The Astral Eyes

Reality

The day should've been perfect.

The air felt cool against the skin and the breeze swayed through the colorful trees with a gentle touch. The sun stood high in the clear blue sky, its rays kissing the skin without leaving a mark. Recess started at the Moonshade schoolhouse and children's laughter floated over the ambient rustle of fallen leaves.

My belly felt full after a warm lunch of pulled pork sandwiches, baked beans, corn, mashed potatoes, and an assortment of other home comfort foods. I was well rested from a night in bed with my handsome, doting mate. He sat a little ways from where I stood, reclined against a charming wooden bench in the small garden behind the pack manor home. Beside him sat my brother, one of the few people I truly missed from my previous life.

It all felt so perfect. Yet, no matter how quaint the world looked, I could not forget the cloud hanging over me, my family, and the entirety of Whisper Valley.

"After this, can we go home?" Victor asked the same question every day, multiple times a day, and each time it chipped away at my heart.

"We can talk about it some more," I replied. "That's all I can promise right now."

I wore an old t-shirt and a pair of ragged sweats I got from Luc. I hadn't been in Whisper Valley long enough to have expendable clothing, and I didn't need to add to Victor's trauma by transforming in front of him while also being naked.

"What is there left to talk about?" There was a nervous chuckle bobbing in his throat and he looked over at Everett with a smile that was far too wide. "Maybe I was a little eager to drag you out of here since it looked like a cult kidnapped you, but I definitely know now that Everett isn't some crazy lunatic trying to brainwash you."

His tone was far from confident, but he may still have been honest. My brother is small enough to be snapped in half by my muscular alpha mate, so he may have genuinely feared Everett for that reason alone.

"I don't know," said the burly werewolf with a shrug of his massive shoulders. "I am a bit of a lunatic."

Victor's uncomfortable laugh kept me from mentioning that Everett wasn't necessarily wrong.

My brother then cleared his throat and scooched farther towards his end of the bench.

"Anyway," Victor continued, "I'm past that and you don't have anything left to prove to me. Can't we go back so mom and dad know you're okay. Everett can come too, though they might have the same fears I did."

I had no doubt my parents would instantly assume Everett was an unsavory monster given he's hid me away in this town for months without making any effort to contact them. Which was another reason why I needed to Victor to understand the truth of the situation. He needed to stop spending every waking moment trying to get me home.

That being said, I did want to go home. I missed my parents and, quite frankly, I wanted to show off Everett. However, until Graham was dealt with, I couldn't manage a trip beyond the pack lines. We needed to take things one step at a time and having a murderous Archmage running the town was a major hurdle in our way.

Getting Victor to realize he was in a town full of supernatural creatures was also proving to be a challenge.

To be fair to Victor, we were purposefully going slow.

We could have tossed him into the deep end like I was when I first came to town, but given the fact Everett wanted Victor to be immediately housed with the pack, it seemed easier to go slow.

There was some pushback from the elders, particularly Graham and Kyra, about moving him straight to Moonshade, but at the end of the day, he is kin to an Alpha. Also, given the strange circumstances around my transformation, there was a real possibility that my family was genetically predisposed to being a werewolf. Once Kyra accepted our reasoning, Graham was outvoted.