Chapter 8 : An Olive Branch

Almost immediately, she made me change my mind.

"He isn't wrong you know," Liana said to me, obviously defending Marcus' statements in our argument. "My brother is cold and harsh, but he isn't wrong. We were attacked today because of you, because our Alpha is rumored to be mated to a weak, human girl who only berates him and destroys the pack from within."

She had obviously been listening to everything outside the door. And she had her own thoughts about the exchange, and she clearly wasn't going to hold back from sharing them with me. But I really didn't want to hear it.

I felt anger flare up in me. I hadn't meant to come here; Jason had insisted. I wouldn't claim responsibility for something I hadn't done. But I saw the injured wolves in my mind, the ones laying on the ground of the room I had been in, and before I could answer, my words changed.

"I didn't do this," I said gently.

I knew that they would have given their lives to protect me because that was the worth of a Luna to them. That was the worth of their Alpha's mate.

But it really wasn't my fault that any of these things were happening. I didn't do anything.

"No," Liana said again, shaking her head. "You didn't mean to do this. But you did do this."

And then her words registered to me.

"He's your brother?" I asked her, a little curious. "I hadn't known that."

Not that I had cared all that much. It just seemed odd that something like that hadn't come up before.

"No," Liana said again, shaking her head. "You didn't ask. You didn't even notice."

I was a little taken aback by her words, and the tone with which she delivered them. She had been so cordial to me while I was imprisoned here. But I suppose that every jailer had their appointed end time.

Her tone now was decidedly colder, and I wondered briefly if the friendliness had all been an act before.

"I'm sorry I can't just scent things like you guys," I huffed.

It wasn't just Marcus that expected so much from me. It was the entire pack. They looked at me like I was supposed to be more than I was, like they wanted more than me. But there was honestly nothing that I could do about that.

"Don't we look alike?" she asked me, raising an eyebrow gently. "I wasn't aware that humans couldn't even tell when people were related."

I felt a hot flash of embarrassment. She was right. They did look alike. I really just hadn't been paying attention at all.

I swallowed hard. There was nothing more that I could say in answer. But there was nothing that I wanted to say, either. Her words made me stop and think. It was easy for me to focus on the fact that I wasn't a wolf. After all, it was the one thing that had been pointed out to me again and again.

But that wasn't all there was to the story.

How much of myself had I overlooked, simply because I wasn't a wolf?

I shook my head. I wasn't useless, even though I was just a weak human, not a wolf. There were some abilities that came with being human as well–maybe not super strength or a wolf form, but it wasn't that I was useless.

And I had gotten so fixated on what I wasn't, that I had forgotten what I was.

"Do you know what the mate bond is?" Liana asked me again, drawing me out of my thoughts. "Do you know what it is supposed to represent? Marcus should be able to hear your thoughts. He should be able to think of you and know how far you are away from him."

She didn't give me a chance to answer. She spoke like a rollercoaster of feelings had been unleashed. And I wondered how long she had kept this in her head for.

"And it's not just Marcus, either," Liana continued. "It's all of us. It's me, too. I should look at you, and see my brother. There should be no difference to me between the two of you. But now when I look at you, all I see is a person trying to destroy him, trying to destroy the pack from the inside out."

I swallowed.

"That's not…" I objected, stopping her from her tirade. "That's not what I'm doing."

Her words were unfair. Her accusations were unfair. That wasn't what I was trying to do, not at all. I wished the pack here no harm. I had nothing against these wolves. I was just trying to leave.

"I'm just trying to get home," I tried to reason with her.

"This is your home now!" she yelled at me, and it was then that I noticed tears welling up in her eyes. "Do you know how we can get another Luna?"

I shook my head. I knew that I was, somehow, Marcus' fated mate. But I had no idea if he would be able to get another Luna. Actually, as I thought about it, I knew almost nothing about the packs, and how they worked.

"Marcus has to die," Liana spat out. "That is how we get another Luna. Our Alpha has to die, and we have to get another one. My brother has to die."

"That's not what I want," I shook my head. "I don't want him or anyone else to die. I just want my freedom."

"That is the cost of it," Liana answered. "I am telling you how to get what you want. Kill my brother. And you can leave. But please, do it in his sleep. Because the pain of seeing his mate kill him will follow us."

I knew she wasn't serious, but for her to even have said those words was shocking.

"You know I don't want him dead," I murmured. "I don't want anyone to suffer for me."

"You keep saying that," Liana pointed out. "And then your actions prove otherwise. I wish you would just make up your mind and act on it. Because like this, you're killing him slowly. And if I have to watch my brother die, I would rather it not be this drawn out."

I sighed and sat down on the bed.

"I don't know what to do," I admitted to her. "I know that I can't escape here. There is no way that I can outrun any of you; there's no way that I can fight any of you off. But I can't also just accept my fate. I can't just surrender myself to him, to the pack. Please, you have to understand that I'm completely new to all this."

Liana took a deep breath. I guessed that she was trying to see my side of the story, too. She was trying to make this work for everyone. The truth was that I just didn't think that it was possible.

"The pack has really suffered since you've come here," Liana said, this time gently. "The other packs think that we've gotten weaker, they're poaching from the borders of our territory. Marcus sent wolves to repel them, and another pack attacked at the same moment and almost got right through our defenses–and almost got right to you."

That was the attack that had just happened.

"And it isn't just that, either," Liana said again. "There is dissension in the pack's hierarchy. Even Marcus' Beta is struggling. Some are pushing him to become Alpha; some are trying to kill him."

I swallowed hard.

"This is what this is," Liana said again. "Life and death. That's what we're dealing with here–wolves that are going to die. The wolf packs meet every five years to renew the peace accords, they are supposed to this year, but now there is a genuine concern that they won't this year because they know we're weaker. If they want a legitimate reason to attack and claim Marcus' territory, they will have to do so now."

I stared at her. I had no idea that the packs were this complicated, or this civilized.

"You are our Luna, Arealla," Liana said again. "Whatever that means for you, I don't know. But this is what it means for us. We are tied to you, even if you are human. Marcus is the best Alpha we have had in eons. Our pack is stronger than ever under his rule. We can't lose him. But now everything is threatening to fall apart, because he has you as his mate."

I had no idea what to say to her. But I could understand at that moment how my obsession with trying to get away, trying to get back to my old life, must have seemed so meaningless and trivial to them.

They were fighting for their survival, and I was just trying to run away from the forest.

"We haven't treated you terribly," Liana said, indicating to the tray of food that had been brought in for me.

But she didn't have to point that out. I'd never argued that they were treating me badly, either.

I always had food. The clothing that they had given me here was a thousand times better than anything I had ever worn. The room that I was given to sleep in was no prison.

I had nothing to say to Liana, there just was no way for me to defend myself to her. I had done everything that she was accusing me of. I just hadn't been aware of it.

Or maybe I had. I didn't know anymore. Could I really say that I was just trying to save myself? When I was in no immediate danger, and I was actually putting others at risk with my actions?

Could I still be the victim then?

"All I ask is that you consider this about more than just your own life," she murmured. And then, without saying anything else, she turned to the door.

Liana left, and how she could do it was the least of my worries right then.

Had I really been so selfish, that I was ready to condemn an entire pack to die?

That night, as I got ready for bed, I glanced at the white nightdress hanging in the closet. It was mine, or it was reserved for the Luna, at least. One of the wolves had told me that on my first night here.

It was a nightgown, but it was the most beautiful nightgown I had ever seen.

The Luna's sleep wasn't just sleeping. I knew so much more about it now than I had that night. But the Luna's sleep was a true dream. The Moon Goddess came to her in her sleep, and shared some of her wisdom, like a mother sharing knowledge with her daughter.

I reached for the gown, and slipped it over me.

And then I laid down to sleep.