The Beast's Virgin Claim

Their emotions were sincere for I reviewed their eyes as well. I could not breathe the heftiness of the remorse of what I had done weighed like a load on my shoulders, the despair of my wolves who I deserted for selfish reasons came to suffocate me.

"Thank goddess you are safe, Luna. We thought we lost you." One of the females whined as she wrapped her limbs around my waist and nuzzled into my neck seeking comfort. I stood there still as a statue encompassed by their heat. I did not know what to say, I could not meet their eyes either.

My responsibility as their Luna should have made me think twice before leaving my pack but I allowed my emotions to manipulate my mind and the consequences of it shall forever be imprinted in my essence and it was my burden to bear.

Phobos said he did not want to formally introduce their future Alpha to the pack yet as Tadeas was very tired from travel and he was in an unfamiliar territory which put him at unease. The pack agreed that it would take a few months but made sure they all got a glimpse of him, of his features and what he possessed underneath his flesh. His soul.

They were not like the females in Italy rather they applauded the power that oozed out of him and spoke of his beauty and the darkness he held in good light.

They declared he was worthy and that they would unhesitantly kneel at his feet as soon as he was of age which filled me up with pride to be his mother. They were delighted for Phobos and me as we had finally become parents and blessed our lands with an heir.

No wolf dared to speak of my past of my infertility, they wanted to forget it as though it never happened for at the end of the day the moon had blessed all of us. They did not want to bring me any more pain.

"My pack is like me. Has always been so. It takes time for them to warm up to a foreigner but once they get used to them they will never let them go. They will love them, protect them and care for them and they already do so with you, Theia. I hope your blindness has finally shifted and you can see our wolves for who they are and not who you condemn them to be.

You preferred the Italian pack and began to make your home there even when your true dwelling has always been on these grounds, next to me and by my side. But you chose otherwise. I do not want to wound them so I will keep this a secret.

That pack in Italy, the females who helped birthed our male I wonder if they honoured our male like our wolves did or they beheld him like he was an abomination of the moon?" When Phobos spat those words into my ear with a knowing tone I could not answer him or oppose him on it. How could I when he was right in every way?

Another block of weight was added to my guilt and my shoulders quaked incapable of holding it up anymore.

When I entered our cottage with Tadeas I was taken off guard as I examined all the marked sheets of numerous maps thrown about over the wooden floor of the living room, the couch was ripped apart to the point I could see the spring inside, the cream coloured curtains were shredded as well with claw marks and bloody handprints, empty liquor bottles flooded the kitchen as well as shattered glass and broken furniture.

The dining table we loved to sit and eat at was split into two unequal halves and the chairs did not possess any legs or arms. There were bloodstains splattered all over the walls, his blood I could smell it and some of it was fresh.

My room looked the worst, my clothes were yanked from my closet and were flung over the rumpled bed that showed me it was his nest that healed him in his desperate times. My paintings were taped to the walls as though he needed something to remind him that I was out there somewhere alive and breathing.

Anything and everything that possessed my fading scent was on that bed some of my clothes were ripped too as though he was holding onto it for dear life for my smell in this cottage was dying. It was absolute shambles yet it displayed ten months of my male's suffering and it broke me.

Phobos's room on the other hand was untouched yet filthy. There was dense dust that covered every inch of the room and it smelled utterly foul. He had never set foot in there since I left I could see that. And with a weighty heart, I cleansed the place over the weeks that followed. It was not an effortless job for I saw the remnants of his misery and heartache that taunted me for my sins.

My male did send a few of his warriors at times to aid me but I sent them all away. The house needed my healing just like my moon blessed.

I waited for him day and night with Tadeas but he never did come home to me most of the time. He often remained out in the shadows of the wilderness and worked with his warriors early in the mornings. Breakfast, lunch and dinner I cooked for him but the piping food I hopefully placed on our new table went cold for he never ate what I made for him.

He would not eat with me, would not speak to me, would not even look at me. He was not being so distant to punish me but because he wanted to be so. He needed time I knew that but still I could bear his indifference to me for our tiny cottage held so many beautiful memories that tormented me and I needed him.

But just like the sun was birthed after every brutal storm, to my surprise he began to come by twice a day to check on Tadeas and at times once the little one's belly was full he would take him away to spend some time with him but me, I got nothing just those sharp nods of regard and acknowledgement.

Sometimes I compelled him to have a decent conversation with me and he would comply yet I would receive only one-word answers or short sentences.