The first prick of the wahnd needle against my skin immediately brought about a surge of calm and relief, the darkness that was a constant hum against my skin quieting as the beginnings of the ancient runes began taking form on my skin. An unease that I hadn’t even realized possessed started to fade, and despite all the good feelings the runes drew into me, what they represented was a constant in the back of my mind. The fact that I couldn’t survive the place that I had called home since I was born without them etched on my skin galled, and the fact that the wolf that had been a constant inside me since the day I was born was now tainted by darkness that had enwrapped itself around me and my life since I was sixteen, and forever caged inside me, was for a moment devastating, until I reminded myself who I was and all I’d achieved despite all that I had lost.

I was rich, I had hundreds of academic and achievement awards and I had an entire catalogue of women willing to have sex with me whenever and however I required, no matter how dark my appetite got. I had no reason to feel so empty. But then again, something in me was so much lighter, so more fulfilled than I had ever felt, and two little someones had something to do with my mood. I couldn’t help a smile at the thought of my kids, a smile which faded as soon as I remembered their mother. Their mother who had legs for days, legs that had felt so smooth and strong under my hands as I had owned her mouth and seared her taste to my soul. I shook the thoughts out my head and just concentrated on the addictive sting of the needle and the silence. It was a while before I broke the silence standoff with my dad, a standoff I had no Idea why I even attempted because Jason wasn’t much of a talker anyway.

“So mom is mad at me huh.” I commented, closing my eyes as the needle dug deeper at the end of one of the runes and I could feel the first artificial bond complete before Jason began another. He didn’t respond for a while but I knew what’s coming. Jason absolutely adored Lanthe and in his eyes, she could do no wrong.

When he finally spoke, he didn’t necessarily defend her though. “I know how tempting it can be to be to choose anger over…”

I let out a scoff at his words because I knew where the conversation was headed and interrupted him. “Do you? Do you really?”

I could hear the frown in his voice when he responded. “Of course I do. Anger is almost always connected to caring and I do care about a couple of things, so I have struggled with having to choose the high road.” His word sank in but I closed my eyes, clenching my jaw tightly. I didn’t want to be so angry at Lander and Aleks. I didn’t want to care enough to be. For a while we were silent again as he continued to tattoo my back.

“I know how you feel, Leukas. Probably more than you think I do. I know how it may seem to everyone, I’ve heard how perfect and effortless people think my relationship with your mother is; that our being together is some wonderful fairytale, but it’s really wasn’t. And maybe the reason we cherish everything we have together and why we will fight to the death for our love and our children and our family and our pack is because we know very well how it feels to be without these things and because we fought for them a lot, especially our love. Your mother had to get through the fact that I am the son of her best friend, a best friend who was younger than her as well, and I had to get over the fact that the woman I had known to be my mother my whole life, someone who raised me and loved me in the only way I knew then, was actually the villain in the story I didn’t even know existed.”

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The first prick of the wahnd needle against my skin immediately brought about a surge of calm and relief, the darkness that was a constant hum against my skin quieting as the beginnings of the ancient runes began taking form on my skin. An unease that I hadn’t even realized possessed started to fade, and despite all the good feelings the runes drew into me, what they represented was a constant in the back of my mind. The fact that I couldn’t survive the place that I had called home since I was born without them etched on my skin galled, and the fact that the wolf that had been a constant inside me since the day I was born was now tainted by darkness that had enwrapped itself around me and my life since I was sixteen, and forever caged inside me, was for a moment devastating, until I reminded myself who I was and all I’d achieved despite all that I had lost.

I was rich, I had hundreds of academic and achievement awards and I had an entire catalogue of women willing to have sex with me whenever and however I required, no matter how dark my appetite got. I had no reason to feel so empty. But then again, something in me was so much lighter, so more fulfilled than I had ever felt, and two little someones had something to do with my mood. I couldn’t help a smile at the thought of my kids, a smile which faded as soon as I remembered their mother. Their mother who had legs for days, legs that had felt so smooth and strong under my hands as I had owned her mouth and seared her taste to my soul. I shook the thoughts out my head and just concentrated on the addictive sting of the needle and the silence. It was a while before I broke the silence standoff with my dad, a standoff I had no Idea why I even attempted because Jason wasn’t much of a talker anyway.

“So mom is mad at me huh.” I commented, closing my eyes as the needle dug deeper at the end of one of the runes and I could feel the first artificial bond complete before Jason began another. He didn’t respond for a while but I knew what’s coming. Jason absolutely adored Lanthe and in his eyes, she could do no wrong.

When he finally spoke, he didn’t necessarily defend her though. “I know how tempting it can be to be to choose anger over…”

I let out a scoff at his words because I knew where the conversation was headed and interrupted him. “Do you? Do you really?”

I could hear the frown in his voice when he responded. “Of course I do. Anger is almost always connected to caring and I do care about a couple of things, so I have struggled with having to choose the high road.” His word sank in but I closed my eyes, clenching my jaw tightly. I didn’t want to be so angry at Lander and Aleks. I didn’t want to care enough to be. For a while we were silent again as he continued to tattoo my back.

“I know how you feel, Leukas. Probably more than you think I do. I know how it may seem to everyone, I’ve heard how perfect and effortless people think my relationship with your mother is; that our being together is some wonderful fairytale, but it’s really wasn’t. And maybe the reason we cherish everything we have together and why we will fight to the death for our love and our children and our family and our pack is because we know very well how it feels to be without these things and because we fought for them a lot, especially our love. Your mother had to get through the fact that I am the son of her best friend, a best friend who was younger than her as well, and I had to get over the fact that the woman I had known to be my mother my whole life, someone who raised me and loved me in the only way I knew then, was actually the villain in the story I didn’t even know existed.”