The Rejected Wolf Turn Mighty Luna

Samantha's whimpering reduced till it stopped totally.

'You are really incredible, do you know that?' I asked, filled with genuine admiration for her

'How so?' she asked wiping her eyes, and sneezing into the handkerchief I pulled from my bed drawer and gave to her.

'You were suffering such pain and you gave nobody any indication of what you had been through? You went about smiling and trying to make me feel happy and well', I said.

'But you are also, incredible', she said smiling at me tremulously. 'You endured what you did from a very young age, and didn't even let on'.

'I have apologised, Samantha', I said, sorrowfully.

'I'm not complaining. Far from it! I'm just stating a fact', she said

'Which is?' I asked, sceptically.

'That we're one of a kind. We are brave and woe betide anyone who messes with us!' she said, with an attempt at a joke and we both burst out laughing, hugging and crying all at the same time.

'Okay, enough about me and sad tales', she said wiping her eyes again. 'You have really come a long way from princess to maid and now to Luna'.

'I am not the Luna yet', I protested.

'But you will!' she insisted. 'You have a problem of choice here as I see it. For how long will you keep the both of them fighting over you?' she joked.

'You know that's not it. I would choose Alpha Christopher in an instant but there are alot of things involved.', I said, not knowing to put my feelings into words.

'What things are you talking about?' she asked narrowing her eyes at me. 'Don't tell me you're in love with both of them?'

'Has it not been known to happen?' I asked seriously.

'What?'

'I was pulling your leg. Seriously, I do not feel for Alpha Sylvester what I feel for Alpha Christopher. They look so alike but they are very different!' I said.

'Then it should be easy to make your choice and tell them about it!'

'The council of elders said one of the mates would have to die for the other to live with me and that is why I am hesitant'.

'You must love Sylvester', she said.

'Why do you say that?' I asked amused.

'You claim you want vengeance on Alpha Sylvester and you discover an easy way to make him pay and yet you hesitate!'

'I know if I announced that my choice was Christopher, based on their beliefs, Sylvester would die but I do not want to get my vengeance that way. He has wronged me so much in the past but I do not want to kill him in cold blood!' I do not know if I want to kill him at all. I want to teach him an unforgettable lesson, what lesson, I do not know yet but I surely will', I said and paused for a while. 'Also, I keep having this feeling that I might choose Alpha Christopher and it is he instead of Alpha Sylvester that dies!'

'How can that be? Are you afraid Alpha Sylvester would kill his own brother to be with you?' she asked.

'I am not saying that but fate can be very funny and yes, I wouldn't put it pass Sylvester to do that. Not because of any special feelings he has for me but for his ego!' I said.

'You have decided not to believe that Alpha Sylvester has feelings for you and nothing I say will make you believe', she said resignedly. 'I know that your eyes will soon be opened to the truth of my words'.

'If I didn't know better, I'd say you were in love with Alpha Sylvester', I said, laughing at the incredulous idea.

Samantha was quiet for a while.

'Are you in love with Alpha Sylvester?' I asked, not wanting to believe what her silence was indicating.

She suddenly started laughing. She laughed long and hard and I kept looking at her incredulously. What was so funny?

'Oh, Millicent', she said wiping tears from her eyes, and trying to stop laughing. 'I am a broken bereaved woman and you think I already fell in love with your Alpha?' she asked.

'I do not know what to think', I said.

'Would you be jealous if I were?' she asked suddenly.

'That's a rhetorical question. You're not in love with him and that is that. No need to ask if I'd be jealous when you know I won't be!' I said.

'Ate you sure?'

'I don't have such feelings for him!' I said.

'You know, when we were here, before I met my mate, I had a crush on him, much like almost all the girls, except for you of course', she said. 'And it was the one lady who hated his guts, that he got mated to. Irony of fate! And now, he has fallen in love with that same lady'.

'You are incorrigible', I laughed at her persistence. 'Okay, you'll believe what you will and I'll believe what I will'.

'Will your feelings for him change if he were indeed in love with you?' she asked and I was not sure I liked the question.

'What do you mean?' I asked frowning.

'Will you start liking him at least if his feelings of love for you turns out to be sincere?'

'No!' I said strongly. 'And Samantha, could we drop this topic?'. I felt uneasy and did not know why.

A knock on the door interrupted us.

'Who is it?' I asked, a little harshly.

'Breakfast is served, my Luna - to - be', a maid poked her head in and announced.

'Thank you', I said more gently. There was no need to take out my anger and frustration on her. 'We shall soon be down.

'The Alphas said, they would not start until you joined them', she said.

'We'll be there in no time', I assured the maid, smiling at her, to take the sting from any stinging response I may have given her.

'Time to get out of bed', Samantha said as soon as the maid was gone.

I heaved myself out of bed and we went into the bathroom to clean up quickly, and descended the stairs to have our breakfast.

Alpha Sylvester informed us, a couple of days later, that he had it on good authority that Cathania was coming to visit and that he was going to get the confession from her if she was indeed responsible for poisoning me. We were to stay in another room. A bug and a camera were planted in the room where Alpha Sylvester would be with her and we would hear everything she said, and see all her reaction.

She breezed in, in her normal Lady - of - the - manor, manner and we gathered in the large room we had prepared for this occasion. Alpha Christopher was there with us as well.

'Alpha, you are a marvel. You have not been in contact with the woman you are supposedly engaged with!' she said without preamble when she saw Alpha Sylvester.

'Did I invite you?' Alpha Sylvester asked.

'Do I need any invitation before I can visit you?' Cathania asked, sounding furious. 'I have spent my years loving you, waiting for the day you'll make me your Luna, and you ask me why I have visited you without being invited?'

'Cathania, why did you do it?' he asked, looking piercingly into her eyes, as though she had not spoken.

'Do what?' she asked, and I sensed fear in her voice though I could not be sure. 'You mean visit you without invitation? Do I really need an invitation to visit my fiance?'

'Don't play dumb with me, Cathania. We already know you poisoned Millicent with wolfsbane', Alpha Sylvester said in a very deceptively quiet voice.

'If others suspect me, Sylvester, of such a thing, would you not stand by me, knowing that I couldn't do that?' she asked looking pained. 'Where is Millicent anyway?'

'Cathania, we are alone here and I want to hear it from your mouth so that I can help you the best way I can', Sylvester said, still looking at Cathania in a disquieting manner. 'but if you insist on lying about it, you know there are ways of finding out the truth and making you confess to your crime, and by that time, I will not be able to help you!'

Cathania was quiet for a while and we all though she was not going to respond to it, you know, take the bait.

'Sylvester, I did it! Cathania said furiously and we all exhaled. 'Do you blame me?', she continued. ' I have loved you all my life and you choose to side with a maid whose father murdered your parents, over me? What have I ever done to wrong you? Even now, I was doing it for you. I was doing your work. Something you should have done long ago', she was becoming hysterical. 'I do not know why you did not kill her when you murdered her parents!'. Christopher caught my hands in his, squeezing and his warmth gave me strength.

'When she was supposed to be serving you, you kept ignoring her rebellious attitude', she added. 'and even when you exiled her, you could not bear to be away from her, so, you went and got her back, hiding behind your discussion with the council of elders.

'Cathania, you were saying, you did it for me? What - exactly, did you do for me?' Sylvester asked

'I tried to kill Millicent with wolfsbane, for you, for us, so we could finally be together like we were meant to be', Cathania said. 'But the girl must be a cat with nine lives or a witch and she has refused to die'.

'When did you turn so vengeful and bitter?' Alpha Sylvester asked, shaking his head sadly.

'Since you started ignoring me for your new pet!' she said, laughing hysterically. 'And look who's talking about being vengeful. Were you not vengeful when you murmured her parents and destroyed her pack? Were you not vengeful when you maltreated her when she was a maid here? Are you being hypocritical on me now?'

'I regret all I did against her', Alpha Sylvester said. 'but it's no concern of yours'. Then in a harder tone of voice, his Alpha voice, used in sentencing and giving punishments, he said, 'For the crime of trying to kill the future Luna of the Moon Ville Pack, you shall be kept in custody and I shall decide what punishment will be best to give you. Or better still, Millicent will decide how she would want you to be punished!'

At Alpha Sylvester clap, some warriors came to take her away.

'Take her away and put her in custody, no one is allowed to visit her until she is made to serve the punishment I shall name!'

'You can't be serious, Sylvester!' Cathania shouted, struggling against the hands dragging her away.

The scene that came into my mind unbidden was how I must have looked as I was being dragged away from the corpse of my father.

'I am the daughter of an Alpha too! You can't treat me like a nobody!'

As the guards dragged her away, Cathania looked into the room where we were and saw us all looking at her.

She looked back at Alpha Sylvester with shock. She must have realised that there was no escaping the punishment for her crimes.

'You are starting a war, Sylvester', Cathania said. 'My father will not take kindly to the fact that you are detaining me here!' she said.

'He might change his mind when he hears what your crimes are', Alpha Christopher retorted. 'How could you do that to another? You have no Luna qualities in you at all'.

'It is going to be your word against mine! You cannot prove anything!' she said.

'You have just confessed to your crimes. Your confession was recorded and has been sent to your father. He already knows you are paying for the crimes you committed', Samantha said, the look in her eyes, incredulous.

'Even if your father wants war after seeing what you have been up to, then we shall be happy to oblige him and I promise you, the state he will find his pack would be a joke!' Sylvester said, threateningly, before the door shut behind Cathania and I believed him. Look at the state he left my pack of origin. That reminded me I wanted to ask around and find out what became of my birth pack.

'Alpha Sylvester wants to see you', The maid, Ann came to my room one day to tell me.'He said you should join him in the garden'.

'Alright', I said, thinking that what he wanted to see me for must be very important for him to ask that I should meet with him in his precious garden, though of late, he had not been too rigid about people entering the Reserved Area. No one went there, though except he sent them there for any reason, the fear of entering that place had already been instilled in them.

I put down the book I had been reading and straightening down the big round - neck polo shirt I had on over my jean short, I combed my hair, looking in the mirror to check that my appearance was good enough, I heaved a satisfied sigh, at least I wasn't looking unkept. Then, I walked out the door and through the back exit door, entered the garden.

I saw him pacing in the garden, lost in thought. But at the sound of my approaching footsteps, he turned round towards me with a welcoming smile.

'Millicent!' he called, spreading his arms for me to walk into them.

'Alpha Sylvester!' I greeted. When I was still a maid, I found it difficult calling him Alpha but now that I could call him by his given name without fear of repercussions, I call him by his title. Maybe because I feel that calling him by his name sounded intimate and that was not how I wanted to feel with Sylvester.

To prove to myself that I wasn't scared of any close proximity with him and to show him that I wasn't snubbing him, nor his attempt at friendliness, because I felt that was what it was all about, I walked into his arms. But unlike other times he had done the same thing, this time, he drew me close, enfolding me in his arms. I looked up into his face to assure myself that I wasn't misjudging this, I gasped at what I saw in his eyes. And as though he had been waiting for that exact reaction from me, he dipped his head and caught my lips with his, in a searing kiss.

I was shocked at first and stood rooted to the stop and he continued kissing me, then murmured, 'You taste so good. Just like I knew you would'.

That brought me out of my shock. I pushed him away. 'Alpha Sylvester, what do you think you are doing?' I asked, trembling with emotion.

'I am doing what I should have done long ago', he said, huskily, trying to pull me back into his arms. 'And you can call me Sylvester. Adding my title to it when we're alone like this, feels impersonal and that's not how I want to feel with you'.

'I'm sorry but I take exceptions to such behaviour!' I asserted, pushing him away again. I could not believe I was standing there, listening to what he was saying and allowing his hand on my body but I had started pretending that I was getting close to him, before Alpha Christopher came into the picture and stopping now might just raise a lot of questions.

'You don't have to be shy, we are mated and you will soon be my Luna', he said smiling at me. 'We are not doing anything wrong at all'.

'Well, until that time, I'd like us to maintain our distance!' I said, more forcefully than I intended. 'What I mean is that...'

'I know exactly what you mean', he said. 'If it were Christopher here now, would you have pushed him away?' he asked, roughly. What it pain I saw in his eyes? It couldn't be. The Alpha Sylvester I knew did not have a heart and hence could not feel hurt.

'Ann, told me you wanted to speak with me. I presumed it was something important...'

He hesitated as though he wanted to question me further but he must have changed his mind because he said, 'Yes, I wanted to ask you what you plan to do about Cathania!'

'Cathania?' I asked bemused.

'What punishment would you like her to serve for poisoning you?' he asked. 'I had promised to leave it up to you, else I would have given her a deserving punishment for poisoning the future Luna of the Moon Ville Pack'.

Did he mean that sincerely? What about his feelings for Cathania? Is he that fickle minded that his feelings changed with the tide?

'I have forgiven her', I said. 'I am only thankful that I survived it. There's no need punishing her. Moreover, she did it because she cares alot about you and felt threatened by my presence here!'

'That's no excuse and you cannot mean what you just said', Alpha Sylvester said with incredulity in his voice. 'If you do not punish her, others might think they could do anything against their leaders and get away with it. I like loyalty and punishing her will serve as a deterrent to others who might have any such thing in their minds'.

'Exactly, what I am saying!' I said smiling.

'What?' he asked bemused.

'She was being loyal to you', I said, 'At least that was what she thought she was doing when she did what she did', I concluded ,trying to point out to him, how Cathania's mind must have been working when she committed that grievous crime.

'So, you mean, you aren't going to punish her?' he asked, still not believing it.

'I shall not be punishing her and I plead with you to release her. She loves you and was only trying to protect her territory!' I said.

'I shall not let this go. She has to be punished', he said. 'If you do not want to punish her, then I will!'

'You shall do no such thing', I said with authority. He looked at me as though I had suddenly grown horns. Remembering he was not used to being ordered around, I said more gently, 'It is my prerogative to do with my chance to punish her as I desire! You said you will leave me to punish her as I see fit and I have just delivered my punishment. Which is for her to be released, let her conscience judge her. Moreover, she was your lover and I'll feel bad and morally unjust if I should make her serve a punishment other than the one I have given'.

'If you're sure', he said, uncertainly.

'I am very sure!' I said, confidently. 'Give the order that she should be released immediately.

'I'll do better than that', he said, looking at me with what I read to be grudging admiration and respect. 'Come with me, let's go tell her she is free to go!'