Call of the Wild

10 *~ realizations begin with hard truths

A/N: For the translation bit, I couldn't find how Native Americans would refer to their god(s) personally, or what it would be read like if written out, so I included a Spanish Catholic Priest that comes along with Spanish Conquistadors in South America, travels by himself to North America, and interacts with various tribes of the West. And please don't judge too harshly on my poorly written 'bible-esque' type of writing, it's been a while since I've read it. So, the priest translated to what he is familiar with.

Anyway, sorry for the long wait for the update. This chapter has been difficult to write. I'm trying to have character development from traumatic/toxic relationships and those kinds of things take a long time. I'll just by the end of this story, a few characters will be in need of individual therapy.

*~

Addison gently closed the journal, pushed her chair back from the table, and just stared at the grain of the wood, the richness of the color, and wondered who had carved it if only as a distraction while she got her head on straight.

It had taken a long time reading so many books and then rereading them. The first time, she'd just been looking for keywords that pertained to Wyatt's shifting moods, and nothing could be found.

As Wyatt had been caged up for almost two days - and Willa had gone back on her promise of letting Addison talk to him, citing 'medical' jargon that Addison knew for a fact she was making up - she'd had nothing to do but sit and read. Of course, there were a lot of things she could do, but her mind wouldn't let her diverge from figuring out the answers to her questions. Seeing as she wasn't getting them from anyone else, she decided to get them on her own, so she went back to the top shelf and started again.

Her keywords were Blue Moon and Moon Goddess, as Willa made it seem that Wyatt's problems - some of them, at least - and the celebration were tied together. How, she couldn't even begin to guess, even though she'd found it, or found something.

It was the journal from the last alpha before the Heartstone was stolen, lamenting its loss and what it would mean for the pack going forward and a specific line solely for 'those blessed by the Goddess during the Blue Moon'. The note 'soulmate' written in the margins, for clarity.

Soulmates.

Addison hadn't thought they were real. She'd entertained the idea, asked the wolves about it as it seemed to go hand-in-hand with werewolves in every story she'd ever read, but they had all been very tight-lipped. She took that as them being pissed all legends involving werewolves were mostly wrong, and assumed the soulmate thing was one of those ideas that were just not true.

The Blue Moon event was for the Moon Goddess and somehow involved werewolves that had soulmates. Wyatt, whose moonstone had changed once he'd met her in the cove; her werewolf transformation and the fact that her moonstone matched his to the exact hue; how he'd brushed it all off at every turn, how he avoided her questions about his necklace, how he hid it now under his shirt. Put it all together and Addison could presume that Wyatt had a soulmate, and she, his best friend, was that soulmate.

That made sense, didn't it?

It did. And it didn't. If his stone had indeed turned violet the moment he met her back in the cove, she would have still been human, and how would that have ever worked out? Or, had the Moon Goddess been able to see the trajectory their lives would take and knew that sooner or later, Addison would become a werewolf?

And if that was so, then why hadn't Wyatt told her? He'd kept it a secret even though it involved her in something she knew nothing about. That wasn't like Wyatt. Not that he'd exactly been himself lately.