“A what?”

“A Consort is almost like a mate and a bodyguard all combined in a single role. You get more and more powerful with your connection to her and as she is, in a way, giving you her lifeforce but she pays by losing her own strength through this connection. The rest of the pack was uneasy about the fact that she chose you, an outsider, to be her Consort. But who would dare to question her, as Elias said before you tore out his throat. Consorts are parts of old bonds that have mainly been lost to most werewolves and Lupinine cultures because of the double edged sword they create between the bonders. Many don’t feel it’s worth the risk to devote so much energy to one being.”

“Why would she spare me her lifeforce to make me stronger if it makes her weaker. It makes no sense.”

“Wow, you’re blind.” Alec sputters in disbelief.

“How’s that?”

“I’m just saying, why else do you think she is giving you her lifeforce?

Alec was at a loss for words on why he wouldn’t know what seemed to be so obvious to everyone around him, even me as I heard this for the first time.

“It’s because she’s developed feelings for you and wants to keep you around for a long time if not forever. You may even say she loves you though others in the pack speculate that you actually enchanted her yourself for the exchange – as improbable as that would be seeing as you know nothing about our culture.”

“I, enchant her? She’s invincible! None of this makes any sense. I thought that she was just helping me acclimate to life as a Lupinine and that she wanted us to have a stronger, more cohesive pack. As Alpha, she has the right to do whatever she wants with each and every member in her thrall.”

“And yet she only chooses you to fulfill that role. A role that is normally bestowed upon the greatest of the pack, an elder with a vast amount of strength and knowledge. A role not meant for a human, let alone a whelp that would otherwise be everyone’s bitch – pardon my French. I think her love has blinded her to your faults and she doesn’t see that you have no intention of spending your immoral life with her.” The last few bits earned Alec a glare but his words must have rung true to him because he was silent for a few moments. He even opened up his mouth a few times like a gaping fish trying to gasp for air but would say nothing and snap it shut.

“My point is,” Alec continued his point of view. “As strong and powerful as Lyssandra is, she does have a weakness now.”

Alec waited a few moments but let out a resigned sigh when he didn’t catch on. “You, of course!”

“Oh.”

“She is grooming you to become her mate but it takes time and energy with the lifeforce exchange and as a Consort, you’ll need to match her in strength and power before you can be her mate. Each time she creates the exchange, you should realize the power that she is giving to you and how it makes you stronger and her vulnerable. Not much is known about these exchanges but I’ve heard the lifeforce can change a person for a short period of time, sometimes indefinitely if the one receiving the energy is weak willed or unmated. Maybe in time, you could pay her in kind for her atrocities when she is finally at her weakest.”

“So you’re saying that I should just do nothing after what she did to me and my family?!” He yelled incredulously.

“No, what I’m saying is that you need to wait. Going after her now will get you and most likely, me killed. She hasn’t completed her tutelage of you and she is in no position to start training someone else after how much she’s invested in you over these past three years. You just need to wait until the time is right and take what you can from her. When you are finally stronger than she is, you can make a move, but until then, you are just another prey that she will devour if you question or her authority or prematurely attack her.”

He nodded his head, absorbed everything Alec said to him with restraint when his head snapped up in realization. “Why are you helping me? Aren’t you loyal to Lyssandra because she is your Alpha.”

“You’re not the only one that lost loved ones when you joined this pack. She wasn’t originally my Alpha yet she took me away from my family, my first pack, that included everyone I held dear and waged a war that killed them all. She claimed me as a prize and as a warning to other packs to not make the same mistakes that mine did when they challenged her authority. My other pack’s territory actually comprises of the land that your cabin was built on. Your family and countless others have coexisted with our pack and didn’t have the same prejudices as Lyssandra. Had she not taken over my pack, your family would probably still be alive because we didn’t have a problem with humans as long as they kept their distance and not harmed anyone.”

I could tell as I watched the interactions between these two pack members, that this was the first time either of them have talked to someone openly to this extent and had an understanding based on their common losses and backgrounds.

“My Father was leader of our pack” Alec started to talk again, caught up in the past, “and was peaceful but he didn’t want an alliance with Lyssandra nor did he agree with her ideologies in leadership. She spread fear and purposefully sought out human villages to destroy and add to her numbers as trophies. That fear spread to other villages and then once peaceful villagers that we lived long side by side for generation started to create hunting parties to kill off the ‘wild Lupinine menace’ that terrorized their people and livelihood. 

My father challenged her to a fight but she played dirty and had him killed just before their challenge while others ambushed everyone else from my pack. She thought that because I was a child, she can mold me just as she was doing to you but she never had a family and close associations know that you can’t mimic close relations. Lyssandra grew up in a pack ruled by fear and power and she perpetuates that same lifestyle to this day. As much as she tried to control us through submission, she has no understanding of true companionship as we’ve known them and doesn’t realize the pain from losing that relationship stays with you your whole life. I’ll never forgive what she did and if there is an opportunity to take her down, I’ll be first in line to strike at her.”

“And I’ll deal the final blow and end this.” 

The memory shifted again and it’s one that I was familiar with. It was a weird out-of-body experience when I watched my past self as I ran through the woods until I stumbled upon the cabin and fainted. When my other self fell into his arms, I didn’t realize that I stepped out from my hiding place behind the trees as I relived the memory again until my eyes landed on his very shocked silver colored gaze looking between me now and the me in his arms. From there, the memory shifted to yet another scene in the woods.

“Who is she?” He asked Alec, looking away from the fire and over his shoulder at my prone body curled up on his bed. This must have been when I had my fever because I couldn’t even recall that someone else was in the same living room, let alone talking about me.

“Oh, she’s just bait.” Alec says nonchalantly. “We need to divert Lyssandra’s attention away from our plans just before we make our move against her. It was just lucky that she stumbled into our woods so close to when we needed a distraction. Just keep the girl safe in your cabin until the time is right let her out only long enough for Lyssandra to see her. Knowing her, she’ll get very territorial with another female being on her land and around you for that matter that she won’t suspect us. Lyssandra will let her guard down because she’ll think you’re courting someone other than her be rife with jealousy. She won’t sense the betrayal brewing within her pack and when she is most vulnerable, we’ll attack but no sooner.”

“And what of the girl?” He asked, not taking his eyes off my prone body. I stood in his bedroom just out of sight now that I know that he definitely saw me in that last and probably the previous memories I’ve visited. I can tell by the way he voiced his question that he was more than confused about this situation as a whole and not just the ‘plan’.

“When everything is resolved, there’s no reason to keep her here since we don’t want to perpetuate Lyssandra’s cruelty by keeping someone here against their will. You can just set her free.”

“‘Free’…We’re almost there. I can feel it in my blood and bones. She’s given me just about as much strength as she can without actually weakening her own reserves to live. I am as powerful as I’ll ever be.” I listened to the tone of his normally calm voice and when he talked so vehemently about Lyssandra, it sent a chill down my spine as it reminded me of his cavalier attitude just after I discovered the cave. The way he talked and stalked me reminded of a predator at the time but after seeing all that I’ve seen, I was starting to think those actions were sly and finessed; not that dissimilar to Lyssandra. It unnerved me to see him so callous and cold in the span of a few hours. “She doesn’t realize that each time she gives me power, I take back a little bit more of the control she’s had over me and my memory of the past became clearer with each moon and breakdown of her shield. I’ve waited so many years to finally take that bitch down!”

“Easy now.” Alec shushes him and looks around, worries. “Just because she gave you most of her powers doesn’t mean she’s not resourceful. She’s lived for over a hundred years and though she turns a blind eye towards your insolent behavior at times – namely Elias – she can still take you down if you let your guard down too soon. She’s still very dangerous. Empires didn’t fall in a single day and needed planning as well. We just need to wait.”

The day shifted to night and I recognized night sky from when he and I were outside the cabin looking at the stars. I had a realization as I stood behind yet another tree, that I was feeling something from deep within me and I recognized it as what he was feeling that evening – the sudden attraction, the yearning and need to be close, only this time, from his perspective – and I suddenly knew why.

We were drawn to one another from something primal and from him being a werewolf or Lupinine as they refer to themselves. I can feel him being aware of this attraction and freely letting himself bask in this almost intoxicating afterglow of a connection. Instinct, really. It made us both vulnerable; the underlying kindling within started to grow from the moment we laid eyes on one another and it grew like a blaze, bigger over time and it became all consuming.

After being silent for a few moments, he seemed to sense where I was within the woods and he looked up at the sky and started to tell me – then looked right at me with his bright soulful eyes reflecting the moons rays through the darkness – about his family and how they made him feel. 

At that moment, I made the connection that the warmth and safety he remembered was the very same way he felt towards me. It was as though I had his head and his heart was within my breast. I could feel the warm radiating within him as he stared intently at me with such intensity. My heart pounded at that realization that I would not have had outside of these memories. This bond that we somehow formed, crossed between his memories and the present!

Three days ago when I literally feel into his arms and I must have closed the circuit of our connection that we made just after we made love! Or had it been sooner…? He has been seen me throughout the memories I’ve witnessed because of the bond and now that he’s finally met me in person, I’m not just some apparition that shows up in his life. Not just any point of his life, but at the point where his family first encounters Lyssandra’s pack, granted indirectly. I’ve been there for most of the trials he’s faced in his adult life and as a Lupinine. 

When he finally met me in person, I wasn’t some delusion he made up to cope with the challenges of being a Lupinn in Lyssandra’s pack, but an actual living being. Of all the insecurities he’s had regarding his past, me being flesh and blood was a relief and a sign that he was not going crazy after all these years. He did question his own sanity but never voiced his concerns for fear of appearing weak before anyone. The warmth with which he received me was like that of meeting a long lost friend or even reacquainting with a soulmate.

It explains why he was able to share and open up so easily to me. To him, I didn’t meet him three days ago yet I, personally, didn’t know what to make of our instantaneous attraction. I questioned why I felt such a strong connection to a complete stranger but never realized that I was tied to him throughout his adult life.

I look at him intently as he tells me – and the past me – about his history and I embrace the warmth we share, that I felt right now at this moment, is our shared bond and experience. He tears himself away from our locked gaze and looks at my past self, me from three days ago, with a heated intensity and leaned in to kiss me when he stilled his advances because of a noise heard from a different part of the woods. After he stared off into the darkness of the dense trees – past me following the direction of his stare – to find the source of our interruption only to see an ominous shadow, luminous eyes, not scrutinizing the couple in front of the cabin, but at me. 

Lyssandra must have sensed me here; the threat that Alec was hoping I would pose as, but little did he know, I was. Her spirit, as Alec said, was old and I wouldn’t put it past her to not know when the bond she thought she was forming with her “Consort” is suddenly jeopardized by a new bond forming, getting stronger as her own wanes with each passing moment. I turned away from her as she was no longer relevant between the two of us – even with her interruption later that night –as past me placed my hand upon his cheek to bring him back to reality. When his attention was back to what was sitting right before him, he carried me to the cabin and the scene shifts suddenly.