly, dreamily kissed her knuckles, smiling. Her large, bruised mark stood out on her shoulder.