“What if one of us wants to challenge him?” Anton asked.

Emilian opened his hands out in front of him as if to say have at it.

“So what is the news you have?” Marian, one of his pack mates, asked sounding impatient.

“From what I overheard from my Alphas, Stefan and his mate, Daciana, were not true mates.”

The room was silent, not even the sound of breathing penetrated the stillness. Emilian watched in satisfaction as the wolves in Vasile’s pack swallowed the information with obvious difficulty. They did not want to believe it, but they also knew how close Anghel and Stefan had been.

“Did your Alpha know all along?” Aurel asked.

Emilian shook his head. “No, Vasile was the one to tell him. Anghel and his mate were shocked.”

“If they were not true mates, then why did she die when he did?” Lizuca, Calin’s mate, asked with skepticism written across her pixie like face.

“She poisoned herself,” he answered without any hesitation.

“Then there will be no way to prove it,” Drin pointed out.

Emilian chuckled. “It is obvious that you have never attempted a coup. You have to think, look at all the angles. We do not have to know how she died. There are other ways to know if they were true mates.”

Mara’s eyes widened as his train of thought reached her. “Their markings.”

Emilian clapped his hands together with a wicked grin. “Exactly, she-wolf.”

“How exactly are we going to check their markings?” Costel frowned.

Emilian shrugged as though they were talking about the weather. “We dig up their bodies.”

Romanian Proverb # 9

Cine n-a gustat amarul, nu stie ce e zaharul.

If there were no clouds, we should not enjoy the sun.

“You leave tomorrow,” Alina murmured as she sat on the ground by the river with Vasile’s head in her lap. She ran her fingers through his hair, loving the way the strands tickled her skin and loving even more that she alone had the right to have her fingers in his thick, dark hair.

“Hmm,” he responded.

She grinned. His eyes were closed and he was nearly purring at her under her ministrations. Three days had flown by. They had been inseparable except at night when they were forced to sleep apart, and even then he had slept opposite her with only the wall of the cottage between them. Every night she had fallen asleep to the sound of his deep voice telling her tales of his life, the short time he remembered with his brother, and the years he had had with his parents. It was obvious he loved his family very much and she ached for his loss. He was alone, left with a pack that had been falling apart around him without his notice. He had told her how his father’s mind had begun to fail, and that was why his attention had not been on the pack. She could feel his guilt and that broke her heart aswell.

“What are you thinking so deeply about?” he asked her softly.

She looked down and saw that he had opened his eyes and was watching her. She blushed under his gaze. She was pretty sure she would never get over someone so handsome taking notice of her, mate or not. “I am just sad for you. You have so much on your shoulders and no one to bear it with you.”

“I have you,” he told her as he reached up and ran his fingers across her cheek.

“But I cannot be with you, not really.”

“Just knowing you are here waiting for me is enough for now, Mina.”

As she stared down at him, she felt him opening their bond up even more so that she could see his memories. She smiled at the memory of the first time he had seen her. To him she was indescribably beautiful. He saw her in a light in which she had never imagined herself, and it warmed her to know he was so attracted to her. She saw his pain over the memories of his father, and before he could sensor it she saw his mother with something in her hand and felt Vasile’s sorrow.

“What was that?” she asked breathless from the intense onslaught of emotions pouring out of him.

He sat up abruptly and ran his hands over his face. She could tell that he did not want to talk about it, and yet he wanted her to know because he wanted her to know all of him.

“My parents were not who they appeared to be,” he began.

Vasile let out a deep breath as he began to tell his true mate about his parents. He was embarrassed and yet he knew if he told her she would not judge him. His Alina was a kind, gentle soul, and if anyone could understand what he was going through, it would be her. She listened to him without interrupting, seeming to understand that he needed to get it all out. Like a dam breaking open the story rushed from him with all the gory details. And even though it was brutal to relive, when he finally finished, he felt as if a thousand pounds that he did not even realize he had been carrying had been lifted off of his chest. His heart was still pounding in his chest from the memories of finding his father a bloody mess by his own hand. If he had ever wanted to wipe his memory clear of anything more than those images, he could not remember it. He finally turned to look at her and immediately gathered her into his arms.

She was weeping silently, his little Luna, broken for him. She was not bothering to block her emotions from him and he felt all of them: anger at his parents for putting him in such a position, admiration for his mother at having loved a man that had not been her true mate for so long, and pain for his father at having slowly gone mad. Regardless of the love his mate had for him, it was not enough.

“Do not waste your precious tears on me, beloved,” he whispered to her. “It is a sad story, but it was their choice and only they are responsible.”