Luna Layla set her frail human on her bed in her chambers, doing her best to attach his head so he looked almost normal.
A soft whimper, like a wounded wolf, escaped her as she lay beside him. "I'm so sorry." She whispered into his ear as a tear fell down her cheek. "I didn't know you were my mate. I would have let you have that power if I had known. I made it for you." She said as she stroked his cold chest with her clawed fingertips, but she was gentle as if he would break more under her touch.
She lay like that for the next hour, though it felt like an eternity, pretending perhaps he was just sleeping.
Her tears wet her hair and her pillow, but she didn't care. After having his bloody corpse on her bed she would burn the bed later, probably with him on it. But for now, she just mourned having never found her mate sooner. All of the lonely years she had led her pack without him. She wondered what he was like. He seemed very angry and hateful. She wondered why.
She wasn't really aware what he went through in the dungeon after he had stolen her power. She regretted it so so much.
"I'm not a horrible person she said to him. I bet you must have hated me. But why were you surprised when you died?" She wondered. She remembered him looking up at her in shock when she said his charges. He should have known what his charges were! For ten years her beta tried to convince him to say how he had stolen her vessel and every day her beta had said that the man wouldn't say. That he was very defiant and angry and burned many people who got close.
So why did he act like that hadn't been true?
She opened her palm and felt frost dance along it.
Fire and ice. This was what her mother and father shared, as well as her grandmother and grandfather and all the way back to the great moon god and goddess.
She would have told him why that vessel meant so much to her, then he would forgive her for torturing him to get it back, if only she had met him.
It had been her task to share it with him and she had failed.
She was only left with ice now. Thousands of years of trusting her family to lead this pack with this power was betrayed by her. She felt the weight of the entire universe crash down on her.
A sob once again overtook her.
"Oh my moon goddess! What should I do? Dragons don't exist anymore and I've lost the last remnant of them! Oh how can I get it back?"
Silence answered her back. Of course the moon god and goddess wouldn't answer her. They existed a long time ago. Not everyone still believed in them. Even though her family had the power to birth children with their gift once every generation, no one had really spoken to them for thousands of years.
A thought crossed her mind for two seconds. Maybe if she could ask the doctor to artificially inseminate her with his….. she turned to look at the dead corpse next to her. He wasn't even soft anymore. She became very aware that he didn't have his head attatched by anything more than the bedsheet he was wrapped in. She felt like puking.
But still, maybe she could still have a baby that retained the alpha bloodline and it could find its mate and not all would be lost. She would die with her mate, but her pack would live on.
But she would be dead by then too, and the poor thing would have nobody but servants to raise it. Her beta and his mate could raise it, but it wouldn't be a good thing to wish upon her own child.
She couldn't come up with another option.
It didn't feel very consentual she decided. Besides he was just a human, he couldn't give her an alpha child! It could be born human with no powers and then what would society do with it in her absence?
She could bite him….turn him into a werewolf before she did the procedure. Would that even work? Nobody had ever tried to bite a dead human to turn him into a werewolf so that she could get pregnant by his corpse. Besides, how would he turn? His blood didn't even circulate anymore.
The more she thought about it, the more she wondered if the alpha bloodline was that important that she would do something so crazy.
The idea made her feel sick.
Her beta knocked on the door and when she didn't answer, he opened it slowly to find her laying next to the dead human deep in thought, her arm draped around his chest as if he were sleeping.
He made a face. Layla never did grow to be as mature as him- even if they were the same age.
"Ahem." He cleared his throat. "My Luna, I'm so sorry about your mate."
Fresh tears filled her eyes as she shared her vulnerable side with the one person she had trusted her whole life. Her very first friend, "Oh Alvis! I've ruined the alpha bloodline!" She sobbed on the corpse. "I've killed my mate and now the power of the alpha is lost!"
The beta wished he could pull his Luna away from the corpse, it was going to stink soon enough and how long would she cuddle with a man she didn't even know?
He had hated Retsu's defiant attitude. He hated that he had taken the power of the alpha from them. He hated that he wasn't the one to have that power. He was the best warrior in the pack. He was the strongest, smartest, and no one loved Layla as much as him!
His eyes flashed in anger at the thought for a minute. He took a breath to calm his jealousy. He must never be jealous in front of Layla. So what if he and Layla grew up together, convinced they would always marry, only for him to discover that he had a different fated mate? He was still loyal to her. Never once had he broke character yet. He married his mate just as he should and that was that.
But then this mut of a human had ruined everything! Because of this human his Luna was going to die. Then where would that leave him? Who would be alpha? Or Luna?
Her need for an heir was a real problem. In 500 years she had not produced one. Here was his chance. "Perhaps you need to produce an heir with someone else." He finally responded. "Now that you're no longer waiting for your fated mate."
She wiped her tears with shock. She looked at him, listening.
"The power of the alpha is lost, but perhaps you can inherit your power to an heir…"
"But he was my mate!" She sobbed. "I should have produced an heir with him!"
It was obvious that she wasn't understanding what he was saying. For the first time he lost his patience.
"Do you think that a human would have ever loved you?!" He yelled. "Especially after you tortured him in a dungeon for ten years?"
She blinked, sitting up a bit to look at him better, hugging her corpse husband cautiously as she actually listened to what he was saying. He had never spoken to her like this before. She was stunned.
Alvis smiled, now he knew she was listening, he pulled at her heart strings.
"Think of the pack." He said sternly. "You will die within a year, you need to try to produce an heir or your ice powers will be lost as well. I'm assuming with you gone, I should become the alpha, so it would only be right if I father it."
Layla was at a loss for words,"-b…but.."
"I can rule in his or her stead until they are of age and they can then take over the pack with me and my mate as the beta." He continued. "You have to do what's best for the pack. That way things don't change for anyone because of your mistake." He said, and then he left.
Luna Layla could not believe that Alvis had so boldly offered his services like that. She sat there too stunned to keep crying.
Compared to accepting his offer, she thought whether stealing some sperm from this stranger was better or worse. At least this man was meant to be with her according to the moon goddess, right?
Having a baby with Alvis? What? What about his wife? How would she feel about that? She lamented that her last year on earth should be spent pregnant. She didn't want that!
She had wanted to do so much with her life! Yes, she had lived for 500 years already, but she wanted to find her mate! She wanted to do all of those things with her mate! Not by herself!
She couldn't do anything but stay home if she was pregnant!
Maybe she shouldn't continue the bloodline, she decided. Maybe it was time that the world lost her ice ability. She could choose a new alpha and Luna. If her beta were to become alpha, that was fine with her, but he should raise his own child with his wife, not hers!
The idea of her being the mother of her beta's child repulsed her. Still, she knew that if she died and left the kingdom without an heir, there really wasn't a guarantee that the pack would respect a new bloodline. And one without magic from the moon at that!
They were the largest pack in the world, it's rulers descended from the Gods! The protection of the gods was on their side because they were family!
Not her beta's bloodline!
She turned to the human next to her. "You and I are the only ones on earth today who have had this power, what do you think I should do?"
Then she laid back down. Only a moment longer with her mate, to grieve what she missed out on. Then she would make her decision. The mind of a grieving person is not rational, so she didn't want to rush it.
After a while, she decided she wanted to die with him, leave her problems to someone else.
She thought about how she should do it as she traced her fingernails along his chest and abs. Doing circles reverantly on his tattered shirt as if he might feel it. How should she die so she didn't have to live a whole year without him.
Why would a wolf live a single day without her mate?
"I'm sorry." She repeated herself. "You shouldn't have been in the dungeon- if only I knew you were my mate."
"Would a human even want to be with you?" The words of her beta echoed in her mind. It was painful, but she just knew he would forgive her. No one ever stayed mad at their mate for long!
"Fine. Then I'll mark you as mine. That way there's no doubt you are my mate and you won't stay mad at me in the afterlife." She said. She took his hand in hers and bit down on it, injecting her venom into his skin with her fangs.
"There." She said proudly. Her mark would form on him within a few days if he were alive, and it would even imprint on his soul. "The next time you see me, I'll be all yours."
Then she lay back down and fell asleep.