Nefretiri
I'm scaring him.
Ivan has my arms, and it hurts. His grip is like nothing I've experienced before. Yet, I'm sure he doesn't mean to hurt me.
His hands are shaking.
The shallowness of his breathing sounds as if he's about to have a panic attack. His emotions are there for me to see, and they scream one thing.
Fear.
"You're..." I tried to move away, but I couldn't budge. "You're hurting me..."
"What?" He didn't realize what he was doing. Looking at his hands, he lets me go, staring at himself in shock. "I'm sorry. I... I'm sorry."
"It's okay." Rubbing my arms, I tried to diffuse the situation. I can see the difference between someone getting lost in the moment and actually wanting to hurt you. "I'm okay. You're... really strong."
"No, it's not okay. I shouldn't have done that." He sounded so ashamed. What do I do with that? Violence? I can handle it, but not this. "I know better. Werewolves are stronger than humans. I should've remembered that, but... I'm sorry."
"It's really okay," I said, not liking how he was yelling at himself in his head. It's not like I can hear it, but I sense it. "I was talking to myself. I... didn't mean to startle you."
For whatever reason, something I'd said sent him into a panic.
"I heard you..." He grew quiet, sitting down and putting his face in his hands. "I thought you were rejecting me."
"Rejecting you?" What was he talking about? "What is that?"
Unsure what else to do, I sat beside him. My hand found its way to his, intertwining our fingers.
I can't explain why I did it. It just seemed right. I offered him comfort without getting too intimate, but something told me that wouldn't help us.
"A bond can be broken," he said, as quiet as a mouse, the fear so clear now that it was numbing. "If one of us didn't want to be mates, we could break the bond. We'd always be soulmates, but there wouldn't be a connection anymore."
"You mentioned that at the store..." I remembered what he said when he made his offer. "You said... if I didn't want to be with you, you'd reject me. Right?"
"Yeah..."
The possibility was agonizing.
My chest tightened, and pain raced up and down my arms as if I were having a heart attack and a stroke. It was as if my whole being couldn't stand the idea of being rejected.
Now I understood Ivan's reaction.
"No, I wasn't rejecting you," with a light squeeze, I tried not to sound as shaken as I did, but my lip refused to stop quivering. "I was... rejecting Ricky and his family. I don't want that life anymore. It occurred to me, and it sounded right."
"That's… a great idea," he said, facing me. "Is that what you really want?"
"Wait... I didn't mean like that. Ricky is definitely not my soulmate. He's my husband, and I'm still deciding if soulmates are real." That might be more than a lie. I believed in them. I just didn't deserve one. "Wait... does this mean you could reject me?"
"No, of course not." I've never watched someone give an answer so quickly.
"But... you were afraid I would. Doesn't that mean you could too? It's about free will, right?"
"Yes. We have free will, but I could never reject you."
I wanted to believe him.
'Such pretty words from a man who expects you to expose all your secrets but won't share his.' There was that voice again. It's too much to hope that it was gone. 'Why is he panicking at the idea of you rejecting him? A man without sins wouldn't care.'
"I don't want to go back to Ricky." Damn that inner voice. It sounded so rational when it wasn't mocking me and had a point. "But... I... really don't know what I want to do. Soulmates is something I never thought I'd need to worry about."
"I understand, and we'll take it as slow as you want. Years if that's what you need. I'm happy to do that. Nefra, I'm just happy to have you in my life."
'Sounds perfect. What's the catch?'
"What do you expect from me? If I go with you."
"Nothing."
'Really? Nothing? And what? Eventually, you fall for his charm and end up in his bed? What then? Do you let him claim you? Do you become his good little bitch? Or do you breed him a den of pups? Imagine it. Werewolves with the power of sorcerers. What an appealing prospect for an Alpha. He'd be unstoppable.'
"Seems too good to be true," I hated myself for this, but I needed the answer. "You'd be alright with me not taking this Luna position? To just be there in your pack? I can't imagine anyone else being alright with it."
"Nefra... You are Luna. That's your birthright, but I won't make you if you don't want to be an active leader. We've done okay. Some people can do the job."
'Oh, so we're useless? Fantastic. Doesn't that mean he's giving us busywork? Funny. It sounds like he's making up work for us to do, so we stick around. Imagine a life where people have to pretend you're something special.' What was wrong with me? He's not saying that, is he?
"So... you don't actually need me? Someone else does the Luna's job, and you just want me around like a what? An accessory? A pet?" I got up and paced.
"No! Of course not!" Ivan rose too, the phone barely offering enough light to see his expression. "We haven't had a Luna since my grandmother. Since then, others have done the job. It's not the same thing. Plus, there's a power struggle."
'Oh, politics! You're so good at politics!' The sarcasm rivaled mine, and my body stiffened at the idea.
"Politics?" Nothing could freeze me up more. The muffin tops always tried to get me to enjoy politics, but I couldn't. My opinions were too scattered, and I could never choose a side. "I'm not good at that. I... can't do that kind of job."
"And you wouldn't have to." With his hands on my shoulders, Ivan tried to soothe me. He mistook my reaction for panic, but it was so much worse. "I can't handle it most of the time. That's why we have a Beta and Gamma. They help. I have a council, and the elders. We wouldn't do things alone."
"That's a lot more politics," Ivan didn't get it. I saw the threads that tied everything together. A council and elders means potential conflicts of interest. How do I deal with them? Ricky kept me isolated from the world. "I can't even win an argument over dinner!"
"You're wrong," Ivan's hands found their way under my tank top, rubbing my sides. My anxiety lessened, and I immediately pulled away.
"Don't do that!" As much as I wanted to revel in the euphoric effects of his touch, I needed the panic. It kept my thoughts clear. "Don't manipulate me with this bond."
"I'm not trying to do that," raising his hands, Ivan took a step back. "I'm just trying to help you calm down like you did for me."
When had I done that?
'As if you could be Luna. You're not even brave enough to touch him. How will you handle a pack?' the voice sneered, and I had to fight the urge to mimic the action. 'You're so scared to fail, and you will. Just wait and see. You'll prove how worthless you are and bring them down.'
"You should reject me!" I yelled, scaring Ivan and me.
"What?" The calm Ivan had disappeared again, and now we're both on the verge of a nervous breakdown. "No!"
"I can't do this. You can't ask me to be something I'm not. I'm not good enough to be Luna!" I started rambling, walking away from him, only to come back. "You don't see it yet, but I'll mess everything up. You need someone else. Someone who knows what they're doing and... I can't. I'll let you down."
"Nefra! Baby! Calm down!" Ivan grabbed me, and he didn't give me a chance to protest this time. He stripped off his jacket and shirt and lifted my top to expose my stomach.
"No!" I struggled, but he didn't let me. Now, I was off the ground, my legs wrapped around his waist and my bare skin pressed against his. The effect was instantaneous. "Stop that."
"No, you need this..." Ivan relaxed his breathing, holding me close before sitting on the bench. He said nothing else, holding me the same way he had earlier.
The pleasant fog returned, taking control of my thoughts, and I stopped focusing on anything but him. His scent, and how safe I am in his arms.
The voice became silent, and I was alone in my head.
It's nice but also terrifying. What kind of power did he have over me to change my mood like this? Was I my own person?
"Please stop," my voice trembled as I begged for autonomy, something I wasn't sure I needed.
"I'll never make you do anything. You'll always be able to think for yourself." It shocked me that he understood my fear but didn't let me move, kissing my forehead. "All I'm doing is helping you calm down. That's all. Is that okay?"
Not trusting my voice, I nodded, resting my cheek on his chest.
I felt better. The anxiety's gone, and I could still think.
He was right.
The initial fog was a nice vibration but not as overpowering. The more I embraced it, the easier it was to find my center.
"Nefra? I will never, ever reject you. Not if it's up to me," the growl in his voice sent tingles down my spine and between my legs. I had to fight not to wiggle, or he'd know what he did to me. "Yes. I want to be with you, and I want you as my Luna, but if that's not what you want, then I won't make you. If you stay with me and become Luna of the Sebryanyy Kinzhal, we'll take it as slow as you need. No one will ask you to do anything until you're trained, and you'll have all the support in the world. Goddess forbid anyone tries to make you do more than you're ready for... I know it's a lot, and I'm sorry. We should've talked about this later, but I don't want to lie to you."
"I don't like the idea of you rejecting me," I mumbled, my nose stinging as I sucked back the tears. "It hurts."
"I know. It hurts me, too," Ivan made that strange, mournful whine again, and I tried to imagine any other human making it.
"I don't like this," I confessed more to myself, but I kept mumbling, readjusting myself to rest on Ivan's shoulder. "My emotions go sideways, and I don't know why."
"It's the bond," Ivan explained, his hands rubbing my back as his lips brushed against my neck and shoulder. "We're talking about the concept of breaking it. The magic wants to fight against that."
"That's stupid."
"Agreed."
It took time to calm down. Neither of us wanted to move, and by the time I'd settled my emotions to something resembling normal, I looked like a koala.
How did werewolves function if they acted like this? How would I?
If the bond's magic didn't want to be broken and caused this kind of reaction, how would I make a genuine choice?
"What's this?" something pressed against my chest, and I'm sane enough to ask about it.
"My dog tags," Ivan said, looking down. He moved one hand from my back to hold up the chain.
"You were in the military?" That didn't shock me.
"Marine Corps," it was the first time I heard genuine pride in him. Whatever else was going on, Ivan was proud of being a Marine.
"Are you still one?" I'd met a few soldiers in New York but never a Marine, so I knew nothing about them.
"Always," his lips formed a smile as he pressed another kiss on my shoulder, his breathing still a steady rhythm to keep me calm. "You never stop being a Marine, but they discharged me three years ago."
"Why did you leave?" The story so far piqued my curiosity. Cautiously, I sat up, my fingers finding the chain and tracing the edges of the tags. I expected him to pull them away, but he didn't. The metal's warm, making me wonder if he ever took it off. This was a massive part of his identity; I didn't need to ask to understand that. So, why leave?
"A few reasons... I got hurt on my last deployment. Took me a while to heal. Even as a werewolf. I was planning to go back afterward, but..." he stopped, taking back the tags. "I couldn't reenlist."
"Oh," I'm disappointed. He really didn't want to share, even though he had promised. Could I expect more? No, but I'd hoped.
"I told you I'd tell you everything, and I will, but... This is part of the story. Are you sure you want to hear it?" Even with the hesitation in his voice, I knew he meant it.
So much for my assumptions.
"Yes." Despite my fear of the answer, I longed to know. So, I turned my body sideways, resting my head on his shoulder with my legs dangling over his thighs. It was oddly comfortable. "Before I decide anything, I want to know your story."
"Okay..." Exhaling a heavy breath, looking up at the sky, Ivan leaned back. "My uncle died three years ago. I was recovering, and there was a rogue attack. He was the Alpha, and the title went to me with him gone."
I wanted to say something, but what?
I'm sorry seemed hollow and something else condescending. When my mom died, all I wanted was comfort, not words.
So, I grabbed his hand like I had before and pressed it against my chest. The gesture felt stupid, but Ivan held me closer.
"I've trained my entire life to take over. Most Alphas take over when they're twenty-one after they come back from service, but I held out a little longer..."
"Every werewolf does military service?" It reminded me of countries in South America that had rules like that.
"Every supernatural," Ivan corrected, and it left me stunned. "It's odd you didn't have to, and we'll have to look into that, but there's a law that states everyone of us has to do three years of military service. Most go through the dragon army, but a loophole from the civil war lets us enlist into the human military as long as we sign a document promising we'll fight on behalf of the dragon king if a war breaks out. It's stupid, but—"
"Wait!" he gave me a lot of information, and I didn't understand half of it. "Dragon army? Dragon king? What is that?"
A headache's forming, my brain nudging at me like I was supposed to know something and didn't.
'Maybe Ricky used magic on me.'
"Without going into a lot of history and politics..." Ivan clicked his tongue, clearly frustrated with the topic. "One king rules all supernaturals. The dragon king, Shakka. He rules through the royal court and the army. It doesn't matter what race. We all follow his laws, including the one for service. You go in at seventeen and come out when you're twenty unless you choose to stay in. That's how it's been for centuries."
"One guy rules everyone?" That isn't right. "But... how does he keep control? Is everyone happy with that arrangement?"
"No, but Shakka's a very complicated creature with a very bloody history. No one who's gone against him has won."
That was hard to swallow, but some unconscious instinct warned me to be careful.
It's the same feeling animals get when there's a predator around. Even hearing his name was as if a weight was being pressed against me.
Why hadn't Sarah ever mentioned him or the Royal Court? She had plenty of opportunities to talk about it, but she never did. What about Liam or Maggie?
Why had they kept that information from me?
"So... you all go into the military, and you wanted to stay, but you got hurt, and your uncle died..." That was a decent recap. "Did you want to be Alpha?"
"You know something?" Ivan laughed, his body shaking so hard I thought I'd fall off his lap. "No one's ever asked that before."
"No one?" I found that hard to believe.
"No one," he confirmed, startling me when he pushed himself up and sat on the table with his legs on the bench. "The closest I came to that conversation was when I was a teenager, and I asked my uncle why my cousin Vince wouldn't be Alpha instead of me. He said the position was mine, and Vince would be Gamma, my dad's old position."
"I'm going to assume there's a story to all that."
"There is. My cousin is my uncle's adopted son. Sadly, Tony lost his mate before they were ever together. Vince was her nephew, and after she died, he was an orphan. So Tony took him in. You met him. The guy with brown eyes, crew cut, windbreaker?"
"The one making faces at Penelope?" I remembered him. "He grabbed the spaghetti for me."
"Yeah, that's Vince." I wonder if all werewolves are so attractive. Vince wasn't as hot as Ivan, but there wouldn't be many women or men who wouldn't call him handsome. "No, I never wanted to be Alpha. But I didn't have a choice. The pack needed me, and I had a duty to fulfill."
"But you wanted to be a soldier..."
"I did," he agreed, something changing in his tone. "Not going to lie. I've seen the worst of the world. There's a lot I won't ever get out of my head. Sometimes people ask themselves how others can be evil, but I don't. Monsters are real, and they're not always supernatural."
"I believe that."
'Just think of Ricky.'
"That said. I was proud of what I did. I've saved lives and changed them. Stood beside people who'll be my family till I take my last breath because we did impossible things together, but I've also been the monster. I've killed a lot of people, Nefra. That's not something I'll lie about because if I had to kill now, I'd do it without thinking. It's part of who I am. At the end of the day, I'm a predator, and it's part of what I am."
He wasn't justifying anything.
To Ivan, this was a fact. Now, I'm in a position where I need to process how I feel about it.
That was difficult. How did you deal with someone saying that to you, especially with whom I married?
Ricky enjoyed killing, but did it matter to Ivan as a soldier and a wolf? Or was it the same thing?
"I won't apologize for what I've done, Nefra..." He kept going, taking my silence for uncertainty. "I can't. If I start, then I'll question every kill I made. That'll drive me crazy. Sometimes, I've thought about it... Whether someone deserved to die and if I could go back if I'd do the same thing, and I'll be honest... I would."
"Did you ever kill someone for the fun of it?" Honestly, I meant to think that, not say it, but now that it was out, I wanted an answer.
"No, I never kill without a reason." Ivan didn't know how relieved I was to hear that. "But... I won't pretend I've never enjoyed a kill. Like I said, I'm a wolf. Hunting is part of our nature. But I swear I've never taken a life without cause."
"Then you're doing better than Ricky," I started playing with his tags again, needing something to distract my mind. "He kills for fun. We saw that."
"Death is death, Nefra. I won't pretend there isn't a part of me that's like him. Different, but still a monster."
"I don't believe that. If that were true. You wouldn't have hesitated to kill them even if I asked you not to. It doesn't seem like much, but it is." I don't know why I was making excuses, and for once, there's no guilt. "I think all soldiers feel like you at some point. You see more than we do, and I can't imagine how bad it can be. That doesn't make you bad or a monster. But I get it... I've killed no one, but I feel like I have."
"That's different..."
"It's not. But I don't see the point in arguing about it." I would always feel that guilt, but I didn't want to face it tonight, not again. "So, what happened after you took over your pack?"
I had to fight the urge to call it our pack.
"At first, everything worked. Something always needed handling, and I didn't have to think about anything except fixing the problems. There wasn't time to grieve. One day, there was no crisis left. The pack was recovering from what we'd lost. Now, there was quiet and..."
"Things caught up with you." I understood that too well.
"Yeah, and I... stopped being able to function anymore," burying his face in my hair. Ivan took several deep breaths as if bracing himself for the rest. "Nefra? This will get worse. Are you sure you're ready?"
Honestly, I wasn't sure I was.