The ring of promise.

The following few days were blissful. The optimism coursing through the pack was undeniable.

Relief was the biggest gut feeling everyone had since they saw the water fall.

I visited the place with Ollen every single morning before heading for training.

The thin line of water running down the tall stone wall was getting slightly thicker with each passing day, making the hope in the pack rise even more.

But every time I was into the woods, Ollen's mother would make sure to whisper into my ears, to remind me that there was a quicker way to get rid of the curse, that all I needed to go was pick up a rock or steal a knife from the kitchen.

"He won't see it coming." She whispered one time, her voice soft as if she was trying to compel me to do it. "You've done great to earn his trust. He's willing to hold your hand and walk with you into the same woods he tried to kill you in. Take advantage of the opportunity and end him."

I wanted to argue, but that last thing I wanted was Ollen to hear that the voices were taunting me every single day, asking me to kill him.

This one particular morning, we sat down on the ground next to each other in front of the waterfall, him listening to the trinkle, and I watching the stone pull that was very slowly, but surely, filling up.

"I never imagined I would witness a day like this." He commented, forcing my eyes away from the water and into him.

A smile crept on my lips. The mere sight of him made me happy.

"And you made that possible." He added.

"I didn't do it on my own, Ollen. Your role in this was very important too." I replied.

He had a soft smile on his face as he listened to me speak. He looked so peaceful, so unbothered by the rest of the worries he had as he sat down next to me, breathing in the air that seemed to get fresher as the days went by.

"I have something for you." He said.

I watched as he reached for his neck and took off a string. On the string, there was a ring, and Ollen offered it to me.

I took the ring from his hand and looked at the smooth circle.

"Who did it belong to?" I asked, glancing between him and the ring.

"It belonged to my mother." He replied, and I felt the air around me tense, as if the whispering Luna was near us and was listening into our conversation.

"My father gave it to her as a promise before their mating ceremony, even before I was born. He told her he would upgrade the ring once they get mated, thinking the deep love he had for her would stop him from hurting her." He shook his head.

"Ask him if he remembers me." The fallen Luna whispered into my ears, but I wasn't sure if it was appropriate to question that.

"Ask him as a favor to me. I will owe you one." She pleaded, and it was the first time I heard affection in her voice when she spoke about her son.

I took a deep breath.

"Do you remember her?" I asked, my voice a bare whisper, fearing I would upset him with the question.

But Ollen didn't look upset. In fact, he seemed happy to share all he could with me.

"I don't remember her." He replied, shaking his head a bit. "I don't even remember what she looked like, what her voice sounded like. She's just a figure I couldn't remember and yet could not forget."

"Your father gave this to you after she passed?" I asked, and Ollen nodded his head.

"He wanted me to remember that a wishful thinking was not enough. He was wishful for not training his mind for the mating ritual. Because he had loved her so much, thay he thought the curse wouldn't work on him. He wanted me to keep the ring as a reminder, to wear it around my neck so I can remember every single second of every single day that even he had failed because he lacked preparation. " He replied.

"My poor son." I heard his mother whisper, and something inside of me broke.

I thought she hated him since she insisted that I kill him. But her broken whisper made me realize that it was not as simple as I thought it was. It was much more complicated. She was choosing to have others saved over the son she clearly cared about.

I thought she was giving me the easy way out, but to her, it was the hardest.

"Now, I want you to have it." He said, pulling at my attention again.

"Why?" I whispered, looking down at the ring.

"Because it is the most valuable thing I possessed that I can offer you, to show you how much you have come to mean to me."

My heart drummed in my chest, the rhythm fast and loud.

"Ollen..." I whispered, about to argue, but he reached a hand out.

"Give it to me." He said.

I placed the ring at the center of his palm and watched as he scooted closer to me.

He undid the string before he moved it to one hand and reached out the other to touch me.

He placed his hand on my shoulder first, then followed the path up to my neck, moving my hair to one side before he placed the string around my neck and tied it.

"There." He said.

Giving me the ring was another level of dedication. It warmed my heart instead of scaring me away.

"Thank you, Ollen." I whispered, wrapping my armed around his neck to hug him, holding on even if I was sitting at a weird angle and my back hurt from twisting to the side to hug him.

Our intimate moment was broken by one of his men approaching.

"Sir, there is someone at the boarder looking for he." The soldier commented, glancing towards the water for a few blissful seconds before he returned his eyes on us.

"Do you know who it is?" Ollen asked.

"Yes, Alpha. He is the Beta of the Sea and Moons pack. He said he has important matters to talk to you about, and he is refusing to leave." The soldier replied.

Ollen sighed, and I tensed.

Why was Markus here? What could they possibly want now?

"Would you like to join me?" He asked.

I was about to say yes, but his mother whispered in my ears to stay.

"I'll stay here for a little while longer." I replied.

Ollen, after dropping a kiss on my hand as if we were the most normal couple in the world, stood up and walked away.

I waited until I was sure he was out of ear shot before I looked around.

"Are you still here?" I asked.

"I am." The fallen, Luna replied. "That was a quite touching thing to witness."

"I didn't realize you cared about him." I commented.

"I didn't realize it either." She whispered. "All I could see when I look at him was his cruel father, the man who forced himself on me even before I came of age, even before I met my wolf, all because the previous pack witch told him that I was his soul mate."

My eyes widened. From the way Ollen talked about his mother and father's relationship with almost romance like. I was certain the two had loved each other first. I didn't realize his father was just another Alpha taking what he wanted and forcing a girl who didn't even come of age.

"I had Ollen very young. I think I was seventeen when I had him, pregnant at sixteen. That man took my life from me and forced me to be his little obident pet until the mating ceremony. He claimed he loved me. But you don't do that to a person you love. He didn't love me, nor did he care. He was just obsessed with being the one to break the curse, obsessed with thinking that feelings could fix the world. He was a weak man, and I, much weaker than he was, ended up brutally murdered on my mating ceremony night." She explained.

My heart bled for her as I touched the ring.

"That was not a promise ring he gave me to show his love. If was a prison cuff, a show for people since he wasn't allowed to mark me yet. I hated that ring with all of my being. It's too bad he convinced my son that it was the most precious thing in the world." She sighed.

"Ollen doesn't know any of thus, does he?" I asked.

"I used to think he did. I watched from far as he tortured the body, and he clawed his eyes bind and beat the map of the pack into his brain so he never stumbled when he walked. With how evil the man was, I assumed he would raise Ollen to be the same as him. I assumed he would teach him all the ways he could break a woman, take her without her will, and tie her to him so she may never leave, just like how Ollen the first did, and just like how his father did. I assumed he would know I never wanted to give birth to him in the first place..."

She fel quite for a few seconds before she signed.

"And I thought my conclusion of Ollen was confirmed on your mating ceremony when he almost killed you." She added.

I hugged my knees to my chest, trying not to shiver at the memory of my mating ceremony. I didn't want it to keep coming back and haunting me for the rest of my life.

"How come you helped me survive the ceremony? How come I became the first to survive?" I asked.

"I guess you got lucky." She responded, and I could imagine her faceless figure shrugging her shoulders. "He gave you time to breathe, time to actually listen to our directions. It wasn't like that for me. I could barely blink before his father attacked me, could barely let a word leave my lips, could barely listened to the frustrated whispers of the previous Luna's trying to give me directions to hide for the night. But you... he kept stopping himself. Even with all the damage he made, he could have hurt you a lot more if he hadn't hesitated a few times."

I recalled how he paced in front of me before I reached for the rock, how he had his head low as if he was trying to talk himself out of the entire situation.

"Maybe he is different from his father, after all." She added. "I don't want him dead. Not anymore, at the very least. But we all have to make sacrifices, and this will have to be our sacrifice."

I shook my head.

"I am not sacrificing him or anyone else." I said, pointing at the water. "It took just a month for that to happen. If we're patient, the pack will heal."

"But that doesn't mean he would stop coming after you every full moon. Healing the land might not nessasserly mean breaking the curse." She shot back. "Remember. The dead land and the cold air are not the curse. It is the rest of it, the result of not having a Luna for hundreds of years. It is not the curse itself. Unless you survive a full moon without him actively trying to kill you, then you can say the curse is broken. But you can't hide forever, Luna Joyce. There are not many places you could hide in, and he will get more and more frustrated with each passing month when he can't find you. It is a dangerous game you are playing, and I fear you will soon have to join the many fallen Lunas soon."

I felt her presence escape, leaving me alone in the woods. Her warning scared me, but it didn't scare me enough to want to kill Ollen or to run away.

I was going to stick this out.