Numb
~•°•~

Lyra sat on the ground, her naked feet barely touching the lake's waters. She was stuck in her own thoughts, trying to decipher Edward's actions. She needed to know what it was.

She had the right to know if it involved her parents. She had to know.

It drove her insane, to hell with her being stuck in here, she wanted to found out about it now.

She buried her head between her legs, closing her eyes as she let out a deep breath. The peace it brought her had calmed her.

Maybe it was the sense of bitterness that swarmed her chest, or the fact that she had done so many things to survive on her own only to end up back here was making her hurt. She wanted to feel nothing, she wanted to never hurt again.

The thought of falling for someone again made her skin crawl. There were only two wolves that had managed to grab her heart, and the two wolves had ended up leaving her.

Ignacios rejected her and the wolf that helped her to regain herself back, Evan left her one day, without any explanation.

She promised herself to be more careful next time because she was afraid to repeat the past with another person.

She stayed in silence for minutes until the sound of pebbles crackling and moving made her turn to where the sound came from. It was the wolf that greeted her when she woke up that morning.

His green eyes shined as he smiled at her.

"Hello, wolf," he said, standing beside her.

She only rolled her eyes, not wanting to engage a conversation with him. It was tiresome when she knew he only wanted to bug the living out of her.

"It's you," she begrudgingly said.

With a snort, he leaned down and looked her in the eyes.

"Yey, it's me!" he exclaimed.

She scowled, "Fuck off."

Gael laughed, his boyish grin plastered on his undeniably handsome face.

"Gladly, if you helped me, that is."

She was tired, normally this kind of flirting would already result in a broken finger or a broken nose, but spending energy with him already sounded like it was too much work.

"I'd love to if only I had something to hold on to."

"Are you assuming I have a small penis? Because if you are, there are things that we can arrange to find that out." he smiled at her.

This man was an expert, she thought. She shook her head and turned her attention back to the lake. Gael had stopped talking too. He had sat beside her, his eyes looking over the other side of the lake. There was peace in his eyes that she couldn't help but try to decipher. His hair was a mess and dark circles under his eyes formed.

"You know in my pack, staring is rude. But with you, I would make an exemption." He spoke without looking at her.

She could feel how he felt, under the sun where it felt oddly cold and warm at the same time. She guessed it was the feeling that he emitted, the color of sorrow written all over his silent face.

"You're sad."

"I know, it's stupid. I like to sit in here and think about how crappy my life is," he said, cocking his head away from her.

She felt her heart being pinned with needles. It was a sad thought that those who smiled the most felt the most pain and saw the most suffering.

She wondered if Gael was just like this. A broken wolf.

"It's not stupid. Pain can still be a very beautiful thing."

"Where did that come from?" he looked at her, raising his brows with a look of disbelief.

It was a lie she told herself. Pain wasn't beautiful, she thought. The pain was a ghost that haunted her footsteps, devoured her feelings and spat her right out. But it was still something to hold on.

She closed her eyes, biting her lower lip as she shut herself.

Why did she always have to lie to herself?

"I guess you're right, pain is beautiful. Not because it makes you stronger, but because it makes us see what really is. It's so easy to feel small, beaten and done for, but at the moment we're hurt, we only see the grief, the sorrow and the joy that comes after." he sighed, releasing a deep and burdensome breath, followed by a moment of silence until he spoke. "But I never said I was in pain. Grief would be fitting."

She nodded, taking in a shaky breath. His company was unexpected, yet somehow, he made her feel no longer alone. She couldn't deny the fact that her walls were still a mile high above the clouds, but why did this feel so okay?

"I sound like a cuck, don't I?" he smiled again. "Welcome to my ted-talk, I guess."

Maybe it was the feeling of dread that enveloped both of them. She could clearly see the pain etched on his sullen face as he stared off to the distance.

"You seem to be very hurt, why is that?" she blurted out, regretting it immediately as he turned to look at her, his sorrowful eyes making her flinch.

"If I were to answer that, will you smile?" he only said, raising his brows.

"That's not a fair trade." she quickly said, why just a smile?

"Because you're so beautiful. At least give me a smile, I don't care if you're missing a few teeth here and there if that's what you're afraid of."

"We'll see." she only nodded, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Great, well," he paused. Biting his lip as he thought of what he was going to say. "do you see this?"

He dragged the collar of his red shirt to expose the mark of a mate that plagued his nape.

He was marked.

"My mate Elena, she thought she would mark me before rejecting me."

She went silent as she felt a sharp spear trip through her chest. Her wolf cowered on the inside, she couldn't handle the pain that slowly crept in her insides. It dawned upon her why she felt terrifyingly comfortable with him. He was going through the same thing.

She went silent, feeling the mark on her own nape. She remembered Evan, his mark on her skin making her shiver.

"So are you just gonna sit there and pretend you didn't hear me?" he said.

"I'm sorry, I just. Why would someone do that?"

"We grew up together, you know? We even went to the same school together. We knew each other very much, I knew all of her secrets and she knew mine. It's just, I fell for her while I was trying to help her get someone. I guess, the Moon just happens to walk by and decided to fuck up my life and made me mates with her. She marked me then when she got the chance, but still rejected me."

"You could have just punched the bloke straight on his face."

He chuckled, "I could if he was a bloke but, he was a she."

"Oh..." she whispered.

He laughed, not surprised by her reaction. "Quite a very appropriate reaction, my wolf."

His painful smile making her sigh. "She fell in love with another she-wolf?"

"She did." he nodded and breathed deeply. "I couldn't possibly do anything. Especially knowing she loved that wolf very much, the best thing I could do was move on. I guess, when I finally did, everything just went to shit. It was a couple of years until I fell for this human girl, she now lives under the ground. It's all my fault."

She watched him quiver, his words only making him hurt too much. She was just like him, afraid of her own words. It was still really painful for her too, but, she hid under a thin veil of her own lies, seeking refuge as she denied the feelings of anyone that came near her

She was almost mechanical. Her emotions had rusted, barely functioning properly.

Slowly, she placed a hand on his knee, immediately making him stare at her. The way his eyes draw painful memories from his own past made her stop and pulled back her hand.

"It's okay, you don't have to finish the story."

"No, there's no turning back now," he said. "Odette Langley, that was her name. I was drawn to her by how much she looked like Elena. Raven dark hair and chocolate tinted eyes. She looked like her ghost, but she was so different in so many ways. She was patient, scarily shy and downright, spontaneous. Growing up with Elena meant I knew what she was thinking, but with Odette, everything was fresh and new. She showed me a world without chaos, she even accepted me as a wolf. She loved everything about wolves. But you know what she loved more? Was the fact that she was carrying our child."

She breathed deeply, a human getting pregnant by a wolf was rare. It was a miracle for wolves who had humans as mates. But with the tone of his voice, she almost knew what he was about to say, and she dreaded it.

"Elena marked her chosen mate and Odette was there with me. She offered herself to me, to share the pain, I said I couldn't but she was sure she wanted to do it. She made it feel like it was safe and I marked her. The pain was so severe that she had lost the baby and her life. I saw her die in front of me and I just ran away."

That was his last words. He had become silent, his breathing controlled but his heart still pulsed uncontrollably.

Lyra held it in. The immense sadness that hung over them was suffocating her. It had seemed that she was trumped. He had lost two times, just like her. But witnessing death in front of her and being the one causing it was a thought that made the pit of her knees quiver with immobilizing fear.

She couldn't find the courage to talk. He wasn't finished yet, she could sense it. She looked at him with awe as she wondered how could he ever remain so calm without shedding one single drop of tear. Was it really that possible to be hurt so much and become numb?

"You burnt her, but she wasn't able to handle the pain," she whispered, breaking the silence between them.

"Yes, and I'm dying every day for it," he replied. "Elena wasn't really thrilled about me marking another wolf, she wanted to hunt me down and that's how I ended up here."

"I shouldn't have asked you." she looked away, finding no peace as she felt her chest tremble.

"It's fine. I'm going off somewhere, might as well tell my crappy story to a stranger." he chuckled.

"But why?" she found herself asking, perplexed at his ominous tone.

He cocked his head, taking a handful of his hair and gently tugging it. His brown thick locks came off easily with no effort.

"My little wolf, I'm already cleaving. My wolf is leaving my body and I'm going to lose everything I have got, including my memories."

The willingness to death on his face was unexpected. He had given up hope.

She couldn't help but feel terribly sorry. But what was sorry really? Was it an appropriate reaction to what he was going through?

A sorry was almost never enough. She only nodded, placing her hand above his, squeezing it for her own form of comfort.

Gael only nodded, closing his eyes. "I'm not perfect, nor a happy person. But I feel as though I need to overcome myself. I guess you're one of the lucky ones." He said, his voice low and barely inaudible.

"Lucky ones?" she asked, searching for an answer in his closed eyes.

"You have been burnt too. You helped a rejected wolf by sharing his pain, and now that wolf is alive thanks to you." he looked at her, his eyes serious and guarded. "You have saved my Alpha Evan, you reek of his smell. And for that, I will serve you as long as I remain as a wolf."

She froze, Evan was an Alpha? And then it only dawned upon her. Jasper had said it already, he had smelled Evan's scent on her. With a shaky hand, she traced the outlines of his burn on her nape, with each groove only making her breath a little harder.

Evan never told her that he was an Alpha.

That's why he left. He had a responsibility to his pack.

A sudden surge of fear flooded her veins as the thought of it silently sent her down a spiraling chain of madness. An Alpha had marked her. It was no other than, the Alpha of East.

"You are, the Eastern Luna. Be proud." He said, smiling as he stood up, walking away. She was left, silent, struggling for her words.

Luna?

~•°•~

Hello you guys! It's me again dropping another update! I know it's hecking late, both the update and time I'm updating. It's pass midnight here it's the only time my brain is working and I couldn't lose my mojo!

So I hope you enjoyed this update and ask me a bunch of ridonkculous questions!

I will follow up an update as soon as I'm done with my piece for our school intramurals. So no update for a week and I'm really sorry for that. I hope you can understand. 😢

Please don't forget to comment your thoughts and vote!

Loving you always

-Jino 💕

P.S. - I love my current profile pic, I don't know why. 😂