Werewolf You When I Needed You

Werewolf You When I Needed You

Clarke heard the lock click in the front door, but she hardly lifted her head off her pillow. Lying on her side, she could see out the window, and it was another perfectly beautiful day. It was the kind of day that usually had her leaping out of bed, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

She rolled over and away from the blue skies and sunshine. It was not something she desired to see.

Not wanting to listen, but not being able to help herself, she heard the tap being turned on in the kitchen sink and heard the grating sound of plates being scraped before being placed in the water. The clank of the silverware was so jarring to her ears that she shoved her head under her pillow, and then the quilt. If she could bury herself deep enough in the bed linens, maybe everything would go away.

She desperately wanted to escape, but her friends and family wouldn’t let her.

Why couldn’t they just leave her alone? Why did they have to come over day after day to drag her out of bed and force her to eat? Why couldn’t they see that all she wanted was to be left alone?

She nearly growled when the door to the bedroom creaked open, letting in more light than she could stand, but she didn’t bother. It never did any good.

“Clarke, you need to get out of this bed. It’s after 12 o’clock. It’s not good for you to sleep this late.”

Burrowing deeper under the quilt, she tried to ignore Anya, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to for long, because eventually Anya would rip the covers off the bed and push her out of it if she had to.

She wanted to tell her to go away. She wanted to tell her that just her scent, so like her sister’s, was hurting her, but she wouldn’t do that either. She just didn’t have it in her.

Groaning, she dragged herself out of the bed before Anya could make a move.

“Good girl.”

The words made her want to snap at the alpha. She wasn’t allowed to use those words with her. Those were Lexa’s words for her when she was feeling frisky, for when she was feeling playful.

Still, she ignored Anya as she made her way out of the room and into the kitchen to where she knew the alpha had breakfast waiting for her.

Not bothering to sit, she nabbed the food off the table and swallowed it down as quickly as she could, and then she made her way to the living room, hopped on the couch, and curled herself into a ball.

“Uh uh. No. You are not trading one place to lie down for another.” Anya grabbed her and pulled her up. “I know you don’t want to, but you’re getting out of this house today. You have been cooped up in here for too long.”

Now Clarke did growl.

“Don’t pull that with me, pup. I can still wipe your ass in the fighting ring.”

Huffing, Clarke wrenched herself from Anya’s grip and headed toward the door. Ice blue eyes stared at the alpha telling her to hurry up so that they could get this over with.

There had been a few days when Anya, her mother, and her friends had humored her. They had left her alone. They had let her mope and cry and scream and curse. They had let her grieve, but not for long enough.

They had told her not to give up hope. They had told her that Lexa would come back, but she hadn’t. Her mate was gone. It had been eight long, lonely months, and her alpha hadn’t come home. Whether it was Lexa’s choice or not, didn’t matter. Lexa had disappeared, and Clarke could no longer fight the feelings of abandonment.

As it was, she had already survived longer than most. Losing a mate to death or abandonment was not something that most omegas came back from. Most withered and died within a few weeks.

The only reason she hadn’t yet succumbed was because of her friends and her family, and she hated them for it.

She was tired of fighting it. Lexa had left. She had made a choice and she had left. Her duty had ended years ago, but when the new Commander came calling, she had agreed to take up the sword despite Clarke’s protests.

“Klark.”

The blonde wanted to scream at Anya not to say her name that way, clicking the ‘K’ in the way only Lexa did, but she remained silent.

Words were no longer of any use to her.

“Clarke.” Anya had obviously sensed Clarke’s growing agitation. “I’m sorry. I just want to spend a few hours with my best friend.”

Her throat constricted, and she bowed her head. She knew her behavior over the past few months was hurting Anya. It was hurting everyone who loved her, but she was hurting too.

She nudged Anya’s side letting her know she was sorry.

The alpha draped an arm over her. “I miss her too, and I wish I’d had the power to stop her from leaving, but her sense of duty has always been so strong.”

Clarke growled again. Lexa’s duty was supposed to be to her, her mate.

“How about we don’t talk about her? Let me show you what Raven made.”

Anya pulled something out of her pocket, and no matter how much Clarke didn’t want to care, she couldn’t help her curiosity. She looked.

In Anya’s hand was a round metal object, and even tilting her head back and forth, the omega couldn’t make out what the alpha was holding.

She looked at Anya for an explanation.

A smile flitted across the alpha’s face, and Clarke could see the pride in her copper eyes.

Anya pushed a hidden button and tiny metal propellers popped out the top of the object and started spinning. The metal ball rose into the air and started flying random patterns above their heads.

Clarke couldn’t help but watch. She had never seen anything like it.

The thing must have flown in the air for at least five minutes before landing back in Anya’s hand, and she looked hopeful when she held it out to Clarke. “Raven wanted me to give it to you.”

She shook her head no. She no longer had use for such trinkets in her life.

It made her feel bad, because she knew it would hurt Raven’s feelings, but she just couldn’t take it. She didn’t want anything in her life that might give her even the slightest moment of happiness because she knew that without her alpha, that was an emotion lost to her.

Anya pocketed the item. “It’s okay, Clarke. I know.”

Anya didn’t know. How could she? She had never lost a mate before. The alpha couldn’t possibly know the emptiness, the giant void, that filled her, and it didn’t matter that they told her that Lexa was still alive because otherwise her mating mark would have faded from Clarke’s neck. Alive or dead, Lexa hadn’t come home to her.

They walked for an hour to the same place they went every time Anya was able to coax her outside. They went through the forest, past the fields, and to the beach.

Clarke could remember the first time she visited the shore. It had been with Lexa, and it was where they had mated, and she had taken Lexa’s bite. That first time, she had thought they would have an eternity together. Lexa’s duty was done. She had passed on the Flame to the next Commander and was free to live her life without the stress of running the Coalition, only that hadn’t happened.

She and Clarke, they’d had their peace. They’d basked in a life free of responsibility to anyone but themselves and their families, but that hadn’t lasted. The new Commander struggled to maintain the harmony between the thirteen clans, and when Azgeda split from the rest of the clans and declared war, the Commander had come calling.

It had been a huge fight. She knew Lexa felt torn between her duty to Clarke and her duty to the Coalition, but the Coalition had won.

It wasn’t as if Clarke blamed her. How could she? Lexa had built the Coalition, and she’d been the one to hold it together until it was stable enough that she could pass on the Flame and her knowledge to someone younger than her.

Still, Clarke hadn’t thought it necessary for Lexa to go. Even Anya had said no to returning to her spot as general in the army. But Lexa, always feeling honor bound, had felt it was her responsibility to help Heda return things back to the way they were when she was Commander.

Clarke faulted her upbringing for that. Being a Nightblood alpha, Lexa had been taught, she had been trained, to think of her people first and herself second.

A whimper escaped Clarke. It meant that she had come in third.

“Hey, we don’t have to be here today. We can go somewhere else if you want.”

Clarke shook her head no. It ripped a part of her soul out every time they visited the beach. A sick part of her hoped that one of these times, the last little bit of herself would be taken, and she would finally become a nonfeeling husk who could no longer understand the pain that continued to build inside her.

Walking to where they always sat, she let her body feel the damp sand as she relaxed into the earth. She gazed across the water to Haystack Rock.

Lexa had once teased that one day she was going to swim out to that rock, but they both knew it was too far away to swim.

Instead, she had playfully jumped in a mud puddle, splashing Clarke, and taunting her until the omega had jumped up from the sand and tackled her back into the muck. Every time they had visited after, they always ended up in that same puddle, giggling and making mud pies.

She had to look away. She couldn’t bear to think of those happy days, not when there would be no more of them.

She set her gaze back on the outcropping of rock so far out in the water. It was a nesting ground for the shore birds, a rookery, and at this time of year, there were dozens of nests, and hundreds of white birds flitted through the air, diving into the water to catch food and bring it to their chicks.

She sank further into the sand. She and Lexa had never had pups. They had planned to wait one more year before building their family, wanting instead to cherish the time they had together as mates. If things had gone the way they were supposed to, they would be starting their journey toward having a family.

So much for those plans.

Lying down, she rested her head on Anya’s outstretched thigh. Thinking of the pups they would never have nearly broke her, and it was all Lexa’s fault.

The war had ended two months after it began with Heda successfully defeating Azgeda and returning home, only Lexa hadn’t returned with him.

Heda had told her that her mate had disappeared during the fighting, and she had never been found. It was his conclusion, and everyone else’s, that she had left of her own accord. There was no evidence of her being slain, and she hadn’t been taken as a prisoner of war. She had simply disappeared.

Anya let her rest her head on her leg for nearly two hours of companionable silence before the alpha told her she needed to head back. Raven was expecting her.

Clarke raised her head and Anya stood. She didn’t make a move to stand with her.

Anya stared out at the water. “A storm is coming. We had better be quick.”

She still didn’t move. She let her head flop to the ground.

“Clarke, beja, you can’t stay here. Not today. Let’s go home.”

She shook her head no.

“Klark.” She knew the alpha couldn’t help the way she said her name, not when she was upset. “Please.”

Her eyes stared into the alpha’s, and Anya knew.

“You’re not coming home this time, are you?” Tears formed in the alpha’s eyes.

Clarke didn’t need to answer, and it was her silence that had Anya falling to her knees in front of her. “Please Clarke. Shift back and come home with me. If you would just change back from your wolf, you would feel differently.”

Golden fur ruffled in the gentle wind as she shook her head “no.”

Anya’s tears started to fall.

“Klark, please don’t do this.” Anya pressed her forehead against Clarke’s. “I love you. You are my strisis (little sister).”

Clarke rubbed her muzzle up the side of Anya’s head, sending out her tongue to give her a little lick, telling her in the only way she could that she loved her too.

“Klark,” Anya wailed. “Beja. Please, please do not do this. Give it a few more weeks. She will come home.”

Vibrant blue eyes stared at Anya. The alpha knew her words weren’t true. Lexa was gone. She wasn’t coming home. It didn’t matter that Clarke’s mating mark hadn’t faded. In her heart, the blonde wolf knew Lexa was dead. If she wasn’t, she would have been home by now.

Anya sobbed and threw her arms around Clarke’s lupine neck. She held on for all she was worth, soaking her fur with the water that fell from her eyes. “Klark.” She repeated her name a dozen times. “Please, don’t leave me. I can’t lose you too.”

Clarke hated that she was giving up. She hated herself for being weak, but she could no longer fight the drive in her to let go, to become mindless. She knew it wasn’t fair to the others who cared for her. They had lost Lexa too, and now they would lose her, but they couldn’t understand. They would never know what it felt like to experience such loss.

She pulled away from Anya. It would be better this way. It was time to let go of all the things that made her human.

It was going to be easy. She just needed to turn that part of her brain off. It would take a few hours as her brain shifted from being human to wolf, as it let go of the last vestiges that made her who she used to be, and then the wolf would take over. Her time as a human would be erased from her mind. She would forget her pain and there would be no emotions. Any ties she had to her old life would be gone. She would forget that Lexa had ever existed.

The unfortunate part of all this was that she would forget Anya too, and her mother, her friends, her accomplishments, and everything else good in her life, but she would also lose that part of herself that felt emotion, pain, anguish, and sadness, all the things that had swallowed up her soul since Lexa left her.

“Klark. I am begging…”

A thunderous bolt of lightning split the air above them, drowning out Anya’s words but spurring Clarke into action. She nudged Anya, letting her know it was time for her to take her leave, to get home before the storm got worse.

When the alpha refused to move, Clarke stamped her paws on the ground and growled at the alpha, bearing her sharp teeth at her.

“That won’t work on me strik omega. I am not going to let you throw away…”

Clarke played the last card she had left to make the alpha go away forever. She sat back on her haunches, lifted her head to the sky and howled, putting behind it every ounce of pain she had felt for the last eight months, letting Anya know how badly her soul had been rent asunder.

She wailed until she had no more breath, and then she collapsed under the weight of the alpha crushing her in a hug that let her know that Anya finally understood and that she was saying her last goodbye to her friend.

The alpha held her as she sobbed. She told her she loved her. She expressed her hatred over the decision Clarke was making but told her that she would spend the rest of her life being thankful for the friendship they had shared.

“Ai hod yu in, strik omega (I love you, little omega). I hope you will at least remember that.”

Clarke stared at her, doing her best to tell Anya that she would try and then she nudged the alpha again. It was time for Anya to leave.

She knew once it happened, she would no longer care, but in that moment, she hoped the alpha would forgive her one day for giving up and wanting, needing, to not hurt anymore, to be able to live the rest of her life simply.

Becoming mindless wasn’t exactly that. It only meant that she was leaving her human life behind and embracing the animal part of herself. She would hunt, sleep, run, and live out the rest of her life taking care of her basic needs, and she would be able to do it without the weight of her broken emotions weighing her down.

She would be free.

Giving Anya one last lick of her tongue, she walked away. She returned to the forest then sat down next to a tree to watch her friend slowly make her way back home.

It hurt to watch her go, and she almost ran after her, but she stayed put.  Then she found a dry place under a tree, close enough to the edge of the forest that she could still see the beach and the birds. She let her mind flit over each memory she had of Lexa, from the day they had met to the day her alpha had left, and then she started the process of letting go.

A snap of a twig had her ears tilting. Her heart rate quickened, and she lifted her head, thinking a threat was approaching, but when there was nothing there, no other sound except for the falling leaves, the she-wolf put her head back down. She was sated after her hunt and pleased to lie in the sun for a few minutes. She was in her happy place, under her favorite tree, having eaten her favorite meal. Her den was a few minutes from this spot, and she would head back there for the night once the sun started to set. A few hours after that, she would rise again, howl to the moon and do the things only a wolf would do.

She was just beginning to doze off when she felt a presence at her rear. Her hackles raised and she emitted a low warning growl to get whatever was behind her to go away.

There was an answering growl. It was deep and menacing, letting her know that whatever creature was behind her was more powerful and very likely much larger than she was. Her instincts told her to run, to get away as fast as she could, but another part of her, somewhere deep within, had her listening and filling with a longing that she didn’t understand.

Cautiously, she lifted her head look, and then she scented the air. The wolf behind her was nearly twice her size and looked like it had seen better days. Its dark fur was matted in some places and missing in others, and a deep gash down its leg smelled of reinjury and mild infection, but underlying that was a scent of home, of safety, and something else that she couldn’t identify but made her feel good.

The omega wolf slowly got to her feet, earning herself another growl from the larger wolf. Moving carefully, she made sure to keep her head low as she approached and tried to get closer to the wolf who was suddenly calling to her.

In her time, she had come across other wolves and had always run away. Their scents were off-putting and screamed of danger to her, but something about this bedraggled wolf had her wanting to run her head under its neck, to mark herself with its scent, and run deep into the forest with it until they collapsed onto each other in exhausted bliss.

A front paw stamped the soft dirt of the forest floor, causing the golden wolf to pause her movements. She lowered herself to her belly and whimpered, not understanding why this wolf was calling to her, but not her to it.

She flattened her ears and edged forward anyway, knowing she was risking getting bitten. The dark wolf lifted its lips, flashing long, deadly fangs, deterring her from continuing.

A whine escaped her. She wanted to understand this wolf, so not knowing if it was the right thing to do, she rolled over onto her back, exposing herself and submitting in the only way she knew how.

Grey, almost green, eyes surveyed her and she almost yelped when the dark wolf was suddenly on her. It pinned her to the ground merely with its size.

Frozen in place but still trembling, she turned her neck to the side, exposing her throat knowing that if she made one wrong move, she would be dead, that the creature above her would rip out her throat with a single bite.

Above her, all she could see were teeth as the other wolf lowered its head, digging its nose into her fur and sniffing deeply. It sent a shiver through her body, and she twisted her neck, allowing more access.

Her tail started to wag of its own accord until the dark wolf used its front teeth to rip away a small patch of her fur to get closer to her now rapidly beating pulse.

It took in a huge lungful of air as it sniffed at her. Its tongue peaked out to taste the newly bared skin, and to her great alarm, its teeth latched onto her, making her struggle, whine, yelp, and scream – all to no avail. The teeth sank into her flesh, but they didn’t rip. What the giant beast did do, was growl until the smaller wolf stopped struggling, and then it started to purr.

Her whimpering never stopped. She even struggled again as sharp lights flashed behind her tightly closed eyes, as memories of a life she didn’t remember, couldn’t possibly know about, started assaulting her.

It was little things at first. Silly things really, but then there were snapshots of chestnut hair and green eyes. There were brief glances of tentative smiles and stolen touches. Full-blown images of smiles, and laughter, and kisses barraged her until a lifetime of lost memories came flooding back into her mind, unbidden but not necessarily unwanted because the thing she saw the most was the person who belonged to those gorgeous eyes and hair, and she found herself wanting to learn more about who this person was, and that meant letting in more memories, the good and the bad.

Under the beast, she howled, and then something started to happen, something she was sure was killing her because it hurt. Her bones started to break. Things started to shift, and she felt herself get smaller. Her fur and tail disappeared, her teeth and claws receded as her body restructured itself. The wolf above her never let go.

After the change, it was a long moment before she came to herself, and when she did, she started to gently cry.

The change in her tone, the fact that she now had a voice, had the other wolf letting go. It sat back on its haunches and waited while more feelings and memories cascaded over her. Tears dripped from her eyes and slid down her now bare skin, and it was hard for her to understand what had just happened to her.

Moving to sit close enough to touch, the dark wolf sniffed at her. Once satisfied it howled loud and long, receiving at least seven answering howls in return.

“I…I don’t understand.” Words that she shouldn’t have been able to form left her mouth to float in the air.

The hulking form of the dark wolf let its tongue slip out one more time to give her a lick to her cheek, and then there was the cracking of bones again, only this time they weren’t hers. To her horror and utter fascination, the wolf started to transform before her eyes until it was standing before her on two legs.

“Klark.”

Her tongue worked in her mouth trying to speak again, but she found herself unable. More tears fell as she stared at the beautiful woman standing before her.

“L…Le…”

The naked woman knelt in the dirt on bare knees, pulling her into her arms. Now she sobbed because things were finally starting to make sense to her. She was holding the one thing she cherished above all others, the thing she thought she had lost long ago. “L-Lexa.”

She didn’t know how. She thought it impossible, but her mate was holding her, having brought her back from a state of being that should have been hopeless to reverse. There should have been no coming back for Clarke Griffin.

There had never been an incidence where a person who had decided to go mindless had been able to be recovered. Once wild, a wolf stayed wild.

“Lexa.”

“Shh, Klark. I have you, ai hodnes, and I am never letting go.”

It was all too much. She couldn’t process through the pain and utter elation that her mate was there holding her. Her mind, taking matters into its own hands, receded into the darkness until she was ready to deal with all that had happened in her life.