Rite of Submission - Rite 1

17: History, Myths & Lore

                If they had some kind of torture room, I'm sure that Sophie would have warned me about it, at least I hope that she would have. Unsure of what he had in mind I moved a little timidly to follow him. He held the door open and offered his arm, just like he'd done to me and Sophie the day before. I hesitated a moment before threading my arm around his.

Arm in arm, he led me down the hall. Just like the day before, it didn't take long for me to get lost in the twist and turns of the different hall ways and rooms with multiple doors. He was just as sure as she had been about what direction to head in. I didn't know where we were headed, but we were passing through rooms I didn't recognize, until we walked into his main office. This was the room where I'd been presented and inspected my first night here, trussed up and practically naked. My feet stopped moving, jerking him to a halt just inside the doorway.

Dropping my arm he moved across the room to a shelf in the corner. "Drink?" he asked, pulling out a large bottle of vodka and two glasses.

"It isn't even noon," I scolded him still staying in the doorway, "and I'm barely 18."

He ignored me, filling both glasses half full and setting one on the end of the desk nearest to me. "It's five o'clock somewhere," he tossed the liquid down his throat, swallowing loudly. He refilled his glass, and seeing that I still hadn't stepped inside scooped up the glass he'd poured for me. With a heavy sigh, he walked past me, "Come on," he led the way ahead of me, carrying both drinks.

I followed a few steps behind him as he walked down a hall and through a new doorway. He sat in an oversized leather armchair in the windowed alcove of a small library. There was a matching chair next to his, separated by a small table between them, where he set my drink. Stepping inside the small room, he let me take my time looking around, sipping his drink as he watched me. The walls to the right and left were floor to ceiling bookshelves, filled with old tomes and relics. The chairs sat opposite of the only door in the room, filling the space in front of the windows that let one look out on a wide courtyard behind the pack house between the other buildings around it. On either side of the door, tapestries were hung. Each one depicted different scenes of lycan mythology.

I hadn't had the privilege to learn our histories in school like most members of the pack, but my parents had taught me basic lore. The left one looked like it told the story of the fall of King Lycaon. He'd fed the god Jupiter a meal made with the human flesh of his wife's lover. As punishment he and his sons had been turned into wolves. Later, the Goddess Selene, more commonly known as the Moon Goddess Luna, took pity on these wolves. She granted them their human forms again. But when her sway was strongest during the full moon, they would take their wolf forms again to hunt through the night with and worship her.

The other tapestry seemed to be more about the goddess. I understood the pictures that showed her taking lovers from her packs. It was the reason an Alpha's mate was called Luna. My father once boasted, when I was very young, that we were the descendants of King Lycaon of Arcadia and the Goddess Selene herself, and that I looked like her. I had unnaturally bright coloring for someone of Greek descent, red hair, green eyes, and pale skin. There had been times that I questioned whether I'd been adopted or not while I was growing up. They'd never really taught me our original pack's history, I didn't even know what pack we'd been a part of before seeking sanctuary in the Opalescent Moon Pack.

"Do you know the history of our kind?" his voice startled me as I stared at the figures woven into the cloth. I nodded, still mesmerized by the scene. "And our pack?" he inquired, his voice raspy. I shook my head; the pack history would have only been passed on to members of the pack. "I'm surprised Sophie didn't tell you why our arrangement is necessary." The sound of another gulp, kept me from interrupting him to say that she'd told me that much.

"The goddess had chosen our pack to go with her on a hunt," another gulp. "The morning after, when all the wolves shifted back to their human form, she selected the Alpha to be her newest lover. He refused her advances, completely devoted to his mate." I could follow his narration through the scenes on the fabric hanging before me. The sound of a gulp was followed by an empty glass landing on the table.

"Angry about the rejection, she cursed the Alpha. And as punishment for her humiliation, our pack's Alphas would never again be able to feel the bond of a true mate. We will never fill whole or complete. To keep our line going, we were forced to take the mates meant for others. We will always fear losing them, should their true mates find them, knowing their hearts never really belonged to us to begin with. She feeds on the pain inflicted on us each time we're rejected and cast aside."

"What about your parents?" I knew the answer was grim, but Sophie hadn't told me much.

There was a heavy sigh and long pause before he answered. "When we were kids, our mother's mate turned out to be a member of a visiting pack. Our father killed him, to keep her from having an affair, or leaving him. She fell into a deep depression until she couldn't take it anymore. Eventually, she took her own life."

He must have picked up the drink he'd poured for me, because there was a loud gulp as if he'd downed the whole thing at once before he continued. "Just before our 18th birthday, our father was convinced that as a child of an Alpha in our pack, Sophia wouldn't have a mate. He was making arrangements to marry her off to another pack's Alpha who had lost his true mate but had no heirs, as a way to cement an alliance with them." The glass slammed down, jerking my eyes from the tapestry and around to him. "The only way to stop it was to overthrow him as Alpha," his eyes looked dark and stormy, but not the same darkness that I'd seen before, this was sadness and pain. "I killed him to save her from sharing the same life of misery as our mother. I learned about her preferences afterwards, which led to us altering the agreement of our," he pointed between me and himself, "arranged mating with your parents."

He looked like as if he'd just watched all those events happen a moment ago. He sat back, apparently done sharing information. "I'm sorry about your mother," I felt stupid saying it. The words didn't really sound comforting at all, even if my voice was soft. He just waved a hand, as if he'd grown accustomed to hearing the phrase. Facing the tapestry again, my fingers reached out to touch the goddess driving her moon chariot amidst the wolves on their hunt. "That's a lot of dark history, and sadness to absorb all at one time." My finger tips moved to the pair of large black wolves leading the pack. "Seems to me like both the Alpha and Luna she was scorned for were punished, as well as the rest of your blood line."

"Hell hath no fury..." he mumbled in my ear, making me jump, I didn't even hear him move across the room.

"Why the sudden history lesson," I crossed my arms over my chest and kept my back to him.

"You're a member of the pack," I could feel him shrug behind me, "even if you don't want to acknowledge it. You should have the same education that every other member has had. You probably should have attended a pack school, but our parents insisted that you be kept separate until the contract's specified date of your retrieval."

"It doesn't really change anything though, does it?" A warning chill ran down my spine, I was poking the wolf. I didn't care. Knowing that my parents kept me separated from the pack I was supposed to give an heir too added fuel to hate I felt inside. Every day I felt like I learned about another layer of betrayal linked to this damn deal.

"Let's make a new deal then," his voice sounding seductive, deep and velvety smooth.

I turned to face him this time, annoyed by his confidence. Putting on the sweetest smile that I could muster I locked eyes with him. "Wonderful, how about I go home and you get your heir from the girl you enjoy fucking already?" there was no disguising the disdain in my tone.

A devilish smile eased over his face, erasing the shadows of sadness. "You're focused on the kill, ignoring the thrill of the hunt." He wiggled his eyebrows, "Haven't you ever played poker my pet? You never go all in on the first hand." The chill ran up my spine again. I felt like I'd backed myself into a corner, and I didn't know where the danger was coming from. What fresh hell was this?