SWNOVELS Chapter Time to go
Toni is back at her car with both Deltas, Asher and Alek, the Beta remaining behind to talk to the visiting Alpha, giving Toni a chance to leave pack lands unhindered and unfollowed, not that she thinks it’s needed, he will have his chance in just over three weeks, that should sate whatever bloodthirst drives him.
All her earlier pent-up emotions are still there, she can feel that, but they are muted as if the heat had been taken out of them, she feels more resigned than she had, probably, she acknowledged to herself, as this challenge gave her a way out from this life, putting everything else into perspective.
She now has twenty-four days to decide how much she cares about winning and not using it as a way out of the life she's been given, but if she's honest with herself, she knows if she dies, she will have gone down fighting, anything less would not sit well with her, or her wolf.
Pride is a dangerous thing, but in this instance, she knows it will force her to fight, even if she really doesn't feel inclined to do so, to lose without trying would be something she cannot stomach.
She cannot give up on her fight for freedom, whatever form that may take, it's her crusade, and just like the Alpha she feels driven to it.
If this is a step she has to take to get there, then this is the path she will follow, whatever end it guides her to, she will embrace it, not fear it.
Time to get into the right mindset, she thinks, which means she has to release the emotions she's locked down today, accept them and for now, forget about being denied the basic wolf rights, instead, focus on the tasks she needs to achieve.
As her Dad had explained to her, don’t get mad, get even and in this case, that meant finding a way to get her freedom to spite the Crown Prince and his refusal to give her the basic rights she wanted.
Feeling calmer than she has done all day, she knows she has to make her exit from the Royal Pack, being on their land only reminds her of her anger and frustration, but she'll do so with grace.
“I haven’t had a chance to say congratulations on the promotion Chief Delta Alek”
Toni breaks the silence, readying herself to finally leave.
“Thank you, Gamma Woodfield, although I noticed you allowed more informality with Delta Asher than normal?”
He smiles warmly but has a quizzical look in his eyes, she grins
“I’m on holiday for four more weeks, well, I guess twenty-four days now.
Figured I’d try a change, not sure it’s working out though... "
She pauses
"Plus, I guess it was me rebelling a little until this last meeting.” she sighs
Shrugging she felt she could offer a little more honesty than normal; Chief Delta Alek was looking at her sadly
“Is there anything I can do to help you?”
Toni turns to face him
“Dre tadial fier iar kak ere dre tadal fier iar kutare”
She looks at their confused faces and grins
“It means, the shadows of our past become the shades of our future.
Or I guess, also known as your past can return to bite you in your ass.
One of the first sayings I was taught to understand, is that there is a balance in this life and all actions have consequences and I know I have a lot of shadows in my past.
So don’t worry, I’ve always assumed this would happen in one form or another.
It’s weird finally realising that the language of my childhood is the old tongue, my father taught me it’s how we commune with the Goddess, so I've always assumed everyone knew it, even if it wasn't spoken.”
“I have a question for you,” Alek asks
“When you killed the buck at fourteen, all those years ago, the trackers said you spoke quietly after killing the buck, like you were performing a rite, but they couldn’t understand what you said, was it in the same language?”
He looks at her curiously.
“It would have been the hunter’s prayer, it’s a bit like the prayer for a lost wolf, but you select an attribute to praise and ask to be blessed with it, like bravery, speed anything you want.
Just a way to celebrate the animal's last struggle, to tell the Goddess you recognised its desire for life I guess.”
She can see he’s looking confused.
“You don’t adhere to those traditions?”
“I don’t think I’ve heard of them”
He shakes his head looking at Delta Asher who follows suit.
“So when do you talk to the Goddess?”
She looked at them both a little shocked as they both shrugged.
"I guess it's ad hoc when I send up a prayer" Delta Asher answers
Toni looks shocked, she’d always believed that the Royal pack were the keepers of the beliefs.
“Well, it’s one of the prayers to the Goddess I was taught to say and rites to perform.
To kill to eat, for duty or to survive is okay, but to not release the soul back to the Goddess, is an unforgivable sin.
Pack rites cover that for us.
But for animals and rogues, we need to help them on their journey, with a prayer and deliver part of them back to the earth, even if it’s just fur or hair.”
Her voice delivers the message as if it’s a well-known fact
“You pray for every rogue?”
The surprise is evident in Delta Asher's voice.
“Only the ones I kill”
She quips, her eyes alight with humour
Her playfulness comes back briefly before she falls back into her serious mode.
“If I or my wolf takes a life, beast or wolf, then at a minimum, I owe a prayer to the Goddess and to release their soul if I think they have no one else to do it for them.
It’s only right to return part of their body to those that brought them forth, Mother Earth for their body and their soul to the Goddess”
“I never realised you were so religious”
Chief Delta Aleks’s words are quiet and gentle, but he’s taken aback by this new information, finally realising how cruel it must seem, to send a religious wolf to become an assassin, a taker of lives.
“I guess there’s a lot about me people don’t know” she shrugs
“And probably never will, I was taught to live a private life”
She takes a deep breath
“Also, that assumptions and preconceptions are the chains we bind ourselves with to stop ourselves from really seeing the world as it is.
If you release the chains, you can see the world for what it truly is, both a beautiful and terrifying place to live.”
Toni stops herself, realising she’s letting her real persona come to the surface, she isn’t sure of what happened, except, a lightness had fallen over her when she’d agreed to the trial.
She’s not sure if it’s because this life is now finite, or because the Goddess is rewarding her for owning her mistakes, but gradually, she feels herself slipping back into her Gamma role, at least until she gets out of there, she still doesn't really trust the Royal Pack.
Chief Delta Alek however can see the shutters coming down, distancing herself.
Today, he’d seen a glimpse of who she could have been if she hadn’t been sent back to the Nightshade pack, a principled leader who protected those who needed it.
Granted even in the Nightshades pack, he’d already realised, that she protected people by using her detached and harsh actions to keep them out of trouble from their Alpha, but not many saw that.
He’s unsure why the Alpha and Prince hadn’t called her in to get the information that would have taken down Alpha Vincent, as had been the original plan.
He frowns, even today, she’d shown she was more than just the cold-hearted killer she’d been painted as.
Each year he’d been sent to her pack for the competition review and to ensure she hadn’t been force-marked, and every time he’d expected to be told to bring her back.
But as time passed, he could see a little more had been taken from her, until now the Alpha was sure she’d killed too many to be saved, making it clear she needed a twenty-four-hour escort while on pack lands.
Yet as he stood watching her, he knew this wasn't true and she’d been through enough in her short life so far, the challenge didn’t need to go ahead.
“Gamma Woodfield, you don’t have to do the challenge, no reasonable charge was brought against you.”
There’s an honesty and kindness to Delta Alek’s words that sit oddly with his suggestion to Toni.
“I can talk to the Alpha, I’m sure we can put something in place to stop this madness.”
Toni looked at him since she was fourteen, he’s been a fairly constant figure in her life, albeit only for a day or two over most years, yet, like all the others, he didn’t know her, maybe he was just beginning to see her, but alas like most things in this life, it’s too little and far too late.
She raises her head to the sky before talking again
“Cthale lyl af yia sak ali tek eipa eif eliryl torn, kien drial tek, eip drie eip kol kar
Sepanir ali du honiaratsyl dran ali lile linte shiel tadial, ir furind yiar mutsemelk”
(Goddess why do you seek to test me at every turn, but this test I know I can pass
Better to die honourably than to live life in shadows, or fearing your judgement)
“Delta, you’ve just realised I’m religious, now you want to suggest that I should break my contract with the Goddess?
Because that’s what the trial agreement is, you remember that part right?
By the Goddess, I wouldn’t have you down as being someone that would torment me”
She looks at Alek with real surprise on her face shaking her head slowly
“I don’t fear facing the Goddess for judgement, I’m aware and remember every stain I’ve placed on my soul.
Death, even one where my soul is not deemed worthy to run in the garden of the Goddess, doesn’t scare me, I’ll accept the consequences of my actions.
What I fear most is forgetting, and worse, one day becoming so numb and immune that I don’t choose to remember each new stain I create.
Death free’s me from that fear.”
Toni realises she’s let go of those walls again and come close to admitting to murder in front of not one but two Royal Deltas, but she can see the confusion on both Delta’s faces, knowing that it's the not fearing death that they are focussed on, even if she's accepted that as the result of this life, she has to lead.
To her, the only thing she’d fear is leaving behind those she needs to protect, and she has time to work that out before she faces Alpha Joseph.
Maybe the challenge is freeing her from her constraints, that’s got to be a good thing she feels, maybe for the next few weeks she will try to find out what life could have been, time to live a little because it may be her only chance and she refuses to lose that opportunity.
“I need to go,” she says,
Toni’s words are back to clipped and neutral she’s too concerned about her emotions coming out here.
“Thank you for your hospitality, Chief Delta Alek, Delta Asher.
Who will be escorting me to the pack boundaries?”