[1st draft] Bora's near-death experience caused a brief separation from Gemma, but to live in peace, he must end the Seven Shadows.
Bora Hawk, the polar wolf, has an unexplained target on his back. His enemies want him dead, caged, or becoming the...
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So, I folded. My recovery drifted in an infantile state for weeks. I settled on the wide frame as I observed the glacial mountains aside the chilled lake. Each crumbles in chunks outside my balcony. Here comes another. A piece cracked, rumbling chest and breaking off, like lightning shocking inside of a cloud, the echo of my soul as I admired it splash into the ocean.
How long could I endure not seeing you? I've been walking on ice canes. Damned. The werewolf fiasco drained all the energy wrapped in bandages. I am learning to walk again. Voice box working. But I haven't smiled not once. I want to apologize for my foolishness. To tell you, I made a mistake. A year. You may have moved on. I can't find the temperament to get mad at anyone but myself.
Cage. I despise you more than anyone. We had never met until that day. Snake. You will learn who I am soon, plotting to take my life. It was a setup from beginning to the end. The gray wolves. Marco, you coward. The story developed from you when I was having complications with my shapeshifting. Lies. Every bit.
"You are awake and looking good. Well, you look better than a few weeks ago." Miska bothers me more times than I prefer. I avoid tending to her, watching the next chunk falling. "Fine, say nothing, but the eldest needs you in the mood den."
"For?"
"Ask her yourself." She responded. I grimaced at her wink and pompous smirk, striding out the door, flipping her hair. Scoffing at the way she tries to get my attention. Her flirtatiousness is unnerving. The shame I hold here when I can't be next to you, feel you, your lips as I close my eyes, reminiscing those perfect heart puffs that caress my chin. The smell of vapor from your smooth surface used to lie against my chest. Her soft sounding stories she uses to murmur the good days, along with subtle giggles.
Her certainties, her worries, her self-doubts, her zeal for the things she invests. An attachment I never will find, not the same intensity she allowed me.
"Are you coming?" Miska lour at the door. Hmph. I thought she had left. Okay then, I propped the ice canes in my armpits and staggered into the hall with no eye contact. We join a caved structured room with a coterie of patriarchs and others who look significant. They perch on curved stone benches formed into three circles. The elders sat in the middle on three solid wood thrones.
"I made a mistake." I stepped backward to the exit.
"Nonsense. You are the most important." Doli reads, waving me in. The other two dense grey fathers starred as they did. A guy off to the side curled his lip, swept his eyes, annoyed at my presence, which gave off a low-class wolf. In my belief for a reaction as his. I could be where I belong. "Please sit." She gestured toward a bench right across from them.
"It might be harsh on my back." I held it, pacing in the opposite direction, but Miska jerked my arm, dragging me to the spot. "My legs!" I yanked from her, standing in front of the triplets.
"So stubborn, leaving may be best." The old geezer next to Doli said.
"Just like you're too stubborn to speak over two sentences?" I sputtered a diabolic "he-he."
