Forever Yours

ONE

Perched on top of her favourite spot, Roxy Winters inhaled a deep breath as a soft breeze ruffled her golden fur. The peak at the top of the pile of boulders gave a panoramic view of the Moonlight Ridge territory, the same spot which had been the start of her and Isaac growing closer almost two years ago. It'd become her daily ritual to watch the stunning sunrise, awakening the sleepy land in a bright golden light. It was the only time she got to herself, to let her worries float away on the fresh morning air. In the past year she found she'd been teetering on the brink of a breakdown. If she didn't force her tired body to rise before the rest of the pack each day for a small window of quietness, she was sure she'd go insane. Although a good sleep would probably give her the same satisfaction, getting up before everyone else and coming out here was a certainty. A decent sleep was not.

As the sun peaked over the horizon, she closed her wolf's eyes as it warmed her body, imagining its rays seeping through her skin and massaging her worries away. She sighed, wishing she could spend an entire week in her wolf form amongst the outdoors. But the four walls of the pack office were all she tended to see nowadays, since her life had taken a chaotic path she'd never have thought imaginable.

When she'd decided to change Isaac into a blood wolf, she knew the long road ahead of them wasn't going to be easy. While she'd hoped his strong body would fight the venom now coursing through his system, she'd always been prepared for it to consume him faster than they imagined. For the emerald greens she drowned in to turn into a spine-chilling yellow, for his muscles of his strong body to drop away and be replaced by skin and bone. And more terrifyingly, for his already heightened Alpha emotions to amplify as the bloodlust took control. Of course, being her, she'd been naïvely confident that they'd find a cure within a few months. They were now in the fifteenth month of scrambling for answers, still no closer to finding a cure than they had been on day one.

Normally Roxy didn't allow her most feared thought to barge its way into her mind, but today she did. With a long and sad whine she lowered herself to lay down, her belly pressed against the rocks. With her large head resting against her paws, she allowed a single tear to dribble down her nose. What if they never found a cure? While there was little information about blood wolves, thanks to them being mistaken as extinct for thousands of years, they had learnt through the endless research that the most a werewolf had been able to fight the curse was twelve months. Like Isaac, he'd been a strong and powerful Alpha, the blood wolves had changed him to weaken him and take over his pack. Isaac had been cursed for over a year. They were quite literally racing a ticking time bomb.

As much as she hadn't wanted to, she'd been forced to create a plan for the day Isaac did cave into the bloodlust which seemed to be approaching fast. At present there was no cure, no remedy to ease the symptoms, the only way of putting a blood wolf out of their misery and ensuring other wolves' safety was to kill them. But the thought was too painful for Roxy to bear. She'd already watched her soulmate die once, and she refused to watch it again because of her decision. So she'd decided that if – or more like when – the dreaded day came, she would lock him up in the mausoleum. Just like the original werewolves had to contain their insanity on a full moon. She had to keep believing that there was a cure out there.

Roxy forced the thought of the uncertain future away, her mind transporting her to the image of Isaac sleeping as she'd left this morning. Like the sun rising in front of her, her heart continued to glow with every thought of him and every second she was in his presence. Although she wished it wasn't happening, Isaac's death and transition had told her to be grateful for each moment. This morning, just like she did every morning, she'd bent down and placed a kiss on his forehead before whispering 'I love you, Alpha' into his ears. Just when she'd turn away to leave, thinking he hadn't heard, she'd been pulled back into bed and covered with playful kisses. Sometimes they would make love – slow and passionate – wanting to bathe in every moment they were blessed with. Of course, now they had to be a lot more careful. While it was normal in the werewolf realm for a she-wolf to fall pregnant only months after a bonding ceremony, they'd had to delay creating a next generation. They did not need to add to the blood wolf resurrection.