Unscentable

CH 4

Piper

Piper woke with tears falling from her eyes. She had not had a dream of him in years. Not one where he was touching her and kissing her, couldn’t get enough of her, like he had done that one night they’d spent together. But it ended now, this time with him biting another, marking and claiming another, and it hurt so badly, even dreaming of it was tearing at her.

She pulled the pillow over her face to muffle the sobs that racked her body, until they stopped, held that pillow tightly to her face so that Brandon wouldn’t hear her, and get worried that something was wrong with her.

She had not dreamed of Bradley Drake in nearly five years now. Had pushed him aside with all she had, with all they had, she and Harper. It was not healthy to think about something they could never have. To know how they should have been able to have him, not as their Mate. She thought they had moved on, now it seemed that they had not. Seeing him had only brought them pain and anguish, and now they were back to square one, it seemed. Crying over what was not theirs, would never be theirs.

They had lost him long ago. Hell, they had never had him to lose in the first place. Not in that sense, he’d looked right at them yesterday; both her and Harper on the surface, and there was not a single ounce of recognition in his eyes. She had lived inside his pack for 21 years, and for four of those years he had been her Alpha, and still he couldn’t see her, couldn’t even recognize her.

She had pledged her loyalty to him, as all did, though she had not known what he was to her then, but he had said her name, looked right at her and accepted her pledge. Hell, the man had trained her warrior class once a month from the day he took over, and he had bumped into her so many times over the years. Even after she knew what he was to her. Yet still, he did not recognize her.

Cursed by the Moon Goddess, it seemed.

She got out of bed, the sun was barely touching the horizon and as she stepped out onto the balcony, trying to let the freezing cold morning air freeze her heart into a numb state that felt nothing, she caught a glimpse of movement off in the distance. Turning her gaze to it, Harper moved forward to lend the use of her sight “Wolves.” she stated, and then receded back into Piper's mind.

“Do you want to go for a run?” Piper asked her wolf.

“No.” was the only response she got. This was how it had been for nearly a decade now. Harper had not shifted in nearly forever. Just didn’t seem to want to. Never explained why, she didn’t really have to. Piper knew that she likely could no longer shift to her wolf form, it had been too long; she’d given up. To demoralized, and in too much pain, at the time of her deciding she didn’t want to shift anymore.

Harper no longer wanted to be out there, didn’t want to be anywhere near her own Kind. She just lived inside of Piper's mind, she could push forward at will, and talk at will, but did not shift to her grey and white wolf anymore. Had stopped doing that before they had even left the pack and gone rogue. Harper hadn’t shifted since Piper was 20.

Maybe she would once again start to shift, when Brandon shifted for the first time. Perhaps she would want to run with his wolf, when he got him. Piper did hope so. She recalled her very first shift to Harper. She had been on her own at 16, under the full moon just 4 days after her birthday. She didn’t have anyone around her at the time, no family, her mum and dad had long since passed.

So, no one really talked her through it, though she had listened to others about their first shift, when they had talked about it. Heard it was going to be painful, and could take a while that first shift, but it got less painful with each one after that, until your wolf could just rip out of you at will in pretty much less than a minute. She’d seen it too.

That day had been very liberating for Piper, and Harper had been with her for nearly a year before it, had been able to talk to her for a long time before her first shift. She didn’t think that was normal, but it had been nice to have the company.

They had shifted, and then Harper had run about in the pack's woods, on her own for many hours, chasing rabbits and other animals, digging in burrows. She had even gone for a swim in the pack's river, rolled around in the dirt and generally been really happy about being given full control.

She had been a happy wolf once, but over time, sadness and pain had reduced her wolf, hell, the two of them to just a shell of who they’d been. Harper had no desire to shift at all anymore, not even under the full moon, when the pull was at it’s greatest. When your wolf loved to howl up at the moon, thankful for its life and to let the Moon Goddess know of this.

Harper did not have that, hadn’t howled up at the moon since they’d turned 18, and scented out their Mate, who did not scent them back. Believed the Moon Goddess herself had forsaken them for some reason, cursed them. Who knew why or what they had done to deserve such treatment? Only the Moon Goddess herself would know.

Piper sighed and walked back inside as the sun rose completely in the eastern sky. She made herself a cup of coffee. There was no reason to wake Brandon up. The runs here didn’t open till after nine, so he could sleep in, while she went through the room service menu and ordered them breakfast for 8am.

A large breakfast for the both of them, they would be on the slopes all day long, and she knew Brandon was itching to hit the half pipe in the afternoon too. She would deny him nothing. He was the real joy in their lives. Brandon was the only thing that had kept them going really.

When Harper had told her they were with child, tears had burned down her face in hot rivers, both pain and joy at the same time. They had not been expecting it. It had only been one night with Bradley Drake, and they had not been in heat. It was practically unheard of. It had also been her first time as well. She had been completely shocked by the news.

But that news had been the thing that had made her pick herself up from her hotel bed, where she and Harper had lain sad and broken for many weeks. Had made them eat properly, for the first time in weeks, and allowed them to become healthy once more. It also helped that, with her rejection, she had not felt any more pains of betrayal from him.

Brandon had been born six months after they had left the pack, born in a human hospital. The doctors all thought she had lied about how far along she was. She’d heard them talking about it with her wolfen hearing later that night, because he was fully developed and not premature like he should have been.

She had freaked out when she’d gone into labor herself, had thought it was too soon for her baby to come, and rushed herself to the hospital. The labor had been difficult and gone on for 18 hours. She had been exhausted by it and honestly glad it was over, they had pushed pain drugs at her, but she had not wanted to harm her child, and had refused them all.

She had looked into it once she was out of the hospital, used the internet to access the wolfen world's records. It wasn’t hard if you were a wolf, you only had to put in your pack and Alpha’s name. Although she had been a rogue at the time she had that information, humans didn’t understand it, so even if they came across it, they wouldn’t be able to access it, pass word protected so to speak.

She had read that Alpha-blooded pups usually did come early, somewhere between 5 and 7 months, some even earlier, depending on the bloodline and their lineage. Brandon had been born right on time, as it would have been expected inside any pack. It also stated the labor could be expected to be difficult, depending on the size of the pup and the lineage of the mother herself. That explained a lot.

Brandon himself had never gotten sick, not once. Typical of a wolfen child. Neither had she, Harper healed any and all sorts of ailments, as did most wolves. Only occasionally did you hear of a wolf getting sick with a human disease. Although rogues were considered disease-ridden, they weren’t mostly. It was just because of how they looked and smelled.

That some of their wounds never fully healed over and were always open and covered in flies, they looked sick, when in all reality most had just lost their minds, and the ability to both care for themselves and heal themselves. Those mangy critters you saw out there in the wilds, were just completely broken, and had no real will to live anymore. Well, not until they were in a fight and then their instincts kicked in, but once that fight was over, they just went back to roaming around mindlessly.

They always craved companionship, but could no longer seem to understand what companionship meant. Their need to mate anything female was a part of that craving. It’s why female rogues didn’t do so well; males that saw them had that craving kick in regardless of it not being their Mate.

Some rogues could survive quite well, like she had; she did. They found a way, or a reason to live, isolated themselves out in the wilds or ensconced themselves in the human world and stayed out of trouble. They found human companions to replace their need to be social, and attached themselves to those that had no idea they were not human.

Though some were very cruel, nasty creatures that would hunt and prey on those others that were weak and vulnerable, rogues that were new to being on their own, and couldn’t protect themselves properly, or were just not trained how. Kidnapped them, abused them and even tortured them, before selling them off to the wolfen black market, when they were done with them.

Then there were those that roamed in full rogue packs, they were the real dangerous ones, they attacked packs at will, even had their own hierarchy within their packs, took on a leader, and their Alpha created an Alpha Unit, and they roamed about doing whatever they wanted. She’d read tales where they would claim old destroyed or abandoned pack lands for themselves and tried to become civilised once more. Sometimes it worked and other times it did not.

She and Harper had Brandon to live for. He was their reason to continue on living, looking after themselves, their one true joy in life. The only thing they considered a blessing from the Moon Goddess, though at times they still thought it to be a punishment, just one more thing to cause them pain. That he was born out here had to be a rogue like them.

She sighed, why they were like this, had no scent she didn’t know, Harper didn’t know, neither of them understood it. It was just how it was, and they had to live with it. And likely for a very long time, though how she was going to remain in the human world for that long undetected she had not figured out yet. She was only 28 but had already stopped ageing, would likely look her current age for another 30 or 40 years, the perks of being an otherworldly creature with healing abilities. Could be 200 years old and only look 40ish to humans.