Half Faced Alpha
Chapter 26

"Come with me," Alpha Axton said once he got dressed. He wore a simple tunic and slacks, and only rubbed his hair dry.

She stood up immediately and walked to him, then took his hand. "It will be better this way."

He nodded and slowly, he helped her out, and they walked out of the house to the large pack grounds.

Natalia has never really gotten to see it. The first time she was here, she had been asleep, the second tie, on the night the ceremony, it had been dark.

"Your place is beautiful."

He looked at it. He had played absolutely no part in all the colors and bright lights now, and it all happened during the ten years he had been cooped up in his room, waiting for her. Or just dismissing the idea of her.

"They did all of it," he said simply, in a tone that silently said he didn't want to offer any explanations.

She only nodded, the weight of what she was about to see making her somber and cold. All she has ever seen of her father was his bright, soulful smile, and then short-lived anger, ever so rarely.

Now, she was going to see only a stone that signified he was below the ground, and she wasn't sure what kind of behaviors she expected from herself.

"If you are having second thoughts, we could stroll around first to put your mind at ease." Axton said, then let go of her hand. It didn't matter how close they got, or what they have been through together, he wasn't used to being loved, or being touched or even being seen, so he always ran. Like a coward he was having an increasingly hard time convincing himself he wasn't.

"I think we should. Maybe I'll be able to breathe."

He nodded as they continued walking, the omegas that were going about their work obviously staying clear of them.

"I can not help but notice, Axton...everyone seems to be running away."

He had noticed it too. He raised his brow, like the answer was supposed to be obvious. "I am alpha. Should they stand on the same ground as I?"

She shrugged. "They are still wolves. That makes you all the same."

He suddenly pulled her to him by her waist, then leaned so they were at eye level. "Look into mu eyes and tell me I am just like any other wolf out there."

She squinted her eyes at him. "I have not heard such conceited remarks from you in some time, I was almost convinced you stopped. Old habits die hard, eh?"

He leaned away, and scrutinized her with his eyes. "Are you truly naive to the point of being brazen or are you blanketing your brazenness in a cloak of naivety?" She shrugged. "Whatever lets you sleep at night." She started to walk.

"Then I would factor you out."

"What do you mean?" She stopped ad turned to him. They were in a more isolated part of the pack that led to a small lake.

"Nothing about you lets me sleep at night." He said, then raised brow. "But I can not exactly say that the knowledge that it goes both ways is not satisfying." She shook her head. "I think I sleep pretty well."

"And I was a good wolf on the night of the blood moon." He had said it nonchalantly at first.

The phrase was normally used among wolves, since no wolf is exactly good on the night of a blood moon. It is the night of an eclipse and they go savage.

But flashes of a particular red moon filled his eyes now, the blood, the screams.

He hadn't just been savage on the night. He looked up at Natalia, who seemed a bit confused. There was an important detail Selina had told him then, that he had overlooked and forgotten under the burden of Nicholas' death. Natalia.

Natalia is Selina's daughter. The mother Natalia never knew.

He swallowed, his eyes widening as realization settled into him. What twisted fate is this? Why was fate making him be the bane of his mate's existence?

"Is something wrong?" She asked and lightly touched his arm, but he moved away immediately, his hand trembling.

How would he have expected that the thing he used to love the most would come back to hunt him in the worst way?

"Axton?"

He looked up, then shook his head. She didn't need to know this one. He didn't need to tell her a thing. "I just felt a little tired there, maybe because you keep talking."

She rolled her eyes and gave a small laugh, and they continued walking, his hand clasped behind him.

They soon got to the grave, just a small walk away from his parents. He dropped a flower on each gravestone, his heart feeling nothing towards them but emptiness, like he had run out of paint on their canvas and had left it blank. Natalia slowed down once her father's grave came into view. She could see his name engraved on the tombstone, and the flowers used to mark the place.

It made her almost dizzy.

Axton walked behind her, even though deep in thought, but still a reliable shoulder to fall on if she needed to.

He watched as she want on her knees in front of the grave, her fingers tracing the sand delicately, as if she was reaching out to a smoky version of Nicholas himself. If she was too rough, he would disappear into thin air. "Father," She choked out. "Father, I went out to the garden today. I even went beyond that."

She waited, and all she could hear was the soft rhythm of the late morning breeze.

"Why will you not scold me? Can you not see? I did what you told me not to. I did a lot, should I tell you all of it? Will you come scold me then?"

There was still silence. Axton walked to her, then helped her stand up.

"I am sorry," he said, trying to wipe away the tears in her eyes.

She shook her head and leaned on the grave again, her body trembling. "Father, I went to the garden. I kissed Axton. I fell in love with him even though you told me to stay away. Will you not...come scold me?" She pulled the necklace that she always kept under her dress ever since she found it, and forcefully got it out of her neck.

"I still wear this, father. Please come scold me. Do not be so silent! You said you would always be there, so how could you this to me!? You know how lonely I always was so how could you have left me too!?" She got hysterical with every word she said, and desperately hit the sand on the grave, as if ordering him to walk out of it, alive.

"Natalia, please get a grip. This is your father's grave, you should respect it." Axton said, then went down to her level again. "Let me take you home."

"What am I supposed to do without him? He is the one who took me that night, Axton. He helped me when there was no one. I still see how he came like some angel sent to rescue me and now what? I could not even be there?"

Alpha Axton's brows furrowed as he slowly let his gaze wander from her tear stricken face to her outstretched, open palm.

There, sitting comfortably in her palm was the blue oval pendant dangling from a black necklace, with the name, "Selina" engraved inside the stone.

"Whose...whose necklace is that?" He asked, feeling his heart sink to his stomach. Had she always known?

She held her head, then drew her knees to support herself with.

"You know, Axton. I was with mother. The night she died."

It took everything in him to not let his eyes bulge.

"You know...her?"

"Father told me to forget all the memories, Axton. He even used a spell, but...I pretended it had worked. What else was I supposed to hold on to? What if the bastard who killed her?"

Alpha Axton could barely swallow at this point. "She...she was killed?"

"I was asleep in the hut, and I was just five, Axton. It was forever engraved in my head, I could not stop seeing it. What if...what if he had been the one to kill my father too? What if he had...found me?"

Alpha Axton lost the balance of his weight on his right foot, and found himself sitting on the floor, his breath coming out in short gasps.

Just now he had thought she was not supposed to know. Just now he had thought she shouldn't know. But behind her beautiful innocence was the pure hatred she had for the werewolf that had conquered her mother's village. Him.

"Did you..." He started to say as she sniffed, wiping her tears with her sleeve. "Did you see his face?"

An uncomfortable minute passed as she watched him, her breath unstable. "Do you think I hate werewolves only because of the small village where the flower field grew on?"

He nodded, feeling a little sick. "So he was a werewolf."

"Yes, Axton. He was a werewolf."