Chapter 10 : A Learning Attempt

"Okay," I nodded. "I can understand that."

There were a lot of things that I needed to learn about his world, and maybe the first thing shouldn't be what was obviously the bone of contention between us. It was just surprising to me to learn that these creatures, and especially Alphas, seemed to have these incredible abilities, yet also seemed to have incredible weaknesses.

I had the feeling that it was going to come up again, that we would have to address this issue at one point or another, but right then was not that time.

I wasn't offended by it either way; this was only our first conversation that didn't include accusations, insults, and screaming. It was already a win in my book.

I didn't see us becoming lovers. But maybe there was a way that we could make this a little more bearable for both of us.

"But if you have any other requests," Marcus said, clearing his throat. "Then I am willing to make myself amenable."

There were a lot of possibilities in his sentence, but maybe he just spoke like that.

"Will you teach me more about your world?" I asked him. "I want to learn."

He didn't answer, his face impassive. I had said what I already knew about his world. Some of it had been wrong, but there had been a point or two that I had gotten right. I wasn't delusional. Just because I had guessed one or two things right about their life, didn't mean that I knew anything concrete about them at all.

But it was a start. And it showed that I was willing to make an effort.

And there was not much more that I could do other than that.

Marcus was silent for so long that I was sure he was going to refuse me. And I wouldn't blame him. This made no sense. Just a day ago, I was screaming at him to let me leave. And now here I was, asking to be shown how his world worked.

I was having a hard time not giving myself whiplash.

But it really was as simple as this. I hadn't understood what was going on myself. I hadn't known that things were this chaotic and insane. And I hadn't seen that it wasn't just me that was affected by this.

I realized now that what I was asking for would only be more dangerous than the situation I was in.

There was no way for me to leave the pack now, not safely. I had Marcus' scent all over me. Any wolf would be able to track me. If I ran across any wolf in the city, or anywhere else in the world, they would know who I was.

If I left the pack now, I put an immediate target on my back.

And that hadn't been Marcus' fault. I had come into the pack. Jason had asked, and he had brought me here, but I had come willingly. And there had been more than a few consequences to those decisions.

But they were decisions that I had made willingly. So now I was prepared to deal with the consequences of my actions.

In whatever form they may be.

I wasn't still convinced that I would have to stay here forever, but I was sure that I couldn't just up and leave like that. I had to face the music and I had to leave in a way that would be safe for me and everyone else that I had involved.

He was quiet for so long that I was sure he wasn't going to answer me, that he wasn't going to speak at all. But after a while, he did.

Maybe he was just testing me, to see if I was being sincere.

"Can I have some time to think about this?" Marcus asked gently.

And I was only relieved that it wasn't a negative. I nodded immediately.

"Why the change of heart?" Marcus asked again, lightly. "I thought you wanted to be away from here. And now you're willing to learn about our laws?"

I understood his suspicion. Liana had just told me that the attack earlier was a result of a spy. He would be on his guard naturally. Honestly, so would I.

"I can't leave though, can I?" I asked him seriously. "Not just that you would never let me walk five paces away from my guards. I genuinely cannot leave the pack, can I?"

Marcus swallowed, and I knew that I had asked the right questions, finally. I had been so busy making demands all over the place, I hadn't thought about everything that was happening properly.

"I don't know," Marcus admitted softly. "You're human, so I can't say what will or will not happen."

Everything about our situation was as new to him as it was to me. It wasn't just me that had fallen into this new world, Marcus had never imagined what was happening now to the both of us, either.

"And if I was a wolf?" I asked him again, sure that it would change his answer. "If I was a Luna, and I became your mate, would I just be able to leave, even if you let me?"

Marcus smiled then.

"No," he answered softly, a small smile still on his face. "You would never have been able to leave then. The will of the Moon Goddess would have driven you insane."

I pursed my lips into a straight line. That wasn't what I had thought was going to happen, but I was glad to have the answer, at least.

"What does that mean?" I asked him. "Driven me insane how?"

Marcus sighed.

"There was a Luna, not too long ago," he spoke softly. "She hated being part of her pack. She was raised to hate them. Her pack that she had been born into had been at war with the pack that her mate was from. But her mate was an Alpha, too, so she had no choice. But after a while, she decided to just escape, to run away and leave."

Marcus gave me a wry smile then.

"Not unlike you, actually," he said with a soft laugh, but it faded quickly. "But unlike you, she had the capacity and strength to do it. She was a wolf, a Luna, mated to an Alpha. Her guards didn't stand a chance against her. She wanted to leave them all, so she did."

I held my breath, waiting for him to continue.

"And then she died," he said softly. "Not immediately. She went insane; each night when the moon rose in the sky, she struggled. Her own thoughts were scattered, her transformations harder, her moon dreams were nightmares. Her pack was suffering without her, her mate was suffering without her, and so the Moon Goddess punished her for her selfishness. And it continued for an entire month. It started at a full moon, and by the time the moon was full again, she had clawed out her own heart."

I swallowed hard. It didn't sound like that was something that would be relegated to wolves only. That very much sounded like something that could happen to me, too. I knew that I wasn't going to ask him difficult questions. But I had no choice. I had to know.

"Could some version of that still happen?" I asked him. "I'm not a wolf, so my senses are not heightened to your level. But does that mean that I still won't be affected by anything that has happened at all?"

Marcus shook his head slowly.

"I think you might still be affected by it," he answered. "But I'm not willing to test it out."

His words shocked me a little. He wasn't willing to let me go insane. A part of his reasons for just keeping me here, keeping me close to him, had been to protect me, too.

"Neither am I," I answered him flatly.

I had enough problems on my plate. The last thing that I wanted was to have to try to decipher whether my own mind was playing tricks on me or not.

"Then you can't leave," Marcus murmured softly, but he spoke more like he was talking to himself. "But I will keep my guard watching over you anyway."

I nodded; that was the sane thing to do. This might just be a ploy on my side to get him to lower his guard, for all he knew. It made no sense for him to order his soldiers off of me now, especially given that the pack had literally just been attacked.

My sudden change of heart, though it made sense to me, would not make as much sense to him, not when he didn't have access to my thoughts.

Marcus then stood up from where he was sitting.

"Come here," he said softly, beckoning me over to him. "There is something that I can teach you right now, that you should probably know, whether you are going to stay here willingly, or leave to insanity."

I walked over to him, across the colorful rug that covered the floor. Once I was near him, again I felt that heat I had felt before. I thought it was a one time thing, but no, this was Marcus.

He indicated for me to look down. I noticed that it hadn't been a rug that I had just walked over; it was a very detailed and textured map.

"There are five main packs," Marcus said, pointing at the map below us. "And so, five main territories. There are other packs as well, but they're smaller, and their territories are within the major ones. They pay one-tenth of their annual produce and everything."

I nodded, staring at the map below us. It was color-coded, with five major colors dominating the map. Within the five, there were small shades of different areas.

Marcus came closer to me, and I could feel his presence, that heat now stronger. I figured it was more than just a wolf shifter thing; Marcus couldn't enter a room and not be noticed. My heartbeat picked up just a little, and he must have noticed because he took a step back.

But I didn't think that it was fear that made my heart beat just a little faster.

"This is us over here." He pointed out what was easily the biggest of the territories. "This is Clearwater; they're second largest. Then the Red Timber Pack; they are good friends to us. And there is Black Rock. This is the Diamante Pack; they're the smallest of the big five–still part of it, but almost a territory within. Another lost war, and they will be absorbed by one of the packs."

I glanced over at another huge piece of land, a territory that looked almost as big as Marcus'.

"What is that?" I asked him.

But before he could answer, the door opened again, and another wolf came in.

"Leave," Marcus said, and his voice was so abrupt that I was sure he was talking to the other wolf. But I turned to see him looking at me. "This conversation isn't for you. Leave now."

I blinked, and I was so taken aback by his words that I walked out without thinking. I blinked quickly; I knew that it probably hadn't been personal, but that was what stung the most. I had just begun to think that we were making progress, and then I had been reminded who I was.

Even though I was his Luna, I was still nothing to him.