Isabel's Choice

Chapter 5 - Lars

Place and time: Kari's pack (Land Core), later that morning 

"Sven, why can't you just make a man bun? We are going to be late because of you." I scold my brother, who is taking his time braiding a last strand of hair in front of his bathroom mirror.

"That's it, I am going!" I shout when I see him reaching out for a freaking bead to thread at the end.

"OK, OK, let's go." Sven drops the jewelry back in the box and, as we walk out of our apartment, he says apologetically: "I was just trying to make an effort since this is my first negotiation."

I want to tell him that nobody cares about his underage hairdo, but I suddenly smell honey, and Lightning howls, overpowering all of my thoughts.

„Mate".

I start walking faster and faster down the stairs, following the scent that is driving my wolf crazy. Sven catches me two steps before the door, and holds my arm with a strength I did not think he had.

"Let go, witch boy, my mate is out there," I hiss at him through my teeth, but Sven just shakes his head and looks into my eyes, whispering in return:

"Leash.Him.Up."

When he sees that I am not reacting, he pulls out his phone: "I am calling the Alpha".

This threat is enough for Lightning to back off, leaving me a little bit of space to think about what I am doing. But that space is quickly occupied by Eino's mind link.

"Where are you, guys? These people are here and I am hungry."

"We are coming. I had to wait for Sven to do his hair."

Eino chokes with laughter in my head because this is a problem the little one doesn't have. He decided a year ago that dreadlocks are equal to braids, researched how to make them, started at the top of his head, got bored in the middle, and buzzed the sides. Based on verbal and other types of feedback he received from the many, many girls that he consulted in the omega houses or in the woods, the accidental dreadhawk suited him very well and so he decided to keep it.

"Eino, who is there?" I ask, hoping that he will tell me the Alpha brought with him his single, of age, unmated cousin.

"What stupid question is this, hybrid? The usual suspects, Alpha, Luna, their Betas... Why, why are you mind linking me from the hallway??"

And I hear him politely excusing himself to our mom, saying that he is going to check on us.

"Explain," the little one mutters, narrowing his eyes in the same threatening way our father does.

"The future Alpha here is crazed by hormones and claims he senses his mate," Sven points his finger at me.

I wish I could stay here and argue with them, but Lightning has already forgotten about my brother's threat and starts growling again in my head, so I push them both aside and go out on the patio.

But the patio is not there. 

There is only a white dimensionless space, silent and flooded by gentle light, and in the middle of it, wrapped in a flared red dress, stands my mate, my beautiful amber-eyed girl, with her rosy lips curved into an innocent smile. My ribs hug my core tightly, their rhythmic movement stopped in its tracks by her beauty, with only my eyes still able to weakly slide around and take in the sight of her dark blonde hair, which is falling loose over her marked shoulder.

And as I focus on those wavy lines on her skin, they extend, giving shapes to the nature around me, the lawn furniture I know reappears, the swing in the corner, the large wooden table with a brunch spread, the potted plants.

The light becomes brighter, people enter my field of vision - my parents, the Betas, Alpha Owen, and sounds come together in my brain in phrases with meaning.
"Just in time," my father says, "Alpha Owen, this is our oldest son Lars."

"Alpha Owen," I shake his hand, focusing, like my mother has taught me, on the feeling of my feet on the ground and the strength of my magic core, so that I don't jump at his throat.

"Lars. This is my Luna, Isabel," Owen says, gesturing with a smile towards the woman in red standing next to him.

No, it's my Luna, I want to scream but instead, I fakely smile before gathering all my courage and offering her my hand. She accepts my greeting politely and, as we touch, my skin gets soothingly warm before it starts tingling with bond energy. It takes all I have to stop myself from pulling her into me in an embrace that would probably trigger her Alpha to kill me on the spot. Her eyes return my gaze with neutral kindness and I am surprised by her self-control. There is only a slight dilatation of the pupils, betraying that her wolf is probably also screaming "mate" in her head.

„She does but her human doesn't understand her," Lightning states in a pained voice." The human is marked, she cannot feel the bond with another male," he adds and the reality disappears again around me, leaving me alone, suspended in darkness.

I feel my little brother's shoulder accidentally on purpose bumping into my back.

"And these are Sven and Eino," my mother says and then I watch my mate shaking my brother's hands with the same polite smile she had offered me before.

When we are invited to sit, the guests take their place next to my parents, whereas my brothers and I are relegated next to the Betas. I cannot hear a word from what Isabel is saying to my mother, so I just regretfully watch her lips moving and wonder whether they also taste like sunshine and honey.

Owen turns to her to ask her if she would like more water, and I see her freezing under his voice.

I had only seen that look on a female's face once.

***

It was some years ago on a foggy autumn morning, and I was walking with my mother and Sven through the village, heading towards the forest where we trained our magic powers. Some shifters were already coming back from their morning rounds and in front of a house, one of the warriors was having a loud argument with his mate. As we came closer, I saw him grabbing her right marked shoulder with his right hand, while using his forearm to push her chin up and make her look into his eyes. And she did, with the same instinctively submissive gaze that Isabel has now.

That day my mother pulled the lambda's hands away from his mate with a blink of her sparkly eyes and reminded him in her Luna voice that we don't do "the grip" on this territory.

***

But Owen did not touch Isabel, he only asked her a very neutral question, in his very neutral voice. I don't understand why my mate is behaving as if she was subjected to the worst form of shifter abuse, which is using the other's mark intentionally, like a leash, to control their behavior.

"Bro, you are glitching," Sven punches me painfully in the ribs, drawing my attention to the fact that I have just frozen the juice in the glass I am holding. 

I am. Finding out that one's mate chose to mark another male does something to one's soul. It shreds it slowly in tiny little pieces, and then spreads them over a great distance, and then makes it rain acid on them, and then sets their remains on fire. And then freezes the ashes into oblivion.

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A/N: Uh-oh.