Chapter 6.

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I walked through the hall half asleep as guided by the hushed sounds of worried a voice. What the hell was going on? I hissed as my foot hit something on the floor and looked down to see Dante's skateboard. Why couldn't he just put things in his room?! He always left stuff lying everywhere. I pushed the board aside with my foot and sighed.

"Eli!" I blinked sobering myself when Tamia screamed my name. My eyes followed her voice to Dante's room further down the hall. "Eli!"

"Tamia?" I mumbled. Why was she shouting this time of the night? Couldn't she just wake me up normally? Why didn't our parents care that she was making so much noise right? Wait, why was she at our house? She and Ashton lived on their own.

I followed her voice to Dante's room but paused at the door, spotting Tamia crouched beside his bed with Danté beside her on the floor. He was leaning over with Tamia's arm around his shoulders and looked like he needed help to stay upright. He was much skinnier than usual, his face sunken and drained. He looked terrible. I ran up to them and knelt down.

"Danté?"

I froze as he coughed before he pushed me aside and threw up beside him on the floor. I looked at his bed and grimaced seeing vomit all over it.

"What's going on? Where's Dad?" I asked Tamia as I lifted my hand to Dante's head while he covered his face as he continued to cough and my arm replaced our sister's to keep him upright. I felt his forehead. He was burning up.

"What do you mean 'where's Dad?'" she looked at me clearly hurt before our eyes moved back to our brother as he went limp in my arms.

"Danté? Hey. Hey, Danté, wake up." I patted his cheek lightly after I let him fall back against my chest.

"Danté, wake up." Tamia's voice was laced in panic as she shook him. I did not understand why until I listened to his breathing and there was none, immediately my focus moved to on his heart and heard nothing coming from his chest.

"Danté!" I shouted moving out from under him so he was on the floor and I could feel for his pulse hoping that the only reason I could not hear his heartbeat was because I was too shaken up to focus on it. I did not feel anything but his cold skin as I placed my fingers on his neck.

"Eli – he's not breathing –"

"I know – wait –"

I placed my hands on his heart and tried to press down on his chest to try to get his heart pumping but froze feeling his chest collapse under my hands.

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I gasped pushing myself to sit up in bed and blinked as I tried to focus on where I was. It's not Dante's room, it's not mine either. Looking around, it was clearly still the guest room in Karabo's house and Ben was asleep not far from me.

My trembling hands lifted to rub my face but I ended up staring at them because I could still feel it... My brother's chest crumbling under the force of my hands.

It was just a nightmare, Eli.

I nodded to myself and rubbed my hands over my damp face and into my hair before I looked around again, my eyes landing on Ben to make sure he was still asleep. I carefully got out of bed and realised I was sweating pretty badly, not just on my face. I grabbed my phone and then I quietly made headed from the room and downstairs into the kitchen hoping to get some water and air. Once downstairs, I turned on the light and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge finishing it before leaning against the table with a heavy sigh.

That was the most terrifying nightmare I had ever had in my life. I let my head fall back slowly as I tried to control my breathing and the beating of my heart before sitting down at the table.

Why could prompt a dream like that? It seemed to come out of nowhere.

I looked at my phone as cold wind blew in from the window we had forgotten to close when we had had breakfast the previous day. It brushing against my damp skin made me feel a little better. I scrolled through my contacts until reaching my brother's name and let my thumb hover over the call button.

There was no need to call him. Of course, he was awake, but there was no reason to call him just so that I felt a little better about a nightmare. He would recognise that something was up with me the second he heard my voice and I did not want to have to explain to him that I was being stupid because of a dream.

He was fine.

I put my phone down and rubbed my face again.

Something moving upstairs caused me to drop my hands and look towards the door. My eyes did not move until I saw Karabo walk into the kitchen.

"You felt?" I asked.

"My heart is racing." He mumbled lifting his hand to his shirt-covered chest.

"Sorry." I chuckled as I tapped the counter with my fingers. Because of the mate bond, he must have been woken by my freaking out because he could feel it.

"Are you alright?" He asked opening the fridge to retrieve a carrot.

"Nightmare, are you trying to wake everyone up?" I was referring to how loud the crunching in his mouth was. He just had to choose the loudest snack in the middle of the night.

"Shut up." I laughed as he sat down. He shook his head before reaching for my phone. For a second he paused to raise his brows at me, silently asking if it was okay to use my phone, I just shrugged and watched as he opened the gallery.

"Don't get jealous," I smirked.

"Of what?" He asked confused as he scrolled through my pictures. I rolled my eyes, "Are these your parents? They look so young." he mumbled.

"They didn't wait very long before having us." Since werewolves lived for quite a while, we usually took our time starting families. My parents did not. Their twenties was considered incredibly early.

"Huh... So that's why you bought that." I leaned over to see that he was looking at my collection of swords, katanas and knives. "Are you a serial killer or just dangerous?" He asked and I chuckled.

"I don't use them... much." I got up, my chair moving against the floor got his attention and I remembered that I was not wearing a shirt when his eyes widened slightly but his eyes did not move from my bare torso.

I hid my smirk as I faked a stretch and saw his mouth gape open slightly before I laughed. He shot me a glare and looked back at my phone trying to hide bashful his face.

"Run with me." I chuckled.

"Run? Now?" He looked up at me, keeping his eyes on mine.

"Why not?"

"It's three in the morning." He replied.

"It's okay, I'll protect you." He snorted and I laughed. "Come on." I walked out of the room.

"But I don't want to..." I shook my head hearing him groan in the kitchen.

"Scared you can't keep up?" I knew it would trigger him, and it did. He was beside me in the living room in less than a second.

"No, I'm afraid I'll lose you." He replied dryly before he began shifting.

I watched as he shifted into a grey wolf that was a couple of centimetres shorter than I knew my wolf was.

"You're small," I commented as I walked over to the door.

"Just try to keep up."

I rolled my eyes as I unlocked the front door and pushed it open allowing him to run outside. I shut the door before I shifted and followed him.

He was a lot lighter than I was on his feet; it was almost hard to keep up with him. I guessed that what he lacked in stature he made up in agility. I followed him for about forty-five minutes as we ran through the forest occasionally playing hide and seek or trying to scare each other by disappearing and then jumping out at one another; it was hard considering that neither of us were easily shaken and we barely even got wide-eyed reactions but it was fun trying.

He stopped running when we reached the top of a hill and I purposely ran into him causing us both to topple over and roll on the ground. He quickly jumped back up and pounced on me playfully. We play-fought for a few more seconds before I stood up to pounce on him but stopped as my eyes caught distant lights.

'What is that?' I linked to him.

It was a bunch of colourful lights in one place. It reminded me of Christmas but it was too early for that and these lights also seemed a lot more organised where they were set up in the trees at the edge of the forest, right beside the city.

'What?' Karabo stood beside me and followed my eyes before he let out an excited yelp as he bounced in front of me successfully blocking my view of the lights. 'It's a light festival. It happens every year. I'll take you there tomorrow.'

'I haven't even been living with you a day and you've already asked me on two dates. Just tell me what you really want.' I joked with a wink.

'I didn't ask you... wait, what I really wan – oh.' I laughed as he shoved himself against me causing me to stumble a little.

I looked back at the lights and nodded.

'I would like to see it.' I growled before I remembered something and looked at him, 'You didn't tell your pack that I'm your mate?' I linked to him again.

'Oh...No...' He shook his head slowly.

'Do they know you're gay?' I asked.

'A little...' I tilted my head, 'No.' He avoided my eyes and I felt bad that he felt the need to hide from his pack. 'Well, my closest Deltas and Richard know. My pack... they're not homophobic... Mostly. It's just that we're a family-line led pack and naturally they would want to know how our next Alpha would be born so I didn't tell them I'm gay because it would cause too much... worry.'

Problems.

I stared at him.

'My parents are gay, they had no problem with kids.' I replied.

'You wouldn't understand it.' He linked back to me.

'Then explain it to me.'

'Okay. The child's mother is always the Luna.' He replied looking at me. 'You are my mate, she will have to be my Luna. We will not be using a surrogate. Pack traditions are that –' He was saying.

'No.' I cut him off with a growl instinctively feeling very possessive of him. 'That's bullshit.'

'It's tradition. It's been like this way before I was born. Alphas are created through natural mating, their mothers are named Luna; usually their mothers are the Alpha's mate.'

'You can change it.'

'You can't just change tradition.'

'You can when you're Alpha.'

'See, I told you you wouldn't understand.' He growled.

We both fell into silent annoyance as we glared into each other's eyes before we turned to look back at the lights. Behind them, I could see faint light creeping into the sky teasing the sun's rise. My eyes moved back to the lights and I watched them for a while until the lights in the trees flickered off one by one leaving the forest dark.

Tradition. That was complete bullshit. I had never heard anything like it in my life and I would not be sharing my mate with anyone.

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