The Alpha's Secret

Breathing

MORIA

You know something is definitely wrong when you let go of the breath you’re holding while submerged beneath the ocean…

And you don’t immediately start to die.

I want to laugh out loud, on the top of my voice.

I was breathing underwater.

At the same time I want to curl up into a ball and cry.

I was breathing…Under water!!

My mind is a total cacophony of thoughts.

This is single handedly the coolest thing that has ever happened to me.

Cooler than the time I got away with pretending to be sick and staying home from school.

Cooler than the time I discovered that if you sucker punch a bully in the eye, you got in trouble but you stopped getting bullied.

Even cooler than the time Anita’s mom hit me and mom marched in there, smiled sweetly and pulled the woman’s hair almost clean off.

And at the same time, it is also the most frightening.

Normal people, human beings at least, could not breathe under water.

The fact that I could…it meant only one thing.

I push the thought out of my mind before it can even start to fully take shape.

There has to be another explanation. There just has to.

Because if I wasn’t human, then what was I?

The part of me that wants to curl up and cry is growing bigger by the minute.

Now that I am no longer in danger of a painful, watery death, I can easily orient myself towards the light and the surface.

That’s when I notice that something else had happened the moment I had let go of the breath I was holding.

The minute I had stopped fighting, the water had suddenly become easier to swim in.

It still feels…different somehow.

A little ways more viscous than normal.

An altered consistency quite dissimilar to water back ho…on earth.

But it isn’t resisting me anymore.

Plus I could see clearly.

My eyes are wide open and yet, the water doesn’t sting it.

That is also when I realize that it is gone.

The giant wolf.

Breathe Moria….

Tristen’s voice…The words that may have saved me.

I break the surface of the water with a gasp, and just like that I am breathing in air again.

It is…incredible.

I still feel tired. Tired and bruised and exhausted but at least I’m alive.

Still breathing heavily, I push away the wet strands of hair from over my eyes.

The part of me that’s screaming big bad wolf wants to tuck tail and run.

And yet I find myself unable to stop looking.

To stop searching.

I float for a second longer. Head swiveling side to side and treading the now calm ocean with my arms on either side of me.

But the wolf has vanished. Gone like it was never even there in the first place.

“T…Tristen?”

The second the words leave my mouth, I feel foolish.

Maybe I had been hallucinating.

They say you do that when you’re about to die.

But my shirt. I took it off when that…thing’s teeth sunk into it.

Did I hallucinate that too?

I needed to get out of this water.

A quick look around shows me that somehow in all my struggles, I must have swam closer and towards the shoreline.

I can just make out the shapes on the edge of the water and a tiny flying person that can only be Chryseis.

I duck back under then come back up.

Water… Air… Water… Air

Somehow, my body seems to be getting oxygen from both sources without fail or change.

I finally burst out laughing.

Yep, this is definitely the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me.

I start to slowly make my way back to shore, preferring to swim totally submerged and only coming up to make sure I am moving in the right direction.

“I’ve found her!”

I want to roll my eyes.

“Found me” my ass.

Chryseis’ voice reaches me even as I walk out of the water and unto dry land.

A seemingly uninterested Axe sits on the top of one of the rocks dotting the beach. “Told you guys she’d be fine”

“Yeah, no thanks to you”

She throws at him but he just grins back in response even as she floats towards me.

“Oh skies above, we were so worried you’d try to fight the water and end up drowning.”

Axe dusts off his hands. “Relax Chryseis, we both knew he’d find her.”

She whirls on him. “You know what Axe…”

But I am no longer listening to them.

Not really.

A shirtless Tristen stands at the beach glaring daggers at me.

I should ignore him.

Refuse to even glance at him.

One because as far as I am concerned, He is the one I hate the most right now and two…

Because his standing there looking all wet and perfectly beautiful and knowing that somehow it was his voice that had saved me is making it difficult to remember exactly why I want to break his teeth.

Breathe Moria…please.

The wolf in the water.

And then my mouth is moving, forming the words before I can stop them. “Tristen…”

But he walks right past me, dragging his shirt over his head.

“If you’re done wasting our time with your theatrics, we need to report back to Central.”

My cheeks instantly turn red.

I start and stop and start again.

Then I choose anger because it’s the easiest emotion to process right now.

“You know what Tristen…If you don’t give a s**t about me so much then why are you always trying to save me?”

I don’t expect him to answer.

Frankly I don’t even expect him to act like he’s heard me.

So when he stops suddenly and turns around I am so caught off guard that I almost step back.

He stops so close that I can see his chest rising and falling with how hard he’s breathing and I have to crane my neck to look him square in the face.

His hands are clenched in fists and his mouth opens but no words come out.

I don’t understand why he’s like this.

“Tristen…”

Then I start to feel it…his anger…I feel it like it’s my own.

My brows draw together. “Why are you so angry? What have I done?”

His eyes widen slightly and instantly the feeling cuts off.

Almost like a door had been slammed in my face.

Somehow I know that he did that. He cut me off.

He gazes down at me.

Finally meeting my eyes, all trace of feeling gone like they were never there.

Then he drags it slowly down the rest of my body.

And very slowly brings it back up.

His eyes have darkened. Just by the tiniest of bits.

I shouldn’t have noticed that.

My cheeks are burning and I’m fighting the urge to fold my exposed arms across my underwear clad chest.

He doesn’t smirk but I can see the satisfaction in his eyes at my obvious discomfort. “You’re half naked.”

“Thank you, I hadn’t noticed.” I throw back, gritting my teeth.

“Where’s your shirt?”

Throwing my hands in the air I whirl around to glare at Axe who’s pushing himself effortlessly and cat like off the rock.

“I lost it Axe.”

Tristen scoffs. “Wouldn’t have lost it if you’d just stayed still.”

I turn around to look at him. “How did you…”

“We don’t have time for this. I don’t have time for this.”

And then he throws his jacket at me. “We need to move. Now.”

I stare at the jacket in my hands like it might bite me.

“Wait Tristen. How’d you know I lost my shirt by struggling?”

“You’re supposed to be smart. I would have thought you’d have figured it out by now.”

He is moving away already.

My head is spinning. Thoughts racing at a thousand miles per second.

Figured what out?

But before I can ask, He stops and looks over his shoulders at me.

“And stop wasting your essence reserves trying to read me. I’m none of your business. You faint again and you’re on your own.”

That’s when I notice that I may have seen it for only a split second but I could swear…

That his eyes are the exact same color as the wolf’s.