A Gift from the Goddess
Chapter 46

Chapter Forty-Six Ever since Aleric and I had been attacked by rogues at the Golden Blade pack,we had been assisting with the investigation into what had actually happened.

The whole thing had seemed so weirdly targeted. Why did they decide to come out of hiding? Wasit a purposeful attack on Aleric and 1? And, most importantly, had someone leaked information sincethey knew we would be there? Needless to say, the entire Winter Mist was furious about the wholething and had demanded answers that the Golden Blade didn't have. They were just as confused bythe entire ordeal as w e were. Because of that, they were forced to cooperate with us during ourinvestigation; much t o their displeasure, I was sure. It had been months since we'd had any leadsthough. There also hadn't been any trace of a camp on their territory, making us believe theyprobably had no intention of staying in the area for long when they attacked. This was news thatonly made the whole thing even more worrisome.

The incident had severely shaken me as well. Not just because of Aleric, but because it made m erealise just how quickly I could feel unprepared in battle. My advantage in a fight had always beendefence tactics, but the rogues gave me a shocking awakening to how sometimes survival meantbeing able to complete a finishing blow... something my current strength seemed to be

lacking, as evident from the rogue who didn't stay down during our fight.

Because of this, I had started carrying one of their silver daggers on me to give myself the upperhand if I was ever in that situation again. Specifically... the knife they'd pulled out of Aleric. The otherone had already been locked up in evidence before I could get my hands on it and they were prettyhard to come by without prior approval. But more importantly, I found the whole thing weirdlysymbolic to look at whenever I strapped the sheath around my leg. It was something that could killour kind so easily... yet it had been a moment in my life I'd chosen a path to save a life instead.However, the fact that rogues had two of these in their possession was crazy in itself. The silver thatwas used to easily poison, restrain and kill our kind was no ordinary thing and was referred to assilver “kissed by moonlight". Its properties included being able to stop the inflicted from being ableto use their abilities; whether that be silver handcuffs to stop shifting and strength, or a knife to stophealing. The way the ore was handled before being crafted was a closely guarded secret and I'dheard was also very difficult to execute; knowledge reserved strictly to Elders and a select few only.And so, whilst handcuffs were a staple within most packs, a knife was far harder to come by sincemany refused to forge them; this being due to their incredibly deadly potential. Of course, I tookadvantage of the situation to acquire one for myself because of that. But it did raise severalquestions about how the rogues managed to get their hands on them to begin with.

“You alright?” a voice yelled out. I felt that I could have died of a heart attack, almost falling overfrom shock

I'd been stuck in my own thoughts so deeply that I hadn't even realised Aleric had arrived at workbefore me

I couldn't deny that seeing him after I saw Thea last night felt kind of strange. Like I knew thingswere wrong. I'd now changed the timeline so much to something new and unpredictable that I wasblind in many areas to what would happen next. Something I wasn't used to feeling after having aliteral ability to see the future sometimes. But it did tell me one thing; that Thea knew I was afterher. I could only imagine she showed herself last night to send me a message that she was aware Ihad been looking for her. 1 wondered why she might have thought I was doing that. Did she maybehave the plan to take over as Luna already when she discovered I was tracking her? Did she evenrealise that I didn’t want the Luna position? That I'm not even a threat other than the fact I'mtechnically Aleric's fated mate? Not that she could prove that either.

This posed an interesting line of questions to go through my head though. If she hadn't discoveredI was looking for her, would she have even come after me this time around? or could she havebecome Luna, and I a Beta, without all the drama? Had there been a chance that Thea could havechanged for the better, just like Aleric seemed to have? ...Or, more troubling, a part of me wonderedif it was irrelevant who she was this time. That maybe it was actually revenge I was after... not self-preservation. I looked at Aleric and he seemed... the same. He looked tired. Most likely from the bigevent the night before. But he didn’t look like someone who had just met a girl he was romanticallyinterested in and he wasn't treating me any differently. The latter being something I had to remindmyself. Especially since that old instinct to stay away from him was building itself up inside my chestagain. Thea was a painful reminder of the past, something I'd been doing so well to overcome lately.I took a deep breath and forced a smile on my face.

"Hey, yeah! I'm fine!” I said, probably a little too cheerily. I knew I needed to quickly change thetopic away from me. “You look like you had a long night.”

To be honest, I was surprised he even made it in today. I remembered my first shift; I was exhaustedto the point of not wanting to leave my bed.

..Or maybe that was because I'd been depressed, not wanting to see Aleric again after the disasterthat was my shifting ceremony. “Yeah. But it was good,” he said with a yawn. He was leaning oversome files on the table and looked about ready for a nap. “I'm sure it was. How are the new claws?"He just raised an eyebrow at me. “I'm itching to try them out properly.” I laughed and walked pasthim to put my bag down in the little office area we had. “We might have a lead by the way.” “Oh,yeah?” I asked. senast ARANYA TETAP

ENUETTE DE VITE V PRESTO I went to Aleric's side to look at whatever he was examining and founda few field reports from border patrol.

But next to me, I noticed him then sniff at the air.

"Ah, sorry. I came straight from the gym and didn't have time for a shower,” I apologised, laughingas I quickly stepped away. “That's probably an assault on your new senses.” Only he lookedconfused. “It's not that.”

I smiled and went to retrieve my bag again. “It's all good. I was going to take a shower when I gothere anyway but I didn't expect you to be in so early. Let me go do that real quick and I'll meet yououtside in ten?"

"Hey, Aria... did you see Cai today?" he asked, making me stop dead in my tracks at the doorway. Iwas startled that he could tell. I was pretty sure I'd only lightly brushed past Cai to leave the gymand otherwise hadn't touched him. “Briefly... why?" “..No reason, just surprised. Last I saw of youtwo, you were slapping him in the face.” I felt my cheeks burn. “Oh. Right.” What could I say? Wedidn’t exactly make up but it felt weird to be discussing what happened with Cai to Aleric. "Hestopped by the gym and tried to apologise again for being an ass. I took the free food and left it atthat.”

He looked like he wanted to ask something else but decided to remain silent, just nodding instead.Very quickly, the room was then filled with a weird awkward air as neither of us knew how tonavigate this conversation topic further. We just stared at one another uncomfortably. “..Okay,” Istarted, breaking the silence. “Wel... I'm going to go have a shower. I'll meet you outside?” “Yep,” hereplied instantly and quickly turned back to the papers on the table, grateful for the topic change.“Yep.” I repeated the word to myself and left immediately. Ten minutes later, we were in Aleric’s caron our way to the southside of the Winter Mist's territory. Apparently, there had been a roguesighting on our very own land and we were going to aid in the search to see if we could replaceanything.

“Do we know anything else about the sighting?” I asked as we pulled up on the side of the road.The journey had only taken about twenty minutes to arrive but we would need to go on foot fromhere. The rogue was spotted by a patrolling wolf in the woods nearby. “Not really. They said it wasprobably just one... but they couldn't tell for sure how many.” Side

I frowned as I grabbed my backpack from the car. “Seems sort of strange given how dishevelled theones we saw looked. You'd think they would stink and be easy to track.”

Aleric just shrugged. “They managed to get into the Golden Blade just fine. We'll go have a lookanyway. Most of the patrols have already combed through here but we're just going to give it aquick once over.” Though “quick’ turned out to be an inaccurate statement in the end.

We ended up being in the woods for over two hours searching but hadn“t managed to replaceanything. Not a single track or scent.

I was thankful that at least one of us was able to shift now though. Aleric remained in his humanform since mastering a wolf in a day was almost impossible, but the stronger senses were definitelycoming in handy for the job at hand. I was pretty sure I would have gone in a circle by now had henot been keeping track of where we'd been.

“I'm not seeing anything, Aleric,” I finally sighed in defeat. He frowned. “I just don't see how that'spossible. We have to be missing something.” I went and sat down by a stream that was running byus, splashing some of the cold water against my face. It felt nice after all the walking we'd beendoing. “I don't know... maybe they have a way of sneaking in or masking their scent?” But just as Ispoke the words aloud, something then caught my eye.

“Like what?” he asked. “Like...” I said slowly, moving to inspect the rock closer. “Symbols carvedalong the water to tell them where to go?”

The stream here was a part of a much larger network of multiple rivers that connected our territoryto the neighbouring ones. It was incredibly vast and veined out in all sorts of directions.

Aleric moved to my side and crouched down to see what I was looking at. “You wouldn't be able totrace their scent easily... and it would be like a maze trying to follow anyone without knowing theway... that's fucking brilliant, Aria.” I smiled in excitement and turned to look up at Aleric... only toreplace him much closer than I had expected, him already looking directly at me. He appeared to bejust as genuinely excited a s me... and, for a split second, I almost forgot how those green eyes usedto terrify me so much.

..But the eye contact proceeded to last a little “too* long. “...Follow the stones?” I asked, breakingthe weird air again.

“Yep,” he replied quickly and stood up. “..Yep,” I whispered to myself, following after him.

We walked downstream for some time, following the trail of symbols carved into the rocks. It waspretty smart of them to have figured this out. They must have ended up being seen by patrol asthey went out to hunt for food. Because of that, it was impossible to know how long MasonETENKOWE 3597

they'd actually been hanging out around here. We ended up walking for another ten minutes or sobefore we could finally see what looked to be a small cave nestled just out of the way. If we hadn'tbeen following the symbols, it was likely we would have completely missed it. “Can you tell ifanyone might be inside?” I asked as we peered cautiously into the entrance, Aleric sniffed at the air,trying to focus. “It's still too hard with all the water.” I nodded in thought. This meant that we weregoing to need to go in blind and alone. If we left now to get help, then we'd be taking the risk ofthem discovering our scents and moving before we returned. This was our only chance at gettingreal answers. I looked around, searching for anything odd, but nothing seemed out of place, at least.I suppose that was all part of the point in throwing people off though. Aleric looked to me and weboth silently acknowledged it was time to enter. Inside was deceptively larger than it had appearedoutside... and it was damp. But surprisingly, i t wasn't the smell of mould or moisture that was themost off-putting. There was definitely something far more pungent in the air that I didn't need astronger sense of smell for. I almost felt bad for Aleric as he was probably already overwhelmedenough for one day without this.

We continued to walk for some time in the dimly lit system. Only bits of natural light and the dyingflames of a few torches further in were lighting the way. “Up ahead,” Aleric then suddenly warnedquietly. I could only just make out something bright ahead where the cave opened up to a largerspace.

“What is it?"

“Looks like... a camp,” he whispered, squinting his eyes. “Don't let your guard down.” I nodded andwe kept walking. When we got to the large area it definitely looked like multiple people had beenliving there. Maybe even for months. It was a full-on settlement for lack of a better word, equippedwith basic beds and furniture. Articles of clothing and even a few books were scattered around too.“No wonder I can't smell anything,” Aleric said after a few minutes, kicking over a bin full of putridmeat. There looked to be several others scattered around too which I could only imagine held thesame contents. “Fucking disgusting.”

I wrinkled my nose as I continued to look around the room. It was obviously the source of theoverbearing smell we'd been experiencing the entire time we’d been in here. How desperate werethe rogues that they were having to rely on spoiled meat at times to survive? ...But why would theyeven bother when they were in a forest with a river so close? Surely, they had other options to tryfirst if they were that hungry? And then I realised exactly why one might keep rancid spoiled meataround.

..To hide a scent.

"Aleric!” I screamed. He looked up surprised at my abrupt outburst... but it was too late.

Because suddenly a wolf came flying out of nowhere and tackled Aleric to the ground. It was anambush.