Torn between Wolves & Myths (Book 2)

“You sure you know what you are doing?” Malik asked as he looked at Liv who was standing in front of Ben, with uncertainty in her eyes. Doc nodded as he walked around the two of them. “I have learned everything I could about a Moonblood, their training and their powers when I was young. I even helped Lyn, Caden’s mother, with her powers when she was struggling with them as a child.”

Malik turned with surprise to Caden. “You’re a son of a Moonblood?”

Caden glanced at him. “Doc just told you I am.”

“He did, but-” Brandon stopped talking as he saw Caden’s glare towards him.

“When your power moves inside of you, what do you feel?” Doc asked as no one made any more comments on Caden being the son of a Moonblood. The wind blew softly through her hair as they stood in the courtyard.

“Overwhelmed.” She answered as she looked at Doc. “Even when I use it for smaller things, the things I actually learned. I know it’s coming when I summon it, but even as it comes on command, I feel overwhelmed by the power of it, let alone when it comes without my consent.” Doc placed his arms behind his back as he nodded.

“You told us that King thaught you differently from your mother to make you learn faster. That means he only thaught you how to summon them through a strain. That is the reason why you feel overwhelmed. You never learned how to call on them as a Moonblood should, that is also why the smallest things eat away your energy.” Liv looked over her shoulder at Doc with raised eyebrows. “You really took notes when you cleaned my wounds didn’t you?”

“Let’s just say that I had a feeling that information would come in handy later on. Turns out I was right.” Liv snorted as she shook her head.

“Males.”

“Careful, we’re with more numbers here than you are.” Ben teased.

“Yeah you are and I can hand you all your asses to you before breakfast.” She countered as she met his gaze again. He narrowed his eyes at her as a challenging grin crept over his face.

“With your fighting skills, yes, but you couldn’t so much as kill a rabit with your powers.” Doc blasted the challenge building between the two Alpha’s away with his words. Liv looked at him and gulped. “You told us that the only things you learned were taking control over a wolf and their shift, turn blood into water, and make blood flow in the opposite direction. Those are all basic things pup Moonbloods learn.”

“You don’t need to tell me how untrained and weak I am. I already know that.” Liv countered as she dropped her head a little.

“But you can also heal wounds.” Doc interejected, not responding to her remark. Liv looked up at him as he stopped walking next to her. “And that is something no Moonblood, either pup or adult has ever been able to do. Which makes you stronger than you think.” She gulped as she held his gaze. “Yes, you are untrained, but you are definitely not weak. Not even a little bit. All you need to do is learn how to call on your powers properly in both your human skin as in your wolf skin, and learn the basic Moonblood abilities that should have been thaught to you when you were a pup.”

“How many basic abilities are there?” Brandon asked from the place where he was sitting on the ground next to Devon.

“Depends on the age.” Doc answered. “As a pup Moonbloods learn how to summon their power in both skins, how to make it flow in the opposite direction, take hold of a wolf, turn blood into water,” Those were all the things she had already learned, for the most part. A relieved breath left her as she realized that she wasn’t a total screw up. “Both outside and inside of a body,” That relieve was blasted away as Doc continued on. “And how to draw power from the moon.” Doc finished as he met her wide gaze.

Liv was too stunned to speak.

“Wait, Moonbloods can draw power from the moon?” Devon asked as he looked at Caden who gave him a small nod.

“Where do you think the name Moonblood comes from?” Malik asked him.

“I always thought that they were just called that because they were female wolves who can control blood. Not that they could actually draw power from the moon itself.” And that was exactly what she had always thought as well. She had never known that she could actually do that!

“It is because of that reason why they can actually draw their power from there. Females have a deeper connection with nature than males have. That is also why Moonbloods are only females. The power inside of them would be too much to handle for a male because they lack the deeper connection the females have. That connection is also the reason why females can bear the strain from carrying and bringing new life into this world. Males may be physically stronger, but that is no reason to underestimate the strength of a female. It is because of this connection that they are able to draw power from the moon as the moon has a deep effect on everything that lives and breathes in this world.” Doc started to circle around her and Ben once more. “Moonbloods don’t need to be actively pulling the power from the moon towards them to be affected by it though. During a full moon the Moonblood is automatically a bit stronger than she usually is.”

Liv’s head raced through her memories and soon she realized that she finally had the reason why she always felt stronger during the full moon. She always thought it was because of the fact that she was a wolf. How wrong she was.

“Pups learn this because, drawing power from the moon, will deepen their connection to the nature even if the moon is not visible in the sky. This helps them steady their power as they learn how to control it.”

Liv gulped as she looked up from the ground and saw Doc already looking at her. “Not only have you never drawn power from the moon, you also never learned how to summon your power in your wolf skin and you also blocked the wolf for eight years. Which means that you are in fact a bit weaker than you should be, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“What do you mean?” Her voice was small, but she didn’t care. This was something she never knew and she hated that, once again, she was shown how untrained she actually was.

“What I mean is that even though you are weaker than you should be, you fell into the Moonrage twice.” Doc said, making her eyes briefly shift to Caden who met her brief gaze with a hard one of his own. “We don’t know what your powerrange is, but the fact that you can fall into the rage without having the moon’s power enhancing your connection to your own, is reason to believe that you may be as strong as the Lycanthrope princess herself.” Her lips parted a bit as shock washed over her. “The curse didn’t affect you and her which links you together in some way even though you are different.” Words suddenly surfaced from a deep place in her mind.

Our blood is what makes us different.

The blood of one moon, given by two different gods

The last Made Moonblood is dying...

“Made...” She whispered as she looked at the ground.

“Liv?” Malik asked as he noticed the change in her and took a step forward. She met his gaze, before her eyes met Doc’s confused ones. She walked around him as she took a few steps closer to Caden. “Do you remember when I couldn’t wake up back in King’s pack?” He unwound his arms as he gave her a nod. “I couldn’t wake up because I wasn’t in my body.”

“What?

“Come again?”

“Excuse me?”

Doc, Ben and Devon exclaimed as they all moved a bit towards her.

“What do you mean?” Caden asked with his unyielding hard gaze as he didn’t pay attention to the shock of the others.

“I wasn’t in my body. I was somewhere else, and Psophis was there too.”

“Wait, you saw Psophis?” Malik asked as he was just as calm as Caden was right now. Liv met his gaze briefly and nodded. “I also talked to her. She said the curse had brought us both there and allowed us to talk. She said that we had been destined to meet.” She added as she looked back at Caden. “But she also said something else.”

“What?” Caden asked.

“She called Dawn the last “Made” Moonblood. I didn’t know what she meant with that and honestly I still don’t know, but she implied that the curse had only targetted these Made Moonbloods.” Liv said as she slowly started to fear what the fuck that meant for her. A muscle ticked in Caden’s jaw. Liv turned back to Doc who had a worried look on his face. “Are you sure that a Moonblood is called this only because they can draw power from the moon?”

“It’s, for most, common knowledge.” Doc answered, before he took a careful step forward. “Why?”

She took a deep breath, before she recited the two sentences stuck in her head, “Our blood is what makes us different. The blood of one moon, given by two different gods. That is what Psophis said.” Doc’s eyes shifted to Caden behind her.

“What the fuck does that even mean? How can blood of one moon be different?” Brandon asked.

“Because the moon is more than just a different planet.” Malik said which made all of them look at him. “The gods, both Greek and Norse, have a tie to it.”

“So what? The moon doesn’t bleed, it’s a planet...” Devon interjected.

“What does this mean?” Ben asked suddenly.

“I don’t know.” Doc answered as he met her gaze again. “I don’t know what any of this means and that is what’s troubling me. All Moonbloods have been made and as far as our knowledge goes, they don’t carry the actual blood of the moon. I need to do a lot of digging through history books to find out what this means, if I even can.”

One other memory of the meeting with Psophis resurfaced at his words.

“History isn’t based on the truth, the winner decides how the story is written...” She immediately took a step forward. “You won’t find anything in the books you want to read. In the human world, a lot of what is real in our world, is a myth there. Hundreds maybe thousands of myths are written there about every culture that exists, including myths about the Greek and Norse gods.”

“Where are you going with this, Liv?” Malik asked.

“The story we know isn’t true.” Caden said behind her which made her turn. “Psophis told me that the history we know isn’t always based on the truth, what if everything we think we know happened isn’t how things really went down? Nobody, besides Rafe and Lycaon knows why we are at war in the first place, yet the stories of our creation tells us that the war was always forseen by the gods. Something about that isn’t right. Why is the reason for this war hidden and what does it mean?”

“But why start about the human world?” Ben asked.

“Because neither Lycaon or Rafe has any say in what happens there. Also why would they bother to change a story when the humans wouldn’t believe it to be more than superstition.”

“Which means that there may be things written that we never knew about.” Caden finished as he immediately looked at Doc. “You still have that laptop linked to the humanworld servers?”

“You know I do, Alpha. But it is back at Rafe’s.” Which meant that it could take a while before they could search thanks to the fact that Rafe had eyes everywhere. Her mind raced through everything and there was only one solution to everything.

They needed to be able to search what they needed to find answers and she needs to train, but if they were to do everything back at Rafe’s, they will get caught. She was sure of it. No, they needed a place of their own, out of sight and the rule of Rafe.

“What’s on your mind, Alpha?” Liv met Malik’s gaze.

The thing on her mind was going to make them all targets for Rafe, but it was the only thing she could think about that was going to work. Liv turned to Caden who was waiting to hear what she would say.

“Permission to use your territory, Alpha Caden?” A sly smirk splayed over his face as he held her gaze. “Permission granted.”