"So much for crying." Rowan slowly lifted his head. It was a pale-skinned hand bearing a handkerchief that stopped his red-rimmed eyes from flowing more tears.


    "You should stop now." A sweet smile bloomed across Eliane''s features, making his focus drifting towards her. "Honestly, you could flood the entire forest with that sea of sorrows cascading from your face..."


    Rowan gave her a breathy, anxiousugh. "You only said that because you''re not the one who disappointed your father."


    "You did not disappoint them," Eliane sat beside him, her red cloak being caked by the soil. "They disappointed you."


    "What?" He whipped his face to her. "Why?"


    The High Priestess snorted. "Because they could not ingest their principles to you for the reason that you will never understand their belief due to you not being like them."


    them."


    Rowan does not understand her. And yet...


    "Sometimes, it feels good to be different," she added. "To know you are not like most of


    "Why?" It''s the second time around asking her that same question.


    Eliane met his gaze; those beautiful emerald green eyes unyielding, sending stars to the ck hole within him.


    "Because they can never be like you, the same thought that you can never be like them." Rowan swallowed, throat bobbing even though it has been dry ever since he ran away from his father''s eyes. "But having a wolf is the greatest achievement of all."


    Elianeughed again, darkly. "Who says that in the first ce?"


    They both shrugged. "Only your father and your friends said them. The greatest achievement of all in our kind is not that one."


    them.


    "And what is it, then?" she smiled at him even with the shadows of the night covering


    "eptance," the High Priestess mumbled. "If they are really courageous beings, they will ept and tend to those who cannot even shift into a wolf, knowing that your strength and theirs are not the same. Hence, you need their help."


    "And they need ours because we''re the only one who can still walk with humans despite the werewolf blood running in our veins?"


    Eliane clicked her tongue. "Precisely."


    He lowered his head, staring at the moist earth beneath their feet. "They would never understand this. My father would never understand me; all he cared about is me having a wolf so that he can show to others that I am not a failure."


    "Only you can define what failed you." Rowan does not know why the long-lived witch and High Priestess watching over Ste''s Soul is taking his side. Is it because she''s just a witch


    or...


    "No one else would help us but each other. Only we can help ourselves, our own kind. Even wolfless residents of Ste''s Soul can contribute to our society as a whole even if it''s simple, little things to other eyes. The point is, they are still helping us in the ways they can."


    She opened his hand, cing a little snowdrop she picked up along her way here with its petals still drenched in rain before curling his palm into a fist. Tightly, the snowdrop crushed against his mighty strength. "What do you think, Rowan?"


    Rowan, though hesitant on what he really believed in, on what his father raised him to believe in, still smiled at Eliane. "I think you''re right, High Priestess."


    ***


    It began to rain the moment they tried to traverse back to the gilded fountain, where Aurora''s Waters provide coolness to every resident in Ste''s Soul.


    Eliane looped arms with Rowan, whose face was already dried with tears but his red- rimmed eyes did not hide the fact that he did cry. A young man with rough features and muscr body was not ashamed to let anyone know that even a man like him could cry and weep like a damsel.


    But Eliane, who can still see the emotions coiling within his soul, kept pushing the fact that he is not useless. That he has a worth of his own despite what everyone would say when they arrive.


    Both of them did not hide the moment the presence of water pouring from the sky appeared, the cold air shrouding them like how sadness tightened its grip on Rowan''s heart. They are now one step closer to the wall when Rowan screamed, frightening her. The sound of rain going along with his broken shrieking voice. Rowan cried again, as if the moment he stepped again in Selena''s Wall just proves the fact that he is a failure as an Alpha''s son. That he just ignored all those sweet assuring words from her tongue.


    The rumbling of thunder and the sh of lightning made this moment more difficult for them to carry on.


    ;


    "Rowan..." She ced a warm hand on his neck. "Everything will be alright."


    Eliane knew it wouldn''t. With the kind of mindset of Alpha Karin and how everyone treated a wolfless eighteenth birthday celebrant... "I''m just right here for you."


    Rowan reached for her palms, holding her hand as if she was his wife-his Luna,


    his moon. His mate.


    "I know..." he murmured. "But they don''t care if you side with me or not."


    And all ine could show is how right he is, her lips forming into a thin line and eyes gleaming with pity.


    ***


    The midnight was full overhead.


    The rain halted along with the dissipation of thunder and lightning.


    And it was bright from a distance. Merry bright, and a lot of dancing and music.


    "Are..." Eliane sucked a breath. "Are they partying?


    Both of them yield a look on why where in fact the birthday celebrant is wolfless.


    "Maybe your fathermanded it. To at least give you honor as his son on your


    birthday, and not a wolfless heir that is supposed to take over the Alpha title."


    But as they neared closer and closer, people were shouting a different name. "Geoffrey! Geoffrey! Geoffrey!"


    "Geoffrey?"


    He nodded at his side, his hands cold. "Geoffrey."


    Rowan''s eyes shone with an emotion she did not know. eptance, maybe eptance that he will never be epted by his father.


    Geoffrey. Alpha Karin''s Beta and right-hand. ''You shall be the Alpha if something ever happens to me or to my son before he turns eighteen...''


    Those words made the hair on his arms rise, the bile making its way up to his


    throat.


    His father did fulfill his words. But not to him.


    So much for his hope of eptance.


    ; "Rowan?" his wolfless cousin was the first one to stalked towards where Eliane and him are nailed on the ground they are standing.


    ; "You shouldn''t be here," his cousin''s voice is hoarse. "You-they are celebrating


    Geoffrey''s "


    "I know," the coldness of his voice made Eliane jerked her hand away, pulling her arms from the entwinement of his.


    "I know," he reiterated, facing the High Priestess. Rowan''s face was wholly pale, no color can be seen even from his once red lips.


    "I know!" He scolded himself, turning on his heel and running for the gilded fountain of Aurora, the Goddess of Wealth. The fountain glinted on their eyes as Rowan mmed his palms on the fountain''s brim.


    "I know I''m a failure. You don''t need to p it right in my face!" Rowan''s cousin and Eliane looked at each other, both nudging to whom should give him a pat on the back. It was Eliane who reached for aforting touch.


    "Get away from my sight." Rowan harshly brushed her hand away, "And you " he pointed at his speechless cousin. "You''re happy now? Ha! Who knows it was both of you who sabotaged my birthday. That instead me having shifted into a wolf and running along with my father''s pack, you two conspired against me so that you will not be the only wolfless Moonstorm in Ste''s Soul."


    "That''s not true," his cousin breathed, eyes gentle and understanding. "It is just a mere misfortune that we aren''t blessed with a single power. Not even a power to feel the strength of the moon or hear the whispering of the wolves."


    "Rowan," Eliane leaned to his ears. "Come to my fortress. I shall give you a soothing tea if


    you''d like."


    His cousin nodded at Eliane before treading back at the party, where he''ll obviously be an errand boy and the one who will clean the after-party''s mess.


    "Come, Rowan." She brushed a soft kiss against his cool cheeks. "Let me take care of you."


    ***


    As soon as she lit the couple ofmps with the small fire magic flowing in her witchy veins, she peered into Rowan''s ocean eyes. Tears are forming on its threshold but Alpha Karin''s son will not escape.


    He just sat there on top of the wooden chair, looking past the window where the rain and thunder made its presence known again.


    ''Rowan is probably ming the Goddesses now...'' she thought, folding the towel between her arms.


    "Here." He looked up to her. "So that you won''t get sick from the cold rain."


    The hand of sadness touched Rowan''s once fierce eyes again.


    "Promise me you will not cry again this time," she whined.


    He stared at her, smiling as if it would be hisst. A smile of disaster. But still, it was very appealing to Eliane that she beamed back at him. Sweetly.


    And when he undressed in front of her, Eliane forced herself not to shut her eyes and witness what the society''s extreme expectations have done to the young man before her.


    It was reeking of sadness and weakness, tears and hopelessness. His body was broken, not physically but emotionally. His skin bears a sea of scars inflicted by his father, both fresh and


    old.


    She constantly hears them reason that it''s a form of discipline to the young wolves. But


    to Eliane...it was not. It was control, manipting and molding their sons until their finest dreams and likeness are met. To the point that some young ones are suffocated with pressure, dying on the inside secretly.


    She reached for a hand to touch him, to let him know that she is there to support andfort him. "Rowan-"


    "Go away!" Nothing can beat a man so woeful than a cry so sorrowful.


    His whole body is so drenched in rain as if he had taken a quick dive at a river. He is so wet, utterly wet. Wetter than Eliane now.


    But deep inside her, she likes it. She likes him naked and bare, the shape of his body is much visible, much easier to feast with her eyes wide open and her legs ready to open. "If I do, it will just show to everyone how useless you are. People will say that even the High Priestess left the once great Rowan Moonstorm because of the one thing he will never have: a wolf." She said thest word with utter emphasis. ncing down at him with a bright grin. Chin up and breast out, literally.


    Rowan just stood there, eyes not looking at her. As if she was never there, as if he was just all alone in the world where not even the Goddesses took heed to his cry for help and demand


    for answer.


    But Eliane soon realized he was looking at her body.


    So she slowly undressed, for him. So that this man would stop pouting and instead smile


    like he did that night when they bathed together in Luna''s Lake.


    And when she''s done, she looked at her body. And there, she found the source of his frozen eyes, the subject of staring and why his blue eyes are no longer watery: her breasts. Her


    wet and big, round bosom that was bathed earlier with the waters from the sky.


    "You''re staring at me..."


    He finally blinked. "I''m sorry, truly sorry."


    "No," Eliane answered. "You didn''t do anything bad."


    She could rip off his clothes in an instant and leave him begging her for more of her


    sudden wildness. ''Too bad he''s now naked,'' she thought.


    And just like that, he pounced on top of her, pinning her on the wooden floor. Rowan''s tongue was savage, leaving her almost breathless. They kissed, hands ravishing


    for each other''s touch. His hands traveled from her neck, down to her breasts until he reached


    the crevice between her thighs.


    "I can grant you a wolf," she murmured between their hot kisses. Rowan stopped to look


    at her eyes, the color of the Misty Forest just before Selena''s Wall.


    "That kind of magic demands a great price, even your soul is not enough..." And as


    Eliane spoke those words...she knew that will also be thest time she shall see him as soft and tearful.


    For he is Rowan Moonstorm-the wolfless Alpha''s son who will do anything to have a wolf and


    show to his father that, after all this time, he is worthy to be called Alpha Karin''s son, heir, and


    Alpha.