Not everyone has a mate, and this is the reality of Alek Kuznetsov.
On his eighteenth birthday instead of feeling the pull and yearning for a mate, Alek's spirit felt dead. Confusion and depression drove him out of his Siberian wolf clan to seek so...
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AHOTE
"What just happened?" A voice from behind me said in a shaky tone. I looked behind me to find Aponi by the door with her eyes wide open. She must have been watching the whole scene from the safety of the living room window. She gazed down towards me, and we locked eyes. We exchanged a knowing look, and her eyes diverted from mine like she was embarrassed about what she had done.
I hoped she was.
"This doesn't make sense," she muttered to herself, looking back out into the compound to where Honon was still trying to get Elan to stop crying.
It wasn't working.
Things clearly weren't going as Aponi had planned. I wanted to yell at her, but I held myself back and just watch Honon who was still trying to get Elan to walk over to him. I noticed Aponi was about to make for the porch stairs, but I blocked out my stretching out my feet. She looked over at me with a frown, and I mirrored her look, gripping the wooden stair I was sitting on as I held our gaze. I wasn't going to let her go over to the commotion. She'd done enough.
"You've caused enough trouble," I said. My voice was cold, accusing, and it seemed to make Aponi upset. She opened her mouth to say something, but she ended up sighing and shaking her head. She was in a brown skirt that reached her ankles, and her hair was weaved back into pigtails. She stood at my legs for a while, but eventually turned on her heels and walked away. She disappeared into the house as more wolves emerged from their individual homesteads and from the main packhouse to watch the scene that was still playing out.
I looked on too, still not knowing how to react to all of this. I was still shaken by the fact that Honon was here and couldn't make sense of what was happening in front of me.
"What are you doing? Ahote, go up there!" I heard Kaya scold me in a series of hisses. I turned my head to look up at her. She had come out into the patio a while ago and had taken a spot at the railings by the stairs.
"I should go up there, shouldn't I?" I said, talking more to myself than to her.
"Yes!" Kaya deadpanned as Honon seemed to give up making the child come to him willingly and instead moved to grab his shoulder, making Elan's cries to only get louder.
