Eclipse Child

Rest the burdens on my shoulder-

(It’s too much, they whisper to me)

Don’t think of the weight. Don’t think of the journey. Don’t think of the pain.

(Why should your head rise higher than mine?)

My view has no limits. No limits.

If a mountain stands in my way, I won’t step around and continue forward.

(The harder the path, the further the fall)

I will carve my nails and etch them to the stone.

Bleeding for your desire is never quite so satisfying until you see the red mix into your skin.

-world_joy_

Mom puts down her paintbrush when she sees me walk towards her. I ignore her growing smile though, and bend down to be eye level with Orion.

“Just couldn’t wait five minutes.

The neutral face he had been showing broke- as he let his tongue loll to the side from the wolf-like grin he was trying to spread across his face. It has the desired effect though.

I find myself laughing, despite the hard knot I felt in my chest and thickness that was forming in my throat. I always felt like this after talking to dad. I knew Orion could smell the wide range of emotions from me.

The anger from my pores, salt from my unshed tears and sadness in my smile as I rested it back onto him.

Mom clears her throat, enough to snap my attention back to reality and away from those grey eyes that look at me with a clear understanding.

“Let’s sit on the porch. I’ll have Sandra make us some hot cocoa.”

I nod in agreement and push up from the ground. My hand automatically twists into the scruff of Orion’s neck- the back between the connecting shoulder blades where his fur extended enough for my grip. The movement itself made me think I acted blind unless Orion was there to guide me. It made me feel weak.

I let go of his fur, earning a curious look from him as he lays down at my feet. A large sigh leaves him before he closes his eyes.

I can’t help but grin at the sight.

“He...likes to be a wolf?”

Mom sits next to me in one of the chairs, staring oddly at Orion.

“He prefers it.”

Mom stares at Orion a few seconds more before nodding, “I think I understand that.”

I watch her as she watches Orion. Her paint splattered hands.

I knew she would understand him. Maybe even better than me.

The thought has a sudden wave of angry jealousy running through me at the idea that my mom knew my mate better than I did. They were similar creatures. It’s what I think at least.

Each hiding behind their own shield to avoid the world. Each creating their own barrier to block others off.

We sit in silence before mom breaks the tension. She seems hesitant, but I see a look of determination in her eyes as she turns to me. “I know that’s not the welcome you wanted from him.”

I look away and shrug, feeling Orion move slightly at my feet. Telling me he was listening.

“It’s fine,” I said in a flat voice.

“It’s really not,” mom whispers. She knows I can hear it.

I glance at her, a sudden wave of nostalgia hitting me as I remember how I would repeat that same action with a curtain of hair to protect me.

“I wasn’t expecting anything from him,” I lie.

Mom shakes her head at me, a sad smile rippling across her face, “you and your father are just so similar.”

I glare at her words. I was nothing like dad.

She gives me a knowing look, reading the defiance in my stance.

“You are though Soraya. It’s why you both fight so much- and why you neither of you can get the words you really want to say across.”

“I’m nothing like him,” I growl. Mom gives me a disapproving expression. I take a calming breath, trying to control myself.

“It’s fine. I won’t say any more about it.”

Her words only make me feel angrier. Angry because now I felt a certain guilt eating away at me for how I behaved around her after being gone for so long. I shift uneasily in my chair, biting back an apology on my tongue.

I had learned from a young age to never say the words, ”I’m sorry.”

I had vowed that I never would say those words.

I hated those words.

They fell into the list I had within my minds of words that made you soft. Soft words that exposed you and left you vulnerable to attacks.

Sandra comes out then, balancing four mugs of hot cocoa. She looks down at Orion, before looking back at the mugs. A tired sigh leaves her.

“I’ll take his,” I said, grabbing two from her. She nods her thanks at me, before pulling a chair beside me and sitting down.

“I want to hear it all.”

I look between her and mom- the suddenly eager expression that has possessed them.

“Hear what? My training?”

Mom and Sandra look at each other in horror, shaking their heads together as they corral me from both sides, closing and shutting me in.

“No, how you two met!”

Sandra jerks her head down to Orion. His eyes are closed, but I know he is pretending.

The coward.

“It’s not much of a story,” I mumble.

“I want to hear this also.”

I spit up the hot chocolate that is in my mouth as dad walks onto the porch.

He smiles down at mom, glaring at Orion as he steps over him.

“Lexie, let me-,”

“No, please just get a separate chair,” I moan, realizing that dad was intending to pick mom up and put her within his lap.

Mom blushes, the color so easy to stain her face as she looks away. Dad however only jerks back, roughly pushing a chair next to her to demonstrate he was unhappy with my interference.

Sandra gives me a grateful look.

“Um,” I feel awkward with dad here listening. Mom rolls her eyes at me, her back to dad so he cannot see the action.

“I went to the mountains and found the wolves. Orion was there already he-,” I pause, trying how best to describe this to my parents and Sandra, “He is a...member of the pack there. He stays with them for six months before shifting and staying in skin for the rest of the year.”

“And you saw him...?”

Sandra leads me on, her curiosity fighting for every piece of information that I could give her.

“I saw him, shifted, and joined the pack. He taught me how to live and hunt in the wild with the wolves. And then an elk kicked me and we went back to his parents’ house and decided to come here.”

There is a deafening pause before dad speaks with a strained smile glued to his face, “I probably heard that wrong,” he gives a humorless chuckle, “it sounded like you said an elk kicked you.”

I nod, “broke a rib.”

The smile on dad’s face only widens more in a strained, panicked movement.

Laugher issues from the doorway. I cringe when I look and realize who it is.

“You broke a rib because an elk kicked you?” Lilah walks onto the porch, clinging to her own ribs as she lets her laugher spill over.

“Hail the great warrior,” she mock bows to me, “slayer of elk- or did you just let them kick you?”

A low growl from the floor has all of us looking down to take in Orion. His hackles were raised, jaw pulled back to expose the threat of canines as he looks up at Lilah.

“And she brought back a dog.” Now I felt my hackles rising.

Lilah looks at dad- the real reason for why she came here.

“Daily reports just came- they are up in the office.”

Dad rises, sighing as he pulls himself up- giving a brief kiss on mom’s inner wrist before he looks at me- a hollow expression on his face. “This is the reality of what you are training and fighting for Soraya. Not a title. A pack. Remember that when you think of the real glory that is put into this role.”

I don’t answer him. For a second- just a glimpse, before Lilah had come and shattered it- he had been my dad. The dad I remembered. Not the cold man that seemed to hate everyone in the world except mom. Not the walking figure of anger that could barely be contained.

Someone I had admired. Had wanted to be like.

He knows I won’t answer. He doesn’t even pause to give me time to respond. It’s just his daily comment thrown in to try and deteriorate me. After a while, the end goal was that I would be too damaged to finish the race. Too tired to get back up.

I close my eyes as I realize the truth I had escaped from within the woods was gone. The peace I had felt was shattered. I look down at Orion and see a single grey eye staring up at me as he laid at my feet. A feeling of guilt ate away inside me. I felt guilty for a lot of things.

Now I had another to add to the list as I took in Orion and comprehended the fact that I was subjugating him to the cruelty of what I felt daily. To the harshness of others and myself when he had been able to find real peace within a pack of his choosing.

Welcome to the unfiltered life, I thought, as we stared at each other.

That grey eye blinked slowly at me.

Dad pauses though at the doorway.

“Where is your guest sleeping Soraya?”

My guest. Disgust rises from the word he has chosen to use.

“With me,” I said flatly. I look at him then. The tension rises. Sparks connecting and burning into each other as we fought our mental battle.

“Not in my house.”

“It’s the pack house,” I said, my tone not changing.

Dad stiffens at my response. Lilah laughs in the background, but I can see her going back to the door, her canines extending in case dad had an order of attack for her.

“Atlas.”

I take in mom as she crosses her arms and tilts her head slightly, looking up at dad as his grip upon the doorway tightens.

She looks to me, “how long have you known Orion?”

I stare at her in confusion as I slowly answer, “I guess three months?” It could be a little more now, almost four months.

Mom repositions herself back to dad. “Two months.”

Dad’s face pales.

“Lexie that’s-,”

“Two months.”

I stare back and forth between them, unable to process what mom was talking about. I feel Orion move next to me and see that he is sitting up, his stare also on dad as he watches him.

Dad and mom have their own silent battle. I can almost see the turmoil that is happening as dad’s expression changes from stubborn defiance- morphing into guilt- until his eyes widen, and mouth drops in a defeated frown.

He turns to me. “Fine.”

It’s the only word he spits out before turning back and walking to his office.

Lilah gives mom a thumb up, flashing a wink her way before following him.

Orion and I both quickly face her, “what did you do?”

Mom shrugs, a smile playing around her lips from the view above the rim of her mug.

“I convinced him.”

Leo comes home soon after that.

It’s the greeting I had been waiting for.

He sees me as he is walking down the road, and suddenly- he is running.

I’m grinning like a fool, racing towards him. Within the last second, he side steps, letting me stumble and slide against the gravel to face him.

Pure laughter rings from him as he dodges me, but Leo has never trained. He only floated along within the pack system of conditioning the body for two years, as required, before he dedicated his whole time to learning from Schulman.

I wrap an arm around his neck, bringing him down with me- but making sure I took the impact in the fall.

“Little Bro,” he laughs as I mess his hair roughly to the side, turning his glasses and digging my fist into his skull.

“Stop, stop- ow, Soraya, seriously that hurts- stop,” his laughter has morphed into anger and soon he is pushing me away.

I stare up at him, the grin slipping from my face as I realize I had been too rough.

I stand, clearing my throat to disturb the angry silence that had suddenly descended from him.

“Here.”

He looks down and groans.

“I said I didn’t want a rock.”

I grin at him, but I don’t try to play again. That was something in the past now. I could see my mistake in thinking my absence would grow fond memories. Maybe instead they had only festered.

“I climbed a mountain, to the veerrry top just for you Leo,” I push the rock into his hand. He drops it. I’m still smiling but on the inside my heart drops with the stone. The weight carrying and thudding against the bottom as it collided with the ground.

“Very funny,” Leo pushes his hair that I have messed up back, righting his glasses to be straight on his face. He looks down at me, a small smile starting to form on his features now that his anger is ebbing away.

“How is the Clinic?” We start moving back to the pack house as we speak.

“Busy. The time went by so fast...”

I nod in agreement. I understood what he meant.

He stops short, and points, “Soraya what...?”

I already know he would point him out. I look at Orion as he stands on the porch waiting. He sits there, content to watch me and stay as a wolf.

“That’s Orion. My mate. You may see him in skin tomorrow.”

Or never, I silently thought. I would probably have to offer him the best steak I could find to tempt him to do such a thing.

I glance behind me, taking in the rock Leo had dropped.

“It really was from the mountain...”

He snorts, “what would I do with a rock?”

I shrug, “You’re right.”

We stop in front of Orion, eye level with him by the height provided from the porch. Leo surprises me by raising his hand. I think it’s to pet Orion- and I’m about to stop him. But he doesn’t do anything. Instead, he leaves it there hanging in suspension as he waits.

Orion lowers his head, smelling the skin that was presented to him before pulling back.

“Your mate?”

“Yes.”

I watch Leo carefully, worry gnawing inside me. Orion watches him also, his grey eyes never leaving Leo as they follow him.

Leo nods- a vacant expression showing in his eyes.

“What was it like?”

I stare at Orion. He still has not looked away from Leo. Maybe he can tell. Because Leo allowed him to smell and take in his skin. Maybe he can scent the deep sorrow that saturated every pore in Leo’s body. I could. Standing next to him- the scent choked me. It drowned me in a sorrow I never wanted to know.

“It felt like...fire. Like I had touched something hot, a flame or a burning stove. And instead of pulling back, I kept my hand there.”

“That sounds painful,” Leo whispers.

“It’s a pain that jolts you awake and makes you realize you’re alive. It makes you feel...“I struggle to find a word. I was not a writer. I was not a poet. I could not take words and spin them to create beauty. What was, simply was. And saying anything soft and delicate to Leo – the thought embarrassed me. But he is staring at me, an earnest expression in his eyes. He had always wanted to know this.

“It’s like watching the sun and moon collide, and being blinded from the eclipse.”

I cringe at the words, not sure what I meant when I said them. But it sounded right. I look at Orion. He is staring at me, his grey eyes like steel that cut me open. Making me bleed words I never would have said out loud.

It was like that though. Like two celestial bodies were meeting. Like the darkness of the moon was passing over to the sun. Like the brightness of the flames were consuming the shadows. Nothing made sense and yet at the same time, it seemed like the world was reemerging in a chaotic beauty that you wanted to witness.

“I see,” Leo nods and shrugs before walking away. “It’s good to have you back Soraya.”

I watch his retreating figure before I step closer to Orion. I felt so drained.

So tired.

“Let’s go back to the mountains,” I whisper to him.

A low whine leaves him as he shuffles closer to me.

I lower my head, letting our foreheads kiss. Letting skin collide with fur.

“Let’s run away from them.”

I smile as a warm wet tongue slides across my cheek. A sign of comfort offered by the wolf.

“I don’t feel like suffering through dinner,” I shudder on the inside at the thought of dinner.

Orion stares up at me, his eyes calm. He was listening to my words.

I pull back, swallowing and looking away as I ignored that moment of weakness.

“Forget what I said. About leaving. I didn’t mean it.”

I push myself up, rising to stand on the porch. Orion moves with me, his side brushing against my waist.

I sigh and shake my head at my own foolish words. Leave. As if I could do something like that after working so hard.

“We’ll eat some food, then go to my room.”

Orion rubs his head against me in agreement.

I smile at the action.

Letting his warmth calm me.