Trinity (A Werewolf Novel) ✔

Chapter Twenty

I was looking at a map. Only, it wasn't a map like any I'd seen before. In my studies, I had only ever learned about one place and that was my village. The map for my village had been small. It did nothing more than identify buildings and areas immediately around the village. The rest of the map had been blotted out with images of trees and that had been the extent of our education in the matter.

This map was large enough to spread across a large table within a room I'd never been in before which was within a building I'd never been in before either. The King's Corner, Roman had told me with a hint of amusement as though the name held a secret inside joke I wouldn't understand. Apparently, it was where Roman spent much of his time when he wasn't resting at home or patrolling the pack's village. It also was where I would most likely end up spending much of my time once I'd learned what it was to be Queen Luna.

"What is this?" I asked aloud, looking at the detailed drawings of trees, mountains I'd never seen, rivers spiraling through the land, and several symbols, words, and other information that didn't translate for me. Roman was resting a weight on the end of the map he had unrolled for me.

"You don't recognize the world in which you live in?" He answered with a question curiously. There was something guarded in his words as he'd asked that told me he'd thought of something he didn't want me to know. Still, I was very much distracted by the picture of this world before me and also by his own question.

I glanced from the map to him with interest.

"This is our world?" I inquired curiously, looking determinedly. "Where are we?"

Roman stepped closer to me, leaning forward to rest his fingertip on the symbol of the Triple Goddesses. It was obvious enough that I felt a bit silly for not noticing, but my embarrassment was overwhelmed by my curiosity as I looked at the land around the Trinity pack's village.

Roman lifted his finger from the spot and gestured to the entire map.

"This is Moirai. It's where lycans and humans have coexisted since before even my time," He explained to me patiently. He pointed again to the Trinity pack before then pointing to another symbol not far off, "Each pack has its own village named after their pack. They have their own identifying symbol and their own hierarchy of Alphas and Lunas which all report to me... and soon you." The symbols of the packs were etched in colors of gold, silver, and red. I noticed in between there were other symbols more like letters than drawings, smaller and colored in solid black.

I looked back to where Trinity was on the map, my eyes slowly following the surface under the village south, down until a small line of water had been drawn. I followed it east until it met with a larger, curved river. I stared at the river blankly, hesitant. Which way did it flow, I wondered? I followed it north, but it only passed by Trinity closely before traveling further into more pack land. My eyes darted back to where the creek met the river and I looked south. Not too far south, a letter 'A' in black was drawn, though I didn't know what it meant.

"Did you find it, yet?" Roman asked me, having been watching me quietly. I looked from the map to him, my mind swarming with uncertainty.

"What?"

"Your human village," He said simply. I paused, but then turned back to the map and lifted my finger to rest on that small, insignificant letter just to the west of the river. Then I looked at him for confirmation. He nodded, not appearing to be concerned that I could find it. "It's called Alpha."

I felt a jolt of surprise. I'd live my whole life in a nameless village, a citizen to a nameless town with an unimpressive map of our world, while the wolves lived in a vast land of plentiful resources and connections. It felt... unfair.